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Ep. 57: 7 Steps to Accelerate Your Small Business Growth - With Amy Porterfield

Learn about mindset, customer avatars, and email lists.

Expanding your business and drawing in more customers may seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be! Just ask Amy Porterfield, New York Times bestselling author of Two Weeks Notice and Host of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, who managed to increase her sales in only a year.

“The people who need you will find you, even if you put a stake in the ground.” Amy says. “If your message resonates with them, but doesn't fit perfectly, that's okay. If they like what you're saying and they find value, they will find you.”

Learn how you can replicate Amy’s growth by managing your mindset, creating a customer avatar, and growing your email list. In this episode you’ll hear:

(00:45) How Amy started her business

(03:02) How negative thoughts can impede growth

(05:57) How to build your customer avatar

(08:11) How content creation helped Amy grow

(09:27) How to grow your email list

(12:16) Common mistakes that might affect your growth

Key takeaways:

1 - Manage your mindset. Amy says that you need to consume inspiring stories and lessons and try your best to avoid negative thoughts.

2 - Define your target audience by crafting a customer avatar. This avatar might represent your past self or someone entirely different. If it's the latter, you'll need to talk to your customers to understand what they expect from you.

3 - Don’t be afraid to get specific with your customer avatar. The people who need you will find you.

4 - Generate original content tailored to your brand. According to Amy, this will establish you and your brand as a reliable source and will attract a larger audience to your business. We go into a lot more detail and touch on how to create content on social media on episode 45 of This is Small Business.

5- Create an email list. Amy says that having an email list means having ownership of your subscribers.

6 - You need to be intentional about growing your email list. Amy suggests having a pre-launch strategy and offering freebies to your subscribers. We dig into how to start and grow your email list on episode 56 of This is Small Business with Amy’s best friend Jenna Kutcher!

7 - Get laser-focused on your message and keep it clear and consistent. It's easy for entrepreneurs to spread themselves thin, but Amy says that the most successful people stick to a few things and nail them consistently.

00:00:01

Amy Porterfield: 80% of being an entrepreneur, like the success of being an entrepreneur is your mindset. 20% is the mechanics. So I quickly learned how to manage my mind because this is going to be a big part of that. So I had to work on myself, but also important is I had to change the strategies. When I first launched that course, I made $267, I had no email list. And I really believe to this day that if you want a thriving online business, you have to be intentional about growing an email list.

00:00:35

Andrea Marquez: I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll figure out how you can grow your business and find new customers with Amy Porterfield, a New York Times bestselling author and the host of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast.

00:00:50

Amy Porterfield: So I often say I am an ex-corporate girl turned accidental entrepreneur. About 15 years ago, I left my last corporate job with Tony Robbins and I was the Director of Content Development for many years with Tony, but I got this desire to want to be my own boss, call my own shots, and so I took a very big risk and went out on my own.

00:01:13

Andrea Marquez: Amy ended up building an online business where she teaches people how to take their knowledge and skill set and turn that into a profitable digital course. And what actually pushed Amy to venture into entrepreneurship was a meeting that Tony Robbins held 17 years ago.

00:01:30

Amy Porterfield: Tony had called in a bunch of internet marketers into the San Diego headquarters to talk about their online businesses. Tony was getting more into the online space, and so he brought in these guys and they sat around this big oak table and I was called in to take notes. So I sat at a little side table to take notes at this really important meeting to learn how these guys were making money online. And so Tony went around and he said, “Tell me about your businesses.”

00:01:56

Andrea Marquez: Everyone in that room had a different niche, but they all had digital courses or memberships and they were all doing business online.

00:02:04

Amy Porterfield: I think I took the worst notes of my life that day because when they went around, they all talked about freedom. Freedom to call the shots, to make as much money as they want, to impact lives the way they want to, to be as creative as they wanted to. And I thought, “I don't even know what these guys are doing or how they're doing it, but I want in.” And so that was that first moment that I thought, “I've got to figure this out.”

00:02:26

Andrea Marquez: And then a year after that meeting, Amy went out on her own. In 2011, she launched her first digital course but it didn't really do well.

00:02:37

Amy Porterfield: I made a whopping $ 267 and then I cried for an entire week because I made it mean in my head, “I'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don't know what I'm doing. Who am I to be doing this? I need to go grovel back for my nine to five job. I've made a mess of this.”

00:02:52

Andrea Marquez: She wallowed in these feelings until her husband was like ...

00:02:56

Amy Porterfield: “You need to get it together because this isn't going to work.”

00:02:59

Andrea Marquez: And then a year later.

00:03:02

Amy Porterfield: I made $30, 000 in a very short period of time with my own digital course.

00:03:07

Andrea Marquez: So how did Amy manage to grow her business in the span of a year? First, she had to manage her mindset.

00:03:15

Amy Porterfield: Now, some people might be rolling their eyes. They're like, “Yeah, give us the strategies, Amy. We know that mindset's important.” But really do we understand how much it plays a part in terms of believing in yourself, fueling your brain every day with inspiring stories and lessons of inspiration to keep you moving forward? I believe the first thought that entered my mind, which was, “You're not cut out to do this, you're a failure.” Now I'm really clear that I cannot believe everything I think, at least not the first thought. So it took me a while to kind of get my head in the game and realize, “Wait a second, I've got to mind my mindset here and be very careful what I think and what I feel, or this is never going to work.”

00:03:54

Andrea Marquez: I love that we're starting out with this. It's such an important aspect of being an entrepreneur and because it can sound very fluffy to some, it's often overlooked. Now Amy has a lot of support to help her manage her mindset. She has a therapist, a business coach, a health and wellness coach, and loads of friends in the industry.

00:04:14

Amy Porterfield: That's a lot of people in my corner. And the reason for that is because I know it's a very dangerous and lonely place inside my mind. I could go to the most wildest places. I could wake up one morning and things don't work in my business, and I could tell myself, “This is a mess. This is falling apart.” It's a really scary place in my mind sometimes. So to have the right support around me is everything.

00:04:37

Andrea Marquez: But 15 years ago when Amy was first starting her business, she didn't have the money to spend on a wellness coach or a business coach. Instead, she relied on free resources to get the support she needed.

00:04:48

Amy Porterfield: I got it all through podcasts and blogs and getting into mastermind groups with other people so that I could surround myself with people that will inspire me and also support me. So I think there's no badge of honor in doing this alone. So if you are just a lone wolf and you just want to build your business online and don't get support or help from anyone, it's going to be a rough road. We need that support in order to make sure that we keep moving forward when it gets tough.

00:05:15

Andrea Marquez: So managing your mindset by staying inspired and surrounding yourself with people that support you can help you grow. But Amy also had to adjust her strategies.

00:05:23

Amy Porterfield: When I first launched that course and made $ 267, I had no email list. It was a really small email list, and I never emailed them. And I really believe to this day that if you want a thriving online business, you have to be intentional about growing an email list. Social media is not enough and social media is fickle. The way you've been doing business on social media could literally change overnight. We saw this years ago when we were all using Facebook for our businesses, it was working great, and then you had to pay to play and everything changed. So I will never again put all my eggs in one basket and only rely on social media.

00:05:59

Andrea Marquez: We'll get into how to grow your email list in a minute. But first, you need to figure out who you're trying to serve.

00:06:06

Amy Porterfield: One of the easiest ways is to first ask yourself, “Am I my customer avatar just like 10 years ago or 5 years ago?” Here's what I mean. I serve mainly women, but there's a lot of men in my audience as well, but women who want to leave behind the nine to five and start making their own money and becoming their own boss.

I was that woman in a cubicle 15 years ago, not making as much money as I wanted, not wanting a boss but I had one, and really struggling to climb the corporate ladder. I know how she feels, I know her pain, her struggles, her self-doubts, her dreams, her wants. I get her because I was her. And sometimes that's the easiest place to start. If you could be your avatar just a few years ago, you'll really understand how to put together your marketing message because you lived their lives, you understand them.

00:06:53

Andrea Marquez: If you've never been your customer avatar, Amy says that you need to start talking to them.

00:06:58

Amy Porterfield: So I encourage my students to get on a Zoom call, ask someone for 15, 20 minutes, ask them the questions. “What are you struggling with? What have you tried? What do you need? Where do you look online to get the solution?” Start learning from them because that's going to help immensely.

00:07:14

Andrea Marquez: And if you're struggling with figuring out who your avatar is because you don't want to exclude potential customers ...

00:07:20

Amy Porterfield: The people who need you will find you, even if you put a stake in the ground. If your message resonates with them but doesn't fit perfectly, that's okay. If they like what you're saying and they find value, they will find you. So I have a lot of men in my audience. I have a lot of people who already quit their nine to five job, but they find something of value in my messaging, and so they come into my programs. So don't be scared to put that stake in the ground. I promise you it's going to help you get known and seen in a very noisy online world.

00:07:49

Andrea Marquez: So to figure out who you're trying to serve, Amy says that you need to create a customer avatar. You can do this by looking at your past experiences if your old self is your avatar, or by talking to the people you want to reach. And don't be scared of being specific. You won't exclude any potential customers that don't look like your avatar. If they need your services, they'll find you. Another thing that helped Amy grow and gain new customers was content creation.

00:08:16

Amy Porterfield: At the time, it was a blog and then it moved into a podcast. But I really believe that if you create your own original content every week, rain or shine, you become a go-to source. People rely on you. They know you. They want to be in your orbit. Without that weekly original content, you just get lost in the sea of noise online and on social. So I started to create my own content every week, and that changed everything for me as well. And I just want to speak to the people that are listening, they're like, “Amy, I don't want to do TikTok videos. I don't want to do silly dances online. I don't want to do all the trending lip-syncing and all of that. None of that is for me.” That is fine because it's not really for me either. I'll play around with it once in a while, but I kind of hate it.

And so I try to find the trends or what's working that would speak to me and feel good to me because social media is a big part of growing a business, whether you're a personal brand or a company brand, you need it. I think you need an email list a lot more than you need social, but social will help you grow that email list.

00:09:14

Andrea Marquez: We have a whole episode dedicated to content creation and how to leverage social media to grow your business. It's episode 45 of This is Small Business, so if you want to learn more, go ahead and check it out. We mentioned earlier that growing a business is easier if you have an email list. But how do you get people to sign up for your email list? The first thing Amy says you should do is be intentional about growing it.

00:09:39

Amy Porterfield: So that means every single week you're thinking about how am I getting more people on my email list and how am I nurturing them? So remember when I said I have a podcast that comes out every single week, rain or shine? The way I nurture the people already on my email list is when I have a new podcast episode, I email them and I say, “Hey, I've got something new for you today. Here's why you're going to love it. Go take a listen.” So my weekly original content, it supports the audience I already have and then attracts a new audience because the podcast networks will push it out to new people.

00:10:11

Andrea Marquez: Another strategy that Amy says is often overlooked and can help you grow your email list is having a prelaunch strategy.

00:10:19

Amy Porterfield: Let's say you know that you're going to launch a new product on June 1st. So May 1st, I would spend an entire month, 30 days of priming the pump. Now, what does that look like? Well, I'm not talking about the product I'm going to sell. I might hint at it, but I'm talking around it, topics that relate to the product I'm going to sell. I have freebies related to the product I'm going to sell.

So for example, if I sell a program of how to create and launch a digital course, one of my freebies might be a quiz, How To Know If You're Ready To Add A Digital Course To Your Business. People sign up for the quiz, they take it, they give me their name and email to get the results. So that might be a quiz I do in my prelaunch period.

Or I might have a PDF, How To Choose The Perfect Course Topic When You're Ready To Create Your Course. So now I'm getting, I'm thinking, “What might I create if I ever created a course?” I'm not talking about the fact I'm going to sell something soon. I'm not leading up to it in that way. I'm just giving great amazing free value for an entire month. I'm using it to grow my email list because these are the people I'm going to market it to, but I'm also giving immense value. I'm showing up live on video. I might do some extra podcasts that month, but the month of May will be my prelaunch 30-day runway.

So there's this golden question you can ask yourself during that prelaunch period, and it's, “What does my audience need to believe, understand, be aware of, or just change their mindset around before they're ever ready to buy from me?” So what does my audience need to be aware of, understand, believe before they're ever ready to buy? And you're going to give them that content to have a new understanding, a new idea, a new clarity during the prelaunch period. So when you're ready to sell, they're ready to buy.

00:12:05

Andrea Marquez: That sounds like such a simple yet effective way to get more people to sign up to your email list. We've talked a lot about what you should be doing to attract more customers. So now let's get into some common mistakes that might hinder your growth.

00:12:18

Amy Porterfield: One of them is trying to do too many things, too many offers, too many messages where people are very confused what they need to come to you for in order to get the results they're looking for. So I think that's one thing, honing in on your message and getting clear, this is what I offer and what I'm all about.

I think another thing is that a lot of business owners, because we're trying to do so much and wear so many hats, we lack consistency. I was absolutely guilty of this for many, many years. I'll do a podcast today and then I won't have another one for three more weeks. I try this new social media thing and say, “I'm going to do it all month.” I do it for a week. It's very normal and human to not be consistent with these things. But I look at the winners, I pay attention to who's winning in this online business game. If they have physical products or online products, it doesn't matter. The people that are winning are consistent with what they're doing, and they do very little, but they do it really well. So I think if you become a person who identifies, I am a consistent person, changes everything.

00:13:20

Andrea Marquez: So staying consistent can be tough when you're doing many things on your own, but that's when evaluating what type of help you need comes into play, and honing in on your messaging is also key to keep customers coming back. I learned so much from talking to Amy.

If you didn't have a chance to write everything down, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at www. smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. And if you liked the episode, don't forget to leave us a review like this one from Fernieboy234 who said, “Love this podcast, part of my weekly listen and exciting to hear different types of businesses and how they're succeeding. I like that it's not just interviews all the time.” Thank you, Fernieboy234. I'm glad that This is Small Business is part of your week. I'd love to know what you think. So please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com with your thoughts.

That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business brought to you by Amazon. Make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego and thanks for listening.

This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 56: The Growth Tool That Can Help You Increase Revenue: Email Lists - with Jenna Kutcher

Learn about email lists with Jenna Kutcher!

Want to build a loyal following of people who are excited to buy what you're selling? Stop spending your valuable time on the wrong marketing channels, and prioritize an email list. So says Jenna Kutcher, a digital marketing expert and host of The Goal Digger Podcast. After attracting thousands of followers on social, but seeing so few convert to customers, Jenna learned about the power of owning an email list - and she hasn't looked back! It's the number one ways she drives sales in her business.

You'll learn how to start a list, where to find your first subscribers, and how to grow and maintain a list. Plus, the surprising benefits of an email list - beyond the high ROI.

(06:40) Where to find your first subscribers

(07:25) How to use your email list to test out new business ideas

(09:40) The TWO things you need to focus on as an entrepreneur

(11:00) Tacticts Jenna uses to drive followers from social and the podcast to her list

(14:30) How to make time for your email list

(15:50) Don't make these two mistakes with your email list!

(18:00) Convinced? Here's how to start your listLearn how to go from zero subscribers to an engaged list that lasts. Sign up for Jenna's FREE Email Building Master Class at jennkutcher.com/list. It only happens once a year - don't miss out!

Key Takeaways:

1. When Jenna started her list, she created a free downloadable PDF called "Five Ways To Grow Your Instagram Following". It wasn't pretty, but it did the job. She created a little signup form to gather emails in exchange for the PDF. She shared it on her own socials, but also in Facebook groups she was a part of and Pinterest.

2. How to use your email list to test out new business ideas: Jenna offers different freebies in exchange for peoples emails. If she gets a lot of sign ups, she knows the offer is exciting enough that people are willing to give up something of value in exchange (their email address). Using that information, she might turn that idea into another product.

3. The TWO things you need to focus on as an entrepreneur: Your first priority has to be growing your email list. The second is to use any other efforts you put forward to grow your list. Her number one measure of success for, say, a social campaign is how effective it is at growing her email list.

4. In The Goal Digger Podcast, Jenna shares value ads from her email list and lets them know how they can sign up.

5. Her email list is the number one way Jenna drives sales. "Social media is meant to be the handshake. Email is where you sell." People are on social to be distracted, educated, entertained. People are more ready to buy when they're in their email.

6. The average entrepreneur spends hours in their inbox. Add a bit of strategy and, instead of going one-to-one, you can go one-to-many. This will give you insights into what people want so that it's easier to sell, and it creates a group of people who are excited to buy when you're ready to sell.

7. Don't make these two mistakes with your email list! 1. Don't bury your email sign up on your website. 2. Don't send out an email only when you want to sell. If you serve your audience and show up regardless whether you have something to sell, they'll be ready to buy when you have something to sell.

8. Where should you begin? First, think of two different offers that would be valuable to your listeners in exchange for their email. By providing two different offers, you get insight into what your audience wants from you. This can stop you from going too far down the wrong path. Second, use your existing channels, such as your podcast or socials, to talk about the valuable freebies available on your email list.

9. Learn how to go from zero subscribers to an engaged list that lasts. Sign up for Jenna's FREE Email Building Master Class at jennkutcher.com/list. It only happens once a year - don't miss out!

00:00:02

Andrea Marquez: I've been hearing a lot about the power of an email list or a newsletter and how much that can contribute to your growth and success as a business owner. It helps you reach people that want to hear from you and you get to own your audience, something that you can't have by just using social media. But how do you start an email list and how do you maintain it and push out content consistently? And beyond just owning your audience, what other benefits come from it?

To answer these questions, I'll be talking to Jenna Kutcher, the host of one of the most popular marketing podcasts, and also one of my favorites, The Gold Digger.

00:00:41

Jenna Kutcher: One of the things that I'm obsessed with when it comes to being an entrepreneur is looking at the return on investment, with the main investment being our time.

I have two young kids, I don't have a ton of extra time, and so anytime that I'm spending in my business, I want to make sure that it's worth it, that it drives real results, that I can have the receipts to back it up. And so when you think about an email list and serving it, is a lot easier than you're making it out to be because instead of screaming to the masses like you are on social media, you are reaching out to the people who have already exchanged something valuable to them to get something valuable from you.

These are the people that have literally raised their hand and said, “I want more of what you've got”. And so you are speaking to the people who are already curious and invested in what you've created. And so it is an entirely different conversation than the one that you're trying to have or the one that you're trying to use to sell that is likely falling flat.

00:01:33

Andrea Marquez: Jenna figured out how powerful an email list can be early on in her career, and she'll be sharing all the steps she took to build her list so you can be just as successful. I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll talk about how you can build your email list even if you think you don't have time for it, because an email list can be a lot more rewarding than you think.

00:02:01

Jenna Kutcher: For every email subscriber you have on your email list it should equate to one extra dollar of revenue per month if you are serving that subscriber. And so imagine if you even had 250 people on your email list what that could equate to in terms of results for you. Food for thought, because adding one more follower to your social media following doesn't actually reap a lot of results. And so where is your energy going? Where's your focus going? This is exactly why email list building is our number one priority.

00:02:31

Andrea Marquez: We'll be giving you loads of actionable steps that you can use to grow your email list. But first, let's hear how Jenna realized she needed an email list.

00:02:41

Jenna Kutcher: So it's an embarrassing story. For my career trajectory I started off as a wedding photographer, fully self-taught, used my camera to get out of my 9-to-5.

00:02:52

Andrea Marquez: Jenna's business was growing and doing well, but eventually she felt burnt out.

00:02:57

Jenna Kutcher: I'm sure there are some people listening where you hit this place of burnout, you maybe achieved this level of success, and yet you are so burnt to a crisp that you can't imagine doing the same thing for years from now, that's where I was at. And so I had hit six figures, I was so grateful for that goal, but when I reached it I felt empty and I knew something had to change.

00:03:17

Andrea Marquez: Jenna realized that she was a lot happier when she was making less, so she decided to book half the number of weddings the following year.

00:03:25

Jenna Kutcher: I cut back my salary in half, but the one thing that I got back was my time. And when I got back my time, I started getting curious about other areas of business, other ways of running businesses.

00:03:38

Andrea Marquez: And that curiosity led Jenna to hire her first business coach.

00:03:45

Jenna Kutcher: And on the first coaching call, I show up, I am so proud of myself, I had 10, 000 followers on Instagram. I thought he was going to be so excited. And we get on the call and he asks me, he says, “How big is your list?” And I legitimately thought he was talking about my to-do list, and I was like, “Well, I'm writing blogs, I'm posting to Facebook, I'm creating content for Instagram. My list is long”. And he was like, “No, no, no. How big is your email list?” And I was like, “Well, I have a following on social media…”

And all this sudden he's like, “No, an email list is an asset that you own”.

And that day he pointed me to a podcast about email list building, and I felt this feeling deep in my gut of I was already doing all the things I couldn't imagine adding on one more thing, but it clicked for me that I was building my business on space I didn't own space, space I couldn't control. Social media, I had no control over that.

And so that was a day that I started growing my email list, and that was many, many years ago. And so I am so grateful that he wasn't duped by what I was doing on social and challenged me to think a little bit bigger because that started the whole email list building journey that I've been on ever since.

00:04:56

Andrea Marquez: At the time, Jenna was starting to pivot into other areas of business, so there were a few barriers she had to overcome before she started building her email list.

00:05:06

Jenna Kutcher: I was trying to figure out who am I even serving? What do I say to them, and how do I get them to sign up? What does this all look like? I was also really afraid of the tech. It is amazing that I know how to plug in my microphone and turn my camera on these days because I am not that comfortable with tech. And I think that's a limiting mindset belief, but also just something that is a reality. I could write and speak all day, but when I go to link up softwares, I start to panic. And so tech really scared me.

And the last thing was is that when I was thinking about time, let me be honest, that social media felt sexy to me, right? It's a number that people can see. It's this badge of honor, so to speak. Growing an email list is kind of unsexy. No one is actually peeking under the hood to see how many subscribers you have. And so I really had to let my ego die in a way to focus on why this mattered and where I was going to get that time from, which ultimately was coming from social media.

00:06:03

Andrea Marquez: I love that you said mindset because our next episode is with Amy Porterfield and she's like my best friend.

00:06:11

Jenna Kutcher: Oh really?

00:06:12

Andrea Marquez: She's literally my best friend in the whole world. Well look at that, we didn't do that on purpose listeners. But you brought up two points that we really dig into in episode 57 with Amy, how to figure out who you're serving and how to manage your mindset and the importance of staying positive. So I'm wondering, once you figured out who you were serving, what was the first thing you did?

00:06:41

Jenna Kutcher: I created this freebie and it was like five ways to grow your Instagram following, and it was a downloadable PDF. I don't even think I knew how to make things pretty at the time. I'm pretty sure I made it in Microsoft Word and exported it as a PDF. And so I just had a little sign-up form and I absolutely did leverage the audience that I had, but I was also savvy enough to go to other audiences. So Facebook groups that I was a part of, I started sharing about my freebie there. I later on learned the power of Pinterest. That is a huge way that we grow our email list, and it doesn't necessarily matter how many followers you have on Pinterest. And so I always start with who's already there, but expand out and think about how you can reach other people. And that's exactly what we've done in our list building process.

00:07:27

Andrea Marquez: Jenna was also dipping her toes into the education space and was using her freebies to test out different ideas before she created a program about it.

00:07:35

Jenna Kutcher: One thing I think people don't realize is that starting an email list and creating different freebies is the perfect low risk sampling ground to see what people actually find valuable. A lot of people create an offer because maybe once they did a poll on Instagram or they asked five of their friends, “Hey, would you actually buy this thing?” And people said “Yes”. And then when they went to collect their credit card information, everybody balked and backed out. And so starting your email list and thinking through this value exchange, it allows for people to really put some stake in the game and give you something of value in exchange to get what you've created.

So over my career, we have used different freebies and PDFs and ideas as a testing ground to say, does this have legs? Will people actually find this valuable, or is this just an idea that lives in my head that shouldn't go any further than that? And so I think that a lot of people get intimidated by email list building, but the truth is it's a beautiful place to experiment and to really get your audience to take action with you. Action beyond just liking and commenting on social media.

00:08:39

Andrea Marquez: That's such a creative way of using an email list. You get to see the demand on the products or services you want to offer your customers, and it gives you the opportunity to pivot before you invest too much time or money into your idea. And an email list also gives you the opportunity to sell your products or services without sounding too salesy.

00:09:03

Jenna Kutcher: I think that one of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs face is one, they hate selling, right? I've never really met a lot of people that raise their hand and they're like, “I love to sell my thing”. This gives you an opportunity to serve people before you ever go to sell to them. And I think this is so important. If you're going to get somebody results for free, they are going to be far more likely to pay you for whatever it is that you have to sell.

00:09:29

Andrea Marquez: If we've managed to convince you that you need to start and grow an email list, you might be getting overwhelmed at the idea of maintaining it and creating content consistently, especially if you're already doing the same for your social media. But...

00:09:43

Jenna Kutcher: I'm going to let you guys in on a secret. So I believe that there are only two things you have to focus on as an entrepreneur in order to drive results. Two things. I think we get so caught up in the million things that we could do. The first priority has to be growing your email list. The email list is an asset that you own, it's something you can control, it is virtually algorithm-proof. The second thing that you need to focus on is any other efforts that you are putting forth in your business, the goal of those efforts should be to grow your email list. That's it.

So the goal of my podcast is to convert listeners into email subscribers. The goal of my Instagram is to get people off of Instagram onto my email list. The goal of Pinterest is to show my pins to get people to land on my website and opt in for my email list.

Every effort that I put forth on the internet, and I have a complex system, all of those efforts, the number one goal and the number one way we measure success is not on those platforms themselves, but in how effective they are at getting people off of those platforms and into a place that we own and can control, which is our email list.

00:10:48

Andrea Marquez: So you might want to completely distill your marketing efforts into two things. One, prioritize growing your email list and serving your audience there. And two, the goal and objective of other content you produce should be to grow your email list.

00:11:04

Jenna Kutcher: Whenever we work on an episode, we are always thinking, do we have some sort of value offer that is a logical next step for our listener? Because here's the thing, real marketing has no dead ends.

Real true marketing always has the next invitation. Now, not everyone's going to RSVP yes to that invitation, but you have to keep putting it out there. You never want to end any piece of content, whether it's a blog post, a podcast episode, anything, with somebody asking themselves, “Okay, great. But now what?” You always want to extend that invite.

And so even yesterday I was recording an episode for The Gold Digger podcast, and inside of that episode there were multiple mentions of different ways that people could sign up for my email list through value ads that made entire sense based on the topic that I was teaching on. And so you can either start with that email list building thing as the goal and the objective of that episode, or you can incorporate it organically into the content.

Either way, we can't even access who our listeners are, so we can't be in touch with them to let them know what we have going on. And so if we don't actually try to get people off of the platforms, we're doing them a disservice because we're not actually able to reach out to them when we have important information to communicate.

00:12:20

Andrea Marquez: So Jenna, we've talked about having freebies to get people to sign up for your email list, but what actually goes into the emails you send out?

00:12:29

Jenna Kutcher: I lead with the idea of the jab, jab, jab, right hook of serve, serve, serve, serve, and then sell. And honestly, I don't even like using the word sell. It's more like an invitation for an offer. And so when we look at what we're sending out in a month, we're sending people additional resources, we're pointing to the podcast, we're sending just straight up encouragement with no links. We're letting people in behind the scenes. We're sharing about exclusive offers. It's just this rhythm that we've created, this life force in our business.

My email list is the number one way that I drive sales and results in my business. If somebody told me everything's going to disappear tomorrow but you get to choose one thing, it would be my email list. It has been said in the marketing world, if you want to double your business, just double your email list.

And I have seen that to be true time and time again. The same is not true for social media. I love social media. I work so hard on social media, but I am not as confident that I could even make a sale on social media because social media is not built for us to sell. We're all seeing that right now with the algorithm and people are running their heads into the wall of why is this not working? Social media is meant to be the handshake. Email is meant to be where you sell. When people go into their inboxes, they are much more poised for purchase than when they're on social media.

People are on social media to be distracted, to be entertained, to be educated. They're not there thinking, I'm going to pull up my wallet. And so it's just so interesting to me because people are getting so frustrated with the systems and the platforms they're on, but they're not actually pausing to ask themselves, what is the intent of this and how do I play the game well so that the system works? And I think that's where people get frustrated.

And so my email list is the hands down number one way we drive results, and I think people are missing out on this opportunity to do the same. Again, you're reaching people who are already interested and curious in what you're selling versus trying to convince the masses who are probably not even hearing you.

00:14:30

Andrea Marquez: But what if as a small business owner, I don't have time to write an email every week.

00:14:38

Jenna Kutcher: I'm going to ask you a question. Are you writing emails every day?

00:14:42

Andrea Marquez: I certainly am, yes.

00:14:44

Jenna Kutcher: Okay. So what would it look like if you were able to write one email and reach a bunch of people? I think the average entrepreneur spends hours in their inbox every single week, hours. So what would it look like to add a tiny bit of strategy to work you're already doing? And instead of going one-to-one, you're able to go one-to-many. It's actually not that much work. This is actually going to save you so much time because you are going to learn how to anticipate people's questions before they can ask them.

You're going to learn to serve them before you can ever go to sell to them. And you're going to get insights and information into what people actually want so that your offers actually sell. It's actually not that hard. And one of the things that I really love to teach is what would it look like if you sat down and just mapped out the next month of whatever that is?

So whether it's one email a week or one email a month, I'd argue that it's going to take you one to two hours. You're already spending that time going back and forth with one people when you could actually make something that reaches more than one person with a goal and an intent and an ability to drive a real result.

00:15:53

Andrea Marquez: But there's two mistakes that you might want to look out for when you're starting an email list.

00:15:57

Jenna Kutcher: The number one mistake that people make when they go to start an email list is they bury a little thing at the very bottom of their website that says, “Join my newsletter”. Who wants to join a newsletter these days? I already get so many emails in my inbox, I don't need another one if I don't know what value you're providing me. And so growing an email list is actually way easier than you're making it out to be because you just need to find something that your audience will think is valuable, valuable enough for them to exchange your email address for.

00:16:26

Andrea Marquez: And the second mistake is only using your email list when you're trying to sell something.

00:16:32

Jenna Kutcher: And I've seen this happen in so many entrepreneurs lives, where all of a sudden they haven't posted in two months and now they're on and they're talking about this thing that they've got to sell. And so I think that the mistake that I made in the past and that other people tend to make is that they forget the power of serving.

Even yesterday, we sent out an email and it was just about encouraging. I have been in seasons of burnout and I was just talking about it to my audience and letting people in. And there's so much power in allowing somebody to say, “Me too, I'm not alone. Oh my gosh”. And it connects you. And so when you create a rhythm around your marketing, you'll be showing up regardless of if you have something to sell. And you'll be serving people so that when you go to sell, you have this list that is ready to be launched to.

And I think that it shifts, again, that feeling of selling, selling now becomes a service because these people are like, what is the next step? The next step is to invest in whatever that is, whether it's a product, service or an offer. And so when you're serving so well, people are ready and excited for what it is that you're launching. And so I think that a lot of times we as business owners we're like, “I've got nothing to say on the everyday life front”, and then all of a sudden we're like, “I've got something to sell”. And we miss this opportunity to serve and connect in the middle.

00:17:53

Andrea Marquez: Hearing you speak about all of this, I feel like we should use This is Small Business as a case study. If I want to give my listeners more resources and stay connected between episodes and also reach people who don't listen to podcasts, where would you recommend I begin if I want to start an email list?

00:18:12

Jenna Kutcher: So the first thing I would do is think of two different offers that you think would be interesting for your listeners. So kind of look at what some of your top episodes have been or what questions you get asked the most. Now, the reason why I would do two different offers is that you're going to get insight into what people think is more valuable. There are so many data points in email marketing that can help guide the direction forward.

So here's a quick story. When we were trying to grow our family, my husband had a deep desire to be a stay-at-home dad. And in between him leaving a career and being a stay-at-home dad, he started a health coaching business. And before he even had a website or a business name, I knew the power of email list building. And so I said, “We're going to start growing your list before you have anything to sell before you even know what you're called”.

And so in his health coaching business, we created two freebies. One was stay at home workouts that you can do with no equipment. So it was like five, 10 minute workouts you can do from home. And the other one was our exact grocery list and meal prep menu for the week. And he totally was going to build an entire business around stay at home workouts because he had saw as an entrepreneur how hard it was for me to get movement in.

And he was gung ho on this whole business idea. We released these two different freebies and leveraged the small audience that he had at the time, and we saw that the meal prep and the grocery shopping list 10x'd the at home workouts. It saved us from going too far down the wrong path for a business and really helped his branding, his copy, speak to people that wanted it.

So I would encourage anyone listening to have two different opt-ins that are slightly different in nature so that you can actually start to get insight and data into what people think is interesting enough to exchange your email address for.

00:20:02

Andrea Marquez: And how would I use the podcast to grow the email list?

00:20:05

Jenna Kutcher: I would make sure that even in the intro of your podcast, you could say, “Hey, we've created this free productivity calendar. Go get your copy. This has been amazing for our listeners. Here's why we put it together”. At the end of the episode, say the same thing. When you're recording content, if there's a way to integrate it in, if you're talking about your calendar, plug it again.

Then on the next episode, you could do something totally different like the five tools we can't live without at This is Small Business and have that. You can start to get that insight and information. To reach people that are not podcast listeners. One, you can reach them with the podcast in different ways. So you could do little clips on social media and talk about it. And then again, push to that freebie. It's actually not that complicated and it'll give you so much insight, again, into your die hard audience who want to go the next step for you.

00:20:58

Andrea Marquez: So it's A/ B testing what I'm hearing. So what we're doing at the beginning based on the content that has already performed well with our listeners?

00:21:07

Jenna Kutcher: And you could do that. And if somebody's listening and they're like, I don't even have content, I can't see what's performed. Take two different ideas you have. Most entrepreneurs have no shortage of ideas, we have a bajillion ideas. Start with one and then see if you can add in a second and promote them both the same amount, however you're promoting it, wherever you are. If you're on Facebook and you have 100 friends on there, promote it there, see what people are curious about. But again, that insight is going to guide you forward. And in the meantime, you're growing your list.

00:21:36

Andrea Marquez: Now let's take a look at how you can apply all this information and grow your email list if you're a product based business.

00:21:43

Jenna Kutcher: You want to create resources that paint your product as the hero. So let's say you have a closet organization system. You could do five ways to give you the closet of your dreams and your product can be positioned in that resource as the hero so that people are like, “Oh my gosh, add to cart”. They're creating value around the topic that their product is a solution for. So there are so many ways to do it, and again it's not selly or spammy, you are literally giving the invitation for the next step for those who are ready to join you on it.

And I think that there are so many different ways to speak to people so that you're not focused on the features of your product itself, but you're more focused on the end result. What does the consumer truly want? Maybe they want to feel more peaceful, maybe they want to feel beautiful, maybe they want to feel calm.

And so when you think of it in this way, it totally takes out this desire to be like, here are the five product features that people might not even know why they should care about those features, and it helps connect them to their true desired end results while giving them value, again for free, and then kind of being this breadcrumb on the path to purchase of like, “Oh, wow, they actually have a solution for this. I might not be ready to buy it now, but when I get that email two months from now and I'm in a different position as a purchaser, I'm ready to pull the trigger”.

So it just changes the relationship. And also you learn a different way to speak to your consumers where you're not so feature focused and you're more focused on what is the true result that they want when they buy my product. And I think that shifts the conversation immensely.

00:23:20

Andrea Marquez: Jenna has given us loads of helpful information on why and how to grow your email list. So it sounds like the time to start your email list is now.

00:23:31

Jenna Kutcher: So once I figured it out and I was like, “Wait, this isn't as complicated and scary as it made it out to be”. I didn't want to gatekeep this information. And I think that this is so powerful because we are living in a time where we are building our dreams on rented space. Social media is rented space. And so if you want to build a true asset in your business, I truly believe it has to be an email list.

So I have a free training, it's called From zero Subscribers and zero Strategy through an engaged email list that lasts. And inside this training, I'm going to walk you through what do you say, how do you start, how do you say it, how does it get delivered? All of the steps that you need to really understand the what and the why behind email marketing.

I'm so excited. I host these trainings live one time per year and it's coming right up. So if you go to jennakutcher. com/ list, that's jennakutcher. com/ list, you can save your seat for this training. I am so excited to lead thousands of entrepreneurs through this because I have seen the power and the actual growth, and again, my email list is the number one way that I drive sales and results, and we have the receipts to prove it. And so I want to help people unlock that potential so that their precious time that they're spending in their business is going to a place that is actually tied to tangible results.

00:24:48

Andrea Marquez: If you're getting a little stressed at the idea of starting an email list or readjusting your marketing strategy, here's what Jenna has to say.

00:24:55

Jenna Kutcher: I know we use the word small business, but I just want to remind your listeners that what they're doing is anything but small. I think that it is so easy to look at people even like me who are a decade in the making and just think we blinked and this came about and it happened, but I want to remind you that the same frustrations and the same mistakes you're making and the same questions you're asking yourself, we've all been there before. And so I just want to encourage you, I just have felt so much lately.

The entrepreneurs are the people that are changing the world and we're changing the world for our children. We're changing the world for the people who get to experience what we're creating. We're changing our beliefs in ourself and what's possible.

And so while we might use the word small in front of your business, no matter where you're at on the journey, I just want to remind you that what you're doing is actually really big and brave and bold. I don't want you to ever forget that. Because I think that there's so much power in what we're doing, and I think we're creating this ripple effect that we often forget about. And so I just want your listeners to know that I'm cheering them on.

00:26:07

Andrea Marquez: Beautifully said Jenna. I'm glad we're ending with that because we can all use a little encouragement every now and then. Jenna did a great job of breaking down how to start and grow your email list.

If you didn't catch all of Jenna's advice, don't worry we've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon. com/ podcasts. Reach out to us at thisismallbusiness.amazon. com to tell us what you're up to or what topics you want us to cover. And let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, it's easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard, I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this.

That's it for today's episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening.

This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by Jar Audio.

‍

BONUS: How Your Business Can Have an Impact

Build a business with an impact.

Ready to make a difference with your business but don’t know where to start? Just ask Thomas Ling, founder of Kin+Kind, who combined his passion for the environment and love of animals to create eco-friendly pet products. Thomas breaks down what makes a business sustainable, the importance of transparency and authenticity, and how you can start a business that does good in the world.

“It's important that we are running the kind of company that we want to see out in the world.” Thomas says.

Learn what it takes to be a clean business, and the benefits that come with it.In this episode you’ll hear:

(01:09) Kin+Kind’s story.

(02:56) How Kin + Kind brings transparency and authenticity into their products.

(04:11) What are clean ingredients?

(06:34) Being a clean company is about more than using good ingredients, it’s also about how you treat your employees.

(07:25) What is greenwashing?

(09:15) How to start a sustainable business.

(10:50) The benefits of having a clean business.

Key takeaways:

1 - Starting a business that has a positive impact means being transparent and authentic. And there’s a few ways you could do that. Thomas makes sure to use the common and scientific name of the ingredients they use, get’s third-party certifications so their customers know what’s in their products, and uses responsibly sourced ingredients.

2 - Building a clean business isn’t just about ingredients; it’s also about how you treat your workers.

3 - Using high-quality ingredients can be pricey. Thomas advises new businesses to be prepared to roll your products out at a loss and focus on a small group of customers that share your values. It's going to take a lot of experimentation. So, start small and do a proof of concept, then once you see that there’s a market out there that wants what you’re selling – that’s when you might be profitable.

4 - Even though it costs a lot to start a clean business, it's worth it. Thomas says when your business is based on good values, your customers stick with you, even when times are tough. Kin+Kind kept going during the pandemic because their customers knew they cared about their pets and the environment just as much as they did.

00:00:01

Thomas Ling: So we're not just making a product because I came from a very, very unrelated space, and the switch was to do something I was passionate about and something I cared about and trying to do something that had an impact. And it's weird. How do pet products have an impact? But in the way that we interact with our products and our employees and our community is how I feel I'm having an impact and doing and putting into the world something that represents the value systems that I have.

00:00:27

Andrea Marquez: To celebrate Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, we're highlighting an Asian and Pacific Islander-owned small business that's taking care of your furry friends while doing some good in the world.

Hi, I'm Andrea Marquez, and this is Small Business, the podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be digging into clean ingredients and sustainability with Thomas Ling, the owner of Kin+ Kind, a manufacturer and retailer of pet grooming and wellness that's on a mission to clean up pet care. Starting Kin+ Kind wasn't always part of Thomas's plan.

00:01:05

Thomas Ling: I went to Harvard Law School and I practiced for about a decade and I enjoyed being a lawyer. I liked doing law, but I didn't feel passionate about the type of clients that I was servicing. It wasn't moving me towards having an impact on the world.

00:01:18

Andrea Marquez: Tom has spent a lot of time doing pro bono work, and he still continues to do that on the side, but pets and the environment have always had a special place in his heart.

00:01:28

Thomas Ling: I grew up working in pet stores. There's a cute pet store down the corner that I would hang out, and finally they said, “Do you want to get paid?” I was like, “Yeah, that'd be great.” And I just had a ton of pets in my home. So I had rabbits, I had birds, I had fish, I had dogs. Just always surrounded by animals, but dogs and cats, I've always really ... Think they're part of your family.

00:01:47

Andrea Marquez: His sister Janine, who helped co-found Kin+ Kind shared his obsession with pets, and she ended up opening a pet store.

00:01:55

Thomas Ling: We actually worked at pet stores together, and so it was kind of a space that I was familiar with. She's passionate about all these things and seemed interesting and exciting. It allowed me to bring the idea of being passionate about environmental issues and trying to make a product that brought those environmental issues into the pet space. Just seemed kind of a good fit.

00:02:15

Andrea Marquez: But Janine eventually ended up leaving Kin+ Kind to start her own company.

00:02:19

Thomas Ling: And so she's like, “Thomas, your sustainability is nothing. Hold my beer.” So she went and made a company that doesn't use plastic.

00:02:29

Andrea Marquez: So this passion to help the environment and have a bigger impact clearly runs in the family. And one of the main ways that Kin+ Kind tries to do this is by bringing transparency and authenticity to their products.

00:02:41

Thomas Ling: That means using natural ingredients that are certified by the United States Department of Agricultural Inspectors under the USDA Organic Program or the USDA Bio-based program. Plus that means we make everything ourselves here in the United States.

We're using the highest regulatory standards so that we're able to be good to our team while we're being good to the world. And the last thing that we used as kind of our pillar of transparency and authenticity is that we have made everything specifically for pets. So we had our own veterinarian and our own plant scientists pull these things together themselves to make sure that we have ingredients that are dealing with pets in a holistic, natural way that's effective and safe and good for the environment.

00:03:27

Andrea Marquez: There's a lot of responsibility behind your brand. Am I hearing a dog collar?

00:03:33

Thomas Ling: That is.

00:03:33

Andrea Marquez: That is.

00:03:35

Thomas Ling: Yes.

00:03:35

Andrea Marquez: I love that. That's so cute and super fitting for this conversation. So, Thomas, can you explain to me what clean ingredients are?

00:03:45

Thomas Ling: So that's about using things that are both responsible and transparent to the consumer, and that's really missing in the pet space. So in the pet space, there's a lot of greenwashing, there's a lot of omission because it's not that tightly regulated from a labeling perspective. So they're not required to put everything that's in their bottle into their labels. So step one is, Hey, what's in that bottle? Because pet parents are rightly concerned because they want what's best for their pets and feel very passionately about certain ingredients that are natural, that are responsibly sourced, and you need that level of clarity.

00:04:21

Andrea Marquez: This is a good time to mention that Amazon through our Climate Pledge-Friendly program is helping customers discover products with third party sustainability certifications like USDA Organic to help sellers like Kin+ kind offset some of the economic hardships of starting a sustainable business. So, Kin+ Kind does a few things to ensure that they're transparent about what's in their products. First, Thomas says that they use the common name and the scientific name for every ingredient they use.

00:04:52

Thomas Ling: So we don't use fantasy names, we don't use made up names.

00:04:55

Andrea Marquez: They also have third party certifications on their products.

00:04:58

Thomas Ling: Because inspectors come in, they audit our books, we do lab testing for our products so that there's 100% certainty that you know hat's going in or on your pet.

00:05:08

Andrea Marquez: And they use responsibly sourced ingredients.

00:05:11

Thomas Ling: We are a certified USDA organic brand because we feel very passionately that things should be grown with minimal negative impact on the earth. So if you're certified USDA organic, that means all of your ingredients are USDA organic. That means they're grown without pesticides, they're grown without GMOs, they're grown without other harmful farming practices because the United States Department of Agriculture defines what that means.

And so people throw away that term organic. They don't really know what it means, but if it's got that organic seal on it, you are compliant with the program that the United States Department of Agriculture has put out there that makes us feel good that we're protecting the earth.

And that makes you feel good that you're protecting your pet because you know what's in that cosmetic or in that supplement that you're putting it. And the newest category is a Pee+ Stain so you can feel good about what you putting in your home so that you know that you're not inhaling these ingredients that are just bad for you, your family, your pet.

00:06:06

Andrea Marquez: Kin+ Kind wants to be a responsible company and provide clean and transparent products to their customers. But being a clean company goes beyond this. It also includes caring for your employees.

00:06:18

Thomas Ling: So we have our own team working in our own facility. So being local obviously is good for our community, but it's also good because it's good for the employees. So our employees have healthcare benefits, they have dental benefits, they have retirement programs because this is important. It's important that we are running the kind of company that we want to see out in the world, and we're doing here is how we want to be treated, and we want other people to be treated.

00:06:44

Andrea Marquez: Thomas mentioned greenwashing when he was talking about the pet space, and if you don't know what that is ...

00:06:50

Thomas Ling: So greenwashing specifically just saying, I'm natural, and then there's nothing in your package that's natural or there's nothing in your package that's good for the environment. There's nothing other than the name of your product potentially. So there are a lot of products, particularly in the pet space that says, I'm natural or I'm clean.

Then you look in their bottle and you're like, “There's not a single natural ingredient in here.” So it's kind of this practice. People know that there's a consumer demand for natural, and a lot of it's a lot of confusion because these terms, organic, what does that mean?

Natural doesn't have a legal definition and they pretend that this is good for the environment or that this is good for pets, but that they have no right to that claim. Some of it can be quite difficult. That's something we should be concerned about. It's not fair to you as the consumer. It's not fair to the environment because they're putting out products that aren't good for the environment.

00:07:40

Andrea Marquez: But using high-quality ingredients that are natural or organic isn't cheap. So if you're planning on starting a business that centers around sustainability or a specific value you have, Thomas says that you have to be prepared to potentially roll your products out at a loss when you're first starting out.

00:07:58

Thomas Ling: I have a lot of experience at that. Yeah, so in terms of, hey, if I was in a kind of different space and I wanted to put my values into my business, I think it's focusing on a small segment of people who share your values and can you have a value added service in that small segment instead of trying to do something at scale, because if you try anything at scale, it takes a long time to ramp up. It takes a lot of experimentation, it takes a lot of cost before you can do that. And so kind of do a proof of concept in a small idea.

So if it's like, Hey, I want to make brownies, you're never going to make money doing it, but go ahead, make brownies, see if there's a market for it, then scale up. But you're not going to make any money in the first infinity period of time until you know okay, this is a good product, I see a path forward to profitability for it because I've done the math. So, okay, I need this equipment and I need this price tier, and I need X, Y, Z to profitability. So you have that mapped out, but you find that that there's a proof of concept that there's a market out there that wants it and responds well to it.

00:08:59

Andrea Marquez: But for Thomas, the benefits he gets from having a clean company outweigh the cons.

00:09:04

Thomas Ling: I'd rather have a smaller business that succeeds based on its values and that has customers that relate to it than a large business that just turns out things to a larger public. My products are not for everybody. I sit on pet shelves next to value brands, and that's fine. They're just a consumer might want that value because that money might mean a lot to them, or they just don't really care about my values, and that's okay. It is what it is.

But being able to have a company that I want to go to work for every day is in of itself a value that's dissonant with kind of the idea of capitalism, that I should only produce the thing that the market wants because if I produce only the thing that the market wants, I'll only produce the highest-margin product, which isn't good for me or the other important stakeholders, the people who work with me at my company or the people I'm serving.

So there are other values other than that pure consumer choice. And then two is, yes, you can run a successful business if you find a cohort of people that you want to work with and consumers that you want to serve because they have demands and they want those demands to be met. And those demands are value-based. I'd love for that community to grow, and it is growing. We see that the natural space and the clean space are areas that have very consistently been growing more rapidly than other areas and areas that there was a shocking low level of sacrifice during harder economic periods.

So during COVID, I thought, “Oh gosh, I'm going to go out of business.” I am like, “I'm doomed. I'm doomed.” There's no way that I'll be able to stay in business when people don't know if they were going to have money in a month. And it was so scary, and it was interesting that no, actually, we grew huge leaps and bounds because people continue to think of their pets as family and the values that they were putting into the product that they're getting for their pets were important to them. So they stuck with us and we grew. And so that's great having someone that's loyal to us as a value-based business as opposed to just a commodity that's on the shelf because the next person who makes it cheaper, you buy it from them, but they didn't. They stuck through it.

00:11:12

Andrea Marquez: So aligning your business with your values, even if it makes the product a little more expensive than usual, might get you a bunch of loyal customers. I learned so much about creating a sustainable business and what it means to be a clean business. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at www. smallbusiness. amazon. com.

If you liked what you heard. Don't forget to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode, and I'd love to know what you think. So please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com with your thoughts.

That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to You by Amazon. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta Luego, and thanks for listening.

This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 55: How to Build Your Marketing Strategy

Build a strong marketing strategy.

The more people see your products, the more sales you’ll probably get – and a marketing strategy can help you do that.

Just ask Elena Fahrländer, the Chief Commercial Officer of Danish Endurance, a company that sells their products worldwide. She’ll be sharing what they do to find their target audience and how their approach to marketing changed as they grew. You’ll also hear from Elizabeth (Liz) Downing, director of partnerships at The Ecom Cooperative. She’ll give more actionable advice on how to build your marketing strategy using realistic goal setting and data analysis.

“It's really important to look inward, really examine who you are as a business, and then set your goals and your expectations based on what you think you can achieve,” says Liz, “and it all comes down to the data.”

In this episode you’ll hear:

(02:18) Danish Endurance’s story

(04:02) How to find your target audience

(07:02) The importance of clear and realistic goals and budgeting when building your marketing strategy

(11:02) Starting out with a structured marketing strategy

(11:50) How and why Danish Endurance constantly updates their marketing strategy

‍

Key Takeaways:

1 - Before you start working on your marketing strategy, you need to figure out who your ideal audience is and how to reach them. Liz says there’s a few questions you need to ask yourself: what do you have? Do people want it? And which people want it and what is the best way to reach them. Elena also adds that Danish Endurance relies on data to understand their customer journey and figure out the best way to reach them.

2 - Customer reviews are important for multiple reasons. It tells you what your customer thinks about your product. Most customers use reviews to figure out if your product is worth buying, and it's important to the algorithm -- so it helps people find your product.

3 - Realistic expectations and goals are important – and data will help you figure out what that might look like. But even if you don’t have data yet, Liz suggests that you look at data from other businesses that are similar to what you want to do.

4 - Build a marketing budget and monitor it. Monitoring how much money you spend on marketing and how successful your campaigns are will help you figure out what works and adjust your spending accordingly.

5 - Stay dynamic. Once you create a marketing strategy, be prepared to update it. Elena says Danish endurance review their strategy on a monthly basis to maintain competitiveness.

00:00:01

Andrea Marquez: Marketing is an essential part of your business. And I know, I know, I feel like I say that about everything we talk about on This is Small Business, but marketing is how you get people to know you exist. And even if you have the best product on the market, it'll just collect dust if you're not putting any effort into getting the word out.

I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be talking about how to get started on your marketing strategy, because marketing yourself isn't always easy.

00:00:37

Elizabeth Downing: Whether you're in person business, whether you're an online business, it's just really hard with the saturation of people entering the marketplace, with the saturation of all the noise out there and all the different types of new media we have, and the changing behaviors of buyers based on their age and their demographics. It's just fascinating to me. And it's always such a hero story to me when somebody manages to get the word out about their product, and a small business becomes a bigger business because of their marketing efforts.

00:01:04

Andrea Marquez: That's Elizabeth, Liz Downing, Director of Partnerships at the ECom Cooperative, a platform that provides free resources to eCommerce businesses.

00:01:13

Elizabeth Downing: I got interested in marketing early in my career, I did promotional marketing for a while. And then I did so much freelance writing, and that was obviously to support people's marketing efforts. And when I started working at ECom Engine, we started working with all different types of sellers, people who had been on the marketplace since it opened, people who were just entering the marketplace. And I just found it fascinating.

00:01:36

Andrea Marquez: Liz says that she was always interested in marketing, mainly because of the psychology behind it.

00:01:42

Elizabeth Downing: I was always more entertained by commercials than other kids were, because I thought it was really interesting the way different products positioned themselves, different companies positioned themselves. And I just think that the marriage of small business and marketing strategy is my favorite thing to think about and my favorite thing to talk about.

00:02:01

Andrea Marquez: Liz has a lot of marketing advice that she'll share with us throughout the episode, but first, let's hear from a company that succeeded in getting its products in front of as many eyes as possible.

00:02:12

Elena Fahrländer: So DANISH ENDURANCE was founded in 2015 in Denmark by two Brothers. So it's a family business, and the brand is rooted in the belief that physical and mental balance forces personal endurance. So therefore, DANISH ENDURANCE, our brand, aims to inspire greater happiness through quality sports and casual wear. So it's really products for everyone, I would say.

00:02:37

Andrea Marquez: That's Elena, the chief commercial officer of DANISH ENDURANCE.

00:02:41

Elena Fahrländer: I oversee the sales operations across various third party platforms and marketplaces at DANISH ENDURANCE, and over the past six years I've witnessed the company's evolution from really a startup to a more established brand. It's been an exciting journey, contributing to the growth of our brand from just about four products when I started to now plus 100.

00:03:09

Andrea Marquez: DANISH ENDURANCE started because Nicolaj, the CEO, couldn't find high quality and affordable compression socks when he was training for a marathon.

00:03:17

Elena Fahrländer: So he thought, if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. So he did. And then we entered into many other clothing categories, such as underwear for men and women, headwear base layers, and everything is with a very clean, Danish design and a sustainable twist.

00:03:37

Andrea Marquez: And they're selling these products all over the world, so clearly they know a bit about how to get their products seen by their customers. But before you start thinking of how to reach your customers, Liz says that first you need to know who your target audience is, which is a lot easier said than done.

00:03:56

Elizabeth Downing: As you get started with a small business in general, obviously you're going to want to take the temperature of the world out there and find out what the demand is for whatever it is that you're selling. So step one is what do you have? Step two is do people want it? And then step three is which people want it, and how is the best way to reach them? But there are things that you need to think about as you ramp up and you get started with that before you can even actually start marketing.

So it is a real chicken and egg situation, in that you have to have a pretty good idea of who's going to want what you're selling out there. But in terms of how you reach them, there are lots of steps to take, including what your competitors are doing, identifying what channels are successful for your competitors. That's probably the easiest hack, is look at who you're going to compete with and how they're doing it, and then figure out how you can do it better.

00:04:52

Andrea Marquez: Elena says that DANISH ENDURANCE is constantly using data to understand who their target audience is and how to best reach them.

00:04:59

Elena Fahrländer: We regularly request customer segmentation data, then we can use that to customize our imagery and our campaign content, such as headlines of the campaigns and so on. So it really tracks the very first touch point of the customer and lets us see where exactly the customer converts then in the end, how many touch points the customers had until the purchase happens so that we can see that all the different campaign types that they all play into, basically in the end, convincing the customer to buy our products.

00:05:31

Andrea Marquez: Understanding the user journey to your products is helpful, and looking at your reviews is another way to know more about what your customer wants.

00:05:39

Elizabeth Downing: Customer reviews are important, because it is the social proof behind the success of your product and how good your product is, but it plays into the search algorithm and it plays into how often you win with your advertising. It's a metric that's really important and really to get, because what we used to say is, “Happy customers don't leave reviews.” And for every bad review you get, you need to get a lot of good reviews to make up for it because that average star rating is really important.

00:06:10

Andrea Marquez: So reviews are important for multiple reasons. First, it tells you what your customer thinks about your product. It's how most customers decide on whether they'll be buying your product or not. And it's important to the algorithm, so it helps people find your product. Now, let's dig into how to set up your marketing strategy. One of the most important things you need to do is make sure you set clear goals and have realistic expectations.

00:06:38

Elizabeth Downing: So if you're launching, then you have an expectation for your launch and an expectation of the marketing you do around your launch. And then once you get into growth, then you're going to have a growth expectation. But you have to be realistic, so it's really important to look inward, really examine who you are as a business, and then set your goals and your expectations based on what you think you can achieve. And it all comes down to the data. So even if you don't have any data because you haven't done anything yet, you can look at the data from other people who have done what you're trying to do and you can get an idea of what your category is going to do.

00:07:16

Andrea Marquez: And of course, another important part of your marketing strategy is your budget.

00:07:21

Elizabeth Downing: So you'll have a marketing budget that you can allocate according to your goals. You can figure out which channels are going to be higher impact for you based on what your competitors are doing, based on what complimentary services are doing. You have to really geek out on it. You have to really get your data, set your expectations, set your goals, and then start small and execute from there. And if you do that, it's easier to avoid mistakes. But if you go in with unrealistic expectations, you're putting yourself at a huge disadvantage.

00:07:58

Andrea Marquez: When you're starting a business, money is always top of mind. And even though marketing isn't always cheap, there are ways to market your business and build brand awareness without breaking the bank.

00:08:09

Elizabeth Downing: So I think that what a lot of businesses do, and I think it's a good idea, is to get your product to some people and get some feedback on that. Because you don't want to put your product someplace and then all of a sudden have to change something about your product.

So first, get it out there, get some feedback on it, and then you can develop your launch strategy and you can figure out which marketing channels are going to work best for you. And then conservatively using the social space, using whatever virality you can achieve is a good way to get your brand name out there without spending a whole ton of money right at first.

00:08:49

Andrea Marquez: We have a whole episode that's dedicated to social media and virality. It's episode 45 of This is Small Business, and it's filled with tips on how to go viral, what to do if you go viral, and how to create content for your brand on social media.

Let's say you've already set aside a budget for your marketing strategy and are now spending that money. Now, you'll need to make sure to monitor the data that's coming from your marketing efforts so you know what's actually bringing in customers. And keeping an eye on the data will also help you know what to stop spending money on.

00:09:19

Elena Fahrländer: I think at the very beginning when we started up our brand, we invested a lot. And we didn't have a lot of data transparency in the first few years, I would say. And now our company has adopted a very data-centric approach, it's one of our core values at DANISH ENDURANCE. And we really monitor different marketing KPIs so we know exactly how much we're spending on marketing every day. We have a few always-on campaigns that are very targeted towards different audiences and also our best-selling products mostly, but then we also make sure that we budget a bit of money to test some new initiatives. For these, we really oversee them very closely to make sure that we are not overspending on that.

00:10:04

Andrea Marquez: But before you experiment with different strategies.

00:10:07

Elena Fahrländer: I would really recommend everyone to start with a very structured marketing campaign account from the very beginning and roll that out then to the other locales that are opening up, or also new products that you're launching. And get full transparency into your product profitability from day one, because that's just so important that you know how much marketing money you can spend and what your margins allow you to spend. And then you can take very conscious choices about maybe selling at an unprofitable level for some time to gain market share. But I think the most important is that the choice is conscious on that.

00:10:42

Andrea Marquez: And once you create a marketing strategy, be prepared to constantly be updating it.

00:10:48

Elena Fahrländer: We create an annual budget for each market and for the company as a whole, and that's when we establish our overarching strategy. So our marketing strategy is very much aligned with our annual budget. But then we need to stay dynamic, so we conduct regular monthly reviews as well. We have some market trends, competitor activities that we need to monitor and that we need to adjust to. So it doesn't make sense to just create one annual strategy in January and never adjust. So I would say we go over that on a monthly basis, that ensures that we stay competitive in our marketing activities. And on top of that, there's always some new campaign types that are launching and that we need to test, and then roll out if the test proves successful.

00:11:37

Andrea Marquez: So to sum it all up.

00:11:39

Elizabeth Downing: You're going to want to set your goals and expectations. You're going to want to allocate a marketing budget. You're going to want to explore your most cost-effective channels that will have the highest impact. You don't have to do this alone, small business owner. You've got resources out there and people who really, really want you to succeed. Take advantage of that, because that's something that not every industry has that the e-commerce industry does have, is a ton of support and a whole lot of love.

00:12:06

Andrea Marquez: I totally agree. I definitely see that support and love in all the people I've talked to on This is Small Business. I learned a lot of important information about marketing from Elena and Liz. One thing that stuck out to me is that data is key to figuring out your marketing strategy. And if you're just starting out and don't have any data yet, you can always look at data from similar businesses. If you missed anything, don't worry, we've taken notes for you. You can find them at www. smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts.

If you enjoyed this episode or found any of the tips helpful, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And please, please, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find the show.

Plus, I love hearing your thoughts on the episode and how you'll be using this information in your business. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you're ready for the next step, a super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego , and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by Jar Audio.

Ep. 54: Small Business Fun Facts: What to Know Before Starting a Small Business

Listen to a small business overview crash course.

Your small business (or idea if you haven’t started yet) is a lot more important than you think. Just ask Karen Kerrigan, the president and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. She’ll be sharing a ton of fun facts about how small businesses drive innovation, help the economy, and create jobs. You’ll also hear from Kylie Jiwon Hwang, an Assistant Professor at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. She’ll give us more insights on how entrepreneurship can help marginalized individuals and how starting your own business can benefit your community.Get a quick refresher on why the work you’re doing (or planning to do!) is important and learn all the benefits and challenges you might encounter on your entrepreneurial journey.

In this episode you’ll hear:

(01:42) Why Small Businesses are important.

(04:27) Why Marginalized individuals are gravitating towards entrepreneurship and the benefits that come with it.

(07:33) Challenges that you might face when starting a business.

(10:48) How technology has been helping small business owners overcome some of the challenges they face.

(14:41) The importance of being prepared before starting a business.

Key Takeaways:

1 - Small businesses create jobs. According to the SBA, small businesses in the US generated 1.5 million jobs and 64% of new jobs.

2 - Small businesses drive innovation which makes the economy more vibrant. Karen says that 80 to 90 percent of patents are filed by small businesses so entrepreneurs are at the forefront of innovation.

3 - Entrepreneurship provides opportunities for marginalized individuals to find jobs and achieve financial independence and success.

4 - It’s important to be aware of the challenges that you might face before getting into entrepreneurship so you’re better prepared to handle them. Some of these challenges may be inflation, and limited access to capital, funding, and the social networks you might need to help you succeed.

5 - Getting training is important. We’ve talked about how you’ll learn as you go in other episodes of This is Small Business, but it is important to know what you’re getting into to increase your chances of success. Karen mentioned that a lack of training or preparation is the reason why some businesses fail.

6 - Utilize technology. Karen says that technology has helped lower the cost of entry to entrepreneurship. You can use technology to find customers, advertise affordably, and even launch your business online on your own.

00:00:00

Andrea Marquez: We are constantly hearing that small businesses are important. They contribute so much to the economy and they give people jobs. It's why I love working on this podcast. I get to elevate their stories and give you tips and key lessons on how to start, build and grow your business. We've covered a lot on how to get into entrepreneurship, but we barely scratched the surface on why you should do it, and since sometimes it can feel like you don't have access to the same resources as other people, is it really a good idea to start a business?

Hi, I am Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be digging into the importance of small business, some of the challenges to expect and how to navigate them. So whether you're already starting a business and need a quick refresher on why the work you're doing is important, or if you're considering starting one but feel like the odds are stacked against you, then this episode is for you. But first, let's start with the basics. What is entrepreneurship?

00:01:14

Kylie Hwang: I define it as a labor market status, which is distinct from paid employment. So working for an employer, which essentially means that it's individuals who start their own businesses, and I think it will include small businesses, even businesses that aren't incorporated or don't have employees. So it's a pretty broad definition that I think about.

00:01:32

Andrea Marquez: That's Kylie Hwang, an Assistant Professor at the Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. Kylie says that entrepreneurship is important in many different ways. The first is job creation.

00:01:45

Kylie Hwang: So according to the Small Business Administration, small businesses actually generated 1. 5 million jobs and account for around 64% of new jobs in the US.

00:01:54

Andrea Marquez: And they don't just stop at providing jobs. Karen Kerrigan, the President and CEO of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council says that most small business owners also like to focus on providing quality work life to their employees.

00:02:10

Karen Kerrigan: They want to pay them well, they want to provide them with healthcare. They want to provide them with the best benefits that they can to retain their workers. Sometimes it's just very, very difficult, costly and expensive. That's why we're working on solutions to bring down the cost of healthcare and other benefits and making it much easier for these employers to provide the benefits that their employees deserve.

00:02:34

Andrea Marquez: When thinking about entrepreneurship, the word innovation also comes up. Karen says that 80% to 90% of patents are actually filed by small businesses.

00:02:44

Karen Kerrigan: When you look at the innovation and the competition and all the vibrancy, it is coming from individual entrepreneurs who have these great dreams and they're taking them to the marketplace.

00:02:55

Andrea Marquez: This is something that Kylie also points out.

00:02:58

Kylie Hwang: Entrepreneurial firms, and you're probably thinking about your typical Silicon Valley type of tech startups, have been really at the forefront of innovation and technological developments. They're the ones doing creative destruction. So that's also been a reason why entrepreneurship has been seen as so important to the economy and the society in general.

00:03:17

Andrea Marquez: And that leads us to another point, economic growth.

00:03:21

Karen Kerrigan: When you look at every sector of our economy, whether it's technology, agriculture, manufacturing, biopharmaceutical, energy, retail, it's all dominated by small businesses and the entrepreneurs behind those firms that are really helping to make our economy more vibrant and more competitive and viable.

00:03:41

Andrea Marquez: Kylie says that there's one more reason why entrepreneurship is important.

00:03:45

Kylie Hwang: Entrepreneurship in small businesses really provides opportunities for marginalized group members to actually find jobs and gain employment that would otherwise not have been possible for them and actually work and achieve financial success and independence.

00:04:03

Andrea Marquez: I'm really excited to dig into that. We've talked about this on previous episodes of This is Small Business, but when you see people who look like you succeed in something you want to achieve, like starting a business, it makes it seem more achievable. And Kylie says that marginalized individuals are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs because of two reasons. The first is because the barrier to entry is low.

00:04:27

Kylie Hwang: There are a lot of platforms that provide ways to become an entrepreneur more easily, a lot of online things that you could do, for example. So that's making marginalized individuals more likely to become entrepreneurs because it just lowers the barrier to go into entrepreneurship, compared to the old ages where you actually had to have more financial capital, social capital, et cetera.

00:04:48

Andrea Marquez: And the second reason is because becoming an entrepreneur is sometimes easier than finding a job.

00:04:54

Kylie Hwang: I think this can be generalized to a lot of populations. So research has found that immigrants or racial minorities or even mothers who face the motherhood penalty are more likely to become entrepreneurs because they find that traditional employment is hard to get or because the jobs that they get aren't satisfactory in a certain way.

00:05:14

Andrea Marquez: Kylie has done a lot of research on this. She mainly looks at how and why formerly incarcerated individuals become entrepreneurs.

00:05:22

Kylie Hwang: And the main reason behind this, there could be other reasons that are going on as well, but the main reason is really that it's difficult for them to find work. So they're going into entrepreneurship as an alternative way to overcome this discrimination that they face in the labor market.

00:05:36

Andrea Marquez: But it's not just formerly incarcerated individuals who turn to entrepreneurship to overcome discrimination.

00:05:42

Kylie Hwang: Other cases, which I mentioned like the motherhood penalty, recent research, which I haven't done myself, so I can't really speak to that research, but they've found that mothers who are more likely to face penalties, for example, in countries that have more biases towards women, they're more likely to engage in entrepreneurship as almost a plan B to employment. So I think, and this generalizes to immigrants and other marginalized populations. So it does seem to be that entrepreneurship is many times the route that people tap on when it's very difficult for them to find traditional work.

00:06:16

Andrea Marquez: And these entrepreneurs could end up benefiting their communities as well.

00:06:20

Kylie Hwang: So some of them were specifically working on products or services that were serving their communities or their local communities, and they also had some initiative going on within the company that was something about having more social impact. So I think that beyond job creation or beyond helping the focal individual who's the entrepreneur, there seems to be this spillover effect from having these marginalized group entrepreneurs who may be more likely to be open to hiring others and also being more socially impactful in their businesses as well.

00:06:56

Andrea Marquez: Okay, so clearly there's a lot of benefits to entrepreneurship. You get to create job opportunities for yourself and for your community, and you help the economy grow. And it doesn't hurt that it's becoming a lot easier to start a business because of all the resources out there. But if you want to get into entrepreneurship, it's also important to be aware of the challenges you might face so you're prepared to face them. Karen says that an ongoing challenge that a lot of small business owners face is inflation.

00:07:23

Karen Kerrigan: Many have not kept pace with inflation. So inflation was a very big concern of business owners over the last year or more. And hand in hand to that is just economic uncertainty. What is going to be happening in the economy? Is there going to be a recession? Is there going to be an economic slowdown or not? That uncertainty really affects confidence and their willingness to invest in their businesses.

00:07:48

Andrea Marquez: Karen also says that recently, a lot of small business owners have been struggling to find the labor they need to operate smoothly.

00:07:54

Karen Kerrigan: I think in our last survey, our small business checkup survey that we did, and business owners say the lack of skilled labor or labor was affecting their operating capacity.

00:08:05

Andrea Marquez: Another challenge is getting access to capital or finding funding.

00:08:08

Karen Kerrigan: And that is one of the other issues that has really been an increasing pain point for small business owners, particularly during the last year as interest rates were rising. So with higher interest rates, the cost of capital goes higher and makes it much more difficult for business owners to access the credit and the capital that they need to invest in their businesses, to scale their businesses, to operate their businesses.

00:08:35

Andrea Marquez: Another challenge that Kylie says could affect entrepreneurs is access to social networks.

00:08:40

Kylie Hwang: They lack the social networks to gain financial capital, gain ideas, et cetera, that are really important to be successful as an entrepreneur. So I think for this, and also connectedly, they also lack the human capital to actually found and succeed in a business, which can be really little things like general business knowledge, like bookkeeping, how to incorporate your company. But these things are things that they also lack in human capital, which also hinder them from being successful in founding or even after founding, that they are more likely to exit out because they were unsuccessful. So I think for social capital or human capital, I think things that could be done is that increases in perhaps training or incubators.

00:09:24

Andrea Marquez: Getting proper training is important for anyone who's trying to start a business. Karen says that a lack of preparation and training before jumping into entrepreneurship is the reason why some businesses fail.

00:09:35

Karen Kerrigan: Going into that endeavor with as much information as possible in order to succeed. So really, lack of preparation, lack of education, and I don't mean education in terms of college degree or a master's. I'm just saying educating yourself, right? Accessing the type of training and the skills that you need, financial management particularly, to grow that business.

00:09:59

Andrea Marquez: But Karen also says that small business owners have also been turning to technology to find solutions.

00:10:04

Karen Kerrigan: So we've seen small businesses really embracing technology. In fact, artificial intelligence, AI. It's really the fastest that I've ever seen small businesses embrace any type of technology. AI has just been extraordinary in what it has meant for many small businesses in terms of resolving some of these challenges that we just talked about.

There's been technology and tools that have come along to support entrepreneurs in their dreams, and the risk has become far less because of that technology and the barriers to entry and the costs have been greatly lowered because of technology, being able to find customers quicker, being able to advertise them more affordably, being able to launch the business without having to have a storefront or a brick and mortar, being able to do it on your own or with independent contractors.

So again, technology really has been an enabler of entrepreneurship, which given the reasons why people start businesses, has pushed them and encouraged them and allowed them to pursue these dreams.

00:11:12

Andrea Marquez: The digitization was really accelerated because of the pandemic. The pandemic also had other effects on small businesses.

00:11:21

Karen Kerrigan: In 2020, there was a massive boost in individuals that filed business applications. A lot happened during the pandemic that is driving this interest in starting businesses. Obviously digitization, people wanting more flexibility. There's more opportunity in the economy. There's been disruption in business models. Obviously the different types of technology that are coming online now, AI, AR, VR, they're all driving new business models and driving new entrepreneurship. So there's been a massive increase in people that are interested in starting businesses, and the business models has shifted as well. It's really an exciting time to be a business owner.

00:12:05

Andrea Marquez: So one of the things that I end up talking to a lot of entrepreneurs on the show is the drive behind wanting to do this because it's risky, but there's also a reward, right? So in your words, why do you think people should do it?

00:12:20

Karen Kerrigan: We've asked startup entrepreneurs this question over time, and for many, it's they want to be their own boss. The number one reason why most people start businesses is they want to be their own boss. They want control over their time. They do like the flexibility, particularly for many women entrepreneurs, they like that flexibility. That doesn't mean that they're working less. They might be working at 2:00 in the morning as opposed to three o'clock in the afternoon, but having that flexibility is very important. And then for many, they believe there's an opportunity in the marketplace and they can fill a need. They have a solution. They found a niche, and they're very passionate about that and wanting to make it happen.

00:13:09

Andrea Marquez: So if you've been considering starting a business...

00:13:11

Karen Kerrigan: I would say do it, but go into it with preparation, with the right information, with a sounding board. It could be friends, it could be family, it could be people who've started businesses themselves to check your ideas, help you check those ideas against market realities, really do your homework. And there's people that are out there that are willing to help you. The local business owner, local entrepreneurs, people online, organizations that have mentoring programs. You don't have to do this alone, and you shouldn't do it alone. Do it prepared and knowledgeable and knowing that it's going to be a grind, but also knowing that when you succeed, it's going to be well worth the risk and well worth the time and worth everything that you put into it.

00:13:58

Andrea Marquez: So being prepared and aware of the risks before you start a business is key.

00:14:02

Kylie Hwang: So I think for our marginalized group members who are seeking entrepreneurship, I do think that they have to spend some time to think really about what the business that they can actually be successful is, not just follow the crowd of who's going into entrepreneurship. And also seek out. I think there actually is a lot of non-profits and also policy help for marginalized group members these days. So I think they have to extend their networks to think more about how to get help specifically from non-profits that target marginalized entrepreneurs and try to go in with a bit more knowledge.

00:14:38

Andrea Marquez: I think that's an important piece of advice to end on regardless of your background, because a lot of the time, I think we romanticize entrepreneurship. And even though you do learn as you go, it's important to know what you're getting yourself into.

We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts.

That's it for today's episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Reach out to us at thisismallbusiness.amazon.com to tell us what you're up to, or let me know what you think of this episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard, I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you're ready for the next step, a super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy. Take the free Self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www. smallbusiness. amazon.

Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta Luego, and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 53: How a Small Business Owner Can Do More for Their Employees

Learn about what you can do for your employees.

Aside from a regular paycheck, what more can you do for your employees? And can going the extra mile for them really help your business' bottom line? Listen in to hear from brothers and founders of Mr. Tortilla, Ron and Anthony Alcazar. Their approach to business was formed at an early age, while watching their parents work hard with no buy-in. And then we’ll speak with Ludmila Praslova, PhD. Professor of Industrial Organizational Psychology, and author of The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work. "Imagine having to walk in shoes that are extremely big or way too small, way too wide, way too narrow," said Ludmila. "That's painful, that's not comfortable, …flexibility just makes sense."

In this episode you’ll hear:

(00:43) Why Mr. Tortilla wanted to take care of their employees

(03:26) How it’s good for business to prioritize a healthy workplace

(04:58) The bare minimum an employer could do for its employee

(06:40) The importance of flexibility and how to implement it into your company

(12:18) How to start a conversation with your employee about their needs

Key Takeaways

1 - There’s a business case for treating your employees well. Feeling safe, accepted, and valued is a part of our core psychological well-being. When employees don’t feel this way they can’t do their best work because they’ll waste their mental resources on negative feelings. Plus, good morale leads to less turnover.

2 - An employer owes their employees a bare minimum of fair treatment, and financial safety.

3 - A flexible work environment allows employees to work when they’re at their most predictive in a way that works for them. This doesn’t have to come at any cost to the employer and can lead to a healthier life for the worker.

4 - Talk to your employees about what constrains their productivity. Putting up barriers, simply because that’s how things are done unnecessarily makes life hard for some employees who don’t fit the mold.

5 - Normalize an intake form that asks questions about preferences and needs. This builds trust, which makes for better workplaces.

00:00:03

Andrea Marquez: I've heard so often on This is Small Business that connecting with people is a massive part of running a small business. There are customers, suppliers, lenders, the list goes on, but an absolutely integral item on that list is employees. What can you and what should you do for them beyond some of the basic expectations? How do you keep your workplace flexible enough to ensure you're attracting the best people, then enabling them to do their best work.

I'm Andrea Marquez and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be talking about how small business owners can create a healthy work culture for their employees. My first guest learned about that at an early age.

00:00:51

Anthony Alcazar: We saw how hard my parents worked their whole lives and they really didn't have much to show for it. They'd dedicated their lives to companies that they helped grow, and at the end of the day, it was just a job and dead edge and that's it.

00:01:03

Andrea Marquez: That's Anthony Alcazar. He and his brother Ron are the founders of Mr. Tortilla, a low-carb tortilla they created in a quest to make Mexican food healthier.

00:01:14

Anthony Alcazar: When me and Ron decided to talk about this business he said, “Listen, let's start a business where we make sure we take care of our employees that can grow with us and are with us and the company grows, they're taken care of.”

00:01:24

Andrea Marquez: So 10% of Mr. Tortilla's net profits go toward employee profit sharing, on top of sharing the wealth. They also wanted their approximately 40 employees to like going to work.

00:01:36

Anthony Alcazar: We said, “When we have our own factory, we want to make sure that the culture is right, that people love to come to work, that people get along, that no bullying happens, and there's just this work environment that people love.” That was super important for us.

00:01:48

Andrea Marquez: It was important to the brothers to differentiate themselves by having a higher quality product. They knew one of the best ways to do that was by having a higher quality workplace. Creating a culture of caring is integral to Mr. Tortilla's brand. It's a simple concept of being nice to their employees, but according to Ludmila Praslova, it goes a lot deeper than that.

00:02:10

Ludmila Praslova: I usually come to it from a human centric perspective where there is an absolute value in affirming the dignity of every human. But I realize that for many people it's also important to understand the business case perspective. From that perspective, when people are felt valued, when we experience the sense of belonging, we are well. It's a core of our psychological wellbeing to feel like we are with people where we can feel safe, accepted and valued. Otherwise, our mental resources are going to be consumed by anxiety, insecurity, looking behind our back, expecting the knife, and we're not going to be our best selves. We're not going to be performing at our best.

00:03:02

Andrea Marquez: Ludmila is a professor of industrial organizational psychology whose work really zeroes in on diversity and inclusion. She's written a book called The Canary Code, A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity and Intersectional Belonging at Work. Ludmila, can you tell me a little bit more about the financial benefits of prioritizing a healthy work culture?

00:03:25

Ludmila Praslova: If you have good morale in your organization, if you have employee loyalty, if employees stay, there's a tremendous cost just on notating turnover heading to rehire, retrain, which is extremely expansive. When people work on their best, they are significantly more productive. People who feel like they had input in developing what they do, they are heard, they're valued, also performed significantly better than people who feel like they're cogs in the machine, who have no control and no input into what is going on. When you add this together, it's a multiplication effect of treating people right on human productivity and human involvement. That's even before we get into things like organizational reputation and the word of mouth.

00:04:30

Andrea Marquez: It's true. Customers are more and more concerned about where their products come from, how they're made, and under what conditions the employees are working. That's also the case for prospective employees. It's common to do a bit of digging about the culture, not just around the job you'll be doing. Beyond making people feel valued and heard, what is the minimum responsibility you think that an employer has to an employee?

00:04:52

Ludmila Praslova: There is a bare minimum of social safety where you are treated properly, psychological safety, where you feel like you can participate, and financial safety. As a bare minimum, I think people need to get out of their jobs a life that doesn't hurt. That, unfortunately, doesn't always happen, but life that doesn't hurt means satisfaction of basic needs, appropriate levels of food and housing that doesn't cause suffering. Now, inspiring life is beyond that. When you want people to really be on their best, not just not suffering, but thriving, you really want to be able to give people ability to travel, have vacations, have sabbaticals, time for their creativity, time, and a little bit of financial cushion where they are building their future, where they're feeling confident about their future.

00:05:56

Andrea Marquez: As a creative myself, one of the things I value the most in wherever I'm working is a flexibility to be able to do my job and do it very well, but also have the time to have a life and pursue my career interests. I think even outside of work, those feed the work that I'm doing anyways. It's all interconnected and it allows my mind to be a little more at peace and I'm a little more happy. That's what flexibility and creativity does for me. Why it's important to me. Why do you think it's important to organizations on a larger scale?

00:06:29

Ludmila Praslova: Well, absolutely. Imagine having to walk in shoes that are extremely big or way too small, way too wide, way too narrow. That's painful, that's not comfortable, right? Why would we force someone to work in ways that hurt them and doesn't allow them to perform their best? Flexibility just makes sense.

00:06:57

Andrea Marquez: What does that look like?

00:06:59

Ludmila Praslova: Some people work best in 25 minutes, little break, 25 minutes, another little break, the Pomodoro way, for example. Other people need three to four hours of uninterrupted time to concentrate and be on their best. Why would you force someone into someone else's working reason? It's just like forcing someone to wear shoes that are completely nowhere close and expect them to perform well and run a marathon and win. They're not going to win if they're not supported in working in a way that supports them in their best. Doing work that is aligned with who we are, being able to maybe creatively tailor our responsibilities for job crafting and having flexibility in our schedule and where we work, not because it's a win, but because it actually makes us work better.

00:08:04

Andrea Marquez: If we're talking to a small business owner who's like, “Great, I'm on board. I want to do this.” How do they implement this into their small business?

00:08:13

Ludmila Praslova: It is going to depend on what your business goals are, what kind of skills you want. A more general answer is think about what you are trying to define your own business goals and then be open to more than one way that people can help you achieve that goal. Because sometimes we're stuck in this assumption that this is how I work and this is the only way to work. Just openness to the fact that there are many ways to get from point A to point B, and different people work best in different ways. That's a very good starting point. Then brainstorm with your people. You hired someone, maybe you just have one part-time employee, talk to that person. How can you bring out the best and what will help them to achieve? How can we just remove artificial constraints on their productivity? When you have your second and third employees talk to them what will help them to be on their best.

00:09:26

Andrea Marquez: Artificial constraints, that's such a great way of putting it. It's so important to reassess how we do things and wh. y Anthony Alcazar talks here about how they reassessed their hiring practices.

00:09:38

Anthony Alcazar: I knew what equal opportunity employment was, but I never really felt it. When I started going into retailers, different stores, I saw what equal opportunity employment meant, everybody. I saw adults with special needs be employed and how happy they were to work. I got the chance to get to know them and I told Ron, “This is what we have to do. We want to do this.” They're part of our team, a core part of our team. They do exceptionally well. They just needed an opportunity and they've excelled.

00:10:05

Andrea Marquez: That's a win-win situation and Ludmila expands on it.

00:10:09

Ludmila Praslova: Why would you leave out a huge percent of the population and a huge talent pool? Not hiring people who have some kind of difference doesn't make sense because most organizations accommodate the needs of parents without any kind of issues. Working students have needs and most organizations say, “Okay, we'll accommodate your schedule.” Just think about it as how do we enable their best performance. Then you stop thinking about, let's say, accommodations is something special that you do for people, but you are simply enabling humans to do their best work. Just like you allow parents to pick up their kids or students to take their tests.

I think we need a little bit of mindset adjustment. If you need to have quiet place to work because you need to concentrate, it just makes sense because you're going to do your best work. If someone needs instructions in writing and that is going to help them perform their best, why not? It's just a performance enabler. That's what those people understand and that's what allows them to create winning and high performing organizations.

00:11:28

Andrea Marquez: How do you go about having that conversation around what an employee needs? Do you start with the new hires or is it during the application process? What's the best way to do it?

00:11:37

Ludmila Praslova: If you have flexibility in onboarding and do you also get to know your people and to say, “How do you work best? Do you need a long period of time to concentrate or do you work in short spurts of time?” Really make a default across all people who work for you without singling anyone out. That is something that normalizes human differences and allows everyone to work on their best. You can build trust by allowing everyone to say, “Okay, this is what I need to perform on my best,” without even requiring them to disclose. Then if you build that trust, people might be much more comfortable also bringing those specific needs and differences to the manager's attention.

00:12:28

Andrea Marquez: Trust is always so integral, and Ron and Anthony showed us how to put all of that into action because if there's one thing I learned today, it's that healthy workplaces can often happen through minor adjustments.

00:12:40

Anthony Alcazar: One important thing is that we always have raffles every other week, and so we have prizes we give to our employees. We have a weekly meal where we vote, “You guys want pupusas? Do you guys want mole,” and we'll bring in for the employees.

00:12:52

Andrea Marquez: I love that. Who doesn't want some mole or pupusas? That was a lot of great information, so much to take in at one time, but don't worry, we've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts.

I hate to blow on our own horn, but we've had some great reviews come in lately and I wanted to share this one with you, Josh949 of somewhere in the great US of A wrote, “I love the podcast format. It tells small business stories while focusing on a main business topic. Andrea also does a great job summarizing the key takeaways at the end.” Thank you so much, Josh949. I really do appreciate it. I'd love to hear what you think. Please make sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com.

That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to You by Amazon. Make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez, Hasta luego and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 52: What You Need to Know About Audits

Learn about business audits.

00:00:01

Erick O. Bell: Really what an audit is is someone testing the work that someone else has done. So for example, take financial statements. Management is proclaiming that these financial statements are accurate and so the auditor's job is just to go in and make sure that that assertion that management has made is correct. At its simple form, that's what an audit is.

00:00:21

Andrea Marquez: Audits can sometimes be associated with fear and it's a scary process to go through for some businesses. And if you're starting your own business, you might be wondering if you should even get an audit and what that process looks like. I'm Andrea Marquez and This Is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today, we'll be digging into some things you need to know about audits with Erick O. Bell, an accounting professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and an active certified public accountant. And yes, we'll touch on the scary IRS audits too.

00:00:54

Erick O. Bell: Most small businesses should not need an audit. And so a lot of times, small businesses will come to me and they'd say, “We're interested in getting a loan and the bank says that we need to have an audit done. Can you do an audit of our financial statements?” And my response is, “No, I won't. I don't think that's what the bank really means when they say they need an audit done.”

00:01:17

Andrea Marquez: Before getting into academia full-time, Erick worked at multiple auditing companies. And now, in addition to teaching, he also runs an accounting firm where he does accounting and bookkeeping services for small businesses.

00:01:30

Erick O. Bell: And I just think as a business owner, you push back on that and say, “We don't want to incur the cost of having two years of audited financial statements. What information on our financial statements are you most interested in and can we have an independent accountant come in and give an opinion on our assertion of either how much revenue we've earned over the last two years, our statement of cashflow over the last two years?” And so it would be much less in scope than an audit.

00:02:01

Andrea Marquez: Erick's referring to an audit that's done in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant standards or AICPA standards. These audits can be pretty expensive, so it's great to hear that banks can be open to other ways to approve your loan. If you're a small business, you might not need an audit anytime soon if you're just starting out. But if you're planning on growing your business, then you might want to be prepared just in case.

00:02:26

Erick O. Bell: Once I'd say you've crossed maybe 5 million in revenues and now you're looking to get outside investors, you're looking to get multimillion dollar loans, it's at that point when you should be looking at hiring a auditor. And an auditor is an independent accountant and so these types of businesses will have their own accountants who's doing the work on a monthly, weekly basis. And then once a year or several times throughout the year, they will have a second set of accountants. The independent accountants come in and say, “Let's give an opinion on the work that's been done. Has it been done accurately?”

00:03:04

Andrea Marquez: So if you're trying to get an investor to grow your business or you're applying for a multimillion dollar loan, we'll dig into what the process looks like and how to do it. But first, let's talk about another type of audit, the IRS audit.

00:03:15

Erick O. Bell: An IRS audit is very scary and it happens very rarely. And so when the IRS is auditing companies, they're auditing their tax return. And the whole purpose of that audit is making sure that they've reported all the income that they've earned, so that they can apply the appropriate tax rate to receive the tax dollars that are due. So the IRS audit is separate. I think a lot of people have fear around it. As I was thinking about this yesterday, I was reminded of a time when I was at a barber shop.

This was probably 15 years ago and the barber said, “So Erick, what do you do? What's your job?” And I said, “Oh, I'm an auditor.” And the entire barber shop got quiet. Everyone was like, “Oh, man. We can't say anything around this guy.” And I said, “I'm not that type of auditor.” Most audits that are happening, they're not audits that are at odds with each other. An IRS audit, they are saying, “We believe you've under-reported your income and we're going to prove the opposite.” Whereas a typical audit generally is just you've made an assertion. Can we verify that that assertion is accurate?

00:04:27

Andrea Marquez: So when we're talking about the typical audit, it's not like they're here against you. They're just trying to be like, “These are the facts. We're just laying them out.” Versus the IRS audit is much more like, “Oh, you really have to have your stuff together.”

00:04:42

Erick O. Bell: Usually what happens in an audit is it was a mistake that was made and so there'll be additional taxes, there'll be interest that you have to pay for the unpaid tax and then if you've significantly underpaid, there'd be penalties associated with it. But in a normal audit, you get to pick who your auditors are. The company selects their auditors.

00:05:03

Andrea Marquez: And just to ease your mind a bit, in case you do end up getting an IRS audit, here's what the process might look like.

00:05:10

Erick O. Bell: I think that first, you get the letter from the IRS, is be responsive. And then at some point, you may consider hiring a tax attorney, someone who has experience with negotiating with the IRS.

And again, when we use this term, IRS audit, it's really more like an IRS agreed upon procedures. They're looking at a very specific aspect of your tax return. We see that you had $300,000 in revenue and you spent $100,000 in travel. Can you give us the receipts for those travel expenses? And so it sounds scary, but the reality is you just go to your credit card statements and pull up the receipts and say, “Here are my receipts for the $100,000 of training.”

Now, if $50,000 of that was trips back and forth to Vegas, they're going to ask some follow-up questions. And so to the extent that you did your best, it really isn't a overwhelming or scary process. It's just a back and forth asking for questions and you're providing responses.

00:06:13

Andrea Marquez: So now let's get back to talking about the typical audits. If you're planning on getting an audit, there's a few things you need to do. The first one is be organized.

00:06:23

Erick O. Bell: Hire an accountant or a bookkeeper, someone that can help you navigate the audit process. Small business owners are really good at doing what they do and you don't want to be distracted from your business's purpose by focusing on an audit.

00:06:39

Andrea Marquez: The second is be honest.

00:06:42

Erick O. Bell: Most auditors are not out looking for gotcha moments. That's not the goal. The goal is to be collaborative and to help you understand the accounting rules and this is when and how you should or could recognize revenue.

00:06:58

Andrea Marquez: And the third is know some key audit terms.

00:07:02

Erick O. Bell: So for example, one term is materiality. Auditors are testing for whether or not the financial statements are correct in all material respects, which means if you had a million dollars in revenue, it doesn't matter if there's the extra $1, 000 that did or did not make it on there. A million dollars in revenue is a million dollars in revenue. Different from $1. 2 million. Now that 0. 2 becomes a material number. And by materiality, it's what information in the financial statements would be significant enough to influence the decision making of a potential investor or creditor.

And then another key term, for example, would be audit adjustments. And this is just very standard and so this goes back to being honest and just understanding an auditor is going to come in and look at your financials and say, “You should have recorded this expense or you should not have recorded this expense, so what we're going to do is present you with adjustments that you can make to your financial statements that they will be correct.”

And so a lot of times, people get nervous, because they say, “We want zero audit adjustments.” And I always say, “That's not how it works. You're going to have audit adjustments. That's why you have a second set of eyes coming in and looking at it and not to get all worked up and not even make that a goal.”

00:08:22

Andrea Marquez: And the fourth and in my opinion, the most important thing to keep in mind when you're getting an audit is...

00:08:27

Erick O. Bell: Be nice to your auditors. Here's what I would explain to my clients. Say, “I need you to understand something. I just came from a place where they did not want me there and now I'm here and I know you don't want me here. And when I leave here, I'm going to go to another place where someone doesn't want me to be there, so let's just work together, make this as painless as possible. I'm going to send you a list of documents that I want to see and then I'm going to add to it based off of what I've seen. We'll just try and get through this as easy as possible.” That usually gets a chuckle out of them, but understand that we're just here to do our jobs and ultimately, it's to make your financial statements be reliable.

The whole purpose of an audit of financial statements is you can put those out to potential investors and creditors and say, “This information is reliable, because we did it and then we had someone else come in and they gave an opinion that says, ‘Yes, they did it right.’ ”

00:09:21

Andrea Marquez: That was Erick O. Bell, an accounting professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. This was such an informative conversation on audits. I love that Erick managed to make getting an audit less daunting. We covered a lot in this episode.

If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone, or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com.

Until next time, this is Small Business. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego and thanks for listening. This Is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 51: How a Patent Can Protect Your Idea

Protect your business idea.

Getting a Patent can be a complicated and expensive process, but it can protect your idea as you work on bringing it to market. Just ask Becca Davison, the CEO of UnbuckleMe, who got a patent early on in her small business journey. Becca explains how she came up with UnbuckleMe, why she decided to patent her idea early on, and what that process looked like for someone who was new to entrepreneurship. You’ll also hear from Colleen Chien, a professor at Berkeley Law School and the founder of the Paper Prisons and Diversity Pilots Initiatives. Colleen digs deeper into how a patent can protect your idea and breaks down everything you need to know before and during your patent application. Learn whether you should even get a patent, how you can protect your idea from copycats, and what the patenting process looks like.

In this episode you’ll hear:

(00:38) What is a patent?

(02:29) How Becca came up with UnbuckleMe

(05:28) The different types of Patents

(06:45) The process of filing a patent

(11:46) Why copycats can still show up even after you get a patent

(13:28) How to protect your idea from copycats

(14:41) The difference between copycats and competitors

Takeaways:

1 - Just because you can get a patent doesn’t mean you should. Colleen says that you should think about how it’ll benefit your business because a patent is expensive and the process could take a few years.

2 - If you’ve decided that a patent is the way to go, then you need to do a lot of research. First you need to find out if your product is novel and non-obvious by looking through existing patents and applications. You can look through online databases like the USPTO and Google Patents or you can hire someone to do it for you. Then you’ll have to decide whether you should get a design patent or a utility patent by figuring out what’s unique about your idea.

3 - If your budget is limited, the first step to the patent application could be filing a non-provisional patent. Colleen says that this patent acts as a placeholder for your idea and gives you 12 months to decide if you want to turn it into a full patent. A non-provisional patent or a pending patent application can also allow you to collaborate with manufacturers or do market research without being worried that someone might try to steal your idea.

4 - Unfortunately, having a patent doesn’t stop the copycats. But there are many ways you can protect your idea or product. Colleen suggests leveraging trademarks and copyright, and you can also try to broaden your patent claims like Becca did.

5 - Be open to healthy competition. It’s important to protect your idea from people who try to steal it, but there will be similar products on the market that will compete with yours. Instead of trying to take down every product that resembles yours, focus on making your product the best one on the market.

00:00:03

Andrea Marquez: There's a lot of benefits that come with getting a patent. It gives your product legal protection, it makes you look more marketable, and it lets potential investors, partners, and customers know that your product is unique and valuable. But a lot goes into applying for a patent. So where do you even start? When should you file a patent? And does a patent really protect your product from people who try to copy it?

Hi, I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today, we'll be breaking down everything you need to know about patents, whether you even need one, and the process of filing it.

00:00:46

Colleen Chien: A patent is a legal document granted by the government, in this case, the Patent and Trademark Office, that gives the owner the exclusive right to make, use, sell, import, and distribute their invention for a certain period of time. So what it is is it's not the right to practice your invention, but the right to exclude others from using or profiting from it without your permission. It's sort of like a fence. It keeps people away from your property, but you still need to commercialize your invention if you want to make money on it.

00:01:12

Andrea Marquez: That's Colleen Chien, a professor at Berkeley Law School.

00:01:16

Colleen Chien: Before I started teaching, I worked in patent law for several years, both as a patent prosecutor, writing patents, but also providing advice to businesses on their patent strategies. I've also worked in public service. I worked in the White House on patent issues. So today, I'm speaking in my own capacity, but I just wanted to let you know I've been around the block a bit when it comes to patents.

00:01:33

Andrea Marquez: Colleen is the person to go to for anything patent related. She'll be explaining the process and giving us insights throughout the episode. It's important for me to mention that none of the things mentioned on this episode should be taken as legal advice. We are here to provide with general information. So before you do anything, please see qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. The hiring of an attorney is super important, so don't make the decision lightly or based solely on anything we cover today on this episode or any other, for that matter.

So now, before we talk to Colleen, let's hear from Becca Davison, the CEO and founder of Unbuckleme, a small tool that helps unlock a child's car seat. Right now, Becca has six patents, so her idea is pretty original and unique. Before we get into why Becca has six patents, let's dig into how she came up with the idea. As most businesses do, Becca got into entrepreneurship, because there was a gap in the market that she could fill.

00:02:33

Rebecca Davison: I had my first daughter in 2015, and my mom graciously offered to help me out with childcare.

00:02:38

Andrea Marquez: But when she was showing her mom how to unbuckle her daughter's car seat, she realized that her mom lacked the strength to do it.

00:02:45

Rebecca Davison: And we kind of looked at each other and thought, “Well, if you can't unbuckle the car seat, you can't take my daughter safely out of the house. How are we going to solve this problem?”

00:02:51

Andrea Marquez: Her mom settled on spending time with her granddaughter at home. But as Becca's daughter got older, her mom started to realize that she was missing on key memories that she could be making with her granddaughter, so she relies on her experience as an occupational therapist to come up with a solution.

00:03:07

Rebecca Davison: She designed an adaptive tool that is just a C shape tool. It's very simple, and it uses leverage. So if you think of like an old fashioned nutcracker, it just wraps around the button, that's flat on the five point harness, and it applies leverage to make it 50% easier to unbuckle. And so, it was the difference for her of being unable to do it herself with her thumb pressure and some arthritis at the base of her thumb and then, applying some leverage with this tool. And she was very easily able to unbuckle it.

00:03:35

Andrea Marquez: And when Becca saw her mom's solution...

00:03:37

Rebecca Davison: I thought, “She can't be the only person on the planet that's having the same struggle, so let's sort of explore it and see if maybe we can start a business at this point.” So I think her first response was like, “Oh, I can make a few more for your friends.” But we quickly started thinking, “Well, maybe this product should exist in the marketplace for other people to be able to use.”

00:03:57

Andrea Marquez: The first thing that they decided to do was refine the prototype that her mom created.

00:04:02

Rebecca Davison: She spent her career making splints for patients with disabilities and making adaptive tools, using leverage and rubber bands and things like that. That's what her whole career was. So to use some leftover splint material, it's very pliable. It heats up, and you can bend and stretch it. And then, it hardens when it cools. And so, it's a perfect prototyping material actually, because you can just test different features.

00:04:21

Andrea Marquez: And they tested everything.

00:04:23

Rebecca Davison: I think we probably had, no joke, over 75 prototypes of just, “What if the lever arm was longer? What if it was taller? What if it was open wider?” At one point, I think my mom got screws or hinges. We were trying so many different things, thinking, “Well, if we're going to actually invest the money into bringing this to market, we'd better make it perfect.”

00:04:40

Andrea Marquez: And once they finally settled on a prototype that was up to their standards, they decided to get market feedback and research.

00:04:46

Rebecca Davison: I think that's a super important step for early entrepreneurs is to really validate your concept and your idea. So we went to a trade show. We talked to a lot of industry experts. We actually gave out a lot of samples to people and got feedback and said, “What would you change about it? And also, what would you pay for it?” And so, that feedback was super important, and having all those prototypes really helped us get a lot of feedback in the early days. We wanted a product that customers loved, and that was just the driving goal and it continues to be our driving goal. We want customers to be so happy with this product.

00:05:14

Andrea Marquez: Becca knew that she had to protect her idea before she went to market, so they filed for a provisional patent a few months after they came up with her idea. And if you don't know what that is, Colleen says that it's the first step to filing a patent.

00:05:28

Colleen Chien: A provisional patent is kind of a temporary application filed with the US PTO. It's inexpensive in the sense that you don't have it go through the entire process, and it's great, because it allows you to claim patent pending status on your invention for up to a year. When you go from provisional to non-provisional, you're basically entering the formal application process and starting the examination. And that's generally for a utility patent. And a utility patent protects these functional aspects of your invention. It's what most people think about when they talk about patents.

00:05:56

Andrea Marquez: And there's also other types of patents, like the design patent.

00:06:00

Colleen Chien: Which cover our new original and ornamental designs for articles of manufacturer.

00:06:04

Andrea Marquez: And even a plant patent.

00:06:06

Colleen Chien: For new and distinct plant varieties.

00:06:10

Andrea Marquez: So we've already mentioned that Becca's product was unique and original, which is a requirement for your idea to be patentable. But in order to find out if your idea is novel and non-obvious, you have to do a lot of research.

00:06:25

Colleen Chien: It's about looking through existing patents, published applications, and also just looking around in the field and trying to understand, “Has this idea been discussed before? Has it been put into a product or sold?” If it has, then you're not going to be able to patent that idea in that form anymore. You'll probably try to look for some of the more unique elements of what you're doing. So you can start with online databases, like the USPTO or Google Patents or you can hire a professional to conduct the search for you.

00:06:49

Andrea Marquez: But Colleen says that just because you can apply for a patent doesn't mean you should.

00:06:53

Colleen Chien: I think you always want to start with a business need and what the business purpose of the patent is. Patents are expensive to apply for, and then, going through the process can take several years. So if you are looking for some kind of thing that you can hold in your hand, negotiate with immediately, a patent is not typically going to serve that purpose.

00:07:12

Andrea Marquez: But if you decide that you do want to get a patent, there's a few things you need to do before you start the filing process. First, you need to figure out which patent to get.

00:07:21

Colleen Chien: Is it the design that's really unique and unusual about your product? Or is it really some idea or new way of doing things that you're bringing to bear?

00:07:30

Andrea Marquez: Then you have to think about which patent will fit within your budget.

00:07:34

Colleen Chien: You can still start by filing a non-provisional patent, which is kind of like a placeholder. It's a patent application, but it's a way to say, “This is my idea. I'm going to stake out this territory, and then, I'll decide whether I want to turn it into a full blown patent at the end of the year.”

00:07:49

Andrea Marquez: That's what Becca did when she first applied for her patent. She says that they were still refining their prototypes and trying to figure out what they wanted their product to look like. So they filed for a provisional patent.

00:08:01

Rebecca Davison: Which, in the US, gives you 12 months to continue to sort of iterate around the margin of your design before you submit a non-provisional patent that gets actually examined by the US patent office.

00:08:12

Andrea Marquez: And Becca says that they needed all the time they could get, especially since they were new to entrepreneurship.

00:08:18

Rebecca Davison: So it's going to take us four times longer than it could take anyone else to pop on the market tomorrow with this product. So we needed to sort of buy ourselves some time in a sense and make sure that we had protected our idea to give us time to go do the legwork and make sure, again, that we had the most perfect product and that we had designed it and marketed it in the right way that we wanted to.

00:08:34

Andrea Marquez: Colleen also says that filing for a provisional patent is a great way to protect your idea, if you're not going to be working on it alone.

00:08:41

Colleen Chien: Having that patent or even that patent filing in your pocket gives you the confidence to have those conversations and say, “Hey, let's work together on this, but I want to make sure my rights are respected.” And that can allow there to be a tradable asset for that patent-holder or that patent applicant, that then they can use to negotiate with the other parties to, again, bring this to market. And it just provides that trust and that sense of confidence that that patent applicant or patent-holder can bring into the process, that there is something outside of the negotiation that's protectable by the patent-holder.

00:09:13

Andrea Marquez: So just filing a patent application can give you some peace of mind. Having an early filing date can work towards your advantage, if someone tries to copy your idea, but a patent application doesn't give you immediate legal protection. You could only enforce a patent after the patent is granted.

00:09:28

Colleen Chien: That's why I always recommend that using non-disclosure agreements and other ways of withholding information if you need to are going to be smart ways to also protect your idea when sharing it with potential partners or manufacturers. But I think it's important to realize that patents, as much as they can be used to exclude others from copying your idea, they can also be used to include others in your process and collaborate with them in bringing your idea to market.

00:09:54

Andrea Marquez: Okay, so after you've done your research and verified that your idea is original, you can finally start filing your patent. We've already said that the first step could be to file a non-provisional patent. It'll protect your idea as you work on it. Then if you realize that your idea is gaining traction in the market, Colleen says it's time to convert that provisional patent to a non-provisional patent.

00:10:18

Colleen Chien: Once you're in that range of filing an actual application, you'll go back and forth with the patent office over several rounds, in most cases. Your application will be reviewed by an examiner, and then, there'll be a back and forth, some suggestions with ways you can amend or make your patent claim stronger. And then, hopefully, eventually, in about three quarters of the cases, you'll get your patent. Once you get your patent, you'll have that exclusive right to your invention for a set period of time. You can continue to pay maintenance fees and have your patent live out its full life to 20 years from the date of filing.

00:10:50

Andrea Marquez: And once you have your patent, the first thing you should do is celebrate.

00:10:55

Rebecca Davison: I think we have a video of my mom and I popping champagne, and we were like, “We have the patent. It's so exciting. It's great. Everything's going to be good now.”

00:11:02

Andrea Marquez: Until someone tries to copy your product.

00:11:06

Rebecca Davison: I think what really surprised us was seeing some of the competitive products that popped up that looked identical to ours, but perhaps had just changed the smallest of details, things that were so nuanced and specific, that doesn't change the function of the product at all, but it was just copying our idea with a small tweak, but then, they could sort of use that language to say, “Well, they said that the top arm was longer than the bottom.” So you sort of get into this song and dance of what words you've included in your claims. And that was shocking to me, because I thought, “Well, what do you mean? This is the identical product. They've just taken the smallest interpretation of words.” And I do believe you can take someone to court, and you can say, “This is basically the same thing,” and you can make all those arguments. But we didn't have the resources to do that.

00:11:47

Andrea Marquez: Copycats can still exist, even if you have a patent. Colleen says that it's important to remember that a patent protects the idea, not the expression of the idea in terms of product.

00:11:58

Colleen Chien: So you can have a patent over a particular aspect of a product, and if the copycat doesn't copy that particular aspect, but copies other parts, then it will still bear a resemblance potentially to the original item that's being sold. So that would be a situation where I would consider it to potentially be uncomfortably close, even though it's not infringing.

00:12:19

Andrea Marquez: There are still ways to protect your product, like leveraging trademark and copyright.

00:12:24

Colleen Chien: Are they trading on your brand or copying some aspect that identifies you to the consumer? That could be a trademark violation. If they use your exact words or a source code, that could be a copyright violation. Notably, with copyright, you don't have to file for it. It automatically exists. So even if you haven't filed for formal protection, you can still register your copyright. You might have a copyright claim. You can go through process to apply for a trademark, even after you've been putting it in use or you intend to use it.

00:12:53

Andrea Marquez: We can't stress enough the importance of getting the right kind of help.

00:12:57

Rebecca Davison: I definitely recommend anybody going down this path to work with an IP attorney, because they are very familiar with this process and how to craft your claims in a way that broadens your coverage as much as possible. And I think patents are so important to small businesses, because we don't have the big resources of big corporate companies. So the patents that we do have have given us a bit of a moat to succeed and have been really critical to our success.

00:13:20

Andrea Marquez: It's also important to remember that there is a difference between copycats and competitors.

00:13:25

Rebecca Davison: I don't mean to come across and say that we don't welcome competition, because I do think, if people come up with new ways of doing things that are different, I think that's fair game. And I would argue that we were probably not the first. There was another tool on the market before us, and we saw it and it didn't work for my mom. And so, we aren't the first either. So I do think that there's a healthy space for innovation.

00:13:45

Andrea Marquez: So it's important to be open-minded about the competitive landscape. There can be healthy competition.

00:13:51

Rebecca Davison: And I think that's hard sometimes for entrepreneurs to recognize is they want to be very territorial about their invention, but you're solving a problem. You're going to find your target market. You're going to find those people that really, really want your product and really resonate with your story, and that's really all you need to focus on is how to succeed and how to make your business succeed. I think some of the legal stuff can be distracting, and if you focus too much on competitors, I think it can take your focus off what really matters, which is your own business and how to grow it.

00:14:21

Andrea Marquez: I'm so glad Becca pointed that out. Protecting your idea is important, but don't get too lost in the legalities of it all. That time is better spent on improving your business, and if you're considering getting a patent, Colleen says that right now is the perfect time to do it.

00:14:36

Colleen Chien: I think there's been a realization that we really need all ideas to be out there and to come to market as much as possible. And good ideas can come from many places, and I think, for small business owners, there may be that desire to ensure that your invention, if you're putting out in the world, it can be something that you can control to some degree. And that's what a patent can help you do.

00:14:55

Andrea Marquez: I think anything law related and business could get a little overwhelming, but Colleen and Becca did a great job in simplifying the process and explaining what a patent is. We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry, we've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business brought to you by Amazon.

Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com to tell us what you're up to, or let me know what you think about this episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard, I hope you'll share this with anyone else who needs to hear this. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you're ready for the next step, a super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www. smallbusiness. amazon.

Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 50: Why Public Relations Matter

Learn about public relations for your business.

Accidents happen, we make missteps, sometimes our brands are tarnished. So how do we prepare for the inevitable and mitigate impact? Indya ‘Icy’ Wright, the Founder and CEO of Artiste House, a PR firm that prioritizes diversity, inclusivity, and representation, has some answers. According to Wright, “all we can do is try to minimize the results of what happened, rectify it, and if things go well, move forward.”

In this episode you’ll hear:

(02:35) How do you figure out what your story is?

(05:22) How do you determine which issues to take a stance on publicly?

(07:52) You never know when a crisis will strike, how do you prepare?

(08:27) After a crisis, how do you deal with the potential loss of business?

Takeaways:

1 - Your story is one of the most important assets you have. Make sure you know what it is. Then create your content around what you have to say. We connect with the people behind the brand, so don’t be shy.

2 - Before you invest in public relations (PR), know what your goals are. If it’s improving invisibility, say yes to as many opportunities as you can. One of the few exceptions is if the offering brand’s values doesn’t align with your own. Another is creating controversy for attention’s sake.

3 - Being true to yourself and your brand will help you decide when and if you want to take a vocal stand on issues. Tap into who you want to serve and what matters most to you.

4 - If you find yourself in the middle of a PR nightmare, bring in crisis management. You’ll need to assess impact, take accountability and most importantly, outline actionable steps toward preventing the same thing from happening again. Another smart step is having a crisis management plan in place before you need it.

5 - PR crises are inevitable. No matter how well loved you are or how careful you are, missteps happen. Plan for it. And remember, the customers who stick with you through the hard times are the ones who are truly invested in you and your brand. Once you know who they are, you can focus your messaging to them.

00:00:01

Andrea Marquez: Whether you're just starting your business or you're well into your entrepreneurial journey, one thing's for sure: your public image matters. But how do you build and maintain that? If you're not sure how to manage your brand's public relations, or PR, then this episode is for you.

I'm Andrea Marquez, and this is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today, we'll be talking about PR, how to get started and things to keep in mind for you and your business.

00:00:30

Indya Wright: When you think of smaller businesses or even just different nonprofits, they can invest in a public-relations agency nine times out of ten, and then the work that they're doing gets ignored and then they can't raise funds for the important causes that they serve. And so I love being able to provide that service, a quality service, but prioritizing the people that otherwise get ignored.

00:00:51

Andrea Marquez: That's Indya Wright, the founder and CEO of Artiste House, a PR firm that prioritizes diversity, inclusivity and representation. Indya has been working in PR since she was just 14 years old.

00:01:05

Indya Wright: Being a DC native, I was in something called the Summer Youth Employment Program, so I've got to see firsthand creatives doing their projects, advocates doing their projects... I've always been in this field and didn't realize it.

00:01:17

Andrea Marquez: Indya eventually worked in banking and the legal sector, but those early experiences stayed with her.

00:01:24

Indya Wright: And while in my free time I was amplifying the work people were doing, I never considered that something that could be a career for me. But I finally had this random aha moment after quitting my job at the Superior Court. Like, “Okay, what next?” Because I had no backup plan, no money saved at all. My first thought was to tell my story.

00:01:45

Andrea Marquez: And two weeks after quitting her job, she ended up in Chicago, telling her story to Mark Cuban and Steve Harvey on Steve Harvey Show.

00:01:54

Indya Wright: They gave me a seed of a thousand dollars with the caveat that this money has to go towards your dream, and honestly, I did not know what my dream was, what my thing was, and so I just went back to doing what I did best in my free time: amplifying people. But what happened from that public exposure was that people that had the budget to invest found me, hired me to help tell their stories, and so that's honestly how my company was born.

00:02:20

Andrea Marquez: So Indya knows from experience how important PR is, because telling her story is how she managed to start her own business. But before you can get your story out there, first you need to figure out what your story is and incorporate it into your brand.

00:02:36

Indya Wright: Everything you do, consider the story you want to tell, and that's going to reflect in the content you share online, where your product or service is available, the people you serve. That all ties to the story of your brand. When you think about PR, what I find is a lot of small businesses think, “Oh, I'm not there yet. I don't have the sales. I don't have the client base. I don't have this. I don't have that.” All this imposter syndrome kicks in. But the reality is it really, truly is about the story, and more often than not, people are more interested in the people behind the brand than the brand itself. It's less about the product or service, more about the person and the mission, and I feel like that's across the board. Any industry, any brand, any goal. Who are you serving? Why are you serving them? I feel like that's the hook that makes things newsworthy.

00:03:25

Andrea Marquez: Once you've answered these questions, Indya says that the first thing you should focus on when you're trying to amplify your brand story is building community.

00:03:33

Indya Wright: They become your biggest supporters, your audience, your fan base. They continue to help amplify the news that you generate for yourself. So I definitely think any business, any size, big or small, should start with community-building and nurturing their desired audience.

00:03:47

Andrea Marquez: Indya also says that you need to consider what your goals are before you invest in PR. And if your goal, like most small businesses, is to make sure everyone knows who you are, then you need to say yes to as many opportunities as you can.

00:04:02

Indya Wright: I feel like in the beginning, the more visibility, the better. The one exception to that is if that brand's values completely are not aligned with your own. Then it makes sense to not want to introduce yourself to their audience. But if it's just a random preference thing, “I don't think my audience is here,” you never know who may take interest in your brand, in your product. There's different facets to everyone.

00:04:29

Andrea Marquez: And there's one more reason to say no to an opportunity.

00:04:32

Indya Wright: There are some PR agencies that believe in using scandal to get the community talking. Personally, in my career, I would never advise a client to do that. I do not believe all press is good press. I prioritize the mission and the importance of what they do.

00:04:50

Andrea Marquez: I think it's so important that Indya pointed that out, so I'll say it again: not all press is good press. Visibility is important, but you need to make sure that you're reaching the right audience. Indya talked about how storytelling and community- building are important. People connect to the story behind the brand, and we see that when customers get upset if their favorite brand doesn't comment on an issue that they feel is important. So how do you figure out when to enter a conversation? Indya says that it all depends on how your brand is positioned.

00:05:21

Indya Wright: So if it's a situation where you're just being true to yourself, true to your brand, and you've been mission-based at the onset of creating this brand, it's not out of place for you to be vocal. So I think it depends on what means most to you. Is it about being accessible to everyone, or are you not afraid to niche down and really tap into who you want to serve and what matters most to you?

So, for example, let's say it's a major bank, a bank that serves clients nationally, globally. They may want to stay out of the conversation. They may want to stay quiet. It really has nothing to do with the clients they serve, the work that they do. But there may be, let's say, a small minority-owned bank whose community is impacted by something happening in the world. It may be important for them to be vocal about it because the people they serve may be waiting to hear from them.

00:06:10

Andrea Marquez: And if you end up with a PR nightmare on your hands, that's when you turn to crisis management.

00:06:15

Indya Wright: The first step would be assessing the impact, what was said, and then taking accountability for that. And then also the biggest piece to crisis management that puts clients, customers, viewers, at ease: you always have to outline actionable steps that you will take going forward, because an apology is just words. People want to see how you're going to prevent something like this from happening going forward. You have to be vocal. You have to display actionable steps. Otherwise, people will feel like you're not taking the crisis seriously, and it really hurts public trust.

00:06:49

Andrea Marquez: So assess the impact, take accountability, and lay out actionable steps to show your customers that this won't happen again. But that's a lot harder than it sounds, especially if you need to address a crisis as quickly as possible. So Indya says that having a crisis-management plan before a crisis happens is essential, no matter how big or small your business is.

00:07:11

Indya Wright: Who do we contact when crisis strikes? Who's going to be the front-facing spokesperson when crisis strikes? Who's going to approve the messaging to make sure we're all in agreement? And how soon do we respond to this crisis? The best course of action is to stay ready so you don't have to get ready. Have a crisis plan. Even if you're at a place in your career where you can't invest in full-time public relations, or crisis management, you can reach out to a PR firm to say, “Hey, we would like help developing a crisis-management plan just in case so that we have this.” That's another affordable option as well.

00:07:43

Andrea Marquez: Do you think every crisis can be navigated? Because I think about this a lot when I'm on social media. I'm like, “What can they do?”

00:07:52

Indya Wright: All you can do is mitigate impact. Unfortunately, even the best of professionals in the communication space, we cannot completely prevent or protect people from crisis. All we can do is try to minimize the results of what happened, rectify it, and if things go well, move forward. That's the result of good crisis management. It's reflecting, adapting, and potentially moving forward.

00:08:20

Andrea Marquez: I know hearing this is scary, that it's impossible to get it right, but the plus side is that staying true to your values can be good for business.

00:08:28

Indya Wright: There's never going to be a perfect answer, a perfect solution for anything. There never will be. And I think honestly, there's peace in realizing that that's okay, because when you potentially lose part of your audience or potentially lose clients or lose supporters, they weren't aligned with you and your brand. And I think the key to being profitable, the key to building brand awareness, the key to getting out there, is making sure people that are really invested in you and what you're doing find you. And I think by weeding out those that aren't, it makes it easier for you to really hone in on the messaging for your audience.

00:09:06

Andrea Marquez: That was Indya Wright, the founder and CEO of Artiste House. Ending on a positive note, even though I hope none of us have to go through a PR crisis, I feel a little more comfortable knowing what steps I should take in case that happens.

We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to You by Amazon.

Make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode, and please, please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com.

Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by Jar Audio.

Ep. 49: Do You Have What It Takes to Own Your Own Business?

Learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

If there's one thing we’ve learned over the many episodes of this show, it’s that owning and operating your own business is hard. You have to overcome challenges you didn’t even know existed. Thinking of becoming an entrepreneur or you’re wondering if you should stick it out? We have Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts, scholar, speaker and consultant, who studies the science of maximizing human potential, to guide us through. “I do think for every market need, for every human desire, there is an entrepreneur who is inspired and equipped to meet that need and to help for people to connect with that desire”And Pamela Wirth, of Hello Health, will share what she’s learned on her path to entrepreneurship. Learn from an expert and those who have been there!

In this episode you’ll hear:

(03:49) Why connecting with others is one of the most important traits of an entrepreneur(05:23) What qualities you need to be an entrepreneur

(08:17) If you can't go all in on your business because you need the financial security of a 9 to 5, how else can you start your business journey?

(10:24) How do you start a business if you have too much on your plate?

(12:56) An entrepreneur is also a leader, so what qualities do you need to be a great leader?

(15:38) What are some hurdles that entrepreneurs might have to overcome when they're thinking about starting a business?

(18:45) What are some of the qualities you need to help you get through the tough times?

Takeaways:

1 - As an entrepreneur you need to be able to connect with people, whether that’s customers or employees. Running a successful business requires identifying your market then meeting people’s needs. Look to fill a gap in the market or even better yet, create a new one.

2 - Think long and hard about your ability to manage risk and then how to work within your parameters. You can start small while still working full-time, and grow incrementally while continually assessing the risk. Your business doesn’t need to be all or nothing.

3 - If you are already feeling maxed out with what’s on your plate, think of ways to build a business around what you’re already doing. Your business can be an extension of the knowledge you have and the work being done.

4 - As an entrepreneur, you’ll need to be a leader. A big part of that is understanding what motives some people may not motivate others. Be flexible and agile in your leadership.

5 - Play to your strengths. Figure out what only you can bring to the table. Once you know what you’re good at, continue to develop those skills by asking for feedback then leverage that in the business you are creating.

6 - You don’t have to have all the answers before you start. Be open to listening and learning along the way. While it’s good to learn from the mistakes of others, you are also free to do things differently.

7 - Having passion and commitment will get you through the tough times. Because there will inevitably be some. Pay attention to the good times in order to keep finessing what you’re doing.

00:00:04

Andrea Marquez: Hi, this is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. I started this podcast because I wanted to learn more about small businesses and how entrepreneurs do it. Through my many conversations, what stands out is the dedication, the drive, the commitment and unwavering conviction it takes to do this, to be an entrepreneur.

But of course, there's more to it than that. Running your small business requires so many hacks. That's why I truly believe this is one of the most important conversations that needs to be had early on in your journey. Do you have what it takes to start and run a business of your own?

For this episode, we're going to explore this question and look at how to prepare yourself for taking the leap and opening your own business. And if you've already done so, you'll hear tips for hanging in there. To dig into this question, I have organizational psychologist and consultant, Laura Morgan Roberts. But first, let's hear from Pamela Wirth Barnhill, who like many entrepreneurs, has seen her share of struggles.

00:01:15

Pamela Wirth Barnhill: I had to sell a car and spend an incredible amount of money getting to where I'm at.

00:01:19

Andrea Marquez: She's the CEO and founder of Hello Health based in Arizona.

00:01:24

Pamela Wirth Barnhill: Hello Health is supplements for brain, gut and immune health, as well as we are very shortly in early 2024, rolling out cost-effective lab testing for brain, gut and immune disorders. We're going to also be introducing more of a community because a safe place to be able to connect with others is really important, and so that's a big priority of ours.

00:01:46

Andrea Marquez: Long before Hello Health, Pamela knew at her core that she was an entrepreneur, but she didn't know where to direct that energy until her son got sick.

00:01:54

Pamela Wirth Barnhill: Around the age of five and a half, six years old, started baby talking, crawling eyes, constantly dilated, devoid of all emotion, would wash his hands 30, 40 times a day, would enter and exit rooms in a certain manner. He had shoulder shrugs and eye tics and head mannerisms.

00:02:10

Andrea Marquez: After multiple trips to different doctors and diagnoses that didn't quite fit, Pam finally found a treatment plan that made sense to her.

00:02:18

Pamela Wirth Barnhill: And the doctor says, “So we need to fix his gut.”

00:02:21

Andrea Marquez: It wasn't easy, but Pamela stuck to it, and her trouble accessing the tests and knowhow in supplements needed to help heal her son is what started her on her path to opening her own business. You are not the first person who has been given a diagnosis for a loved one. You not only went through this whole journey, you took it a step further and decided to do something about this. When did you feel confident to pursue this particular idea?

00:02:48

Pamela Wirth Barnhill: I totally had imposter syndrome for years. I probably had this idea for three or four years before I actually started acting on it, and it just kept eating at me because I kept talking myself out of it and I was like, “Oh, it's going to be too expensive. It can take too much time. How are we going to do this? Am I really good enough? Well, there's already brands out there. Well, they don't exactly do this, so maybe I should.” There was nothing out there that was really talking to me where I was at, and I figured if there's nothing talking to me, there must be a hole talking to others too.

00:03:21

Andrea Marquez: I think this is a golden ticket for starting a business. Life leads you to a gap in the market, which plants an idea that just won't go away. And it's interesting that Pamela is saying nothing was speaking to her where she was at. It's something our next guest finds incredibly important. Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts is scholar, speaker and consultant working within the social sciences. She says the ability to connect is one of the most essential traits of an entrepreneur.

00:03:49

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: For many people, it's the socio emotional skills, to be able to connect with others. We say this phrase all the time, it feels passe at this point, but meet people where they are. I think that practice is paramount for any leader. It's also paramount for any entrepreneur, a small business owner. You have to understand what kinds of needs people have when they're coming as a member of your team, when they're coming as a client or a customer of your business and the unique strengths and skills that you bring that can help to meet whatever need they have in that moment.

00:04:32

Andrea Marquez: Okay, understanding people's needs and then meeting them is foundational in small business ownership. But is there such a thing as the ideal entrepreneur?

00:04:41

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: I don't think that there is an ideal entrepreneur across the board. I do think for every market need, for every human desire, there is an entrepreneur who is inspired and equipped to meet that need and to help for people to connect with that desire. So as long as you know what market you're trying to support, that you're trying to engage, that you're trying to ignite and activate, you can become an entrepreneur who will be best equipped to serve them.

00:05:18

Andrea Marquez: So understanding the market you're entering is essential, but what sort of qualities do we need?

00:05:23

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: Let's start with your capabilities. What is it that you can do very well that would help you to develop the product or service that would be of interest, that would be of need to other people? I'd start there. If you don't have the capability, it's not a deal breaker. In my area of business, which is consulting, coaching, strategic advising, I can invest in developing my skills and my expertise in that domain so that I can then provide high quality services to others. But it's pretty hard to build a business if you don't have some level of expertise and you've not invested some time and effort into cultivating or refining your skill set.

00:06:06

Andrea Marquez: Right. You need to have the skills to be able to offer top service. What else?

00:06:11

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: The secret sauce is finding a way to design or deliver a product or service that is not already available in the marketplace. It's not about replication. It's not about imitation. It's really about embracing what is distinct, authentic and unique about your vision and your approach, and learning how to align that with the market's needs. Even better, creating a new market that doesn't already exist, but aligning that around your ability to differentiate.

00:06:45

Andrea Marquez: Don't be afraid to stand out. Here's what Laura would say to someone that asks, “Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?”

00:06:52

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: I would say, what are your priorities and what is your risk profile? It's less about whether you have what it takes and more about what you're willing to give or give up on the path to entrepreneurship.

00:07:12

Andrea Marquez: So earlier, we heard Pamela talk about having to sell her car in order to raise funds. So Dr. Morgan Roberts, how do we determine this? How would I determine if I'm willing to do what it takes to be an entrepreneur and use me as an example?

00:07:29

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: I would love to. What would it take for you to become an entrepreneur? Is there anything in your life that you would have to change, modify, alter, sacrifice in order to pursue entrepreneurship?

00:07:47

Andrea Marquez: I feel like for myself, I would probably have to quit my current corporate 9-5 job. And I say this because I know that a lot of people have side hustles. However, I am a primary caretaker for a sick relative, my mother, and I also do a lot of extra things for my family. So since I'm not willing to sacrifice helping my family, I would need to sacrifice my 9-5 job, which would then come with, “Well, then how am I going to get paid?” Right?

00:08:17

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: And for most people, that is the trade-off. It's the financial security. It's the need to be able to provide for oneself and to provide for one's family. That feels like a big barrier in pursuing entrepreneurship. The phrase you used was going all in. I would suggest perhaps starting small and letting something grow. That would be the first piece, that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing overnight radical change or shift.

The way that our economy is currently structured, technology provides so many helpful platforms that will allow us to grow and develop in our business ventures in smaller increments. It doesn't have to be the all or nothing venture that it used to be when someone invented something in their garage or their basement and then they were selling it out of the trunk of their car. We have platforms that can help to support in the vendor process. We have technology that can help to manage our communications and PR. We have social media that can help to send out messaging and promotions about the work that we're doing that can provide more efficiency in our entrepreneurship.

So the massive sacrifice of cutting the tether and setting sail is quite large, and it's a privilege for many people to be able to dive all in in that way. Or you have to have a really high risk profile like, “I believe in my idea, this is going to pay off and here goes, it's all or nothing.” That's why we use the phrase, ‘Going for broke.’ That's what it means to go for broke, but I think the vast majority of entrepreneurs and small business owners are growing their businesses and their ventures incrementally and not taking that all or nothing approach.

00:10:18

Andrea Marquez: Right. Start small. But how do you make it work if you already feel maxed out?

00:10:24

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: Synergy. This has been huge for me in my work. As I mentioned, I am someone who still has a full-time job and therefore my business ventures have always been part-time by necessity, because as a full-time professor, I have obligations. I have student needs. I'm also an active researcher and writer. So there are lots of things that I do that help me to be much more impactful and responsive in my business, but it's part of my full-time profession.

So how does the work that I do in my day job as a researcher, as a professor help me as an entrepreneur? For me, it's understanding the needs of the market, finding different ways to speak to people and to help to support and address their needs outside of the proverbial ivory tower, outside of higher education. There's so many other people on the planet who are asking these same questions about leadership, who want resources, who are hungry for this information and knowledge. They don't want to read the textbook version of it, right?

But they want somebody who can translate for them the cutting edge latest insights in a way that is rigorous, relevant and relatable. And that's where synergy comes in. So I will come back to you and say, you don't have to answer this now, but some things to ponder would be what is it that I'm already doing that I focus a lot of time and energy on that I'm able to offer, to provide, to engage in the context of my full-time work or conversely, outside of work, the things that I'm doing as a caregiver, the things that I'm doing in my community and with my friends? Are there ways that I can take the activities that I'm already involved with, I'm already invested in, I've been cultivating my skills and my capabilities? And perhaps use that to help to fuel some of my entrepreneurial ventures and then build out from there.

00:12:42

Andrea Marquez: Great pieces of advice. Thank you. And let's say your small business evolves from a side hustle to something bigger with employees, you're a leadership consultant. What are some key characteristics of a great leader?

00:12:56

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: I think one struggle and challenge is assuming that what works for you, works for everyone else. What lights you up will light up everyone else. What motivates you, motivates everyone else. You may love happy hours after work as a way of bonding with other folks in your organization. I guarantee you there are one or two people who would rather not engage in happy hours, but go along with it because they want to be supportive of the team. And there may be one or two that feel really uncomfortable with that and would much rather connect over a coffee, a tea, or a community service project.

So assumptions about what motivates us, what helps us to feel more connected and engaged. They're often based on our own limited experience. And as we grow older, as we gain more exposure, as we encounter people from diverse backgrounds with diverse life stories and a unique set of needs, we realize that we can't use a one-size-fits-all strategy for leadership. We have to be more flexible, we have to be more agile.

00:14:14

Andrea Marquez: What else do you think people should be thinking about before starting a business of their own?

00:14:18

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: So one of the practices that I encourage on a daily basis involves playing to your strengths. So thinking about how I show up as my best selves in any environment means I'm actively engaging my strengths. I'm doing the things that I do well. I'm trying to learn how I can be even better in those areas and how I can utilize my strengths to connect to other people's needs and to create new marketplace opportunities.

So if one of my strengths is public speaking, then I'm looking for new opportunities to be able to utilize my voice in settings with audiences that would appeal to my message and to the work that I'm bringing. I'm also trying to get more feedback on public speaking, which aspect of the talk, of the speech, of the story, of the message resonates most so that I can continue to grow in that area. All these are different ways to be able to tap into one small strength and leverage that as a signature feature of my own business.

00:15:31

Andrea Marquez: What were some of the hurdles you were up against? What did you not fully realize until you had some experience under your belt?

00:15:39

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: When I first started as an entrepreneur, I had two things that were really holding me back. One, I thought I had to have all the answers. I had to be the authority, I had to be the expert, and who was I at 30 years old to be the authority on much? Right? I hadn't had a lot of lived experiences at that time, and I was advising and supporting people who were older than I was, who were more experienced than I. I had to figure out how I could bring value to that engagement in a way that wasn't predicated on me having to prove that I was the smartest person in the room. I thought I had to be perfect. I wasn't always able to just lean back and enjoy the moment and listen to what everyone else had to teach me that ultimately helped me to build a better business.

The second fallacy or mistaken assumption I had was I had to do it like everybody else. I'm in this business of leadership development and consulting, and I'm very fortunate. I have been mentored by, supported by some of the most brilliant, kind-hearted people in the world who do this work, and it was so intimidating to sit back and watch them leading their businesses. So you try to imitate and borrow a little bit of what this person is doing, a little bit of what that person is doing, but ultimately, you miss out on developing your own brand. It's really about finding your own path to unique value creation that gives you joy and fulfillment in life.

00:17:35

Andrea Marquez: I love that. Don't aim for perfection. Do your homework and believe in your abilities, and then do what you do best. Play to your strengths. And let's bring Pamela back for a minute before we go. We've talked a lot about the skills needed to be an entrepreneur. Pamela, was there ever a moment when you thought about giving up?

00:17:56

Pamela Wirth Barnhill: Yeah, there were a couple of times where I had people saying, “Hey, this next critical step is going to get real expensive. Are you sure you're in?” I was like, “Okay, here we go.” I've been working full-time through this too. I have not taken any outside investment as much as I've wanted to. I had someone offer me $ 250,000 for half of the company, and that was super tempting. But then at the end of the day, half the company is a lot. And then if you ever did want to take outside investment, again, there's practically nothing left. I'm on this current path where I am slowly growing with intention so that it doesn't break.

00:18:30

Andrea Marquez: It's nerve-wracking to put so much money, time and effort into something that isn't a sure thing. So here's what Dr. Morgan Roberts thinks, keeps people going when the going gets tough and there's so much uncertainty.

00:18:44

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts: Some degree of passion, some commitment, something that's just going to give you the elbow grease to take an idea, take a dream, take a product, a service and keep working with it, keep growing in that area, keep finessing it, bounce back from the feedback that you get. Learn from the rejection along the way. Pay attention to the moments when your business is really booming and the times when things are a little more quiet and try to learn from all of that. If you hold fast to the passion, you remain dedicated to your vision for impact, and that's really important to keep you going as well.

00:19:27

Andrea Marquez: That was an invaluable conversation. I hope this inspires a lot of entrepreneurs who may feel blocked from taking the next step. As we heard, sometimes it's about starting small, being unique, playing to your strengths and really connecting with people. Be authentic in who you are and what you have to offer. Look for the gaps in the market and fill them in a way that only you can.

So do you have what it takes to be a small business owner? There's only one way to find out. We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. Reach out to us at thisismallbusiness@ amazon. com to tell us what you're up to, or let me know what you think of this episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard, I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe you already have your business up and running and you're ready for the next step, a super valuable resource that can help is the Amazon Small Business Academy. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www. smallbusiness. amazon.

That's it for today's episode of This Is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta Luego , and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 48: Business Loans Dos and Don’ts

Learn about business loans.

00:00:01

Andrea Marquez: Money is always top of mind for an entrepreneur. You need it to be able to start, grow, pay yourself, your employees. The list goes on and on and on. And one way to fund your business is through loans. I don't know if you feel like this, but to me, loans are super scary. I've always been told to never spend money I don't have. What will happen if I miss a payment? How can I make sure I'll be able to pay it on time? Where do I even apply for loans? How do I find out if I qualify? If you've never applied for a loan before, it can feel like a daunting process. So let's break it down together. I'm Andrea Marquez and This Is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be talking about business loans.

00:00:47

Iman Cotton: Each financial institution has credit enhancement products such as loans, government-guaranteed loans, state-guaranteed loans. They even also have lines of credits and possibly more products. Then there's non-traditional lending organizations such as a certified development company or a CDC, and they are created to help business owners access capital. There's also community development financial institution who provides access to affordable financial products and services in underserved communities.

00:01:19

Andrea Marquez: That's Iman Cotton. She's a loan officer with CDC Small Business Finance. And before that she worked in banking with loads of traditional institutions. Iman just listed a bunch of different options that are available to small business owners. But before you start applying for a loan, first you need to figure out who's going to be your lender.

00:01:39

Iman Cotton: Start with your deposit relationship or start with your actual bank that you're working with. So I'm huge on relationships and I love relationships because I love the guidance and I want to work with like-minded individuals and people who believe in me and will champion whatever it is that I'm doing. So who's your deposit relationship with? Also, you want to explore and research the SBA District Office in your area, and then there's other resource partners such as the SBDC and SCORE, and they can help with business plans, with different resources, with different lending partners.

00:02:15

Andrea Marquez: And there's a few red flags to keep in mind while you're trying to find a lender.

00:02:19

Iman Cotton: You want to ensure that they're an actual lender. So for an example, there's a Merchant Cash Advance or MCA. This is not a loan, this is an advance on your receivables that you're able to secure in the event you accept debit and credit card payments. But again, an MCA is not a loan. It's an advance on your future receivables where you pay back a percentage of your daily sales as the repayment.

00:02:46

Andrea Marquez: And you've heard this one before, but...

00:02:49

Iman Cotton: Something that sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So those loans that you can get approved in days or it's low doc or no doc or quick documents, you want to be leery of those because you may have an extremely high annual percentage rate or APR. And then also, if they can't disclose the APR or the annual percentage rate, be leery.

00:03:14

Andrea Marquez: Honestly, I apply that to all of my life. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So when you've done your research and figured out what loan and lender works best for you, you may be ready to apply. Let's get into what documents you'll need.

00:03:29

Iman Cotton: If you're a startup business, you want to ensure that you have a business plan and financial projections. We want to see that you have your personal tax return completed for the current year. If you're an existing business, you want to ensure that you have your current personal and business tax returns completed and that their current and accurate. We want to see that you also have interim financial statements such as an interim profit and loss statement and an interim balance sheet. Being aware of your current debt load and cash position is extremely important. That way we can have an intelligent conversation and I can help possibly quarterback the situation to make suggestions or recommendations, how to better prepare yourself in the event that I don't have a solution for you today. If the answer is no today, how can we turn that no into a yes or what's the actual game plan?

00:04:22

Andrea Marquez: Now, let's get into what you should avoid doing when you want to apply for a small business loan. The first is, don't spend money until you know can finance the whole cost.

00:04:32

Iman Cotton: So for instance, if you have construction or tenant improvements that you need for a new location that you're looking to lease or to have your business run out of. If the construction is $200,000 and then it happens to increase to $250,000, if you've already started that project and the project increases, you might run the chance where you can't receive financing because some lenders may not go into a project that's started to finance it.

00:05:04

Andrea Marquez: The second mistake is not getting help when you need it.

00:05:07

Iman Cotton: We have a lot of clients that have to get amendments because of their tax returns just being completely erroneous because they tried to do them themselves.

00:05:18

Andrea Marquez: The third mistake is running too many personal expenses to reduce taxable income. Iman says, this is the biggest mistake small business owners tend to make.

00:05:27

Iman Cotton: For instance, if your revenue is $10 million a year and you want to apply for a loan, but you write all of your expenses off to where now your net profit or net income is negative $2 million, we look at the negative $2 million versus the $10 million in revenue. So we more so care about profit and net income versus the revenue amount. So be cautious to not write all of your revenue off to reduce your taxable income.

00:06:00

Andrea Marquez: The fourth mistake is taking more money than you actually need.

00:06:04

Iman Cotton: It can ultimately put you in a tight cash flow situation. But we do our due diligence to ensure that we are not putting our clients in a worse off situation and that they can actually afford what they're actually requesting. And the use of funds is a legitimate use of funds. So within requesting money, what you say you'll use the money for, you have to use the money for that. We're not financing money for you to personally live off of. Keep that in mind. This is strictly for the business and you want to get exactly what you need

00:06:39

Andrea Marquez: And to make sure you can actually pay back the money you're borrowing, Iman says that you need to have a business plan and 24 months of financial projections.

00:06:48

Iman Cotton: You're sitting down, setting the road map of what you anticipate your sales to be, what you anticipate your cost of goods, the expenses, the payroll, just the overall operating expenses, so you can actually arrive at the net profit that you want to. So it's like backing into the numbers and creating that road map so you can have a plan to go off of to generate the amount of revenue that you need to pay back the loan and to cover all of your expenses.

00:07:17

Andrea Marquez: Let's say you finally got the loan, congrats. Now you need to make sure you keep up with those payments because there are consequences to not being able to pay back your loan. But if things don't go the way you planned, Iman says that you need to be transparent with your lender so that they can help you get through it.

00:07:33

Iman Cotton: The goal is not for our borrowers to default on the loan. So it's just about being transparent and communicating and trying to set in place a workout plan and going from there. Assuming they can't pay back because the business is closing, then the lender would come in to liquidate the assets and work with the borrower to work out any remaining balances. And then they may look at any personal collateral if it was held and things of that nature. But ultimately, one can lose their business and not be eligible for any additional federal lending if they aren't able to pay back the loan.

00:08:08

Andrea Marquez: That was a lot of information on how you can secure a loan. Iman did a great job of simplifying the process, but all this information can get a little bit overwhelming. So if you're still unsure about whether a loan is the best option for you.

00:08:22

Iman Cotton: Don't be fearful to at least have the conversations now about what goals you have for your business. I always say, don't call me after you've quit your job. Call me before you leave that place of employment. Get comfortable with no when applying for anything or when you're just trying to get your business off the ground. The more you hear no, the more you can also hear yes.

00:08:53

Andrea Marquez: That was Iman Cotton, a loan officer. Getting comfortable with hearing no is a great piece of advice to end on. As an entrepreneur, you might be hearing it a lot. I hope this episode helped make loans a little less scary. Let me know how you're getting prepared to find or apply for a loan or if there's any advice that stood out to you. We covered a lot in this episode, so if you missed anything, don't worry, we've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon. com/ podcasts.

That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please, please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com with your thoughts.

Until next time, This Is Small Business. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta Luego and thanks for listening. This Is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 47: Strategies for Success as a Woman in Business

Build a successful business.

Being a woman in business can come with its challenges but with the right tools – it can become a journey of empowerment and growth. Just ask Katy Luxem, the CEO and founder of Big Dill Pickleball, who stands out in the sporting goods industry with her products. She’ll share the story behind why she started Big Dill Pickleball, some insights on how to succeed in ecommerce, and how she dealt with being a female founder in a male-dominated industry. You’ll also hear from Deepa Purushothaman, the Founder of re.write, Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School and the author of The First, The Few, The Only. Deepa has spent most of her time helping women in the corporate world, so she accumulated a ton of advice that she’ll be sharing with us – like the importance of community.Unlearn some ideas about what it means to be a woman in business and learn the benefits that can come from being a female founder.

In this episode you’ll hear:

(01:31) How Katy started Big Dill Pickleball

(03:20) How using branding and differentiation is essential if you want to succeed in ecommerce.

(05:20) The importance of building community and having a supportive network as a female founder.

(07:42) What you need to unlearn about what it means to be a woman in business.

(10:48) How to navigate issues that are out of your control.

(12:33) The benefits of being a woman in business

Takeaways:

1 - To succeed in ecommerce, Katy says you need to focus on two things: Branding and differentiation. This will set you apart from the competition and make your products more memorable.

2 - Community building is key. We’ve heard this a lot on This is Small business, but making sure you have a safe community of entrepreneurs who share similar struggles is important because sometimes all you need to do is talk.

3 - Deepa says that there’s a few things you need to unlearn about what it means to be a woman in business: The first is feeling like you’re not enough which Deepa says is a universal feeling amongst women who are balancing so many things in addition to work. And the second is feeling the need to overperform to keep your job – even when you get to the top.

4 - When you get dismissed or aren’t taken seriously, remember that it doesn’t reflect on you. All you can do is control how you react. Deepa says that we’ve been conditioned to always be “nice” so try to get out of that mind set and stand your ground – which is easier said than done.

5 - The barrier to entrepreneurship is low and you’ll learn along the way, so don’t hold yourself back from starting because you feel like you aren’t prepared.

6 - Remember that power comes from within you. Deepa says that you can’t control how people react, but you can control how you show up – and that’s where true power comes from.

00:00:02

Deepa Purushothaman: How are corporate cultures changing? How do we actually advance women? Because I was finding a lot of the women that were approaching me were in senior levels, but when they took the seat, they weren't in full voice or in full power.

00:00:12

Andrea Marquez: Getting into entrepreneurship as a woman comes with its own set of challenges. You might feel the need to try twice as hard to prove that you're qualified. And even though women are increasingly making their mark in the business world, gender biases still exist. I'm Andrea Marquez and This Is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be talking about being a woman in business.

00:00:40

Deepa Purushothaman: We conform, we couture, we edit ourselves to fit into spaces, and part of what I want us to realize is if we wait till later, till we show up in the big seats to actually show up as ourselves, it gets harder. We need to show up as ourselves along the way. That's actually how we find power.

00:00:57

Andrea Marquez: That's Deepa Purushothaman, an executive fellow at Harvard Business School and the founder of Rewrite.

00:01:03

Deepa Purushothaman: The Rewrite is about advancing that conversation in corporates. It's starting to really think about culture change and ideas of sacrifice and getting ahead very differently, and it's also doing research that is much needed on how we actually make the workplace healthier and happier for people to thrive.

00:01:19

Andrea Marquez: Deepa has done a lot in business, among which she was a senior executive and wrote a book about how women of color can redefine power in corporate America called, The First, The Few, The Only. I can't wait for you to hear her helpful advice throughout the episode. But first, let's hear from Katy Luxem, the founder and CEO of Big Dill Pickleball. Big Dill Pickleball is a pickleball, paddle and gear company that focuses on the fun and inclusive elements of the sport. Before starting Big Dill Pickleball, Katy spent 15 years working in e-commerce.

00:01:52

Katy Luxem: So my business really came about after seeing repeated mistakes and similar issues that a lot of brands had. I wanted to do a better job, so I started having an interest in making my own brand so I could really control it from start to finish.

00:02:06

Andrea Marquez: Katy knew she wanted to start a business, but first she had to come up with an idea.

00:02:11

Katy Luxem: I was injured playing roller derby in 2019 and I couldn't do that anymore, and I started playing a lot of pickleball, which was a great case study and how accessible it was because I was recovering from broken ankle and broken bones.

00:02:24

Andrea Marquez: And you might have noticed this, but pickleball really started to gain popularity during the pandemic. I feel like it was everywhere.

00:02:32

Katy Luxem: It was now or never. E-commerce was really picking up, and when I went online to buy pickleball gear, I didn't really see anything that was fun and different, and so I felt like I was the perfect person to start the business at that time. And then the last piece really was I always thought if I was to start an e-commerce business, it would need to be something that checked a lot of boxes. So I didn't want anything breakable or liquid or anything super regulated like baby products. I didn't want batteries or expiration dates and I just wanted to keep it simple. And pickleball checked all those boxes. So I founded the brand at the end of 2020 and I sold our first paddle on Amazon in around February 2021.

00:03:12

Andrea Marquez: Katy let her experience in e-commerce guide her as she built her business. She says that if you want to succeed in e-commerce, you need to focus on two things, branding and differentiation.

00:03:26

Katy Luxem: So Big Dill Pickleball Company is really specific in that we sell pickleball paddles and sets to a specific segment of the market, which happens to be a beginners, which is a really big growing market. And then we do that on a platform where a lot of shoppers naturally come for their initial purchase. So we're targeting really specific group, and it's not a super high price point to pro-level players in a specific specialty shop. We're keeping it clear and direct about who we are and who we serve, and our brand reflects that.

Alongside that, I think when I created the product, I wanted to have a pickle on it, which was really smart decision because it's funny and it makes people laugh and it's obviously pickleball, but it's also really eye-catching. So that's been really great for PR and such because if someone's writing an article on pickleball, they'll often just use our paddle as the image because it's a literal face of pickleball

00:04:11

Andrea Marquez: And to figure out what gaps you could fill and how her branding could stand out, Katy did a lot of research.

00:04:17

Katy Luxem: I read a lot of reviews and looked at custom questions and product rankings to see what was actually selling and who the competition was, and I tried to check that no one else was really doing what I was doing. There's definitely a lot of pickleball brands springing up and I wanted to make sure we were the only ones doing that specific thing.

00:04:35

Andrea Marquez: Katy's business has been pretty successful ever since, so she clearly knows what she's doing, but as most women in business do, she still faced a few challenges.

00:04:44

Katy Luxem: I know factually, women face a lot more barriers statistically just with access to funding or networks or even just being taken seriously. I've had issues with male-owned businesses stealing intellectual property or copying our paddles, and of course they're always backed by more funding or they're larger businesses that have more resources, so that's been frustrating.

00:05:06

Andrea Marquez: Unfortunately, this can be the reality for a lot of female founders and even though most of the time these problems can be out of our control, there are ways to navigate them. Deepa says that community building is one of them.

00:05:20

Deepa Purushothaman: I just hold space every month and we have different kinds of conversations and a lot of what I find, to be honest with you, yes, there's articles and there's a lot of, for example, great HBR articles out there for advice and tips and tricks, but I think there's a lot of need to just have these conversations in community. So I just hold space. We just did one earlier this week about how do we start to talk about visioning differently?

And we just did a session on let's talk about what you want for the year. I had someone come in who actually has a background that's very different than traditional corporate and we walked through a very different process. And so I think part of what we need to realize is the way to solve for some of this is to talk about it, but to talk about it in safe spaces. And I think there aren't a lot of safe spaces to have these conversations and share, and I was lucky enough to have some of that, and so part of what I try to do is share that forward.

00:06:06

Andrea Marquez: And having a supportive network is something that helped Katy overcome some of the challenges she faced.

00:06:11

Katy Luxem: I think the more the business grew, the more I started to realize the importance of having that network and collaborating with good people, so I really started saying yes to just a lot of opportunities that I felt like might help me. For example, the governor's office reached out to me about promoting women-owned businesses, and next thing I know I got on this little billboard thing on the freeway, so things like that were a great boost.

00:06:32

Andrea Marquez: Katy also ended up getting a master's degree.

00:06:36

Katy Luxem: And that was really invaluable too, because I ended up having advisors and access to a number of resources in the business community and with the university. It was on full scholarship, so that really came from a place I think in my state of the business community putting his money where its mouth is and saying, “Hey, we're going to focus on supporting entrepreneurs and especially those who are underrepresented in the space.” So I think as I grew my business, those sorts of things had a snowball effect and gave me more confidence to tackle some of those barriers and how to pitch to investors or work with lawyers to combat IP infringement, stuff like that. So there are barriers, but I think the longer I've been in the business, it helps to have those connections and those long-term relationships.

00:07:16

Andrea Marquez: So having a supportive community and network is key, but Deepa also says that we have a lot to unlearn about what it means to be a woman in business.

00:07:26

Deepa Purushothaman: I call it shedding and caring. We need to shed all these messages that just don't serve us. Most women feel like they're not enough. They're not enough at work, they're not enough at home, they're not enough as moms because we're balancing so many plates, so the sense of not enoughness is so universal. I cannot tell universal it is, and I get to see patterns because I've interviewed women.

00:07:47

Andrea Marquez: And sometimes this feeling of not being enough can interfere with your goals. For Deepa, it almost interfered with her making partner at Deloitte.

00:07:56

Deepa Purushothaman: When I made partner, I, by the way, don't have an MBA and I still have not taken a finance class, and I ran billion dollar projects. I'm an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. I don't have my MBA. Had I really thought about it, I wouldn't be in the places and the spaces I am either, and my husband had to actually encourage me. He was like, “Why don't you put your name in the hat?” And I remember thinking, well, I'm not an MBA. That's not made for me. And it all happened. I think we self-select. I think we're not enough. Even when you get to the seats, you think that.

And so we just have to get comfortable realizing, yes, sometimes credentials and titles matter, but a lot of the time it's really more important how you show up, how you pivot, how you recover from failures and how you know what your strengths are. Those are the things that really matter. It's fortitude, it's attitude, and it's attention to following your dreams and having the wherewithal to follow them through. That's really what I think makes us successful. But again, back to the messages we get growing up and the messages we get early in our career, there's a big dissonance between that and what I think it really takes to be successful.

00:08:55

Andrea Marquez: So remember that you are enough. And the other thing that Deepa says we need to unlearn is thinking that we need to work harder to get to that seat, and then feeling like you need to perform to stay there.

00:09:09

Deepa Purushothaman: And I see this a little bit more with women of color, but it's true for all women. But if you are overperforming and some women are telling me I've worked twice as hard, some women saying four times as hard, you are working at a level that we're not fully understanding when you're sitting in leadership seats. And you are burnt out before you even get halfway through your career because of that need to overperform and you've been socialized and conditioned that way growing up, we tell people to look like me. You have to work harder just to get there. And so it's partly unlearning and making work for you what makes sense. And so I have learned that productivity is important, but it can't be my only mantra anymore. That used to really guide a lot of my decisions and how I felt good about my day, and that's not really the only thing that guides me, but I had to do the work to unlearn that, coming from immigrant parents especially.

00:09:54

Andrea Marquez: I relate to that because I come from immigrant parents too, and it's very applauded to overwork yourself. And if you're tired because of it, then you're doing something right, so it's taken me a while to unlearn that. So far we've talked about a few things to unlearn and that building a community is important, but how do you deal with the things that are out of your control, like not being taken seriously?

00:10:20

Deepa Purushothaman: I want to say I think that that's universal. I made partner in my early thirties. I am Indian by descent. I look younger than my age. And so I cannot tell you how many times I would be dismissed when I walked in a room because I couldn't possibly be in charge, or my last name is 13 letters long. And people would ask me when I came to this country or how I learned to speak English. And those things used to really bother me and make me feel like, what am I doing that is maybe suggesting I don't have your qualifications or I don't belong? And as I've gotten older, this has taken some time and I realized and meeting so many women who are struggling with the same sorts of things. I'm now in a place where I realize some of that is about them, it has nothing to do with how I'm showing up or what I'm doing or what I'm wearing or how educated I am.

That's about their issues. And all I can do is find a place where I practice my responses now. So when someone says to me, “Oh, your name is so hard to pronounce,” I will now very flatly, without a lot of emotion, say, “But you've learned how to say Arnold Schwarzenegger's name. You can learn how to say mine.” And it doesn't have to be offensive, but I think sometimes we've been taught to be nice. We haven't been taught to stand our ground, and we've also been taught we're doing something to elicit that sort of feedback or that sort of feeling. And honestly, I'm not. That is really about them and I've gotten to that place, but it's taken a long time.

00:11:32

Andrea Marquez: So make sure you stand your ground. That's a very important message. Growing up, I remember I always felt uncomfortable correcting people when they mispronounced my name. I'm still working on it, but hearing Deepa talk about her own experiences makes me feel better about correcting people in the future. Okay, so we've talked about a lot of the challenges that women might face in entrepreneurship and in business. Here are some of the benefits to being a woman in business too.

00:11:59

Deepa Purushothaman: I think a lot of women who are entrepreneurs, some of them start in entrepreneurship, but a lot of them leave corporate. And I will tell you a lot of the women that I work with in the last few years left corporate to go found their own companies to create the cultures and do the work that meant something to them, and they couldn't find ways to do it in corporate. I'm not suggesting that's the only way, but I think a lot of people pivot because they feel like I can create my own dreams and work in a different way, so I think it's really important to understand that.

00:12:23

Andrea Marquez: Hopefully you're feeling inspired. Katy reminded us that the barrier to entry for entrepreneurship, especially e-commerce, can be pretty low. So...

00:12:32

Katy Luxem: Go for it. There's a lot of people doing it that are probably not as intelligent or not as experienced as yourself, and you might as well just take a stab at it. Especially to e-commerce, it's pretty accessible if you want to try something. I started with I think two boxes of 50 paddles each, so it wasn't a huge initial investment or leap. I was just like, I'll try it and see what happens. And obviously it grew really quickly from there, but you can always do that and have an attempt at it.

00:12:58

Andrea Marquez: You don't have to have everything set in place before you start a business. And as we've heard on many episodes of This is Small Business, it's okay to learn as you go and make mistakes.

00:13:07

Katy Luxem: I'm a risk-averse person, so that was definitely hard for me when I first started, but there's obviously no way of knowing what those mistakes are going to be at the outset, and I think that's why they call it a journey or whatever.

00:13:19

Andrea Marquez: And you'll learn everything you need to succeed as you work on your business. That's what Katy did.

00:13:26

Katy Luxem: Suddenly we have this influx of inventory or we need storage for this. That's when I started researching that particular issue or asking other people, “Hey, what are you using for this problem?” Or, “Do you have a specific solution you recommend?” The problems you have on day 30 are not the problems you have on day 600, so you can't plan for those things, but you can think about if this is what our numbers were this year, what is it going to look like one year, two years from now? And you can project that out in all aspects of the business. And even if it's not right on, it's really helpful just to prepare you for some of the challenges you might end up facing.

00:13:59

Andrea Marquez: And here's one last piece of advice from Deepa.

00:14:02

Deepa Purushothaman: I think a lot of women wrongly incorporate, and even in entrepreneurship, think that power comes from outside accolades. And so my final thought would be is to remember that power comes from inside you and that people can only take it if you let them take it from you, and that we need to remind ourselves every day that we're powerful and that you get to decide how you show up in spaces. You can't decide or define how people react to you, but you get to decide how you show up, and that's where real power comes from. The women who really are powerful are comfortable with who they are, and they show up in that way at all times in all spaces. So that would be in my advice. It's not easy to get to, but that's what I want to aspire to, and that's what I try and practice in every day.

00:14:41

Andrea Marquez: I love that we're ending with that. Deepa and Katy both made the journey of being a woman in business seem a little less daunting, and I'll definitely be using the advice I learned in my everyday life as well. We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. That's it for this episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. We love hearing from our listeners. One of the best ways to do this is to leave a review in Apple Podcasts, like this one from Janine who said, “Really loved the show. It's simple and to the point. Andrea asks great questions to get to the answers we need. Add it to your must listen to list.” Thank you, Janine.

If you enjoyed this episode or found any of the tips helpful, please, please, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find the show. All you have to do is go to the show page and scroll down until you find the reviews. If you're not sure what to write about, tell us about your favorite episode or guest, or let us know what you'd like to learn about. If you're able to leave a review, thank you. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you're ready for the next step, a super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy.

Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www. smallbusiness. amazon. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by Jar Audio.

Ep. 46: How Networking Can Help You Build and Grow Your Business

Leverage your network to grow your business.

Having a solid network can help you meet the right people that will help you grow your business. Just ask Robbie Samuels, a networking expert who got his first few clients by tapping into his network. Robbie shares all his networking secrets so you can know how to get the most out of any networking event and break away from the transactional feeling that comes with it. “I believe that our network is an untapped resource,” he says. “And if we're trying to find people for our programs and to pilot new things – 80 percent of the people that we need to sell to or connect with, we already know. It's a matter of reaching out to that network.”Learn what a successful networking event looks like and what you should be doing before and after to ensure that you’re taking advantage of everything that networking has to offer.

In this episode you’ll hear:

(02:00) Why networking can be uncomfortable and how to overcome that by reframing your mindset.

(04:28) Bagel vs Croissant: How body language can make networking easier.

(06:41) How to prepare for a networking event.

(07:55) How committing can help you stand out.

(08:52) How to use your network to grow your business.

Takeaways:

1 - Reframe your mindset. Instead of thinking of networking as something that’s transactional, think of what you bring to the table. Robbie says that if you’re looking for clients, a way to reframe your mindset is to remember that you’re trying to help people and if you avoid telling people about your business, then you’re limiting your impact.

2 - Be prepared. Before going to a networking event, make sure you know what you're trying to achieve and who you're hoping to talk to. And write a draft of your follow up email, it’ll make following up on the intentions you set easier.

3 - Body language is important. When you’re at networking events try to look for the croissants – groups of people that leave an opening for someone else to join in. And make sure you leave room for other people to come into the groups you’re in too.

4 - Commit to an event. If you’re new to entrepreneurship and are trying to build a network of business savvy people, try consistently going to a networking event. This will help you be more memorable to the organizers and you’ll feel less like a newcomer in that space.

5 - Categorize your network. After you’ve connected with a few people, pull up the list of people you’ve networked with and ask yourself two questions: would they remember my name and would I be happy to hear from them out of the blue? If the answer is yes to both questions, then you rank them out of three for these three categories: how they rate their connection to you, their influence on this topic, and their interest in this topic. If someone scores below a 4 out of 9, then they might not be worth reaching out to.

6 - Make sure to keep following up with your network – even when you don’t need them. Robbies says that your network is like an insurance policy – you’re paying for it in the hopes that you don’t end up using it. And don’t forget to give back to your network, too.

00:00:01

Andrea Marquez: Whatever stage you're at in your business journey, whether you're about to start or already have some entrepreneurial experience, you'll want, and probably need, a solid network to rely on. But how do you build that? Networking events can be awkward. Breaking into groups of people who look like age-old friends is hard. No one wants to interrupt a conversation, but hovering in the background feels almost as bad. If you've ever ended a networking event back to the wall, alone, with no new contacts, it's tempting to write the whole process off and never try it again.But don't worry, there's hope.

I am Andrea Marquez, and This Is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be talking about networking, why it's important, and how to do it well.

00:00:49

Robbie Samuels: I believe that our network is an untapped resource, and if we're trying to find people for our programs and to pilot new things, 80% of the people that we need to sell to or connect with, we already know it's a matter of reaching out to that network.

00:01:05

Andrea Marquez: That's Robbie Samuels. He's recognized as a networking expert by NPR, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review, among others.

00:01:13

Robbie Samuels: So it's about going and discovering who's on your LinkedIn, or maybe your phone contacts, or whatever list you might have near you and figuring out who to prioritize reaching out to, and then actually reaching out to them. They already know you, they trust you. They don't need to see it on your website. My first programs in 2020, I think I sold 30 people into a program with no mention of it on my website. So that's where I think networking is so key, because that trust is already built in.

00:01:38

Andrea Marquez: Going into my career, I've seen how networking correctly can change your life. And even though I still struggled a bit with networking before COVID, I at least felt like I had a grasp on it. But now it's been very difficult for me to get back into it. So before we start talking about how you can network successfully, I think it's important to understand why we find it so uncomfortable and scary.

00:02:01

Robbie Samuels: There was actually a study by Harvard and a few other schools that looked into this. And they really found that people felt that networking makes people feel dirty and icky. And I think it's because most people think of networking as transactional.

So the people in the study who didn't feel that networking was icky, were the more senior executives in a company. Because when they go into a room, they're not going into a room looking for anything. They have things to offer. So they have a budget, they have advice, they have connections, they can make introductions. And so they feel really good about that. And that's the reframe. The reframe is to think about what you bring.

So if you think, “Okay, here's all the experience that I bring, this is the enthusiasm that I have, and if it's a good fit, it's going to be fantastic for this organization as well.” And if you walk into a room with that as opposed to, “All right, I'm looking for a job,” then you make a connection. And as someone who's had to hire people, I can tell you if I you and we hit it off and you submit a qualified resume and you follow through with all the steps that we ask in the hiring process, you've just saved me a huge headache.

And so it is a gift. And so I just think that we have to reframe. It's not that we're looking for clients, it's that we have something of value that would help people. And if we don't tell people, well, then we're limiting our impact in the world. We do this work because we believe we can help people. But if we're not willing to talk about our services, if we're shy about it, then there are people who need us who don't know. They don't even know this is a skill that's out there that can help them. So it's about really reframing what you're walking into the room, and not just that you need something, but that you're there to offer something of real value. Without that, we're all stuck feeling transactional and icky about the experience of networking.

00:03:46

Andrea Marquez: I love the idea of reframing your thought process. Instead of feeling like the interaction is transactional, think about what you offer to the people you want to talk to. As Robbie mentioned, even if you're looking for a job, you still bring something to the table. Don't shy away from talking about your services and yourself. So step one to making networking easier: Reframe your mindset to think about what you have to offer. And another way that can help you get approached by people is body language.

00:04:14

Robbie Samuels: So if you picture walking into a networking event, people are standing in those tight clusters, those shoulder- to- shoulder huddles that are impossible to break into. If you have someone in that group turn their body open a bit and make space for others to join, now it goes from being a closed bagel to being more of a croissant.

And so I teach people how to stand so that they're more approachable. And this is a physical reminder of why you went to the event in the first place. You go to these events to meet people, so don't go there and then stand in the corner with your arms crossed. Because someone like me, who's very outgoing and talks with my hands, is going to stand in front of you and you're going to feel locked there. But also look at the room and see how people are standing and go for the natural openings.

So look for where people are leaving space, and then make sure you do the same. If I train 8 to 10 people out of a room of a hundred, the whole experience of the room will change. Because if you feel welcomed into a room, you're more likely to welcome others. If your first attempts to join a conversation, you feel rebuffed, well, you're probably going to put your walls up and then it's going to be harder for others to approach you as well. So that ripple effect can be really positive if we train folks to do this.

So it's like if you walk into a room and you don't see any openings, the next thing to do is to get in line, get in line for food, and get in line for a drink. It's a natural space where people aren't usually standing with all their besties. Talk about the food and the buffet line. Talk about the drink you're about to order. Ask people's opinion about things.

00:05:41

Andrea Marquez: Body language is really important. At some networking events, I forced myself into those bagels and made some great connections, but doing that isn't always easy. It's intimidating when you can tell that the people talking already know each other. I recently went to a networking event where I decided to stick to being a wallflower. I ended up talking to another wallflower and nothing really came out of it. We just ended up being wallflowers together. But if I knew about the croissants versus bagel strategy, I might've tried looking for the croissants.

So far we've discussed what you can do to make networking a little easier. So now let's take a few steps back and talk about what you can do to prepare yourself for an upcoming networking event.

00:06:23

Robbie Samuels: If you go into the event really being clear about what you're trying to achieve, and who you're hoping to talk to, and you've done some research, and this is where I think being an introvert is better because you'll be more methodical and less haphazard off the cuff. And so if you're going to go well, then why are you going? Why this event? And who are you hoping to meet? Who specifically might be there?

If you have access to a list or maybe you know the sponsors or the speaker or the exhibitors, or who generally, who's the archetype of the person you want to meet? And then my suggestion is that you actually write a draft of your follow-up email. You're not sending it. You're just drafting a message based on the person or the kind of person you're hoping to meet. And if you do that, that really sets your intentions super clear. And now it's a question of following through on your intentions. But you're more likely to have a serendipitous moment if you know what you're looking for.

00:07:15

Andrea Marquez: That sounds like you're manifesting, I've done this for projects, but never for networking. And I think it's such a valuable tip. And now let's get into another tip to make sure your networking experience is successful: Committing.

00:07:29

Robbie Samuels: You just have to put in enough upfront effort to not be a newcomer every time. If you go really sporadically, every four or five months, you're really a newcomer every single time and you have to break in every single time. You want to be memorable and you want to add value. And so that's one way to step into a new space. So it's planting seeds for the future. But that concentrated effort upfront makes the difference versus sort of haphazardly deciding to go to things. For the beginning from January to March, just commit to really being super present in a new space, and do that every quarter and still stay engaged, but you don't have to be as intense the rest of the year.

00:08:08

Andrea Marquez: So now that we have a better understanding of how to prepare and utilize a networking experience, what comes after a successful networking event? How can you utilize the contacts that you've collected to grow your business?

00:08:21

Robbie Samuels: So in my second book, Small List, Big Results, I discuss this in some detail. So I have this process. Let's say you take your LinkedIn, you download your LinkedIn list, and you go through, and the first two questions people have to pass in order to do further consideration is, “Would they remember my name?” And, “Would I be happy to hear from them out of the blue?”

So if the answer is yes to both those questions, I put a little X in that little column. And when I've got a bunch of people in that category, then I say, “Okay, now the question is, I want to know how they rate around their connection to me, their influence on this topic, their interest in this topic.” And for each of those categories, you put a one, a two or a three, three being highest, no half points, no zeros. And the total point value here is nine. If someone scores a four or below, then don't bother reaching out. I mean, don't delete them, but this is not the thing that they're interested in.

Follow-up sounds like something you do after, but if you write that draft follow-up message before you go, you'll be more likely to know what you're looking for. If during the event you track the cards that are higher priority, and you either put them in a separate pocket or you turn down the corner or write a little note on them. And so you have to also plan ahead for how are you keeping track of all these cards. And then if you pre-schedule an hour within a day or two of the event to do follow-up messages, and when you sit down, you've got your draft message, you've identified your priority cards, the likelihood that you're going to follow through with that follow up is very high.

And that's really the success of networking. It isn't the first point of contact. It's when that conversation that you had with one person at one event becomes a relationship because you both schedule time to meet each other again, and then meet each other again, and meet each other again. So this is where I think the virtual and the in-person work so well together.

00:10:08

Andrea Marquez: We used to have to wait up to a year before we'd run into people again at the next conference. But now with video calls part of people's day-to-day, it's easier to reach out and suggest catching up, nurturing new relationships can be simple and unforced. It's also important. Robbie says to think of it as an insurance policy.

00:10:28

Robbie Samuels: I think too often we ignore our network until we need them. When we need a job, or when we suddenly are in a crisis and we need to get another client. And if you pay in every month, in an insurance policy, and you don't really want to need your insurance policy, right, the hope is that you'll never use it, but it's there if you need it. And that's the same thing with our network. You want to give back regularly to your community, whether that's one-on-one conversations, supporting and sharing, making referrals, making introductions. So make sure you're giving back so that if you need something, they're there for you. And if you don't, you're there for a lot of other people and that feels good too.

00:11:05

Andrea Marquez: That was Robbie Samuels, a networking expert and an award-winning author. What a great reminder to end on. I'm sure that'll help reduce the transactional icky feeling you get sometimes when thinking about networking. Let me know if you'll use some of the tips he mentioned in your next networking event. I know I will.

We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. That's it for this episode of This Is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think. So please, please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone or send us an email at thisismallbusiness@ amazon. com with your thoughts.

Until next time, This Is Small Business. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez.

Hasta Luego, and thanks for listening.This Is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by Jar Audio.

Ep. 45: How to Use Social Media to Reach Your Audience

Connect with customers through social media.

Social media can help you connect with your audience authentically and foster meaningful growth. Just ask Sahra Nguyen, the founder and CEO of Nguyen Coffee Supply, who uses storytelling to keep her audience engaged. Sahra explains how she figured out what content her audience wants and what performs best on each platform. You’ll also hear from Kat Norton, the CEO of Miss Excel, who went viral on social media and used her online presence to successfully start her business. Kat digs deeper into how to keep up with trends and how to plan your content efficiently. Learn how Kat and Sahra used social media to their advantage and discover actionable strategies – like how to follow trends and create content – to elevate your online presence and reach your audience.

In this episode you’ll hear:

(02:16) How Kat used social media to start Miss Excel

(07:06) How Sahra connects with her audience through social media by sharing her story and being authentic

(09:24) Sahra talks about the challenges to centering the founder’s story in your brand’s social media

(10:19) How Sahra uses data to figure out what type of content works for each platform

(12:41) How experimenting with your social media content can make you go viral and how to take advantage of that virality – even if the content doesn’t align with your brand

(15:50) How to keep up with trends

(18:33) How to create social media content efficiently

Takeaways:

1 - Be authentic. No matter what you’re posting, Kat and Sahra both stressed the importance of being authentic to your brand – especially if you’re planning on following trends.

2 - Don’t be afraid to experiment! Kat says that experimentation is what helped her go viral and Sahra experiments with new types of content on her TikTok. Every brand is different and to find what works best for you, you’ll need to change up your content every now and then.

3 - Don’t feel pressured to follow trends. Sometimes following trends just doesn’t align with your brand and you shouldn’t force it to work – your audience can tell when the content you’re producing isn’t authentic.

4 - If you’re planning on following trends, research the trends and find out what aligns best for your brand, and set guidelines that you or your team needs to follow – this will help get content out faster.

5 - Batch your social media content. In order to create content as efficiently as possible, Kat suggests you divide the work into three days: An ideation day, a performance day where you record all your content, and an editing day.

00:00:01

Andrea Marquez: Social media, it can be a powerful tool for your business if you use it correctly. It can help you get more customers, highlight new products and grow your brand. If you're starting a business, you're probably already trying to figure out how to make social media work for you. How do you keep up with all these trends? Should you even try? What content should you be posting and how often?

To answer these questions, I've enlisted the help of Kat Norton, the founder of the incredibly successful Miss Excel, a company that teaches Microsoft Excel to individuals, businesses, and educational institutions. Kat knows her way around a spreadsheet, and she absolutely rocks the social media landscape. We're going to find out how she does it.

00:00:45

Kat Norton: When it comes to taking these different social media concepts and really boiling them down into those different niche audiences, it really comes down to authenticity. So for me, my three favorite things were Excel, dancing and helping people. So melding those together is what really helped our content take off.

00:01:03

Andrea Marquez: Kat manages to make using Excel fun. Those are two words I never thought I'd say in the same sentence. Miss Excel now has over 2 million followers across all her social media platforms. She'll be sharing the secrets to her growth throughout the episode.

Hi, I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Welcome to season four. With more than 60 episodes under my belt, I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs, and something that keeps coming up is social media. It's such a powerful tool and can reach so many people if you do it right. So today we'll be talking about social media and how to reach your audience.

00:01:50

Kat Norton: It really happens through infusing our social media content with the element of fun. So whether it's dancing, which is really how our content got started, I was dancing to the different Excel functions on TikTok or now we integrate fun talking videos and we're always just experimenting with what is trending.

00:02:09

Andrea Marquez: Before all of the success, Kat was working a corporate job and then the pandemic hit.

00:02:14

Kat Norton: I had found myself with the start of the pandemic back in my childhood bedroom of my parents' house. I was buried in student debt, really trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I started digging into mindset work. I was like, “Why am I playing it small? What can I do?” So I was really going through and unwiring a bunch of limiting beliefs I had that were keeping me at my corporate job, playing it safe when I knew there was something much bigger I wanted to do.

00:02:42

Andrea Marquez: Kat was already teaching Excel on the side, and she loved doing it. So she gets on a call with a friend to figure out a side hustle she could do with her skills.

00:02:51

Kat Norton: And I'll never forget, she goes, “What if you put the Excel tips on TikTok?” And I was like, “TikTok? I have a corporate job. I can't just post myself on TikTok.” And I had so much resistance, but intuitively I knew. I got this lightning bolt hit where I saw it, and I could not shake this thought.

00:03:09

Andrea Marquez: A few days go by and Kat just can't stop thinking about it.

00:03:13

Kat Norton: And I'm in tears so conflicted about making this TikTok account. So I'm like, “You know what? It's going to be a secret.” So I created this secret TikTok account Miss Excel, and the only people who knew I was doing it was my mother and my boyfriend, and I started silently just posting one video a day of these fun Excel tip videos.

00:03:35

Andrea Marquez: And then the views start rolling in.

00:03:37

Kat Norton: By the fourth video, it reaches a hundred thousand views and gets pushed to all these people I know. And then by the sixth video, the CEO of an IT company reaches out and it's like, “Hey, I love your teaching style. I'm looking to create G Suite training videos,” so the Google version of everything I was doing for students, parents and teachers because this is when the schools were going digital, and clearly I'm a Microsoft gal, but I was like, “Okay, I can learn these different products. I'll just take this side hustle.”

00:04:08

Andrea Marquez: After a couple of weeks of posting daily, her first video goes viral.

00:04:13

Kat Norton: And next thing you know I've had a video hit 3. 7 million views, and I had a hundred thousand TikTok followers. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, what do I do with this?”

00:04:22

Andrea Marquez: Kat creates an Instagram account that keeps going viral. In a few months, she gets a few thousand followers across both platforms.

00:04:30

Kat Norton: I had a business coach reach out just being like, “Knock, knock, what you doing over there? It seems like you have a pretty big following and you don't even have a link in your bio.” And I was like, “Whoa, touche.” So I took two weeks off from my day job, and I built the most fun, cool creative Excel course I possibly could think of because at this point if you've seen my content, your girl cannot have a boring course.

00:04:53

Andrea Marquez: She then designs a video Excel training course, and within a few weeks of releasing it, she's already making more money from the course than she does at her job, so she quits.

00:05:04

Kat Norton: And at that point it was still just me in the business, and I cranked out nine more courses across the entire Microsoft Office suite, started bundling them together, selling on webinars, and that's how I scaled it into a multi seven figure business. I have the most incredible team now who really helps us continue to scale this and grow this because I know we're just at the tip of the iceberg given the majority of companies use Excel.

00:05:28

Andrea Marquez: I love that optimism. But Kat started her business off the back of her social media success. She made content she loves, then developed a product to go with it. I think most small business owners do the opposite, start the business first, then work to make a social media strategy that works for them. Our next guest is one of those people.

00:05:47

Sarah Nguyen: I'm a first generation Vietnamese- American born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Both of my parents are refugees from the Vietnam War. So that context, that historical context for my family is really important because it's a huge foundation for who I am as a person, my connection to culture and my current business, Nguyen Coffee Supply.

00:06:06

Andrea Marquez: That's the founder and CEO Sarah Nguyen. She buys coffee beans from a farmer in Vietnam and then roasts them in Brooklyn, New York.

00:06:14

Sarah Nguyen: And the reason why I started my company was because prior to this I actually couldn't find a fresh- roasted single- origin, Vietnamese coffee bean, let alone a robust bean anywhere in the U. S market.

00:06:25

Andrea Marquez: After doing some research, Sarah also found out that Vietnam is the second- largest producer of coffee in the world.

00:06:31

Sarah Nguyen: Most people don't know this. And for me, that was an issue around lack of transparency, visibility and representation.

00:06:38

Andrea Marquez: And the way Sarah represents Nguyen Coffee Supply on social media reflects that. She makes sure to keep inclusivity in mind when creating content around her brand.

00:06:48

Sarah Nguyen: Because that's what we need as a coffee community to expand and for the change that we want to create on an institutional and systemic level. This change being how do we be more inclusive of coffee origins that have been historically underrepresented? So in order for us to create this systemic institutional shift, we know that we need to create a narrative shift, and that's why storytelling the video is so powerful for us.

00:07:09

Andrea Marquez: Sarah's background is in documentary filmmaking. She's produced documentaries for PBS, NBC and Vice. So video was the way to go. Sarah's primary social media platform is Instagram, then TikTok, YouTube coming in third. She's done a lot of work around telling the company's origin story, but in general, she likes to focus her content around education and storytelling.

00:07:31

Sarah Nguyen: On our YouTube, we have a whole Vietnamese coffee guide. It's a series where you can learn everything about Vietnamese coffee. We also have a general brew guide on Instagram and TikTok as a combination of the coffee education along with the founder's storytelling and also the cultural community storytelling.

00:07:48

Andrea Marquez: I love that Sarah centers her own story in her business social media. Scrolling through Nguyen Coffee Supply's social media pages made me feel like I was part of the brand. Sarah wasn't just selling coffee, she was building a community. But according to Miss Excel, also known as Kat Norton, using a storytelling approach in your social media might not work for everyone.

00:08:09

Kat Norton: Personally, my brand is a different audience than the Excel brand. The Excel brand is definitely more technical, and they want those tangible tips. So I do think it does depend on the brand, but I always encourage you to test it. Another aspect of that though is people buy from people. So you want to come through and make sure that even if they don't know the story of how I started Miss Excel or they don't care about that, they just want their tips, I make sure my personality is coming through in those videos so that we are connecting, and I'm sitting down, and I'm helping you, and I'm coming through the screen versus just a cold screen with no person behind it.

00:08:42

Andrea Marquez: And even though there's a ton of pros that come with being a founder led brand, Sarah noticed a few cons.

00:08:49

Sarah Nguyen: The challenges are the expectation for someone in my position to constantly play that role of creating content telling stories when I'm also a full- time operator. I'm a solo founder. I'm the CEO, and I'm deeply operating. And so it's all about sustainability for me as a human and for the company.

00:09:07

Andrea Marquez: How do you learn to adapt your social media strategy based on what your audience wants? Sarah uses data.

00:09:13

Sarah Nguyen: Each platform is very unique, and what works on one platform, may or may not work on the other platform. I think there are instances where we can use a piece of content as the root and then iterate, cut it up and repurpose for different platforms. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it won't, and sometimes you'll just need a complete different content strategy altogether.

We spent a lot of time just comparing content strategy and performance and data on both Instagram and TikTok. And what we often found was a piece of content that did well on TikTok would not do well on Instagram and vice versa. And then we would dissect the reasons why. Really short form six seconds do really well on TikTok, but that may not be as engaging on Instagram because Instagram, I think, there's a little bit more space and bandwidth for maybe 15 seconds. I know it sounds wild, but 15 seconds, it makes a big difference, 15 to 30 seconds up to 60 seconds for that more extended education of storytelling.

00:10:04

Andrea Marquez: And if you try to post anything longer than that-

00:10:08

Sarah Nguyen: It'll just flop because people don't stare at their phones for three minutes.

00:10:11

Andrea Marquez: Kat has a slightly different approach. She would use the same video but would change up the audio depending on what's trending on each platform.

00:10:19

Kat Norton: So what we do is we film and edit everything off of the app so we don't have to deal with watermarks or anything like that. If we did make a specific piece of content for a certain platform, maybe there is a certain song trending on TikTok that's not available on Instagram, in that case, we would make something more TikTok specific. But overall, it really comes down to creating that content once and then getting it into the right format and underlaying the right music.

00:10:47

Andrea Marquez: We'll dig deeper into trends in a minute, but before that, I wanted to quickly go over how Sarah uses TikTok and Instagram. She says that TikTok is treated like a discovery platform where they test and try new things, but she's not as experimental with her Instagram account.

00:11:02

Sarah Nguyen: Let's say there was someone new who was discovering us for the first time when they go visit our Instagram page, can they understand our brand immediately in the first nine blocks? Whereas TikTok, it's like random content all day, and you can go to a TikTok page and you don't even know anything about it. So then that was a silly funny video.

00:11:18

Andrea Marquez: And according to Kat, the most important thing is trying new things because you never know what'll strike big.

00:11:24

Kat Norton: I feel like that experimenter's mindset is something that really helped me go viral 10- 20 plus times at this point because I'm not really going into it trying to force something and coming from that lack space energetically like, “Oh, I need this to happen. I need this to go viral or my business won't do well.” I go into it as like, “Let's try this. Let's see how it works.” And then it's a matter of, “Okay, now we've just up leveled. We have hundreds of thousands of followers or millions of followers,” which for me, that was a big part of my story. In three days, I went from a thousand followers to over a hundred thousand and I was like, “Oh, what do I do?” And that's really where layering in the business acumen comes into play and structuring something around that that will serve that audience.

00:12:08

Andrea Marquez: Even if the viral video doesn't really align with your brand, you can still make the most of it.

00:12:13

Kat Norton: I hear this all the time where people go viral with the most random video, and they're like, “What the heck? My account is about this, but I went viral on a knitting video,” or something so random that's not core to the brand. And I look at it, I'm like, “It is still a business opportunity.” For example, I had hundreds of thousands of followers, no mailing list, no product, and a business coach just happened to reach out to me being like, “Hey, I noticed you have a lot of followers there and zero product.” And I was like, “Oh, light bulb moment. Maybe I should get that course out there.”

The right steps will find you, so I wouldn't worry as much about that. In due time, it all does work out. But if you do have the extra time to start researching how to grow an online or digital business, if that's the space you're in or whatever space you're in, I do recommend doing that. But don't let it hold you back because a lot of the times you can't even predict what's going to happen. And that has been my entire trajectory of my business is just learning how to pivot and being really adaptable and just being ready when the opportunities come my way to be able to be like, “All right, let's do it and not get overwhelmed.”

00:13:19

Andrea Marquez: And, of course, we can't talk about social media without mentioning trends. I feel like it must be so stressful to stay up to date with all the new trends and figure out which ones to follow. Sarah spent a whole year experimenting with trends on TikTok.

00:13:31

Sarah Nguyen: I think from a team bandwidth perspective, it felt like we were constantly chasing something. At times, it could be decentering in our brand identity, brand voice, brand mission. Now we're at a place in our marketing strategy and juncture where we're not focused on trends. If something comes up and we feel really inspired and we feel like it's aligned with another pillar, we can engage, but we're no longer actively following, actively tracking and quickly creating content to hop onto that trend.

00:13:59

Andrea Marquez: So when Sarah experimented with trends, she realized that it doesn't really work for her brand. She only hops onto a trend if she feels inspired and it aligns, but every business is different. So if you do want to actively follow trends, here's Kat breaking down the process.

00:14:15

Kat Norton: When you see a trend that you like, I always mark it down, and typically when we create content, we batch it. So I'll every week or so go through and look at those different video ideas that I saved down, those different trending songs and music and then go after them in those times.

00:14:31

Andrea Marquez: Okay, so step one is research. Find the trends you want to follow and write them down.

00:14:36

Kat Norton: And depending on the size of your team, you may have certain things in place where the whole team has to go in and approve the content or the script. And I would really recommend in cases like that, taking a step back and looking at where you can optimize that process.

00:14:50

Andrea Marquez: And step two, set guidelines for which trends you want to follow. Maybe you want to avoid songs with curse words or prefer a specific genre of music that aligns with your brand. Having the specifics on hand can speed up the approval process if you or your team wants to get something out quickly.

00:15:06

Kat Norton: If you have an awesome content creator on your team and they see a trend and they know they have that freedom to be able to go and pick up their phone and knock that out and get it in right when the trend is taking off, that's something that I would really want to enable them to do by simply adding in those guidelines of the different pieces and elements that they would need to follow in order to get that content approved.

00:15:27

Andrea Marquez: And if you plan on following trends-

00:15:29

Kat Norton: Do something that does feel authentic and light you up. So there's a big trend around realness on social media and authenticity and honesty and just coming through like we are friends versus coming through as like, “I am reading off my teleprompter.” People can tell, one, that lacks authenticity if someone's just reading off the teleprompter looking really stiff. If you look uncomfortable, they feel uncomfortable.

00:15:52

Andrea Marquez: So be authentic to you and your brand.

00:15:59

Kat Norton: There are constantly tons of trends going on at all times. So for me, if I hear a song or if it sparks a certain idea, if you're going through and making those connections, then I think it's a great piece of content to run with. However, if you are struggling to force something that's a circle into a square hole or whatever that saying is, that is really where I'd be like, “Okay, this doesn't feel as aligned.” Because a big part of content is it is an energy transmission. So when you are going through and creating that content, the user could tell if it's authentic or not. They could tell if you're forcing it or not. So I like to just go after the things that excite me. If the trend feels really good, if it matches with my content style, then I'm like, “Okay, this is something I want to create.”

00:16:41

Andrea Marquez: Even if you know exactly what your content will look like and where you want to put it, you still have to make it. Kat figured out how to create content as efficiently as possible.

00:16:52

Kat Norton: I usually make content maybe two days per month. I'll go through and batch content every couple of weeks. I have a really awesome team now, but before all of that, I was a one woman show from designing the courses, editing the courses, creating the content, customer service. We're now 17,000 students. I was doing it all, and now we have a team of 12. So that definitely helps a lot from the perspective of they can take old dance videos that I have and pair them with different Excel tricks and still be pumping out content every day on the platforms.

00:17:25

Andrea Marquez: That's one way to free up the founder from constantly making content. But if you don't have a team of 12, there are still ways to make the process manageable. Here's how Kat suggests to break it down.

00:17:34

Kat Norton: I'm doing all different activities that are tapping into that right side of the brain. So I'll be going through and taking a walk in nature, meditating and staying out of my more analytical mind. That's where you got your giant to- do list, your iced coffee, you're knocking things out, and I stay more in that flowy seat, and then I find that the ideas more easily just flow right through. I mark them down.

00:17:57

Andrea Marquez: Then there's the performance day.

00:17:59

Kat Norton: You don't have to get all dressed up every day. If you're filming every day, you can just really go through and take that one day, make your setup.

00:18:06

Andrea Marquez: And finally editing days.

00:18:08

Kat Norton: That's when you're in the zone. I always say it's like my messy bun and I'm sitting there just grinding it out and making those videos. So really separating it out by the different energy types helps you capitalize in each of those areas to be at max capacity versus being 50% all flowy and then trying to get on the camera. And then it really helps to separate it out that way for myself.

00:18:29

Andrea Marquez: It sounds so easy when it's broken down like that. So I was wondering what does the next phase of social media look like?

00:18:38

Kat Norton: It can be hard to tell. I've been to lots of conferences and things where they're like, “Long forms coming back.” A lot of people do really want to see that, but I personally still see from an attention span perspective and people and culture, we just want things fast. We want things packaged fast, we want things done right, and I feel like a big part of that still is in that micro learning space and just having those elements there. But I do really see too a big call for authenticity and content, continuing to plow through and just having that content that stands out. So whenever you see different things happening, different things trending, experimenting, trying things, and pivoting because no matter where it goes, if you're adaptable, you will make that work. So it's hard to sit here and prepare this may happen. It's like, “Okay, if long form's trending, let's go.” And really having the team ready, having yourself ready, just getting that content and not being too rigid.

00:19:33

Andrea Marquez: I feel like when you're an entrepreneur, you could get stuck in the analysis paralysis phase, so just get started. Sarah didn't even have a social media strategy when she was first starting Nguyen Coffee Supply.

00:19:44

Sarah Nguyen: There was really no thought behind it. There was no constant calendar, there were no pillars. It was literally what do I feel like posting? I think the only thread if you were to really dissect it was this feeling of building in public. That's something that I felt like could be dissected as a common theme in our early social media is all the BTS of me building the brand. Every stage in building a company, getting our first shipment of greens, learning how to roast, meet at the roastery, us packing coffee, going to USPS, building in public was probably the only theme. And because that was their approach, we were just really organic about it.

00:20:20

Andrea Marquez: So if there's one thing you take away from this episode, it's start and don't force it.

00:20:25

Kat Norton: Not everything has to be perfect, and that takes a lot of inner work, especially on the content creator going inward and being like, “Okay, we're releasing the perfectionism, the people pleasing,” all that kind of stuff because it's really important to take a look at ourselves and figure out what is actually standing in our way when it comes to scaling our business. Is it do we need a bigger team? Is it a time thing? Is it a money thing, an energy thing? Unblocking within yourself, whatever that is. And that's what opens it up. And that paired with taking that messy action and not getting all in our heads, waiting for the perfect day to film. Oh, but I need this camera, but I need that. I started all my things on an iPhone. I had no exterior microphone, I didn't have any crazy quality things. I just put myself out there and did the thing. And a lot of times it's that messy action that you take that will lead you to that next step to help you really scale and grow.

00:21:19

Andrea Marquez: I feel like I just got a crash course on everything social media. I love that we got two different perspectives on what kind and how to make content, but a common thread throughout all the advice was make sure to stay authentic and aligned with your brand's values and, of course, be adaptable. We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts. Let me know what you think of this episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone. If you liked what you heard, I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this.

If you're an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you're ready for the next step, a super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy. Take the free self- assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www. smallbusiness. amazon. That's it for today's episode of This Is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening. This is Small Businesses brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

BONUS: The Benefits of Integrating Culture Into Your Products

Stand out through branding.

Building a brand around your culture and history can help you stand out and create a loyal customer base. Just ask Teri Johnson, the CEO of Harlem Candle Co, whose scented candles are inspired by influential figures in the Harlem Renaissance. Teri opens up about how, in sharing stories from this moment in Black history, she was able to build a brand that people wanted to talk about, share and celebrate. "Storytelling is everything about the candle," she says. "People connect to it and they can feel it."

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Learn how Teri started her business, the stories behind some of her favorite scents, and how she integrates Black history into her branding.

In this episode you'll hear:

(01:18) Where Teri's story begins

(04:23) How to find support (and cross promotion) in community

(05:15) Andrea mentions one of our previous episodes, in which former NFL player Justin Forsett talks about finding your "huddle". You can listen to the full episode here: https://www.smallbusiness.amazon/podcast-episodes/ep-13-justin-tackles-the-top-3-steps-to-start-a-business

(07:40) How to work storytelling into product packaging

(08:30) How brand storytelling wins Teri media coverage and high-profile customers

(09:55) How transparency builds customer loyalty

Takeaways:

1 - Have a supportive community of entrepreneurs who know what you’re going through. They’ll be there if you want to collaborate to get better reach or if you need to vent about something only a fellow entrepreneur might understand.

2 - Integrating great storytelling into your products helps customers build a connection with your brand, and it promotes media coverage of your products when editors and journalists want to share your and celebrate your story.

3- Be honest with your customers – especially when things go wrong. This will show your customers that you care about giving them the highest quality product or services and might even turn them into loyal customers.

4 - Ask for permission. If you’ll be incorporating culture into your products and are planning to use someone’s legacy, then make sure you ask for permission. You could get in touch with their families like how Teri did with the illustration of the nightclub map of Harlem on the inside of their Candle boxes.

00:00:01

Teri Johnson: It's wonderful to celebrate history, to celebrate the past, to acknowledge the people who came before us who have done tremendous things. I want to learn more about other places, and other parts of history, and other cultures. I'd love to learn about that through some sort of product.

00:00:18

Andrea Marquez: It's Black History Month, and what better way to celebrate than to talk to a brand that celebrates Black culture all year round? Season 4 is right around the corner. In the past three seasons, I loved featuring as many diverse entrepreneurs as possible. I've noticed that a lot of them incorporate their culture into the brands in different ways. Aside from the fact that it's wonderful to be able to share your culture with other people, it can help your product stand out, and even build a loyal customer base.

I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we have a special episode with Teri Johnson, the CEO of Harlem Candle Company. Teri's business creates candles inspired by people and places from the Harlem Renaissance, an art movement that started in the Harlem neighborhood in New York. We'll be talking about how she incorporates culture into her products, the importance of having community, and of course, the stories behind some of her favorite scents. But first, let's get into Teri's story. Her journey building Harlem Candle Company started in her kitchen.

00:01:23

Teri Johnson: There was one year I had no money to buy gifts, and I was going to be seeing so many different family members and friends all over the country, and I wanted to bring something that was really special.

00:01:33

Andrea Marquez: And because she loved scented candles, she decided to make some and gift them to her friends and family for Christmas.

00:01:39

Teri Johnson: I had gotten some fragrance oils from a friend of mine, who's a chemist, who had created fragrance oils for different candle brands, and I made about 50 candles and I branded it La Maison de Bougies de Teri, Teri's House of Candles. Each candle had a little story, had a different color, had a different scent, depending on who I was gifting it to. The response was overwhelming. My friends and family love them. They wanted to order more. I was like, “Well, it's not a business,” but they said, “You should turn it into a business,” which is what I did. It was really an experiment, and I knew I could not call it La Maison de Bougies de Teri, because that makes no sense to most people. So I decided to name it the Harlem Candle Company, and use the essence of the Harlem Renaissance, and these incredible icons and legendary places as the inspiration for the fragrances.

00:02:31

Andrea Marquez: Even before the idea of Harlem Candle Company came to her, Teri always knew that she wanted to be her own boss.

00:02:38

Teri Johnson: I did corporate America. I definitely tried it. I used to do management consulting. The position that I had, I was responsible for going into these companies, understanding every little part of what a person did. I used to code, and being able to create a process, a system, to replace that person in their job. It was crazy, because it was like, “Oof, this is tough.”

However, I got these people to give me all their information about what they did, which is why I think creating a business, and creating a brand, I understand, from the very minute detail of being able to create something, and every single thing that is necessary in order to make it happen. Creating this brand, honestly, it wasn't hard. I'm not saying it with humility, but I'm saying it because I used to do really, really hard stuff for financial services companies. Building a candle brand? I was like, “Oh, no, that wasn't hard, and I can do it again.”

00:03:36

Andrea Marquez: Teri was ready to build a brand, and even though she makes building a business look easy and fun, it wasn't always so glamorous.

00:03:44

Teri Johnson: There are plenty of things about it that are not fun, that are not easy. Imagine packing up all your candles, a lot of them that you made the night before, or two nights before. Candles are heavy. Lugging them in a big old suitcase, some on a backpack, some on a tote bag, packing all this stuff into an Uber, and going to a pop-up and selling two candles, and not even being able to break even and pay for the Uber back and forth. That has happened. It's happened multiple times, and those are those moments that they're extremely humbling, but you have to fight through it. You can't give up, you can't quit.

00:04:22

Andrea Marquez: One of the things that helped Teri keep going, despite all that, was the supportive community she had around her.

00:04:28

Teri Johnson: I have a lot of friends who are also entrepreneurs or designers, who are makers, and it's important because sometimes it's just we're venting, and you just need to let it out. Then you also can sometimes get ideas, or, “Did you hear about this market,” or, “Did you hear about that?” You share, you collaborate. I'm wearing jewelry by a brand called Lionette. She's one of my best friends. I met her at a pop-up, and I wear her stuff as much as I possibly can, in different photo shoots, when I'm doing Instagram lives, and all that good stuff, and she puts my candles in her product photography. There's all sorts of really cool ways to be able to support each other, direct or indirectly. Having a community of people who believe in you, and just like you a lot, is important.

00:05:15

Andrea Marquez: This reminds me of an episode we had with Justin Forsett, a former NFL player, and the founder of Hustle Clean. He called it Having Your Huddle; a group of people that are close to you, and that you can go to for help.

00:05:31

Teri Johnson: It makes such a difference, because so many of us are self-funded, and we know the struggle. We know the struggle is real. When you know the struggle is real, and you see each other struggling, or doing some stuff, that's kind of cool. Being able to help, and support, and share is just the best.

00:05:50

Andrea Marquez: Another important part of Teri's community are her customers.

00:05:54

Teri Johnson: I call these people angels. There are people who are talking about your brand, doing really nice things, gifting your brand, that you don't really even know, and you don't know the impact and the moves that are actually being made. This really is our customers. These are our customers. They're our friends.

00:06:11

Andrea Marquez: Harlem Candle Company is more than just a candle company. Storytelling is an integral part of the brand.

00:06:18

Teri Johnson: All of the candles are inspired by the Harlem Renaissance. It could be a scent inspired by Josephine Baker, and we've used our interpretation of her boudoir. What did her boudoir smell like? Her boudoir in Paris. We imagine there's some rose, and some jasmine, and some amber. When you think about the time period of the 1920s and '30s, “Okay, what was the perfume that women were wearing?” We'd really just tried to create something that was sensual, and lovely, evocative, but that could transport you into this boudoir.

I would say one of my favorites is the Langston candle, which is inspired by the poet and writer Langston Hughes. What we really tried to do is recreate his creative space. Langston Hughes was a big smoker, so we put tobacco fragrance notes in there. He also used to live in Mexico, at two points in his life, and he loved going into these really small, candlelit, dusky churches, where they're burning incense. So we put incense notes in there. But then we also imagine him sitting on his leather chair, as he's writing very late at night, and so we put elements of leather. We really do try to embody the spirit and the creativity of whoever we are named the candle after. Storytelling is everything about the candle, and people connect to it, and they can feel it.

00:07:39

Andrea Marquez: I see that that storytelling extends to the packaging as well.

00:07:44

Teri Johnson: If you open up the candle box, you'll see a 1932 illustration of the nightclub map of Harlem. You'll also find a card that has a really beautiful picture of the candle in a lifestyle setting. And on the back of that card, it'll tell you the inspiration, and the fragrance notes, and a little romance story about the candle and how it connects to either the person that it's named after or the place it's named after. It's all about storytelling, and we try to make it really easy to gift, because you don't have to remember the story when you give the candle because it's on the inside.

00:08:15

Andrea Marquez: I could listen to Teri talk about these stories all day. She's obviously really passionate about what she does, and that passion and the storytelling behind the candles has brought them loads of success, even though they don't have a PR team.

00:08:29

Teri Johnson: I think because the brand is based on storytelling that people can connect, people understand. They get it. I think it makes it really easy for media outlets to talk about us. I would say those things, when all of these magazines, Elle, WWD, Cosmo, Vanity Fair, all these magazines, it's like, “Okay, this is cool. Thank you.” We don't even know the editors. We don't know the writers. They just know the brand, and they like it, and they write about it.

00:08:58

Andrea Marquez: She's even had a few celebrity customers.

00:09:01

Teri Johnson: I saw an order come through, and the name said Justin Bieber, but it was a large order, so I always noticed the real big orders. That was Justin Bieber. He ordered a candle. I called my fulfillment center. I was like, “Everybody, stop. Justin Bieber ordered candles.” They're like, “What?” We were like, “We got to make it so nice. Let's just like... We're going to write a handwritten note. Thank you, Justin, so much. We're just going to put so much love.” We put love into everything, but I said, “I need this box to have extra love.” Alicia Keys ordered his candles, Misty Copeland.

00:09:35

Andrea Marquez: From getting featured on magazines to celebrity customers. I think it's so cool that Teri has managed to build a brand that resonated with so many people, all through the power of storytelling. But at the end of the day, it still is entrepreneurship, and if you know anything about building a business, it's that there's always a few bumps in the road.

00:09:55

Teri Johnson: One of my manufacturers, a few years back, put the wrong fragrance in, I don't know, about 3, 000 candles, labeled it, everything. All our customers who know this candle, because it is their favorite, are just saying, “Hey, this is not the Speakeasy candle.”

00:10:10

Andrea Marquez: So Teri orders a candle, and realizes that the manufacturer had accidentally used another fragrance instead of Speakeasy.

00:10:18

Teri Johnson: We had to go and figure out the batch, and figure out every single person that had been shipped these candles with the wrong fragrance, because we knew it was wrong. We told them. We had to email all of them, and just say, “We are so sorry. Unfortunately, our manufacturer put the wrong candle fragrance.” We said, “Okay, this fragrance was actually our Brownstone fragrance.” Some people replied saying, “Thank you for letting me know, because I love this Brownstone fragrance.”

00:10:43

Andrea Marquez: I love that some of the customers ended up loving the scent.

00:10:47

Teri Johnson: They were very grateful, because a lot of the customers, if that was their first time ordering speakeasy, they didn't know that that was not the smell. But we were like, “No, we have to be very transparent, and let them know mistakes happen.” A mistake happened, and we fixed it. We've had so much customer loyalty, because we just like to just be upfront and honest, and let them know what's going on as a small business, because things like this can happen.

00:11:11

Andrea Marquez: Teri sent the right fragrance to all customers who had ordered it. Speaking from a customer's perspective, I definitely appreciate seeing that a brand is going above and beyond for me. That would've definitely made me a repeat customer. Let's go back to the storytelling behind Teri's brand. Teri incorporates history and culture in her products in such a beautiful way, and she managed to find a whole community who appreciates that. If you've been thinking about doing something similar...

00:11:37

Teri Johnson: Do it because it's good. It's wonderful to celebrate history, to celebrate the past, to acknowledge the people who came before us who have done tremendous things. I say do it. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong. I want to learn more about other places, and other parts of history, and other cultures. I'd love to learn about that through some sort of product.

00:12:00

Andrea Marquez: But if you're going to be working with specific people, Teri says it's important to be in touch with their families and get their permission.

00:12:08

Teri Johnson: The packaging that we have on the inside of our boxes, with the nightclub map of Harlem, illustration from 1932, I know the daughter of the artist, and the granddaughter of the artist. We got their permission, and they said, “Oh, absolutely. Thank you for celebrating my father's work in this way.”

00:12:26

Andrea Marquez: That was Teri Johnson, the CEO of Harlem Candle Company. It's so obvious that Teri's passionate about Harlem Candle Company, and I think that passion and the storytelling behind her brand is one of the main reasons why she has such loyal customers, or angels, as she calls them. We covered a lot in this episode. If you missed anything, don't worry. We've taken notes for you. You can find them at smallbusiness. amazon/ podcasts.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business, brought to You by Amazon. Make sure to subscribe, and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And please, please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier if you do it through your phone, or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@ amazon. com.

Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening. This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

Ep. 44: How to Keep a Seasonal Business Profitable Year-Round

Stay profitable all year.

[00:00:00] Charlie: It's a very good way to learn. Seasonal business. Yes, it could be challenging. On the other hand, it also gives you a lot of time to learn functions and actions that you would not be able to learn if you were busy all year long, all the time. So, you take the time to actually reinforce your knowledge and your skills.

[00:00:23] Host: Considering how challenging it must be to stay profitable or to keep your customers coming back during slower seasons, I'm glad we're starting off on a positive note. Let's dive deeper into what it takes to keep a seasonal business profitable and running all year long.

Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. By the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

[00:01:00] We’re at the last episode of the third season of This is Small Business. And for the season finale, we decided to talk about a slightly different type of business: a seasonal one. A seasonal business gets most or all their revenue from one season. We’ll be talking to Charlie Weiss, owner of Jummy, an organic hot cocoa company, about how to manage a seasonal business and ways you can stay profitable all year long. Like most of the businesses we feature on This is Small Business, you can find Jummy in the Amazon store. I thought Jummy was the perfect business for this because hot chocolate is sometimes considered a seasonal drink. If you’re like me, as soon as November starts, it’s hot chocolate season. I like to enjoy it best during colder months. For seasonal business owners, it can be worrying to have a product that tends to sell more during certain months.

I was curious to learn about how seasonal business owners can also stay profitable during low selling seasons so I spoke to Charlie. You’ll also hear from familiar experts and small business owners who showed up on other episodes this season. They’ll be pointing out and expanding on some of the takeaways. [00:02:00] So if you have a seasonal business and are looking for ways to stay profitable or keep your customers coming back during the slower seasons, then this episode is for you.

Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:20] Charlie: Oh, well, Jummy, came from Frozen Desserts. I had initially started a Frozen Desserts company a while back, which had its, uh, trepidations, adventures, and unfortunately, or fortunately, didn't work out as planned. So I was able to get into a few stores, about a hundred stores in the city at the time, but could not sustain somewhat of the growth. So it decided to pivot eventually. Uh, just by simply one night being in my apartment debating what I was going to do and I know my supplier had sent me some delicious cocoa powder because I used to make a double chocolate sorbet and decided to make a hot cocoa and I was like, wow, this cocoa is fantastic [00:03:00] and I made it with some coconut sugar and I was like, okay, hold on. This whole segment of the cocoa world must have changed in the last few years. And I realized that there weren't that many newish brands. So I decided to look more into it and came up with the idea of adding prebiotic fiber a few years ago, reducing the amount of sugar.

[00:03:20] ANDREA: I love that Jummy came out of a pivot. Your initial idea didn't go as planned but something better came out of it. And it sounds like you didn't just want to be another hot cocoa brand out there, you wanted to find a way to differentiate your product. Before we get into discussing the seasonality behind your business, I wanted to know why call it Jummy?

[00:03:40] Charlie: Jummy is Joy and Yummy. People say, oh Jemi, what is that? Oh, it's just yummy with a J. So then they remember that rather quickly. A very versatile name as well, which allows us to, stay in the hot cocoa, but if eventually we want to do chocolate bars, who knows, whatever, it, it's not going to affect the branding as much as my previous [00:04:00] venture that was called Charlie Sorbet. So, Jummy represents the Spirit of the brand and also the message and the feeling we want to convey to the consumer. I just want to make people happy. I just want to share the fact that you're able to have a healthier cup of hot cocoa.

[00:04:17] ANDREA: That’s a little crash course on the importance of branding when you're coming up with your name. So Charlie, can you tell me what makes Jummy a seasonal business?

[00:04:25] Charlie: It's seasonal because of the product that we manufacture. Uh, it's hot cocoa, no matter how better for you it's going to be. It's always going to be a hot cocoa and the consumer will always associate hot cocoa with a warm, comfy, cozy evenings, or, uh, after a long day out in the snow, that's what you think of hot cocoa. So for us, that is mainly, consumer driven seasonality. So our business really starts to pick up towards, let's say beginning of November, and really starts to you know rocket [00:05:00] around Thanksgiving. Now it's a not difficult but a little bit tricky to plan for the start of our season and having said that it is definitely the consumer that drives the seasonality of the business.

[00:05:12] Host: That brings an important topic to mind: because the customer drives the seasonality of the business, it's important to know what the customer journey looks like. We actually went over this topic in the first episode of this season. Here's Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers, with a quick refresher on what the five steps of a customer journey look like:

[00:05:30] AMBER: There's awareness, consideration, then the decision purchase, retention, and advocacy.

[00:05:36] ANDREA: So, Charlie, considering that you're a seasonal business can you tell me a bit about what your customer journey looks like in both on and off seasons?

[00:05:45] Charlie: The consumer starts around the month of October to think about the winter. So all these nice warm feelings driven by some search online. And that's when we come in [00:06:00] and we really start to gear up our advertising campaigns. The imagery that we use of a little something a little bit more cozy, a little bit more comfy, on our social media. To drive that consumer to our listings, and finally to, to purchase, the goal is to get that consumer to repurchase at least a few times during the season, and that journey kind of switches around March, April, where we obviously see sales to slow down a little bit and we see the consumers on this particular journey during the summer using our products more into their smoothies or adding to their coffee. So we've had videos and advertising where people added to their coffee, their yogurts. Actually, the yogurt one is thanks to my nephew. So you end up with a chocolate, yogurt, caramel flavor item and he loved it. I tried it and I was like, yeah, we need to, we need to push this because this will allow us to get out of that seasonality mindset for a cocoa mix or a hot cocoa mix. [00:07:00] And that's really the goal of a seasonal business is to be able and actually any business, obviously, but more so in the seasonal business is to attract the consumer and to keep that customer across the seasons, no matter how hard it is.

[00:07:10] ANDREA: Okay so you get your customers during the high season and then you try to keep them during the low seasons by advertising the use of the powder in other ways that could work during a warmer season -- like putting it in yogurt. What research went into figuring out that your customers can even use your product in the low season in that way?

[00:07:30] Charlie: Competitive analysis basically and this is what a lot of the business do so we look at what other business are doing how they're advertising their products, and we start to notice that people are much more versatile in the use of the hot cocoas of the world. So some other brands may focus more on their hot cocoa and say, oh, you can also use this for baking. We want to see it more as something that you can add to other items such as your coffee or your tea, for example, [00:08:00] or the yogurts. The smoothie is a huge thing. We have people that order quite a bit and that's all they do all year long. They love their smoothies. They want to add a little bit of sweetness with a little bit of cocoa flavor behind or a little bit of hazelnut or caramel flavor, and it's a perfect way to get yourself in the routine of the consumer.

So we did a lot of research on that. We actually tested also the product because nobody wants to put like two scoops of hot, of cocoa mix and not able to, uh, dissolve it correctly. You know reviews are a huge part of the business, whether it's positive reviews or more constructive reviews as we may call them. So those are things we take into account a lot when we review what consumers are doing. So when we look at some of these reviews, and we try to understand where we may have missed the mark, we are able to adjust. Much more efficiently, I believe, and easily than a company or brand that is much larger. That allows us to be much more nimble. [00:09:00] We can, you know, if we want to change the packaging, if we see that, okay, this, this season for a reason, Caramel is not selling, why isn't it sell why is it not selling correctly? It's a great flavor, obviously, but why isn't it not selling? Have we not advertised correctly, for example? Maybe it's a trend, you know.

[00:09:15] Host: And making sure you're constantly staying up to date with your customer is an essential part of your business. Here's what Roshni, Founder & CEO of Prosh Marketing, had to say about it in Episode 12 of this season:

[00:09:25] Roshni: This type of information changes all the time, so you can't just do this and then set it and forget it, because customers are changing. So if you sit on your data and your customer research, and you just build, and now you think that this is the way customers are, you're forgetting that customers and markets evolve over time. So it's something that's always changing, and something that you should, even as a business owner, as a marketer, as anyone in an organization, just have your pulse on the customer.

[00:09:50] ANDREA: But it could get a little tricky when you're trying to stay ahead of trends, so Charlie, what type of research are you conducting to be able to know that something is going to be trendy soon?

[00:10:00] Charlie: We usually look at, again, what the competition is doing. And we do know that these larger firms are the trendsetters. Regardless if their product comes out and it's a cherry rose flavor hot cocoa, you can be sure that the next year or two, cherry rose cocoa flavor is going to be a big hit. And it's not, the consumer usually does not dictate that, but these larger brands actually do dictate these, these trends somehow, because of such a niche and seasonal business. And it's quite interesting to see that. Now the other one is also, we try to think a little bit outside the box. So the mocha flavor that we have, a lot of other people are making mocha flavors that we all know, but I personally didn't even know it was going to be that successful. So there's also the fact that, okay, yeah, we want to try to see what has worked for others, you may think it's not going to work for you, but it actually works way better than you expected. And others that you think is, are going to work great, don't necessarily work [00:11:00] on the market. For us you know, for a while Caramel was doing great, and you know, sometimes there's a little bit of slowdown of, of the sales, and then it picks back up. It's, that's the nature also of the business and consumer demand.

[00:11:12] Host: It sounds like there's a lot of testing and learning which reminds me of something Trinity, co-founder and CEO of Golde, said in the second episode of this season:

[00:11:21] Trinity: When you are in this entrepreneurial journey, you have to look at yourself as you're sort of a scientist, you're a great experimenter, and so you're gonna try a lot of different things as you try to understand what works, what catches your audience's attention, what drives sales, what creates more brand love?

[00:11:42] ANDREA: Speaking of trying different things and learning as you go, something else I’m wondering is, because of the seasonality of your product, does the price change with it considering how demand fluctuates?

[00:11:54] Charlie: We see myself not only as the owner of the business or the brand manufacturer but also as a consumer. [00:12:00] I'm going to go in the store and I'm going to like something and buy it for 10, I go three months later and it's at 14, unlikely going to buy it. Because my first question is, why have you increased the price by so much? Our strategy is to offer discounts and coupons once we hit more of the summerish seasons. And like I mentioned previously, this is a time where we want to try to also show consumers that they can do more with our cocoa as opposed to just buying it between November and March. So we want to try to keep them. Also, we just want to make people happy and show them they can enjoy a cup of hot cocoa that has a little bit less sugar, has some prebiotic fiber, that's really our goal. We have customers that came back over 50 times and purchased our products. We don't want to lose them just because we're going to hike the price by a couple points. It's not going to work in our favor.

[00:12:50] ANDREA: So, you’re prioritizing customer loyalty through consistency, essentially. So, Charlie, I want to switch gears a bit and talk about cash flow. [00:13:00] Especially since that is one of the more intimidating topics for business owners.

[00:13:05] Charlie: Let me get my accountant with me right now. He will explain everything to you. And the mild heart attacks that we may have.

[00:13:13] ANDREA: I bet it's overwhelming sometimes. So tell me a little bit about what cashflow looks like for a seasonal business like yours.

[00:13:20] Charlie: In order to predict, um, proper cash flow and having enough reserve along the year, if you have too many movements of price with your product, it may be a little bit harder to forecast what your cash flow will be next season. Now what usually happens for us is we're Our year doesn't typically end December 31st It ends around March 30th, April Because that's when really our high season slows down. Once we're done with this high season, we're able to look at what happened During the month of November to March and have a proper forecast [00:14:00] or a proper estimation of what's going to happen in the following year.

[00:14:03] Host: So Charlie is doing something that Ambro Blackwell, a best-selling author and VP and senior business banking relationship manager at JP Morgan Chase said is essential when trying to figure out your cashflow: Forecasting. Here’s Ambro.

[00:14:16] Ambro: You should be forecasting your business. You should know where your business is heading. So you want to be able to anticipate, understand how your cash flow is looking. And yes, there's always going to be some days, some months where businesses, you know, may not be as steady as the month before. But you want to be able to, as much as possible, make sure that you're planning for that. And the only way you can do that to make sure that you're optimizing your cash is to do it strategically.

[00:14:40] Host: And doing this helps Charlie prepare himself for the slower seasons.

[00:14:44] Charlie: Now, we usually start to have cut some expenses and try to be a little bit more cautious and conservative around the month of April to September October. Once we start the October, November, we start implementing a little bit more of [00:15:00] what we would consider profit maximization. So that means going over the ads that worked very well the previous year that had a very good ROAS and that performed quite well. See how we can adjust them and increase actually those budgets in order to get more customers and more people in the door.

So it is a necessity and it could be a little bit difficult at times because as you know the weather is can't really forecast that, no pun intended, but that's why I say around Thanksgiving is usually the time of the year where we see our spike in sale and that continually increases and then decreases slowly into March and so that's how we're able to forecast more or less our cash flows.

[00:15:46] ANDREA: Charlie and what do you work on in the low seasons to prepare?

[00:15:50] Charlie: We try and we test new flavors. We see what works, what doesn't work. Like, could we add maybe some, some more cocoa? Or what's going on with this, you know, element in the formula? [00:16:00] So the seasonal aspect of the business also allows you to optimize yourself and optimize the business during the slower month of the year. Including learning a little bit more about accounting. Accounting is, is, is a necessary evil. But once you know and you understand some of these casual concepts, you're able to be like, okay, hold on, my ad campaigns are not performing well. I can see this becoming an issue in six months. As opposed to saying, Oh, okay, it's not going well. Let's see what happens in a week or two. And then, you end up in six months having a very big cash flow issue. So understanding the cash flow, these cash flow concepts, the ad spend, your inventory, how much you're being charged at, for your warehouse and the fulfillment, allows you to really plan a little bit better your profit maximization during the high season and to cut expenses during the lower seasons.

[00:16:52] ANDREA: So it sounds like you can't really know how you're going to perform unless you have a year before to learn from. So I'm curious to know, [00:17:00] what was your first year like?

[00:17:02] Charlie: I started actually selling, I believe it was mid-December. So basically missed the entire season. So I did not have really a lot of data to look at. If you don't have any reviews, if you are not ranked correctly, nobody's going to find you. And this is what I tell people like, yeah, you have a great product. How are you going to tell people that you have a great product or you, or at least that you have a product?

Well to do that, you need to find creative ways. And one of them is, To advertise. The other one is Amazon has a great program called the Vine programs. So you're able to, they select customers or consumers. They're going to send some of your product to them and they will review. So that allows you to build up the review. So we were able to build up from like one or two reviews to 30, then those 30 become 40, and then you start to see your ads converting and then you're like, okay, hold on. I'm now, instead of spending a hundred dollars and getting. 30 in sales, I'm spending a 100 [00:18:00] and getting 250 in sales. So what's going on? Like, what's converting well? And you're starting to look at things like, okay, keywords. What are people searching for? Oh, we're ranking very well for vegan hot chocolate. Okay, let's, let's push that. Coming back to the cash flow. Let's put more money in those keywords and reduce the spending on keywords like hot cocoa, which is so vague that You can spend thousands of dollars and get maybe five sales.

So those are the little tricks at the beginning that takes a lot of time and money to learn. Then comes back to being persevering and pushing and trying to understand the systems. It's like a new language. You need to understand the advertising platform, the tools that are offered, like, you know, um, on the brands aspect, you're able to see the demographics of people purchasing. These are very important, data that you need to look at or someone has to look at. And, yeah, it ties all back to [00:19:00] the questions you had previously regarding the cash flows. Because this allows us to really trim, um, the spending.

[00:19:08] Host: What a great way to end this season by giving us a look into what it’s like to be a seasonal business. That was Charlie Weiss, owner of Jummy, an organic hot cocoa company. And as always, here are some of the key takeaways.

One. This isn’t specific to a seasonal business but as we learned from Jummy, product differentiation is key. We’ve spoken about this in past episodes. Standing out means thinking about who your competitors are and how your product compares, what are you providing for customers that they can’t really get the same somewhere else?
Two. When it comes to a seasonal business with low and high seasons that are very clear, it’s important to look at retention. Prioritizing your customer’s loyalty like Charlie does. Once you’ve got a customer during the high season, try to figure out how to make them come back during the slower seasons. It’ll be way easier than trying to get new customers. Charlie suggested giving loyal customers some discounts during lower seasons.
[00:20:00] Three. If you’re seasonal… leverage that. Use the slow seasons as a way to learn more about how to improve your business during the high seasons. And maybe even try cutting down on marketing and ads that you might be running that aren’t getting the engagement you expected.
And four. Cash Flow is super important to stay open during the slow season. Make sure you try to forecast any upcoming payments that you’ll have during the slower seasons and set money aside for that. And maybe even try cutting down on marketing and ads that you may be running that won’t work during that season.

I'm curious – Is your business seasonal? How do you get your customers coming back during the low seasons? I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need [00:21:00] to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until later – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:21:27]

Ep. 43: How to Grow a Sustainable Business

Stay profitable while sustainable.

[00:00:00] Will: People shop online or go to the store, they are demanding that companies follow some sort of environmentally friendly or environmentally responsible path. There are companies out there who are taking pledges to be carbon neutral. All of these things, so you can see customers are shifting that direction when they want to purchase something. We're very happy that we live in that space where we can tell our customers with confidence that, yeah, you're purchasing a product that's going to help the environment.

[00:00:35] Andrea: So, when your small business is sustainable, more customers might end up buying your product. As a consumer myself, I would definitely support a business that prioritizes the environment. But what are some of the regulations that you should follow to make sure your business is more sustainable? And when you figure that out, how do you communicate it to your customers? Let's find out!

[00:00:55] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. [00:01:00] This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about sustainability and how your business can meet environmentally friendly regulations with the Co-Founders of Liberty Tabletop: Greg Owens, the CEO and William Owens, the Sales & Marketing Manager. Like most of the small businesses on the show, you can find Liberty Tabletop in the Amazon store. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:38] Greg: Liberty Tabletop was born in 2005 when Oneida Limited decided to shut down their production here in the United States and move their production overseas. And Matt Roberts and I decided we needed to do something about that. It was a factory town that we live in, Cheryl, New York. Used to have 2,600 employees working there. The building that we started out our office in [00:02:00] was built when Abraham Lincoln was president. To put it in perspective, that's how old the place was. And, so we, formed Cheryl Manufacturing, to be a captive manufacturer for Oneida. Went on for a couple years making flatware, doing some packaging, some other things for them. That relationship sort of fell apart. And we had to go in a different direction. So we created Liberty Tabletop, which is our own brand of flatware. And we've been going ever since and growing as a business.

[00:02:26] Andrea: So, I know you claim to be one of the most environmentally friendly flatware manufacturer on earth, could you tell me why you say this?

[00:02:34] Will: So our product is basically one element. It's, it's 1810 stainless steel. Stainless steel is reusable compared to for example, plastic forks, spoons and knives, which are one use and then you throw them away. Stainless steel also, when you manufacture it, there's no waste involved. All of the byproduct of what goes into making [00:03:00] a fork, spoon, or knife is able to be recycled. So those are just a few things from the product standpoint as to why we can claim to be, at least our industry can claim to be, very earth-friendly.

[00:03:13] Greg: Another aspect of our product is the quality. We use only the highest quality 1810 stainless as opposed to 18 oh stainless, which is much cheaper. So that means it lasts longer, retains its luster and it's something that you'll want to keep and pass down to the next generation. Our manufacturing process is also quite interesting. Our factory is run on hydropower from Niagara Falls. We buy most of our supplies locally. It's a big thing in business. Our buffs, our compounds, and our raw materials, our packaging materials, which are primarily made for recycled paper. We're fully compliant with EPA and New York State d e c standards, which are very stringent. We don't use any harsh chemicals. In particularly, we don't use Trichlorethylene to clean our product. It's a carcinogen, that's banned in the United States.

[00:04:00] The next thing that makes us earth-friendly is what we like to call it, is our marketing strategy through Amazon and through our website. We call it factory to table. So literally stainless steel shows up at our door. We manufacture our product, put it in our distribution facility, get an order, and it goes right from our factory to your table. Conversely, product coming in from overseas, travels half the way around the world on container ships that burn tar, and the environmental standards under which the stainless steel and the actual manufacturing take place are not anything close to what we have here in the United States.

[00:04:38] Will: Here in the United States, we get all of our stainless steel goes through a very stringent process at the mills. They go through testing to make sure that it is truly a hundred percent 1810 stainless steel. So from a health and safety standpoint, just as much from an earth friendly standpoint, it's a pretty big deal.

[00:05:00] Greg: To Will's point, when we first started our brand and first started marketing online, I took all the phone calls as I was the customer service guy, and I was very surprised that, a lot of people called me up and the most prominent question was, where is the metal from? Because they, they were cognizant of the fact that some of the mills, they don't test their metal. They test them for the things that are supposed to be in there, but they don't necessarily test them for the things that aren't supposed to be in there. So that was a big concern for our customers, and it became a big marketing point of our company.

Pollution was a real problem here when I grew up. And we've really cleaned up our act here in the United States. Unfortunately, part of that has been sending production overseas, outta sight, outta mind. When we have this conversation with folks and they really start thinking about what they're doing, and where their products are being made, it becomes very relevant and very important to them, particularly from an environmental standpoint.

[00:05:54] Will: Right. If the manufacturing plant was in your backyard, you wouldn't want them dumping anything into the stream, [00:06:00] but if it's halfway across the world, you don't really think about it.

[00:06:06] Greg: And our steel is manufactured in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the most part. And when I was a kid, the river caught on fire. That's how bad it was. Today it's a beautiful city. It's been rejuvenated and, uh, people fish in that river.

[00:06:20] Andrea: This is fascinating and very eye-opening. I had never thought of these things. So you covered a lot of regulations, a lot of specific things that are part of your process to be able to think about the greater picture and how this affects the environment and people's health. And obviously all that is great for your customers and employees, but how does that impact the growth of your business?

[00:06:40] Greg: I think that the message really resonates with our customers. Made in USA is, is, is a brand and we sort of own that brand and the flatware world as well mentioned, we're the only ones still doing it in the United States, but the number two thing that I, I would say impacts the customer choice and you're gonna pay a little bit more for it because of the quality. [00:07:00] We pay our workers a livable wage and all these other things that drive our cost up. Primarily it's, we don't have subsidized stainless steel that we work with, but the sustainability and the, the quality and the buy it once concept, literally something that you could have for the rest of your life and hand down to your kids. And it would still look good and function correctly versus some of the less expensive, product that you can buy out there that you might have for a couple years. Then you throw it away, it ends up in a landfill and you buy more. They really love that message and that's sort of become what we're all about.

[00:07:35] Andrea: As a consumer myself, it is becoming increasingly important for me to see some sort of proof that you are taking as a brand into consideration the good of the community and the environment. So that being said, what are some of the ways that a brand can show their customer that they're implementing sustainability into their processes?

[00:07:55] Greg: I think the first thing that you have to be focused on is you have to be genuine. [00:08:00] We really make an effort to tell our story. We make it true. We make it real. And I think when people hear that story and they see the product, they get it.

[00:08:10] Will: One thing that's very frustrating is to get sort of that written proof. It becomes very expensive for small businesses. It should be easier for a small business to be able to get that certification so that they can turn around and tell their customers with proof. We've all seen pictures of factories overseas. When you say, I am making a product here in the United States, just in the fact that the product is made here is already making a difference just in the fact that you don't need to ship the product halfway across the world is already making a difference.

[00:08:48] Andrea: Could you give an example of a stamps or badges that you're trying to get?

[00:08:52] Will: So the first one is, uh, working with Amazon to be able to get that climate friendly badge. [00:09:00] I personally as an Amazon shopper, have seen companies while I'm searching for products to buy that have it, versus companies that don't. Caring about the environment like I do, I will actually go for the product that has that. So, it's important. I would say we're gonna start with that badge. Because we see the most potential for our company, and Amazon gives that credibility to a buyer.

[00:09:25] Host: That were the Co-Founders of Liberty Tabletop: Greg and William Owens. They talked about sustainability and how your business can meet environmentally friendly regulations. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. It's probably more sustainable if you manufacture your products in the US. When you do that, you can look deeper into the manufacturing process and cut down on shipping overseas. Plus, being made in the US is appealing to a lot of customers so you might also win over more customers. Try looking into that option but know it will come with higher costs, so decide what is most important to you and possible.
[00:10:00] Two. Some other things you should consider when it comes to environmentally friendly regulations are: the quality of your product and the material it’s made from, how you package your product, the journey that it takes for it to get to customer’s doors, and then, how do you communicate this to your customers? One way Will and Greg mentioned is by getting the badges or stamps that show this when customers consider your product like the climate friendly badge in the Amazon store.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:11:01]

Ep. 42: How to Future-proof your Business

Leverage new technology.

[00:00:00] Michelle: We both need our human skills and our technical skills to bring to the table. You have to have enough human skills to differentiate your work, but you also have to be able to know enough technically to intervene at the right points in time and know when to interrogate the data or the model or the algorithm. If we look at where AI is today, even in its very elemental roots with these kinds of phenomenal innovations, we can see the ways in which some of our work can become potentially obsolete or made easier or automated. But we also can see very readily where our human skills come to the fore.

[00:00:40] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. By the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use [00:01:00] on your business journey.

The future of the workplace seems to be constantly evolving because of all the new technological advances that are happening. I mean we've all heard all about how AI is gonna change the workplace and how we work. So how can you leverage these tools to help improve your business operations? And is it even a good idea to do that? How much should you lean on technology to help automate certain parts of your business?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Michelle Weise, the CEO of Rise & Design, an advisory service for organizations looking to design strategies that'll prepare adults for the jobs of today and tomorrow. We'll be talking about how you can future-proof your business by using technology. But first - I want you to meet Kevin Meyer, Co-Founder & CEO of Crunch Tech Inc. You might also know him as the person who developed The CrunchCup alongside his partner. Like most of the small businesses we feature on the show, you can find the CrunchCup in the Amazon store. Kevin is an avid user of automation and technology to make sure that business operations are as efficient as possible. [00:02:00] So if you've been thinking of ways to leverage AI and technology to improve your business then this episode is for you.

Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:20] Kevin: I was running an agency and we were helping small businesses basically get off the ground. Doing a lot of content and doing a lot of gurilla, kind of just scrappy stuff to make sure that, you know, these business owners who didn't have a huge budget, we could still give them high value production type of content. And so, my partner came to me and basically said Hey, so my daughter, she wants to get into, you know, at least spin up a small business. And she's thinking about things. And the unit economics on a cereal bar are pretty great. You're just selling people cereal. And I said, Yeah, that's, that's great. But you, you're gonna be stuck brick and mortar, you've got a spoon, you've got a bowl. [00:03:00] And somewhere in that conversation I said, you know, while I was a, an editor in the visual effects industry. Sometimes super late at night when the kitchen kind of like, no one's there, there was always cereal and milk. So I would have two cups, one cup with cereal, one cup with milk, and that way I could do my work and not have like a bowl of cereal just kind of turned to mush while I'm working.

And pretty much three days later, he shows up at my front door and he's got this hot glued contraption. At first, I said, you know what, this is gonna be super hard for people to adopt. Like people are so used to just eating their cereal with a spoon and a bowl, and then I used the prototype. And there's something just so uniquely special about being able to sit at your desk and with one hand eat cereal or granola or anything, and I knew it had legs. And so I said, you know what, Rob, my current co-founder, we'll launch it the same way I'm helping other clients but I'm gonna do it. Basically on the house [00:04:00] as a pet project, get all the team that in the agency at the time, just super excited about it. Like, this is a project for like us, like we can do whatever we want. There's no client. We are the client. And it was just a blast.

The cost per acquisition, for people that were super interested and the engagement on our, our initial ads were just like, light bulbs in my head saying, this is something super special. People love this. People are gravitating towards it and they want to be involved or they want to try it. And so fast forward to today. You know, we've sold over I think 500,000 units. We've got warehouses in four different countries, the US Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. And really, it's just, it's a, a blast to work on it.

[00:04:45] Andrea: I really, really like that story because the success of the product surprised you and right now Crunch Cup is doing great. So, before this we spoke about how much you love using tech to make your operating as efficient as possible considering you’re a small team.

[00:05:00] Kevin: We lean hard into our PMs, our project management system. Every Monday I'm just saying, hey, what are we doing that if it takes you five clicks or it takes you a whole minute of doing something and you're doing this task repeatedly, Like, let's automate that.

[00:05:20] Andrea: Do you believe everything can be automated at this point? Especially since AI is currently gaining a lot of popularity?

[00:05:25] Kevin: It's the question of this century, I think, you know how far can that go? Right, so, a good example of this is that an AI or a LLM, large language model, they work better when they're trained on a certain thing. For example, mid journey, which is, you know, a generative, creative kind of photo content. I can't tell it to, hey, create a photo with my product inside that photo. At least you can't do it yet. And there's some people trying to do this. The AI doesn't know what your product is. You can feed it an image offline or off a website off. You could just send it to a, an Amazon URL. And for the most part, [00:06:00] it's not gonna understand what a product is or how a consumer might use it, just from looking at it and learning about it. I don't think we're there yet.

You know, we did the same thing, like I, I said, oh, I want to do a generative ai, photo kind of sequence in on our Instagram feed cuz it's popular right now. So it's like, gimme a photo of, you know, a 90 year old person skydiving, holding the Crunch Cup, and I sent it a seed image, so it could understand what it's working with and try to use this blend mode. And it was just totally failed. So instead we just said, hey, grandma skydiving holding a water bottle, and we'll just Photoshop it in. And that's what we did.

Other things that it's not gonna be able to do is, it's not very good right now at connecting certain tasks. There's two parts to this. So let's say that I want to create an analytics dashboard based off a table of data. I could ask it to write a formula that says, Hey, in column g I want it to take the weighted average of column B plus C, [00:07:00] and it could spit that out, but if the step before that is what do you need to see to make actionable insights and why do we need to even see the average on column G? We're not really there yet where you can say, Hey, give me analytics. Because your brain is saying, I know kind of what I want, but I don't know exactly what I need. And in some cases, you know exactly what you need and then AI's great for that. But like if I asked AI to design my product, the one that we took, 80 prototypes, it's gonna have a super hard time doing that. And it may halfway through, forget what the prompt is to where it'll start to iterate and you know, you get something that's not a cup or it's completely different and it's got little channels that can't even be manufactured, so it doesn't know what the manufacturing capabilities are unless it's specifically trained on that.

And then it also doesn't know how the human is going to be using it, and it doesn't know certain instances [00:08:00] unless you fed it that info. Technically you could say, hey, I need you to generate a cup. It's got two vessels and it's solving this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And like, you feed it a ton of data, you may get close. But really the way that we should be using AI is to get to a starting point on how we want to direct it.

[00:08:22] Andrea: Can you tell me the top two ways that AI has influenced or benefited your business?

[00:08:28] Kevin: We began leaning into it to do things as simple as like, you know, I'll be honest, I use it to respond to emails in some cases. It’s really good at summarizing text so I can send it a link or give it just a data set of customer sentiment. We're launching a product later this year and a lot of those key points, the attributes of this new product were derived based off of customers. And so there's no way I can read the 12,000, [00:09:00] reviews that have been posted, you know, feeding that data to an AI and saying, Hey, gimme the five key points that people are upset with and want to see made better or resolved.

Another great thing it's able to do, and this has helped us optimize our process flow is really like content generation and the creative content that goes into like, let's say an email. So there's a prompt that I've made, it that has about 10 steps and every three steps I ask it to reply or to halt and ask if it needs any more information, if it understands. And in some cases it'll say, yeah, what about this, this, and this? how do you want to go about this? And we build out some of our email marketing just like that. We'll say, hey, generate five topics that are interesting to post in a email newsletter or an email blast to our customers. Here are four examples that we've done in the past, and it'll come back to us and say, Hey, here are five different email topics [00:10:00] that we can send out. And then that third step, I say, pick one of them and tell us why that's the best

one to actually push content out for. Once the content's built out, we can say, Hey, also generate a SMS message for this exact campaign. And it'll summarize that down into 144 characters so it can fit the sms character length. We've got now an email campaign. We've got SMS campaign, we've got our posts that supplement that campaign on our social media channels, and that would've taken, previously, maybe a few days and like bouncing, brainstorming between two or three people to like come up with that kind of content. As long as you're giving it the information it needs, it can take 30 seconds to do what it would take a few days and a few people. It’s super powerful.

[00:10:50] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Kevin Meyer, Co-Founder & CEO, Crunch Tech Inc. [00:11:00] You can find out more about the Crunch Cup in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Kevin gave us a behind the scenes look into how he uses technology and AI to smoothly operate his business. Because they're a small team, time is money and so automating repetitive tasks is super important to ensure that the team has enough time for other priorities. So, if you've got a small team like Kevin and a lot of work to get through, then maybe automating some tasks can help you out.

Like Crunch Tech Inc., the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:12:00] So far, we've talked about how Kevin used technology and AI to automate his business operations. So let's dig deeper into other ways that businesses can leverage technology and make sure that they’re prepared for the future of the workplace with my next guest Michelle Weise, the CEO of Rise & Design.

[00:12:20] Michelle: I think it helped that there was enough I think hoopla around the fact that it was very confident sounding, but often wrong. And so you had to go in, right, with a little bit of skepticism and doubt. So it is really important to double back and, and make sure that some of this stuff is helpful.

As small business owners, there are certain kind of time saving things we just need to rely on, to be able to save our mental space for the activities that really matter. Those kinds of tools are just, you need them when you don't have massive teams to do the grunt work for you, right? So you need time saving gestures and, and, and exercises and mechanisms. [00:13:00] I definitely rely on it here and there just as a, as an idea generator at certain points in times. I'm not the best, for instance, at creating agendas for meetings, so it just helps me quickly remember what does an audience kind of just need to know at a high level from some of the, the work that I'm presenting to them. But I, I, I definitely love it as, as an efficiency mechanism, but I'm definitely seeing that my role is clear and more defined now that I see what the tools can offer.

[00:13:28] Andrea: I’m so impressed sometimes by what AI can do but also, I feel like when people talk about it being “efficient” I feel like I spend more time explaining all the parameters of what I want to it, then if I just did it myself. Like, AI is making some type of mark, but I don’t know if it’s where we need it to be yet, at least in my experience. And thinking of looking into the future, what are some other trends you're seeing in the workplace that you think small business owners should look out for?

[00:13:57] Michelle: I think the biggest piece is, [00:14:00] for me at least, when I've seen, when I've worked with different kinds of organizations, the piece that's never going to go away is how critical internal communications is. You can never really over communicate how and what you're doing. I think the sort of dissemination and the knowledge share, getting it across to a wide array of stakeholders is, is just always critical and I, and I just kind of marvel at how we forget about it in different kinds of trans, I, I lead different kinds of, Internal transformations for organizations and companies and you get so mired in the what and the things to do, it can get really easy to forget to point to the why and why we're doing this. And really when you're trying to galvanize a large group of people, that insistence on the over communication of the why. And the vision and why we're doing all this work has to happen all the time, almost to a point where it gets annoying for people because they're just like, oh, they're saying it again, [00:15:00] but it needs to be there for people to kind of hear it, and feel a part of it. So I feel like that piece is kind of far and away just the thing that just keeps emerging, even through any kind of technical or technological enablement that goes on within an organization. That piece is, is always clear.

I've also noticed with, you know, as we're switching to remote and hybrid workforces, there's sometimes, especially for cultures that are more familiar with FaceTime and in person time, it can feel difficult to let go, and it's hard to kind of, focus on the deliverable as opposed to seeing someone work and feeling like they're working hard. And so that's where I think I've tried out every kind of possible project management tool in every organization. And those, those really are helpful in terms of keeping people on task and oriented toward, what is it that we're trying to accomplish and who's working on what? [00:16:00] I feel like the most kind of friction that emerges that I've seen in, in workplace challenges is around lack of clarity of what your role is. But I think when you use these different kinds of project management tools well, it's very clear who does what and when you need to hand something off or, or get into a moment of collaboration.

[00:16:20] Andrea: Collaboration I think is such an important aspect as you look to growing your team and thinking about scaling your business too and how you leverage the best tools that allow you to do that. And then there’s this human skill aspect of it that sometimes doesn’t come through when using these tools that needs to be prioritized too, right?

[00:16:40] Michelle: As we think about those trends for the future of the workforce, I think one of the things we're going to really see real transformation around is how we reimagine on the job training. We've seriously disinvested in training our existing workforce, [00:17:00] and I think what we're seeing in some of the innovations out there is a real excitement around how do you take your workforce, understand, and make really transparent mobility pathways within a company, and how do you kind of assess using AI and different kinds of skills that you bring to the table, as well as the gaps that you may have to move towards those other goals within the company that you may have. And it's really exciting to see some of these platforms emerge that make that kind of re skilling, much more concrete as to, okay, here I am now. I think I want to go be a systems network analyst, or I think I want to go be a human resources manager. Here are the 10 competencies I'm lacking, and here's how I might fill them.

And, and those kinds of things are emerging, which is really exciting to see on the innovation front. And so I think as we think about transparency and retention within the workforce. We're going to see more emphasis on how do we reimagine building those skills while in the flow of work. [00:18:00] I'm really excited to see how more and more companies figure out how to pull out or carve out 30 minutes a week, 30 minutes a day, to help people gain the time to actually acquire those new skills for, this emerging world of work. And I think that's like a really huge myth in the business world is that if you invest in your people, they'll leave you for your competition. Instead, it can really deal with this high turnover rate that we see in a lot of different companies. How do we keep our people? How do we make them feel valued? We actually teach them new skills.

[00:18:35] Host: That was Michelle Weise, the CEO of Rise & Design talking to us about the future of work. As always, here are some key takeaways:

One. Automation is great, especially when you've got a small team like Kevin's. When you automate repetitive tasks using AI or technology, it'll help free yourself up for other important tasks that you might need to focus on. So do your research and leverage the tools available to you. Kevin thinks about this every Monday, [00:19:00] so maybe you want to start adding an hour of every week to auditing yourself on what can be automated to free some time.
Two. Both Michelle and Kevin mentioned various ways in which they leverage technology to improve their operations. Kevin talked about how AI helps him generate emails or look through his customer reviews, as well as project management tools that help him stay on track. Michelle mentioned that a problem she sees in a lot of businesses is that sometimes people aren't sure what their role is and technology can help with that. You can use project managements tools to make sure that everyone knows what they need to doing, especially as your business grows. Michelle did also say that face time is also very important and there isn’t a replacement for what human connection can do.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can automate to improve your business operations? Or maybe you've already done that in many ways. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – [00:20:00] it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:20:50]

Ep. 41: How to Expand to Other Markets

Expand your business to other markets.

[00:00:00] Max: The most important thing that me or anybody else who thinking about expanding need to do is figure out is there a market for your products. It could be as easy as go to Amazon and look at your category. Let's say you're, you're selling coffee makers. Type in coffee makers and take a look. See how much are they selling for? What are the brands that you're competing against? Can you compete on the quality? Can you compete on the price? Can you compete on the listings? Is the listings showing the coffeemakers, are they good? Are they bad? Do they have a lot of images? Do they have video? If you see that there is opportunity, whether on a low end, or high end, then just go for it.

[00:00:37] Andrea: So if you're considering expanding into a new market, the first thing you've gotta do is research. I feel like that's the first step to everything in business. But once you've decided that there’s a demand for your product, what comes next? Are there any differences between the way you present your product to different markets? And if yes, how do you figure that out? Let's talk about it.

[00:01:00] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about how you can expand into different markets with Max Gurevich, President of Warm Home designs which is a business that sells curtains! Like most of the small businesses we feature on the show, you can find the Warm Home Design curtains in the Amazon store. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

Today’s episode of This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon Ads. Amazon Ads helps you reach customers wherever they spend their time, and is here for every type of small business. Amazon Ads has a range of products and information to help you achieve your advertising goals, for registered sellers, vendors, book vendors, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors, app developers, and/or agencies.

[00:02:00] Max: So, originally, I'm a CPA by trade. So when I graduated at NYU, I was working for a big four accounting firm. I really liked the job, but I also liked playing poker. So, four years after working as a CPA I quit, I became a professional poker player. That was very fun. A lot of exciting things were happening, but poker playing usually happens during the night and during the weekend. And I thought I had some free time to try something new. So, I tried Amazon FBA. That was 2012. Amazon FBA was starting out, so I bought my first product send her in and it sold it like 24 hours. I made like $40. I was super excited, and I tried another product, another product, and mostly wholesale. So, it wasn't my product. Tried different categories and then I finally realized that there's an opportunity in home decor space, so I create my own brand, also made my own product, send it to Amazon and kind of build up from there. I was exclusively in US for, let's say two to three years. [00:03:00] And then, I saw another friend of mine was selling in Mexico and was very successful. So, I decided why not try that? So, I expanded into Mexico and then into Canada. So now we sell our products in three markets.

[00:03:15] Andrea: What are one of the top things that you have learned from expanding to [00:04:00] non-US markets that you think any business, regardless of what their product is, should know.

[00:03:22] Max: If you have a lot of reviews, take a look at the photos and see how people use, use your products. You have idea in your head how the product's gonna be used, but it could be completely different. This is actually a good tip, not just for international market, but also for American market. Sometimes people use your products in a very surprisingly unique ways that you, you would never think about it. So, for example, in our case, one of our products is a curtain. It's a short width curtain for like a small windows. It's just an okay product. It doesn't sell super well but in Mexico, it's sold relatively much better. And at first, I didn't really pay attention because I thought, you know, maybe there is more short, small windows in Mexico than the US who knows? [00:04:00] But then I looked at the reviews and look at the photos of how people using their curtains turnout. They're actually not using the curtains for windows at all. They're using them to cover the doors, the door frames. So instead of a door, they will use a curtain to cover another room or closet or something like that. So that gives you an idea of maybe you should present your listing a little different. Maybe you should create new images to show people, this is the way the product can be used. Or maybe you can create a completely brand-new product that's specifically designed for this purpose. So, if you understand how people use your products, you can expand or make the product better for specific markets.

[00:04:40] Andrea: Do you have different product listings for one product depending on what market it's selling in? Like for the example, in this case, those curtains that you just mentioned, does that listing look different in Mexico versus in the United States?

[00:04:55] Max: My descriptions and bullet points and a title looks different because you wanna present your product the way it's gonna be used, [00:05:00] it doesn't matter how you want it to be used, it matters how your customers use it. You wanna think of it not from your perspective, but from customer perspective. So, if the customer wants to use it that way, you should present it that way.

[00:05:13] Andrea: Did you run any other type of research to be able to figure that out, or was it just through customer reviews?

[00:05:18] Max: Don't be afraid to, to take a look at your competitors and see what works for them. Amazon presents a lot of information; they give you list of keywords that people use to when they do the search. You can look at other competitors listing and see how they use it. So, if, let's say you just starting out, you don't have any reviews yourself and don't see any pictures, but there's, there might be a competitor who has a thousand reviews. That means they have 20 or 30 photos available. So, take a look. Maybe you will see something that's unique and different maybe they're not presenting their listing the way the customer using it. So that would be a competitor advantage for you.

[00:05:55] Andrea: So, Max, can you tell me about ROAS, or Return on Ad Spend [00:06:00] which is a marketing metric that measures revenue earned for each dollar you spend on an ad? What were some of the major differences in return on your ad spend and performance across these markets?

[00:06:12] Max: So when we started out in Mexico, the return on ad spent was significantly better, in Mexico than in the US. I'm guessing it's because the competition was lower and there was just less competitors in general, or maybe they were not focused enough on the Mexican market and focusing in the US. So because of that, ROAS was much better in Mexico than in US. That was 2019. Things have changed. The ROAS is converging towards US, so there is more competition, and people may be focusing more in Mexico, but there is still at, to this day, the ROAS is better in Mexican market than in the US market.

I think one thing that, our competitors not doing is running a video ad. Mostly, I assume it's because they already have the ads with the text in English [00:07:00] and it costs money to translate it, and run a new ad. So, we had a really good returns on, uh, video ads. Some of them are in Spanish, at least text, and some of them you don't have to have a text at all. If your product is compelling enough and you can create a video that's beautiful enough, then just a video of your product with a background, it would be a great ad.

I think the smartest thing that Amazon did with the ads is to make it basically the same as in US market. So people always, you know, scared of learning new things so if you make the, user interfaces, all the names and everything exactly the same, it would be easier for the advertisers to start advertising. Obviously in order to achieve really good results, you have to be proficient. But to start it out and to test it, and then try it, it's as simple as it gets. And that's a, I think that's a very good thing that Amazon did.

My thing is, you can learn, for months and for years. But unless you try it, [00:08:00] unless you failed for the first time, you will never learn enough. So just try, just set up a budget. It doesn't have to be a big budget because, you know, the cost per click is cheaper than the US so your budget doesn't have to be as big. Set it up, $10 a day budget, $20 a day, $50 a day, whatever you're comfortable with. And just try it out. Something doesn't work, then you change it and try something else.

[00:08:25] Andrea: When thinking about expanding to non-US markets, what are some of the language-considerations you think should be made?

[00:08:32] Max: So I talked to some other people who also sellers not in the Mexican market. And basically what I'm hearing is says, well, I'm not a native Spanish speaker, so what if my grammar is not good? What if I translate and it would sound bad or embarrassing? And my reply is always, I'm not a native Spanish speaker either. I'm not even a native English speaker. So, my grammar is probably bad in the US market and in Mexican market, but you're not selling your grammar, [00:09:00] you're not selling your words, you're selling your product. If your product is good enough, if you price it competitively, if you create images and the video that present your product in the best light, your grammar doesn't matter, it's not what you write, it's what you sell that's important.

[00:09:15] Host: I love that we're ending with that. So if the language barrier is what's holding you back from expanding to other markets, remember Max's words. The customers are here for your product not your grammar. That was Max Gurevich, President of Warm Home designs. As always here are some takeaways on expanding to other markets:

One. Research. Before expanding into another market, you need to figure out if there's a demand on the product you're selling. Also, this research will help you figure out how to write your listing and the best way to advertise to your new market. Max suggested looking at what your competition is doing and even looking through those customer reviews.
Two. The customer is always right. At least in their feedback. When you read your feedback and find that people are using your product differently [00:10:00] consider switching up the marketing to match what your product is being used for. Like what Max did when he found out that people were using his curtains as door covers.
Three. When it comes to your ROAS, or return on ad spend, and expanding to another market such as Mexico, Max suggests trying something small to test it out and see what those returns are. If you sell in the Amazon store, Max suggests taking advantage of running video ads and Amazon Ads is easy enough to start out and use. For more information on Amazon Ads, visit out show notes.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:11:03]

Bonus episode: How to Stay Profitable While Giving Back

Give back while staying profitable.

Trying to figure out how to make money while giving back through your business? Learn what it takes to grow your business when the foundation of your business model is social responsibility. Andrew Glantz, the Founder & CEO of GiftAMeal, explains how he managed to make a profit out of a business centered on giving back to the community. And Heather Cameron, a social entrepreneur and Michael B Kauffman Professor of Practice at the Washington University in St. Louis, tells us how to successfully build a business model that makes that possible. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Business. Amazon Business provides a wide product selection, business-only pricing, and account features that can make running your small business easier. Amazon Business supports small business through various programs such as the Small Business Grants where Amazon Business gives over $250,000 to 15 small businesses who are Amazon Business customers. Amazon Business is committed to the growth of small businesses and invests in grants to help small businesses overcome challenges they face, freeing up their resources to focus on their mission and customers. Small Businesses are the backbone of our economy and when they succeed we all succeed. Create your free account today at amazonbusiness.com.

(7:09) - To have a scalable business model with a social impact, Andrew advises any business to focus on authenticity, brand alignment, consistency, user-friendliness, and shareability.

(10:47) - Andrew talks about how he got the Amazon Business grant and the importance of putting yourself out there.

(13:38) - Quantifying the value and impact of your business quickly is essential for success because you'll have a compelling value proposition and make sales efforts more effective.

(17:61) - Heather underscores the importance of alignment in an entrepreneur's journey, emphasizing how it connects your brand with what matters to both customers and your team.

(20:56) - Heather emphasizes that small business owners should think about their social impact in tandem with their business strategy because it’s a core lament that will drive business success and support from the wider community.

[00:00:00] Heather: I think we want all of our businesses to do well by doing good. I think there's no longer any patience for businesses which aren't thinking about the wider consequences of how they're generating money. And so businesses do well by doing good by thinking intentionally about what is their social value proposition.

[00:00:20] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. By the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

From a customer’s perspective, when I'm looking at different options and find two products that are similar in price point and quality, I usually then look at the impact they're having to decide which to buy. But even though helping the community is important and you'll probably get more customers by doing that, it is a business at the end of the day. [00:01:00] And sometimes I wonder how a business that revolves around giving back can stay profitable.

Coming up -- I'll talk to Heather Cameron, a social entrepreneur, and Michael B Kauffman Professor of Practice, at the Washington University in St. Louis. She'll be telling us how you can grow your business when the foundation of your business model is social responsibility. But first -- I want you to meet Andrew Glantz, the Founder & CEO of GiftAMeal, a marketing platform for restaurants that revolves around giving back. Each time a customer takes a picture of their meal from a partner restaurant, GiftAMeal feeds a family in need from a food bank. And even though GiftAMeal's business model relies on giving back, they've managed to secure more than 700 partner restaurants and stay profitable. So if you've been wanting to give back to your community through your business and continue to grow, this episode is for you!

Today’s episode of This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon Business who provides a wide product selection, business-only pricing, and account features that can make running your small business easier. [00:02:00] Amazon Business supports small business through various programs such as the Small Business Grants where Amazon Business gives over $250,000 to 15 small businesses who are Amazon Business customers. Amazon Business is committed to the growth of small businesses and invests in grants to help small businesses overcome challenges they face, freeing up their resources to focus on their mission and customers. Small Businesses are the backbone of our economy and when they succeed, we all succeed. Create your free account today at amazonbusiness.com.

Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:45] Andrew: So I founded Gift A Meal when I was still a student at Wash U in St. Louis. I'd done a lot of volunteering growing up for my local community and when I went to college, I had an internship at a venture capital firm where I learned about the startup world. [00:03:00] The managing partner exposed me the idea of a profits with a purpose business model and I loved the scalability of making an impact that that could provide. And so when I was on a lunch break with the other intern. We were talking about how we could give back to our communities and support businesses that give back and came up with the idea of Gift A Meal pulling from Tom's shoes and Warby Parker buy one, give one models, as well as pulling from the idea of people posting photos of food on social media and came up with Gift A Meal by pulling it all together where each time a guest takes a photo of their food or drink from a partner restaurant, we make a donation to a local food bank to help provide a meal to someone in need.

[00:03:34] Andrea: This is amazing that you thought about this and continue to work on making it grow. And speaking of growing, I want to talk about your business model. The words you use to describe your business model are: doing well while doing good. Tell me more about that.

[00:03:50] Andrew: Yeah, I think that when you're a social venture, it's really important to have profit and purpose be consistent goals for the business. With Gift A Meal, it's totally free [00:04:00] for the customer at the restaurant taking their photo, and it's funded by the restaurant as a mix of marketing and giving back. So the restaurant pays a flat monthly program fee to be involved, and then out of that program fee, each time a guest takes their photo on Gift A Meal, we make a donation to a local food bank to cover their cost of getting one meal's worth of food from their facility to a neighborhood pantry where those in need could access it. The guest is then invited to share their photo on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, now X, and then we give an extra meal for each, platform they share on. And so it really allows the guests to multiply their impact. And from the restaurant perspective, the guest is promoting them to all their friends in a positive and uplifting way, while also having a feel-good experience for that guest where they feel that sense of emotional connection to the restaurant. So that way they're going to hopefully return more frequently so for that business model, it's really driven by that restaurant program fee. And as we are able to sign up more restaurants. Revenue grows, but then we're also going to make a larger impact as people take more photos [00:05:00] to create that sustainable business model.

[00:05:04] Andrea: I think one of the first questions as an aspiring entrepreneur that you're going to have when trying to connect social responsibility to a business is, how does this last? So, how do you measure that success? And I know it might be tied to the fact that you're doing good and you're helping people, but you’re still a business and I’m sure you’ve got employees that need to get paid.

[00:05:22] Andrew: Right. I mean, you know, even though we're making a tremendous social impact, we are a business at the end of the day. And like you said, we need to pay payroll, and we need to pay for marketing and all the other things that come with the business. And so, you know, those key performance indicators, KPIs, that I'm looking at are, are monthly recurring revenue that we're getting from the restaurants. Our retention percentage versus our churn of how many restaurants are staying on Gift A Meal each month versus dropping. Looking at the user engagement, the number of new active users on Gift A Meal. How many times each user is taking a photo on Gift A Meal and are they going to the same restaurant or are they trying new restaurants [00:06:00] and using Gift A Meal. Looking at the social share rate of what percent of customers are sharing their photos on social media from Gift A Meal and the impact that that's creating for the restaurants, in addition to the social impact metrics, like the number of meals we're providing each month, and all time. So there's a number of metrics that we're looking at. We're looking at, you know, our bottom line in addition to top line revenue, we're looking at our profitability as a company to get to sustainability and getting to break even. Uh, so that way we can continue to grow, um, our company based off of sales rather than having to fundraise millions and millions of dollars. We can grow organically by creating a sustainable model.

[00:06:40] Andrea: I'm so impressed and really inspired by you -- and I'm sure anyone who hears your story will feel the same way. So, tell me, if someone wanted to follow a business model similar to GiftAMeal’s, what would your advice be to them in terms of being scalable?

[00:06:55] Andrew: I think at the very beginning, if a business is looking at adding in a social impact element, [00:07:00] they need to think through whether it's going to be something as a one off or something that's going to be incorporated into the core business model. I would kind of refer them in terms of how to implement that social responsibility with kind of what I would call the ABCs of social responsibility. It needs to be authentic, it needs to have a right branding fit, and it needs to be consistent.

So going through those, authenticity is key because once you incorporate any type of social impact to your company, you're immediately held to a higher bar because you don't want to be seen as scammy or using a cause. You want to make sure that it's something that's genuine and authentic and especially for younger audiences like Gen Z and Millennials. They can sniff out inauthentic behavior for brands. You have to really make sure that it's authentic in all capacities. The second is branding fit. So making sure that it's something that resonates with your customers, your team and your company culture as a whole. The last is making sure that it's consistent behavior. So that's consistency in terms of the messaging, and in terms of how you're actually going to be making that impact [00:08:00] to make sure that you're really hitting home on that message so that people start to associate that social impact that you're doing with your brand identity. And if you're consistent, that'll also boost your authenticity. So I think those are kind of the key things at the very onset that you have to look at as a business and then to get customer buy in, it needs to be something that's easy for customers to understand and participate in. It has to be something that they feel like makes an impact and is meaningful and relevant to them.

And then ideally something that's shareable as well so that customers can be promoting the business to friends. There was a study done in the hotel industry where it was looking at tweets by, about social responsibility that were done by people that stayed at the hotel about the hotel social responsibility. Versus the hotel tweeting out about it themselves. And it was found to be a lot more authentic if it was the tweet from the person that stayed at the hotel versus the hotel themselves, kind of tooting their own horn. And so getting that shareability component of social responsibility is really important. [00:09:00] And then that last piece that you were talking about of the sustainability of the business model is just making sure that whatever you're doing from a social impact perspective is going to be fueling the profit incentive of the business. If it's something baked into the core business model and the profit driven incentive is going to be fueling the social impact.

So as you're able to grow your revenue and profits, you're able to make a larger social impact. And as you're making a larger social impact, you're able to make the business more profitable. So having those be, have synergies with each other and fueling each other rather than cannibalizing each other is important. Now, if you're just looking to do a one-off thing for social impact, then that's fine. You can pull from profits and donate to different causes and things like that. And that is totally okay to do. There's not just one right way to do this, but I think there's definitely a big opportunity. Where social impact isn't just a single donation, but it's something that can be a driver of the business and not a cost generator.

[00:09:57] Andrea: I think that’s such an important way of looking at this and I want to double tap on it, [00:10:00] which is to understand that there are different ways to make an impact and it doesn’t need to be built into the business model, but you can totally make it so if that’s what you want, while still making is a profitable business. I also want to touch briefly on your experience funding an idea like this. And your experience though Amazon.

[00:10:20] Andrew: I got an email from Amazon Business. And it was an email letting me know about an Amazon Business grant. thought it was throwing a dart at the dartboard, but why not? You know, we have a good story to tell. We're making an impact. And, um, so I filled out the application for the Amazon Business Grant for 25,000. And then we got a notification that we were one of 15 semifinalists. And then when I looked into it, I was like, wait, all 15 semifinalists are going to get some type of money regardless of if you ended up being the winner or not. So that's awesome. Didn't expect to be the winner. And then it was held up for a vote for all Amazon Business users to vote for their favorite company that was a semifinalist. [00:11:00] And then I got the email officially notifying, and 25,000 grant is huge for any business and, for us, that's something that's going to be majorly impactful as we're going to be able to use it to help continue our growth across the country and to be able to support more communities and more restaurants and more local food banks. And, so it's not something that I expected at all, but I guess that kind of always goes to show that to always put yourself out there and give things a shot.

[00:11:23] Andrea: That’s wild! What was the application process like?

[00:11:28] Andrew: I mean, I think for the application, whether it's Amazon Business Grant or for any other type of application, you need to very clearly explain what it is that you're doing, the traction that you have so far, and what the impact of the winnings would be for your business and where that would allow you to go. Sometimes an entrepreneur has a great story to tell. But, you know, there's so much fluff that's in the application that it's hard for a judge to be able to just nail down specifics or it gets overly confusing. So there's, you know, a lot of value in being concise [00:12:00] and precise with your wording in these applications and making it really easy on the judges in order to evaluate the application and understand the business model, how it works, how it's sustainable and what the impact is going to be for the business if you end up winning and really getting the judge to want you to win, um, is something that I think is really important.

[00:12:20] Andrea: This is something I try practicing every day when communicating with anyone, trying to be concise and clear is harder than it seems. Andrew, if you could give any advice to an early-stage business owner, what would that be?

[00:12:35] Andrew: The first would be just get out there and do it and get started. Usually that's the biggest mental hurdle. And so you don't have to have the final finished product to get started. You can just have a very small minimum viable product of just the core feature without any bells and whistles. And start running it by your market that you're going to be selling into to get their feedback off of it. Because if you don't have something, it's really hard to get past that. So getting from that idea stage to product as quickly as possible, [00:13:00] I think is great. And then being willing to have a low ego and fail and learn from failures and adapt.

I would also say quantify your value as quickly as possible that was when we really started to see things take off for Gift A Meal, is when we performed case studies with our partner restaurants, and we found that on average, guests using Gift A Meal were returning 39% more frequently, spending 20% more per order, and tipping 32% more. So it wasn't that it was just a feel-good experience, but we were actually driving revenue for our partner restaurants and sales became so much easier to sign up another restaurant and gift a meal once we quantified our value, especially if you can tie it to those key performance indicators that the restaurants care about like revenue and loyalty and tip size and check size outside of just a survey. I mean, if you have to start with a survey results, that's fine, but surveys people take with many grains of salt, but if you can tie it to those actual KPIs that the business cares about, then that's something that is super helpful for sales. [00:14:00] So to summarize, just do it, get yourself out there, be willing to fail, learn, pivot, ask for help, be able to quantify your value as quickly as possible. And also you can do it qualitatively by getting testimonials from early customers.

And then also, I'd say the last thing, which is probably the most important thing is understanding that yourself as a business owner and entrepreneur are the most important asset to the company. And so if you burn out, then the company dies. So making sure to take care of yourself and your own mental health in order to be there for the business. So you don't have to work 24 hours a day on the business. Take care of yourself so that you can be there for the business and present your best self for the business too.

[00:14:40] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Andrew Glantz, the Founder & CEO of GiftAMeal. You can find out more about GiftAMeal in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

[00:15:00] I loved how Andrew ended by reminding us about the importance of self-care as a business owner, which can seem obvious at times, but really should be at the top of our lists. Andrew showed us that you can definitely be profitable if your business model is centered around social responsibility. He said that when you're building a social venture, there are two consistent goals that you've got to focus on: purpose and profitability.

It was also exciting to hear about GiftAMeal’s experience with winning the Amazon Business grant. If you want to learn more about Amazon Business… Create your free account today at amazonbusiness.com.

The small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:16:00] So far, we've talked about how Andrew managed to keep his business that's centered around giving back profitable. So let's dig deeper into how you can continue to scale a business that's focused on social responsibility with my next guest: Heather Cameron, a social entrepreneur, and Michael B Kauffman Professor of Practice, at the Washington University in St. Louis.

[00:16:25] Heather: We hear a lot about the importance of knowing how you're creating value for your customers. And what we want to think about is how you're creating value for your customers, how you've got exciting products and programs, but how are you also creating value for your employees and for the wider community. And it's not actually that hard, right? Most businesses have something that they're contributing, but rather than just see it as kind of a nice to have, how do you measure it? How do you, how are you transparent about how you're communicating it? Because you will attract more customers, you'll be able to recruit better people, and you'll have the opportunity to raise capital in different ways than just sort of an old style, don't care about a business.

[00:17:00] Andrea: Why should this be one of the top things entrepreneurs work on when starting out their business and conceptualizing their business plan?

[00:17:10] Heather: I would say it's a lot about alignment, right? How are you aligning your brand with things that, you know, matter to your customers, but even more important, how are you aligning your brand with stuff that matters to your team and how are you able to get a higher quality staff members and commitment from people who are also feeling good about the work that they're doing and that it's clearly communicated and it's measured. So it’s people who are in it with you as the business owner to really commit to, to making your business grow. And then how is it also giving you as the business owner, extra energy and extra alignment so that you're feeling really good about the work that you're doing and that you have that energy and the commitment that we need that we know is necessary to be successful as an entrepreneur. After a while, people's businesses start to pull them in different directions and they can kind of fall apart if you don't have that alignment. And so I think for small business owners, it's not just about aligning with a customer. [00:18:00] It's also about making sure that your business processes, including your HR and including the way that you think about how you're communicating is all in alignment. And that gives you extra energy, gives you extra advantage in a competitive space.

[00:18:12] Andrea: So Heather, you know about GiftAMeal and its business model. And one of the things that I immediately thought when we were first talking about the business model was how do you make this scalable? Especially if it's not a tangible product like with GiftAMeal?

[00:18:30] Heather: The beauty of the Gift A Meal model is that it is allowing people, when they're enjoying their own meal, to feel even better about it because they're making a meal available to somebody in need. And unfortunately, all across the United States, there are food banks and there's food banks that need to get that food to people. So by concentrating on college towns, by concentrating on places where there's lots of young people who've got money to spend and want to enjoy time socializing and enjoying a meal, Gift A Meal has a way to scale by basically finding communities [00:19:00] which have that combination, which is not so rare: College Town, plus access to food banks who need support in order to get meals to people.

So I think the challenge for anybody who's kind of a hometown hero, like the founder of Gift A Meal, is how do they create and develop a potentially remote sales force who are able to go out and make that argument in other cities about how restaurants can attract a certain type of customer who they've been able to show, are actually making bigger tickets for the restaurant. The people who are participating in Gift A Meal are giving bigger tips and are having, you know, bigger receipts. They can make that case and then that's a case that can be made in any city in America. It's just a question of when you're an entrepreneur, how are you managing perhaps remote sales teams. Because GiftAMeal was born and built up in St. Louis. That means when they move to other spaces, they're going to need to have people from those spaces that can do it. But obviously there's top salespeople all over and then that then becomes almost like an HR recruitment challenge, less so a scaling challenge.

[00:20:00] Andrea: Scaling is a top-of-mind challenge for business owners, so it’s interesting to think about it from a perspective of HR and finding the right talent too, as one of the aspects of scaling that you need to be mindful of. What are other considerations you think small business owners should make when thinking about making impact sustainable in their business model?

[00:20:20] Heather: Just as small businesses need to think hard about customer discovery and how they find their customers and make great products for customers, as you grow, you're going to need access to more forms of capital, or even at the very beginning, angel capital or friends and family. And the clearer that you can state your social value proposition and the more transparent that you can be about how you're measuring it, uh, you will get access to different money than you, you would be able to if you didn't have that clear in your mind.

Also around recruiting. So the clearer you can be about what are your goals, what are your, the goals you want to reach through this business, then you're able to communicate them in a short and compelling way. You will notice you're going to get better staff and you're going to get better offers for funding. [00:21:00] So don't think of it as a nice to have. Think of something that its core to your business and how you're communicating it to the wider community, including people who want to fund your business and people who want to shop with you or people who want to work for you.

As an entrepreneur, it's been exciting to see my own kind of individual growth, but as I've had a chance to work with many others, I realized that we need to think in a more collective way about entrepreneurship, about building ecosystems, about lifting up others, about thinking about how it's not just one person. So I think it's, it, Interesting to think about how can you involve your workers and profit sharing? How can you involve other community priorities and what you're trying to achieve as a business? So that as we grow as entrepreneurs, we're also bringing a lot of people with us.

[00:21:43] Host: That was Heather Cameron, a social entrepreneur, and Michael B Kauffman Professor of Practice, at the Washington University in St. Louis. As always, here are some of the key takeaways on building a sustainable business model that centers around social responsibility:

Andrew started with what he calls the ABCs [00:22:00] of implementing social responsibility into your business plan: Authenticity. Brand fit. And Consistency. Having those three things will help you build a successful plan that then has a positive impact on not only customers and your community at large, but also on the people who work in your business.
Quantify your value. I think this one is a very important one as people tend to remember numbers and find a greater impact when it can be traced back to something measurable. No matter what your business is, when you’re reaching out to others, especially when thinking about funding opportunities just like the one mentioned from Amazon Business, make sure you know how to quantify the impact of your business as well as the profitability and opportunity for scale.
The second point about quantifying your value is also tied to the third which is knowing how to communicate your goals to others and those within your business in a clear and concise way. Start with a good story of course, but cut the fluff and make sure people understand exactly what you’re trying to do [00:23:00] and how you plan on doing it.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can grow your business and give back to your community at the same time? Or maybe you've already successfully done that. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:24:06]

Ep. 40: How to Find the Right Customer for Your Product

Find your ideal customer.

[00:00:00] Roshni: For me, finding the right customer at the right time means really starting with understanding your business stage. So, for example, if you're just starting out, you'll want people who are willing to take risks. And try new products and try new things. So you have to first start with understanding your business stage, and then you have to look at your value proposition and who really can benefit from that value. And then you'll also have to figure out where they are in their buying cycle as well. Because as customers, we go through awareness, interest, desire, and we finally end up in action. So by the time we figure out what stage we're in, we've got to match that up with our business value proposition and find the right customer ultimately that wants your product at the time and fits your business needs as well.

[00:00:43] Andrea: Okay, so first you have to figure out what stage your business is in, then figure out what your value proposition is, and lastly figure out who can best benefit from that value proposition. But once I've got all that figured out, how do I find my customer? Let’s get into it.

[00:01:00] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about customer research as an effective marketing strategy for small businesses with Roshni Wijayasinha, Founder & CEO of Prosh Marketing. To learn more about her visit our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:42] Roshni: My background has always been in marketing. I fell in love with marketing at an early age, and I worked at agencies, some large technology businesses, and found my way into the startup world, where I fell in love with the ability to really build and create things from scratch. And since, I've been head of marketing at a couple of different startups, I helped them exit, [00:02:00] and then I built my own marketing consulting practice, where we offer fractional CMO work for tech startups. Which is basically part time head of marketing for companies that can't afford or don't need a full-time head of marketing.

[00:02:10] Andrea: So Roshni, jumping in to the topic here, once I figure out who my customer is, how do I make sure that they know I exist?

[00:02:18] Roshni: Yeah, so the first stage is really brand awareness. That's when customers learn about your product, and that's, for a small business, usually the best place to start. Because if no one's heard of you, how could they want you and eventually want to buy you? So from a customer journey perspective, you really have to spend extra time on building that awareness. Now, how do you figure out where the customer might be? Some of the places that you might think about thinking and researching are: where are they on social media? Where are they in their physical world? What are they doing in the digital space? And the way that I work with our customers to kind of figure out where these things are is I do customer research. So I love to talk to actual customers, interview them, learn a bit more about what their processes are.

[00:03:00] Sometimes I might even follow them along for a day, or follow them along in a B2B setting, and see what they're up to, and that gives me a lot of clues in terms of what they're actually doing. When we ask customers to report it themselves, they often don't necessarily see all of the small things that they do, so just by observing you can learn a lot. There are a lot of really great digital tools that have allowed small businesses to now access customer research. You could go in and put in your qualification criteria, and they will actually match you up with people who are in that target audience. And you can access these customers, learn a ton about them, and spend that one-on-one time with them to research and learn more.

[00:03:38] Andrea: What do you think timing has to do with finding the right customer?

[00:03:40] Roshni: Timing has almost everything to do with your ability to convert the right customer. So you might find the right customer early in their journey, but if they're not ready for you, or if you're not ready for them, it might not be the best fit. So, you really have to think about, are you ready for them? For example, again, in the startup environment, if you're super early, [00:04:00] you don't want to begin a big, big customer as your first person to test out the product because if it goes badly, you've soured a huge relationship and they're probably less risk averse. Whereas if you can bring in, if it's a B2B product, for example, some, a smaller client who's willing to test and learn with you, that can be a great growing together and you can offer them a deal. So, finding out, you know, if they're good with your business stage is good. And then again, you have to look at what stage they're in as well. So, if they're in the shopping around phase, then they're ready to buy. Then if you were able to find them at that time, then it's a lot easier from a marketing perspective to help close and convert them.

[00:04:38] Andrea: And doing all that user research that we talked about earlier helps me find out at what stage they're in, right?

[00:04:44] Roshni: So that's the first component. You can get some research and understand what is their journey, and you can put that together in a customer journey map. And a customer journey map is just a simple way of breaking down all of the different stages that the customer goes to. So for example, if I'm taking a store example, [00:05:00] the customer is at home discovering they have a problem. The customer has to travel to the store. The customer is probably looking at a couple of different stores and shopping around, then goes back and makes their purchase and then brings it home. So in each of these opportunities and stages, there's a different type of messaging that you can provide to help your customer. But ultimately, if you get them on their way into the store, That's the best time to try to convert them. So you need to figure out where in that customer journey they're right about to buy. And that way, if you're able to intercept them at that point, you have the highest chances of conversion.

[00:05:30] Andrea: So knowing your customer journey is super important and we actually covered that in the first episode of this season. So, Roshni, do you have any other tips that small business owners can use to find the right customer at the right time for their product?

[00:05:43] Roshni: I think the idea that a marketer can't live in a glass tower, you have to actually talk to customers is the king pin for all of this. And so trying to find the information online or trying to substitute it with digital data can be great to a certain limit, [00:06:00] but without actually talking to customers, it can be challenging. And then the other bit is this type of information changes all the time, so you can't just do this and then set it and forget it, because customers are changing. Imagine our behavior before the pandemic and after the pandemic. Now digital buying is so much more common, right? People get their groceries delivered to them, and this behavior now is everyday behavior. So if you sit on your data and your customer research, and you just build, and now you think that this is the way customers are, you're forgetting that customers and markets evolve over time. So, it's something that's always changing, and something that you should, even as a business owner, as a marketer, as anyone in an organization, just have your pulse on the customer.

[00:06:40] Andrea: So we have to see this as something continuous. And also making sure that we’re visible to our customer enough.

[00:06:48] Roshni: So repetition is hugely important. But again, if you're repeating yourself at the bottom end of your marketing funnel on things which are super expensive, it can be really, really budget draining for a small business, [00:07:00] whereas if you're doing that repetition at the top end of the marketing funnel on tactics like public relations, where it's more cost effective per impression, you can get a lot more reach, and therefore you can be a lot more effective.

My biggest advice to small business owners is I know you have to manage your cash flow from a marketing perspective, and I know that it can seem very attractive to really focus on the bottom end of your marketing funnel where you can get sales and conversions immediately, and you can track it, but I cannot overstate the value of brand awareness and building that as a growing business because that brings loyalty, that brings long term customer value and life cycles, that brings referral business, that brings word of mouth, that brings so much more and so investing in brand awareness, though it might feel like a long term investment and it might feel like something you want to push off once you've built a good sales base, is something that you should start from day one.

[00:07:50] Host: That was Roshni Wijayasinha, Founder & CEO of Prosh Marketing. She talked about doing diligent customer research for small businesses. [00:08:00] As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. Finding the right customer at the right time starts by understanding what business stage you’re in. So before you even reach out to any customers, know if you’re too early to reach out to your biggest customer, or maybe you’re right on time. But timing is a key component of locking loyal customers and getting them to first decide to buy, but also to keep them coming back.
Two. A way to figure all of this out and understand at what stage your customer is in, is customer research. Roshni talked about the importance of continuously speaking with your customers and learning about their lives and what value you can offer them. There are a lot of tools that allow you to do this and where you can target your ideal audience. Make sure that you're constantly updating the customer research that you've done. Humans are dynamic and their needs are constantly changing, so to succeed you need to try and stay ahead of the curve. Roshni gave us an example of pre-pandemic versus post-pandemic customer behavior differences.
[00:09:00] Three. Repetition is also key. When it comes to brand awareness, it takes frequent touch points for a potential customer to even decide to consider you at all. Roshni suggests managing cash flow from a marketing perspective. Brand awareness is what leads to much more than just one and done purchases, it can lead to repeat customers too.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:09:58]

Bonus episode: How to get Funded Through Crowdfunding

Fund your business through crowdfunding.

Are you interested in starting a crowdfunding campaign? Or maybe you’re wondering if you should pull money out of your savings to start your business? Learn the pros and cons of bootstrapping & crowdfunding and what it takes to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign with Josh Lipinski, the founder of Breakwater Supply, and Tess Estandarte, Director of Product Marketing at Rainfactory. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Business. Amazon Business provides a wide product selection, business-only pricing, and account features that can make running your small business easier. Amazon Business supports small business through various programs such as the Small Business Grants where Amazon Business gives over $250,000 to 15 small businesses who are Amazon Business customers. Amazon Business is committed to the growth of small businesses and invests in grants to help small businesses overcome challenges they face, freeing up their resources to focus on their mission and customers. Small Businesses are the backbone of our economy and when they succeed we all succeed. Create your free account today at amazonbusiness.com.

(04:14) - Josh points out the benefits of bootstrapping like having the freedom to call the shots and not having to meet investor demands which allows you to concentrate on improving your product and service.

(05:40) - Josh talks about why he decided to use bootstrapping to launch some of their products and emphasizes the importance of building trust by delivering on promises because it's a serious business that requires a solid plan.

(12:23) - Tess highlights the often overlooked legal aspects of crowdfunding, such as the importance of patents, trademarks, copyrights, intellectual property, reading the terms and conditions, and taxation.

(14:06) - Tess talks about the benefits of crowdfunding for entrepreneurs, highlighting the engagement with a supportive user community, brand and product awareness, and the ability to assess market readiness before seeking additional funding or investors.

(19:33) - To make your crowdfunding campaign stand out, Tess advises against cutting corners on the quality of assets, particularly images and videos, which can either make or break your campaign.

[00:00:00] Tess: The biggest myth I think, about crowdfunding campaigns is that they think it's easy. They think it's a fast way to become a millionaire. They think it's just as easy as putting together a couple of drawings and renders and, you know, have images and slap it up on a page and the money will come. That is not the reality. It's hard work. You have to put in the time.

[00:00:28] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. By the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

Funding is a topic that's constantly on the minds of entrepreneurs. No matter where you are on your small business journey, you'll always need money to keep your business running. [00:01:00] We've talked about some forms of funding like getting grants and asking for loans but we haven't tapped into crowdfunding as much; that's when you fund a business by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people. I’m excited for this episode.

Coming up -- I'll talk to Tess Estandarte, Director of Product Marketing at Rainfactory, a digital marketing agency that helps brands with crowdfunding. But first -- I want you to meet Josh Lipinski, the founder of Breakwater Supply. You can find them in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. Josh has launched lots of successful campaigns using crowdfunding. He managed to get people to buy his product and trust that he would be able to produce it and ship it. So, if you wanna know how to sell an idea and collect funding without giving up a portion of your business, then this episode is for you.

Today’s episode of This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon Business who provides a wide product selection, business-only pricing, and account features that can make running your small business easier. [00:02:00] Amazon Business supports small business through various programs such as the Small Business Grants where Amazon Business gives over $250,000 to 15 small businesses who are Amazon Business customers. Amazon Business is committed to the growth of small businesses and invests in grants to help small businesses overcome challenges they face, freeing up their resources to focus on their mission and customers. Small Businesses are the backbone of our economy and when they succeed we all succeed. Create your free account today at amazonbusiness.com.

Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:50] Josh: I'm someone who spends a lot of time outdoors, who's always loved physical activity, sports in general. I think that, you know, the formal term is soft goods, [00:03:00] but footwear, apparel, gear, outdoor gear, it's always been something I've been passionate about and throughout my professional career. I've never really given up my stance or my interest in paying attention to these types of products. I ended up essentially launching this small business, finding out different types of gear that I've always felt like there was a little bit of a gap in the market for waterproof, real waterproof products you get out there and enjoy when you're out there on the trail or out there on the water. So, I ended up launching it. I ended up coming up with different designs. I ended up consulting a lot of people that I knew and really people that I trusted and then finding, you know, a way to launch a couple of products on my own website and then also through Amazon.

[00:03:48] Andrea: Before we dive into crowdfunding, I want to just make sure we talk about the journey you took, and you started by bootstrapping. Can you tell me about the pros and cons of that journey for you?

[00:04:00] Josh: If you can bootstrap, it's absolutely amazing because your accountability is to yourself. So, that takes away so much pressure. A lot of people I know, even people in my own family, like, um, my brother had launched a startup. And we just had talked a lot about, you know, bringing investors on board and I have nothing against doing that, but you know, talking to people that I know that have launched companies and have always had that pressure of having to produce in those numbers terms, so you can't necessarily look at it as like, I really want to focus on this product. This product has to be perfect. You know, my service needs to get better. It's more focused on, you know, I've got people that are telling me that I've got to start producing some numbers or. You know, they're going to start pulling their investments out, or they need their investments, for their own families. Right. So it's, if you can bootstrap and take that pressure away from yourself, or at least away from the outside forces [00:05:00] of investors, that's amazing, but I know that that's not realistic for everybody, but I just know that the people that I've talked to, that's been a huge burden on them. It's tough to mentally get past that, at least when things aren't going as planned.

[00:05:15] Andrea: So, as a starting point, bootstrapping could be a good thing, and probably the easiest and most popular way to start. So after you went this route, you turned to crowdfunding. Why did you decide to go that route?

[00:05:30] Josh: So we launched a couple of campaigns on there and, and that's what we used, initially, and it helped us a lot. We did not use it for all of our products. We used it for our submersible line of backpacks, and, the more innovative and more unique the product, the more traction you're gonna get, like that's, that's kind of a rule of thumb is people are looking to find things that are unique. That's not a hard and fast rule. But, it does apply to a vast majority of products. What you're doing is you're delivering something that is real. [00:06:00] So you're doing this in good faith, right? And you want to create a track record of delivering. So, you know, you still have to think of it as, you know, this is a business and I am ready to essentially create pre orders for this product that I promised to deliver. So, it's a good springboard for your business, but this is still a serious thing and something that you have to approach, with a plan.

[00:06:25] Andrea: Do you need to be transparent with your customers about what you're planning to do with the money?

[00:06:30] Josh: There's kind of two approaches to that. One of it is Kickstarter does have a tool that breaks down the budgeting cost, you can lay that out, but I think at the end of the day, people are looking to get in on the ground floor of a project and their reward for essentially trusting you to create this product without having a physical item is, you know, a lot of times they will get this product, you can set different, categories of reward. [00:07:00] And then generally, for their leap of faith, for lack of a better term, you'll give them a discount.

[00:07:05] Andrea: That’s so interesting. It feels essentially like you have investors but you don’t have to give them the same level of detail. And, I want to briefly switch gears a bit. Because I know that you also got a grant through Amazon Business right?

[00:07:18] Josh: I just mentioned a couple of different ways to essentially launch a brand as a digital brand and one of the things that was very important from the start is to choose launching in the Amazon store as a foundational part of Breakwater Supply. So essentially how me or you as retail consumers can tap two or three times to purchase a product, you know, in the Amazon store. On the seller side, we can also, you know, two or three taps. We're able to send inventory into the Amazon store. We're able to, create different listings. We're able to update marketing messages. [00:08:00] We're able to, you know, adjust advertising. So, the Amazon store has been just really important for the exposure it gives us, but also for the tools that are behind the scenes.

And then as well, the grant has just been extremely important to start considering, additional products for the catalog that we're launching. Um, we've got a couple that are really, really exciting. Probably do the same thing where we, um, used Kickstarter as a proving ground and then ultimately moved to the Amazon store.

[00:08:28] Andrea: Getting the granst must have been an exciting form of validation too.

[00:08:32] Josh: A process like this that gets you recognition and exposure. And then it also allows you to even reflect on what your values and goals and principles are as a small business. Because every time that you submit to a grant program, they're going to ask you questions, you know, it's an interview. So that also allows you to reassess what you're doing and why you're doing it. [00:09:00] So I think that if it weren't for these types of questions, unless you're very disciplined on coming up with the mission that you have as a small business, these opportunities give you a chance to refine and then reevaluate what you're doing.

[00:09:15] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Josh Lipinski, the founder of Breakwater Supply. You can find out more about Breakwater Supply in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Josh gave us a little glimpse into the effort required to start crowdfunding. It's not as easy as putting your product up online and expecting thousands or millions of people to fund your product. You need to make sure that your marketing is on point and that you establish trust by delivering on your promises.

It was also exciting to hear about BreakWater Supply’s experience with winning the Amazon Business grant. If you want to learn more about Amazon Business… Create your free account today at amazonbusiness.com.

Like Breakwater Supply, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the [00:10:00] many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about how Josh funded his business using crowdfunding and bootstrapping as well as his experience of getting a grant through Amazon Business. Now we'll dig deeper into the process behind crowdfunding with my next guest: Tess Estandarte, Director of Product Marketing at Rainfactory, a digital marketing agency that helps brands with crowdfunding.

[00:10:52] Tess: Currently I'm the director of product marketing here at Rainfactory and, Rainfactory is a full service, marketing and advertising agency [00:11:00] whose specialty is on product launches and crowdfunding campaigns. I've been at Rainfactory for five years.

[00:11:10] Andrea: Can you tell me what's one thing people don't usually think about when it comes to crowdfunding?

[00:11:15] Tess: I think the most important thing to always keep in mind are the legalities involved in a crowdfunding campaign. It ranges from making sure you have the patents, the trademarks. The copyrights, intellectual property, also remember that a crowdfunding campaign, whether that be a self-starter, as we would call it, or crowdfunding. You have to sign up under terms and conditions, which I recommend you read before you sign or before you go ahead and launch because you as the campaigner or the creator have the responsibility not only to keep in touch with your backers, but also to make sure that product is shipped. And also part of that umbrella of legalities is taxation. [00:12:00] Check first with your accountant or your CFO in terms of how that Income, so to speak, income or the funds collected from your campaign could be classified accounting wise.

It could be also charity. You know, we've seen that the funds there, that are raised from crowdfunding are also considered charity because it is not, you're actually pledging your support for the product to be made, and delivered. It's a responsibility, so make sure you're prepared. You know, to face the music in case anything happens, or the other token is bask in the glory, you know, that, that your product is shipped and, and is welcomed, you know, by your community.

[00:12:40] Andrea: And when do you think entrepreneurs should start to consider crowdfunding instead of other funding opportunities?

[00:12:45] Tess: I think the most important benefit from crowdfunding is, of course, you receive funds. There's no equity dilution. It's almost like here, you know, you were given a basket of money, right? Go, go and make your product. Right? [00:13:00] You don't get that when you have to borrow money from the bank, right? I mean, there's interest, investors might require an equity stake. None of that happens with crowdfunding. The other important piece to also keep in mind is market and product validation. Right? So you basically are reaching out to, or have support, obtained from a community of users whose profile and demographics actually match the persona you had in mind for your product.

So. They will receive your product. Discussion tab on your page. It becomes an engaging discussion of like, really positive feedback, and suggestions for improvement or recommendations. That, that community is actually much more forgiving, and actually also very much more generous, of course, with their feedback. I personally would recommend doing the crowdfunding route first, just to get your product name out there, uh, brand awareness, product awareness, [00:14:00] and of course, the all important piece that really, you know, closes the loop as to why you do crowdfunding is, um, finding out ahead of time, is the market ready for your product? Or do you still have to make changes, or go back to the drawing board.

That's, that's really, really good to know early on before you get additional funding or investors, and to make sure that you have a finely, finely tuned product and it's truly ready for the market.

I think a lot of investors in the last few months of the last maybe years, we saw basically like investors becoming more prudent about, their decisions. They want to see additional information, you know, it's not just a business plan or a deck or financials that they look at, but they do truly want to know is that it does your product truly have legs for a good 5 to 10 years, right? And I think crowdfunding just offers that because the community again, it's, it's a wide spectrum, all across the world. That is if you can afford shipping to any, any part in the world. That information that you get from that campaign [00:15:00] is so valuable. You can go directly to, you know, a venture capital group or a bank, um, et cetera. Will you succeed? Who knows, right? But the chances are greater that you may get the funding and the funding terms that are more desirable if you come in, um, with data.

And I think the most important thing also to, to keep in mind is would they reorder your product? Would they, would they, um, basically recommend it to their, friends, family, peers? And that you will not get if you go directly, to a bank or investment house.

[00:15:33] Andrea: So, launching a crowdfunding campaign can actually help you secure funding in other ways because you have that information to back you up. But I'm sure this is a lot harder than some people initially assume, could you tell me what you think are some myths that people have about crowdfunding?

[00:15:50] Tess: The biggest myth I think, about crowdfunding campaigns is that they think it's easy. They think it's a fast way to become a millionaire. [00:16:00] They think it's just as easy as putting together a couple of drawings and renders and, you know, have images and slap it up on a page and the money will come. That is not the reality. And success is reaching your funding goal, your publicly declared goal. You can go to their dashboard, that is online to find out how many projects have launched. And how many, how many projects have actually succeeded? And it's not, it's not as generous as what I think what common knowledge will probably say.

It's hard work. You have to put in the time. Remember, it's also your reputation at stake as well, if you put a name up on the page. I think, just be thoughtful more than anything. It's a very long and arduous journey and you have to put in both money and sweat equity, into launching a campaign. And I would always say, just make sure that you define to yourself: why are you doing this? If it's for the money, I'd gladly show you the door because that's not the way it's supposed to be. [00:17:00] If you are doing this for a product that you've dreamed of and that, you know, that would solve a big problem for the world, right? Or make life easier for a certain, for a certain demographic of people, then your heart is in the right place and the rest will follow.

[00:17:17] Andrea: Is there any way that I could make my Crowdfunding campaign stand out?

[00:17:22] Tess: Don't scrimp on assets, either images or video. Get the highest quality that you can afford. Get the best team that you can secure because that ultimately will make or break your campaign, the quality of your images and your video. If it shows to be sloppy and poorly produced, you can just shut down your campaign right there and then, because it shows how much integrity you have that you've, you've put in the effort and the time and the money to produce these wonderful assets because of your belief in the product. Please take the time, to find a really good, video and photography team. [00:18:00] You might decide to make them a partner if, in case you cannot afford their fees. You know, give them an equity stake in the crowdfunding campaign. If you can come up with a good solid 25 photos of both product and lifestyle, then you're good. If you come up with a minute 30 second video about your product and your mission, and you enthrall your audiences from the very first second up to the one minute 30- second of that video, you're gonna do really well.

[00:18:32] Host: That was Tess Estandarte, Director of Product Marketing at Rainfactory. She talked about funding for your small business using crowdfunding. As always, here are some key takeaways from this episode:

One. Bootstrapping is amazing because your accountability is to yourself. Your business and ideas don't necessarily need to get clouded by needing to hit a certain number each year. But the big con to bootstrapping is you might not have enough money lying around to launch your business, so another option is...
[00:19:00] Two. Crowdfunding! Josh crowdfunded the launch some products of Breakwater supply and we learned a couple of things from his story like: you need to go in with a plan. You’re promising people a product and if you don't deliver on that promise then your reputation as an entrepreneur will be at stake. You also need to make sure you've got all your legalities in place. From your Intellectual property to reading the terms of service of the website you’re crowdfunding on thoroughly. And. To stand out, you'll want to invest in good pictures or videos. The more effort you put into making sure your campaign looks polished, the more people will want to support you.
Three. Leverage the crowdfunding community. People who invest through crowdfunding are really passionate about your product. So they will be the first to give you honest reviews that can help you make your product better or improve your business and offerings overall. So make sure to tap into the community because many times, they are your target customer and you have a unique opportunity to hear directly from them.

[00:20:00] I'm curious – Have you been thinking about launching a crowdfunding campaign? How are you preparing yourself for that? Or maybe you've already launched one. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:21:07]

Ep. 39: How to Handle Your Cash Flow

Manage your cash flow.

[00:00:04] Ambro: Cashflow is paramount. It's a big part of what I focus on and do is help people with their cashflow because without cashflow, it's going to be hard to get financing to get funding.

[00:00:16] Andrea: So before you even start thinking about finding external funding, you need to have your cash flow in order. This comes up a lot in conversations we’ve had with small business owners. Let’s talk about it.

[00:00:28] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking cash flow and how to secure funding for your business with Ambro Blackwell, a best-selling author and VP and senior business banking relationship manager at JP Morgan Chase. To learn more about him visit our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. Also, remember [00:01:00] that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:14] Andrea: Ambro, what are your thoughts on strategic planning for sustaining a healthy flow of cash for a small business?

[00:01:20] Ambro: It's imperative. It literally is. And it's hard to imagine. Not being able to be successful and stay in business if you're not strategically planning. Because you have to continue to have cash flow to keep things going, you know, again, that sometimes is part of the business planning. But you should be forecasting your business. You should know where your business is heading. Whether you're on an accrual basis, which is a way of recognizing income. If you have receivables out. You know, you might want to know what's the likelihood that you're going to be able to collect on those receivables. So that way you can now forecast and know that, you know, payroll's coming up, [00:02:00] maybe tax payments are coming up, you know, things of that nature. So you want to be able to anticipate, understand how your cash flow is looking. And yes, there's always going to be some days, some months where businesses, you know, may not be as steady as the month before. But you want to be able to, as much as possible, make sure that you're planning for that. And the only way you can do that to make sure that you're optimizing your cash is to do it strategically.

[00:02:25] Andrea: If I'm starting and I'm doing this strategic planning, is there some type of formula that I should follow?

[00:02:30] Ambro: It's interesting because there's a lot of benchmarks, you know, out there and this is something whether you're starting a business or you've been in business. This is where I highly, highly recommend having a good team, having a good banker, having a good accountant, CPA, because there's resources around that will be able to kind of help explain and share some of those things. And so by benchmarking, what that basically does is it allows you to take a look at let's say you're a dentist. Well, you can look at the dentist and survey and see [00:03:00] from top to bottom, from the top sales, which is your sales revenue, which is what people have paid you, or people have paid others, how much of that trickled down, all the way down to net income, so you can see how much was going out to what, how much was going to where, and there's a lot of research that's out there that will help guide you with those things. That's where proper planning, strategic planning, could be very vital and very helpful at the same time.

Typically, what I like to think of is a good, healthy, growth is about 10%, maybe as high as 15%. But once you start kind of going past that, then you start noticing, at least from my perspective, I start noticing that there's probably a change of focus in what the business is focused on. You start getting over 20%, now you're starting to experience rapid growth. If you're over 40, 45% or so, you're probably in hyper growth. And when you start looking at from my experience and from my perspective, the business owner is probably less focused on profitable and it's very hard to be profitable [00:04:00] because you have so much that's growing. And again, you have expenses that are going to be incurred.

So a portion of every earned dollar has an expense attached to it. And it's very hard to be able to systematically and predictably plan for that when it's happening so fast.

[00:04:15] Andrea: How does a small business know they might be running into any problems soon based on their cashflow and what do you think they can do to mitigate it?

[00:04:25] Ambro: Well, the first thing is, you can and should plan for Murphy's Law. What can go wrong will go wrong. Things will happen, you know, especially if you have employees. You know, one of the things I always try to, you know, tell people over the last, you know, near 20 years is think about working capital before you need to go get working capital. And one of the best products out there are working capital lines of credit, uh, business lines of credit, not, not so much home equity lines because that's for personal and Elox are for personal and for business. It's business lines of credits. [00:05:00] Now that will help you to, you know, even out, you know, some of the dips and the spikes when it comes to cash flow. Because there are going to be things that come up. But you still have, you know, employees, of course, you still are responsible for making sure they get paid.

So those are different things that you need to be taking into consideration. Again, this is where I talked about, as we said earlier about strategically planning, knowing that these things are coming up. Tax payments aren't, always, you know, every week. So you know that these things are coming up. You should be forecasting. This is where talking to your team. Your accountant, you know, your attorney, your banker, they can help you with some of those things, making sure that you, you know, you streamline your cash flow. It's your relationships more than anything else. You know, you have to make sure that I would say you have to focus on building the right team. You know, making sure that you do your best to afford the best team, best talent. That's everything from your internal to your external because it's going to pay off dividends for these things that we've just been talking about that come up [00:06:00] or may have not been able to be foreseen. You wear so many hats as an entrepreneur and a small business owner. You need the best that you can afford to buy or afford that you can pay.

[00:06:10] Andrea: Could you explain what a cash flow statement is?

[00:06:13] Ambro: That's another tool that a lot of people overlook. The difference between what it does is it helps you, helps me, helps us understand exactly how much of your cash is being invested, how much of it is being financed to help run the business. And it helps you separate and understand how much of your cash is actually working for your business in terms of being operational.

[00:06:33] Andrea: What's the difference between financing versus investing cash flow?

[00:06:38] Ambro: If you took out a loan, for example, you've got other things that, you know, it's a capital injection. A lot of people think of cash flow, and they're like, I need cash, I need cash, I need to get a loan. Well, what you might need is other things in component. You may need to trim the fat. You may need to get better terms on, you may need to reduce your cost of goods sold. [00:07:00] You may need to be able to get better pricing. So, again, funding, lending helps you to go ahead and actually get more out of your operations. But it's going to help you to actually see and break down between the three different ones. Another one is obviously the investments as well.

[00:07:15] Andrea: Is cashflow the same as profit?

[00:07:18] Ambro: No. That's one of the issues or potential challenges when you're growing a business because at a certain point when you start looking at the numbers in terms of how much is each dollar assigned to an expense, in most cases, well, as you start growing, you may bring in more revenue, but if your costs now get out of line, It may start going in the opposite direction, or if it's taking you too long, you may get more customers, but what if you get three to four customers? And I'm just using three to four, obviously, it's just a numeric amount, but those three or four might be big customers. Those might be customers that may not be able to help you. Those may be customers that have went out of business. [00:08:00] So now you've still had those costs that you incurred, but you weren't able to see the profit off of it.

[00:08:06] Andrea: That was Ambro Blackwell, a best-selling author and VP and senior business banking relationship manager at JP Morgan Chase. As always, here are some key takeaways on managing cash flow for your business.

One. A cash flow statement provides you with a detailed picture of what happens to your businesses’ cash during a certain period of time. It demonstrates how your business is able to operate in the short and long term. It is typically broken down into three sections: operating activities which is cash flow generated once the company delivers on good or services, investing activities which is cash flow from purchasing or selling assets using free cash, and financing activities which is cash flow from debt and equity financing.
Two. Cash flow is not the same as profit. Cash flow shows you how much money moves in and out of your business while profit show you how much money is left over after you’ve paid all your expenses.
[00:09:00] Three. Cash flow is super important. Without it, you're going to find it a lot more difficult to secure funding. So make sure you’re strategically planning ahead of time and two things to keep in mind when doing this is to be articulate and build the right team. When you're trying to secure funding, you need to be able to communicate clearly what you need and your plans for when that need is met, and having the right team will help you understand what to expect and cover your bases to be able to keep the business going.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:10:10]

Ep 38: How to Exit Your Company - LIVE at Amazon Accelerate 2023

Learn about exiting your company.

[00:00:00] Jewel: It's so important to, when you're in rooms like this, to network with each other. Building those really tight connections, particularly with people who have skills that you don't have and you all can be on the journey together. That's so critical. So if you don't have people who you trust, who you can build with, that's what these rooms are for. So make sure you build those connections.

[00:00:25] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. And by the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

I recently got to go to the Amazon Accelerate conference -- which is the premier annual seller conference hosted by Amazon where current Amazon selling partners or aspiring selling partners [00:01:00] get to connect and hear from experts, and other sellers. And while I was there, I recorded a live episode of This is Small Business with Jewel Burks Solomon, a tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and managing partner at Collab Capital. Before that, Jewel was the head of Google for Startups in the U. S. and the founder of PartPic a startup that was acquired by Amazon in 2016. She was also a product leader at Amazon's visual search and AR team. Jewel has an impressive list of accomplishments, and I was curious to know why she chose the entrepreneurial life and how the acquisition process went -- especially since it happened when the company was only a few years old.

I also got to speak with a familiar voice that you will probably recognize: Danyel Surrency Jones. We've had her two times on This is Small Business, but Danyel has such a wealth of information that we needed to bring her back. Danyel is a fellow Amazonian -- she's the head of Amazon's Black Business Accelerator program, [00:02:00] which aims to empower and offer support to Black entrepreneurs. And she’s also the co-founder and former CEO of POWERHANDZ. If you want to know more about her journey, you might want to listen to episode 12 of season one or episode 15 of season 2.

Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:30] Danyel: So we started PowerHandz in 2013 because we knew that our patented innovation could improve human performance across the life cycle of athletes. The proven science, not only gave birth to a global athletic training and fitness product tech company, but it also fueled our impact through our Power to Give Foundation. I will never forget, Andrea, when I had to tell our investors that a percentage of sales were going to be donated [00:03:00] to the Power to Give Foundation on day one.

There was absolute silence in the room. Then one of our investors said, how are we going to give money away when we aren't profitable yet? Well, I responded. Serving the mission with a deeper meaning of purpose always drive profitability. So four patents later, one acquisition and selling in over 87 countries. Nine years later, we closed a tender offer, a strategic merger that provided a positive above market return on our investors investment while impacting global communities through the Power to Give Foundation.

[00:03:48] Andrea (live): That's awesome. So, so cool. And so after that, you then started selling in the Amazon store.

[00:03:55] Danyel: I did. And I am so grateful... Part of the success that I attribute [00:04:00] to Powerhandz is selling in the Amazon store. When we were building our distribution channels, we immediately understood that Amazon could drive awareness to a wider audience. And bring credibility to our brand through positive reviews and a supply chain model that would drive down our cost to serve. Then through our minority and women owned certifications, we participated in the pilot as well as the launch of the Black Business Accelerator in 2021, which then unlocked more education, account management, and other resources that assisted us with our journey. What I think we developed, I know we developed, was a mission that worked backwards from customer obsession.

[00:04:48] Andrea (live): That's really exciting. So you leveraged the tools that Amazon had to then understand who your audience is, how they're responding to the product. It was like a cycle. So you sell, receive information, make the product better.

And then it happens again. [00:05:00] Danyel, you've had such a great journey as an entrepreneur. Why did you decide to join Amazon?

[00:05:06] Danyel: After the Tinder offer and merger, I knew it was time for my purpose to connect to my next journey. And my values have always been grounded in being a cheerleader for the underserved, for small businesses that don't come from privilege or pedigree as well as for women, because we play such a vital role in this community. So the number one reason why I said yes to becoming an Amazonian is because I feel a deep responsibility to lift, push, and pull others by sharing my bumps and bruises, milestones, success stories, in order to make sure that others succeed through my journey as a black woman owned business. I have an opportunity to lead a team of brilliant minds who work so hard every single day for the success [00:06:00] of our selling partners who are entrepreneurs just like myself with dreams who simply want to make a difference in customers lives. And I cannot forget this. I also love our Think Big principle. I believe that we can give birth to new ideas that will stimulate economic growth.

[00:06:20] Host: We'll get to hear more tips and advice from Danyel throughout the episode. But now, I want us to five into Jewel’s story and get to know why Jewel decided to go down the entrepreneurial route.

[00:06:30] Jewel: I, I like to share with people that I got entrepreneurship honest. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. From the time that I could probably walk and talk, I was working in my parents’ businesses. My grandfather actually... started businesses in Mobile, Alabama, in the 50s and 60s. Everything from laundromats to a cab service, to convenience stores, which is what my dad inherited. And so, I really didn't have a choice because that's what I saw growing up, [00:07:00] and I was just intrigued by the fact that my parents were working really hard, but they were also able to show up for me in different ways. They had flexibility in their schedules, and so I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur just based on watching them when I was growing up.

[00:07:15] Host: So a big motivator was growing up with what she knew. With something that was already familiar to her. Let’s fast forwarding a bit. Jewel founded Partpic, which was acquired by Amazon in 2016. And it technically wasn't her first business...

[00:07:30] Jewel: I was a painter in high school and so sold paintings, um, in Nashville where I grew up, but that, I didn't really have a LLC around that.

[00:07:40] Host: Jewel always knew that she wanted to be an entrepreneur. That’s what growing up in a family of small business owners does to you - yes I am speaking from experience. She just had to come up with an idea.

[00:07:50] Jewel: I was working at a company called McMaster Car, which was in the parts distribution space. And previously I'd been at Google, [00:08:00] so I knew that you could use technology to solve big problems. And I saw a huge problem, which was that customers were flipping through a catalog to find the parts that they wanted to purchase. And this was in 2012, so the fact that they were still using a catalog as their primary marketing tool to me was a little bit, um, outdated. And so I saw that there could be a better way. And I saw that technology could be used in that industry to help customers more easily locate their products. So that was kind of the thing that pushed me as far as having an idea that I wanted to pursue or seeing a problem that I really wanted to solve. And to take it a step further, I was managing the call center. So I was the person who got all the angry phone calls when people were sending the wrong products. And so literally every day I was hearing just very angry customers. And I felt like, okay, there has to be a better way. Um, and then on top of that, I got a phone call from my grandfather. [00:09:00] And he told me that he was looking for a part for his tractor. So we're, we're country. We got a farm in Alabama and my grandfather was in the middle of a harvest. His tractor broke down and he called me to help him find a part for it. I was working at a parts company, so should be able to search for this thing. Um, but I couldn't find it. And so that was the kind of real-life story that pushed me to go ahead and figure out a solution to this problem of part search. Um, and that was also the motivation that kept me going when things got difficult, when it wasn't as easy to build as I anticipated. Um, you know, when I wasn't able to raise money in the ways that I wanted to. The fact that I knew the customer that could benefit from what I was wanting to build, that was, you know, the engine that I needed to keep going.

[00:09:52] Host: Partpic was very personal for Jewel. And from what we've seen from other entrepreneurs on This is Small Business, passion and knowing your why [00:10:00] -- that's what keeps you going. Because -- as Danyel will let you know -- the entrepreneurial life isn't easy. Let’s briefly throw it back to Danyel…

[00:10:08] Danyel: It is hard. And that's what we don't want to talk about. It's not for the faint at heart. One of the common misconceptions is believing in the overnight entrepreneurial success. The reality is endurance fuels entrepreneurship. My journey is a perfect use case to show that success comes from strategic marathon planning, not impulsive sprints. As we navigate the winding road of challenges as well as sacrifices and trying to make the right decisions to prioritize things at the right time, I have always anchored on endurance. There are so many times, Andrea, when I wanted to just give up, especially when I looked at the balance sheet and it fell short of the projections. [00:11:00] But what I had to remember is this is a temporary roadblock, not an insurmountable barrier. Seriously, we must trust the process.

One of the tradeoffs of being an entrepreneur is the uncertainty and the financial risk that is associated with starting and scaling a business. Like many of you in this room, I had to invest my own 401k to start my business. I also paid employees on the days when I didn't pay myself. And I then had to decide about the right time, the right financial instruments, and the right people that I wanted to get involved in my company in order to move the mission forward. But we all know that greatness comes with sacrifice and tradeoffs.

[00:11:45] Host: And that's why, we'll say it again....

[00:11:48] Danyel: Make sure you understand your why and let that be the compass that absolutely guides you. I believe that if you can articulate your why [00:12:00] and let it drive your strategy and your execution, revenues will come.

[00:12:05] Host: Let's get back to Jewel. So, Jewel founded PartPic, and then earlier than she expected, her business was acquired by Amazon.

[00:12:12] Jewel: So, I was planning for my business to be acquired eventually, but I did not anticipate that it would happen in the time that it did. So, I will say, when I say I was planning for it, when I started PartPic, I knew based on the segment that we were targeting. And the fact that we're a pretty niche company that eventually it would probably find a home in a larger corporation. I didn't anticipate that we would grow the business to a point to go public IPO. I thought that we would sell to a larger company. And so I kind of always knew that part and I am big on write the vision, make it plain.

And so I wrote out: we will be acquired, and here are the top three companies that I would like to be acquired by. Amazon was at the top of the list because I knew from a technology perspective, and also with our focus on parts, [00:13:00] I knew Amazon sells parts, and they have a AR and visual search team, and so there's a perfect marriage there. So I always knew that, but I didn't know that it would come four years into building the business. And it wasn't my intention at that time to sell. What I was actually trying to do was to elevate our technology. Um, we had an incredible black woman, PhD, leading our tech team, Dr. Nashlie Sephus, who's actually still at Amazon to this day. And I wanted people to know her. I had been out front pitching, doing all these things, and what that caused was for people to think we were further along than we actually were. Um, and so I really wanted people to understand that we were a deep technology company and that we should be evaluated as a deep technology company.

And so in doing that, I was reaching out to different conferences. I was really persuading them to invite Nashlie to come and speak. [00:14:00] What I identified was that most of the deep technology conferences did not have any women as speakers, certainly didn't have any Black women, and so I was reaching out to them and just making them aware of that fact. And so one conference, they responded and said, you're totally right. Um, we'd love to have Nashlie come and speak. And so, she went and spoke at that conference. She was doing a riveting session on how we find threads per inch in a screw. You know, she did an amazing job with her presentation, and after she did her presentation, a few companies came up to her, and Amazon Corporate Development was one of those that came up to her, gave her a card and said, we really love what you're building, would love to learn more.

She comes back to the office on Monday morning, hands me a stack of cards, I'm flipping through, I see Amazon Corporate Development. And I'm like, oh, what, what did they say? And so that was really what started the ball [00:15:00] as far as us getting acquired. And as I mentioned, wasn't in the market for acquisition. I was fundraising at that time. So initially I thought the conversation would be about them, about Amazon investing in the business. But that is not what they wanted to do. They wanted to purchase it, and so things went very fast. And what does it mean to sell a business in a short amount of time? Um, but I will say the learnings and everything that I picked up over the course of really seven years between four years of building the business. Um, and then three years at Amazon afterwards, integrating the technology into the Amazon mobile shopping app and launching other visual search products. That is the foundation that I needed to be able to do the work that I do today of helping other businesses grow and scale and hopefully eventually exit as well.

[00:15:50] Host: I want to dig deeper into how that acquisition went down. First let's hear what were some of Jewel's non-negotiables in the deal.

[00:15:56] Jewel: Number one is that I wanted to ensure that my investors got a return. [00:16:00] That's really important. I feel like if you're taking capital from other people, they have expectations. And for me, I didn't want to do anything that would cause me to be on bad terms with money people. Um, so I wanted to make sure that they got their money back plus a return.

Number two, I really wanted to ensure that our technology could scale. So when I came up with the idea for PartPic. Remember, I had the persona of my grandfather in mind, and I wanted something that could be easy enough for him to use, and all the grandfathers out there in the world, like him, who were building something and needed to find a part, I wanted them to have access to this technology. And so, the ability to scale was something that, of course, Amazon has in spades.

And then, the third thing was, I really wanted to be able to take care of my team. The fact that I had five PhDs who trusted me, I was 23 years old when I started the business.

[00:16:57] Andrea (live): Oh, wow.

[00:16:58] Jewel: I still can't believe that these really brilliant [00:17:00] people believed me enough to, um, you know, let go of great opportunities that they had and joined me on the journey. And so it was really important to me that they were all taken care of. And I mean, they had cash and they had a stock and they had a job. Those were the criteria in order for me to say yes to the deal. So, I had a few others I didn't want to move. That was another thing. We were based in Atlanta. I wanted to stay in Atlanta. And I also wanted to be able to tell our story. And so it was really important to me that people understood. That the makeup of our team, what we look like in a very diverse team, by the way. Um, so all of those things were considerations as far as making the decision. If I could get all of those things met, then I would be in a good spot to sell.

[00:17:50] Host: If you want to exit your company in the future, it's important to know how a company approaches acquisition. So, let's hear Jewel’s thoughts on why Amazon chose to acquire Partpic.

[00:18:00] Jewel: For any company that's making a purchase decision, it comes down to should they build this or should they buy it? And in our case, we had novel technology and because we're so focused, I've mentioned Nashley did a presentation on Threads per inch and a screw. Most other companies were not thinking about that level of detail when it comes to computer vision. So the fact that we were so niche and focused on this very specific area was hard to replicate. The specificity of what we were building and the algorithms that we built was not easily replicated. And we had patents that we filed around these things.

[00:18:40] Host: Protecting your business is extremely important and you need to make sure that you have yourself covered as early as possible. Here's Danyel with a quick tip again:

[00:18:50] Danyel: Get the legal advice that you need right in the beginning as you're starting your mission and developing your exit strategy on day one. [00:19:00] Your IP and your business structure will absolutely support your long-term goals.

[00:19:05] Host: If you're worried about expenses when it comes to hiring a lawyer, there's so many universities that offer pro bono legal clinics to help entrepreneurs. And if you want to more about protecting your intellectual property, we've covered that in episode 3 of season 3. Okay, back to Jewel.

[00:19:20] Jewel: We went deep on the technology. That was what worked in our case. In some cases, you may not be building something from a technology perspective that is novel, but you may have a unique way to get to your market of customers, or you may have built a large community. You have to kind of figure out what is it that's going to make you stand out. So for us, it was technology. So that was a big thing. And then it was also the fact that we had, as I mentioned, a great team, five computer vision engineers working on one problem that was very attractive. So it wasn't just we're going to buy this technology and then do away with the team. [00:20:00] It was also how do we bring this team in to continue to work on this particular problem and look at these other problems that we're also facing. Um, so that for us, I think those were the key areas, the reasons why they decided to buy our company versus building it internally. Um, but for other companies, it may be, you know, looking at, do you again have access to a unique set of customers that they may not be able to access? Um, are you, as the founder, bringing something to the table? That they wouldn't be able to go out and hire. Um, and so those are all kinds of considerations that go from a company side when they're thinking about, should they go in and buy this business?

[00:20:40] Host: So the technology and the great team -- those were the reasons that Jewel believes why Amazon acquired Partpic. And Jewel previously mentioned that the process was emotionally taxing. And it makes sense, I mean her business -- at the time -- was her baby.

[00:20:54] Jewel: I have a real baby now. So I hesitate to call Partpic my baby, but at the time it was certainly my baby, [00:21:00] and it is very challenging to make a decision to let someone else have your baby, even if you're brought in to nurture it. It doesn't belong to you anymore. And so that was really hard for me from an emotional standpoint. Um, I share this, I, I definitely fell into a bit of a depression, um, after signing the deal to sell. And it's a weird thing when, you know, you get a large deposit in your bank account and you can't get out of bed at the same time. That is, that's strange. Um, but for me it was, I had a huge aspiration. I really wanted to have a billion-dollar exit, that was my goal. And we didn't quite get there, so I was sad about that. And then I also felt like, the reason that I had to sell at the time that I did was because I wasn't able to access the level of capital that I needed to really scale the business.

[00:22:00] And the other thing was identity. I was so accustomed to introducing myself. Hi, my name is Jewel and I'm CEO of PartPic. My identity was closely linked to my business. And so letting that go and even just figuring out how am I going to introduce myself to people, that was a big thing for me. So the learning in that is figure out who you are outside of your business. Because at some point, you're going to hopefully exit and you don't want to be where I was where I couldn't get out of bed because I was too, I just didn't even know who I was without the business. So yeah, all of that, that's a lot, but all of that goes in, that's the emotional part of when you're building something that you really care about and you make a decision to let it go. You have to be someone beyond that because Your business is not you. It's close. You're, you're putting yourself into it and people are attracted to it, [00:23:00] likely because they're attracted to you. But you are still somebody without the business. Your value, your worth, who you are still matters without the business. And it's important to keep that top of mind as you're building.

[00:23:12] Andrea (live) : Super important to keep an eye on because I think we live in a world where the first question you often ask is, what do you do?

[00:23:19] Jewel: Yep.

[00:23:20] Andrea (live): Your identity becomes so tied to that, that you almost forget that, Hey, I have hobbies and I'm also this type of person and really important message. So I want to switch gears a little bit. Thank you for sharing what you've shared so far. I'm wondering, thinking just a little bit back to the building phase of your business, if there were any tools or resources that you leverage to be able to build your business that you think the audience would benefit from hearing?

[00:23:50] Jewel: So, for anyone who's building something that does have technology at the core, I would say, as quickly as you can, if you're not already associated or close to a research institution [00:24:00] that may be in your city, definitely utilize the resources that they have.

So, the big win for me was that I came up with this idea that was highly technical, not being a technical founder myself. So what did I do? I recognized Georgia Tech was in my backyard and I could just go on campus. I was, like I mentioned, I was 23 at the time, so still looked pretty young. Could kind of, you know, maneuver with the students. But the biggest thing was getting access to the resources that were available on campus. From a talent perspective, I found all those incredible PhDs because I went Talk to professors and told them. This is what I'm building. Do you know anyone who has this skill set? And then one introduction leads to another leads to another. And I'm able to build this amazing team. Um, and so I think people don't utilize the university resources enough.

And then if you're not in a city where there is a great [00:25:00] institution like a Georgia Tech. There's this amazing thing called the internet where you can access resources from all over. I remember when I was first starting, I was trying to understand more about computer vision technology, machine learning. I'm, I'm early on the AI game. I was, you know, 10 years early. Uh, so I started to do, Stanford had some free kind of like 101 courses that you could log in and just get up to speed on what is this technology so that you could have good conversations, productive conversations with technical talent. So that I could have these conversations with technical talent that I was trying to bring on. So those are a few resources for me that were really helpful. Not having that engineering background, but just having the knowledge to understand, okay, I don't have it myself. I'm not going to become an engineer in, you know, 12 weeks. Although if you search hard enough on the internet, there is a video of me. [00:26:00] My, my plan was that I was going to go to a bootcamp. Become a software engineer and build this idea myself, and I quickly realized there is no way that I'm going to get up to speed in the ways that I need to. And so that's why building with people is so important and connecting with folks who have complementary skills can help you grow whatever it is that you're trying to build is really critical.

[00:26:28] Host: And there are accelerators like the BBA that could be super helpful for you. Danyel did mention that tapping into the tools Amazon offered helped her out a lot in her journey as well.

[00:26:38] Danyel: I employ you to leverage Amazon's tools and resources. This will allow you to dream beyond your boundaries. Because I believe, and I know, there is nothing that can stop you from building a global brand. Remember, this is a strategic marathon [00:27:00] that is anchored on endurance, not a sprint.

[00:27:05] Host: What a great way to end this episode. That was Danyel Surrency Jones, the head of Amazon's Black Business Accelerator program, and Jewel Burks Solomon, a tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and managing partner at Colab Capital. And as always, here are some of the key takeaways.

We’ve said this many times before. But knowing your “why” is super important. Danyel says to let it be the compass that guides you in whatever you do. And endurance is what will keep you going because, we don’t need to tell you how hard this journey can be. Both Danyel and Jewel spoke about this, and most of the entrepreneurs on This is Small Business have as well.
Network network network. Also can’t say this enough. Accelerate is a perfect example of a conference where people with similar interests and goals meets. Jewel also spoke about her experience doing this and a reason for why Amazon acquired her business. If this is a goal for your business, make sure to get out there because you never know who you might meet.
[00:28:00] When it comes to being acquired, Jewel mentioned the following as super important considerations: one is getting investors a return on their investment, two is ensuring that the business would be able to scale, and three was ensuring that her team would be taken care of. In terms of her business being appealing to be acquired, Jewel mentioned what worked in her case, which was being super detailed and specific in what her technology was offering and knowing that it would be difficult to replicate. She was also protected and had filed patents around her technology. Side note to always get the legal protection you need early on. If your company isn’t as specific as Jewel’s, she also talked about considering if you are able to access a unique set of customers, or anything unique that you might bring to the table as a founder.
Lastly, something to consider if you can, and if your business is product-based, is selling in the Amazon store. Danyel talked about her own experience and how it helped her reach a wider audience, leverage the supply chain model, [00:29:00] and evaluate needs based on customer reviews.

I'm curious – How has your entrepreneurial journey been like? Did you get acquired or are you planning on it? I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:29:45]

Ep 37: How to Provide Great Customer Service

Provide exceptional customer service.

[00:00:03] John: If you came into my salon today and got a haircut or pedicure, you then don't go across the street, down the street to our nearest competitor and compare. So how good we are to our competitor is almost irrelevant. We want every experience after that to pale in comparison. Now we have deeper pockets. We can spend, we still don't spend anything in advertising. I mean, we found that the best return on investment is customer experience.

[00:00:33] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. By the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

Customer service is something that can often be overlooked [00:01:00] by early-stage entrepreneurs because it seems like there are other priorities when everything is on your plate. But as you’ll find out on this episode, it might be something to put at the top of the list. The better your customer service is, the more likely a customer will choose to come back to your business or choose you over other options. So how do you improve your customer service? What else should you be doing to give your customer the best experience possible?

Coming up -- I'll talk to John DiJulius, the founder, Chief Revolution Officer, and President of the DiJulius group, a customer experience consultant firm. We'll be digging deep into how you can provide great customer service to ensure that they come back for more. But first - I want you to meet Mitzi Rivas, CEO and Founder of Livie & Luca, a brand that makes handmade shoes for kids. Like most of the small businesses we feature on the show, you can find her shoes in the Amazon store. Livie & Luca is all about customer service. [00:02:00] Mitzi has been able to keep an excellent customer retention rate through involving children and caregivers in the shoe-making process. So if you’ve been wanting to improve your customer service or get more return customers then this episode is for you.

Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

Today’s episode of This is Small Business is brought to you by Buy with Prime. Buy with Prime is an Amazon direct-to-consumer offering that helps online brands grow their e-commerce businesses on their own websites. By using Amazon’s fulfillment network, wallet, and the trusted experience of Prime, Buy with Prime has been shown to increase shopper conversion through the promise of fast, free delivery, easy returns, and a checkout experience that millions of shoppers love.

[00:03:00] MITZI: 18 years ago, out of the trunk of my car, I started Livie and Luca. But before that when I was pregnant with my son, I knew that. Gosh, with all of my heart, I wanted him to be able to follow his own lights, to be able to think for himself, to be able to show up in the world just as he was. And I wished that also for myself. And in order to make that desire of mine happen, I realized I had work to do and so, that is why I started Livie and Luca. And, Livie and Luca is a mission driven children's shoe company. We design our products with children, and we've been doing that since the very beginning. And we also design them with their caregivers. We are completely customer centric. Every aspect of our product development to the commercialization [00:04:00] and marketing of our products include our customers.

[00:04:04] ANDREA: I love that you bring in the customer to the process of making the product. They feel like they are part of the brand, and the brand is part of them. So tell me more about how you include your customers into the design of the product.

[00:04:19] MITZI: We bring children together, you know, and at that time they're our teachers. We receive wisdom from them. We pose a question like our last co-creation workshop that we had, we asked the children like, if you could create your own world, what would be in your world? And from that question, we allow each child to answer that question. And we have someone in the background really capturing all of the notes and the drawings. So this, this question that is posed is answered by each child, [00:05:00] and we also will do artwork and storytelling. So there's a variety of different mediums that we use in order to tap into the imagination and into the wisdom that each child holds. And each child has a turn, but each child is also has the opportunity to be witnessed and also to be the listener and to hold space for the other children to respond.

And what we have found over the years is that, yes, it begins with being able to share what is true it, you know, for each child, but also to allow those children to create something that is bigger than themselves. And that is why I love design, and that is why we believe in this being a source of empowerment for each child, [00:06:00] but also the customer insights and the product, making a relevant product that includes their voices is just as much for us as well as a business. The customer feels like they own Livie and Luca and, they're a part of our community, so they could just give us input. It's a two-way street in terms of communication. And not only that, when we need to spread the word, these parents are the first to support us in helping us spread the message and so what constitutes success is when I know it's a conversation versus being talked at.

What's coming to mind for me right now is a workshop that we had with caregivers. We wanted to understand how we might serve adaptive footwear, how we might expand who we serve so that there's more inclusion. [00:07:00] And they came with ideas. And so that to me, when I'm feeling like. Yeah, there definitely was a conversation, but they were so excited to show me their innovations, so all of this has just taken customer service far beyond. How can we do better? It's a platform for listening and for having a conversation and doing it together.

[00:07:24] ANDREA: I think that's a great example of how far you can go in getting as personalized as possible. So, how do you scale a feeling like that, a feeling of personalization?

[00:07:38] MITZI: For us we have to scale our purpose with our business. For us, that is success. If we just scaled one or the other, we would not be successful in this venture. So, in order to serve more children, in order to have more workshops that allow [00:08:00] for co-creation to happen, we had to look at our operations. How could we leverage our inventory, for example, to capture the ideas or the experiences of more groups of children. How do we capture the needs of parents? And it really came down to being able to leverage our inventory and being able to leverage technology in order for us to scale these experiences and to be able to offer more, more of these opportunities through being able to have shorter design time cycles so that we could generate more customization of our products. So, we're leveraging UV technology. We're leveraging shorter design [00:09:00] and production cycles in order for this to happen. That was just like one aspect. It's our products, but also ensuring that our website, for example, has the opportunities to have places where we can express that co-creation. Or what we're also looking at is how do we co-create, how do we use what it is that we do within our design process, which is a very well-established process to the tiniest of details when we're touching our customers.

[00:09:35] ANDREA:  So, leveraging technology and working with shorter production cycles to allow for more co-creation. You also previously mentioned, in one of our conversations, that part of your customer experience is also about meeting delivery. Can you tell me about that? 

[00:09:52] MITZI: So, we were having issues with our warehouse and just having the ability to not only be transparent [00:10:00] with our customers about this warehouse because transparency is also really key when building this ecosystem because it really is built on trust and having Buy with Prime allowed us to provide options that were trustworthy, that, were just another option of, of receiving our product so rapidly and having that be on our site. Just having that seamless, experience of fast service, easy click of a button, it just elevates that experience. And it also, it's one way of honoring our customers and their needs.

[00:10:43] ANDREA: You've already done so much to make your customers feel like they're part of the brand. But I'm wondering, aside from workshops, are there any other ways that you do that?

[00:10:54] MITZI: One thing that we have seriously been considering and planning for and scaling for [00:11:00] is to make Livie and Luca a customer owned brand. So we are capital raising and what feels right and best for us as a company, just knowing that we co-create like, this is who we are. Having the customer actually have shares, have equity in Livie and Luca is the most aligned choice for our capital raise than any other option out there. So having it be a community owned business where we have a scaling plan. We plan to scale with our community. Why not share that success and that ownership with our customers?

[00:11:50] ANDREA: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Mitzi Rivas, CEO and Founder of Livie & Luca. [00:12:00] You can find out more about Livie & Luca in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Mitzi takes customer service a step further by including her customers in the making of the product so they feel like they are part of the brand. She also stresses the importance of having a conversation with your customers. So the next time you’re looking to get feedback or improve your product or service, try talking to your customers, just like Mitzi did when she held a workshop with caregivers to better understand how she can be more inclusive with her product.

Mitzi mentioned Buy with Prime which is an Amazon resource that helps her reach her customers and continue to grow. By using Amazon’s fulfillment network, wallet, and the trusted experience of Prime, Buy with Prime has been shown to increase shopper conversion through the promise of fast, free delivery, easy returns, and a checkout experience that millions of shoppers love. Learn more by visiting our show notes.

Like Livie & Luca, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store [00:13:00] who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about how Mitzi used her specific customer service to bring back more customers and improve her brand. So let’s dig deeper into other ways in which you can make customer service an essential part of your brand with my next guest: John DiJulius, the founder, Chief Revolution Officer, and President of the DiJulius group.

[00:13:53] John: A little bit over 30 years ago, me and my wife opened a salon, in Northeast Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland [00:14:00] it took off and we expanded and started opening up multiple locations and this is the early mid 90s and we had a really good reputation for the customer experience and, are priced really high for Cleveland. So, people started asking, because of our reputation, me to speak and it just morphed and, by 2002, my first book, came out, Secret Service, and that basically took me out of the beauty industry, the salons, and full time speaking, which then morphed into a consulting company. Still own the salons, but not active in the day to day.

[00:14:40] ANDREA: What I really admire about that story is that you have lived what it means to offer good customer service. So, John, what do you think entrepreneurs get wrong about customer service?

[00:14:52] John: They think it's common sense, they think it's innate. Most of us didn't grow up... Flying first class, right? As a kid, [00:15:00] staying at five-star resorts, getting a Mercedes Benz when we turned 16 or spending 200 bucks in a salon for a haircut. Yet our first 10 jobs we got we were expected to give those types of experience to clients, patients, tenants, guests, whatever we may call our customer. And it's not realistic. And so how good someone's service aptitude comes from three places.

First place is your previous life experiences. You know, the worst compass for a customer service is the golden rule. I don't want my 22, 23, 24-year old’s treating our VIP clients or guests like they want to be treated. There's a big disconnect there. So, the second place that our service aptitude gets shaped is previous work experiences. So we can't change those two things. We can only do the third thing and it's what we do with them after we hire them. [00:16:00] And in most cases, the training that companies give employees is 99% operational, technical processes, how to ring up an order, how to, you know, book an appointment, and very little of it is soft skill. And the soft skill a lot of times is: we are customer centric. Okay. Go do that. If you tell a hundred people to be customer centric, you'll get a 100 personal interpretations. So, the best companies, small or big, remove personal interpretations and teach them what that looks like. Here's our non-negotiables. Here's how we create compassion, empathy. Here's how we build a rapport. And then they test you before you're allowed to interact with their customer to make sure you represent the experience that has gotten them to here.

But here's something else that I bet you a lot of your listeners can relate to when we started our first business back in 1993, 30 years ago, we were pretty good at customer experience [00:17:00] because 50% of the staff was me and my wife. As we started growing, our customer experience started going backwards because we weren't everywhere. We weren't 50% of the staff, you know, we had multiple locations and we just, we did the same thing everyone else did is we just thought, oh, this was just natural. And all of a sudden, we started suffering from employee roulette. Right? An employee roulette is when the level of your experience is dependent on who you get. And we all, to a certain degree, suffer from employee roulette, but the best companies, it's not dependent on that. And so that's what we really had to learn was how to systematize it higher and make sure everyone understood and got tested on this.

[00:17:45] ANDREA: How do you keep this expected level of customer service while you're scaling?

[00:17:50] John: So if you look at any world class customer experience company, their leaders, founders, person running it, were or are obsessed and they'll never have a conversation, [00:18:00] it could be about product, it could be about sales, that they don't bring back and how it affects the customer experience. And as they grew, they didn't compromise. Every company that we work with has nevers and always. It's a short list of things you can never do or always do. And we test you on it. Little things, silly things but they happen all the time. Never point, show them. So when you think of never point and show, you think about of a restaurant or a hotel, you say, where's the restroom? And they point down the hall, turn left and turn right, versus show, take you there. But this also applies to virtually over the phone in an email, whatever you're asking for, we can say, you can get that off our website. That would be the pointing versus the showing would be, we send you the link, right? We send you the files and people do that all the time. Never say no, always focus on what you can do.

[00:18:57] ANDREA: So an employee is going to be paid regardless [00:19:00] of if they show or point, right? So, how do you convince your employees that they do this for themselves as well?

[00:19:10] John: All the clients that the DeJulius group works with, the first thing we do is we help them create a day in the life of a customer. Every company has one, and it's a two-to-three-minute video if you watch, you'll cry, and it's a little thing watching someone, you know, pull up to the drive thru or taking their kids to school and there's a little like blurb above their head just found out that her brother has cancer, or it could be good news. It could be that just got promoted at her job, getting engaged tonight to has to put a mom in a nursing home because of you know, dementia, right? And that's all the things our customers are dealing with before they come in. And then you also make them specific to what you do for a living, you know, so has her first date since her husband died three years ago. So that would be specific to the hair salon [00:20:00] because we got to make her look at 10. We got to help her look and feel a 10 where she has a bounce in her step because of the anxiety she must be receiving.

And so, these day in the life of a customer helps our team members realize why they need to be the best part in the guest day because they're struggling. Most of our days are chaotic and so we want to be that escape and help refill them, regenerate them and be the best part of their day or whatever the company is be, you know, make every moment matter. That's Starbucks. And that was on the inside of their green apron for over 10 years. Your customer vision statement is not to be advertised to the consumer, it's to be advertised to your employees, so it was on the inside of the green apron, so they saw it 10, 15 times a day when they took it off and put it on, so that is one of the ways. You rally people around what you're doing. Listen, no one wants to trade hours for dollars, [00:21:00] but when you're part of something bigger, they'll make sacrifices, that's why those great companies have, you know, become who they are, they've done that every step of the way.

[00:21:10] ANDREA: I love that depth. Everything is connected and that's why you have to be part of a shared mission. So tell me, how do you think that smaller brands can compete with large companies?

[00:21:22] John: You got to take advantage of your strengths and smaller companies’ strength is personalization. And I better know who you are and better teach my team, you know, once we get to 50, 500, You know, you're not going to be able to do that. But at five, 10, we can do that, and we can cheat. I take great ideas from big brands and bring them into my, my own little business you know. When I call American Express. They say two things before I hang up. Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Julius? I say no, thanks for asking. They say we just want to thank you for being a Platinum member since 1998. I'm like, oh my god, [00:22:00] they must talk about me every day, right? I mean, that woman might have just started yesterday, but it's on her software, right? We brought that back to our salon. We have like 400,000 people in our database. But our top 2000 who spend 10, 15, 20, 000, they're silver, gold, and platinum. And it says that, so they call up to make an appointment. They check in, they check out. You better say, Andrea, we want to thank you for being a silver. Uh, VIP, I want to let you know, I did take 10% off your product.

You could also make the person that comes in once a quarter or twice a year feel like a VIP. And so there's little ways, right? So, our software pops up and says, this is Andrea's first time. Or one of the cool techniques all our clients duplicate is if you come into our salon, you're gonna see a bunch of people getting their hair cut. 8, 10 people getting their hair cut, let's say. You're gonna see, 7 of the 10, [00:23:00] 8 of the 10 in a black John Roberts haircut and cape. You're gonna see 2 of the 10 in a white John Roberts haircut and cape. What's that mean to you? We have black and white capes. What's it mean to our team members? Anyone in white has never been here before. So now if I'm just walking by you, I could say hi, I'm John I hope your first experience here is you know, or if you're in a black cape, I'm walking by say hey great to see you again and you don't have to have worked here three years three months or three hours to know how to personalize the white cape from the black cape.

[00:23:35] ANDREA: Do you think that price could be irrelevant?

[00:23:38] John: A hundred percent. That's what we do. We help companies make price irrelevant. Now making price irrelevant doesn't mean you can double your prices or even raise them 50% and not lose existing or potential customers. What making price irrelevant does mean is based on the experience, a brand consistently delivers you. You have no idea what their competition charges. [00:24:00] So there's a lot to unpack there. A brand consistently delivers that is removing employee roulette, right? At every touch point, you go into our website, you call, you see someone in person consistently delivers. So when you give an unbelievable experience, a consistent experience, a personalized experience, and listen, everything else needs to be, your product better be good. Your expertise better be good. We're assuming you got that nailed, but there's a lot of smart consultants out there. There's a lot of smart lawyers out there. There's a lot of smart doctors out there. And if that's all you're competing on, you're a commodity. You gotta bring the whole thing, the personalization, the compassion and empathy, making a brilliant comeback when you drop the ball. That's huge.

[00:24:50] Host: That was John DiJulius, the founder, Chief Revolution Officer, and President of the DiJulius group. As always, here are some key takeaways [00:25:00] on standing out and building brand equity with great customer service.

One. Once you start scaling, and by that I mean, once it is not just you, make sure you have guidelines and train your new hires so you can avoid the dreaded employee roulette. You want to ensure that your customer’s experience will be consistent no matter who they end up talking to. If you need help with motivating your employees to provide great customer service, try creating a day in the life of a customer for your business. It’ll help your employees feel like they’re part of something bigger and be empathetic to experiences customer may be going through every day.
Two. Find ways in which you can personalize a customer’s experience. This can be done is many different ways like writing a note to a repeat customer when you’re packing their product, or having a database of high spenders and repeat customers so you can welcome them back each time. Livie and Luca has workshops where they invite their customers to take part in the creation of the product. [00:26:00] Find something that feels true to your brand and that of course, you can deliver consistently on. This is where you, as a small business owner can outshine bigger companies because the smaller you are, the easier it is to personalize a customer experience.

Remember, customer service, as we learned, is not as common sense as we think. So do the work, especially toward the beginning of your journey, of formalizing how and when you will touch points with customers and provide them with the quality customer service that you want to be tied to your brand.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can improve your customer service? Or maybe you've implemented some strategies and like Livie and Luca have managed to get an amazing retention rate. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

[00:27:00] If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:27:48]

Ep 36: Benefits of Acquiring a Manufacturer

Manufacture your own product.

[00:00:02] Sean: One of the biggest issues in starting the business was trying to find out who the manufacturers were, what their capabilities are, and how you can participate with them, especially if you are brand new and you're just starting your business. So traveling around visiting the manufacturers, seeing what their capabilities were is how I got our start, but some of the problems were quality control, lead times, consistency with the work, and really them prioritizing us as a new business and as a new customer to them.

[00:00:35] Andrea: So to address issues, you acquired the manufacturer. I’m curious to learn about the benefits of acquiring a manufacturer for your business. And because I'm sure that involves a lot of work, how can you make sure to manage it in a way that allows you to succeed and keep scaling? Let's find out.

[00:00:52] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, [00:01:00] which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about manufacturing and some of the best practices for managing inventory and supply chain with Sean Brownlee, the CEO of Ravenox, a direct-to-consumer retailer of custom ropes and cords. You can find them in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:36] Sean: Ravenox really started with a sense of finding purpose for me as an individual. You know, and just creating jobs more than anything. I had spent 12 years on active duty in the Marine Corps, where I really had a strong sense of purpose and I knew transitioning out. I was gonna need to find that in my life and continue in that manner. And for me, it came down to creating jobs and how would I go about doing that? [00:02:00] I looked at Amazon and Amazon's business model and how many jobs they've created and how would I be able to participate in that in some manner? And so I ended up forming a rope company that worked with American rope manufacturers because I knew that from my time in the military as far as being able to understand how rope and cordage was made and how it was used and what demographics I went into.

So worked with a lot of American rope manufacturers, private label the products, and sold them on Amazon. And one of the manufacturers that we had worked with, we had grown to be about 90% of their business in 18 months. And due to all the complexities with that manufacturing and how we were selling, we had great discussions and we ended up acquiring our manufacturer. So we in turn became manufacturers and continued selling direct to consumer on Amazon.

[00:02:50] Andrea: What led to you acquiring your manufacturer?

[00:02:53] Sean: One of the issues that we had was our manufacturer was not able to keep up with us. [00:03:00] We were turning down a lot of business and we were unable to, in essence, really continue to be able to meet the demands of our customers. So what we ended up doing is we had a great relationship with this manufacturer that we acquired. I had traveled out here quite a bit in the past. And we were able to continue to push forward and, and really just have a great conversation with them. And they were at the phase of their business too where they didn't want to continue to scale with us. So it was really, for us, it was halfway luck, halfway preparation. And that's where the opportunity came together.

[00:03:35] Andrea: So you needed to keep growing and they didn’t want to keep up, so you decided to take the reins yourself. So what are the benefits of becoming a your own manufacturer?

[00:03:45] Sean: The biggest benefit was being able to expand our product line, having the ability to give our customers the same thing we were looking for as a new business, which was that quality control, that consistency, that short lead time. We all saw it during Covid. [00:04:00] We experienced it as consumers, as businesses, how much time it took to get products and supply chain issues, whether you're importing or domestically manufacturing. And we were able to bring that in-house, we were able to continue making that product and getting it out to our customers in a timely manner. And so it got us through Covid and it taught us a lot of lessons. And that's really the meat and potatoes of how it benefited us as a business. I don't know if we'd be here today if we were to rely on our other manufacturer vendors that we've partnered with, because their lead times just were extended, we had no control over their supply chains. Whereas we have control over our supply chains. We can focus on the sustainability of our product, the fact that, it is made here in America, that we are 100% sourcing here on American soil for everything we make. And keeping that going all the way through.

[00:04:55] Andrea: What are some of the best practices you could suggest to early-stage business owners on how to manage inventory, [00:05:00] especially since you mentioned that this was one of your pain points in the beginning?

[00:05:05] Sean: It's software, it's taking advantage of the technology that's out there. And using software integrations, I am absolutely appalled at how many manufacturers today are still using PDF documents or only tracking their inventory on a monthly basis. We are tracking everything through software. We've applied all those best practices that we had, that helped us with online retail. And we applied that all directly to our manufacturing. I could tell you exactly how much down to the cone, how many pounds of yarn we have, and just about everybody we've partnered with. They don't do that. And I think there's a lot of catching up to do, for a lot of manufacturers, but use inventory management software tools and take advantage of 'em to their fullest.

We're using Amazon FBA for a good portion of our business for the smaller items that we're fulfilling, and Amazon has a lot of tools to help track inventory. [00:06:00] There's a lot of API integrations and a lot of different software companies. We've gone through quite a few of them. If you wanna maintain a 30 day or 60–90-day supply of inventory, how much we need to have, which that segues into us looking at every single level from our partners, our vendors, where their business is at for our suppliers, for the raw goods that we're bringing in, and their best practices for how much we would need. So say my minimum order quantity is 2000 pounds of raw goods to bring in to manufacture our products. I can run a trajectory of how long based on our daily or weekly turn rate. How much we need to actually have on hand to, to be able to run that. So those are just some high-level ones, but I, I believe we looked the other day, we probably have over 60 different software integrations at different levels of the business.

[00:06:55] Andrea: Ok, so, leveraging software integrations to keep up. [00:07:00] And you also mentioned that quality control was another issue that came up. How did you tackle that?

[00:07:05] Sean: The way we're manufacturing, I mean, we have machines that are 125 years old, and yeah, new machines, new technology, robotics, AI, it'll get your hands off. I mean, I can tell you a lot of the stuff that comes in a human hand hasn't touched, and yes, that saves you a lot of time and money, but if there's a problem, that problem is at scale. So the products that, that we're manufacturing, you have four or five hands on that all the way through. We don't have the same quality control issues because anybody can stop the production line at any time and say, we've got a problem and we can stop it immediately before it becomes a bigger problem. And, so no, we don't have the quality control issues. We also are getting feedback. We're asking for feedback from our customers every single acquisition, every single time we have an interaction with a customer, we're asking for their feedback and collecting that feedback just like Amazon is doing with reviews, we're doing the same thing [00:08:00] across the board on different marketplaces on our website and saying, how are we doing? And we can figure out really quickly if there's a problem and how to fix it.

[00:08:10] Host: That was Sean Brownlee, the CEO of Ravenox. He talked about manufacturing and what you can do to stay on top of your inventory and supply chain. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. There's a lot of benefits that come with manufacturing your own product. You can expand your product line, be more consistent and have a lot more control over the quality. So, if you feel like the manufacturer you're currently working with is hindering your workflow, then maybe getting your own manufacturer is the next step to continue growing your business.
Two. Take advantage of all the software out there to manage your inventory. There are a lot of tools out there for this. Sean also talked about using Fulfillment by Amazon. To learn more check out our show notes. Whatever you decide to use, make sure to keep it up to date!
[00:09:00] Three. Quality control is super important. When you’re a small business and even if you manufacture your own product, it sounds like nothing beats having at least a couple of human hands touching and looking at the product before it’s out the door and in customer hands. This reminds me of what Chevalo and Monique from Charleston Gourmet Burger talked about in Season Two where we dedicated a full episode to learning about the dos and don’ts of partnering with the right manufacturer. They like to open random boxes of their sauces and testing them to make sure everything is meeting their quality standards.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

[00:10:00] CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:10:10]

Ep 35: How to Differentiate Your Product

Help your product stand out.

[00:00:03] Aaron: In business, I believe fundamentally your job is to bring something to people that they do not have, right? You wanna fill a need, fill a void that's in the market. There’s millions and millions of products, and literally over a million sellers, how are we gonna do something that will stand out in that market?

[00:00:22] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. And by the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

In today's competitive marketplace, product differentiation has become an essential strategy that every business needs to know to stand out and thrive. Seems pretty obvious right? So then, how can you effectively differentiate your product from the hundreds of other products out there? [00:01:00] Especially if you're in a saturated market?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Rita Gunther McGrath, a best-selling author and professor at Columbia University Business School, about how you can differentiate your product from your competitors. But first -- I want you to meet Aaron and Whitney Cordovez, Cofounders of Zulay Kitchen, a brand that sells kitchen tools and appliances. You can find their products in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. One of the reasons I was excited to talk to them about product differentiation is because they're doing business in a saturated market and still thriving and reinventing themselves to stand out. As you might know, there are tons of brands that sell kitchen appliances so, I wanted to find out what Aaron and Whitney did to differentiate their products from the hundreds of others out there in the market. So, if you're passionate about starting a business and are trying to figure out how to stand out, then this episode is for you.

[00:02:00] Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:15] Aaron: The name comes after my mama. Her name is actually Ingrid Zulay Martinez. But she doesn't like her first name, so she always go by Zulay. She likes Zulay. It sounds cool and fun. And she's a cool and fun person. And she basically, dedicated her life to me and my brother in helping us, and then helping our family as well. And so when it came time to make a business and make a company, make a brand, I thought what represents something that's, to honor my mom for everything she's done, we named it after my mama.

[00:02:48] Whitney: Nine and a half years ago. We had nothing. We were both working in nonprofits and when we left the nonprofit. She was the only one out of both of our families that had our back. If our crazy plans [00:03:00] and different testing things that we would do, like entrepreneurship didn't work out, she was always there for us. So when we were actually working on a name for this company. She was the one person that always had our back, so I was like, yeah, of course.

[00:03:18] Andrea: How beautiful. And I'm sure having that connection makes it easier to wanna make Zulay kitchen into a successful business. So, tell me more about Zulay Kitchen? How did it start?

[00:03:30] Aaron: A friend had told us, hey, you know, it's possible to sell on Amazon and make your own brand. And we said, uh, I told her, hey, I wanna try this Amazon thing. The course was, we paid it – for a course. Put everything on a credit card. We bought our first product, money credit card.

[00:03:40] Whitney: We had no money.

[00:03:41] Aaron: But the concept was, listen, in business, I believe fundamentally your job is to bring something to people that they do not have, right? You wanna fill a need, fill a void that's in the market. There’s millions and millions of products, and literally over a million sellers, How are we gonna do something that will stand out in that market? [00:04:00] And that was what my job was for about a month and a half to two months to find something that would fit in the market. That there was a need and we could bring something of value. And that was the goal from the beginning. And that first product was the lemon squeezer. We have a two in one lemon squeezer. It is actually a patented product. It's not our patent, but we do license it.

[00:04:18] Whitney: And I wanna say that basically when we, when he went through all the different products and decided to do that one, we ordered probably about 10 different variations of the lemon squeezer and there was rigorous testing against the top competitors to make sure that the one that we chose was gonna be the best and number one.

[00:04:35] Aaron: We wanted the best one cuz the first page had so many different types and models and this, and I said, Which one's the best. And I had, we ordered the top one and it was not the best, it was not very good. And we found and tested this two in one, which is spectacular. And we have people that bought from us the very first year in 2015 that still have it today and understand this is the best, one of the best purchases I've ever made in on Amazon. But we started with a lemon squeezer. Now we have over a thousand different, products. So, it's expanded quite a bit in eight years. [00:05:00] We have spatulas and milk frother, lemon squeezer, garlic, garlic presses. We have cheese boards, cheese slicers, cheese slicers.

[00:05:10] Andrea: So, I want to dive deep into what makes your product different. Let's choose any of the ones you would like as an example. How does that product differ from competition? What are the considerations you made there?

[00:05:20] Aaron: One thing that we started, we, you know, we came early when this product was just kind of emerging in the market called the Milk Frother, right? And we had a very good experience and Amazon does a fantastic job at making sure that every single product is up to speed. I mean, it's up to the quality that the customer wants because the first milk frother that we tried, we had kind of not tested it as much because I couldn't find, it's the only one I could find that I could produce. And we brought it to the market, and it sold very fast. Just, you know, a couple hundred units, that's all we had ordered. And it sold out and the reviews came in and they were pretty bad. But that's feedback that Amazon allowed us to get.

[00:06:00] And then based on that, we found a much better place to produce them. I actually went all the way to China to find someone who had a better motor and over there I spoke to hundreds and hundreds of different vendors to try to find a place to produce this milk frother that would actually last long, that would address all of the reviews that we got that were negative that would address those problems. And so, we partnered with a factory, and we actually iterated over that product.

[00:06:26] Whitney: And I wanna say we also started that and obviously the competitors came in.

[00:06:30] Aaron: Yeah, correct. We were the first in the markets like, and everybody had a black, we came out with five colors, started selling a lot, and we added more and more and more so, we’ve been pioneering in this space to give people more options. And because Amazon, we call it like the unlimited shelf space, right? So we have marble, we have the, the walnut color, we have like wood colored, we have, uh, sparkling, we have UV light ones. We have so many different types of that product and we improve it, and that's not available anywhere else. So that's one thing that makes our products different.

[00:07:00] Andrea: And so would you say then that because of all this research, and because you continued to test out your products and improve them and see what's out there that makes a exponential difference on the success of your business. Do you think that's why you continue to grow and continue to do better?

[00:07:16] Whitney: I would absolutely say that has a lot to do with the growth and there's no limits on the growth ability of our company.

[00:07:25] Aaron: And it's really, you do the work because in, in any business, whatever you're doing, you have to do the work that other people are not doing, right? So if there's your peers, whatever competition, other people, if they're doing one thing well, you have to do one thing. The second thing, the third thing, the fourth thing. And so the success comes from going a bit over and beyond just the what's necessary, because we didn't need to add another 10 colors when we already had 50 or whatever. Like it's not required. You don't need to do it, and it's a lot of work and you have to actually design it and test it, and the different packaging. There's a lot of work involved, [00:08:00] but we know that our job is to do the work to make the end experience better for the buyer.

Just like in any business, in anything you do, you must stand out. So if we don't stand out, then we're not gonna get the sales, right? It's a free market and if you have a better product, then you can get more sales. And if your product is just mediocre, well then you're probably not gonna succeed very well. So we have to do what other people refuse or do not want to do.

[00:08:30] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Aaron and Whitney Cordovez, Cofounders of Zulay Kitchen. You can find out more about Zulay Kitchen in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Aaron and Whitney gave us a lot of insight into how they ensure that their products stand out from the sea of other kitchen gadgets out there. They focus on quality above all else because that's what's going to keep the customers coming back. And they also offer as many colors as possible [00:09:00] because they noticed that not a lot of businesses did that.

Like Zulay Kitchen, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about how Aaron and Whitney differentiated their product from their competition which involved a lot of testing. So let's dig deeper into what else you can do to stand out and if there's other -- perhaps cheaper -- options that can help you achieve that with my next guest: Rita Gunther McGrath, a best-selling author and professor at Columbia University Business School.

[00:10:00] RITA: So, I went to Barnard College, and graduated with a degree in political science, and then intended to go into the political arena. I actually started two small businesses way back when, and I made the kinds of rookie mistakes that you make when you're just getting started. I did a political consultancy, you might think of it as, but this was like a long time ago. And what I forgot was that elections don't happen every year. And so, business kind of morphed into a business that was, you could think of it like a Kinko's, you know, typing and word processing and stuff. And then I realized I wasn't interested in typing and word processing, I was interested in the politics part of it, so I ended up selling that to my partner, and I went on to work in government. After a few years doing that, joined Columbia Business School after a stint at the Wharton School where I did my Phd.

So I teach mostly in our executive programs, I run a one-week course called Leading Strategic Growth and Change. [00:11:00] So my work tends to be at the intersection of strategy and innovation. And those two topics have gotten very much closer than they were perhaps at one point. And so I teach executives how to think about change, how to think about new technologies, how to think about inflection points, strategic inflection points, those kinds of topics.

[00:11:25] Andrea: So excited to have you on This is Small Business Professor. So to jump in, if I may, could you talk to me about what discovery driven planning is?

[00:11:32] RITA: So discovery driven planning had its roots in some studies that absolutely fascinated me back, back in the day of large successful companies that had tried to do something new and failed spectacularly. I call them my flops, and I have a file at home I keep, it's called my flops file, and to get into my flops file you have to lose your parent 50 million dollars. And when I went through these case studies, what I realized was [00:12:00] that they all shared a common set of symptoms. You know, untested assumptions, taken as facts, very few opportunities for low commitment testing, big teams and all the funding up front, oftentimes leaders, sort of heroically committed to a specific course of action.

And what I realized is that what these companies were doing was planning uncertain projects as though they had a solid basis of foundation in fact. And we took a page out of the entrepreneur's playbook, the small business playbook, and said, well, how would you plan if you didn't know what you were planning for? And the result was a technique called discovery driven planning, which has five elements to it.

So the first is defining success. So before we even start, what, what would good look like? Like, let's get aligned around that. The second thing is that once you've defined success, you think about what's your unit of business, what's your unit of impact. And that allows you to then say, well, am I being realistic? [00:13:00] So if I'm planning to sell, you know, widgets, right, and I want to make 100, 000, in profits, and my profit margin is 20%, that means I've got to sell, 500, 000 worth of widgets. So what starts to happen is you begin to realize that innovation rather than being this weird, unplannable, magical process actually has deep, deep rigor and deep, deep discipline to it. It's just a different discipline than you use when you have more facts to work with.

So define success, figure out if we're being realistic, then map out what operationally has to happen to get this thing to be a reality in the world. As you're doing that, you're going to be making assumptions. And what I recommend is that you document them. So firstly, you remember them because we tend to forget the assumptions that we made. And secondly, so that you can get evidence that says whether you're being more or less realistic. And then the last piece of the process is you plan, but you plan around checkpoints. And a checkpoint is simply a moment at which you're going to learn something. And so the, The core of the technique is you, you budget using a funding mindset rather than a budget mindset. [00:14:00] So rather than saying, here's my 18-month budget and at the end of it I'm going to have a hockey stick, which we all know is often completely unrealistic. Instead of that, what you're going to do is say, okay, I'm going to do some customer interviews. I think this is a million-dollar opportunity. I want to spend 2,000 to figure out if there seems to be a problem we can solve. So it's a step-by-step planning methodology. And it's very useful for small businesses, very useful for entrepreneurs.

[00:14:25] Andrea: Can you take me through what type of research would have to happen for a small business owner to be in a position where they understand how they stand out among their competition or in the industry that they're in?

[00:14:38] RITA: Well, I think the first thing you have to begin with is something I call the job to be done. Which is content that was created by Tony Ulwick and Clayton Christensen. And they said, customers don't really buy products and services.

As a small business owner, the thing you really want to understand is what is the outcome that customer is trying to drive in their lives? [00:15:00] So what are you being hired to do? What do you get fired for not doing, right? And if I want a particular outcome, there's many, many ways I might get an outcome. As an example, I'm working right now with a small regional theater, and they're trying to figure out what, what's changed about their industry, what's changed about their audience. And I pointed out to them that, you know, 40 years ago, when that whole category was in its hayday, Um, you know, if you had two and a half hours to spend, what was your competition? It was three television channels, you know, appointment TV. It was, you know, other ways you could get out in the community and make yourselves known. I said, today that same two and a half hours is being competed for by everything, from streaming services to, you know, you name it. And Netflix very famously has said it considers its primary competition to be sleep. You've got to think about differentiating yourself around something that really matters to getting a customer an outcome that they deserve.

[00:15:52] Andrea: In application, how would I go about finding this?

[00:15:55] RITA: Well, you can do interviews, but I think you have to do them in a very specific way. [00:16:00] So a mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is they'll have a concept, right? And they'll say, Hey, would you buy this thing? People are pleasant and they're nice and they say, sure, I would buy this thing. But what they don't, what they're not able to articulate to you is, well, I would buy it. But not if it meant I wasn't going to be able to buy lunch that day, right? So you you really have to be very very careful about the things that people say.

So a good sort of needs oriented or or job to be done kind of interview might go something like, hey, you're a vegetarian, right? What are the challenges that you have when you're dining out in a new city, right? So you, you want to really get narratives. You want to see what they do. You want to look at the tradeoffs that they make, right? My friend Alberto Savoia, he wrote a terrific book called The Right It, and he has a concept that he calls the skin in the game caliper. And what this is, is it's a metric of how much is a customer willing to commit to a particular thing. And the way Alberto puts it is, he says, why create something and figure out if somebody will buy it. [00:17:00] Why don't you figure out what it is they want to buy and then create that.

So for example, if they're willing to come to a half an hour product demo. Maybe you get some points for that because they gave up their time to actually come and find out about this thing. Most compelling of all would be would they place an order, and at this point a lot of entrepreneurs say to me, well, but I haven't created the product yet. It doesn't matter. Tesla advertised their cars and took deposits on them long before they had a working automobile. But what they were able to do was demonstrate that there was real customer desire for this EV, environmentally friendly, very cool car. And so what you want is you want as much demonstrated market desire and acceptance as possible before you spend a lot of money.

[00:17:45] Andrea: Thinking about how to spend money is such an important thing, but also how to set yourself up at the beginning as a small business that in the long run will do more good than harm. What are some of the considerations that a small business owner should make [00:18:00] when they're starting out that can set them up competitively apart from doing all of this very necessary research?

[00:18:10] RITA: Well, you want to make sure that you've got a handle on cash flow. What kills a small business is you run out of money. So you want break evens daily, weekly, monthly, that that would be an excellent best practice. And you want your incoming cash to exceed your outgoing cash. And you want to really be thinking about that over a decent period of time. So, so that's a good best practice. You want that source of differentiation to be relatively durable. So if somebody can easily copy something that customers are finding attractive, that's usually not good. So you want something that is difficult for others to simply replicate. So that could be a brand, that could be an affiliation, that could be personal relationships that differentiate you. Ideally, you want a business model that's somehow sticky, right? So, once somebody's adopted, it's a pain to move. Or, it just is problematic for them to switch to a different competitor. [00:19:00] And so, to do that, you want things like contracts that extend over some period of time or some kind of commitment on the part of the customer that it's not just going to be transactional, right? It's, it's, it's building a relationship. Those kinds of variables can be very helpful in establishing something that's not just going to get instantly copied.

[00:19:20] Andrea: If someone is really passionate about a business idea that's in a really saturated market, should they just go for it? Or would it be better to look for something that they might not be as passionate about but has less competition?

[00:19:35] RITA: Well, competition signals there's interest, right? I mean, competition, if you think about it, is, is sometimes a good thing. We talk a lot about, oh, blue oceans where nobody is, but there's an awful lot of businesses that don't exist because nobody's interested enough to pay to get a particular kind of problem solved. So I would go with what you're absolutely passionate about. I would also say you want to go with something where you have more than just an external understanding. [00:20:00] Some experience that you've had, or some background that you've had.

So, as an example, one of my friends is Kirk Carlson. He was the CEO at SRI International when they invented Siri, and they invented HDTV, and just a really, really great guy. But what he would tell you is that part of the way that he ran that company was based on his experiences at learning to play the violin. He was a nationally ranked violinist at one point, not quite good enough to make a living on it, but very, very good. And he said, what you do as a violinist is you, practice with other violinists. And so you play, and then your peers and your teacher coach you. And so when he ran an innovation program, he did the same thing. He brought all of his teams together that were working on different projects. And each of them would present their progress for the week, say in a ten-minute pitch. And then they would have big, really candid conversations about what was good about the thing, what progress have they made, what should they do next, those kinds of things. [00:21:00] So, you want to have some kind of background learning that differentiates you.

[00:21:06] Host: Great way to end, reminding us that we should probably pursue what we’re passionate about, because that passion could also be part of the way you differentiate your product. That was Professor Rita Gunther McGrath, a best-selling author and professor at Columbia University Business School. As always, here are some key takeaways on product differentiation.

One. Quality is super important. And you can make sure that your product is great quality through lots and lots of testing. And really listening to customer reviews and figuring out what can make your product better. First start by understanding what problem you’re solving for your customer to make their lives better. Professor McGrath poses the question: what is the outcome that your customer is trying to drive in their lives? And solve backwards from that answer.
Two. There’s a technique that Professor McGrath mentioned called discovery driven planning that might help you succeed if you’re planning on trying to do something new. [00:22:00] The tool is defined as planning for a new venture by recognizing that there will be a lot of unknowns and envisioning outcomes. This technique has five steps. One, define success. Two, figure out if you’re being realistic. Three. Map out what operationally has to happen to get this thing to be a reality in the world. This leads us to four. You’re going to be making assumptions as you map out your plan to bring your vision to life, so make sure you document them so you don’t forget them and so you can double check if you’re still being realistic. And five. Plan around checkpoints, aka moments where you're going to learn something.
Three. Competition signals interest. So just because a market is saturated, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should give up on an idea. That’s where standing out is important and doing what others aren’t like Aaron and Whitney with Zulay Kitchen.

[00:23:00] Lastly, an important tip that was mentioned was knowing how to manage cash flow. Which is a topic that has come up often and we will actually be talking more in depth about it during upcoming episodes.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can differentiate your product? Or maybe you've already successfully done that. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. [00:24:00] Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:24:20]

Ep 34: How to Find Your Ideal Price Point

Know how to price your product.

[00:00:00] MARK: I always put myself in the shoes of the buyer and say, what decision are they making? How are they making this decision? And that's how we figure out what's the price point we should be charging or approximately what's the price point we should be charging. A lot of companies use something we'll call cost-plus pricing. Oh, it costs me a dollar. I want to make 50 points of margin. Therefore, I charge $2 for it. But that has nothing to do with what your market's willing to pay. What if you have customers who would pay you $10 for that? Don't you want that? And so now we're thinking through; what's a customer really willing to pay. And that's what should be driving our pricing.

[00:00:42] ANDREA: So pricing is a little more complicated than just figuring out your cost-plus pricing. What you should be doing is trying to figure out how much your customer is willing to pay, but that's a lot easier said than done. So, let's figure out how we can get into the minds of our customers and if there's any other considerations a small business owner [00:01:00] needs to keep in mind when thinking about pricing.

[00:01:05] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. You’ll hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. On this episode we'll be talking about pricing and figuring out how to set prices for your products or services with Mark Stiving, Chief Pricing Educator of Impact Pricing. To learn more about him visit our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:00] ANDREA: There's a lot to learn here so let's jump right into it, Mark, how do you think that a small business should think about pricing their product or service?

[00:02:05] MARK: The very first thing is what's your company strategy? Businesses will say my company strategy is I need to grow users so that I can get a higher valuation and get my next set of investors. In which case what we're trying to do is we're trying to put some relatively low price on our product because we want to show investors that people are willing to pay for it, but we want to keep the price low because we want to get as many users as possible. On the other hand, there are a lot of small businesses that are trying to grow more slowly. As in, I need to pay my bills while I'm growing my business. And in that case, we do what almost all large businesses do too. And that is understand what does value mean to our customers? What is value-based pricing? And to me, value-based pricing simply means charge what our customers are willing to pay.

[00:02:56] ANDREA: How do I figure out what my customer would be willing to pay?

[00:03:00] MARK: There's a lot of different statistical market research type things that companies can do. Possibly my favorite and easiest is Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter. It's been around since the 1960s. But they essentially ask four questions. First you describe the product as though you're trying to sell it. And then the four questions you ask are something like, at what price do you think this is so expensive you would never consider it? At what price do you think it's so cheap, you think the quality couldn't be very good? At what price do you think it's starting to get expensive, but you still might consider it? And at what price do you think it's a bargain, a good buy for the money? And of those four questions, the third one is absolutely the most important.

Let's call that technique that we're going to use for B2C type businesses. So if you're going to sell to a consumer, we really go after this concept of how much are you willing to pay for something. In the world of B2B, typically, when we sell a product to another business, [00:04:00] the only reason another business is going to buy something from us is because they're going to make more profit after they buy and use our product. Value to that business is what's the additional profit. When we know what that additional profit is, that guides us in understanding how much we're willing to charge for what it is that we're trying to sell as a general rule of thumb, if there's no competition in a deal and I'm trying to get somebody to do something new, they've never done before, I can typically charge in the ballpark of 10% of that number. Now, of course, once competition gets involved, that goes down but that's how we think about it in the world of B2B. How much more money are you going to make because of this product?

[00:04:42] ANDREA: Usually customers associate a higher price with a higher quality product. Should a small business start at a higher price point because of this assumption, or would that be too risky?

[00:04:52] MARK: Typically, what you want to do is try to sell at a higher price point. [00:05:00] And that's only because what you're trying to do is create a product that's better than your competitions. It is really, really hard to start, run and succeed at a business where your competitive advantage is we charge a lower price. So you want to be thinking about how do I differentiate my product? How do I differentiate my company? How am I better than my competitors? And then how do I get to charge for that? However, we often hear the saying, we should start pricing high because it's easier to lower a price than it is to raise a price. It's really true. If when you release a product, everybody knows you release this product at this price point. And now it's hard to raise that price because people will dislike you. On the other hand, if we're a small business, most people don't know our price points. So it's easy for us to come out at a lower price point, prove that nobody says no to us. Guess what? We better be raising our prices. People don't get upset because the new customers don't know what the original customers paid.

[00:05:58] ANDREA: How about when it’s a subscription model. [00:06:00] What are the differences in considerations that a small business should make there?

[00:06:05] MARK: If you have the ability to build a subscription business, then they get much higher valuations. It's easier to do your business. If you think about it at the end of a year. You've probably got 70% of next year's revenue already booked at the end of this year. But the real trick is once you've won new customers, now you have to focus on how do I keep my customers. And, by the way, in order to win a customer, they have to believe our value story. As soon as they buy and start using our product, they now know the real value of our products. We have to deliver on value. So it's no longer perceived value. When we've done a great job at delivering real value to those customers, then we start to focus on how do we grow those customers.

There's really four basic ways you can do that. You can raise their prices, which often isn't that hard to do on subscribers. [00:07:00] You can upsell them. We often do good, better, best packaging. And so what that means is that a customer who bought in at the good level, They want more capability. They upgrade to the better level or the best level. So now we're getting more revenue from them. Another one is cross sell. Maybe I've sold you one capability and now that you trust me and love me, you're willing to solve another problem with my technology, my capabilities. And then the fourth way to grow a customer is usage. And this has a lot to do with pricing because if we price our product in a way that, as a customer uses more, they pay more than as we get them to love and use our product more, they end up paying us more.

[00:07:45] ANDREA: How do you think that a small business can remain competitive while still growing when talking about price setting?

[00:07:50] MARK: One of the most important things any business, small business, big business can do is understand how their customers value their products. [00:08:00] And one of the most important decisions we have to deeply understand is; are they making a “will I” decision? Or a, “which one” decision. A “will I” decision is; am I going to buy something in that product category? A “which one” decision is, this typically happens, once I've decided I want to buy something in a product category, I then say, okay, which one am I going to go buy? This is really important because sometimes people don't look at competitive alternatives. And if we understand when that happens, we understand that our buyers are much less price sensitive and we're talking to them about the value of solving whatever problem it is they're trying to solve.

If they're going to compare my product to a competitor's product, now what I want to know is, how is my product better, different than my competitor's product? And what's the value of that to the market that I'm going after? If I were trying to remain very competitive, I would make sure that my products are always highly differentiated. [00:09:00] I would know which customers value that differentiation. And I would focus on selling to that specific set of customers because they value the things I do better than my competitors.

I work with companies all the time, and we create these things I call value tables, where we start with Well, what's your product? What's the solution that you've already built? What's a feature that people love that your salespeople talk about? You put it on your website because you think it's an amazingly great feature. What problem does it solve for your customers? But when you can say that really clearly, then you're starting to understand what your customers really value.

And then you ask yourself, okay, if a customer has this problem and they buy our solution, what's a quantitative result they might expect? Once you can create that, then it's typically business acumen in a B2B setting that says, how do I take this

result and say, here's how much more profit a company might achieve because they bought this feature of our product. [00:10:00] Now notice what I just did. Was put a dollar value on a feature. This is so important because not only does it help us set prices, but once we've learned how to do this, we're now only going to develop new features, new capabilities that actually have value to our customers.

[00:10:25] Host: That was Mark Stiving, Chief Pricing Educator of Impact Pricing. He talked about pricing and figuring out how to set prices for your products or services. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. Figure out your company strategy. Are you trying to get more users and customers so you can impress investors? Then you'll probably want to lower your prices to increase your users. Or are you trying to pay your bills and grow your business? Because then, you'll have to figure out how much your customer is willing to pay for your product and charge that.
That leads us to, Two. When you're trying to figure out how much your customer is willing to pay for your product. [00:11:00] Try asking these four questions about your product or service: At what price do you think it’s so expensive you would never consider it? At what price do you think it's so cheap, you think the quality couldn't be good? At what price do you think it's starting to get expensive, but you might consider it? And at what price do you think it's a bargain?

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:12:00]

Ep 33: How to Self-Publish a Book

Self-publish your book.

[00:00:00] JANE: It is exceptionally rare for anyone to make a living off book sales alone, especially if you're early in your career, if you're not a celebrity, if you're not already an influencer of some kind with brand recognition, then that first book that you put out there is just the first step of a very, very long journey. And I think many writers just have misplaced expectations about what those sales will look like regardless of how they publish, regardless of the genre. It is very hard to sell a book.

[00:00:35] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. On each episode I end with key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

[00:01:00] Aright, so you've written a book, and now you wanna share your stories with the world. The next big step on your journey as an author is to navigate the daunting world of publishing. Today, we'll demystify the process, step by step, to help you understand how to release your work to your readers aka your customers. From refining your manuscript to selecting where you wanna print your book, we will delve into the essential considerations that pave the way towards a successful book release.

Coming up -- I'll talk to Jane Friedman, a publishing industry expert, about how to start the process of publishing a book. But first -- I want you to meet Business owner, Naibe Reynoso, a journalist and the founder of Con Todo Press, a company that publishes and creates award-winning bilingual children’s books that amplify the stories and voices of underrepresented communities. Naibe is also a multi-Emmy award-winning journalist and author and has contributed to various regional and international networks. [00:02:00] Like most of the small businesses we feature on the show, you can find her books in the Amazon store. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description. Here’s a question that one of our listeners had:

[00:02:25] VM: How do small businesses go about scaling? I feel like we’ve reached a point where we want to scale more and go to that next level but find it a bit difficult just because there’s not blueprint, but um, looking for some strategies and ideas on how to level up and go to that next level with your small business once you feel like you’re ready.

[00:02:42] Host: Scaling is something that a lot of the businesses that we have on the show are thinking about and it’s something that we also like to dive deep into because how you scale has a lot to do with your business model, how you’re set up, where you are in the journey of your business, and of course, resources available. We’ve talked about this subject on previous episodes [00:03:00] like the one with Back to the Roots that features Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora as well as Chuck Templeton. That episode talks about how they made the jump from small to medium. One of the key takeaways they mentioned through their journey to success is zigging when others zag. Since there is a lot of competition out there, it’s important to think about how you stand out and take risks. Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis and seek advice from the people who are where you hope to be one day. We’ll also be talking about this subject on later episodes in this season so keep a look out. So let’s get this show on the road and meet Naibe!

[00:03:35] Naibe: So I'm a journalist. I've been a journalist for over 25 years and I feel like everything came together at the right time, right? The perfect storm. I'm a mom also. I walked into a bookstore and I took my son because I was really looking for something where he would feel represented, seen, [00:04:00] and he would feel pride in his culture because the climate at the time wasn't so warm and fuzzy for minorities, especially Latinos. So I really wanted him to get the other side of the story of how amazing we are as a culture and how many, how much we've contributed to the United States. But I did not find anything for his age range. Right. Between five- and eight-year-old age range. I found books for babies and I, there's obviously history books, but not for his age range.

So that's kind of where the seed was planted of why don't these books exist? Why can't I create them? I'm a journalist. I've been doing stories about my community, highlighting my community for over 20 years. I'm multiple Emmy award-winning journalist so I can do this. That's what, you know, that's what I was thinking. So that's how Con Todo Press was born. And even the naming, like give it your all. Con Todo.

[00:04:50] Andrea: I know this is going to sound cheesy, but, GRACIAS Naibe. As a Latina, this is so inspiring to hear. [00:05:00] Not only am I a Latina but I also LOVE books so this story is especially close to my heart. What I also love about your books is that they're both in English and Spanish. And as a bilingual myself, when I was little, I would've loved to have this because it was either, you read everything in English or you read everything in Spanish. And because I went to school in the United States, most of my reading was in English, so growing up my parents were always worried about me being able to speak Spanish correctly. And so I think instilling that is very important at a younger age. So, I want to jump into our topic today. The first step to publishing a book is, obviously, to write it. But what comes after that?

[00:05:40] Naibe: So after you write the book, you have to know what category is your book fit into, right? There's a lot of different categories, whether it's a board book, whether it's for five to seven or a little older, young adult romance, et cetera. So once you've, really narrowed down what that book that you wrote is for, what audience is it for, [00:06:00] the next step is finding a copy editor, right? You have to find a copy editor that's really gonna fine tune your words. Sometimes we feel like, but my words are perfect cuz it's my words. But this is a product that's gonna go out to hopefully thousands of people and you want the best work, right? So you hire a professional copy editor to look at your manuscript, the words that you've written, and to improve them, not only, with grammar, but also contextually like improve the script.

You might have a blind spot where you're not realizing that it doesn't make sense or this character, why is this character here, et cetera. So that's the next step. The way you find a copy editor is you go on different platforms such as Read Z, which is kind of like a Fiverr or an Upwork specifically for people in the publishing industry. And there you will find freelancers who have or still do work for big publishers and just are looking for extra work. [00:07:00] So I've found amazing publishers that have worked for the top publishers in the industry. So you really have that confidence of like, okay, this manuscript has been vetted by a true professional.

After it's been copy edited, looked at for grammar, et cetera. Then you hire your illustrator. Right now I'm talking specifically about children's books, but you still need an illustrator or a graphic designer, even if you have a romance novel, right? What's gonna be on the front cover? We'll go with the example of a kid's book. You need illustrations, so that's the next step. The way I've found my illustrators is different ways. One is, there's another platform called Behance, where illustrators put up their portfolios and you can skim through. But before you do that to save yourself some time, do a mood board as far as what kind of vibe do you want this book to have? There's so many different styles, right? So that way you don't waste your time looking at portfolios that aren't ultimately gonna be a good fit for your manuscript. [00:08:00] So you have to make the decision, is this gonna be watercolor, is this gonna be vivid colors? What style? Once you have that style and then you start looking at portfolios not only on Behance, which is an option, but also on Instagram. I have found some of my illustrators on Instagram, so you search the, the hashtags. I've wanted to work always with Latina or BIPOC illustrators. So I'll search hashtag Latina illustrator or also just illustrators. In that hashtag, so many different amazing illustrators come up. You make a list of all of your favorite ones based on that concept of your mood board, and then you reach out to them, and you see, do they have an agent? Are they just work for, hire, et cetera. So that would be the third step, right?

Hiring that illustrator, writing a contract, making sure that everything, you know, all your ducks are in a row because there's a lot of different elements that go into copyright and who's gonna own the artwork. So do you wanna own it? As a small self-publisher, if you do, [00:09:00] you have to do work for hire. And you have to put that into the contract where you're outright just purchasing the rights to their art. If you're gonna do royalty based, then you do a contract based on royalty. How much royalty are you gonna give them? Write that in the contract and be very clear. I personally did hire a publishing attorney, cuz I just wanted to make sure I did things the right way. I highly advise you to hire a publishing attorney so they can give you a template of contracts or look over a contract that you are going to have for the rest of your publishing life, right, with that specific illustrator.

[00:09:30] Andrea: Small pause here, and I bet you already know what I’m going to say listener. But we can’t stress enough how important it is to consult a legal professional. Know that none of the things mentioned on this episode should be taken as legal advice. We’re here to provide you with general information. So before you do anything, please seek qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. The hiring of an attorney is super important so don’t make that decision lightly or based solely on anything we cover today on this episode, or any other for that matter! [00:10:00] And if you want to learn more about hiring legal help, check out our third episode of this season with Cynthia Dahl, where she covers different types of free legal resources available to small business owners, or take a look at our show notes! Ok now, back to Naibe.

[00:10:17] Naibe: So after illustrations are done, contracts are signed. Now is the last step, which is the book formatter. And the book formatter, I like to call them the chef. The chef puts everything together, all of the ingredients. Right before that there's a tiny little step that seems complicated but isn't that complicated. Once you do your research, it's getting your ISBN, which is that barcode, that number in the back of the book that we all see that identifies your book, figuring out the price, getting your barcode, which is not difficult at all. And then submitting it for copyright. So after you have all of that, like I said, you get the chef, which is the book formatter, [00:11:00] who gets all those ingredients together, gets your manuscript or your text, the illustrations, puts them together, your copyright information, your author's note if you have one, and then, basically gives you this document that's a PDF format and that is your print ready PDF format and now you're ready to go to print.

So you can decide whether you wanna do print on demand or if you wanna go and do an offset printing with any printer either in the United States, there's printers all over the world that you can work with. I print through Amazon, but I also print through an offset printer in China. But I do have print on demand through Amazon which is a really, really cool tool because with print on demand, if you don't have a lot of money to fork out thousands of dollars for offset printing, you don't have to, you could just write your book and then put it up on the Amazon KDP platform, Kindle Direct Publishing, and they will print the book as people order the book. [00:12:00] You don't have to mail the book, you don't have to even process shipping, nothing. All you have to do is upload it onto the platform and then you receive a royalty depending on how many books were sold in a period of time. Every month I get a royalty from Amazon, from all the print on demand copies that are sold. So it's an amazing, amazing platform cuz it's like you literally set it and forget it, you know? It's, it's like pretty much just money that's coming in. You've front-loaded all the work, and now the rewards just are gonna come for the rest of my life. Basically On KDP.

So that's the last step. And then obviously putting out, releasing it finally and promoting it.

[00:12:42] Andrea: Thank you for taking us all the way through. Ok so let’s unpack a bit. You mentioned that the first step you have to go through is finding an editor, and you talked about where you can find that editor in different places. And then after that you found an illustrator. [00:13:00] You specifically found illustrators that aligned with the content of the book and could carry out your vision. And then after that you got a publishing lawyer, you figured out what your ISBN code is, found a printer, and then you finally published it, mainly through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. I want to know more about the ISBN, and that stands for the International Standard Book Number, as I just quickly searched, and the process of getting that.

[00:13:26] Naibe: That little ISBN number seemed the most intimidating because it's like, that looks so official. Do I have to take a test to get one of those numbers? Do I have to be certified? Like how do I get an ISBN? And it's as simple as going to BOWKER.com, create an account, and literally you can have an ISBN right then and there within minutes because all you have to do is pretty much tell them what's the name of your book, how many pages, what audience it is, what you're selling it for, and bam, it'll spit out the ISBN number and there you go. [00:14:00] You do need an ISBN in order to publish a book, it's an identifier if you wanna sell on Amazon, or if you wanna sell to a different small bookstore or libraries. All of these need that official number because that's how they identified it within their system, and it's kind of like a uniform system, identifying system that everyone uses.

So yes, you definitely need it. And then another number, some people don't get it, but I always get it, is the LCCN number, which is a library of Congress control number. And that's super easy to get too. But the LCCN is basically the identifying number that all libraries use for their system. So it's good to like get all those numbers so your book feels and is official, official, official. And it's not just pieces of paper bound by stitching. It actually has all the numbers that all of these different institutions will want to use for their categorizing systems, et cetera.

[00:15:00] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Naibe Reynoso, a Journalist and the Founder of Con Todo Press. You can find out more about Con Todo Press in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Naibe gave us so much valuable information on the process of publishing a book. And she made even the technical intimidating parts of publishing - like getting your ISBN or LCCN easy. And I love that she shared her experience with printing her books via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. It’s helpful to know just how easy and seamless the process can be.

Like Con Todo Press, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. [00:16:00] You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about the process of publishing a book and we'll dig deeper into other considerations that you might need to make before you publish your work with my next guest: Jane Friedman, a publishing industry expert with nearly 25 years of work experience in the industry. Here’s Jane.

[00:16:30] JANE: I've spent 25 years working in the publishing industry in some capacity. I started out on the traditional publishing end, but about 10 years ago I went full time freelance. I run my own small business which focuses on helping writers navigate the book publishing industry, and also the, what I'll call the emerging creator economy, but mainly, I'm helping people understand the business, because publishing isn't necessarily the most transparent business in the world.

[00:17:00] Andrea: We just talked to Naibe Reynoso about her experience writing her books and went through the step-by-step process. I’m curious if your steps align. What is the next step you think an author should take as soon as they finish writing the book?

[00:17:12] JANE: I think it really helps to have a cooling off period. Usually the first impulse of writers after finishing a book, the first draft is to submit it somewhere, or to show someone. And I think, if you are the normal author, if you're like 99% of most authors, you're gonna need to revise it in some way and usually it's, it's not that I think you have to run off and hire an editor, or find a critique group, or find beta readers, which of course you can do all those things, but I think the most valuable thing you can do is just let it sit for a little while, whether that's a week or a month, so that you can look at it with fresh eyes and decide: What have I missed? Where do I feel like I need to address some issues? What do I feel confident about? And then proceed from there.

[00:18:00] Andrea: You work with authors to help them understand the business of publishing. What are some of the first considerations an aspiring author should make if they’re looking to make a profitable business out of writing books?

[00:18:12] JANE: It is exceptionally rare for anyone to make a living off book sales alone, especially if you're early in your career, if you're not a celebrity, if you're not already an influencer of some kind with brand recognition, then that first book that you put out there is just the first step of a very, very long journey. And I think many writers just have misplaced expectations about what those sales will look like regardless of how they publish, regardless of the genre. It is very hard to sell a book. And what I find is that a lot of writers will short circuit. They'll put in a lot of time and energy into selling that first book, treating it as a sprint rather than a marathon, and then they give up. [00:19:00] They might even abandon writing altogether because they're like, What? There aren't any rewards here. I essentially got paid one cent per hour, and actually that might even be a good rate. And so you have to look at the bigger picture of how this book is going to support your career, your visibility, and some other ways that you might earn money as a result of now having this book.

Now the answer to that is, what the business model will be is going to differ, whether you're fiction, nonfiction, children's, etc. But I think every writer has to give some thought to what that business model will be, which will include book sales, but book sales is typically a very small percentage to start.

[00:19:36] Andrea: Because we spoke to Naibe who writes children’s books, what business model would you suggest for someone who just wrote their first children's book? And what I'm hearing is that it has to do with volume, right? Like don't expect the first one to just hit it out of the park. You kind of write a lot of them, it sounds like.

[00:19:55] JANE: Yes, yes, regardless of what you're writing, it helps to have a series, [00:20:00] it helps to have spinoffs, it helps to build over time the number of books you have in your library as an author. But aside from that, in the children's market in particular, one thing most authors love to do is library visits, classroom visits, other visits like that, that sometimes come with an honorarium or a speaking fee, other times they don't. But if you are comfortable in that role as a speaker or a teacher, that to me is like the number one path that I would be looking at. But, you know, the thing is you have to remember until you're an author with some name recognition, it can be tough to get that payment with your very first outings and so you may have to do some things on a free basis or for less money than you would like as you gain experience, and the word starts to spread about what you do.

[00:20:53] Andrea: Are there any technical elements that you think a lot of people don't think about prior to trying to sell a book?

[00:21:00] JANE: The book foundation is very important, and what I mean by foundation, aside from the content or the story itself, is like all of the things that go into the package and into how that book is going to be discovered. So it includes things like the title, the cover design, the subtitle, if there is one very important for nonfiction, the pricing, the format, the page count, all of these things when you put them together. It turns it into a title that people are often assessing against other titles that they know, and so it's really to your benefit as an author if your book abides by whatever the industry standards seem to be for your category, and so it helps to look at those comparable titles, comparable authors, to see if you're in the ballpark of what readers are expecting or looking for in your genre or your category.

And then there's another level beyond that, which helps with discoverability, which has to do with keywords, categories, some people refer to this as the metadata, which is just a fancy word for how books get discovered, [00:22:00] especially in online environments and the book description itself and some of the different ways that you describe a book and retail a book at places like Amazon. You know, there are things like customer reviews and professional or editorial reviews and other assets that go into making a better presentation for your book, what it's about, who it's for. And so what I sometimes see is authors will just take the first thing that pops into their head for like the back cover copy, which often ends up on the book description page or the retailer page, and they haven't really put much thought into is this saying something that's persuasive or effective in an online environment, especially if people can't pick up the book or, you know, flip through it very easily. Am I hitting on the keywords or the phrases or the terms that people would be searching for when they're presented with an online bookstore environment?

And so, this is really, I think, the [00:23:00] shortcut to all of this, of knowing what is the right thing to do, is understanding those comparable titles and authors, seeing what they've done, and pulling out, you know, the things that are going to make sense for your book given the genre or category that you're in. This is one area where you don't want to break the mold or be different from everyone else, especially in fiction and in children's literature, people tend to like more of the same or they're shopping for very particular likes and they want clues, signals that, oh yes, this book is for me because it's going to have that great thrilling twist at the end, which you would mention in your book description. So I consider these fairly technical issues where you can actually hire people to help you, or if you do enough study and research, you can handle it on your own.

[00:23:50] Host: Judging a book by its cover in the publishing industry is real. That was Jane Friedman, a publishing industry expert with nearly 25 years of work experience in the industry. [00:24:00] Thank you for listening today -- As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on self-publishing your first book:

One. Take a breather. Once you've finished writing your book. Let it sit for a while and come back to it after a week or even a month to revise it. Taking a break from your writing will help you look at it with fresh eyes and spot some mistakes that perhaps you didn't before.
Two. After that breather, Naibe gave a great timeline of what you should do when you've decided that your book is ready to publish, so let's quickly go over it. One. Decide the genre of your book. Once you've narrowed it down then you can move on to Two. Get a Copy Editor that'll help you fine tune your words and make sure your book is ready to be seen by hopefully thousands of people. You can find a copy editor on different platforms like Red Z. And Jane did mention that you should make sure your copy editor is the right fit for you and that might take a bit of time to find. But it’s worth it. [00:25:00] Then, we move on to Three. Hire an illustrator or a graphic designer. You can find them on sites like Behance or even Instagram, but before you look through examples of their works, make sure you create a mood board of what you want your illustrations or book cover to look like so it's a lot easier to pinpoint what you want when you're looking through their work. Four. Get your ISBN and LCCN codes, it's as easy as making an account on bowker.com and the Library of Congress and uploading your work. And finally five. Figure out your printer, there are tons of options to print your book. You can find a local printer and/or use Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
One last key point mentioned was discoverability. Descriptions and titles are important to help your audience find your book. Jane suggests that you should do research on what other books in your genre look like and try to emulate that. Do judge a book by its cover in this case.

[00:26:00] I'm curious – Are you thinking of publishing a book? How are thinking of printing it? Or maybe you’ve already gone through this experience and have self-published many books! I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:27:00]

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:27:15]

Ep 32: How to Hire Your First Employee

Hire your first employee.

[00:00:02] Keirsten: What are the things that you don't need to do? And I think some of those are not just unique to me being a recruiter, but things like scheduling, things like putting up social content, things like, you know, things that are taking up my time that are also taking away from my real subject matter expertise. So it's the things that you have to give up. And then again, I think it's a matter of looking at, you know what, I'm turning down a lot of work and I would be able to do these other things, these cool, fun things, if I had some help, if I had some assistance in these areas. There comes a time when you do need to scale and you can bring those things in house and do them under the banner of your own brand.

[00:00:48] Andrea: So, you'll know when you need to hire an employee when it starts to affect your workflow and you find yourself turning down opportunities because you're too busy doing work that someone else can take on. [00:01:00] So as a next step, I want us to talk about how to go about hiring employees when you’re first starting the process as a small business.

[00:01:08] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about hiring and digging deep into key considerations you should make when you’re first starting to hire employees for your small business with Keirsten A. Greggs, the Founder & Principal Talent Acquisition Consultant of TRAP Recruiter. To learn more about her visit our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:50] Keirsten: I'm Kirsten Greggs, originally from South Jersey. I am a talent acquisition consultant and founder of Trap Recruiter LLC, [00:02:00] which is a small black woman owned business that bridges the gap between job seekers and employers who are looking for historically excluded talent. I bring trust, relationship building, accountability, and a proactive approach back into the recruiting life cycle. And that's what the TRAP acronym actually stands for.

[00:02:20] Andrea: Jumping right in here, given your expertise, what are some considerations you think small business owners should make when hiring, especially if there isn't an HR team yet and it’s some of their first hires?

[00:02:33] Keirsten: Well, you definitely need to consider the “why” you need to hire someone. Do you even need someone to fill a new role? You need to decide if it's going to be a longer-term position, meaning you're going to actually develop that person and they're going to have opportunities to grow into either an adjacent role or go up the ladder in some way. [00:03:00] You have to think about how much money you have to spend and how much of that is going to be dedicated to the recruitment of people. You can look at your networks and say, you know, do I know someone who can maybe take, take this role on for, like I said, if it's just going to be a short-term project, a few months or so you might, you know, do better just reaching out to a staffing company that, you know, has a bunch of people who can fill that role for you. So cost is always a consideration.

Time is always a consideration, like how quickly you need to do it. And again, thinking about time, not just in hiring, but thinking about time and retention as well. I think a lot of us, regardless of the size of our companies, we don't think about retaining talent as much as we think about hiring them with like, let's get them in the door, but then we have no plan for them once they get there. So retention is also going to have to be a consideration when you're looking to hire people. And then, you know, the type of work schedule, all those things like, you know, am I going to advertise? Am I going to spend money? [00:04:00] Am I going to create things? And first and foremost is knowing the why. So did we win a new contract? Or, you know, do we have so much work that the current employees are overwhelmed and they're not working up to their previous level of output. Are we having to turn down business?

Because again, we don't want to overload our existing employees to the point that they don't want to work for us anymore and they go someplace else. And then again, just think about is there someone internally who is maybe , a web designer who likes to do other things, and is good at it and they want to transition into a different type of role or the role that they were initially hired to do is, I don't want to say obsolete, but no longer gives them the satisfaction and again, no longer gives the organization the value it did when you were a startup or when you were at a different time frame in your organization. [00:05:00] So, there's a lot of considerations, but the one thing I do want to caution folks on, for the small businesses that I do support, be aware of like how big you are and don't try to compete with a company that has 20, 000 employees when you have 20 employees, you're not going to go about the hiring process in the same way that they are.

[00:05:22] Andrea: How do you think that small business owners can go about finding the right fit when evaluating applicants? What types of questions should they be asking?

[00:05:30] Keirsten: I ask people in every phone screen, what their must haves are. Because a lot of people don't think about that, like, what do you want from the role? What attracted you to this position? That's a great question for anybody. And there are ways to garner interest above, again, you're like the up-and-coming small business, you're a great place to work. People have heard great things about you, but you know, that person may not really be connected to the work. [00:06:00] So they talk about it in more lofty ways, like, Oh, I just want to work here or I'll do anything, you know, when they give those kinds of answers, you know, there may be someone who's better suited, but asking questions that are generalized or can be applied regardless of the role, like I said, what are your must haves, like, what are your deal breakers? What are you looking for your next role? What attracted you to this position? And you will get the answer that you're looking for from the right person or persons.

Also think about retention, like if you're going to hire someone, I'm going to say it every time I get an opportunity, always think about retention and what that really means for you. Like, how long do you really want this person or how long do you really want these employees to be in your organization? Again, do you have a plan for them to develop? And if not, how are you going to help them to move on to their next step?

[00:06:52] HOST: That was Keirsten, the Founder & Principal Talent Acquisition Consultant of TRAP Recruiter. She talked about key considerations you should keep in mind when hiring employees, [00:07:00] especially as you’re making your first hires. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. For a small business without an HR department, hiring can seem daunting. So before you go out and look for an employee, think about why you want to hire someone. Maybe you could get away with outsourcing help or freelancing. Kiersten suggested that you know when it’s time to hire your first employee once you’re missing out on opportunities because of doing work that someone else could be doing. Think about time and cost and evaluate the benefits of adding someone to your team.
Two. Retention. When you decide you want to hire someone, retention is just as important - if not even more important - than the hiring process. An important question to ask a potential employee is: what are their must haves for this job? And then think about the plan you have for them to develop once you hire them.

[00:08:00] That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:08:45]

Ep 31: Why You Should Protect Your Intellectual Property

Protect your brand.

[00:00:00] Jeannell: I still run into customers to this day that say, I've been looking for you all these years. I didn't know what happened, and we thought we did a good job announcing it and sharing it, but apparently not. Some of our customers, they were like, why did you change the name? How dare you take it away? You know, all these businesses are selling out. I mean, they just assumed all kinds of things were happening, and we were like, listen, I'm still the owner. It's still the same product, it's just a new name. But they didn't believe it. They didn't trust it. They were endeared to it. That was the first time that I realized how connected people get to a brand and how much it means to people.

[00:00:38] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. On each episode I end with key takeaways [00:01:00] that you can use on your business journey. Today, we talk about protecting your brand. Something that a lot of small businesses tend to brush over is protecting their IP or intellectual property. But if you want your business to grow and to have a competitive edge then safeguarding your IP is essential to your success. So, how do you protect your IP? At what point in your business journey should you start thinking about it? And what are some of the consequences you could face if you decide to put it off?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Cynthia Dahl, Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, about how you can protect your intellectual property. But first -- I want you to meet Jeannell Darden, CEO of Moisture Love, a vegan beauty brand that helps women love their curls and you can find their products in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. So the reason I was also really excited to talk to Jeannell about Moisture Love is because, [00:02:00] Moisture Love actually used to be under a different name -- Cocoa Curls. But as her business grew, Jeannell had to change her brand name because of copyright issues and although her business is still doing great, changing her brand definitely impacted her. If you’re at the stage of thinking about the name of your business, logo, and brand identity, then this episode is especially for you.

We’re going to talk a lot about lawyery things on this episode, so just know that none of the things mentioned on this episode should be taken as legal advice. We’re here to provide with general information. So before you do anything, please seek qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. The hiring of an attorney is super important so don’t make that decision lightly or based solely on anything we cover today on this episode, or any other for that matter!

And lastly, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:03:00] Jeannell: So I like to tell people I've been in the beauty industry since I was a child. My mom's a licensed cosmetologist. She taught me how to do hair at 10. Most people have chores, like sweeping floors and doing dishes, and my chore was to do my hair, my mom's hair, and my sister's hair every Saturday. So I learned to love beauty. And then the summer before high school, my mom had gave me a relaxer. And because I'm a professional at this point, I colored my hair just two weeks afterward, and it broke off really bad. And for three years I held onto this damaged hair while I was matriculating through Georgia Tech. I took an African American entrepreneurship class. We had a project where we had to do a writeup on a famous CEO and I chose Madam CJ Walker, and I was so inspired by her story and how she fixed her hair challenges with her products. I was like, oh, surely, I can do the same thing.

[00:03:53] Andrea VO: For those of you who don’t know, Madam CJ Walker is recorded as the first Black woman millionaire in America. [00:04:00] She ran her own haircare empire and was inspired to create her hair products after experiencing hair loss. She came up with a treatment knows as the Walker System and sold her homemade products directly to Black women. If you don’t know her full story, I encourage you to check it out. Back to Jeannell’s story.

[00:04:16] Jeannell: So I started summer of 2011, we launched my first brand, which was called Cocoa Curls. We went through a crazy trademark opposition that lasted like three years, and then in 2016 we rebranded to Moisture Love and we named the brand Moisture Love because moisture is the number one challenge that women with curly hair have, and loving and embracing their beauty and feeling good about their hair is a close second similar to how I felt when my hair was damaged and broken off. So now our mission is to help women with curly hair find joys and ease in loving their curls.

[00:04:50] Andrea: Tell me more about your experience with trademark opposition with Cocoa Curls. What happened there and why did it happen?

[00:04:55] Jeannell: It was intense. So someone had told me, hey, you need to trademark your brand. [00:05:00] And so this being my first real business, cuz I've been an entrepreneur since middle school. I sold candy to pay for my trip to go to New York, and so I just go to the state trademark office and I paid $10 and I filled out the paperwork and I'm like, oh, cool. I did that. Check. But then I think I was working with a mentor or someone and they were like, do you have your national trademark? I was like, yeah. And I showed it to them and they're like, no, that's just your state trademark. Um, and so we filed our USPTO trademark, um, and we had gone through the process, updated, uploaded everything, and we, there's this period called opposition. Where in the last, I think it's six months for anybody to oppose your trademark to give any reason. It's kind of like at a wedding where there's like, if anybody objects to them getting married. And we had one week left and we received a cease and desist from another company saying that they had first use before us and that they were opposing it. And that was the beginning of our journey. And crazy enough that was sent to me the day that I was in the hospital having my second daughter. [00:06:00] So it was like, Happy Birthday to her. This is what I had to deal with on that day, so it was a lot.

[00:06:05] Andrea: That’s terrible! Sorry you had to go through that. But also what a hard intense lesson to learn right? I mean you had to change the name of your brand, and that probably influenced not just your rebranding, but your relationship with your customers.

[00:06:22] Jeannell: Yes, it did. It did. I still run into customers to this day that say, oh, you're Cocoa Curls. I've been looking for you all these years. I didn't know what happened, and we thought we did a good job announcing it and sharing it, but apparently not. Some of our customers, they were like, why did you change the name? We love the name and the Cocoa Curls lady. It came with a character. So she was a character, and she was really cute with curly hair. We love the logo, we love the Cocoa Curls lady. How dare you take it away. You know, all these businesses are selling out. I mean, they just assumed all kinds of things were happening, and we were like, listen, I'm still the owner. [00:07:00] It's still the same product, it's just a new name. But they didn't believe it. They didn't trust it. They were endeared to it. That was the first time that I realized how connected people get to a brand and how much it means to people.

[00:07:10] Andrea: When you rebranded to Moisture Love, what were some of the considerations you made in terms of trademarks and protection now that you know more about it?

[00:07:20] Jeannell: So, well, first I'd like to tell everybody I'm not a lawyer, didn't go to law school. Four years of engineering, really five years of engineering nails it. So definitely consult a trademark attorney. And actually that is the first thing I will say. Consult a trademark attorney on the front end. Um, a lot of times as small business owners, we get really personally endeared to a name, a brand, a color, a look, a feel, and before you get too far in that process, just make sure it's safe, especially if you plan on having a big business. So otherwise, if your goal is just to be a mom and pop and do, you know, farmer's markets, nothing wrong with it, not bashing it at all, then maybe it's not that important. But if you intend on having a hundred-billion-dollar brand that I intend on having, then you definitely wanna make sure you consult someone on the front end.

[00:08:00] The second thing is understand what the brand means to you and what you intend for it to mean to other people. Like, where are you going? What's the, what's the mission, vision, values, what's the, what's the purpose? What's the pain point that you're solving and how can that name easily connect and resonate with the people that you intend to serve, not sell to, but serve. And if you think about a brand, as I'm positioning myself to serve someone, then it really kind of changes the mindset with which you go into thinking about how you name it.

[00:08:30] Andrea: So once you consulted that trademark lawyer, did you do anything differently when thinking through that rebranding that you didn't do the first time around?

[00:08:40] Jeannell: I did a lot differently. So the second time around it was like, how can the name tell a story? So like I said in the beginning, moisture is the number one challenge that women with curly hair have. Loving and embracing themselves is a close second. I wanted the brand to invite the feeling of love and, and beauty and confidence. [00:09:00] Oftentimes women with curly hair feel like they have to cover it up, cut it, color, change it to be something else. So that played a huge part. What are the colors? What do the colors mean? I actually consulted with a brand consultant to help me think through this, cuz I wouldn't have known to think through this the second time. How are we gonna position this brand? How can we make sure that when they see the brand, that it feels inclusive to them? Is it gonna just be domestic? Is it gonna be international? Like how, how do we play out all those things? How do we spell it in a way that's easy for people to spell? And it's not so long and complicated, so we had all kinds of other names that got kicked off the list for different reasons.

[00:09:40] Andrea: When you thought about that name, it’s meaning, and felt in a confident spot to adopt it, at what point did you start the trademark process?

[00:09:48] Jeannell: Immediately. Immediately. Because everything about trademarks in the US is about first use date, right? So for instance, with us, had there been somebody who could prove back in 1989, [00:10:00] they sold a hair product under the name Moisture Love and never trademarked it, then they could oppose my trademark right now to this day, or at least during that process. And they could have shown their paperwork, they could have shown their bill of sale. And I wouldn't have been able to select that name. So the moment that you know the name that you wanna go with, you can file an intent to sell. So even if you know you're not gonna sell for another six months, you can file a 10 sentence and sell. And you wanna be able to document that as early as possible.

[00:10:32] Andrea: Are there any other things you had to do to protect your brand apart from filing for a trademark?

[00:10:36] Jeannell: You file your trademark. Um, you make sure you have all your legal, uh, docs in place, so your LLC, your EIN, your operating agreement, all those types of things. You make sure when you file your trademark, it's clear who owns your trademark. So do you the individual own it? Does the company own it? Does some other entity own it? That's really important because typically when you go to sell your company, people kind of think of your company and the brand as one of the same, but they're really kind of mutually exclusive. [00:11:00] Cuz you can have company A with six brands and maybe only brand three has any real value. So it's very important to make sure that you own the brand ie the trademark and you're clear on who owns that so that if you ever did a transfer of ownership, the person who's buying knows that they have clear use in ownership to that brand, if that makes sense.

[00:11:23] Andrea: Ok so once I’ve done all of that, then I’m done right?

[00:11:28] Jeannell: Know that it's not done. Just when you file it, you still have to every five years prove that you're still using it and go back in and refile it and submit more paperwork. So know that it's not done. Certain things you keep an eye out for you, keep a process in place to make sure you stay on top of it. And then, yeah, every brand you think of, trademark it. You may have a brand that sells the product, but you may have another brand that you know, you do YouTube videos under, or a class that you teach under. Just trademark it all. It's worth it. And if you start selling internationally, know that you're not protected internationally just cuz you're protected domestically. [00:12:00] It may not matter initially, like if you're just sending a couple of cases of product to somewhere. But if you are really an international brand with international distribution, then you need to do international trademark for the EU, for Africa, for Australia, for wherever it is that you're doing business, that you want to be protected.

Because what can happen is, people in another country can be making your product, shipping it into the US and there's ways to also protect against that or to check against that. But what people will start doing is knocking off your product. So getting it made somewhere else. Sending it in across the border and selling it here. And they will take your label and duplicate it word for word font for font, placement for placement. Um, but you can put certain protections on your brand that when anything is entering in the country at the border, they can check to see, okay, is this actually coming from Moisture Love or is it coming from somebody else? And I don't know that every case can be found, but it can be caught. But I know a lot of them can.

[00:13:00] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Jeannell Darden, CEO of Moisture Love. You can find out more about Moisture Love in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Jeannell's journey was definitely a difficult one but I'm glad that she was able to overcome it and protect her current brand name against any other trademark issues in the future. She talked a lot about how the customer connects to the brand, so making sure you find a name that'll resonate with your customers is super important. And as soon as you get that name, make sure you trademark asap.

Like Moisture Love, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. [00:14:00] You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about Jeannell's journey with copyright and trademark and how she's currently protecting herself against any future issues. So let's dig deeper into the process of what that looks like with my next guest: Cynthia Dahl, Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

[00:14:35] Cynthia: I've been an I. P. lawyer for 20 years and tech lawyer. I started straight out of law school at a law firm where I did some litigation. And then after a couple of years of that, I recognized that I really liked transactional law. So I went in house for a while. And then after that, I decided I wanted to pivot and teach. And so I've been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Carey Law School, now for about 10 years.

[00:15:00] Andrea: Let’s jump right in, Cynthia, what do you think are some of the considerations founders should make in terms of trademark and protection?

[00:15:06] Cynthia: So IP stands for intellectual property. And the way that we think about it really is IP is a business tool. It's whatever is the asset of your company that helps you to compete with your competition, whatever's special about your goods or your service. So trademark is a kind of IP, or more accurately, I guess, trademark is an IP protection tool. People have brands to identify them as the source of a good or a service and trademark protection is the way that you protect that brand and keep others from using your brand in a confusing way. I think that small business owners should think about their IP even more broadly than trademark. I would say really that they've got three questions to answer. And the first question is what makes me special? [00:16:00] What makes my small business faster, better, cheaper, my product better than my competitors. And that's where they should start thinking about using IP protection. So the first question I guess is to identify the asset.

And the second is to then match the asset to the tool because trademark is a great tool to protect brands, but we also think about patents. We also think about copyrights, patents protect processes, copyrights protect content and trade secret actually is useful to protect things like data, or important information. So first, identify the asset. Second, identify the tool that would best protect the asset. And then third, then talk to a lawyer about how to use that tool effectively. And so, although small business owners may not be thinking about IP first, it is critical to think about IP when they want to compete with a competitor and roll their product out.

[00:16:52] Andrea: So do you think a small business owner should look at intellectual property protection as an iterative process? Something continuous? [00:17:00] This makes me think of all the large companies that change their names throughout the years to reflect the landscape.

[00:17:08] Cynthia: So I think it's an iterative process. I think that small business owners are wise to think about it at various times of their company's growth because as you grow, you change and then your needs change. Things happen, you roll out new products, you find a new competitor and then you need to revisit these questions. But I would say if a small business owner starts in the beginning to think about what they're hoping to do, then they can think about how to use IP to help them to grow. So I would say start in the beginning thinking about these things and then come back to it as the company grows and changes. But as soon as the small business owner comes up with a name for their good or their service, they're already starting to think about their IP. IP should come early, but IP protection shouldn't come first. First, the small business owner needs to think about their product and their market and to make sure they've got something that, [00:18:00] that people want to use or to buy. But as soon as that small business owner starts investing in developing that product, then they should start thinking about what they should protect.

[00:18:15] Andrea: What’s something about the process of protecting your brand that you think small business owners could be confused by, especially if this is their first business?

[00:18:23] Cynthia: There's a difference between what you call your company and what you might call your good or your service and so there are actually two different registries, and I think a lot of early-stage entrepreneurs get this confused. They think if they pick a name for their company and then they register to do business, say in the state of Pennsylvania, where I am, that they also have locked down their trademark rights. But that's not true. You can call your company one thing and call your good or your service something else. And what you call your good or your service is your brand. And so I think once you, as the small business owner, [00:19:00] decide on a trademark, which is the source identifier for your good or your service, then you should look and see if anyone else is calling their good or service the same name or a similar name. And if they have registered with the U. S. government for trademark rights. And there is a website that people can go on. It's USPTO.gov, which stands for United States Patent and Trademark Office, dot gov. And if you go on that website, you can search to see if anyone else has registered for the same name that you're interested in using to mark your good or service.

[00:19:34] Andrea: So, if you’ve done it for the name of the product or service, do you have to do the same thing for the company name, as in the owner of the good or service?

[00:19:42] Cynthia: When you register to do business you go on to the Secretary of State website and you, again, can't register the same name company as somebody else already has in your State. So it's a different registry for a different purpose, but you do similarly have to pick a unique name.

[00:20:00] Andrea: So, thinking about Moisture Love, Jeannell didn't fully learn the process of intellectual property protection until she was in a bit of trouble. And it affected her customers who recognized her brand, who already bought her products because they thought that they were discontinued or didn't exist anymore. And it felt like she was starting all over again. What are your thoughts on going through a situation like hers?

[00:20:24] Cynthia: That is not the first time I've heard that and when that happens to our entrepreneurial clients, it's so sad. So we try to really help them to get ahead of that and I think that's where your question came from, where you were saying, like, should IP come first? Should IP protection come first? And I would say very soon in the process before you lose your heart to a name. You should see if it's even viable and you raised a really good point to that. I think it's important to talk about. So when you talked about the trademark Apple, many people know of that trademark affiliated with a, you know, a computer company, [00:21:00] but you could also imagine that there might be an Apple daycare in a local place. And so how is it that the Apple daycare is able to use Apple and not get sued by the computer company? And the answer to that is that trademarks are class specific.

So the world is divided into 45 classes and you really want to be careful of anyone that has the same or a similar name in your class for the same kind of good or service. Because trademarks are all about trying to keep the consumer from being confused. And so you could see that a consumer would be confused if two companies with the same name are selling very similar products. So it's best if you can pick what we call a distinctive name that distinguishes you from everyone else that's selling similar products in your market. And sometimes, the reason that you have three different companies battling over the same or similar name is because the name was descriptive to begin with. [00:22:00] And the more distinctive the name is that you come up with, the more likely you are that no one else is going to be marketing under the same or similar name.

[00:22:08] Andrea: So something that came up in the conversation with Jeannell was registering your business name, your logo, or both. What are your thoughts on that? Are you supposed to also register your logo?

[00:22:18] Cynthia: When you say register your business name, again, we come back to that point of registering a business name is different from registering your brand name. And so as long as we're talking about the same thing. So, should you register both? You should register whatever you are using as a brand, and you've got some choices. And it's always about cost benefit for small business owners, right? Limited money in the beginning, especially. And so you're trying to get the most coverage you can with the least amount of cost. So, if you use the logo separately from the name, then I would say you should think about registering both.

[00:23:00] Sometimes people use the name in conjunction with the logo. If you always use them together, know, and you have coverage over at least the name, you know, you have some coverage over your branding, but filing trademark applications is not that expensive, even for a small business owner. It's not like patents where it's thousands of dollars. It also doesn't take a ton of time to get feedback from the USPTO about whether or not you're going to get a registration. So our advice generally to small business owners is to register what they are using consistently for identifying their brand, for identifying their goods or service so if you like your logo and you want to protect it, I would say, yeah, register for your logo.

[00:23:44] Andrea: Any last thoughts?

[00:23:46] Cynthia: So I'd like to just get back to what I said before, which is that it's good to educate yourself and to revisit these questions over time because needs of businesses change, find someone that has some knowledge about IP protection [00:24:00] that also understands the needs of small businesses and can give you some advice about again, how to get sort of the maximum coverage for the minimum price while you're growing, not closing out any options in the future.

[00:24:16] Host: Ending by reminding us to get the specific help we need, especially if it’s legal or financially related. And I was curious to know just how much a small business could expect to spend on getting legal help. It all depends on your specific needs and I asked Cynthia her thoughts on this, and she mentioned that typically you pay an hourly rate. There are also IP clinics that can help early-stage entrepreneurs that can do it for free or the client pays the cost of the government fee only. There is a list of these resources you can find at USPTO.gov and in in the show notes of this episode.

And Cynthia also wanted me to share another resource you could tap for something like this. A simple trademark filing tool you can find at [00:25:00] www.pennipc.com. Penn with double n. It has two parts - the first guided interview helps entrepreneurs understand if they should file a trademark application and the second guided interview walks entrepreneurs through an annotated version of the USPTO application.  

So many resources available!

That was Cynthia Dahl, Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Thank you for listening today. As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on understanding intellectual property protection:

One. I know I’ve said this before but you can never be too sure, CONSULT A LEGAL EXPERT. Do that before anything else. This will ensure you’re covering all your bases that could help you avoid problems in the long-run.
Ok now that I’ve made sure to mention that, Two. When thinking up names for your brand and product, try not to get attached to it early on, because someone else might already own the rights to it. [00:26:00] So make sure you go to USPTO.gov to check if someone else is using the name you're considering using. And remember that this is an ongoing process that doesn’t stop. You have to keep checking in to make sure that your paper work is still relevant and prove that you’re still using it. And if anything in your business changes, as we’ve seen major companies rebrand themselves, then you have to go through the process again.
Three. Remember that the parent company name is different to the brand name. To be on the safe side, protect both. It’s two different processes so make sure to cover both. And trademarks are also class specific, meaning, you could have the same brand name as another business, as long as you’re not selling within the same class, so that you don’t confuse costumers. And if you use your logo a lot and it is closely tied to the name, protect it too.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can protect your IP? Have you consulted a legal expert? [00:27:00] I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:28:06]

Ep 29: How to Find Your Ideal Customer

Identify your target market.

[00:00:06] Darian: If you think of someone who is going to become your customer, you could look at them as a regular, everyday person. Someone that you hope to become a customer one day. So, if you look at them right from that kind of far-reaching level. What does it look like to get them from disinterested, not knowing about you, to slightly interested, to considering, and then converted to actually purchasing. And then ideally, to the point where they are becoming an advocate. And that's kind of like the textbook, picture perfect customer journey. And ideally, they go on and become an advocate and recruit others to purchase your service or product as well.

[00:00:42] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests from diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. [00:01:00] On each episode I end with key takeaways that you can use on your business journey. Today, we talk about the customer journey. A business can't function without its customers because well - without them your business can’t exist really. So understanding your customer is a crucial part of building your business. But how can you determine who your target market is in the first place? And when you do figure out who your ideal customers are, how do you reach them? Two questions not many ask towards the beginning of their business journey.

Coming up -- I'll be talking to Darian Kovacs, founder of PR, digital ads & SEO company Jelly Digital Marketing, about understanding the customer journey. But first -- I want you to meet Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers, a line of textured stickers that you can find in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. [00:02:00] Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description. Here’s a question that one of our listeners had:

[00:02:16] Voicemail: So my question around starting or more building a business is marketing and visibility. What do companies do to try to be more visible and I guess be more out there in regards to just the internet? What are some out of the box ideas around being visible in our markets?

[00:02:32] HOST: We have some episodes planned this season that will help us answer this question. But actually today’s episode starts answering that question by first asking “what is your customer doing?”, “where are they living?”, “and what’s the best way to reach them?” Things we’ll learn about today. Let’s meet Amber.

[00:02:50] AMBER: Well, I'm a mom and I have two daughters that have autism, and so we've been doing PT, OT, all the therapies for many, many years, [00:03:00] and I realize that they have a lot of sensory issues. One daughter would chew holes in her shirt, another one would just rub almost holes through her jeans even and leave her hands kind of raw. And I thought, man, it would be so great if there was something we could take with us that could be reusable and could stick on anything that was cute and maybe it would help alleviate some of this need to have that sensory stimulation and so I have always loved stickers and make stickers, and I thought, well, maybe I could make some textured stickers for this. And two years of searching out some material that would work and was durable like with Stan kids because kids can be a bit rough on things. Here we are. Fidget stickers was born and happy to be here.

I have a 25-year-old son who comes and helps manufacture all of my stuff for me. I have lupus and it's made it increasingly difficult for me to actually do a lot of the physical labor of things in the business, which is okay. [00:04:00] That's what business is: finding the problem, finding the solution, right? So we just need to delegate to people. So my son is one of the people that does that, and he comes over and he packs the orders, and he looks at what's going on. I still write little, you know, thank you notes on the little order sheets, but. He helps make sure that we're not running low on inventory and tracks more of the day-to-day what's going on in that area as well. He loves being able to work without distractions and do his own thing. He also has autism as well, so it works really well for him to just put things together. It's what he loves to do.

[00:04:38] ANDREA: Fidget Stickers came to be due to something very specific. Now that you’ve been in business for a while, did expectations of your target audience change at all? Who would you say is your target audience now?

[00:04:50] AMBER: Really anybody that was neurodivergent. You know, fidgeters people that were maybe had autism or ADHD or anxiety is a huge one. [00:05:00] That's what I have and panic disorder. And so, for me it was kind of a gift of love of I use these, and I need these to, to function in society as well. So that's where it started. But interestingly enough, like I say, it started picking up with people who weren't neurodivergent, who were more neurotypical, and they just also felt the need for these things. And so that was an interesting surprise to me. And also the number of schools or children's hospitals, community health organizations, areas that I necessarily hadn't really even thought about because initially it was just kids wanted these.

[00:05:38] HOST: Neurodivergent is a nonmedical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently for some reason. This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn’t been identified.

[00:06:00] ANDREA: Amber, can you walk me through the customer journey for fidget stickers?

[00:06:05] AMBER: So a typical customer journey as it relates to business definitions. There's five steps. There's awareness, consideration, then the decision purchase, retention, and advocacy. So awareness is letting people know these exist, right? Everybody knows stickers exist with water bottles, but they don't know stickers with texture exists. So if they don't know it exists, they don't even know that you're trying to help them with a problem that they're having and solving a problem that they're having.

You're gonna have to let people know that you exist but you can also do things in real life to help with that. Another term for it is brand awareness, right? You want just people to see it. You're not so worried about, oh, I need to get a sale right off of them right now, or anything like that. You're just trying to educate. And then there's the consideration stage, and that's where the customer is thinking, oh, okay, so there's textured stickers. Hmm. I wonder what other textured stickers are out there. Right? [00:07:00] They're gonna compare you to other people and they're gonna check out your price, and they're gonna check out, you know, your materials, they're gonna check out all the different things. So you wanna make sure that you are addressing some of that in the brand awareness and that we're, they're going to look for that information. Maybe if it's, you know, your Amazon listing or your website or wherever that you're actually thinking about those questions they're probably having and making sure that that's in your messaging because they're comparing you now.

Then is the decision and purchase. So they go through the comparing and maybe some of them say, eh, no, uh, that's not for me. Okay, that's fine. Right? It would be great if there's a way to capture why it's not for them, which is a lot easier to do in person if you're selling something at a market or, you know, when you're just starting out a business I highly recommend doing that, getting in front of your customer to get some opinions. But, but let's say they decide, okay, they're gonna buy for you from you. Fantastic. There's so many things that happen at that stage. One of them being the next um, phase is retention. So they bought from you, but we want them to come back to us, so we need to make sure we have our customer service nailed down, right? [00:08:00] We need to make sure that our packaging is fantastic and is like, thank you so much, or some sort of like experience for them to feel connected to the product, to you. Those kind of things. We wanna make sure that when they're thinking about the stickers next time they aren't going through this, they, they don't have to go back to the consideration phase. They're already like, oh, I, I know where I'm going. I'm going to my fidget stickers. I don't need a different brand.

And then the last stage is advocacy. We want to help them be our champions. So a lot of times people really love what you're doing. You have no idea because you're just wherever you are selling whatever you're doing, right? If you're not face to face, you have no idea that they love it. But a lot of times they really, really do and they're out telling their friends about it. We wanna provide opportunities for them to do that. So we wanna make sure we're always, you know, if it's on Amazon sending out for that review, we wanna make sure that if it's on our website, we're sending out for that review to put on our website. We wanna make sure that we're giving them a way to let the world know, hey, this is fantastic. [00:09:00] Another thing that I personally do is right now I fulfill my Amazon orders myself. And I'm able to, when I see an order come through, I always check if they've previously ordered with me, and if they do, I include a little bonus, a little rainbow that says something like, thank you for being amazing. And a little card inside with it that says, oh, I appreciate your support so much. Right? We wanna be wowing them with what we're doing. Like, oh, it's, you actually care that I'm coming to shop with you. This isn't just, I'm picking something up and especially if you do have a product similar to, you know, fidget stickers, where there is that personal connection where you, you're, yes, it's a sticker, but it's also, you know, it really is from my heart, me saying, hey, here's something that came from my needs and my family's needs, and I wanna help you with this too. I want my customer service, that customer journey to always continue that.

[00:10:00] ANDREA: That was a great way of breaking that down and using your business as a case study. Do you recommend that entrepreneurs who are starting out to sit down and write this and put it out all on paper before doing anything?

[00:10:12] AMBER: 100000000%. Yeah. I mean, at any stage of entrepreneurship, you should, because you should always be evaluating all of these stages and thinking, what can I do better? And taking the feedback that you receive from your customers and changing your journey, right? If you're finding, like in the consideration phase that you are losing out because you are not as cheap as somebody else, well, you have some decisions to make there. Do you wanna lower the price? Or what are you gonna do to make it perceived more valuable? Or how are you going to add more value? Right? So any person in the entrepreneur world out there should definitely, definitely be visiting this, you know, every six months. Sit down, write out these stages. These things will make such a huge difference in your business overall.

[00:11:00] ANDREA: Are there any other considerations you think that early-stage entrepreneurs should make when they are laying out that customer journey at the beginning?

[00:11:10] AMBER: A couple of things come to mind. People get really attached to their idea and they think that it's the best thing ever. And then they have friends and family tell them, you're a genius. This is fantastic. This is the best thing ever. And then it's not selling, and they aren't sure why it's not selling, right? Or they don't have repeat customers and they can't figure out why they don't have repeat customers or, what seems to be the problem? Step one is being open to the fact that you don't know everything. That just because your product or your service is your baby, and like I say, they all come from your heart, doesn't mean that everybody else's heart is ready for what you've got. And it could be that you have the wrong customer lineup. So being open to the fact that you don't know everything, taking a good hard look at who your customer is [00:12:00] before you start all of this customer journey is so important cuz you could be making customer journey to the wrong person. Right. If you were ordering say auto parts and then your repeat customer, and you get like a sticker that says You're amazing at it. Thank you for supporting my thing. You're gonna be going, uh, this does not resonate with me. I'm just buying, you know, auto parts. So the customer journey wouldn't make any sense. Understanding that customer at the very beginning, then you can tweak the things they like and how to communicate effectively with them along the journey.

[00:12:38] ANDREA: Okay, so the two things you mentioned right now are: One. Don't get too attached to your idea and don't just rely on your family and immediate circle to be honest about your product because they'll probably tell you that you're doing great no matter what. And two. You might not be targeting the right customer for your product. You might launch a product [00:13:00] then realize that the target audience wasn't the right fit for your product. With that being said, I'm wondering if you can find out who your right customer is before the product or business launches.

[00:13:12] AMBER: You can look at market demand, you can look at competitors and things like that but the most important thing in, here's another like fancy schmanzy term for you. It's called proof of concept. And in the proof of concept, you're really gonna figure out who that customer is because you're gonna actually put it in front of people. I liken being an entrepreneur to playing a video game. I grew up, you know, with the very first Nintendo, I think I was like 11 or 12 when it came out, when original Mario Brothers, and you had to do a jump over and over and over again, right?

So somehow inside of me, I have that tenacity built in, and you need a sprinkle of that. Because you're gonna need to take whatever it is you're doing and put it in front of people over and over and over again. Whether that's surveys, whether that's you're selling locally, you know, in front of somebody, [00:14:00] whether that's your, talking to maybe, the organizations or businesses who would be buying your stuff that's going to give you that feedback and you need honest feedback from them. So maybe you're saying, I'll give you a percentage off of this, or here's stuff for free. I need honest feedback on what you think. You're gonna find out really quickly whether people like what you're doing or they don't like what you're doing. You might get your feelings a little bruised and hurt in the whole process. But there is no sort of magic bullet at the beginning, and that's where I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle. I'm also a business advisor for a nonprofit here in Utah. I read business plans and cashflow projections all day long and so forth and an area that I see people struggle is in that they don't realize that, again, just because you think it's great, you have to go out and prove that the demographic you think wants, if I only focused on kids and moms like me for their kids, [00:15:00] I would miss out on all of these other demographics that hadn't even occurred to me. I mean, a special victims unit purchased a whole bunch of packs, and I'm thinking I hadn't even thought about that, but if I didn't put it out there and, and start paying attention to what's going on so that I could go, oh, well, if one special victims unit wanted to buy a whole bunch, then that means all the other special victims units would wanna buy a whole bunch. You're just not the smartest person. And some things, you just really have to play that video game and do that jump over and over and over again to see.

[00:15:34] HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers. You can find out more about Fidget Stickers in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

I loved how Amber broke down the customer journey into 5 steps: awareness, consideration, decision purchase, retention, and advocacy. But as we found out, it takes a lot of work to make sure your customer goes through [00:16:00] all 5 steps and turns into a loyal customer. You've got to make sure that you give them the best experience possible, so they come back. And that you're putting effort into reaching your target market.

Like Fidget Stickers, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we’ve talked a lot about the customer journey and now we’ll dig into how to find and reach your ideal customer with my next guest: [00:17:00] Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Digital Marketing, a PR, digital ads & SEO company. Here’s Darian.

[00:17:08] Darian: So we started a company called Jelly Marketing officially ten years ago. So I started mostly because I was excited about giving away little jelly jars as a business card. But we took the idea of how do businesses use social media, digital ads and public relations, and SEO to really grow their business and kind of get their name out there in the market.

[00:17:28] ANDREA: I love that the name came out of the idea of wanting to sell jelly jars. That’s so unique. So Darian, when I first started working in marketing agencies, one tool I was taught was the think, feel, do model and making sure that you consider everything that you would ideally want your customer to think, feel, and do when working on the marketing for your brand. What are your thoughts on that model, and do you have any other models that you would recommend when it comes to the customer journey?

[00:18:00] Darian: I think what I like about that, what you're saying is the memorable factor. Some people use the idea, especially when you're in event marketing, is when people walk into your event, you think of all the senses. What do they see? What do they hear? What do they smell? What do they taste? So you think about, you know, what's the coffee you have, or what's the, uh, tea that's available, or the snack. What smell is in the lobby, or what smell is the stuff they pick up, the booklet that they get? What are they hearing? Is it music, or is it quiet? Is it exciting music? And what are they seeing? Is it the, you know, agenda for the day, or is it really clear markings? And so when you think of that online, you know, it's very hard to get smell and taste online. We're not there yet. But until then, what does that user experience flow look like? Is it fun?

[00:18:45] ANDREA: What are some tools you think that a small business owner can use to learn more about their customer and their journey pertaining to their business?

[00:18:52] Darian: There is some amazing websites right now, and I wish I had these when I was starting off my business where you can actually test your product or service before you launch it. [00:19:00] So people can sponsor it, pre purchase it, and actually advocate for that business or that concept or that idea. A lot of people do that with board games or businesses. And I've actually seen the opposite, where someone puts out a product in one of these websites where you can actually get people to pre purchase it or, you know, sponsor this idea. And it doesn't take off. It doesn't do well. So in a lot of ways, they walked away and said, wow, I just saved myself a huge headache. And from there, the other piece being is back in the day, you used to be able to find it very difficult to get published in like the newspaper, or in a magazine, or getting on TV, but nowadays we have, you know, this incredibly powerful tool at our fingertips that everyone's a publisher, everyone is a videographer, and our ability to put something up on YouTube, put something out on the internet has democratized the ability to amplify a message and things can go as viral as a Wall Street Journal article or as viral as something goes up on a well-known TV station in your country. [00:20:00] So taking advantage of that algorithm right now is pretty amazing.

[00:20:06] ANDREA: So to recap, you mentioned that nowadays it’s easy to test your product or service before launching and doing that allows you to see what the reception is before you go all into your business idea. So, you learn a lot about your customer journey through seeing who's responding to your product and how they're responding to it. And you also mentioned that businesses should leverage the internet and social media sites to promote their business and attract their ideal customers.

[00:20:36] Darian: So the definition of social media is any sort of media you can socialize with. And so when we think about that, I highly encourage any entrepreneur startup business owner, your newsletter is often the forgotten social media channel because it's a form of media people can interact with. They can reply, they can forward, they can click on, they can engage. And it really, sadly, today is one of the only social channels you actually own. [00:21:00] All the rest, you're on leased land. You don't own your TikTok followers. You don't own your Facebook followers. Every time Facebook makes an algorithm update, when you do a post, maybe it used to be 5% of your followers would see it. Maybe now it's 2%. Maybe it's going to be 0. 5%. So, your e-newsletter, I'd say, is the number one thing to be concerned about and nurturing and growing. If you have a bricks and mortar store, you have a location-based business, Google My Business, which is now on Google Maps. would be the number one thing to be thinking about and concerned about and developing.

In some cases, I'll give you an example. We worked with a brand that sold knitting equipment. So it was like the needles and the wool and all the things for making quilting and really cool crochet stuff. And they were the sweetest couple out of Manitoba in their 60s and they were saying, hey, our daughter had us set up on Pinterest and we're doing some stuff on Instagram. But it's, you know, it's doing okay. So we told them about this site called Reddit. And within Reddit there's what's called Subreddit. So again, a social media channel they hadn't considered. And I remember the daughter actually phoned me a week later and was like, You put my parents on Reddit? What were you thinking? [00:22:00] But then was like, thank you so much because they saw an 80% increase in sales when they started going into these subreddits, which were these online bulletin board communities that were all about knitting and crocheting and quilting and they started just being the sweetest couple and just being like hey everyone just want to let you know what we have some new products we got in or hey I'll let you know about some ways that people are using our product. Here's a little video tour of our warehouse. And all these people in, in America, they were mostly doing sales in Canada. In America we're learning about them, in the UK, in Australia, and they just took off. And they became essentially the grandma and grandpa of this subreddit. And because of that they have stopped putting so much energy and time into Instagram and Pinterest and realize their world, their community, their customers were on Reddit.

[00:22:45] ANDREA: What I'm hearing is you basically have to try it all out at the beginning and see where you get this high level of engagement slash positive response, and then lean into that. So, it’s a lot of test and learn.

[00:23:00] Darian: Totally, and it's one of those also just energy levels and time levels that you have as an entrepreneur. It might be like, you know what? I really only have time for two channels. And so I'm going to sit with maybe someone really smart or, or, you know, maybe more experienced and be like, hey man, can you just give me 20 minutes, let me tell you about my business and tell me which channel I should be on, you know, someone who maybe knows social media. So one of the benefits of agencies or experienced marketing folks is, you know, use them for their brains and not necessarily their brawn. Have them kind of assess and test to be like, where is the best place for you to be? And maybe it's Twitch. Maybe that's where you need to be. Maybe it's Quora. And it's being able to say, okay, what if I did one channel really, really, really well and double down on there? The other thing to be considering is maybe it's none of the channels except for your e newsletter.

[00:23:42] ANDREA: Darian, are there any other tools you think could help in understanding a customer journey?

[00:23:48] Darian: I'll just close with this, you gotta understand Google to help your business grow. The first thing Google is doing is, looking at what content is on your site. What are you writing about? Are you writing about cat sweaters? Uh, you know, is there cat sweaters on your sweatshirt? [00:24:00] Is the way your website is coded, is it all about cat sweaters? So as you kind of think about coding your site and how it's written, the blog content that's on your site, the address that's on your site, are you all about cat sweaters in Alaska, because that's your target audience?

That's what you want Google to know you as, as an authority on. But because back in the day, people could be really good coders but not have a relevant site, Google's like, well that's not going to be our only way we judge sites. And so about the other 50% of SEO, and this is explaining and breaking down SEO, is as your website walks in the hallway, Google's watching to see who talks to your website in the hallway, and what are they talking to you about. So again, you walk down the

hallway, no one's talking to you, you're probably not an authority on a subject. If you walked in the hallway and two or three people asked you about cat sweaters, and maybe one asked you about Alaska, you're probably an authority on that subject in Alaska. And again, if you can get really high domain authority sites, so again, you can get an article or a backlink in like a newspaper or a website that's been around a while that has a good reputation. That's kind of like the cool kids in the school. [00:25:00] But think about how do I build up people and how do I find friends or family or get the press or media interested in my story so I can get those really great backlinks so I can alert Google that I know all things cat sweaters in Alaska.

[00:25:15] Host: That was Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Digital Marketing. Thank you for listening today. As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on understanding the customer journey:

One. Amber gave us five steps to a typical customer journey. One is awareness. That’s where you try to get people to notice your product and brand. Two is consideration. That's when the customer starts comparing your product with other similar products for them to decide which one to buy. Three is decision purchase. That’s when the customer hopefully decides to buy your product. Four is retention. Once the customer decides to buy your product, you want them to come back to your store. You could do that by giving them a good experience when they're shopping with you. [00:26:00] Maybe you could have cute, personalized packaging like Amber, or great customer service which by the way we’ll be talking about on another episode coming up. You just really don't want that customer to go back to the consideration, keep them onboard and in love. And five is advocacy. And that's when your customer becomes a loyal customer to your products and even starts recommending your product to other people.
Two. Don't get too attached to your product. Try to get people that aren't your family and friends to give you their honest opinion on your product and service. And you can do that risk-free using sites that allow you to put your product out there and see who might be interested in pre-ordering it before you invest your all into your business.
Three. There's gonna be a lot of trial and error. You could have customers that you didn't even think could be interested in your product like Amber did with the special victims unit. And as Darian mentioned, you'll also need to try out different social media sites in order to see where you can best reach your customers. [00:27:00] And eventually you’ll find the perfect place to speak to them because you’ll understand their customer journey more.

I'm curious – What’s your customer’s journey? How did you determine your target audience? And how are you reaching your customers? I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:28:00] That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:28:30]

Ep 30: How to Know When You’re Ready to Launch Your Product

Know when to launch.

[00:00:04] Trinity: So you only have one opportunity to make a first impression, and that can be really nerve wracking because on one hand, you know, I mean, we're talking about the concept of MVP, right? It's about like getting something out so that you can start to get some feedback. However, at the same time, if someone tries your product once and doesn't like it, the chances of them ever giving you a second chance are low.

[00:00:30] Andrea: First impressions are everything. Once you lose a customer it's difficult to get them back. So I want to know how you launched your minimum viable product. What worked and what didn’t. Some of it was surprising. Let’s get into it.

[00:00:45] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about how you can prepare and launch your MVP, [00:01:00] or minimum viable product - with Trinity Mouzon Wofford, the Co-Founder and CEO of Golde, a superfood brand that sells matcha turmeric blends, coconut collagen boost blends, and more and of course, you can find them in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:37] Trinity: Golde is a superfood health and beauty brand that I started with my high school sweetheart, so we do all sorts of different superfood blends. Think about like powders that you're adding to your smoothie or making a super food latte with matcha, turmeric, collagen. I started the business almost seven years ago now, really sort of focused on this idea of [00:02:00] wellness routines and how to make them more easy, more approachable, and also more fun for the everyday consumer. If I take a step back to like seven-ish years ago when I was dreaming up the brand, I had just parted ways with my original dream of going off to med school. I was really inspired by my mom's journey with chronic autoimmune disease, and so I had seen her see all of these incredible improvements when she saw this holistically minded doctor, of course, I decided that was going to be my career path.

I ended up hearing from my mom as I was in college that, she actually had to stop seeing that doctor because she just couldn't afford it anymore. And so that really forced me to reckon with this piece of health and wellbeing and how accessibility plays into it. At the same time I was sort of looking at my own experiences [00:03:00] in the wellness world and was feeling sort of left out of the conversation as a young woman of color, as someone who couldn't really afford the, you know, $85 protein powders and had this idea to start something new.

[00:03:16] Andrea: I think that's such a powerful story behind your brand, and it adds to understanding the why behind it. As someone with a mother with cancer, and who thinks about this a lot because of it, I relate strongly to that idea of being intentional and conscious of the types of foods you consume that boost your immune system. So, talk to me about how you launched your first product. What was that experience like?

[00:03:40] Trinity: Our first product was our original turmeric latte blend and back then it went by a different name. It was original Golde. The reason why the company is called Golde is because we started with turmeric based products because it has so many incredible health benefits. So whether you're talking about immunity, digestion, [00:04:00] skin, there's something that turmeric can do to support your health and wellness. As far as really beginning the process of getting this product ready to share with the world. It took so much longer than I remember thinking it was going to, I mean, this is like a five-ingredient blend of powders. You would think that it's just like, okay, we're gonna mix it all together. And, there, there was so much tinkering that we did with the sourcing of ingredients, making sure that we were really sourcing high quality super foods. The packaging itself, so, at the time -- so the we is, myself and, my now husband -- we were doing everything ourselves. We were self-funding the business with, I think we had like $2,000 in savings between the two of us. And we were 23. So, you know, it was very sort of like limited resources. And so we had to design the packaging ourselves. We had never designed packaging before. We had no experience in it, but we had this idea of bright colors [00:05:00] of, you know, sort of like a bit of a maximalist approach to the packaging. So from end to end, like ideating this concept of we want to do a turmeric based powder mix, to actually having the product in our hands, finding who was gonna print the packaging for us, et cetera was probably about a year, end to end.

So when we got started, we had that one product, we were living in Brooklyn. We would pound the pavement and go around to all the different little lifestyle shops and cafes and drop off samples with handwritten notes and ask if they would pretty please consider carrying our product. We were, you know, posting about our experience, starting the business on social media and all of these things that feel like overnight successes -- I've had so many people say, oh my gosh, you guys blew up. You guys came outta nowhere -- It really is months and years in the making of like those early moments of just trying to make it happen.

[00:06:00] And so we started to get some bites. We started to get the brand into these sort of destination shops and cafes mostly in New York. And it was at that point that I noticed that people were starting to say that they had seen us around, and what I realized was because we had chosen this sort of distinctive packaging style, bright colors, they're much more common now in packaging. But if you're going back six, seven years in the wellness industry, everything was much more minimalist. It was black and white sand serif, you know, typefaces. So to come out with four colors all kind of mixing together was like, whoa, you remember that you saw it. And so we had this wonderful strange experience of in our first year, I think people thinking we were a lot bigger than we really were because they kept, they were seeing the product around. They had the sense that it was familiar to them, that it was exciting to them, but in reality it was still just [00:07:00] myself and my partner mixing up powder and, and getting it into bags and, getting it out into cafes.

[00:07:06] Andrea: So color went a long way with your packaging when you first launched. Can you tell me some of the things that didn't work when you first launched and what you learned from that?

[00:07:15] Trinity: When you are in this entrepreneurial journey, you have to look at yourself as you're sort of a scientist, you're a great experimenter, and so you're gonna try a lot of different things as you try to understand what works, what catches your audience's attention, what drives sales, what creates more brand love? And for every 10 things that you try, maybe one or two of them really work. The challenge I think, is making sure that when you are hitting the other eight or nine things that don't really work that you are seeing them as the necessary part of the experimentation process versus seeing them as like, [00:08:00] I keep making mistakes. I keep failing. What did not work as well for us was any time that we tried to sort of emulate what we saw another business doing, especially a larger business. I'm just thinking like a, a specific marketing tactic or something that a much bigger business was using just wouldn't necessarily do much for us because we didn't have the budget. And it just, frankly, it just wasn't as impactful for us. I think what in the end did work for us as a very small business with very few resources was to sort of really lean into doing things the way that we wanted to do it. Really telling our own story and bringing people along for the ride. You know, even today, I, I think the consumers that are going to support you very early on in your business journey are the ones who want to know who's behind the brand, and they want to feel that they're actively supporting a small business. [00:09:00] So really putting your, your ethos front and center, and not trying to emulate the multi multimillion dollar conglomerates that don't have that, that special secret sauce that you have anyways.

[00:09:15] Andrea: What advice would you give an early stage entrepreneur who is about to launch their MVP?

[00:09:20] Trinity: I think it can be really smart to put the product out to a limited audience like friends and family, um, depending on what the product is, just to get early feedback and a little bit more of a safe space. Once you do have it out there and people are trying it the hope I, I think at least on my end, was really that we were, we were serving something up that people were going to love, and was going to make them want to try more things from us as they came out.

[00:09:46] Andrea: How did you know you were ready to launch?

[00:09:48] Trinity: I remember thinking that we were actually too late to launch. We launched probably six months later than I intended for us to, and at the time some other company [00:10:00] popped up that seemed to be doing something that was vaguely similar. And I remember thinking to myself, it's too late. We've missed our opportunity. It's so funny now because that company, I wouldn't even really consider them a competitor at this point. We've kind of gone in in very different directions, so, that moment of actually launching versus, you know, what you think it's going to look like can be very different. The timelines can really shift. I think you, you know, when you're ready, when you don't wanna keep working on it anymore. When you look at it and you say, okay, yeah, let's do it. It's not necessarily done. You probably are going to do more with it at, at some point you might tweak the packaging or tweak the formula or whatever. But you have a feeling that you're just, you're done working on it and you're ready to let it see the light of day so you'll know when you're ready.

[00:10:55] HOST: That was Trinity, Co-Founder and CEO of the wellness brand Golde, [00:11:00] talking about her experience launching Golde’s MVP. Make sure to check out her products in the Amazon store. I especially love the Macha Turmeric blend. And as always, here are some key takeaways from today’s episode:

One. First impressions are everything. So before you launch, try launching with your family and friends first if you can. That way you can get some early feedback and you won't lose potential customers because they didn't end up liking your product.
Two. Try to stand out from the competition. Trinity's products stood out because of their bright packaging - which at the time was less common in the wellness industry -- but that made people remember them.
Three. Sometimes doing what others are doing doesn’t necessarily help. Especially as a small business trying to emulate what a larger business is doing. In the case of Golde, Trinity and her partner decided that they were going to do what worked best for them, and it paid off.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. [00:12:00] If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:12:40]

Introducing Season 3 of This is Small Business

We're back for a third season!

Next Generation: What Comes Next?

Learn about scaling your business.

[00:00:02] Sloane: We got through that as a team, and I think are stronger because of it.

Shiv: I still remember that being so anxiety-inducing.

Alex: We're not approaching this like a hey, we're going to just try to get to the next funding round every time, right?

Kevin: To really succeed, you have to fail.

Julio: That's her superpower. Like when somebody else will be like, no, I'm done. I'm done. Like, let me rest. She's like, no, I gotta keep going.

[00:00:30] HOST (Andrea): Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And by the end of every episode, we’ll be pointing out key takeaways that will help you wherever you are on your business journey. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:00:50] Mitch: And I'm your co-host, Mitch Gilbert, the co-founder of Oya Femtech Apparel, and a former Rice Business Plan competition competitor.

[00:01:00] HOST (Andrea): So this is the last episode of our miniseries. The competition is over. In our last episode we announced the winners and got updates on all our teams right after winners were announced. Unfortunately, none of our teams made it to the finals BUUUT Active Surfaces won two awards and Tierra Climate, founded by one of Shiv’s long-time friends (that’s Shiv from Active Surfaces), managed to make it to the finals. Sooo, Mitch how do you feel about the results?

[00:01:33] Mitch: Great. I feel like it was an interesting learning experience being both a competitor and now being behind the scenes. It sometimes makes me sad about the state of venture capital because I don't know how we can get it to be more diverse. It's very complicated. It made me feel hopeful because there were a lot of businesses who were doing really cool things. It was exciting to talk to so many students and see how excited they were about their [00:02:00] products and their businesses and it was also cool to go to Rice because I competed virtually. And so it was cool to meet people and see the energy surrounding the competition.

[00:02:15] HOST (Andrea): Yeah, talking to all these entrepreneurs really got me looking forward to seeing how they do in their future. Hopefully, they'll succeed! On this episode, we’ll be checking in with our teams after the competition to see how they feel about it and what they’re currently up to or what’s in their near future. Did they manage to snag an investor or more opportunities at the competition? Are they competing for more money elsewhere? Or are they hanging up their pitching capes? I’m so excited to find out! We’ll also check in with Brad, one of the organizers who you’ve heard from before, and Mitra one of the judges who you’ve also heard from before, to learn about their thoughts on the results of the competition this year. Here’s Brad Burke…

[00:03:00] Brad: This was my 23rd competition and so I've seen a lot of these and I think this is one of my favorites, if not my most favorite competition. Competitors said that they got really good feedback from the judges at the competition. One of them said in a 15-minute period during the practice round, they got more feedback and better feedback than they'd gotten in the weeks leading up to this competition. So they felt the quality of the feedback was really outstanding. And, and, you know, that's a whole part of the competition. We give away a lot of money and that's one thing. But we really want all the students to walk away and feel like they had a great experience, they learned a lot, and they met a lot of people who can help them make their companies be successful going forward. So it's not just about the money it's about the experience for the students. And they consistently walk away and they go, wow, this, I had a great experience and they met lots of people who will help them be successful going forward.

[00:04:00] HOST (Andrea): Yeah, and we've already heard from some of our competitors that the RBCP offers a lot more than just extra money to help with their business. But the money does help, like a lot, so for anyone who's looking to compete in a pitch competition, Brad has got some advice for you.

[00:04:18] Brad: Investors are looking for five or six things and a company that's solving a real problem that's easy to understand, that is a big problem with a big market and with customers who are willing to pay for it. So if you can, if those are about four things and if you can demonstrate those four things, I think it goes a long way. And then, you know, if you can demonstrate that your team is a strong team to found and create this company, I think that's a plus. And then you have to understand. How much capital that you need and how quickly an investor will get an exit. I think if you can do those five or six things really well, I think you can succeed at a competition. [00:05:00] And teams have to do a nice job, have to understand what their competition is. Sometimes their competition is just the status quo, and people don't like to change and you have to demonstrate that your solution, your product, your technology is enough better than what people are doing today or, or enough better than competition in order to have customers to change to you what you're doing and to adopt your product or your solution.

You know, there's a lot of economic turmoil going on right now, or concern about recession and concern about inflation. And you know, one piece of advice I would say is that even though there is economic uncertainty, it's often in times of economic uncertainty when some of the most successful startups are founded. I would encourage entrepreneurs to follow their passion and follow their idea. And even if they're not successful in the first one, that often makes them more investible for their second one [00:06:00] because they have learned from their success or learn from their failure. As you would guess, I'm a huge fan of founders and entrepreneurs and encourage them to go forward.

[00:06:15] HOST (Andrea): Here’s Mitra Miller:

[00:06:16] Mitra: R B P C is always my favorite event of the year, and this year did not disappoint. It was at least as good and perhaps better than ever, so it was pretty awesome.

My problem is I never have enough money to put in all the deals that I want to. I end up doing a few, but honestly, if I could invest in almost everything I would because the companies are coming up with so many great solutions that we need, business needs, the planet needs, people need. I wish I could do them all. My, my goal is to make enough money that I can invest in everything. That's my long-term goal. But overall, the winners were fantastic. [00:07:00] I think there were some that were super exciting. By the time you get to the end of the three days, you're very focused on the last seven. But the ones that don't make it are just too early. They still have exciting ideas, they have exciting technology.

So honestly, the way the R B P C prizes work is we meet the companies and we go into due diligence. So we will do additional research into the companies and see if we can agree on terms. So investing is a marriage. And it can be a very long marriage. I'm in deals that are now 10 years old, and they're not exiting yet. They're great, they're looking good, but we're talking about a 10-year relationship. So you and the founder need to make sure that this is a relationship you want to get into, especially at a super early stage.

[00:07:50] Andrea: And if you're looking to compete in the RBPC in the future, here's some advice from Mitra:

[00:08:00] Mitra: So there are a lot of different kinds of pitch competitions, some that are targeting companies that are looking for investment, some that are targeting companies that want advice and feedback. They may want marketing and exposure to the public. There are many different goals. At the Rice Business Plan competition, the instructions that we get from the leadership, Brad Burke and Catherine Santamaria is to vote for the companies that are the most investible. We're supposed to be wearing an investor hat, whether we are an investor or not. So I'm gonna answer in the context that going to R B P C, we're looking for the company that is the most investible. So advice to somebody who wants to get to a pitch competition like R B P C number one, understand the investor, try to turn around and stand on the other side of the table. And think about if I were an investor, what would I be looking for? Well, I'm looking for something that if I put my money into it, that they're able to use it efficiently, grow the company and get traction, and exit at some point so that the investor has a return.

[00:09:00] So the idea is a huge part of that, the timing in the market and this is the hardest thing to know. Is it the right time in the world for your idea to move forward? Is it too early? Is it too late, or is it exactly the right time? Number three is the leadership team. Are these the people with the fire in their belly who can take this forward and make it a great success? We look very, very much at that. And then of course the last one is will they be able to take it all the way through to the finish line? And that might mean raising additional capital, getting creative, pivoting the company so that they can take it all the way home.

So after you think about those things from the investor perspective, then you'll be able to build that into your pitch from the very beginning. Make sure that the whole idea when you're a founder is you need to have answers to all the questions that the investors are going to ask you ready to go, so that you can give them quickly and efficiently. [00:10:00] I think that's the biggest thing of all. And then just get excited and be ready to learn and take the feedback that you get because once you get to a competition like this, you're going to hear some things that you love and a lot of people complimenting you, and you're gonna hear some things that are tough love and are gonna be a lot harder to take, and you'll need to stay open and receptive and try to take it in the spirit that it was delivered.

[00:10:30] HOST (Andrea): This experience has been full of a lot of learnings for our teams, for us as hosts, and hopefully for you as a listener. To finish off and understand how the competition impacted our teams we checked in with all of them a couple of weeks after the competition. First up is Active Surfaces. If you don't remember, in our last episode we mentioned that Active Surfaces had another competition that they were competing in right after the RBPC and they won! So of course, we had to ask about that first.

[00:11:00] Rich: We actually swept house. We won every, every level that we could have. We got the MIT hundred K full winning, but also the audience award as well.

[00:11:10] HOST (Andrea): This just goes to show that every competition is different and loosing doesn't always mean that you have a bad business. And aside from their win, we've found out another little detail from them. Apparently Active Surfaces was so close to making it to the finals at the Rice Business Plan Competition.

[00:11:25] Shiv: They sent an email with like the, some of the prize winnings that we got cause we won the climate prize, which we were super excited about. In that same email, they're like, oh, you also won a cash prize cuz you made it to the semis. And you were third place in your room and therefore you get a certain amount. Cuz if you're fourth place, you get a different amount. If you're fifth place, you get a different amount.

[00:11:40] HOST (Andrea): They were so close, but hey that's an extra injection of cash into their business so it's a win-win! Anyway, here's some of their thoughts on the winning teams.

[00:11:50] Shiv: I'm happy a couple of climate ones made it too. The main reason Rich and I are both in this space overall is cause we care about addressing climate change in whatever way. [00:12:00] So as long as any of these folks are winning, not to be too political, but I think I like the idea of those people getting pressed.

[00:12:03] HOST (Andrea): And remember when Rich said that he was worried about how public the competition was and how that might influence investors opinions on Active Surfaces? Well..

[00:12:12] Shiv: Like now our LinkedIns are blowing up with like former MIT alum or just people in the climate tech VC space, DMing us saying, hey, I saw that you did well here. I saw you won the climate prize at RBCP, or I saw you won the hundred K. Like, how can we connect and work together? It's nice to not have to go and like cold reach people, but we can have people reach out to us, which is nice.

[00:12:32] Rich: The benefit of these sorts of competitions win or lose is press, right? It's getting your name out there and, and at the beginning of the startup journey, all you're really doing, probably a hundred percent of your, your effort is validating your idea. So with Rice, you know, I mean, we're unsuccessful in getting to the finals, but at the end of the day, right, like we're getting pinged a lot on people on LinkedIn who say like, Hey, we like the startup. We like the idea, like, let's connect. [00:13:00] Same thing with a hundred K. It's a point of validation and it's really nice that we won, but it's also, again, just like the main core benefit beyond the a hundred K or whatever prize winnings is, is that public appearance and presence. Those sorts of things has kind of like led into what we're doing now, which is we're sort of used that to leverage financing.

[00:13:25] HOST (Andrea): Aaaannd Active Surfaces has some exciting news...

[00:13:30] Rich: we're going to be venture backed. The first closing's the end of this month, and then there'll be a little bit of a closing after which, we ended up having the term sheet before we ended up going to Rice. When the full financing is in, it's gonna be a combination of people who know us before rice as well as people who met us after Rice as well. So that's kind of like the benefit of these sorts of competitions overall, right? Win or lose is that like you're getting your name out there and ultimately it's through those higher like secondary connections that that end up pushing you forward.

[00:14:00] Shiv: Being venture backed essentially means selling part of your equity or part of the company to venture capitalists who then value your company at a specific amount, give you a specific amount of money, and then that gives you 18 months to 24 months of runway to then go and build a business. And we're at the very early stage of that, getting our first venture financing. The entire point is to move faster. And specifically it means building out a team. It means getting access to manufacturing facilities. It means iterating on our product. It means getting a commercial pilot ready within two years, being able to do things we wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

[00:14:40] Andrea: And what are some benefits to being venture backed?

[00:14:45] Rich: It's multimillions of dollars cash injection, which allows us to hire is the biggest one. So that would allow us to go from us two to probably a team of like five, six engineers plus business staff.

[00:15:00] Shiv: One is, being venture backed now means that we can stop, not stop, but we can lower the amount of time that we spend pitching and spend more time building the business and hiring people and actually doing what we wanna do, which is making surfaces active. But the other piece of this is, Rice's business plan, and Rich kind of touched on this, there's over 400 judges that are potential investors, and our goal isn't to have 400 investors in our cap table. Our goal is to find people that believe in us, and that could just be a couple that end up reaching out to us. And the climate prize, I think was something that meant a lot because we knew they were genuinely interested in the idea. A, they're looking for climate specific technologies and there's like maybe five to 10 in the competition. So being the best of those is nice. But at the same time, I think the 25 K prize that we won was an investment prize. So they want a seat on the cap table. They want a seat in the investment for this round, but that's not what they're limited to. They don't have to do just 25 k and they are suggesting they may be interested or open to more. And I think that is what truly gets me excited.

[00:16:00] HOST (Andrea): Press is definitely a big component of these competitions. Both Mitch and Active Surfaces has talked about the benefits in previous episodes. So, Active Surfaces is doing well and I’m excited to see where they go. Next we’ll check in with DIA, but first, a message.

[00:16:22] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. [00:17:00] One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:17:30] HOST (Andrea): Alright, and we’re back with DIA.

[00:17:32] Sloane: I think I'm really glad that we went. It was a really valuable experience for Julio and I to learn pitching together. Just honestly, like learn more like the ins and outs of how each other work. As Julio said earlier, I. And I mean, it was, it was honestly also fun. Like we met some really great fellow entrepreneurs of the fellow teams. Our practice pitch was a little rough, but I think we really came in strong with our first real pitch and I think we were both really proud of that. [00:18:00] We were both flying pretty high after that. We didn't walk away with any of the big checks or prizes, but we, you know, I think we were proud of the pitch that we ended up putting.

[00:18:12] Julio: I'm a night owl, I do most of my research at night. What I can tell you is before you make an important pitch, try to get some sleep. I know it's hard. might have to go get those melatonin gummies or something, but it's worth it.

[00:18:30] Sloane: I would say some of the, like the really helpful feedback that we got was just really making it explicitly clear of what exactly our timeline was. So, being clear about our go to market strategy and that we sort of, we have this DOD angle that we're going to do and because it's DOD, there is going to be a dual use component of it with athletes and probably, you know, a fitness component, that is to get to our ultimate play of med tech, [00:19:00] but then also exactly walk them through how much time we're giving ourselves for the FDA play and that we're giving ourselves the exact standard of 80 months and showing them all of the steps to that process. Because the FDA is something that scares investors a lot. So I think that some very valuable feedback that we got and then implemented was that we said, just put on a slide, this is the timeline we're giving ourselves exactly average. And here are our steps one through five to get from A to B.

On some of the presentation style, it really was helpful. So the first one they really said come out from behind the desk. I think Julio was maybe fidgeting a little bit and you know they really gave us both some sort of just like own the space a little bit more and be confident in your pitch. I will say then we went in with that, with our second pitch and then we sort of received some Goldilocks feedback of saying like, well, don't be too confident, and so it was a little bit like, well, you can't have it both ways, guys.

[00:20:00] Julio: Like that is no reason to stop female entrepreneurs from trying to do. but I, I think I'm very proud of how Sloan handled it. I think both pitches went great and I do wanna be emphatic that it was not even most people like, but, but the fact that there's still people there who, who think that way is what worries me.

[00:20:25] Andrea: Brad did touch on this subject as well.

[00:20:30] Brad: There's a lot of dimensions to this issue. Um, and it's something that we think about often at the competition. Um, I, I would say that, and, you know, what's my perspective then, drilling down on the competition. I would argue that a hundred percent of founding teams should have women on their founding teams, because I think the data shows that when you have women who are part of a founding team, [00:21:00] The overall success rate of startups with women is higher than the success rate of, of startups that do not include women on the founding team that from the data that I've seen in the past.

I'm happy that we have 50 to 60% of our teams have women on them. Um, and that's good. I think it should be higher than that, and I'd like to see it continue to to increase. This year, I believe the number we, the number is now up to between 35 and 40% of our judges are women. This answer to that is simple. We, the objective is simple. That we ought to get, we need to get to 50% of our judges being women. But there's some things that have to be done upstream of that, which is we need more women, angel investors in the country, and we need more women, venture capital investors in the, in the country.

[00:21:50] Andrea: It adds another layer of understanding for the different hurdles that founders have to go through, especially as minority-owned businesses. Speaking of which, here’s Bilal from Unchained, a Black-owned business.

[00:22:00] Bilal: So we didn't end up, you know, advancing to the finals, but we did complete our team's objectives, which were to get more exposure to clients, which we met about three potential clients for Unchained there and that reached out to us after we pitched, and they were actually one of the judges in the room. So, although we didn't, you know, continue with prizes from the actual competition, we did receive like, the exposure we needed to bring on potential clients. And we also got exposure to a couple venture funds, one in Austin, Texas, and then there's another one in Louisiana, and they were very appreciative of our mission and wanted, you know, to be involved.

And then we also figured out how to pitch, our product confidently regardless of who the audience is in that sense. Like the ones who were receptive to it, understood, bought in. We didn't have to oversell the ones that didn't, you know, they just weren't ever going to. And so like, that just gave us our team, that confidence in knowing that it's not our product, [00:23:00] it's not the presentation, it's, you know, whoever this value would be added to, you know, is gonna accept it that way. So I feel like that's what we learned. We learned that regardless of, the outcome of the competition, we did gain value from participating. We did gain exposure and we did make connections. So that's, that's kind of how the event went.

The demographics of the judge room was, you know, mostly, you know, all, all white judges. I wouldn't say that like everybody wasn't receptive because the five that did, like, they didn't have an issue with how we were presenting what we were talking about. They provided resources, contacts. One was even a recruiter in the room that like was a recruiter in the industry for like 15 years. He came up to us afterwards and like actually talked about some of the things he faced so that's when we realized like it's not a race thing, it's a, you know, either you understand the value and understand the issue or you don't want to hear it. And so that's kind of like what we just gathered from it.

[00:23:55] Andrea: Talking more to the right people. I think that’s a valuable lesson across the board.

[00:24:00] Bilal: I'll say like this competition is like our graduation from pitch competitions. It's time to, you know, put on a tie and, you know, start, start running the company. This run was great. It gave me a lot of experience, a lot of reps, but I'm done with the reps, you know, I have an actual, product, business team to, you know, continue figuring out. So like, I feel like that's what it symbolized for me in my journey is like, I've done a lot of these, this being the, the biggest, you know, coming here, giving it my all, giving everything I knew about it, doing what I had to do. And like you said, walking away with wins. So at this point I feel like this competition is just like, it just symbolizes the end of a chapter, and the beginning of a new one.

[00:24:45] Andrea: I'm really hoping that Unchained will go on to be a successful and profitable business moving forward. And now, let's hear from our last team, Outmore Living:

[00:24:50] Kevin: We got great feedback from a lot of the judges, both positive and negative. So a lot of the judges said very great things about us, [00:25:00] told us we were on the right path and just keep at it. Some of the negative stuff was largely around, you know, business model, different approaches we could take there, some of our go-to-market strategy. Nothing that we haven't heard before, we haven't talked about before, so it was largely feedback we've gotten at different points or thought of ourselves. And at the end of the day, Alex and I feel really confident about our strategy. The team of advisors and investors we've put around us feel really confident about our strategy.

[00:25:30] Alex: We're creating a new category so, you know, the typical like, investor heuristic is like, is it like defensible and does it offer some competitive advantages? Is this the right team to go build on the product? Is solving this problem worth it? We have to do all of those things and we have to convince people and help them see like, a future that doesn't exist, right? And it's hard for Kevin and I to make that real and we've been thinking about this every day for a year and so I, [00:26:00] I think when we're introducing an entirely new category, something that doesn't exist, there's that additional hurdle, that for some judges, and some investors and potential people, customers there, they get it right away. They love it, they see it. And others, for whatever reason, maybe we didn't do a good enough job of explaining it, maybe they just don't particularly enjoy outdoor furniture, outdoor living, whatever it may be, whatever the reason is, didn't see it. And I don't think Kevin and I appreciated necessarily the challenge of introducing a new category, right? Like someone who's never even heard of this idea whatsoever, doesn't exist in the world, that like sort of ramps up the difficulty a even more.

[00:26:38] Kevin: There was some feedback that I think was related to just like a lack of knowledge with our industry, which is expected. Like there aren't really that many furniture startups. And so even within the consumer niche, like, sector of the judges, there weren't that many, if any, that have interacted with furniture, right? So like there's that barrier we have to overcome, but I think that also we got some great feedback from some of the women judges that were in our first round [00:27:00] like around design certain preferences there that ended up being super helpful for us. It would've been great to win, but I didn't leave it like thinking. Oh my God, we should have won that thing. I left it thinking we could have won it, and there was also a lot of great co companies there, so, yeah.

[00:27:20] Alex: I don't think there's any way to come out of this, like worse off. You are forced to refine your story. And prepare in such a way that makes you understand your business better. You have the opportunity to have a life changing night, like Zaymo, you could meet your next lead investor. All of these sorts of things. I, I mean, I'd be lying if I said that like, it wasn't like a pretty like emotional... it really, it stung to like, not even move on to the semi-finals. Right. Like, we were planning and preparing and, and trying our best to do that. I think in general it's a matter of getting over like a fear of like rejection that is super necessary to build the thick skin, persistence, some might call hardheaded stubbornness [00:28:00] that it takes to like be an entrepreneur and change the way the world is to some extent. And the reason that's tough it is because, you know, this is an idea that Kevin and I have put our stake in the ground and said, we think this is such a good idea, and we've put so much effort into it that we are going all in on this. We want to devote the next decade plus our life's work to making this idea reality. And so when you're that vulnerable to then be told implicitly, not explicitly, but being told implicitly, like, these other ideas we think are better than the one that you are hitching your wagon to, it's a little scary. But now since then, it's like, okay, onto the next, now we're just gonna go build a company. Right. Would it have been amazing if we were a finalist and, and won? Absolutely. Does it change the chances of success that Kevin and I believe we have? No.

[00:28:50] Andrea: Rejection is part of the journey and knowing how to deal with it is super important to keep moving forward. I think that RBPC really showed us that journey. [00:29:00] It seems like all our entrepreneurs are doing good regardless of how far they made it into the competition. And they all agree that even if they didn't win anything, the experience taught them a lot. It’s been great seeing everything behind the scenes from both the competitor’s side and the judge’s side. Mitch it’s been especially great to hear your perspective too.

[00:29:25] Mitch: This has been an awesome opportunity to get to know our teams, to get to know you as a co-host, to get to know the Rice team, judges and staff. And I hope you all as listeners have learned or gotten a more intimate understanding of what it takes to succeed at these business plan competitions and in venture capital as both a heavily represented founder and an underrepresented founder. And I think it's important to remember regardless of if things may be difficult for you as an underrepresented founder. [00:30:00] It is so important to continue trying business, especially small businesses are an extremely great way to build generational wealth and capital and to be able to support a family and also your employees and really grow America. So regardless of how hard it is, I hope you learn some specific nuggets to help make things a little bit easier and that you continue to try because if you continue to try, you're going to be better. You're gonna make everybody else better around you, and I'm rooting for you.

[00:30:42] Andrea: Couldn’t have said that better myself. That's such a lovely way to end the last episode of the This is Small Business: NEXT Generation. I learned so much and I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without you by my side Mitch, so thanks for being here! And why don’t you take it away and give us your big three takeaways:

[00:31:00] Mitch: One. Be gritty and patient. Use every resource that you have at your disposal. It's gonna take everything that you got. And if you're an underrepresented founder, you can't get frustrated by the rooms that you're not going to. It's not gonna be easy for you to walk into. Yeah, it can be frustrating, but you have resources too, and never forget that.
Two. If you're even showing up in those rooms, you have your own talent and so don't isolate yourself. Continue to rely on a network, and I would also say get some co-founders. Being a founder is a very lonely experience and there's a lot going on, so having a co-founder who can watch your back is really helpful.
Three. Judges find it hard probably to really rank charisma on a sheet of paper. But charisma is really important when you're a founder. Like you have to be a person that people see themselves in you, [00:32:00] like you are a person of the people. You inspire them, they want to hang out with you, they want to be your friend. They wanna support you and help get you to the next level. You have to build a business that people wanna rally behind.

[00:32:15] Andrea: Every episode of this miniseries has important lessons learned and takeaways, so make sure to go back and give them all a listen. And if you want to continue this journey of learning and leveling up, make sure to subscribe and stay up to date with our regular This is Small Business episodes.

And with that, we’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

[00:33:00] If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

Mitch: And I'm your co-host, Mitch Gilbert.

Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:33:36]

Next Generation: We Win Some, We Lose Some

Learn about standing out to potential investors.

[00:00:00] Alex: There is no path. And so it's gonna be a kind of somewhat terrifying adventure at every step.

Sloane: I think I could have brought a little bit more energy in the pitch today,

Bilal: I feel happy, you know, for it to be complete now, you know, there's nothing left that I could have done. We gave it our all, so.

[00:00:20] Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And by the end of every episode, we’ll be pointing out key takeaways that will help you wherever you are on your business journey. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:00:46] Mitch: And I'm your co-host Mitch Gilbert, co-founder of Oya Femtech Apparel, and ex-Rice business plan, competition competitor, and winner.

[00:00:53] Andrea: We’ve made it to the final day of the Rice Business Plan Competition. Today we’ll be finding out who made it past the semi-finals [00:01:00] and who won the finals, so we’ve got a lot to cover. But first, let's recap what went down so far.

[00:01:09] Mitch: So on the last episode, we found out that DIA and Active Surfaces are gonna go on to compete in the semi-finals and Active Surfaces stumbled upon a high school friend of theirs with a business called Tierra Climate that's also competing in the semi-finals. So a lot of things, and also sadness because not everyone advances to the semifinals.

[00:01:28] Andrea: But Unchained and Outmore Living still have a chance to win the finals because everyone who didn’t make it to the semi-finals gets to compete in a wildcard round. The winner of that round goes on to compete in the finals.

[00:01:42] Mitch: So, Andrea, I know you watched the semi-finals and wild card round pitches. Wanna give us a little rundown on how our teams did?

[00:01:48] Andrea: Of course! One thing that I noticed and that we also talked about in previous episodes is that some of our teams actually showcased their product. Active surfaces did that with their product and one of the judges said that they were impressed when they showed their four inch by four inch square. [00:02:00] And Outmore Living showcased their product as well. Here we are in the room during their pitch. As a reminder, some of the audio is LIVE and on the go in auditoriums or pitch classrooms so excuse some of the audio.

[00:02:16] Alex: I'll direct your attention as Kevin moves over to the left so you guys can see the actual chair. He'll walk you through it. But we set out to design the world's most comfortable outdoor living experience. And the mental model we use is your car seat heaters in premium heated outdoor furniture. So what Kevin's holding there is what we call the power bar. This is a 3D printed prototype.

[00:02:37] Mitch: You have to showcase your product live, especially if it is some sort of physical good, whether that be food, fashion and the case of Active Surfaces, solar panels. I actually see some founders who are very technical. Like their products are like softwares. Sometimes they lose investors because investors don't know what they're talking about. [00:03:00] So the more that you can actually make your solution practical and in their face, the easier it will be for investors to understand where you're coming from. And I would say even if you don't have a physical good, I would say you need to have examples of like your user interface on the screen or like if you have an app, like what does it look like for someone to use your app, because that sets you apart from the competition who may only be an idea. Is there anything else that stood out to you, Andrea?

[00:03:30] Andrea: Yeah, DIA didn't get any comments on their presentation skills, and I noticed that they incorporated a lot of what the judges previously talked about into the presentation like how they plan on getting their product approved by the FDA and how long that process is expected to be. There was still some confusion on the actual product though. Here’s an interaction with one of the judges and Sloane during feedback.

[00:03:55] Judge: So you're selling a service or a device? If you're selling a device, is it reusable or is it a good. It's consumable.

Sloane: This device is reusable. This is a single use strip. For the saliva, [00:04:00] because it's a much larger quantity of sample. For the wearable, we've extended the lifetime of the electrode to about two weeks.

[00:04:10] Mitch: Clear and concise. Okay, and what about Unchained?

[00:04:15] Andrea: Unchained was great, but unfortunately....

[00:04:20] Bilal: We didn't get through our full presentation in time versus yesterday. We actually made it. We got through our full presentation, but we still didn't make it through semifinals. But the feedback that we received from judges this time was good. But we also have to see what, what came into an account of like the point system. So we feel good about what we presented today. We just ran out of our time. So that's, that's, that's the only, I guess, downside. But like we presented, well, we felt like we got our point across.

[00:04:45] Mitch: Sometimes you wanna implement all the feedback you're given, which results in a longer presentation, which might have been the case here, but I think that that longer it going over was more of a symptom of them not having a strong advisor in the first place. So had they were able to meet with an advisor before their pitch, [00:05:00] they would've gotten a lot of the feedback they already had gotten. So it's easier in each round if you can kind of trench the feedback so that way you can really digest it and get it together. That's why before every pitch I did, I would always try and meet with people or former judges in those pitch competitions, or just ask people who were involved to give me feedback.

[00:05:30] Andrea: Yea, having an advisor definitely help as you’ve talked to us about in your own experience. So up next is the moment of truth… we’ll get to hear who made it to the finals. But first a quick message!

[00:05:45] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

[00:06:00] Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:06:50] Andrea: We’re back… now let’s hear who made it to the finals… drumroll please!

[00:07:00] Presenter: The first of the seven companies to present the finals is Tierra Climate.

The second of the companies that will present in the finals is Zaymo.

The third presenter is Sygne Solutions.

So the fourth company that we'll present this afternoon is FluxWorks.

The fifth team is Pathways.

The six team that will present is Boston Quantum.

The final presenter is at Atma Leather.

[00:07:35] Andrea: Okay so...none of our teams made it as the final 7, but fear not, this does not mean our teams can’t win some of the many awards presented during the awards ceremony. And we did hear a familiar name in that list of finalists: Tierra Climate. On our previous episode, we found out that one of the founders of Tierra Climate went to high school with Shiv from Active Surfaces. And getting to talk to both of them was great. Given their background, we wanted to check in with both teams to see how they feel about the results.

[00:08:00] Shiv: We put our best foot forward in the semi, so I'm sad we didn't make it, but I think it's like good note to end on. I think at that point it's just, uh, the balls fall where they fall. But I'm optimistic that we can keep moving forward.

[00:08:16] Khalid: Yeah, definitely disappointed, but excited to keep building.

[00:08:18] Shiv: During the first feedback session, one of the judges came up to us and said, I own commercial buildings. It builds DFW and Houston, and I can't put solar on it today. How can we work together? So I think having people like that, that actually own assets that want to work with us kind of validates our idea and also builds potential future partnerships. So I think that's what I'm excited about, working with people like that.

[00:08:37] Andrea @ RBPC: How do you feel about the finalists? One being someone we know?

[00:08:40] Shiv: I think Tierra Climate for sure deserves to be there. It's nice to see our friends and family make it all the way up.

[00:08:48] Andrea: On our last episode, we introduced you to Jacob Mansfield the CEO and one of the co-founders of Tierra Climate. After finalists were announced, I managed to talk to his co-founder Emma as well.

[00:09:00] Emma: My name's Emma Konet. I'm co-founder and CTO of Tierra Climate.

[00:09:00] Andrea @ RBPC: How do you feel right now?

[00:09:02] Emma: We're just really grateful for the opportunity to be here. To be at my home turf representing Rice and honestly, just meeting all these amazing people are so smart and like, so driven and I feel like we've made friends here, so it's been really great to be here.

[00:09:15] Jacob: I felt like kind of a weight has been lifted off. Yeah. I think throughout this whole process we have a fairly esoteric problem and solution. And so I'm glad that it resonated with some people here and hopefully they see the, the gravity of our vision. But I think something that actually Shiv told me a couple days ago was regardless of really the outcome of this, you know, the, the strength of your own business and you know, you know what you're gonna build well beyond this competition regardless of if you're in the finals or whether or not, you don't even make it through the prelims.

[00:09:44] Andrea: That’s a nice moment to have among friends. Next, we checked in with our second semi-finalist: DIA.

[00:09:50] Andrea @ RBPC: What are things that you think you'll be doing differently moving forward?

[00:09:52] Sloane: I think I could have brought a little bit more energy in the pitch today, which is always, you know, something that I can work on whenever pitching. But other than that, we, we have a strong company and I don't, I don't think we need to change all that much other than just, you know, continuing to work.

[00:10:00] Andrea: Even though they didn’t make it to finals, I love hearing the confidence in their vision. We also checked in with Unchained and Outmore Living after finalists were announced. They both participated in the wildcard round where they had to pitch again for a chance to be one of the finalists, but did not make it either. This is Bilal from Unchained.

[00:10:26] Bilal: I feel happy for it to be complete now. There's nothing left that I could have done. So I feel like I, I gave it my all. So like, I feel like I was just waiting for, you know, that final decision and, or the resolution to, you know, to the end of the competition. I'm still hopeful for like, the banquet. Cause I, I was able to connect with a lot of outside people, like venture funds and different things like that, that were really interested in what we were doing. And you know, there's a couple of other prizes that we saw that we qualified for. So we still have high hopes but glad to have competed, participated, and you know, we gave it our all.

[00:11:00] Andrea: And lastly, this is what Alex from Outmore Living had to say. At this point, Kevin was on a flight to Paris to celebrate his honeymoon.

[00:11:05] Alex: We're leaving this feeling like super motivated. We had some really good feedback, some things to think about, we're kind of, not pivoting, but we're moving a couple things that we had further on the roadmap, we're bringing them forward based off of all the feedback we've gotten from everyone. So we have this entire ecosystem of products we want to build, and it's more like reshuffling what we're gonna build when, bringing this forward so that, I mean, that's invaluable. Like, that's that's amazing.

[00:11:35] Andrea @ RBPC: Is there anything that you would've done differently?

[00:11:38] Alex: You can't only look back and like, oh, what could have been? So, no, I don't, Kevin, and I don't have any regrets. I mean, it's, it's honestly been such a great exercise to like force us to really, really, really dig deep and really work out our business plan in a way that wasn't as complete before that. So no, absolutely not. Just the act of preparing for this itself is worth it.

[00:12:00] Andrea: So, a reminder that, just because our teams have been eliminated doesn't mean they're going home with no money. Some teams have the opportunity to win other prizes even if they don’t make it to the final round or win the grand prize, so there’s still hope for our teams. Okay, since we know a little bit about who Tierra Climate is, I think it's only fair that we introduce some of the other finalists. I had a chance to check in with them before they gave their final pitch right outside the auditorium. I had a bit more time with some than others. Here's a quick intro to Zaymo:

[00:12:30] Zaymo: My name's Danny. We do interactive emails for e-commerce stores called Zaymo. Hey, and I am Santi. And I'm Chris. We are stoked. Very, very excited.

Andrea: Next is Pathways:

Leise - Pathways: I'm Leise.

Kritika - Pathways: I'm Kritika,

Alex - Pathways: and I'm Alex.

Leise - Pathways: We're building software for architects and real estate developers that help them reduce the carbon of the materials they use in new constructions and retrofits.

Andrea @ RBPC: How do you feel right now as one of the finalists?

[00:13:00] Kritika - Pathways: Oh, oh, it's overwhelming, but I have confidence in our team and I'm sure that we'll bring it home.

Alex - Pathways: Yeah, it's really exciting. I mean, throughout this weekend, you know, they started at the beginning of it saying, you're gonna get a lot of feedback. It's going to be an opportunity to learn and grow. And I admittedly was like, okay. But it's been kind of crazy over the last 48 hours how our pitch has really evolved to reflect that. And I think we're way stronger than we walked in. And I'm excited to see what we're able to do this afternoon.

Kritika - Pathways: This is my passion and I've been building it for a very long time, researching on the subject for a very long time. I can't wait to get our hands on some amount of money so we can actually implement what our vision is.

Andrea: And next is Sygne Solutions.

Dana - Sygne Solutions: I'm Dana Vazquez, the Chief commercial officer and co-founder at Sygne Solutions where we forever eliminate forever chemicals.

Subash - Sygne Solutions: Subash Kannan, CEO and co-founder of Sygne Solutions We are disruptive, scalable, and serve noble cost. Very investor grade at this point. Honored, happy that the message is resonating through, especially the problem statement, what we are having. So it's a big noble cause. So it's a great disruptive product. So we are honored.

[00:14:00] Andrea: Now let's check in with the Wildcard round winner, Atma Leather.

Jinali Mody - Atma Leather: Hi, I'm Jinali. I'm the founder of Atma Leather. We're a material science company that is creating a plant-based leather alternative from banana crop waste. We feel great. We're very, very excited. We definitely have gone through a lot of ups and downs in the last two days, we didn't make it through to the semis and then we did the wildcard and we got through the wildcard. So it’s been a lot of learning, a lot of feedback, a lot of great people that have helped us get here. So everything's changed since round one, most of our slides, how we pitch, what we pitch, the order of what we do, everything has, has gone through a lot of changes. And so, we're happy to say that the feedback really, really paid off. The future goal is to scale this material, so we're excited to get there.

[00:14:50] Andrea: We're getting so close to figuring out who's winning that grand prize, but first remember when we said that some teams can win awards even if they don't make it to the finals? Well one of our teams was awarded a nice chunk of money. You’re about to hear the moment in the final banquet where they announce it. At this point in time we’re all in a huge room at a hotel where there’s endless of rows of tables full of competitors, judges, investors, organizers, volunteers, and more. This is a presenter from the New York Climate Ventures.

[00:15:20] Presenter: New York Climate Ventures is pleased to be here and, helping with the Rice Business Planning competition with Prize. Uh, we invest in early-stage companies with a focus on decarbonization. There were a number of companies that were deserving of this prize here tonight. And in a world where you're working toward decarbonizing everything and electrifying everything you need all of the above approach. Our winner this year is Active Surfaces from MIT.

[00:15:50] Andrea: Active Surfaces won 25,000 dollars from the New Climate Ventures Sustainable Investment Prize. And that's not all, remember that elevator pitch competition that happened on the first day? [00:16:00] Well, there were separate winners for several categories and there was some good news for Active surfaces there as well.

[00:16:10] Speaker: in the energy of clean tech sustainability category. The winner is active surfaces from MIT.

[00:16:15] Andrea: Sooo that's another 500 dollars from the elevator pitch competition. So they did leave with some money from the competition. And even though our teams didn’t make it to the first three spots, let’s hear who did. In third place, with an award of 50K dollars…

Speaker: So without further ado, the third-place team winner is Zaymo.

Andrea: And the second-place overall winner who gets to leave with 100,000 dollars is...

Speaker: Sygne's Solutions from Rice University.

Andrea: And finally for the grand prize of $350K...

Speaker: The winner of the grand prize is Fluxworks from Texas A&M.

[00:17:00] Bryton Praslicka: My name is Bryton Praslicka PhD as of two days ago. And my business name is FluxWorks. I don't know if for certain we can say that we're the best team with the best technology, but I can say for certain we're the most grateful team. just wanna thank, like, the Lord, thank our mentors and I'm just thrilled I can say that and, um, how we currently feel. It rhymes with schmo, overwhelmed.

[00:17:25] Andrea: WOW. Since I was there in person, I can tell you the energy was wild. People flocking to the winners as if it where the end of the Super Bowl. Mitch, you were a finalist in the past. Do you remember how that felt for you?

[00:17:38] Mitch: I was surprised, but also focused. I had a whole strategy, man. I had an, email chain, people were connected on the email chain. I was emailing my professors and like my advisors and like moving forward every round. So we had a whole team. It was a team effort, so it's probably not a surprise that we advanced to the finals, but at the time I was like, okay, this was a surprise and I felt nice, but then I was like, oh my gosh, I have so much work to do.

[00:18:00] Andrea: And of course, we checked in with our very own Active Surfaces after the awards ceremony since they also won a few prizes tonight.

[00:18:12] Shiv: We came here because we cared about climate change. And winning the one climate associated prize makes me feel that people that care about our sector care about us.

[00:18:22] Richard: Out of all the ones that we won in terms of the sponsored prizes, that's the one that I'm glad we won the most because it's actually a climate venture capital firm validating our technology, right? It hits more from a more validation standpoint of someone who like looks at climate every day, uh, and then it's like, we believe in you and we'll sponsor that. So I'm happy about that, definitely. And, and we actually, out of all the, the sponsored people, we talk to them the most throughout this competition as well. I think we got the most progress for our business in four days than we've had in general, just, just because of the density and the amount of like people who've contributed to like, helping us improve.

[00:19:00] Andrea: And Active Surfaces actually had another pitch competition that they were going to only two days right after the Rice Business Plan Competition was over.

[00:19:08] Shiv: I feel even more ready than I would've been otherwise. All the feedback is helping us polish that deck too.

[00:19:13] Andrea: What a day Mitch, I kinda want to join a pitch competition now because, it looks super stressful, but also very rewarding and even… fun.

[00:19:22] Mitch: Yeah, I would say that to be good at a pitch competition, you need to watch how other competitors competed and the ones that won what they did differently than others. I would also say practice, practice, practice. Practice with people who do not care about your vertical. Practice with people who don't like you. Practice with people who are racist. Practice with people who are sexist. Practice with people who love you. Practice with people who understand your vertical or what the problem that is that you're trying to solve, and then I would say practice with an actual venture capitalist who cares about you, even though you may be underrepresented, and I think that will really help take you to the next level.

[00:20:00] Andrea: That is definitely something important. And we’ve got one more episode left where we’ll be checking in with some of the judges from the competition a few weeks after the competition to dig into why the teams that won, won and why our teams didn’t make it to the finals.

[00:20:16] Mitch: We’ll also check in with our four teams, like what are they up to? How are their businesses doing? I'm so excited to hear all about it.

[00:20:22] Andrea: With that, we’ve been on a long learning journey here, so let’s go through our key takeaways. And even though our teams didn’t place in the top 7, this doesn’t mean we didn’t learn super beneficial lessons that anyone can use on their journey. Like:

Mitch: 1. Find the right investor. So, there's a difference between angel investors and venture capital, and both of those groups have different verticals that they invest in and they invest differently. So finding the right investors is super important.
Andrea: Two. Be open to judge feedback and try to implement what works and what you can speak to confidently into the presentation, [00:21:00] but also pick and choose wisely or you can run the risk of not finishing on time like Unchained in their final wildcard round.
Mitch: Three. If you won, understand why. If you lost, understand why. Look at other pitches, ask questions. Figure out where the weaknesses are and adjust accordingly. Aside from money, that is what these competitions are for, is to really improve your business model. I would also say look for other judges who could help you and explain like how you can improve your pitch.

[00:21:30] Andrea: On the next episode, we’ll be digging into some of the “WHYs” behind the results of our teams. So make sure to give it a listen to get a full view of what you can do to prepare your business.

[00:21:40] Mitch: Sometimes it's about the competition itself and not your business. Like it's really not even personal.

[00:21:45] Andrea: Yea! Like, remember that competition we told you about that Active Surfaces had to go to two days after Rice? Well… they won FIRST PLACE.

[00:21:55] Mitch: Crazy. So keep that in mind that every competition is different. Every judging group is different. And don't get discouraged if you don't win. [00:22:00] But then at the same time, it's okay to get a little angry. Let that fuel burn your fire to do better. This is a very cutthroat audience and I think, again, know who you're pitching to. It's not even getting discouraged or frustrated. It's being intentional about knowing your audience.

[00:22:20] Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert.

Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:23:24]

Next Generation: The First Eliminations

Learn about articulating risks and opportunities.

[00:00:00] Alex: It's a rollercoaster of emotions.

Julio: What if I am wrong? What if I miss something?

Sloane: Nobody knows my business better than I do, and I'm allowed to be there and I I should be taking up space in that room.

Richard: Nobody else was doing it right. I think that's the big thing that really pushed me to do it

Alex: I believe to the core that we're gonna be a successful billion-dollar company.

Shiv: And I think that's why we wanna win.

Peter: It's a very courageous act to do. It takes a lot of guts. It's a good thing. And they're, they're overcoming a lot out there.

Andrea: Hi, and welcome to This is Small Business: NEXT Generation - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And by the end of every episode, we’ll be pointing out key takeaways that will help you wherever you are on your business journey. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:00] Mitch: And I'm your co-host Mitch Gilbert, co-founder of Oya Femtech Apparel and an ex-rice business plan competition competitor.

[00:01:05] Andrea: We’ve made it through day one of the competition and I think it’s safe to say that the feedback from the first day was helpful, but it was also…

[00:01:15] Mitch: Brutally honest, and it's hard because venture capitalists are not nice people. At the same time, though, it was very detailed, which is really what a lot of the founders needed.

[00:01:27] Andrea: Yeah, but at least we made it to the second day, where the teams will get to go through the first round of pitching and find out if they’ll be making it to the semi-finals. We’ll also be hearing from other competitors.

[00:01:38] Mitch: But first we'll go check in with our teams after they go through their first round of pitching, which consists of a 15-minute pitch and then a 15-minute q and a with the judges, and then a 15-minute feedback round, which sounds stressful.

[00:01:52] Andrea: It certainly does. And after that, you’ll get to know who’s actually going to make it through to the semi-final round and how they feel after the announcements. [00:02:00] But first, we sat down with Peter Rodriguez, the Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, to hear some of his thoughts about the Rice Business Plan competition:

[00:02:13] Peter: I think it got started just because we had some entrepreneurial faculty who thought they would teach the business of launching a business. I think business schools so much focuses on leading a business or being in an existing business, but the act of starting a business is really different. It's, it's going it alone. It's being a founder, it's taking a leap that's much harder, and that's not an easy thing to teach. And so getting people over that hump, actually encouraging them to take what they know and really test it from the get-go, go from zero to one as they say was a grill gap and they wanted to close the gap. So they got started. And little by little, like all good things, they found collaborators, people who wanted the same, and it really blossomed.

Andrea @ RBPC: Why do you think as a business owner, someone, especially an early-stage business owner, [00:03:00] should try to be part of this competition?

[00:03:05] Peter: It's the learning environment, which I think is both frightening. I mean, it's a competition. It's really like the NCAA Tournament of Business startup competitions, and so you feel that pressure and if you're a business owner or a founder, pressure needs to bring out the best in you. You need to find a way to get the nerves down and just be who you are. So much of what you see out there, brilliant people. You have PhDs, brilliant minds. They don't still have the courage to sort of speak it. This is what I'm about, this is what I'm trying to do. No one's done it before, they haven't done it this well, but I'm going to do it. That, that's gutsy.

And then you have people on the other side who are really there to sort of, you know, engage in the old steel sharpened steel process and say, well, is that really a good idea? How good is it? What about this did you think about? And the more you go through that, you know, the more you get bruised a little bit, the stronger you become. [00:04:00] And by the end you find a couple of firms that are like, this is ready to go. You're gonna go out there and crush it.

Mitch @ RBPC: I've been in pitch competitions where judges can be very biased, and it's just like conversations in the back room and there are almost no checks and balances to help make it more equitable. Whereas these teams, like every round, I felt like my business got so much better between the first round to the end of the competition. Whereas I've been in competitions where there were no female judges. Regardless of whether I had followed the rubric, they weren't actually really judging me against the rubric, and so being here and seeing judges following rubrics, like, I, I just think that's commendable. I don't know what the answer to the problem is, but seeing it from this side has been cool.

[00:04:44] Peter: A lot of what the deficit is for underrepresented groups is, if you've never talked to an investor before, you don't know how they think. And what you really wanna learn is what are they really thinking? You think they might be wondering about the product or the idea. They're really thinking things like, can I make money off of that? [00:05:00] What would it take? How far away are you? How do you deal with this number one risk. And if you can get to that in about four or five minutes, you can cut out a lot of pieces. And you're so much more compelling that way. It's also important to know you don't have to have every problem solved. Most of them are thinking, well, if we can solve 70% of the problems, I think I can figure out what we can do on the remaining 30 and we can coach through that because they know from experience nobody has a hundred percent of the problem solved. You'd be in business right now so they know they've got work to do, but it's that experience and if they don't give you good detailed feedback. If they don't give you insight into what was going on in their mind when they were judging you, then you really haven't gained from it.

We do a survey to ask the pitching teams, how many people did you meet, who you think could help you in the future. And one of our metrics is, can we make that number go up so that every team comes out and can say at least seven people I met. [00:06:00] Can help me make my business better in the future. Because the worst thing we could have is that students and their teams come here and they think, yeah, that didn't really help me, that didn't advance. We're learning a little bit every year, and I just came back from a lunch. We had about 40 of the advisors from the different universities so that we always get together and talk about what's working, what's not working, how do we make it better, and, we're not really that competitive. We try to steal ideas from each other to make our competitions better. And our goal is just to stay, you know the best or as best as we can be.

[00:06:30] Andrea: And with that, let's get into how our contestants feel after the first round of pitching, starting with DIA.

Mitch @ RBPC: So between yesterday and today, do you feel like your business got better?

[00:06:42] Sloane: I feel like our communication specifically about our business got better. I think that especially as a female CEO, you have to run a very thin line between being approachable and being relatable. And being strong. And I think that I was able to grow as a leader [00:07:00] in walking that line. But also being able to go in there and say that these judges are all extremely smart. But, they spend a few hours with my business and their opinions are valuable, but nobody knows my business better than I do, and I'm allowed to be there and I I should be taking up space in that room.

[00:07:20] Julio: Just sitting down with Sloan made the difference just where we could have improved what she needed from me cuz honestly, I botched a lot of it. I took responsibility and she took responsibility for trying to make me fit into another mold and we just reworked the whole thing together as a team and that allowed us, plus the sleep, to do a great pitch. I really think it was as good as it could be. I'm so proud of Sloan. She, she took all the questions. It was amazing.

Mitch @ RBPC: So how are you feeling about this afternoon?

[00:07:50] Sloane: I'm feeling excited. Yeah. I feel like it's another chance for Julio and I to, to grow, improve our business again. And I feel like you, you have to, especially as a startup founder, you're never gonna be perfect. [00:08:00] Yeah. So you have to have an attitude of constant improvement. And you know, it's like you're not gonna nail every single workout, but like the workouts that you don't nail, they still make you stronger. It's been a really wonderful competition and I feel like the partners that Rice has brought in and the level of how they do things here is something I've never seen before.

[00:08:18] Andrea: That’s awesome to hear. Sounds like they’re feeling pretty good. Let’s check in with Outmore Living.

[00:08:25] Kevin: Yeah. So some of the feedback we got yesterday was that we waited too long to bring the product into the actual pitch and presentation. So the biggest change that Alex and I made as we headed into today was we brought that up to the front. So we kicked it off with the problem and then brought in the solution, explained the product, and then kind of got into how we got there, the past, present, and future. And so that was a shift and honestly, Alex and I only practiced it a couple times going into today, so we were very happy with how it ended up going.

[00:08:52] Alex: We changed no content. All I said to him was, dude, let's just think mental thoughts before. Concise and deliberate. Concise and deliberate, concise and deliberate. [00:09:00] And then we ran it again, and we somehow knocked three minutes off of the presentation with changing no content, just from having like that concise and deliberate mindset going into it ended up in three minutes and a better presentation.

Andrea @ RBPC: What are some of the things that were the hardest for your team to work on when it came to pitching your idea?

[00:09:00] Alex: Yeah. It's a combination of wanting to display and showcase how deeply we understand the technology, the go-to-market strategy, who are we gonna sell it to, how are we gonna sell it, but not burying that in a pile of details to the point where it becomes uncon consumable. And Kevin and I could get up there and I think if we were asked to talk as long as we can, we'd be well over an hour about Outmore, incredibly detailed, right? We can get down to very specific things. So I think it's taking what Kevin and I know, [00:10:00] and then presenting it in the right balance of detail to show that we're, we know what we're talking about, we're the right team to go solve it. But at a high enough level that the person who's never experienced it before can understand it, comprehend it, not get lost from slide to slide, and then ultimately walk away seeing the same vision that Kevin and I have every day. So it's a, it's, it's striking that right balance.

Andrea @ RBPC: How do you feel about the semi-finals coming up?

[00:10:30] Kevin: I feel excited, going into the elevator pitch, that was probably my most nervous feeling. You have nothing behind you. You have a minute, and you have to be perfect. When you have the actual pitches, you don't have to be perfect. You can kind of explain your way through a slide. And so, even going in today, I was way less nervous. And then as we think about finding out if we make the semi-finals, I'm more excited than anything else. If we get it, we'll be extremely excited. But if we don't, we also know we lost to some great teams. [00:11:00] So, at this point, it's just really excitement.

Andrea @ RBPC: Why do you think you should win?

[00:11:05] Alex: There is a reason why I am with a wife and three kids going all in on this idea. For some people that is a, a terrifying proposition, but from the moment I heard, Kevin and I talk about, I wish our seats were heated. This idea has captivated me. I've tried to run away from it. At first, I was like, okay, yeah, surely this exists. And then it continued to follow with me, I believe to the deepest core that we are sitting on a billion-dollar idea to the size of another Austin Company of Yeti, and, and I believe we are the most investible idea here. And Kevin and I will, with a combination of our team, our characteristics, our personalities, resilience, the idea that we have, [00:12:00] and our ability to humble ourselves and say, look, this is our best idea. If the market doesn't like it, we're gonna adapt. Take that approach. I, I believe to the core that we're gonna be a successful billion-dollar company.

[00:12:15] Andrea: And now let's check in with Unchained:

[00:12:18] Bilal: So far the competition has been like amazing. Being an entrepreneur is a journey that not many understand. And typically like, you being an entrepreneur, you're an anomaly in the general sense of like the world. But then when you come to spaces like this where everyone's an entrepreneur, everyone's working on something, everybody around understands the struggles of an entrepreneur. You kind of feel at home. So I feel like the main thing this competition has done has provided a home for, you know, innovators. And that's the main takeaway so far is like, this is a home for people who think like me and working towards things that, that I'm working towards.

Mitch @ RBPC: You're coming off of a high, so you just had your pitch How you feeling?

[00:12:56] Bilal: I feel great. You know, I feel amazing. You know, I feel like LeBron after Game seven right now, [00:13:00] but game seven is tomorrow, so, you know, we'll, stay tuned for that, you know what I'm saying? But honestly, coming off of yesterday, so we had a practice pitch round where we received a lot of good feedback. That feedback kind of shaped how I went into my 60 second pitch at the end of the day. And after that 60 second pitch, a lot of people came up to me, whether that be investors or judges. They resonated with the problem solving and the work we were doing. me and the team last night, we stayed up late. We, you know, worked out the kinks and then today, today, like we went room and we presented what was true to us, and we just let the slides be the evidence. You know, we wanted to really captivate the audience to let them know that like we were the ones who are uniquely built solve this problem because we this issue and we're currently working every day and making our life's work to actually get this done.

Mitch @ RBPC: How would you say your perspective changed between yesterday and today?

[00:13:52] Bilal: Prior to this, I've been like traveling to different conferences, speaking to HR leaders about our product and pitching it. And so after pitching something so repetitively, [00:14:00] it's hard to really find your faults or where you're overdoing things because you're used to doing it in a certain way and so what yesterday did for me was like, put me in an uncomfortable situation. So yesterday taught me to focus on the delivery and let the work speak for itself and I don't have to overexplain the and so today that's how I went into it. It's like, make sure anybody in the room can understand what exactly doing and let them read slides and ask the questions afterwards instead of trying to oversell what I had on screen.

Mitch @ RBPC: As a fellow founder of color, we don't typically get to operate in these spaces. Sometimes people judge us before we even get feedback. Like the idea is there, the passion is there. The intelligence there is all those things. But like because we weren't raised amongst certain types of investors or to see the way that they communicate or they think, we don't always get the benefit of the doubt. And so when I saw that you were able to hear that and then evolve, it makes me really happy that you were able to grow in that moment, because that is entrepreneurship. [00:15:00] So what are you most looking forward about tomorrow?

[00:15:05] Bilal: Besides winning, really just, I feel like this competition for us, like especially where we are in our journey, is just like a milestone of independence in our journey. You know, we've worked this hard to get this far. And we finally got the opportunity we're looking for, for funding and the only thing standing in the way is our performance and our ability, which I feel like our team has prepared for. So really, I'm excited about the opportunity to perform.

[00:15:27] Andrea: And finally, here’s Active surfaces:

[00:15:30] Shiv: We got some really good feedback from the judges yesterday and we wanted to maintain the story flow, but we wanted to capture some of the feedback they got about: where we are today, what differentiates our IP, what does our technology look like in practice? So we added some visuals, added some numbers, and I think it really answered a lot of the questions during the q and a today.

Mitch @ RBPC: So what were some key learnings as a pitcher that you had from yesterday that you were able to apply today?

[00:15:57] Khalid: I'm Khalid McCaskill and I'm with Active Services. I am working on customer discovery, [00:16:00] so in the market, talking to customers, hunting pain points, trying to figure out how we can make a product that people want. I think the most important thing is about regulating my breathing. You know, making sure I can deliver the message to people in the audience. I think we have a great product. think we have a great idea and have faith in the guys we're gonna execute it so just, giving out that vision and uh, having confidence in doing it. And so that's kind of what I was focused on most today.

Andrea @ RBPC: Tell me about that from your perspective, seeing your team pitching.

[00:16:30] Richard: I have, like stress, just watching them. Like both Shiv and Khalid MBAs their first year so like even just the lead up like I have a nine to five kind of doing this. And then like we do it late at night, like odd hours that it stresses me out so much. but then I also want them to really do well. And so in this competition, I think I feel kind of like a coach and maybe almost like a startup mom, like funneling them around, like setting up the presentation, making sure all the things work. [00:17:00] But today, uh, just, them doing the first round, uh, was the best I've seen the presentation. Overall, I'm very proud of the two of them. I think a lot of CTOs probably can't say this, but I don't think I needed to be up there.

Andrea @ RBPC: And how do you feel right now?

[00:17:15] Shiv: A mix of things. I'm like excited from the pitch, nervous from how it went, curious to know how, like what's gonna happen next. But overall, I think pretty content, I think we put our best foot forward.

[00:17:25] Khalid: I'm a little bit nervous, right. You always wanna advance to the next round and, uh, looking forward to feedback later today. I think we have it in about an hour. But yeah, a lot of things to work on. A lot of questions that we're gonna try to answer tomorrow and the semi-final or the wild card round, and so a lot of work to do.

[00:17:36] Andrea: I'm loving all this excitement, but it does make it difficult to try and guess who the judges might pick. Coming up next is the moment everyone's been waiting for: Who's going to make it to the semi-finals? Stay tuned.

[00:17:50] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you [00:18:00] to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:18:58] Andrea: And now, let’s find out which of our teams make it to the semifinals.

[00:19:00] Mitch: Drumroll please!

[00:19:07] Brad: So our first is Air Seal from Wash U in St. Louis.

Tierra Climate from right here at Rice University.

Boston Quantum from MIT

Dia, also known as E-sentience from Duke.

Arch Pet Food from the University of Chicago.

Julie: Pathways at Harvard University

Inzipio

Pediatric Therapeutics, University of Arkansas,

Zaymo, Brigham Young.

Last certainly not least, Active Surfaces, MIT

[00:19:52] Andrea: Dia and Active Surfaces made it through! But don't rule out Unchained and Outmore Living just yet because...

[00:20:00] Brad: Every team is still in contention and has the potential to go on to the final round tomorrow afternoon.

[00:20:07] Andrea: How? Because one team that can advance to the finals is gonna be chosen from a round called the wildcard round.

[00:20:15] Alex: I think there's 27 teams that did not advance out of their first round and tomorrow, while the semi-finals are going on there's a wild card. So there'll be seven finalists. Six teams will come from the semi-finals, and that seventh team will come from this wild card. So one of 27 teams tomorrow will rise from the ashes and come out of nowhere into the wild card round. Kevin and I will get our best shot tomorrow we see what happens.

[00:20:42] Andrea: So even though only two of the four teams we are following made it to the semi-finals. There’s still hope that Unchained and Outmore Living might make it to the finals. Here’s what Alex and Kevin from Outmore Living had to say:

[00:20:55] Alex: I mean, there's no sugar coating it. It's a, it's a huge disappointment. [00:21:00] Kevin and I thought we did well enough to move on to the semi-finals. But at the end of the day, it doesn't change what we believe in the business. We reviewed the judge's feedback and a lot of people love, loved it, right? Extremely high remarks, comments, like best concept yet. And then there were others that frankly rated us fairly low. And, and, and it's a little bit surprising we didn't expect it, of course. They had fair comments. And we find it's a lot is, is people either get it or they don't. And it's, it's kind of, it kind of splits that way. But tomorrow there's still the chance with the wild card round. We actually at the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition last December at UT, we also didn't win our bracket. We were the wild card and we went on to win the whole thing in the finals. So never say never.

[00:21:47] Kevin: I'd say I also feel a little bit disappointed. I would say, you know, Alex, I put a lot of work into this. We felt confident going into it. We think we put our best for forward. You know, all of the feedback we've gotten over the past year and a half, [00:22:00] we've analyzed it. We've figured out is that the right path forward? And we chose our business model because we think we have the best one. That being said, it's, it's good feedback. It's good to hear, but when you have a split amount of feedback where, you know, half the judges are saying, this is great, and then half are saying that they don't like it for a certain reason. You kind of have to follow your gut and at the end of the day, we're at a point where we're getting ready to launch. We feel confident in our plan. And so it's just heads down from this point forward. And so, despite everything that's happened, I'm still optimistic.

[00:22:33] Alex: And I would just say, this is another example that it's a rollercoaster. Like it's, it's, it's a rollercoaster for emotions. Starting a small business, starting a startup adventure, running your own business is certainly a rollercoaster. Kevin and I, you know, luckily have co-founders cuz it, it'd be hard on your own to, to try to weather all of it, but the highs are high and the lows are low and it happens, right. So it, it definitely is one of those situations where it's not for the faint of heart.

[00:23:00] Andrea: Yeah, I'm sure going through this alone would've been a lot more difficult. Here’s what our semi-finalists had to say, starting with Sloane and Julio from Dia:

[00:23:12] Sloane: We're jazzed. I, we got some really good feedback. So you never wanna count your chickens before they hatch cuz there are a lot of strong teams, but it's, it's very, it's very different like thinking you may have a chance and then seeing it flash across the screen.

[00:23:27] Julio: Oh, it was great. You know, like, as much as you wanna say, I'm confident, I'm a hundred percent right there in the moment your stomach always, always just turns a little bit and you're like, what if I am wrong? What if I miss something? But just see the validation's fantastic.

[00:23:42] Sloane: Our feedback session ended early because people said, you, you did a really great job. We, we see it. And there, there are some, there are some things presentation wise of me trying to be a little bit louder that I think we can work on, but I think a, a good night's sleep as, as we have established, apparently I'm a person [00:24:00] that just needs a lot of sleep to function and just going into it with an open mind of let's improve on the last one. But also just gratitude for being here and having fun while doing it. Because I think today, whenever we were really just like nailing the pitch and in sync, we were having fun.

[00:24:15] Andrea: Sleep is definitely important. And here’s Shiv, Richard, and Khalid from Active Surfaces:

[00:24:22] Shiv: We're excited and we, we were on the edge of our seat cuz we were the last name to be called. So we're just there with our heart beating, just waiting until the last name, recognizing whose names are in our group or not. It was nerve-wracking.

[00:24:33] Richard: Yeah, so we went last in, in all of the, the pitches. So like, I'm mentally going through when they're announcing, I was like, were they in our section? Were they in our section? couldn't even remember, went through a few and then finally at the end, ended up with good news.

[00:24:45] Khalid: Super relieved. We made it. Can't believe they called us last.

[00:24:50] Shiv: We're just excited. We're nervous and excited all at the same time.

[00:24:55] Andrea: And wait, there's more. One of the teams that also made it to the semi-finals was....

[00:25:00] Brad: Tierra Climate from right here at Rice University.

[00:25:05] Andrea: And it turns out the CEO and founder of Tierra Climate and Shiv from Active Surfaces...

[00:25:12] Shiv: …go all the way back to high school, early debate days.

[00:25:18] Andrea: And now they're together again in this pitch competition, what a small world! Let's quickly introduce Tierra Climate and Jacob, the CEO and Founder:

[00:25:23] Jacob: I'm Jacob from Tierra Climate. Our mission is to unlock a pathway to a net zero future in the electricity sector. So we're looking to help support battery development by creating a one of a kind carbon offset product. And then also helping batteries not only make money from carbon emissions reductions, but also operationalize and improve their operations through time.

Andrea @ RBPC: Did you know that you were both gonna be here?

[00:25:45] Shiv: We found out after it was announced. I didn't know the name of your company was Tierra Climate. So I was going through to see if I knew anyone, and then randomly we, we were getting dinner and then we came out that we were both going and we were super excited about it.

[00:25:56] Jacob: Yeah, it's, it's pretty insane. we both went to a public high school in the suburbs of Houston, [00:26:00] and then I actually did my undergrad here at Rice. So it's really awesome to be back here. Shiv was actually a year younger than, than everyone. He actually skipped a grade. he's super smart and so, uh, I think we might have had maybe math or science together. And then from there we both were interested in current events and speech and debate.

And that's really where I think our friendship really blossomed, cuz we were going pre practically every weekend to some far flung high school in the Houston area, competing, giving speeches about things that most people probably don't care about. But we were just really passionate about current events, politics, and what was going on in the world, which it's cool to think that our careers are now taking a mission in line with that kind of general interest that we had early on.

[00:26:38] Shiv: And then towards the end of that debate journey, we were the only two in our high school to qualify for debate nationals. And we flew to Indianapolis, shared a hotel room, enjoyed that competition. And now, like 11 years later, we shared a hotel room here at near Rice University to compete at this business plan competition.

Andrea @ RBPC: So is there a future where you might be working together?

[00:26:55] Jacob: Potentially, yeah. I wouldn't rule it out so,

[00:27:00] Shiv: There was actually funny feedback that we got during, after my pitch, someone asked me if we deploy too much solar, then won't you like, have too much like intermittent energy on the grid. And my answer should have been one of my friends Jacob, is working on this awesome startup solving that exact problem. So it's funny that we're both solving the problem in different ways.

Andrea @ RBPC: If you both make it to the finals, you'll be competing against each other. How does that feel?

[00:27:22] Jacob: I feel pretty good about it. I mean, it's funny, I don't think we, we have ever competed before.

[00:27:28] Shiv: I'm glad that in the semis right now that we didn't compete against each other because I wanna make sure that if we do both make it, we take the top two spots.

[00:27:35] Jacob: I'm looking forward to hopefully the prospect of being in finals together. I think that'd be a really cool thing to come full circle.

[00:27:40] Shiv: It would be nice if we don't make it, at least to support Tierra climate in their journey

[00:27:45] Jacob: And active surfaces too.

[00:27:48] Andrea: That’s sweet, I loved the dynamic between these two competitors and the back story.

[00:27:52] Mitch: Yeah, having friends as a founder is so important because, no one fully understands what it's like to go through as a founder at the same time as you, [00:28:00] unless it's another founder going through similar experiences at the same time as you. And the world is big, there's a lot of money. Everybody gets to win and especially in a rice plan competition, there's like six or seven winners. So it's important to make friends out of experiences like these who you can call just to gut check if you're crazy. I did that just yesterday and it made me feel much better.

[00:28:23] Andrea: And now I'm also excited to see how Tierra Climate is gonna do in the competition and of course what's gonna happen if one of them doesn't make it to the finals.

[00:28:30] Mitch: Yeah, that's harsh. I'm not sure either, but the deeper we get into the competition, the more intense and focused it gets. So I think a lot of it is just gonna depend on how the founders handle the pressure.

[00:28:45] Andrea: Right like now Outmore Living and Unchained are competing against each other and 25 other teams to try and get a spot in the finals. And I'm curious to see if Dia, Active Surface, AND Tierra Climate make it to the finals.

[00:29:00] Mitch: And who's gonna win that grand prize of $350,000? Will it be one of our teams? I hope it is. We're praying. We're praying.

[00:29:08] Andrea: We'll find out in our next episode! So, until then here are some key takeaways from today:

Mitch: One. We heard from one of the judges, uh, while watching our teams pitch that you don't have to have every problem solved. And that's important because, one, you're a startup, so you don't even know every problem that you're gonna encounter but for those that you don't have answers to, it's important to be honest about that. And then mention places where you could use help and therefore you allow investors opportunities to come and support you. So it's important, I think, as I mentioned before, to one, talk about your risks and what mitigation strategies you can handle, but then also opportunities where you need help and you may not fully know the answer and then your investors can come in and support you. That type of clarity [00:30:00] and communication abilities is really valued by investors.
Andrea: Two. Pressure and stress is a normal part in entrepreneurship, but as Peter said, pressure has to bring out the best in you, especially at a pitch competition like Rice. Because you have to be ON for three days and it can be exhausting.
Mitch: Three. It’s important to take the feedback while keeping the ball rolling. I had a really hard time just taking all the feedback and then being able to put it into a pitch just once I had to practice. So again, I was the person waking up super early in the morning with anxiety, practicing, practicing, practicing to make sure I got through all the feedback because the feedback. It's helpful, but you can't let that make you stumble when communicating with judges because remember, it's a performance, so do what you gotta do to get ready. But feedback shouldn't make you stutter or fumble the ball when you have to be on and creating a performance.

[00:31:00] Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. . [00:32:00] I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert.

Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:32:14]

Next Generation: The Practice Pitch (Navigating Nerves and Feedback)

Learn about strengthening your elevator pitch.

[00:00:02] Peter Rodriguez (Welcome Announcement): What you take part in tonight can absolutely change your life.

Shiv: Your heart's pounding you, your voice cracks a little bit

Julio: Do not throw the towel. I won't let you.

Sloane: I am not throwing in the towel.

Peter Rodriguez (Welcome Announcement): What you do here tonight can absolutely change the world, and it's really rare that you get to say that.

Bilal: I didn't go in there planning to do a perfect pitch.

Khalid: Executing is of course nerve-wracking, but definitely heart pumping.

Shiv: Once you get on stage and you have the muscle memory of practice, it kind of flows away,

Brad Richards: Sell yourself. Sell your team. Sell your product. Sell your idea. Sell, sell, sell.

[00:00:40] Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And by the end of every episode, we’ll be pointing out key takeaways [00:01:00] that will help you wherever you are on your business journey. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:06] Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert, co-founder of Oya Fem Tech Apparel and an Ex-Rice business plan competition competitor.

[00:01:12] Andrea: Mitch, we finally made it to the competition. How is this for you?

[00:01:15] Mitch: Intense, exhausting, educational, all of the above. I don't know, but I'm excited.

[00:01:20] Andrea: Same here. When we walked in, I was feeling the nerves and the tension and I’m not even competing! So, to recap, the first day of the competition is mainly just a practice round for the competitors. And throughout the competition, the competitors will have a couple of chances to win other prizes and one of the ways they could do that is through the elevator pitch competition which also takes place today. But first, let’s join the rooms where our teams will be having their practice rounds and checking out the feedback they receive starting with DIA. As a reminder, DIA is aiming to revolutionize the healthcare industry by bringing at home clinical grade lab testing right to the patient’s home. [00:02:00] They transform healthcare testing by using saliva instead of blood.”

In today’s episode you will hear a difference in audio because a lot of this was captured on the go with competitors, or live in auditoriums or big classrooms. So please excuse some of the audio.

[00:02:20] Sloane: Hey everybody. My name's Sloan Tilley. I'm the CEO and co-founder of DIA Previously Sentience.

Julio: I'm Julio Fredin. I'm the Chief Science Officer and also co-founder.

[00:02:30] Sloane: And we're excited to talk to you today about how DIA's game changing technology is going to disrupt the at-home biomarker monitoring system. Save the US healthcare system, millions of dollars and potentially millions of lives.

[00:02:43] Andrea: Ok so starting strong. With a bold product but there’s something about this product that Sloane and Julio haven’t been able to avoid. People unfairly associate Sloane to Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos, [00:03:00] an infamous health tech company whose business model was based on the idea of running blood tests that required only a finger pinprick and a small amount of blood. As a result, Holmes is currently serving an 11-year term in federal prison. Quite a comparison to make right? Here’s Julio.

[00:03:20] Julio: I'm gonna drop the T word a little bit because it's, it's one thing that we always have to fight against you know, the whole Theranos debacle and how that sent women in entrepreneurship and hard hard tech entrepreneurship back 20 years, right? So we're fighting to get us back to where we were. And one of that is just letting people know like, look, we're not gonna give you like this, this ridiculousness about one droplet of autogenous fluid giving you all the data of all the things. Okay, that's ridiculous. But there's some very cool things we can do with the, with microfluidic and electrochemistry that we're excited to do and are still going to change lives, right?

[00:03:53] Sloane: She set female, particularly female science entrepreneurs back two decades. And I have had people [00:04:00] look straight in my face and be like, well, you remind me of her. I'm just like, uh, well, the difference there is that I have two master's degrees. I wish personally that it wasn't a thing that I had to overcome because it does feel somewhat unfair, but it's reality.

[00:04:15] Andrea: And now let’s go back to the room to listen to some of the feedback they received. These were all in person, in the rooms, so you might note a change in audio.

[00:04:25] Judges: I don't think you should mention this, but you should be aware of that Theranos is in the room when it comes to chemical sensor companies. I've lived this, like, they created incredible problems like in the financing community. It's a problem though, because, I mean, what, you know, if you can do a lot of different tests, it's, I'm sure you've heard that before. It's a cloud, you know, it really is.

Sloane: Every single pitch.

Judges: Be prepared for a question on that, and, you know, it just sounds too good to be true. I don't know what the answer is gonna be, but there's gonna be a question about that.

[00:04:55] Mitch: Recency bias is real.

Andrea: Can you tell me what recency bias is, in your own words?

[00:05:00] Mitch: So based on my understanding of recency bias, it's when people overemphasize the importance of recent experiences or latest information when thinking about future events. And so because Elizabeth Holmes was the most recent and famous woman in Biosciences, it makes sense that people are comparing Sloan to her even if their ideas are very different.

[00:05:25] Andrea: So yeah, the judges picked up on the Theranos thing -- but that's not the only feedback Julio and Sloane received

[00:05:32] Judges: Most people, most investors, especially in a business plan, competition setting, they want to know that their money is in good hands. And part of that is -a big part of it is like, okay, I trust this person with money. This person's an adult, you know, blah, blah, blah. They know what their business. And how do you convey that? It's like part of its subtle, part of it's not so subtle.

[00:05:55] Judges: So you got a lot of great technical stuff. I'm gonna give you some presentation. Counsel, come forward. [00:06:00] You actually started behind the desk. It's a, it's a conversation and the more personal you can make it, the less presentationing, the more you're gonna connect with great state in terms of how you deliver. And we're all gonna be honest. So, if you keep rocking back and forth, I'm going to come up there and staple your damn feet for the floor. I'm serious because she's trying to get points across and I see you moving and human nature is, if you see something moving, it's going to kill you.

Julio: Makes sense.

Judges: Right. So I keep looking over this way.

Julio: I'm not kill you. I know I'm big, but it's okay.

Judges: No matter it's the way we're wired. I'm losing track of what she's talking about because you're moving. So, Plant your feet. Okay? Don't play with your beard, don't play with your pockets. You're an executive in the firm, deliver that way.

Judges: And I would say people are generally, especially technologists, are not natural presenters. It takes a lot of practice to get comfortable with it. You froze there for a minute.

Julio: Yeah.

[00:07:00] Judges: It happens to everyone. Mm-hmm. I would come up with some sort of device that you feel comfortable with to kind of get past the pause and I would try to like not memorize completely.

[00:07:10] Andrea: Here’s more of the conversation that Mitch had with DIA after the feedback round…

Mitch @ Event: Okay. So you're killing it on market opportunity, everyone seems to be feeling like they, they understand why your solution will help do that. Competitive differentiation you could get better at.

Julio: So we need to talk more about the tech cuz that's our competitive differentiator.

Sloane: The conundrum that we're in is that your, your presentation style is the weakest, but that's also where we need to come across with the competitive advantage. We need to go simpler.

Julio: They want us to go with competitive advantage, so I need to talk about our actual competitors. I need to like explain very simply what they do and why it sucks compared to us.

[00:07:50] Andrea: Ok so the big things for Dia based on that round were: Making their competitive differentiator very clear. To name or to not name past women in the space. [00:08:00] And of course, presentation skills. We’ll see how this develops. Now, let's catch up with Unchained. As a reminder, Unchained is a platform, that aims to advance early talent recruiting methods by strengthening the connection between Diverse Early talent and all size corporations.

[00:08:20] Bilal: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bilal Issifou.

Nasir: I am Nasir Jones,

Bilal: And we are the founders of Unchained Inc. A talent platform develops specifically for employers interested in engaging in hiring diverse early talent. So before I start, I want you to imagine you're a college student.

It's your freshman and sophomore year, and you're looking to find your first internship. You go to school career services, you don't succeed, you apply to hundreds online job platforms. You don't find your internship. And by the grace of God, you land your first internship, which prompts you to realize your full potential and inspires you and a classmate to build a platform to help other companies connect with students, just like you. [00:09:00] Now, in only two and a half years, we've been able to reach over 15,000 early time professionals.

[00:09:10] Andrea: And then there was some feedback…

[00:09:12] Judges: you should highlight sort of the value proposition for your clients and how, how you're, I guess you're helping them extend their budget by accessing a greater data pool of, of candidates.

Judges: Since you are looking at underrepresented communities, getting them into organizations, one of the KPIs I think you're gonna want to find as you start to scale is actually the retention of those people in those organizations. Mm-hmm. That is with, you talk about recruiting, so hiring that's paramount. This is very important for y'all.

Judges: The filter, the AI that you talked about, um, you talked about your screening. Yes. Right. I think it'd be important to help us understand if there's any, uh, intellectual property behind that. In other words, if there's any, anything unique that's defensible or patented, behind that technology and maybe some information about [00:10:00] a little more how it works and, and how y'all developed it.

Judges: You can't tell a long-winded story. There's a word that I can use called coaching. It means clear and concise, right? Everything you say, everything you drive across has to feel that way. When you started out, you started out going through the things that you have accomplished, which was slide three. Immediately after saying, hey, this is what we are. You should have said, this is what we are. This is the problem we solve here is the value proposition to companies. Here is the value proposition to students. Here are the ambassadors and how all of that connects together. Really, really be comfortable with that story and be able to articulate it very quickly.

Revisit your slides. There's way too much information on the slides. Okay. Way too much information. Like, it's easy if you just have three or four bullets. Each slide should have a specific purpose. [00:11:00] The problem, the solution, the technology, the market, the finance.

I want to talk about TAM. Total addressable market is the total amount if you capture the entire world's market of dollars going into your pocket. So where do those dollars come from? The decision maker here probably is someone in HR. These are HR dollars spent for specifically recruiting. And this is probably the most important portion of this entire deck you are presenting to investors.

[00:11:30] Andrea: And I'm sure you're wondering how they might've felt after receiving all this feedback...

[00:11:35] Bilal: I think it was a productive practice session. From a high-performance standpoint, like that wasn't our best performance or best pitch. But from a practicality standpoint, like it did go the way I wanted it to because I wanted an uncomfortable situation that like allowed us to see our faults because we look at this information 24/7, we understand that we're ingrained in it. So like it's hard for us to see what others don't see.

[00:12:00] Nasir: I believe it didn't display our best ability of understanding our market, our scope, our technology, and how, more so our understanding of just recruiting in general. But I do believe it displayed a chance for us to be able to really learn from others. Maybe some people in our space, maybe some people have different skill sets, and just really dive into the presentation itself. And find out what needs to be fixed, adjusted, and just maybe switched around.

Andrea @ event: What are the top three things you're gonna go back and work on for tomorrow.

Bilal: Simplicity on the slides, clarity on value proposition, and confidence in market and financials.

[00:12:40] Andrea: To recap some of the feedback they got: 1. Showing a clear value proposition, 2. Explaining how they will retain clients as they scale, 3. Talking about the intellectual property behind their AI, 4. Being clear about the structure of their uncapped safe, [00:13:00] 5. Talking about the total addressable market, and 6. Presentation skills.

And if like me, this was your first time hearing the term, uncapped safe, here’s a little explainer: In the context of investments, the term "uncapped safe" refers to a type of financial agreement that allows investors to invest money in a company or startup in exchange for a future return.

[00:13:24] Mitch: An uncapped safe is not a very popular venture capital investment vehicle. It means that an investor can invest in your company and benefit from the company growing without any predetermined limits on how much their investment can grow. Investors don't like that though because they have to report numbers back to their investors or their gps, and so they want to see limits so that way they can kind of calculate what their investment opportunity could turn into. So an uncapped safe is definitely an investment vehicle, but it's not very popular.

[00:14:00] Andrea: Phew… that’s a lot. Let’s take a breather. Coming up we’re checking in with Active Surfaces.

[00:14:10] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. [00:15:00] You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:15:20] Andrea: Alright, we’re back… let’s listen in on the feedback that Active Surfaces got after their practice pitch. As a reminder, Active surfaces is a thin film, solar technology spinning out of MIT aiming to make solar anywhere.

Shiv: So we are Active Surfaces, and we are reimagining solar. My name is Shiv and I'm in charge of business development.

Khalid: My name is Khalid and I'm lead in customer discovery.

Shiv: We envision a future where you can have lightweight, low cost, flexible power for any surface.

[00:15:50] Andrea: And here's what judges had to say…

[00:15:54] Judges: To me in this presentation, you got a lot of hype going on, which is really exciting to see, [00:16:00] and certainly potential is huge. But I like to know at the beginning, where are you in this process? What are the specific performance metrics that you compare and then start building out, you know, tell me how long it's gonna take to get there. The market. I, I believe all of that. But the starting point doesn't give me the platform. I need to think through and, and I wanna see what your revenue projection looks like for three years out and four years out or something, which is where I'm gonna see as an investor, the return coming back to me.

[00:16:35] Judges: I definitely look at any of the businesses through people, processes, technology or the supply chain as the fourth pillar. So if you can think from these buckets and be like amazing people, which is show technology, you definitely talk about, but then you have to go into the details of the risk part of it. You understand there is a risk of scaling. Mm-hmm. That's why you're asking the money to de-risk it. Yeah. [00:17:00] But do talk about how you'll be like, is it you need better process engineers? Do you need better processing? And optimization technologies that don't exist today, or you're after them, do they already exist and you just need the money to get access, or do you need to develop those in the whole scalability piece effect? Is material science an issue or not? Is supply chain an issue or not? The moment you capture or touch upon these points and how you're risking using investors money mm-hmm. Then your story, it's, it's already an amazing story by, you're not trying to be just a feedback as in the moment you do that, then it's a slam dunk.

[00:17:38] Andrea: Sooo, let's find out how Active Surfaces felt after receiving all that feedback...

Khalid: I think it went well. I think of room to grow and uh, you know, 24 hours before we go again or 20 hours we go again.

Shiv: I'm also impressed how quickly the judges were able to dissect the important parts of the presentation, the questions they have, give us feedback that was meaningful all within the span of 15 minutes. So I'm glad that we're able, we're able to incorporate that before tomorrow.

[00:18:00] Khalid: Shiv did a great job, um, leading the team and closing it out and, uh, let's do better tomorrow. You know?

Shiv: We're gonna update the slides to make sure it has less numbers in the beginning that appear to be a problem. People need to believe that we can actually scale up the technology and we have ways to do that, but it's not being conveyed enough in the deck, I think. And I think there is concern or questions about how the technology works, and we don't want that to wait until the q and a. We want them to believe that technology works.

[00:18:33] Andrea: So here’s a summary of the feedback: Interesting enough with this team, they didn’t get feedback on their presentation skills. What we did hear was 1. What are their performance metrics that show how long it’ll take to get them to where they want to be and where are they now? 2. What does their revenue projection look like in the next 3 to 5 years? 3. What are their risks and challenges? 4. And what is it that they need to make this happen apart from money? [00:19:00] Does that tech exist or is building it part of getting the desired result?

These are hard questions to answer but it sounds like that’s something the team is prepared to do. Let’s see how Outmore Living is doing. As a reminder Outmore Living is re-imagining the future of your outdoor spaces. So their furniture is battery powered, heated outdoor furniture.

[00:19:25] Kevin: Good afternoon everyone. My name is Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living, and I'm excited today to talk to y'all about our company's goal to reimagine the future of outdoor spaces.

[00:19:32] Andrea: And here's some of the feedback Kevin and Alex received from the judges:

[00:19:36] Judges: I think you should show the product first, talk about this is why it's different and here's how we got here.

Judges: On that note, maybe mentioning car seat warmers could be a good analogy. So that can help put people on: is this something that sells? Yes, it does. Especially in cars.

Judges: I was left with the presentation not feeling anything. And I think that, you know, when you're in the, the CPG category and your working with consumer products. [00:20:00] Like I look at this and this is a beautiful chair and I just didn't feel anything in the presentations. The way you can bridge that gap either by putting people in the chair or you know, maybe taking out some of the, the analytical component at the beginning. Okay. Will be really helpful.

[00:20:16] Judges: So one other thing I thought about, and I hate for companies to be focused on the exit because you know, you really should focus on customer acquisition and growth, but you know, there's really two options for a next move. You can either get acquired or you can go public. Getting acquired is much easier than going public. Mm-hmm. So, you know, if I'm thinking about it from. You know, an acquisition perspective, who would be your target acquirers? Cause there's so many people that already have chairs that look like this. So incremental value is really only the heating element, not the, the chair.

[00:20:48] Andrea: And we got to speak them right after to hear their thoughts on it.

[00:20:52] Kevin: I think it went pretty well. I mean, we definitely got some feedback that we'll iterate into our next pitch, but overall, I mean, I could see like a lot of excitement from some of the judges. [00:21:00] One of the cool things when we explain our product is you get to see people's like eyes light up and definitely felt that from some of 'em. There wasn't anything that Alex and I can't adjust to tonight. So I think we'll have a long night, but we will, we'll make the changes we need to make to be successful tomorrow.

[00:21:18] Alex: Kevin and I were a little bit long on time, so we'll have to kind of be more concise. A lot of great feedback. It's always interesting hearing what people want teased out a little bit more, or didn't quite capture in the presentation. It's, it's great because Kevin and I have said these words so many times that we kind of forget what a, a set of completely fresh eyes may not pick up on in our presentation.

[00:21:42] Andrea: Ok so recap! It sounds here like Kevin and Alex didn’t actually get as much feedback compared to other teams. But here is what was said: 1. Showing the product first is key, 2. Thinking of an analogy everyone can relate to so that they care more about the product and why it matters, and 3. Thinking about their exit strategy. [00:22:00] Mitch, that was a lot we got through today.

[00:22:06] Mitch: It is. These are some jam-packed days and we're not even done yet. After following our teams through the practice rounds, we finally made it to the end of the day and now to the elevator pitches.

Andrea: 60 seconds to really show who you are and what you’ve got to offer.

Samantha Lewis: What can you say and what's gonna hook us quickly enough to get us to a next meeting?

[00:22:27] Andrea: So, let's hear our team's 60 second elevator pitches...

[00:22:33] Shiv: I'm Shiv from Active Services and we're re-imagining solar. Who here has seen a solar panel? They're around yay big, weigh 50 to 60 pounds, and they're encased in thick glass. Why? They're heavy and flexible. Cas silicon is a ceramic and it's fragile, but what if you thought about solar differently? What if you could click, put solar on any surface and make it active? That's what we do. Our MIT developed technology makes solar panels 120 times lighter. They're thinner than a human hair. [00:23:00] Our beachhead market of commercial warehousing only has 3% of rooftop PV today. That's 300 billion in market potential. Just because it can't handle the weight of solar. Our team is the one to unlock this capability. We are coming from MIT, we have industry leading advisors, we're a part of the best climate tech accelerators in the program, and we have industry researchers helping us. If you can envision a future where any surface is active, then join us.

[00:23:32] Bilal: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Beal Issifou, founder of Unchained Inc. And we are a talent platform, specifically built for companies seeking to engage diverse early career professionals. So I want you to imagine you're a campus recruiter who's eager about recruiting diverse talent. You currently spend your budget on career services and online job platforms, but the issue is 60% of students never visit career services. Of the 40% that do only 14% find it helpful. [00:24:00] 75% of online resumes never make it to a recruiter and amongst diverse candidates, this disparity is higher because 6% of black professionals reported that they didn't secure an internship. 7.9% Hispanic students haven't secured an internship in comparison to 74% of of white early career professionals. We built this platform to help employers connect with more high quality, diverse candidates than other solutions. We do this through our hybrid recruiting model that pairs our platform with in-person engagements to deliver direct qualified candidates to, to companies that seek them. In only two and a half years, we've reached over 15,000 early career professionals. We've worked with 14 Fortune 500 companies, and we've helped over 300 students get connected with corporations interested in them. At Unchained Inc, we make every day a career fair. Thank you.

[00:25:00] Kevin: By a show of hands, how many people here have spent a night sitting around a fire with family and friends? No need to raise your hand on this one, but think about it. How many of those nights ended early because it was too cold outside? The reality is fires bring people together, but they don't necessarily keep you warm. Good evening, everybody. My name is Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living. At Outmore, we believe time spent outdoors is time best spent. Yet 80% of consumers are dissatisfied with their outdoor living spaces, claiming the outdoor furniture is too expensive for its seasonal usage. Outmore living is determined to change that. Born around a fire on a crestfallen night. A simple offhanded comment, I wish our seats were heated, led to a two-year journey that has culminated in us launching the world's first battery powered, heated outdoor furniture. Our patent pending technology and design will forever change the outdoor living industry from backyards to rooftops. We're excited to be leading with our mission to help people connect and be out more. Thank you. [00:26:00]

[00:26:08] Sloane: I woke up this morning to a text from my best friends. She's going through I V F and she's not responding normally, so her doctor has asked her to come in every single day to get her blood drawn to have her monitored. She's a patent attorney, doesn't really have time for that, and also doesn't feel very well while she's going through all this hormone treatment. And I unfortunately know what that's like. I could have avoided two major surgeries if my biomarkers could have been monitored at home after I got hit by a car on my bike, that's why I invented the DIA device. My name's Sloane Tilley and we have a patent pending electrochemical non-invasive sensor. It works with sweat or saliva, and to date, we've already measured hormones, metabolites, neurotransmitters, and electrolytes. We have a team made of myself who I will graduate from Duke Business School actually this weekend, so I'm missing it for y'all. You're welcome. [00:27:00] Along with Electro Chemist and an engineer, if you wanna come get a baseline of your hydration status before we start drinking that delicious wine, come see us. But you probably won't beat the Navy Seals that I was drinking with these past three days at Soft Week. Cheers.

[00:27:20] Andrea: Okay, now we've covered everything that happened on our first day and I'm feeling excited for the next two days. But also really nervous to see what happens and who's going to win. This is just the practice round, we'll be really getting into the competition on the second day where we'll find out if some of our teams make it to semi-finals and hopefully the finals as well. So, the drama is just starting. I mean, now the teams have less than a day to incorporate the feedback they received and change up their pitches for the first round of pitching.

[00:27:52] Mitch: Yeah, and each competitor really needs to know what's do they need, right? So they either they get a good night's rest [00:28:00] or they let the anxiety fuel them and they're up studying super early. I'm definitely in the ladder camp, but either which way, I do not envy them right now.

[00:28:10] Andrea: And since this episode was filled with a ton of helpful feedback from the judges, here are some of the key takeaways from today's episode, and we do mean key, because there was too much info on today’s episode:

Mitch: One. Let's start with presentation skills, because it's one of the most important parts of a pitch competition. It was mentioned a lot by judges because judges want to be wowed and impressed and moved almost like they're seeing Ariana Grande perform for them on stage. So, when we were talking to our teams, we emphasized the importance of being confident, taking up space, not hiding behind a desk, not stuttering, making sure your lines are delivered smoothly. And it was a really great practice round because that's the only way that you're gonna get better and be able to flow seamlessly from one thought to the next.
[00:29:00] Andrea: And make your presentation slides as clear, and concise as possible. Less words are better sometimes.
Andrea: Two. Showing a clear value proposition. What makes you different? Unique? How do you stand out among the competition? Why should investors want to be involved with YOU instead of someone else doing something similar?
Mitch: It's also really important that our teams talk about their total addressable market, or TAM for short. TAM refers to the maximum number of people who could have demand for your product, and the closer you can get it to a billion dollars, the sexier it sounds for venture capitalists because they know that you're not gonna necessarily hit that billion dollars, but they really want the growth and earning potential to work. And so there are a lot of amazing businesses that will do well, but are not necessarily venture backable businesses because their tam cannot, they cannot scale the business enough in order to like really reach a TAM of a billion dollars. So something to think about.
[00:30:00] Mitch: Three. Roadmaps. Communicating where you are, where you're going and how you'll get there as clearly as possible is one of the most important things that you should be able to do as someone pitching at a pitch competition. And also, once you have investment, being able to communicate when you hit roadblocks and where you wanna go, and how do you need help. These skill sets may seem maybe not the most important but that is a prerequisite skill for having any level of investor. They want monthly updates, quarterly updates, yearly updates, and being able to describe your road roadmap and your roadblocks and challenges is, has been really important for me being able to rally my investors behind me.
Andrea: And speaking of that ride, don’t forget about making clear what the structure of their future investments will look like.
Andrea: Four. What’s the risk? What will the challenges look like? How will you mitigate them? It can’t all be rose-colored glasses.
[00:31:00] Mitch: And risk might potentially be one of the key things that investors consider when making the decision of investing or not. And I wouldn't even just say whether it's risky, but more like the founders of ability to recognize risk and come up with mitigation plans. And so when Oya pitched that rice, we had a whole slide that was just dedicated to risks and what our mitigation strategies for all of those risks would be. Investors expect you to get put on your butt, but the more planning that you have flushed out, the more that they feel confident that you're gonna be able to handle whatever life throws at you.

Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

[00:32:00] If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert.

Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:32:42]

Next Generation: Balancing Act

Learn about planning and preparation for pitching your business.

[00:00:05] Bilal: It came fast cause I don't know what it's like, dang, this is the week.

Richard: Now it's like becoming more real that we're going be there in a few days.

Sloane: It's so easy whenever you have so many balls in the air to get overwhelmed and, and start looking down the road of how am I gonna get all these things done?

Alex Duncan: We’re not just there to tell them what they want to hear.

Richard: You'll probably get like a hundred nos before you get a yes.

Sloane: I fully believe that we're the team to be able to, to disrupt this market.

Shiv: We need to make sure we bring our A game.

Bilal: I feel like everybody's gonna be side eyeing each other when they walk into the building. It’s like, oh, this is the, this. Oh, you're the, yeah, it's gonna be real intense.

Sloane: But I think that it's important to go into it and still not take it too seriously.

Richard: It's pure chaos. It just feels like pure chaos.

Shiv: I think that stress is a good thing because I think it, it is gonna push us to work even harder for the next couple days. So we're grateful for it.

Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, [00:01:00] where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And by the end of every episode, we’ll be pointing out key takeaways that will help you wherever you are on your business journey. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:18] Mitch: And I'm your co-host Mitch Gilbert, co-founder of Oya and an ex-Rice Business plan competition winner.

[00:01:24] Andrea: So by now, we understand how the competition will unfold and have met the four teams we will be following through this journey. Today, we wanted to check in and see how our teams are doing just a few days before the competition. The closer we get to the competition, the more nervous I get and I'm not even competing! So I can't imagine what it's like for the competitors.

[00:01:45] Mitch: I think everything was a blur at that phase of my life. There were so many forces and stakeholders and actors, and they're probably in competition season, so it's not exactly like this is the only competition. It's like they have competitions on competitions [00:02:00] and they're probably not sleeping that much in general, so everything's happening at one time and you're just really, you're just holding onto the wheel trying to survive.

[00:02:09] Andrea: And on top of needing to prepare to pitch their hearts out, these teams are still running a business. So they've got a lot going on and a lot that could happen that can affect their pitch. Like seriously, some of the teams are doing some really cool - but time-consuming – things. Before we get into that, I found out that the competitors receive anonymous feedback from the judges on their pitches before they even get to Rice in person. Here’s Bilal from Unchained explaining how he's been feeling lately and the feedback process.

[00:02:42] Bilal: I'm at a point where it's just like uncertainty is the only thing I'm worried about right now. Cause it's like, I'm excited for the opportunity. I don't really like to psych myself out with worry because I'm an over thinker, so as soon as I start worrying about one thing, I'm gonna worry about like three more things. I like to just keep a,a clear scope of like, okay, you know, this is the target, this is the goal. This is the week. [00:03:00] Let's, let's make it through the week. Take it day by day.

So like the cool thing about the competition is like when we had our final business plan submissions. So essentially, I guess like the judges do preliminary review of the content you shared and like they sent back feedback. So they give you obviously the good feedback. Areas of improvement and things that they had questions about. So that you could change, either make adjustments to your deck or be prepared to answer those questions during the competition. So it was that, that I wasn't expecting. So it was like one of those good surprises.

They were really impressed with the traction that we've been able to make thus far. They really understood, like the space that we were in and like the work that we were doing. So like on the positive side, like everything that I believed was a strength to, like our business was a strength to them. And then on the other end like the gist of it was like, like it was hard for them to follow because there was a lot of different things that were going on and into account. So like when I'm. I guess delivering it. My job is to make sure everything is clear cut and like the information on the slides is just supporting [00:04:00] versus like the actual supplemental, like the actual details themselves so.

Over the weekend and like early last week, I had like that, you know, that weird feeling of anxiety. It's like, it's like when things are getting closer and you know you're prepping, but you don't know how much more prep you need type of thing. I was stuck in that weird like, I guess creative funk where I'm like, do I have it all? Am I good? Do I need to do anything else but receiving like the, the judge email yesterday where it was feedback. It was like, okay, something. Cause I'm just sitting here like, okay, time is ticking. Like it's time to get things on with like, am I ready? Did I miss anything? But I'll take it back to sports where it's like game day, you have to dress up and you know, it's game day like that. I'm in that mood now where it's like, all right, I'm ready.

[00:04:41] Andrea: Bilal sounds pumped. And hopefully he is able to go in with the right edits based on judge’s feedback because Unchained has a lot on the line according to Bilal.

[00:04:52] Bilal: I win this competition. My conversations with other VCs are gonna be a lot different because, you know, I've raised some form of capital. So for me, this is a stake of independence for my company. [00:05:00] Saying that, hey, we may not go to conventional route of, you know, going to the accelerator and giving X amount of the company or, you know, going to a VC and kind of like giving away all your rights type of thing.

[00:05:11] Andrea: Mitch how important is it for a business to raise capital at this part of their journey?

[00:05:17] Mitch: I think it depends on the type of business you have. There are certain business models where you don't necessarily need as much capital and you can kind of hit the ground running and you can sell finance and get your own nine to five and some people would argue that's a great way to go because you can grow at your own pace, you don't have so many stakeholders or investors. But I think for a team like, Active Surfaces, it makes a lot of sense, right? Because it's something you need to manufacture. It requires a lot of R and D. It's like heavy industrial. Even Dia, like you need to be able to spin a significant amount of capital in just building these devices. [00:06:00] But I think the amount that of capital that's a requirement varies based on like your r and d needs and what you need to get to go to market.

[00:06:09] Andrea: And I wanna quickly go back to something else Bilal said: that pitching to a client isn’t like pitching to an investor. Mitch, could you tell us a little bit more about that from your experience?

[00:06:20] Mitch: My philosophy is when everyone talks to you, they should feel emotional, like emotionally, like amped up, like they got something from the conversation. I think I read that Presidents win based off of the beer test, like, would you go drink a beer with them? People's ability to see themselves hanging out with you is very important, whether they are an investor or a customer. I think our direct-to-consumer business is a little bit different than like say a B2B or like retail business because retail, I have a longer lead time. I can talk to you. I have a, a buyer. I've built all this relationship, et cetera, [00:07:00] versus like direct to consumer is where I'm trying to like build that camaraderie through social media.

And then that's different than an investor where it's like I'm trying to build that relationship and that camaraderie through a pitch deck and through rounds where you've given me feedback and hopefully you feel like I've grown. And so I think my ultimate goal is the same with all of those stakeholders, but the way I build it is different depending upon the stakeholder.

[00:07:28] Andrea: That makes a lot of sense. I'm sure I heard about the beer test a while back, and I'm curious to see how the teams make the judges and investors feel when they're pitching their ideas. So I also wanted to hear what some of the other teams felt about the feedback they received. Let’s check in with Outmore Living and see how they've been feeling as the competition approaches:

[00:07:48] Kevin Long: I would say overall we're both probably really excited. So on my end, I graduated on Friday. I just had my parents and in-laws in town that left yesterday. So it's been really busy, [00:08:00] both prepping for graduation, graduating and now getting ready for Rice. And then, on another personal front, my wife and I’s honeymoon is May 13th. So it's the Saturday of Rice we leave for Paris and we already talked to the judges before, cuz if we do make the finals we have to go first cuz I have get in a car to drive back to Austin to catch a flight. And a little insight into my wife and I’s dynamics, I'm not that nervous about it, but she's very nervous about it, me missing the flight.

[00:08:32] Alex Duncan: And if, as if that wasn't enough on the Outmore team, just under two weeks ago, April 27th, my wife and I welcomed a new baby girl, our third child into the world. She's doing great. Mom's doing great. Sleep is overrated. And so that that has thrown, you know, just a, just an exciting wrench into Kevin and I’s like ability to prepare and coordinate and find time.

[00:08:56] Andrea: That sounds like a lot to juggle.

[00:09:00] Mitch: Yeah, I really admire entrepreneurs who have systems and those that have really strong teams. And when I see certain founders really being successful, they have so many systems for things and they're not the ones doing everything. That being said, there are a lot of founders who do everything. You make the decision as a founder of like, what type of lifestyle is it that you wanna live? I enjoy working hard, I enjoy growing. I also enjoy working with a very solid team where you can delegate.

[00:09:35] Andrea: And just like Bilal, Alex and Kevin also received anonymous feedback from the judges, but their reaction to it was slightly different.

[00:09:42] Alex Duncan: It's so valuable, right? To get that. But one of the things Kevin and I struggle with is specifically to Outmore’s, you know, we see this as a pretty blue ocean, right? And there's a lot of dependent paths that Outmore can take in the future. And the more people we talk to about this, some of them have very valid [00:10:00] potential business models for Outmore like that they think would be best that Kevin and I usually have deliberated, right. Licensing, partnering with others, you know, all these sorts of like, ideas that Kevin and I have discussed ad nauseam for a lot of 'em. And if there's that disagreement on like the best business model. That sort of like high level disagreement on the best business model going forward. Then sometimes the subsequent feedback is not as helpful as it would be otherwise. But in terms of like the specifics of like, this is what I want to see here. This is more detail. Spell this out more. I'm confused by this. That specific feedback is, immensely valuable as Kevin and I prepare.

[00:10:44] Kevin Long: The only thing worse than making the wrong decision is not making a decision. And so, you know, what we've done as we've built our business model and gotten ready to launch in the market is put our heads down on this is the right path forward, but also give us optionality to pivot if we get [00:11:00] in the market and find out, hey, you know, the customer we thought was the biggest, isn't the biggest, and this is a bigger opportunity. Or the actual product, the way that we're bringing it to market has a bigger opportunity if we do X. So I think it's important to, at a certain point, draw a line in the sand and, and just go forward, but also give yourself optionality to pivot if you make the wrong mistake.

[00:11:20] Alex Duncan: We're not just there to tell them what they want to hear. Right. This is Kevin and I portraying our plan to how to, how to make Outmore a billion-dollar company. And invariably there's gonna be, there's gonna be differing opinions on that.

[00:11:32] Kevin Long: When you're creating a product that's in a market that largely doesn't exist yet, you're like building the market essentially. It may be to some judges or, or advisors simpler to just license our tech or partner with other groups. Sure. But we, for us to really go after what we think could be a billion-dollar opportunity, it, it would be to create a brand.

And we want to at least try with that first. And if we find out that's un undoable, then we'll pivot. But we think the opportunity is big enough to go after.

[00:12:00] Andrea: Okay so Alex and Kevin raise an interesting point here. Feedback from other experienced people is invaluable but what do you do if you feel like the feedback isn’t as helpful as you expected it to be? Will you get penalized for not implementing the feedback given to you? So I decided to ask Heath Butler, one of the judges at the competition about the feedback they give to the competitors.

[00:12:20] Heath Butler: Feedback's so critical and really good feedback could be so valuable, but you want to make sure you're being thoughtful and supportive. Once I've seen the pitch and then I see that company again in a subsequent round, I'm really impressed with those that make major changes to their deck based on the feedback they've received. Whether I give it to 'em or I've overheard somebody else give 'em that feedback. That helps me understand that they're coachable and that's a great sign to most investors. We want to make sure that we are working with someone that will apply the feedback. It's also important though that judges don't penalize teams unnecessarily [00:13:00] when they disagree or don't take their feedback. As investors, we're not always right, and it was just a suggestion based on our experience of what we believe.

[00:13:10] Andrea: Coachability is something that Mitra, another judge at the competition talked about as well.

[00:13:16] Mitra: Coachability is that incredibly important intangible characteristic of a team where they can listen to thoughtful feedback, evaluate it, sift through it, and figure out what to apply to their strategy going forward and what they shouldn't. It is the opposite of arrogance. It is a willingness to listen and pivot when needed for the betterment of the company.

[00:13:47] Andrea: So, in a situation where you know what’s best for your company, or at least you think you do, especially because it’s your baby and you know it inside and out… how do you balance this coachability with knowing what’s right. [00:14:00] Mitch, what are your thoughts on balancing this based on your experience with Oya?

[00:14:05] Mitch: I have wonderful investors. No one really explicitly tells me what to do or yells at me. Sometimes they express disappointment, but that's normally when I was moderately off the rails, not like about my decisions about the business. And sometimes they'll give me feedback and I'll be like, I don't wanna listen to this. And sometimes that feedback will come back almost a year later, and bite me in the butt and they'll just be like, I'm happy you came to this decision. And that's something that's happening right now. And I would say whether you wanna listen to that feedback or not should be influenced by whether you want that specific person's money or not. And I think sometimes founders get so obsessed with just like money, but like there's a relationship connected with it. But for me, [00:15:00] I would say I'm probably a really coachable founder and my investors really appreciate that, but that's because I was really intentional about the people I brought onto my cap table and making sure that those are people I wanted to listen to.

[00:15:09] Andrea: And do you have any advice for people who might be struggling to reject feedback politely?

[00:15:16] Mitch: I think underrepresented founders actually get in a trap of trying to sound so polite all the time. And that's not how you win and that's not what winners are focused on. I read a book from Kobe's personal trainer about what it takes to go from good to like unstoppable and a lot of winners are not looking at people around them for answers. They are going based off of their gut. They are using their own data. They are grinding it out. They are leading people around them. They are pushing people, taking as much data as they can, and finding the people who they wanna listen to. When you look at people who are like just groundbreakingly innovative. They don't care. Don't get me wrong, being coachable is really important, but I've seen what I do my own coaching and I'm showing up with my own data and being like, these are all the ways that I suck. Can you help me get better at this? That is received very well, and that's very different than being like, I'm in my ego. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't wanna listen to you, X, Y, and Z. [00:17:00] I'm not saying go in that direction, but if you feel like you're, going in a direction, and you're winning, and you are pulling in the people who excite you, and you are passionate about that, then why do you care If you're polite, and maybe that's controversial.

[00:17:18] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. [00:18:00] One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:18:24] Andrea: Okay, now up next, let’s check in with Dia!

[00:18:28] Sloane: I am attending Special Operation Forces week down in Tampa, Florida. So demoing our technology and meeting some high up CEOs in special ops, but I'll fly to Houston on Thursday morning. It's a combination of excited and nervous. It's going straight from this conference week into the business plan. I do not have as much time to practice or hone the pitch as I would like, but this was a really exciting opportunity to potentially go ahead and get on some contracts. So as, as a startup founder, [00:19:00] you make it happen. And I think that regardless of what happens in the competition aspect, we've been able to really hone our business plan, gotten a lot of really good feedback. So even if it stops now the experience has been really valuable, so trying to focus on that positive.

[00:19:15] Julio: You can tell there's a lot of judges technical background, which is great they're making very technical questions which it's always to me a good sign. Means there's sophisticated investors who have seen at startups like us and they have reasonable concerns this is a saturated space and there's there's plenty of failed, startups to talk about, so they have valid concerns and this gives us a very good chance to sort of like, stand out from the crowd and explain why what we're doing is different and better than what people done before and, and how we're benefiting from all that knowledge of prior startups that failed to sort of like take us over the edge. They have some sophistication and that means that it's gonna be way more interesting when we're up in front pitching and they have questions. Well, that's just gonna let us shine.

[00:20:00] Sloane: I need to get the deck finished. So that's, that's one part that I'm stressing about. We, we are taking this seriously. I mean, we're a very lean team. We're, we're three co-founders. And so really the day is, is what fire needs to be put out right now. In some ways it's going to be harder to pitch as two people because if I get off my script a little bit, I can sort of bring myself back because I've done this pitch, not this exact pitch, but I know my slides, I sort of know the talking points, but switching off between two people and having those two different cadences and still being able to engage your audience and tell a story. I think that that just makes it a lot harder. Like you're creating this story and you're taking the audience along with you, but then you also need to be in sync with another person and that adds a whole other dimension to it.

I've had to get a lot of coaching and practice also in making the pitch more relatable, making it more dynamic. And so I think that what Rice has done in sort of forcing us to do this, because we probably, once again, limited amount of hours, [00:21:00] probably wouldn't have done it. I think we've all had a lot of improvement in sort of our communication of what our vision of this business is, and also being able to answer succinctly in a way that we're conveying what we mean, but we're not just like overloading people with information because as scientists and engineers, that's what you like to do. You like to be like, oh, you wanna know more? Like I'm going to give you all the data.

[00:21:27] Julio: At this point you did, you either did the work or you didn't. And your competition either did the work or they didn't. And you have to be able to trust yourself and your team and your work and realize that, look, if it's enough, it's enough. I'm gonna do my best. If it's not, well congratulations to the guy that did even more work, did it even better. It's not on my hands like what was up to me, I did as best could. I'm gonna respect that by trusting myself.

[00:21:52] Andrea: Sloan and Julio are also both scientists and their product is pretty complex. They both said that they had to work on their communication because they didn’t want to overload the judges [00:22:00] and investors with information but they also want to make sure they understand their product. So Mitch, how did you balance that?

[00:22:09] Mitch: Well, I think that is part of your job as a founder raising capital. Recently I was on a panel with one, an with an investor, and he straight up like, I don't expect you to be normal. I don't expect you to do normal things. I expect you to be extraordinary, I expect you to make magic happen. And those are what you find investors for. And if you're struggling to make magic, then you're gonna find it hard to find investors. Steve Jobs was able to explain an iPhone with like five slides and just having the iPhone in his hand and talking about a broad vision. There are many examples of technical founders who have explained very complicated physical products by actually coming in and like showing innovation, showing things,

showing packaging, like just putting like ideas together [00:23:00] in a way that's easy for people to follow, but then also bakes into this bigger vision. If you're struggling with that, I would say maybe that's where you need some coaching to help you be able to tell that story.

[00:23:18] Andrea: And now, last but definitely not least. Let’s see how Active Surfaces is doing.

[00:23:22] Shiv: We're super excited and nervous at the same time, which is a crazy feeling. Because we, like we've been spending hours and hours talking through the deck, thinking about how to tell this story properly. But at the same time, we're excited to go, like, see the other competitors, see the judges. We got feedback yesterday from some of the judges for our business plan. So it is like a lot of information trying to process all at the same time.

[00:23:47] Richard: It just feels like pure chaos. because you're still trying to build a business in addition to doing the business plan competition. So like, we were in Milan last week actually trying to do like, like actual business. [00:24:00] And we'd do like 12-hour days and get back and be like, we gotta do this presentation. Um, and then we flew back and I've been a little jet lagged and the whole day has just been trying to polish, trying to get feedback, trying to, to do it.

[00:24:15] Shiv: So we have to do a lot of prep to make sure when the judges ask me really tough, really technical questions that we're ready to, to provide all the right answers. Some of the main section of the feedback some of the strengths they saw and some of the, the gaps that they want to see closed. So we see a lot of good pathways for success. But at the same time, the feedback had a lot of things that we need to work on, which is good. Cause we need to hear these things and we need to work on them actively. Like what are our exit strategies? And those are some deep questions.

[00:24:40] Richard: It's a weird question to be asked or a comment to have for exit, especially because, we operate in the built environment. We operate in building infrastructure. The average exit timeline for startups in that zone right now is like 10 to 12 years. It's so long that like, it's, hard to even have certainty on what that's gonna look like.

[00:25:00] Shiv: How do we get pilots on board in the next two years? Who are those people? What is our strategy to get them? How do we get the technology vetted before then? How much funding do you need to get there? And a lot of those questions we have answers to. But maybe the learning from that is like, how do we tell the story in a way where people walk away, like just understanding what they need to understand as opposed to leaving with questions. And I think that goes down to the storytelling piece.

[00:25:28] Richard: It's a lot of pressure too because now that the competition's public, some people have looked us up and like see that we're in the business plan competition. And some - I really hope this doesn't happen, but if it, we have like a lot of pressure to do well, I think. And I think some of it's contingent on like people working with us to some extent.

[00:25:47] Shiv: As we prepare for this, I have to keep reminding myself that regardless of what happens, in the grand scheme of like building a multi-year business, this is just like one of the many steps that we need to do to get there. So if this goes well, that's great. If it doesn't go well, [00:26:00] then it's okay and we'll continue thriving and surviving. Getting every judge to like you or every VC to invest in you. Like that's not really the goal. It's okay if some of the judges don't believe us, or it's okay if some of the VCs don't invest in us, cuz you only need so many people around the table.

[00:26:16] Andrea: You know, Richard brought up a good point about how public the competition is and how investors might be basing their opinions of your company based on how well you perform there. What are your thoughts on that Mitch?

[00:26:28] Mitch: Pictures are very public. These live forever, and I have an interesting anecdote, like I once did a pitch competition at SoFi Stadium like they brought me in, in retrospect as a diversity candidate because they didn't have any women and it was a sports business plan competition, which is awkward cuz then you think to yourself, there are no women in sports in la, no startups. That's not even statistically likely. They only had one woman judge out of like five, six judges, [00:27:00] and they had pre-selected who the winner was gonna be before the pitch competition even started. But I didn't know any of that. And so, I went in and I just pitched the best I could pitch, and I did a really great job and it made things very uncomfortable for everybody involved and they got booed.

And I cried and it was terrible. And I was like, wow. I had never felt that way on stage, but it happened to me. And even to this day, I continue to meet people who met me through that pitch competition and they're like, they did you really terribly. And I'm like, I know. And it's, and it's uncomfortable because that's not how you wanna be remembered. But at the same

time, I gave a memorable performance, and I had even last week, somebody reached out about a potential partnership, which is like a business that's doing like seven figures. And they saw the pitch and they were like, we're thinking about partnering with you, like da, da, da, da, da. And so, [00:28:00] It is public, but you do the best that you can do and just know that you cannot always control how judges wanna see you or treat you, especially if you're underrepresented. But that doesn't mean that the people in the audience won't have favorable impressions of you.

[00:28:17] Andrea: Shiv and Richard also said that the feedback they got was asking about their exit strategy. And Richard pointed out that it’s a little difficult to plan something that probably won’t happen for another 10 to 12 years. And maybe they never plan on exiting the company. It’s crazy to me that they have to consider something like this right now.

[00:28:37] Mitch: If you wanna venture backed, business and extra strategy is important again, versus a business model where you own all your equity and or maybe you want a lot of control over the business. I think. It's as if most things are venture capital. You kind of lick your finger and put it in the wind and it is your best guess for what would make the most sense. [00:29:00] I think having businesses with clear exit strategies probably get invested in more though.

[00:29:03] Andrea: And that’s all our teams! It sounds like they’re already gaining a lot from the RBPC, buuut I really hope some of them at least get some money.

[00:29:15] Mitch: I'm rooting for everybody to win. I think we have a lovely bunch of humans and their ideas sound great. It's very diverse. I think we did a great job picking our candidates and I hope they definitely win money. I hope they take takeaways. I hope they grow from this experience and I hope Texas is good to them.

[00:29:34] Andrea: And we’re just getting started! In a few days our competitors will finally be pitching in front of the judges. And I can’t wait to hear what they’ve all come up with!

[00:29:42] Mitch: I've never seen a competition in person, so I'm excited just to see what that looks like.

[00:29:47] Andrea: On our next episode, we’ll be attending the first day of the Rice Business Plan Competition talking to the teams there, the judges, and the organizers. And we’ll finally get to hear everyone’s full 15-minute and 60-second pitches. [00:30:00] I’m so excited! But until then, here are some of the key takeaways that we’ve learned today.

1. Mitch: One. So when you're pitching to a customer, whether that be B2B or direct to consumer, they have different foci and they're really focused on how the product will make them feel. Versus pitching to an investor who's really focused on how this is gonna help them make money and get them to an exit. And so it's important to think about all of those, their drivers and how they're different. And do storytelling and practicing with a partner to help you get the different pitches.

2. Andrea: Two. Startups with clear exit strategies in their pitches might have a better time fundraising because investors understand immediately how they will get their money back. So this is something to consider including in your business plan even if it’s further down the road.

3. Mitch: Three. I think when you're coaching, when you're practicing pitching, it's very important that you're looking at your feedback and your rubric, [00:31:00] and you are trying to hit as many of those categories out of the park on your rubric as you possibly can, given all the feedback that you have. Practice, pitching with people who've been through experiences like this before and people who don't like you who've also had experiences like this before. And I think that's how you get stronger.

[00:31:20] Andrea: Mitch. I’m feeling good about where our teams are so far. Especially their mindsets going into this.

[00:31:25] Mitch: Excited to see our company's pitch and evolve.

[00:31:30] Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a

review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

[00:32:00] If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert.

Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:32:35]

Next Generation: Unveiling the Contenders (part two)

Meet our next two teams: Active Surfaces and Dia.

[00:00:04] Sloan: I'm gonna be honest and say I'm feeling a little bit nervous ahead of Rice going into it. I didn't know how big of a deal this competition was, but the caliber of the other companies that are represented is amazing.

[00:00:16] Shiv: And it's also about telling that story, right? Because we need to pitch it slightly differently to, to truly unlock or to really show people that we can unlock that level of market potential.

[00:00:24] Richard: It's one thing giving a 20-minute presentation that includes a lot of well thought financials. It's another thing trying to distill all of that down into just a minute or two.

[00:00:34] Shiv: And we're spending so many hours thinking about this and modeling things and estimating things and having to summarize all of those hours and hours of work into a couple minutes at most it needs to be very thoughtful and we're trying to be as thoughtful as possible.

[00:00:50] Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes as they try to win the Rice Business Plan Competition. [00:01:00] You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And if you’re a This is Small Business listener, you know that I love pointing out all the key takeaways by the end of each episode and I’ll be doing the same here! I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:18] Mitch: And I'm your co-host, Mitch Gilbert, the CEO and co-founder of Oya femtech Apparel, and a former Rice Business Plan competitor.

[00:01:25] Andrea: So far, we’ve talked about the prize money AKA 350 thousand dollars at stake that could totally change the game for your business. No pressure.

[00:01:35] Mitch: And we also explain how the competition works. The competition gets a practice round on the first day where they get feedback from the judges and then they go through three rounds of pitching eliminations over the course of the next two days. No pressure again.

[00:01:48] Andrea: On our last episode we introduced you to two of our four teams, Unchained and Outmore Living and in this episode, we’ll be looking at our two other contenders: Active Surfaces and DIA. [00:02:00] But first I was curious to see what might turn some of the judges away from voting for our competitors. Because I think it’s equally important to know what not to do when you’re trying to get someone to invest in your business via pitching.

[00:02:15] Pilar: I think having a overall vision for your company and for a overall roadmap for your product is important. But what I, I don't expect you to spend too much time on is expansion, right? Sometimes you'll listen to a pitch and they're already sharing their plan to, you know, go global and we wanna do, you know, we wanna start here and then we're gonna go to this state and then this country.

And, and it's, it's great that they have that vision, but what we wanna see as investors and as judges is that you have a solid strategy early on to accomplish your goals in one, you know, specific area and then expand as it makes sense and, [00:03:00] and not just jump around too many places without truly understanding the user and getting that user feedback to, you know, tweak your product and figure out, you know, different features for it and then expand. So sometimes I think founders get a little ahead of themselves and that can hurt the pitch versus helping.

[00:03:22] Andrea: After hearing Pilar say this, I had A LOT of questions because you’d think investors would want to know how well your company is going to do in the long run right? And that’s actually one of the things that Mitra, another Judge at the Rice Business Plan Competition is keeping an eye out for:

[00:03:40] Mitra: Investability. Is this a company into which I and other investors are willing to put our money? And Investability really comes down to four key things. Is this the right product at the right time? Is it being delivered by the right team? And do they have the right backing. Each one of those really unpacks to a lot underneath it, [00:04:00] but each one is critical to success. And without any one of those four, it's not investible. Second of all, I wanna know that this is a product or a service and a company that can both scale and grow massively across the country, and that can get to some sort of an exit within the next five to 10 years. We prefer five years, but 10 years is certainly sometimes what we see.

[00:04:28] Andrea: So, Mitch, what do you think? What exactly should you be focusing on when you’re planning your roadmap to make it more appealing to investors? Does the information you choose to include in your roadmap depend on the investors/judges you present to?

[00:04:42] Mitch: So investors are not customers, right? So now that I have been in business, I have a slightly more nuanced version. So investors just wanna see that you have a plan and that you're aware of where certain things can trip you up. And where you may need help. [00:05:00] And then they also wanna see that you have a budget where you can allocate money towards all these different parts of your plan, regardless of whether your business is actually executed in that fashion or not, because they expect a lot of things to pivot into change in real life. I would say, um, looking back in my initial roadmap, what I wish I would've included, Were the people in the skillsets that I needed in order to execute all pieces of my roadmap. Uh, I have a problem where I can do almost anything. Like literally, if you told me to get a rocket and like I worked at like SpaceX and like get it to Mars, fine. And I'm a hard enough worker that like, I'll figure it out. Whereas most employees do not work like that, or most people are not like that. And so I wish that I would've been more intentional about thinking who I needed on my team to execute each piece of my roadmap, because not everyone is like myself.

[00:06:00] Andrea: And in a competition like the Rice Business Plan Competition, where the judges and investors may be looking for different things, how do you create a pitch that's going to appeal to them all? Do you do research the judges beforehand in order to better know how to pitch to them?

[00:06:15] Mitch: I once read on LinkedIn, a, a pretty successful founder posted. I didn't realize as a CEO that I'd be responsible for making so many pitch decks. So you have pitch decks that you give to your investors, pitch decks that you give to customers, pitch decks that you give to employees, partners, B2B partners, et cetera. So you may be the same person or the same startup, but the way you communicate. Is going to be different to all of these groups and the faster that you realize that the more successful you are going to be as a startup. And so we did our due diligence. Who is in the room? We knew that there was a lot of oil money. [00:07:00] And so we took all of that feedback in when thinking about how we were going to create a memorable pitch. And I said, I'm, I really pray that all of our founders are doing the same.

[00:07:08] Andrea: Okay, now that we have a better grasp on the competition and what some of the judges are looking for, let’s meet our teams, starting with Active Surfaces!

[00:07:18] Shiv: This is Shiv from Active Surfaces. We're an early-stage spinout that's re-imagining the way we think about solar with our groundbreaking ultra-thin film, flexible solar technology, our IP developed here at M-I-T can unlock terawatts of solar energy by making any surface active in a way never before possible. Our team is led by Richard, who's an M I T PhD graduate and an expert in energy innovation. He actually invented a lot of the tech that goes into what we're making. Khalid an MBA candidate, MIT, and who's also gonna be pitching with me in Houston is leading the development of our go-to-market strategy, trying to figure out how do we get this to the world.

[00:08:00] And I'm Shiv an MS MBA student here with over five years of experience in the energy sector at Exxon and the DOE. My job is all about sales. How do I get the right investors on board? How do I get the customers excited about this and how do I get the right team members to come out and help us build the future?

Our main concern right now that's like on my mind is striking the right balance between conveying the huge potential of this technology and focusing on a strategic beachhead market. Because we believe that this can actually revolutionize solar. It can change the way we think about it. Any surface can be solar. So if you have something that's a hundred times lighter than the solar panels we know, and you can make it flexible, then what does that unlock? What are our go-to market? What are our sales channels? And the way we're trying to solve this is through a ton of customer discovery. Khalid is hard at work. Organizing meetings with the REITs, real estate investment trust, solar installers, large asset owners, and deepening our understanding of how this works. [00:09:00] What is the sales channel? What are their pain points? How can we add unique value and solve the problems they're experiencing in the field today? That's the only way to truly understand this, is to talk to these people and have conversations, and that's what we're focusing on.

Our game plan is twofold. First, we're gonna focus on perfecting our pitch. We're gonna revamp the slide deck, understand all the general pieces that go into it. Getting mentorship from all the awesome professors and mentors that have offered to spend their valuable time guiding people like us, just because they believe in the vision too. And second, our game plan is to make the most of this opportunity. There's gonna be an awesome community of people here. There's gonna be investors in the crowd. There's gonna be other awesome founders working on cool problems that we wanna connect with. Cause this is an ecosystem. And if we can help each other succeed, we can help build the future together.

[00:09:48] Andrea: Okay, so Shiv said that their main concern is:

[00:09:56] Shiv: …striking the right balance between conveying the huge potential of this technology and focusing on a strategic beachhead market.

[00:10:00] Andrea: Mitch, can you tell me what beachhead means?

[00:10:08] Mitch: It’s a term that comes from war, like the Battle of Normandy, and this idea that if you can capture the beach, you can capture the island. And so you'll send a lot of people and soldiers to die, but you'll capture that beach and then from there you'll be able to advance as a military.

[00:10:30] Andrea: That’s so interesting. When you were pitching Oya to the judges at the Rice Business Plan Competition, how were you able to do that?

[00:10:36] Mitch: Being an underrepresented founder who's woman presenting, we already know that judges are more likely to ask us questions around implementation and about risks as opposed to big picture. So I think it's good that his brain is going this direction because he is an underrepresented founder, and that is where a lot of underrepresented founders get tripped up.

[00:11:00] I think you do though, have to say big numbers at the front to make that sexy. And so what I would say is RPBC gives you a framework. So they're like, these are all the slides that you need to have in your pitch, and I think it's making sure that you have a slide that addresses each of the sections that it says that you need to have in the pitch. So you have a slide that talks about big potential, et cetera, and gives a really big, investors love the number billion, so like the more billions you can put in the deck around your target market, it's great. But then you also have a very detailed and yet simple to understand slides speaking on how you'll capture your beachhead and how you'll grow.

[00:11:45] Andrea: And I also really like how they’re approaching the competition – that they’re looking forward to meeting the other competitors because then even if they lose, they still benefited from meeting other founders that could help them along their own journey. This is something that Detara Williams, co-founder of Darlyng & Co. [00:12:00] mentions on episode 15 of This is Small Business. She gives a lot of advice on funding your small business and pitching. One of the things she advises everyone to do in a pitch competition is network because then, even if you lose, you still walk out of the competition with something.

[00:12:18] Mitch: I think that's critical. You can meet investors, you can meet advisors, you can meet potential partners, and so it's really important. It's exhausting because it's multiple days where you're in a different city, but that you're on and that you're receptive to all of the energy that people want to give you.

[00:12:40] Andrea: I’m so excited to see what Active Surfaces pitch is gonna sound like but for now… let’s meet DIA.

[00:12:45] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, [00:13:00] in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:13:56] Sloan: DIA aims to revolutionize the realm of healthcare by making point of care non-invasive sensors [00:14:00] that measure many molecules crucial to mental and physical health through saliva and sweat. Currently, my co-founder, Julio and I, are hard at work building out our pitch deck in order to try to not bore you in Houston in a few weeks. Rice is a little different for us from other pitch events we've done because it's the first time that Julio and I are pitching together and because the Rice pitch event is a lot longer, 15 minutes from the other events I've done. On the one hand, this is great because it allows us to share more about what makes DIA's technology truly capable of disrupting the biomarker testing market, but it's also a lot more content to keep track of and prep ahead of the competition.

Currently I'm in the process of writing out our script, which I never follow exactly, but it's always really good to have in mind for longer presentations. I actually sometimes record myself practicing and play it back to myself on my runs just to help me get it in my head. While I'm a scientist by training, I've spent the past six years working in scaling and startup tech companies and will graduate with my global executive MBA from Duke in May. [00:15:00] So at DIA, while I understand our science. My role is really to handle the business end of things, financials, strategy, operations, and Julio handles the chemistry. Julio is an absolute brilliant electric chemist, currently finishing his PhD jointly between Tech de Monterey, and Mexico and Purdue.

We also have a third co-founder, Fernando, who is an engineer handling the mechanics, electronics, and app integration with both Julio and I being trained as scientists, the feedback that we usually get about our pitches is that we are too technical, so I'm definitely worried that our Rice presentation might lean that way as well. We are working with a lot of our advisors and mentors to sharpen up our presentation into a true pitch that hopefully investors will find compelling.

[00:15:43] Andrea: This is exciting. So DIA is doing two things right. Consulting mentors and practicing. I love that she’s recording herself as she practices, that’s such a good tip!

[00:15:55] Mitch: I think it's important to practice at other pitch plan competitions [00:16:00] before you get to Rice, because if rice is your first competition, it can be really intimidating. You're like all these people, all these competitors, there's a lot going on, lots of critical feedback. So it's important to get some reps under your belt. And I would say it's even more important not to practice by yourself or like recording like yes, we did that at some point to make sure that we had lighting and all of that stuff, right? But I practiced in front of people. I practiced in front of people who didn't like me. I practiced in front of people who were advocates. I practiced in people who weren't interested in investing in my vertical. I've practiced in front of people who have succeeded at what I wanted to do before. And so getting all those different types of feedback really helped me create a compelling case. And I would say in between rounds. At Rice specifically, I went through all the feedback in the notes and the day of right after my pitch, and then I would try to implement as many of them as I could, and then I got more feedback to change everything. And then the next morning I practice again [00:17:00] with the notes and updates that we had, and then I kept practicing until I felt like I had something good going into that day of competition.

[00:17:10] Andrea: I am a little worried about their pitches being too technical because they sound like complicated products. Explaining it is super important but making sure you’re able to deliver it in a way that’s easy to understand and interesting is even more important, right. It doesn’t matter how good your product is if you can’t explain it well. Here’s what Pilar, one of the RBPC judges, had to say about delivering your pitch:

[00:17:35] Pilar: A lot of times you're nervous and you're trying to quickly go through your slides that you don't want to just sound, you know, monotone and just kind of going through the motions. You really wanna show the judges, Hey, this is something that I really care about, that I'm passionate about, that I'm dedicated to. And you really wanna let your personality show through that pitch, it really makes a difference.

[00:18:00] Andrea: I think when it comes to technical and complicated products like DIA’s it’s difficult to do that. So can you talk to me about your experience of integrating your personal story to the Oya story so that it resonates with more people?

[00:18:12] Mitch: Yeah, I really resonate with Dia, not just because they too have a complicated product, but also, Sloan is an underrepresented founder and so is Julio. And when you're underrepresented, it's easy for investors to get lost in the gray areas. So it's really important that what you're communicating emotionally resonates with the audience that you're talking to, and that they're able to somehow find truth into what you're saying. And so while working on my Rice Pitch, it was very

important to me every round to take in the feedback to understand what exactly were judges hearing and what they were not hearing. And so that way I was able to recalibrate every round and get a lot more effective. [00:19:00] I was also embarrassed to really talk about my story. When we first started rice. I was like, yeah, yeast infections, nebulous and like add all these statistics. And by the end I was like my own story and it required a lot of bravery for me, but it again helped me better emotionally connect with judges.

[00:19:20] Andrea: That’s great advice Mitch. So the Rice Business Plan Competition also has a 60 second elevator pitch in addition to the 15-minute pitch. And that's a huge difference in time. So what's the difference between them. And as a competitor, how do you make sure you're including enough information in both pitches while respecting the time given to you?

[00:19:45] Mitch: Yeah, I think it's cuz the judges are looking for different things and as a founder, that's part of your job. The purpose between those two pitches and their length though are very different. So the 60 second pitch is, as a founder, can you succinctly [00:20:00] explain how you're different and how can you carry the energy of a room? And so that's really a test to be like, can you be an Ariana Grande? Like, will people listen to you? And I think that's the 60 second pitch. The 15-minute pitch is a lot more in the nuts and bolts and is really trying to understand how does your business work? Do you understand the risks? Do you have the right team in place to mitigate those risks? And also that's where you start getting feedback on your actual business model from the judges and around areas that you can improve. So I think both of them are very helpful.

[00:20:37] Andrea: And do you have any advice on how our competitors should handle each pitch?

[00:20:42] Mitch: Yeah, 60 seconds. You just wanna sound fun, like, you wanna sound intriguing, right? Like you wanna create some sort of like emotional response where someone's like, oh, I remember this person. And that's so important when you only have 60 seconds. So like, could you clearly articulate the idea? Were you memorable? [00:21:00] Are you differentiated? And can you somehow defend your differentiation? As for the 15-minute pitch, I think that's where it's really important for you to look at the rubric and actually make sure that you're answering all the questions. Sometimes people just kind of go off and do their own things, and it's like that's why you have a rubric to begin with. I also think it's important that you look at... you may not be able to see competitor decks, but you can see other decks of people who've done well in the past or some of the pitches that have won at Rice, and see if you can find their decks and things like that on the internet, because that's a proven model.

[00:21:38] Andrea: Okay so, Mitch I’ve got a little surprise, wanna know what it is?

[00:21:43] Mitch: What is it?

[00:21:45] Andrea: Sloane gave a little sneak peak into their pitch!

[00:21:50] Mitch: Yay. I'm excited to hear it.

[00:22:52] Andrea: Same! Here it is:

[00:21:54] Sloane: I'm not gonna do the full 15-minute pitch, but maybe give you a little bit of the intro teaser so that you'll be excited to tune in for the real thing.

[00:22:00] So, hey everybody, my name's Sloan Tilly, and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Dia. I'm excited to be here with you today with my co-founder and chief Scientific Officer, Julio Freden to talk to you about how DIA's non-invasive sensing technology will disrupt the at-home biomarker monitoring market to save the US healthcare system, millions of dollars and potentially millions of lives.

The origin story of DIA is a personal one, it begins about seven years ago when I was a thriving PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill, who is discovering my love and talent for the sport of triathlon. Unfortunately, while on a training ride, I was struck by a car on my bike and wheeled out of the hospital on my 23rd birthday with life-changing injuries. Over the following weeks. As I was shuttled to countless doctor's appointments to have yet another blood draw for a biomarker test, I realized something with the clinical lab testing industry was broken. [00:23:00] My health depended on my loved ones, fulfilling an unreasonable burden to be available at all times, to transport me to appointments.

While my healing was interrupted from the toll of having to test outside the home, yet I was lucky. I was only monitored for two months. For the over 100 million Americans living with a chronic condition, this burden is a reality that's lived over years. And despite the United States spending the highest percentage of GDP on healthcare of any nation, with over 75% of that spending totally totaling 1.5 trillion going towards caring for chronic conditions, the prevalence of and death rates from chronic health conditions continue to increase.

Now, the Covid 19 pandemic was a tragedy that all of us wish could be undone. However, it forced an acceleration of telehealth in a way that is primed to the market for a complete revolution of remote patient monitoring. Currently, doctors can monitor their patient's blood oxygenation, blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and even heart rhythm. [00:24:00] From the convenience and comfort of the patient's own home, the data is accurate and securely handled, resulting in lower healthcare costs, better communication between physicians and patients. And ultimately better health outcomes. However, the only biochemical marker that we are able to monitor remotely is glucose, and we've been doing that since 1999.

So in those many jarring trips back and forth between various doctor's appointments, I wondered why, if it's well known, that many health conditions require frequent monitoring of biochemical markers. And doctors make adjustments to care plans based on these data. Why are we still unable to measure biomarkers at home? This is what we're aiming to change.

This is the DIA solution, and so I'm gonna leave it there on that cliffhanger.

[00:24:55] Andrea: That was great! And it was such a heartwarming story.

[00:25:00] Mitch: Yeah, it seems like a very great introduction. I'd definitely still want to understand how she's going to explain the complicated parts of her business in a way that also emotionally resonates. And, I'm excited to see how it all comes together and to see her pitch person.

[00:25:17] Andrea: I’m excited to see how they deal with it all! Make sure to subscribe and follow us on This is Small Business Next Generation, to see how the different teams we follow perform as the pressure mounts. Will they buckle under the pressure? Will life get in the way of them winning? How will they make the most of their time there? And if you’re a regular listener of This is Small Business, you know I can’t leave without going through some key takeaways from today’s episode:

Andrea: One. Having an overall vision for your company is important. But don’t spend too much time on the expansion part of it. First think about the solid strategy in place that will help you accomplish your goals in the building phase. Investment in research in development is key here too.
[00:26:00] Mitch: Two Investability. We spoke to Mitra a little earlier and she gave us her framework for investors and startups and their ability to answer these questions. And those questions were one, is this the right product at the right time? Two, is it being delivered by the right team? Three, do they have the right backing? And four, is this a product or service, company that can both scale and grow massively across the country, and that can get into some sort of an exit within the next five or 10 years. So according to Mitra, each of those things really impacts a lot underneath it, but every single one of them are critical for success. And without any of the four, that business is not investible according to her framework.
Mitch: Three. Balancing explaining your product and all of the finances can definitely get really tricky. I would say make sure there's someone on your team who can really help you prepare. I wouldn't say that that's an area to wing it. Find someone who has some business modeling or financial modeling experience and to create a model where you feel comfortable [00:27:00] with great returns, medium returns and lower than expected returns.
And then as far as explaining your product, I would say it is very important to be working with a coach and to be receptive to feedback, because sometimes you're gonna get feedback that you suck. And that's really important.
Andrea: Four. Make sure you try to make connections in any pitch competition you compete in. These competitors are on the same path you’re on. So, having a community of entrepreneurs that can help each other out is super important in the often-lonely journey of building a business. And if your team doesn’t win one of the grand prizes, you can also win in other ways… maybe it’s by meeting a key investor that will help you raise the money you need.

[00:27:45] Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your business in a pitch competition. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts [00:28:00] – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez –

[00:28:43] Mitch: And I'm Mitch Gilbert.

[00:28:45] Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:28:50]

Next Generation: Unveiling the Contenders (part one)

Meet our first two teams: Outmore Living and Unchained.

[00:00:04] Pilar: What am I looking for in a winning pitch?

[00:00:06] Mitra: We're really looking for investible ideas that we personally will put our money into. That's what's going to win. So if it's too small an idea, it's really your personal hobby, or if it's a classroom project that isn't really ready to scale, neither one of those is gonna work.

[00:00:22] Pilar: Sometimes I think founders get a little ahead of themselves and that can hurt the pitch versus helping.

[00:00:28] Kevin: What's our game plan? Of course, it's to win.

[00:00:32] Bilal: And so, the main focus right now is honing in on what's true to us, what our secret sauce is.

[00:00:38] Kevin: We framed it up in a way that was focused on kind of here's what's broken and the opportunity that the industry's missing out on...

[00:00:44] Alex: It's almost like kind of addressing the elephant in the room, right?

[00:00:48] Bilal: If I could describe how I feel, I'd say anxious, I'm very excited to, you know, go through this journey, and excited to, to find out what I learned from it all honestly.

[00:01:00] Andrea: Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon, where we follow 4 student teams behind the scenes throughout the Rice University Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch. And if you’re a This is Small Business regular listener, you know that I love pointing out all the key takeaways by the end of each episode and I’ll be doing the same here! I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

[00:01:26] Mitch: And I'm your co-host Mitch Gilbert, the CEO and co-founder of Oya FemTech Apparel and a former Rice Business Plan competition competitor. So you know, I'll be giving you the inside scoops on all my lessons learned and my thoughts about these competitors given that I previously placed at this pitch competition.

[00:01:43] Andrea: In our first episode, we gave you a ton of info on the Rice Business Plan Competition, like how the competitors are competing to win 350k dollars – I still get shocked by that amount every time I say it because it’s a LOT of money. And that amount of money can make quite a difference in your business.

[00:02:00] We also we gave you a glimpse into the teams we’re following throughout the competition, but in this episode, we’ll be digging deeper into two of our four teams to really understand their product, what they’ll be doing with the money, and most importantly how they plan on winning!

But before we get into that I wanted to break down how the competition will go. So, the Rice Business Plan Competition is made up of three rounds and three days. On the first day the competitors get the opportunity to participate in a practice round! They present their pitch in 15 minutes and then get 15 minutes of super helpful feedback from the judges. Here's what Mitra Miller, an angle investor, commercial real estate investor, and one of the Rice Business Plan Competition judges has to say about that practice round:

[00:02:45] Mitra: I've been judging at the Rice Business Plan competition for 20 years now. Year after year there are some pitfalls that you see teams continually fall into. One is not going to the feedback round. [00:03:00] So the Rice Business Plan competition has an amazing opportunity for teams to fly in and go to a feedback round with judges like me and a bunch of others of us who volunteer our time to listen to your pitch and give you some free feedback before you actually start the competition. It is invaluable, and I can tell you that some of the other volunteers who come and do that are incredibly impressive CEOs, investors, people with names that if you look them up, you're gonna be absolutely gobsmacked that they're there doing that, and yet that's how they give back. So make sure you take advantage of that opportunity and listen to them.

[00:03:40] Andrea: Taking feedback in general is always important, especially as you build a business. Mitch, could you tell us about your experience with the feedback round? Did you end up needing to completely change your pitch or did you just have to tweak a few things here and there?

[00:03:57] Mitch: Well, Rice Business Plan competition is one of the only competitions [00:04:00] where you get such extensive feedback around, and I think by doing that, they really help startups grow. So whether you place or not, your pitch and your business will improve because you get so much feedback. But it is grueling. So we had an advisor and so what our pitch looked like at the beginning versus the end, like we were still selling vagina pants, but what it looked like was very different. And I was so shy to talk about my own experiences with feminine health and why that was the impetus for starting Oya. And by the end, we had a picture of a crying vagina on like our second slide, and I was completely owning that narrative. So I think that the feedback were very helpful.

[00:04:45] Andrea: I love that you leaned into that. So, on the second day of the competition, the teams will go through the first round where they get to pitch for 15 minutes and then go through 20 minutes of questions and answers from the judges. AND they get another 15 mins of feedback. [00:05:00] By the end of the second day, the semi-finalists are announced. On the third day, the last two rounds take place. First, our competitors will go through the semi-final round where they present their pitch and get grilled with more Q and A’s from the judges, then the finalists get selected. And four hours after they get selected, they present their pitches for the last time in the final round. Honestly, this all sounds like a LOT! And the turnaround time to implement the feedback they receive is really short...

[00:05:30] Mitch: Which is why it's critical to have a mentor or an advisor who's been through this process, who's there with you. Like I think we were practicing right after we got the feedback day of, and then we had an evening to make the changes, and then we were practicing again at 7:00 AM because we were on LA time versus central time, which is Texas time. So we were up really early and you really only get a day, [00:06:00] and I would even say you have to be really intentional about who you're practicing in front of, because within a day you can't practice in front of everybody. And so, maybe you get one or two people, so you really wanna make sure that you're making the most out of those one or two people that you've been able to practice in front of.

[00:06:22] Andrea: Let’s get to know our teams, starting with Outmore Living.

[00:06:26] Kevin: I'm Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living. At Outmore Living, we are building the most innovative and comfortable outdoor living products ever. Our first product line heated outdoor furniture launches this fall and will allow consumers to spend more time outdoors than ever before. The idea for Outmore living started Thanksgiving 2020 while sitting around a fire at my parents' home in Atlanta. Despite being wrapped in blankets and huddling around the fire, 10 minutes in, everyone wanted to go inside because they were cold. It was in that moment that it clicked to me. Fires bring people together, but they don't really keep you warm. As everyone was leaving, I blurted out. I wish our seats were heated and out more living was born.

[00:07:00] Alex: My name's Alex Duncan. I'm co-founder and COO of Outmore Living. Before getting my MBA, I spent over six years as an army officer. I was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot, an aviation officer. I met Kevin at the University of Texas McCombs in the MBA program, we were assigned to the same group in a class called New Venture Creation. It was there that Kevin brought in the idea of heated outdoor furniture, and the rest is history as they say.

Outmore is re-imagining the future of outdoor spaces. We're designing a more comfortable outdoor experience by integrating technology into premium outdoor furniture, beginning with heated outdoor chairs and sofas in a beautiful, sustainable, FSC certified teak frame. Why are we doing this? Well, because like many of you, we know that there's something different about conversing and connecting with one another outdoors, a round of fire over a meal. And we want moments like that to happen more often, and we want moments like that to not end early on account of being uncomfortable from cold. [00:08:00] In short, our mission is to help everyone be out more.

[00:08:05] Andrea: At this point in time, the teams have 2 weeks to go before they pitch their ideas at the Rice Business Plan Competition. And Kevin and Alex have been working tirelessly to find and patch up any holes in their pitch.

[00:08:16] Alex: There seems to be a disconnect between the way our pitch deck reads and the way our conversations go. We're trying to minimize that cognitive dissonance, if you will. There's some who believe that furniture is not. A super attractive investible industry, and we disagree. We don't think that's axiomatic. We propose a new type of outdoor company, and so how do we best bring people along for that journey? Tell them a story, answer their questions, address their objections in such a way that gives them no choice but to come along and, and be a part of the Outmore journey.

[00:08:47] Kevin: On the surface, our product and company is super easy to understand. Heated outdoor furniture so you can stay comfortable when it's cold outside. Who wouldn't want that? Where it gets complicated is explaining how we grow from a product to a brand with a suite of products. [00:09:00] How we build a business model that's different than all other furniture brands that have either failed or struggled with profitability. Why we are choosing an omnichannel go-to-market strategy instead of focusing on just D to C or just b2b. Finally, why our business model is so unique compared to other comparable brands and what really sets us apart? Our team knows all these answers, but it is sometimes hard to concisely explain them without over complicating a company and a vision that is at its core, just easy to understand.

[00:09:30] Alex: Our game plan is with a relentless focus on business operation tasks. For that approach them with a focus attention to detail, so is not to prolong any further than is necessary. Time is of the essence. Most importantly, it's properly order my time in light of a brand new baby, understanding what is most important and allocate my time accordingly.

Kevin has made sure to understand that. I am supposed to and need to take the time to welcome my new baby, support my wife and love on my family in this time. [00:10:00] And, and he is there to pick up any slack that, that I have to defer, in this period of time leading up to rice. And with that said, I'm going to push and push into it more and, and find and dig deep and find the energy and time and make it work in such a way that I try to do the best I can in both areas. And finally, it's to set aside time for Kevin and I to immerse ourselves in the creative active storytelling. That creative, active storytelling is also known as a pitch deck, but we need space and time to breathe, and the deck does too. And it's just a different mindset for us. It stands in the start composition to the mindset of, of operational execution, where it's. It's whack-a-mole. Knock one up, knock one down. Our engineers ask, do we like option A or option B? Our designer asks, do we like fabric C or fabric D, and we knock these tasks down. That is a different mentality than the creative space we have to curate in order to tell our story the best way we possibly can.

[00:10:55] Kevin: It's funny when you're going from zero to one with a company, your game plans and goals are constantly changing. [00:11:00] So six months ago, if you had to ask me what would be our goal, it would've been to have been accepted into the Rice Business Plan competition. But now that we've achieved that goal, it's shifted to, well, let's win this thing. and it's, it's really interesting when you're moving so fast and, and having so many wins and losses so rapidly, when you're building a company from scratch, your goals are just constantly changing. So when I think about our game plan, it's, come in, put our best foot forward, you know, meet as many potential investors, customers, whoever it may be, um, but also to win it. And that, that would be, that would be a huge accomplishment.

[00:11:35] Andrea: Wow, sounds like they’ve got a lot on their plate. The pitch competition is already an intense journey. But add to that a baby AND a launch coming soon?

[00:11:44] Mitch: Yeah. They definitely have a lot to juggle and I think you have to be intentional about... Rice, you have to pitch with two co-founders. So you have to be intentional about which co-founder you're choosing and whether they have bandwidth to even show up for practice [00:12:00] in the way that they need to get it done. I think co-founders are helpful because they can see things that you can't see and they can fill in spaces, but if your co-founder is not prepared to be in front of an audience, that can also be hurtful to you and your brand. And so when we pitched, I had four other co-founders and I was very intentional optics wise about choosing which co-founder I wanted to pitch with me. So, although I worked with one a lot more. And another one was better at marketing and another one was better at the science and understanding the product. And even finance. I chose our legal co-founder who lived in Texas.

[00:12:47] Andrea: Alex also mentioned going from Business mode to creative mode to be able to work on the pitch, is that something you struggled with when you were working on your pitch for Oya?

[00:12:55] Mitch: We were born out of business plan competition. So I didn't have that issue. [00:13:00] But I would say if you were born out of an environment where you were making sales, like I think their team comes from the military and target, so retail experience. So they're probably immediately concentrating on sales as opposed to learning how do you tell a story and how do you tell it in an engaging way with the right optics to be able to attract investors. I could see how that could require a mind state shift.

[00:13:30] Andrea: I'm excited to see what their pitch sounds like now that we have this backstory as well. Up next is Unchained.

[00:13:37] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

[00:14:00] Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business Next Generation content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:14:40] Bilal: My name is Bilal Issifou, founder of Unchained, Inc. We are a turnkey solution that removes the bounds of geography through our technology and helps companies increase brands through our ambassadors. Unchained Inc. Is a future of work solution that combines the power of people and technology to help corporations strategically engage diverse talent. [00:15:00] There's been millions of corporations investing in diverse early talent recruitment processes. Although there have been a lot of investment in this area, engagement and retention amongst that talent has still been relatively stagnant. This reason is because career services historically doesn't really know how to engage students at a high level. In order for your company to stand out, you have to actually either invest in development, invest in engagement, or partner with a company that can grow your brand to the student side. And so that's what our solution helps companies do through our technology and through our ambassador program.

The story about how Unchained started. I was a freshman at North Carolina when I was a pre-law student. I was a very ambitious pre-law student, and this was, you know, pre remote work, pre virtual career fairs. I, I went to the in-person career fair, and went through the formalities of that, because I went to a, a primarily STEM focused school. So being a pre-law student at a STEM focus school, your career fair odds are, you know, not that high. [00:16:00] Ended up landing my first internship with the Office of Civil Rights.

And so through that experience I learned I had a passion for connecting minorities to opportunities. Now, although I didn't really specifically have a passion for like the construction industry in that sense, I reflected that, you know, I was a H B C U student who really wanted an internship bad. Yeah, the school resources wasn't my best help. I ended up finding it through outside resources, how many other students could benefit from a platform like that. And so, uh, June 19th, 2020, I essentially embarked on pretty much coming together with the idea Unchained, Inc.

And so in the beginning, Unchained Inc. was simply a Instagram page that provided career resources to a community of students. I grew the, the Instagram page to about 600 followers. From there I realized, okay, you know, [00:17:00] how do I practically turn this idea I had of this platform that connects students to opportunities? And so I put out a tweet. I was like, hey, working on this real cool project. If you're a marketing student, a computer science student that's interested, let me know. About two weeks passed by somebody finally responded and his name is Nasir Jones, who's now my CTO. and so I pitched the idea to him. He instantly fell in love with the idea as well. So it honestly became like a joint partnership at that point.

We launched the official, first version of the web platform around August 2020. And from there we were able to transfer those 600 followers that were on Instagram to our first 600 users on the web platform. It brings values to companies because companies aren't used to talking to, you know, that many students on a virtual event, let alone in person interactions. And so from there, we used the data from that first proof of concept to then in 2021 start generating early revenue by, you know, doing custom services for clients based on, you know, what we were figuring out. We were good at. [00:18:00] And so from that point on, like it was, it was a no-brainer. I ended up declining a full-time from Goldman Sachs, a year outta school. Pretty much dedicated to just building this out, building out the MVP.

[00:18:14] Andrea: This is such a cool story. This team found each other through Twitter and I really respect this passion and determination to go all in. I must say, the idea of declining a cushy job offer to start my own thing would be scary. But Unchained Inc. seems to be gaining the right kind of traction. I wonder how they’re preparing for their pitch. Especially because I imagine that this particular product might have to lean harder into explaining what makes them different and needed.

[00:18:44] Bilal: I also have a meeting with my Mentor Vic on Friday to make some last-minute adjustments to my deck. The last time me and him met I was able to make some adjustments and I submitted it for the final submission. He was impressed with it. So now it's just touching up the actual pitch itself. [00:19:00] If I could describe how I feel, I'd say anxious I'm very excited to, you know, go through this journey and excited to, to find out what I learned from it all honestly. And one of the main, one of the main things that, like I say, that kind of has been heavy on my mind about the competition itself is just like the opportunity to, you know, get that exposure in general. You know, if anything else, you know, this competition is gonna allow my team. Our product, our business to get exposure to those who may benefit from it. And so that's one of the things that's keeping me drive about the whole competition itself is the opportunity to bring exposure to the work that we're doing.

[00:19:40] Andrea: And if Unchained Inc. wins the money...

[00:19:44] Bilal: This year is all about scaling what we learned the past, uh, three years and going to market, you know, real strong this time because we grew organically through Gorilla Marketing and just our style, but this year we want to gain the funding to pair it with actual, you know, official marketing budgets, high scale, marketing campaigns, and continue to just grow the brand.

[00:20:00] Andrea: Sooo, what are your thoughts on Unchained Inc.?

[00:20:05] Mitch: I'm really excited about the problem that they're solving. There's a pressing need to get more people of color or underrepresented peoples into these larger companies, and the fact that they're building a, a supply chain or a pool of great candidates who are underrepresented, it just, it speaks to my heart. I also think that they're strong founder problem fit, so, both the founders or all of them seem very uniquely positioned to solve these problems and they're very passionate about it, and I think that that will take you very far in the startup community. Lastly, I love that they are getting advice from mentors to think about how to show up better in these competitions. Again, as I've mentioned, our rice business plan competition coach was, there's no words to even describe how helpful she was to us in navigating this process. So I think that mentor is going to be key.

[00:21:00] Andrea: And it seems like he already has a plan for what’s next. Whether they win or lose the competition they want to focus on marketing. Do you think that's a good idea?

[00:21:05] Mitch: That's a big nexus. So if they win money versus if they don't, so if they win money because they're further along, I think they need to evaluate their team. Right. What skill sets are they lacking? Marketing can be a part of the of their big budget. But I, I think marketing is just an area where you can waste a lot of money. So I think it's very important that you be clear about who you're talking to and how you wanna talk to people. And then I think your marketing dollars can be better well spent versus like they are working on their AI or their technology stack. So I think it just depends based on where they see a need on their team structure. If they don't win any money. I think there's still a lot of lessons to be gained because every round you get such intensive, critical feedback about your business and business model, and so I would be excited [00:22:00] to hear even if they don't win money, what are some of the lessons learned that they got? Cuz they may learn things about presentation and communicating and about target market or even about their abilities to scale. I think Rice is a competition regardless of whether you win or not, you definitely walk away with something.

[00:22:17] Andrea: I totally agree, being able to participate in the Rice Business Plan Competition already puts you ahead in terms of connections, and meeting advisors and investors. But winning some money is of course everyone's goal, so let's hear what Pilar, one of the judges at RBPC, looks for when they listen to these pitches.

[00:22:38] Pilar: My name is Pilar Johnson and I'm co-founder and managing partner of Debut Capital. I think because my background is as a operator first and I focus on early stages, there's a couple areas that I am always looking to see, you know, what the founders Strategy is. [00:23:00] So one is business strategy. Do they understand the market? do they have a differentiator that's gonna help them succeed in the market? And do they have short. And long-term goals basically, do they have a strong roadmap? Is this a problem, you know, that they're solving for? Is it unique to them? Have they personally experienced that problem that they're trying to solve for with the product or service? I would say one pitfall that competitors can often fall into is not having any information on the financials of it. So I think sometimes founders can focus a lot on like the marketing, which is important, or the founding team, which is also important, but you definitely wanna have at least one slide covering, even if it's high level projections for the product.

[00:24:00] Andrea: Ok so hearing this from Pilar. Mitch, do you think Unchained and Outmore living are on the right track?

[00:24:05] Mitch: Maybe because they're both really focused on sales, and so marketing really helps with capturing sales, but that's a different focus. The venture capitalists who are worried about long-term impact or long-term growth, so they're not thinking, oh, is this gonna be the hottest trend? They're thinking like, is this a company that can defend itself and grow into like a billion-dollar company?

[00:24:33] Andrea: So, based on that, I think that investibility from venture capital is going to be different from what Outmore Living and Unchained Inc. are expecting to find. And this doesn't mean that they're bad companies, it's just not what those judges are looking for.

[00:24:50] Mitch: Yeah, and I see that a lot in product-based businesses. They don't necessarily do well in venture capital because they're really focused on marketing and fads and trends. As opposed to like science [00:25:00] or like moats or patents. And so with Outmore living, wanting to do furniture. I'm not sure what patents they filed as much as like, the furniture looks cool and it's easy to transport or assemble, which is not the same thing as like, say, an investor who wants to invest in like a SaaS product.

[00:25:22] Andrea: We’ll just have to wait and see how they do in the competition and how their product resonates with judges. On our next episode, we'll be looking at our other two teams: DIA and Active Surfaces.

[00:25:32] Mitch: Yes, so excited to learn about Unchained and Outmore living and to see how they do in this competition, and also even more excited to learn about our next two competitors.

[00:25:42] Andrea: And of course, you know we can’t leave without some valuable takeaways.

Andrea: One. When building a business plan, especially thinking about it from the investor’s perspective, it’s important to think about: if and how you understand the market.
Mitch: Like, do you have a differentiator? How do you stand out?
[00:26:00] Andrea: And then what’s going to help you succeed? Is your roadmap of short- and long-term goals setting you up for sustainable growth?
Mitch: Two. Speaking of sustainable growth, how do you build on your initial product like Outmore Living? How do you show investors that you have a plan that gets you to the next step? What will that look like when it comes to your go-to-market strategy? And how will this be unique to, in comparison to other brands?
Andrea: Three. Prioritization. I think that many business owners don’t talk about how sometimes, the business part of it all is just not always top of mind.
Mitch: And I don't even understand how it could be, and maybe it means it doesn't have to be.
Andrea: Burnout is real.
Mitch: Mm. And it's important to take time to yourself or with your family like Alex is doing with his brand-new baby.
Mitch: Four. Feedback and staying in a marketing budget. Feedback, as we learned, was very critical at this competition. So all of our founders are gonna have to be intentional about taking that one day turnaround time, reading everything and making sure they have still the key points that they can implement and run with. [00:27:00]
Andrea: And then they also have to think about if they were to win, how would they use that money? How are they going to protect their business so that it grows for the next 10 years?

[00:27:14] Andrea: We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even getting ready to pitch your idea to some investors! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site [00:28:00] at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez -

[00:28:13] Mitch: and I'm your co-host, Mitch Gilbert.

[00:28:15] Andrea: Hasta luego and thanks for listening! [00:28:22]

Next Generation: High $takes

Learn about attracting investment for your business.

[00:00:05] Alex: It really forces us to refine and refine and refine our story and be able to tell it in, in a very crisp, coherent, concise way that also draws you.

Competitor: This is not our first competition; we've sort of evolved over a period of time.

Bilal: And each competition, I actually got better. I feel like every competition I do, I learn something.

Competitor: And I prepped for hours, like going through the deck line by line. This is exactly the language we wanna use. This is the message that we wanna get across.

Sloane: This is space that we wanna be in and we deserve to be there just as much as you know, the next team.

Richard: I can't describe pitch competition. It's like the most stressful five minutes.

Competitor: No matter how prepared you are, sometimes when you get up there, you just get nervous or anxious like I do and can trip over your words or draw a blank.

Competitor: And I guess this was actually the first step, which was such a strong step.

Kevin Long: …now our heads are like, how great would it be if we win it?

[00:01:00] HOST (Andrea): Hi, and welcome to “This is Small Business: NEXT Generation” - a miniseries brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts – Andrea Marquez.

If you’re a regular listener of This is Small Business – you know that I’m on a “learning journey” to find out what makes a small business succeed. And one important lesson I’ve learned so far is that – at some point, it takes cash. - Dinero. Moula. Scratch… It could be a loan, some angel investors, an inheritance from your grandmother… But if you’re trying to start a small business – no matter how good your idea is – if you don’t have some access to money – you might struggle getting it off the ground.

College level business pitch competitions are a popular way for young entrepreneurs to drum up seed money. There are quite a few of these opportunities available – where new entrepreneurs can present their business plans and hope to win big. But taking part in them takes a lot of energy, confidence, and hard work. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

So here’s the thing: one of the “largest and richest” inter-collegiate business competitions [00:02:00] in America is called THE RICE UNIVERSITY BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION. It attracts brilliant students from all over the world. Each hopeful team pitches their business plan to a room full of judges and strangers – for a chance to win the grand prize of $350K. Money is great. And it also seems like a chance for young entrepreneurs to get good at describing their own value – and dealing with competition. As business lessons go – what could be better than that?

Maybe you’ve thought about taking part in a business pitch competition or applying to a small business accelerator program. And if you’re wondering if you have what it takes, for the next 8 episodes of this miniseries you can join us and find out. We’ll be following 4 student teams behind the scenes through the Rice Business Plan Competition. You’ll hear all about their challenges, hopes, and fears as they prepare to pitch their hearts out. Along the way – I’ll talk to organizers, judges, and past participants – to find out just what it takes to win one of the most prestigious [00:03:00] business prizes around.

And I also wanted you to hear from someone with a not only a fresh perspective, a lovely voice, and business expert insights but also from someone who happens to be a past winner of the Rice Business Plan Competition. Luckily, I found all that in Mitchella Gilbert, or Mitch. I am super excited to welcome them to This is Small Business cause I don’t think I could do this without them. They are one of the first 200 Black women to raise over $1M in venture capital and the prefect candidate to co-host This is Small Business Next Generation.

Hi Mitch!

[00:03:38] MITCH: Hey, I am so excited to be here and to be serving as your co-host.

[00:03:45] ANDREA: Me too! Ok so, I need to share your awesomeness here. Others need to know why you’re the coolest. So, Mitch attended the UCLA Anderson School of Management after earning a full scholarship to build their startup, Oya Femtech Apparel. [00:04:00] They graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy. Oya Femtech Apparel is actually the fourth company Mitch has started. Oh – and just to top off this impressive background – they’re also a former elite athlete and Nike employee who is “obsessed” with women’s health and sportswear apparel. Hence the founding of Oya Femtech.

Mitch – I hope you know how excited I am to have you join me on This is Small Business: Next Generation. So, I’ll let you fill in our listeners on how important the Rice Business Plan Competition was for Oya Femtech.

[00:04:35] MITCH: The Rice Business Plan competition was something that was very pivotal for Oya. It helped us land our first investor, although we were virtual, it was during the pandemic, so it would be a slightly different experience being able to watch these teams compete in person. But again, I'm very pumped and just excited to be here and to be your co-host.

[00:04:54] ANDREA: Stap. I’m so excited for this. So for more context for our listeners, [00:05:00] the competition is being held on the Rice University Campus – in my home state of Texas. And Mitch and I are gonna’ be there in person to soak up the atmosphere, firsthand. Mitch, tell me, as a former participant – what’s the biggest thing you remember about the FEELING of taking part in the Rice Business Plan Competition?

[00:05:20] MITCH: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of pressure. I think the year that we did it, there were hundreds of teams, and again, it was covid, so there was no similar situation for us to have prepared for how we were going to compete. But we had the luxury of being coached by an amazing advisor who had also placed during the Rice Business Plan competition.

And so, we also had the amazing opportunity to meet advisors through the Rice Business Plan competition. And so it was just day in, day out, practice, practice, practice. I pitched with one of my co-founders. We learned a lot. We got a lot better. And I'm excited to see how these teams deal with the pressure because some people consider pressure fun, some people consider it nauseating. [00:06:00] In business plan competitions, a lot of times you're dealing with people and their perceptions, whether that be racism, sexism, or any other isms. And so it can be difficult to navigate that. So sometimes that's not just pressure, that's also like code switching and navigating how to thrive in a venture capital community where not many people look like you.

[00:06:27] Andrea: Since you already touched on the subject, what does it feel like to be a black woman-owned business in this space?

[00:06:33] Mitch: I think going throughout my career, it's felt different in different ways. I think even beyond just black woman owned business, we're also a consumer product and a consumer product in fashion and a consumer product in fashion specifically for women. And so that makes us this very unique type of entity to get venture capital. And so I think early on, [00:07:00] I sometimes found it very frustrating because I was trying to explain feminine health issues to venture capitalists who most of them are not women. So it was like they didn't necessarily understand.

I think though, surviving or in thriving in venture capital is a lot like dating in the sense that you should not talk to venture capitalists who do not like you. Like you shouldn't date people who don't like you, but like in your twenties, you don't really know better. And so a lot of people spend a lot of time talking to venture capitalists who are not necessarily interested in their vertical, interested in them as a leader, interested in the problems that they're solving. But I think once I learned that, navigating this space became a bit easier because I understood who were the type of people I should be talking to and like what were the results I needed to hit in order to resonate with those people.

[00:07:47] Andrea: And you were able to meet investors that you felt resonated with Oya and what you stand for in the Rice Business Plan Competition, right?

[00:07:55] Mitch: Yeah, that was interesting. So I met an Advisor. She stayed with us for over a year, [00:08:00] and added a tremendous value to Oya, tremendous value. She's still on my cap table and we got our first investor through Rice. I would also say though, with it being virtual and me not necessarily being able to meet people, also me not being as familiar with the culture of Texas, like I felt like there was somewhat of a gap between me and some of the investors that I was talking to. And it's interesting that you asked that, cuz recently I went to South by Southwest this year. And I actually got to start meeting some of the people who I met virtually during Rice. You know, once I had gone through a journey and learned more about venture capital and it was a very full circle moment because I do have a community in Texas that came through Rice. I just don't think that I was really able to build the bridges at the time because I didn't know how.

[00:08:52] Andrea: Overall do you think going through the Rice Business Plan competition as a competitor was worth it?

[00:08:57] Mitch: Yeah, and I think all businesses should go through [00:09:00] pitch competitions early on because you have to practice communicating your idea to people who don't know you and actually don't really wanna know you, you know, like critical feedback. And then I think for underrepresented founders, it's even more critical because starting a business requires some form of capital. So if you're going after venture capital specifically, pitch competitions are a great place because there are rules, you know, and there are rubrics around how you can talk to the venture capitalist. So it's almost like bumper lanes as you learn how to start building a business and communicating about that business, and then getting advisors who can then help you take that business to the next level.

[00:09:45] ANDREA: And can we talk about the PRIZE MONEY? Up to $350K is not small change – especially for a startup. What could winning that kind of money mean to business owners at this stage of their journey?

[00:10:00] MITCH: It can mean a lot of different things. What it does mean very much depends upon your plan and how long you've been working in your business, right? So like, a lot of early-stage startups, sputter, like they're testing everything. A million dollars in venture capital sounds like a big number because there's a lot of zeros, but it's actually really not that much money. Like if you think about what you can test with a million dollars, you can run that on a couple of ad campaigns and some influencers. And if you're not careful with that money, then you could find yourself in a deficit because you didn't necessarily hit the milestones that you were supposed to hit.

Conversely, if you're a really smart and scrappy founder and more than likely this is the second or third iteration of your business, so you have a better idea of like what steps you need to take to hit your milestones. That 350,000 can definitely mean a lot, but I would say it probably averages somewhere in the middle, and it's probably like your first employee [00:11:00] and maybe some ad campaigns in testing.

And I think you'll see in the competition that different founders and startups have different access to capital. So I think in my year we were competing against some European startups who had been given like grants by the government. Like some of them had been given grants between 500,000 to like a million dollars. And so I'm building this in my backyard slash business school dusty apartment with my roommate versus you've already had a chance to test out so many things because you've been given that runway and so I think it can be difficult from a judging perspective because what's $300,000 to a company that's already raised a million versus what's $300,000 to a company that doesn't have anything? Or what's 300,000 to a company that may not have anything but they have family who's gonna invest on top of that?

[00:11:55] ANDREA: To learn more about how the competition works, we reached out to Catherine Santamaria and Brad Burke – [00:12:00] they’re two of the key organizers of the Rice Business Plan Competition.

[00:12:05] Catherine Santamaria: This is the 23rd year of the Rice Business Plan Competition. It started as a smaller regional event 23 years ago, and has grown to an international, very well-funded, impactful competition that we are excited about each year and can't wait for the next 23 years.

[00:12:30] Brad Burke: This year we were pleased that we had over 450 completed applications. And from those, we have invited 42 universities to compete in person at Rice. That represents 37 different universities and six countries. The teams that we invite come to Rice University in Houston for three days of the competition that'll take place on May 11th through 13.

[00:12:52] Catherine Santamaria: Each of the startups goes through a number of pitching rounds, and from there we determine which startups advance through the competition. [00:13:00] In each round of the full pitches, the startups are in front of a group of judges, anywhere from 20 to 45 judges. Those judges hear the pitch of the startups in that flight, and then the judges rank the startups they have seen in order of best opportunity for investment or best investment potential on down to worst investment potential. The startups that score the best from their pitches and from the rankings from the judges will advance through the competition. Ultimately, the judges are looking for startups with excellent investment potential. They are choosing the startups to advance based on who they would like to invest in, where they would like to put their money if this were a business decision.

[00:13:53] Brad Burke: Rice Competition kicks off on Thursday with an elevator pitch [00:14:00] competition, so all 42 teams have 60 seconds to give their elevator pitch, but then the real rounds begin on Friday and those rounds are by industry sector. The top 15 teams advance from the first round into the semi-finals on Saturday based on the judges’ votes. And then over lunch on Saturday, the votes are tallied again, and the top seven teams advance to the final round. So the teams compete for three rounds

The Grand Prize is an investment of $350,000. The second-place team wins $100,000 investment, and the third-place team wins a $50,000 investment. In addition to those prizes for the top finalists, there are a number of other investment prizes. In total, we have over 1.5 million in prizes, [00:15:00] and there are in total about 75 different prizes available at the competition.

[00:15:24] Andrea: Wow, that’s pretty amazing. Mitch, what are some other things that you will specifically be watching for this year? Especially from the perspective of someone who has gone through this and is further down in their own business journey.

[00:15:35] Mitch: Yeah. When you invest in early-stage startups, typically you're investing in the founders. And their ability to tackle challenges. So because we were virtual and it was a different environment, I'm excited to see how these founders deal with the pressure of being on stage. Again, some people thrive, some people get nauseous. So I, I think that's important. I also am curious to see how founders are going to be tackling the current economic climate. [00:16:00] So you see startups in like clean energy or that deal with infrastructure at given Biden’s infrastructure plan doing really well, whereas some startups, like most other startups are struggling to raise capital in this environment. And so I'm curious to see their plans around that. And then lastly, I'm really interested in diversity. Like, I'm interested to see what that looks like. I think my year almost everybody who won or placed was an app. So I'd be curious to see what are the new types of ideas coming from all over the world and what are the best of the best founders look like? And hopefully they look diverse.

[00:16:45] Andrea: These are all really important things that we need to keep an eye on. I'm wondering if you have any lessons learned from competing in the Rice Business Plan Competition. Because honestly, I think that's just as -- or even more valuable than winning money.

[00:17:00] Mitch: I think Rice was a really interesting time for me because it taught me to say the words vagina. Like before Rice, I was very reticent to talk about it. And my Rice advisor made me put an actual vagina on a slide and then put tears on it. And for more context, my startup, Oya Fem Tech apparel, is essentially the Under Armor of vaginas. And so we make super technical apparel sportswear for women that fights issues like yeast infections, UTIs, boob sweat, boob rash, all the fun stuff, and this came out of my own personal struggles as an athlete dealing with reoccurring yeast infections and just being really interested in fashion and living in leggings and realizing that there were ways that we could optimize women's sportswear.

But before I even came to Rice, I would not say the word vagina. I would not talk about my experience. I would just be like, there is this numerical problem. And Rice was the first time where I got really explicit [00:18:00] and learned about problems versus solution. And as I continue my career and like work on ads, that problem solution language is really critical. For example, we ran just recently, ran a whole bunch of ads and we tested different creatives, funny comedic versus like hero energy or whatever. But the problem, solution language really resonated with potential customers because it was just simple. And that was a really big key learning that I got from the competition.

[00:18:30] Andrea: That actually just came up in one of This is Small Business's bonus episodes where I talked to vetrepreneur Matt Butler and he said that the biggest hurdle for early stage or aspiring entrepreneurs isn't money, it's actually figuring out the problem they're trying to solve and knowing how to communicate that.

[00:18:50] Mitch: Yes, and that takes testing, and money can help you do that. But there's a lot of ways that you can also do that without money, especially if you're going through these business plan competitions or you're at a university [00:19:00] and you can do surveys and all these things. But finding out what problem you want to solve and who I would add to that, who you want to solve that problem for is a very big hurdle and I think. It's something that continues to impact startups because as they scale and they wanna grow, who are the new people who they wanna solve problems for? And that's a very tricky tightrope.

[00:19:23] Andrea: Valuable insights to have going into this. OK – so there’s 42 teams competing from a variety of backgrounds and different business “verticals” or categories. There are some fascinating digital tech innovation companies and sustainability companies… the list is impressive.

[00:19:40] Mitch: Yeah, but we can't focus on all of them and so we are going to focus on four of them that have a diverse array of experiences and products and problems that they're solving. And then what that will allow our listeners or audiences to do is get more deep, and better understand stories [00:20:00] and like what does it look like to be a small business owner going through this pitch competition? And hopefully because we are selecting four companies that are diverse, our listeners will be able to find someone that they really identify with and so they'll be able to take away some lessons learned there too.

[00:20:15] ANDREA: So if you’re a small business owner listening right now – maybe you’re part of the Amazon small business seller community, or you’re one of our regular listeners – the teams we’re talking to are definitely gonna resonate with you. Coming up – we’ll hear from some of the students who are competing.

[00:20:30] HOST (Andrea): You're listening to This is Small Business Next Generation, brought to you by Amazon. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez, and along with Mitch Gilbert, we’re introducing you to the world of business plan competitions and learning about how to best pitch your business in a way that attracts investment, in the case of the Rice Business Plan Competition, teams are competing to win up to $350K towards their small business startups.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? [00:21:00] If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage small business owner, there are many resources that Amazon offers to help you succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:21:40] ANDREA: Ok Mitch, so let’s pretend I’m a judge at the Rice Business Plan Competition – how would you describe OYA to me?

[00:21:48] MITCH: Yeah, so Oya is the under arm of vaginas. We make patent pending sportswear that fights all the fun, feminine health issues like yeast infections, UTIs, material vaginosis, and boob rash. [00:22:00] Women are fighting issues like yeast infections, UTIs, bacterial vaginosis, that our sportswear is making worse. And if you think about it, it makes sense because women's sportswear doesn't breathe and it doesn't absorb moisture, which is problematic because women leak, meaning that the sportswear that we're wearing is kind of like a garbage bag and then if you keep adding to that, what happens with a garbage bag when you leave it in your kitchen when it's hot? All sorts of bad things, but for women athletes or women who wear sportswear, it's even worse because like a garbage bag, then we get sweaty. It's leading to all these different bacteria, it's throwing off our ecosystem, and no one likes unhappy vaginas, and so Oya is putting a stop to that with very cute, amazing sportswear. We've sold out two collections already this year. We are going into extended sizing and it's just been a really wild journey and we are excited to support feminine health.

[00:23:00] ANDREA: So, you’ve been practicing this pitch for a while. What did it take for you to get to the point of being able to “pitch” your business smoothly?

[00:23:08] MITCH: It's practice. It's a lot of practice, and I think being an underrepresented founder, it's not just practice, because if you're an underrepresented founder, what that means is sometimes you get shut out of rooms where people don't want to hear from people like you. Whether that be because they do not have people in their network that look like you, whether they don't typically invest in problems that you are solving like feminine health or FinTech, like Oya, so for me specifically, I had to get practice learning how to talk to someone who saw over my head. When Oya’s in a pitch competition, it always goes into overtime because the woman's always arguing until she's blue in the face because she gets it. She understands what a yeast infection is, and I'm talking to her face to face. But men, a lot of times, [00:24:00] whether they don't understand the severity of these issues or they don't understand why it's important, what I've learned is that I need to talk to them through the language of sports. So Oya has done really well with male athletes, because they understand what it's like to have sweaty crotches. And how uncomfortable that can be and how that can inhibit their performance. And so that was something that I had to learn through practice and talking to advisors who were very explicit so that way I could talk to investors who were seeing over me and then bring them down to a level where we could talk face to face.

[00:24:35] Andrea: So that means that you have to tailor your pitch depending on who you’re pitching to -- to make sure that they fully understand the problem that you're trying to solve, even if it doesn't affect them directly.

[00:24:46] Mitch: Yeah. And so it's interesting like as we see these startups who are gonna compete, it'll be interesting to see how much customer education is gonna play into their journey. [00:25:00] So earlier you were talking about how, uh, the first question that startups have to answer is, what is the problem that they wanna fight? And then who is the problem that they wanna fight for? And back to that money question around like $360,000. If your product requires a lot of education, then how are you strategic around who you're going to touch first? Right. Like who requires the least education? And Oya is an interesting case point because women athletes, some of them are wearing four pairs of spandex when they get their period because they have to wear white. And so they don't wanna be embarrassed on television. So they're very aware that they're getting yeast infections on all sorts of negative health complications from their sportswear, but they don't have other options, so they're not sure what to do about it. So for Oya, that may be a lower hanging fruit customer because she's more aware of the problem and it will be less expensive to convert her. Versus a customer who once she learns of the solution, [00:26:00] it makes sense to her. But that may require like 10, 15 touch points to get her up to speed on how her body's doing and how she can improve how her body functions with sportswear. And so as we look at our four businesses and go deep, I'm very curious to see how they wanna tackle customer acquisition and customer education.

[00:26:22] Andrea: Speaking of how our startups will be tackling customer education, let’s meet our four teams. And in no particular order, let’s start with Outmore Living.

[00:26:32] Kevin Long: I'm Kevin Long, co-founder and CEO of Outmore Living, um, Outmore we are re-imagining the future of your outdoor spaces. So our first product line, which launches this September, is battery powered, heated outdoor furniture. It’s patent pending and our hope is that by launching this product we can enable year-round comfort with people's outdoor living spaces for the first time. We think our product line is going to completely revolutionize the outdoor space. And from there we hope to build an ecosystem of products that do just that.

[00:27:00] HOST (Andrea): Kevin's co-founder is Alex Duncan, he's the COO of Outmore living. And here's what Alex says they plan to do with the money that they might win.

[00:27:10] Alex Duncan: I mean, other than a, a very nice dinner that night. You know, you have like combinatorial explosion of the number of paths that can happen out of something like winning the Rice competition. The number of things and doors that it could open both for us from a actual, like accelerating the business, accelerating the roadmap, funding perspective to who do we get introduced to as an investor? Who can we get introduced to that's able to open more doors for us? It's, it's hard to predict, but I know they're all going in the same direction with it which is exceedingly positive.

[00:27:40] Sloane: I'm Sloan Tilley. I'm the CEO and co-founder of, Dia. Dia is aiming to revolutionize the healthcare industry by bringing at home clinical grade lab testing right to the patient's home. We transform healthcare testing by using saliva instead of blood. And enable patients to truly have biomarkers tested on a daily frequency to inform better healthcare decisions [00:28:00] and improve healthcare access.

[00:28:04] HOST (Andrea): Julio Fredin is Sloane's co-founder. He's a Ph.D. candidate at Tecnologico de Monterrey and Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. He's also the CSO of Dia. And Dia also has a third co-founder: Fernando Webb, the CTO. Okay, now that you're filled in on what Dia does, let's hear what they'll be doing with the money that they might win from Rice.

[00:28:25] Sloane: We would probably really try to bring on a second scientist to help Julio accelerate rate of development. And then, just building out our lab space, so paying for the time at CUNY on those really expensive instruments. And then, some of the best materials so trying out different deposition techniques as far as different coatings for electrodes.

[00:28:46] Bilal: My name is Bilal Issifou, founder of Unchained, Inc. We are a turnkey solution that removes the bounds of geography through our technology and helps companies increase brands through our ambassadors. Unchained Inc. Is a future of work solution that combines the power of people and technology [00:29:00] to help corporations strategically engage diverse talent. There's been millions of corporations investing in diverse early talent recruitment processes. Although there have been a lot of investment in this area, engagement and retention amongst that talent has still been relatively stagnant. This reason is because career services historically doesn't really know how to engage students at a high level. In order for your company to stand out, you have to actually either invest in development, invest in engagement, or partner with a company that can grow your brand to the the student side. And so that's what our solution helps companies do through our technology and through our ambassador program.

This year is all about scaling what we learned the past, uh, three years and going to market, you know, real strong this time because we grew organically through Gurilla Marketing and just our style, but this year we want to gain the funding to pair it with actual, you know, official marketing budgets, high scale, marketing campaigns, and continue to just grow the brand.

[00:30:00] Shiv: We are Active Surfaces and I'm Shiv, and we are a thin film, solar technology spinning out of M-I-T. So the idea behind active services is that solar has had the same form factor, so it's been the same shape, the same weight, uh, the same kind of design and like the way you implement it in the field for almost 50 years. So there has to be a better way with all the technology innovations, with all the material innovations, how can we make solar anywhere? And that's what we're trying to do.

[00:30:30] HOST (Andrea): Shiv's co-founder is Richard Swartwout, he's the CTO of Active Surfaces and he's also the one that's been working on the technology behind their product for -- in Shiv's words -- forever.

[00:30:42] Shiv: The more I think about the competition, the more I realize it's less about whatever place we get and more about the journey of figuring out our business plan and the process, talking to the mentors that we're gonna get connected with, getting the feedback from everyone and improving our goal. And at the end of the day, like bringing this thing to the world. [00:31:00] Like that's why we're here, that's why we're even doing a business. So winning to me is getting the connections, getting the advice, getting the mentorship to actually make Active Surfaces successful. And if we could do that, then that's a win.

[00:31:12] ANDREA (to Mitch): OOOOO this is good. Mitch? Thoughts? Thoughts?

[00:31:17] MITCH: Yeah, no, this is really exciting. That's a variety of problems. I think deep tech, health, [00:34:00] community and recruiting. I'm excited to see how all of these founders are going to talk about their businesses and also how they grow and evolve throughout the competition, and hopefully everyone leaves in a stronger place with some money. So I'm excited to hear more about these businesses.

[00:31:42] ANDREA: So I was curious about how applications were evaluated and spoke to Brad Burke, one of the competition organizers.

[00:31:50] BRAD BURKE: When we’re evaluating the applications, we look at several factors. One is we want to make sure that the company is addressing a big problem that’s easy to understand. Second is that there will be customers that will be willing to pay for their solution. [00:32:00] Third is that they have a solution that’s better than competition and fourth, that this competitive advantage would be sustainable. That their differentiation would exist for a long time. And lastly, we look at the team. And we want a strong team with a strong background that can successfully launch this company and make it successful.

[00:32:20] ANDREA: Those are clear, strong, differentiating points. I can’t wait to see where these 4 teams we’re following will go in terms of streamlining – and really PITCHING their business plans in detail. Because remember, they might all win a little something, or none of them might. Who knows.

[00:32:40] MITCH: Yeah, because it's one thing to practice pitching a business or write down amongst yourselves. It's another thing to do that on a stage in front of a field of judges who are looking for reasons to eliminate you. And then again, if you're an underrepresented founder against a backdrop of judges where people are looking to not listen to you. [00:33:00] And it's interesting because pitching, it's a skill and it's not just talking about your business. Like a good pitch should make people feel invigorated. It should feel like a music concert. So it's, it'll be cool to see not only how they streamline, but also how they bring the energy.

[00:33:17] HOST (Andrea): The fun, drama and valuable learnings are just getting started. On our next episode, we’ll be getting close and personal with two of our teams so make sure to subscribe and follow us on This is Small Business Next Generation, to see how the different teams we follow perform as the pressure mounts.

[00:33:34] MITCH: It's gonna be tough. There's gonna be a lot of teams. But I think there's also hope. Like if you can bring the energy and you can explain what you wanna do and really walk someone through how you can make a lot of money, I'm sure you'll find a lot of fans. So I'm excited to see this competition.

[00:33:50] HOST (Andrea): And if you’re a regular This is Small Business listeners, you know I like to end each episode with key takeaways. So with the help of Mitch, here are some valuable lessons we learned today:

MITCH: One. Understand what problem you're solving and get as explicit as you possibly can, and about who the problem you're solving is for and how big that problem is. So, Market sizing is a very difficult process, but our students have the advantage of being connected to universities where you can go to librarians to help you with that. And so I think that's very important that our students do the homework on that to make sure that they're as well prepared as possible.
ANDREA: Two. Have a plan. Yes, money is great! But if you don’t know exactly what you’ll do with it, it might not impact your business in a way that sets it up for the next stage of growth. So within all of your pitch preparation, also make sure you know what you’ll do if you win.
MITCH: Three. Get an advisor. Rice is such a competitive journey and you get feedback every single round and it's intense. It's fast turnarounds like you may get pages of feedback and then expect to make updates and be ready by the next day. [00:35:00] And so it's very important that you're looking for advisors to help you out through this journey.
ANDREA: and then the final lesson here, which I think is a super important and Mitch says it so well:
MITCH: Practice. Practice, practice, practice, practice by yourself, practice with other people, and also practice with energy behind you that makes you feel like you're gonna win. I think sometimes with this pressure, again, people going on stage, sometimes people or founders are looking to the left and the right of them and getting freaked out by the competition and feeling like they can't do it. And I really want our founders to really believe wholeheartedly that they can do it. And I think when you have that feeling and you're not as focused on envy or competition, that that really enables you to shine and to tell your story. And so those are four points that I would hope our founders keep in mind.

[00:35:52] HOST (Andrea): We’d love to hear your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even developing a new product for your already established business. [00:36:00] Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

This is Small Business: Next Generation is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio. I’m one of your hosts, Andrea Marquez -

[00:36:50] MITCH: And I'm the co-host Mitch Gilbert.

[00:36:54] Andrea: I’m glad you’re gonna be here with me Mitch – to help me make sense of all this as the competition heats up. [00:37:00] We’ve got a road trip to Texas ahead of us… what do you think of some BBQ?

[00:37:05] Mitch: I don't really eat red meat, so we're gonna see how that works out. But I'm here for the enthusiasm and free mocktails.

[00:37:15] Andrea: And TexMex? Maybe TexMex? Some Tortillas? Tacos?

Mitch: I love tacos, man. I love me some good tacos.

Andrea: Then Tacos it is! I'm excited to have you here in Houston with me.

Mitch: Yay. [00:37:32]

The Who’s Who of Business Plan Competitions (Trailer)

Learn about attracting investment for your business.

Bonus episode: Empowering diverse voices through storytelling

Learn about empowering diverse voices.

[00:00:06] Lee: Box checking for the sake of box checking, diversity for the sake of diversity helps nobody. And what's really important to remember when we talk about diversity is it goes a lot farther than race or gender. There is diversity in income, diversity in perspective, diversity in a walk of life.

[00:00:26] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a weekly podcast brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and grow your small business.

Diversity is increasingly seen as a “must” in growing a business -- we've talked about that on episode 24 with Jennifer Kim -- And diversity is also something I like to keep in mind when I'm producing This is Small Business. There are so many talented and successful business owners from so many different walks of life and -- I'm sure you noticed that we try to share as many diverse stories as we can. [00:01:00] If you've listened to the season finale of Season 2, Miguel Leal mentioned how difficult it is for him and other Latinos to share their stories -- and I feel like I see that a lot: this struggle to share their own stories with the world. And even if they get over that initial obstacle, where should they start? How can we empower others, foster connection, and effect change by sharing stories from diverse voices around the world?

In March, I was in Las Vegas at Podcast Movement Evolutions, and I had the opportunity to speak with some amazing people -- pioneers in the podcasting industry and people who don't shy away from telling their stories. I talked to Mike Sargent, the co-host of Brown & Black Podcast, Lee Adams, the Producer of The Midnight Miracle, Lori Lizarraga, the host of Code Switch, and Kulap Vilaysack, the co-host of Add To Cart.

We had a wonderful and insightful discussion on how to empower diverse voices through podcast storytelling, and [00:02:00] I needed to share their advice and stories with you all. And I think this is especially relevant to anyone thinking about starting a business or seeking to grow and take the next step. Diversity is not just about checking a box, it’s much more than that and it can also lead to scaling your business and that’s what we’ll be talking about today. I'm so excited for you to hear from Kulap, Lee, Lori, and Mike! To get to know them a little better, I wanted to share some of their stories with you first. Specifically, a time in their life or career where they realized diverse storytelling can lead to action or a change in behavior. Here's what Lee, Producer of The Midnight Miracle, had to say.

[00:02:37] Lee: For me, that moment came very early in my career and it was my first job at Vice. First time living in New York. I was an associate producer on a show called Wiki, which was hosted by a really incredibly talented journalist named Krishna Andavolu, and it was the first time that I had seen someone who was Brown, who was my age and came from a background similar to mine, doing a job so deftly [00:03:00] that I admired so much so to the point that I decided to borrow from him and so many other people and try to forge my own path in this industry doing a very similar role. And had I not been working so closely with Krishna, I may not be sitting on the stage right now. I don't know what I'd be doing, but I'd probably be in a law firm somewhere doing something very boring. But it was that early moment, seeing somebody who looked like me, that representation that really inspired me to want to become a journalist and a story.

[00:03:30] HOST: I love that. Representation matters because when you see someone who looks like you in a role that you dream of growing into, it fills you with hope. It becomes easier to envision yourself in that position. Here's Mike, co-host of Brown & Black Podcast.

[00:03:44] Mike: I started out in radio actually doing radio drama and I created a character. It was this sort of a James Bond in outer space, and I imagined him, of course, to be Black. But at the time, this is like early nineties. You could count on one hand if you went to a science fiction convention, [00:04:00] the amount of Black folks. So in my original drawings of him, he had no face. It's an audio drama, so he could look however you want, but over time, you know, I finally started to say, okay, and, and I started doing the character and we painted him, illustrated him Black. And you know, I started going to Black Expose and we even made a music video. This is the nineties. I had a, a rap song for the, for the cd. I released it on CD and we did a music video. And it was basically the character, you know, fighting aliens and saving the girl and all that stuff.

And it would play at the table on a little monitor. And I'll never forget we were at a Black expo in LA, and you know, we had our music blasting, we had all the posters and art and everything, and you know, we were there and this little kid came over and he was staring at the screen, watching, looking at this video, and the video was only like three, four minutes and it was on a loop. He stood there for 45 minutes just staring at it, and I remember looking at him and I knew exactly what was in his head. He was seeing himself for the first time as a hero. [00:05:00] And it, it, it changed me in that I realized, wow, I, not only do I have to do this, but I have to, you know, this is what I wanna do with my career. I want to empower and inspire and show folks of color that they can do it. So that was a moment for me.

[00:05:15] Andrea: That story made me tear up. It must be amazing seeing the effect of your work on your community. Especially when they’re young and barely figuring out what it means to be who they are and when they start identifying with what they see. Here's Kulap, the co-host of Add To Cart.

[00:05:30] Kulap: I started podcasting in 2010 for a show called Who Charted. And Podcasting was sort of the first place. My background was acting. Um, was one of the first places that I could enter as myself and I got more comfortable just being who I am fully. Not just being like blanket Asian American or like the funny girl or whatnot. I could start to, I found my voice and with that confidence, the ability to reach so many people in such an intimate way, I, [00:06:00] I decided that I would finally do a documentary. It was autobiographical, it's called Origin Story, and it was about me going to Laos and meeting my biological father for the first time. And my finishing funds came from podcasting, from my own podcasting, from going to other people's podcasting. This community really helped me. It became a catalyst for me, I grew up in Minnesota, Um, my name's Kulap. And so like, almost purposely I sort of compartmentalized parts of me. Things that I thought was maybe more palatable, I thought, but was through podcasting, through telling my story, was able to speak as like a whole person.

[00:06:43] Andrea: It still blows my mind that we’re still figuring out how to be comfortable as a whole based on who we know we are and not what the media tells us we should be. I like that we get to create that space when we start showing up unapologetically. Here's Lori a host of Code Switch, with her story.

[00:07:00] Lori: I come from the, a journalism background and so my way in has always been through the power of what journalism can do and how it can hold people accountable and get things done. And when you give a call to action and you do a good enough story and you keep doing consistent stories about things that deserve to be talked about, brought attention to, given resources to things can get done. The catch is, is if our communities aren't the ones being held up in that work, then they don't benefit from what journalism can do. And so I got into it through having gone to live in my mom's home country of Ecuador after college, a big natural disaster, hit 7.8 magnitude. Ended up staying there six more months leading all these medical supply missions and trying to help get people from living under tarps and there was no attention. Media swept in and went away and mission after mission after mission raising funds. I just remember thinking one day if I was someone [00:08:00] with a reputation for journalism and with people who followed what I was doing and looked at the work that I was creating and, and looked what I was bringing attention to, I could hold this whole situation accountable in such a bigger way, if I had that background and if I could like put journalism behind it. And so I came back to the States and went to my first station, and I've seen the power of accountability journalism and storytelling, and being in the room to advocate for our communities in ways that are so significant. And I, I, I can't even imagine what it would be like to not have been there for how effective story after story has been through the markets that I've been in, especially during a time like the pandemic when so many communities didn't have representatives from their communities, didn't have the network of people to call, didn't even have like a first language to be able to explain the resources that they lacked and the ways they were getting left behind.

And work that, that we would do would, would get in front of the people who needed to see it so that resources that wouldn't have otherwise been there would, would arrive out of that, that power to [00:09:00] hold people accountable and, and say what is not happening that should be and, yeah, I think that's the, that for me has been the reason, I guess for seeing the power of, of what it can do and feeling like the responsibility, I guess, to, to be in the room so that the power of it can be to the benefit of, of people like me, my family, my community.

[00:09:16] HOST: These are all amazing, impressive stories. I'm just blown away by all the things that they've done, are currently doing, and how they're representing their communities through different types of storytelling, because they're all not just podcasters, they're filmmakers and directors, writers, et cetera. Now that we've got to know a little more about them, I wanna tell you all the tangible things that we covered in this panel. Starting with Lori giving advice on the first obstacle you might need to overcome. How, when, and why should you even start sharing your own stories?

[00:09:50] Lori: I spent a lot of time waiting, I guess a little bit for like the permission to speak that same way, to have that edge of like, confidence about what I'm talking about to, to talk about like my stories, my community, [00:10:00] what I wanna say in a way that just has like inherent value. And I know that. And so I'm saying it that way, and because of that, I'm setting the precedent and the standard that you should also know that it, it just inherently matters. And I'm telling you that this is going to matter to this community because it does. I'm just telling you that it will, I'm not asking for permission. I think that is, that's the advice that no one will give you. Like no one's gonna shake your hand and call you into like the closed-door meeting and be like, Hey, we trust you now. Like go for it. You do just have. Believe that your community is that important and the stories that you wanna say and your perspective and your experiences are worth talking about. Um, I think it comes with walking in and believing that and knowing that about yourself, not telling people that it does, like knowing yourself that it does. Half of that battle I think comes like from within. And so I think that that's also like, I guess taking, like, again, back the ownership because that's the only seat I've ever sat in is knowing that the onus is on us.

[00:10:50] HOST: Another reason that we have to chart that path sometimes, is because we haven’t seen it done before. And Lori speaks to that too.

[00:10:55] Lori: There is so much power in encouragement and in sort of like ingesting other people's content [00:11:00] and giving feedback. Nothing feels better than knowing that people are in the world, like listening to what you're creating, believing in you, sharing thoughts. There is not like not enough kind, encouraging words, especially on the way to being a successful creator in a space that is. Is there is a lot of competition and there is a lot of talent. So I would, I would say just be generous with the belief in people, like you said, nurture, nurture other people's talent and creativity. Having creators also next to you, your community in this space, being able to encourage the work that maybe you're not getting, you know, from who you would maybe seek, like normally. We are also talking about first generation folks who we're coming into this space not having seen our parents do it, or our friends do it, or our family do it. We're kind of like out here charting our path, and these are like totally uncharted waters. And so there is like a lot of, you feel isolation. There's not a lot of conversation, at least in my space, of like shared experience with family members. So community really becomes like, who else is creating and who's like doing the work with you or doing the work in their space and, and ingesting mine. So yeah, I think community in this space is also like powerful and, and a huge source of encouragement and just gives you, [00:12:00] it can give you like that push to keep going, keep creating.

[00:12:04] HOST: Okay so, make sure you create an environment that allows people to feel comfortable in trying out new things and figuring out who they are within this space. Mike also had some amazing advice to share on uplifting diverse voices.

[00:12:15] Mike: I think, you know, in terms of philosophically, we live in a society where often cultural pride equals cultural prejudice.

[00:12:25] HOST: I’m going to take a beat. Pause. And rewind real quick.

[00:12:30] Mike: …we live in a society where often cultural pride equals cultural prejudice.

[00:12:34] HOST: Ok now… let’s keep going.

[00:12:36] Mike: And I think what we have to do is change that to realize, okay, you can think that being whatever you are is great, but why not embrace what this other person is doing because I feel like, you know, that's the danger. I do a show called Brown & Black, and I do it with a Latino co-host. And because we, you know, we're interested in each other's culture, we're interested in and we respect what each other has to say. I'm learning from him. He's learning from me. You know, we learn from our audience, we learn from our guests, [00:13:00] but that's the beauty, you know, it's like you see a foreign. When you see a foreign film, there's like a glimpse of a place you've never been, a culture you've never been to. They're doing things that are similar but different and it's fascinating and it also shows just how connected we are. You know, there, there are languages that don't even exist anymore because. It was not continued because that culture was not valued. So I think to me, the important thing is to realize that cultural pride should be just pride in just culture. You should just want to absorb culture because you know you're even better at parties when you know things. I think it's, it's more of a, a, a realizing just how much you can get. There are a lot of things we already know. You know, before my first film, a producer said this to me and I thought it was glib, and he says, you don't know what you don't know. And it's true.

[00:13:50] HOST: And of course, even though diversity is important, Lee pushes us to consider expanding what diversity means to us, in business, podcasting, or whatever you're working on. [00:14:00] It’s one of my favorite reminders on what diversity means.

[00:14:04] Lee: Box checking for the sake of box checking, diversity for the sake of diversity helps nobody. And what's really important to remember when we talk about diversity is it goes a lot farther than race or gender. There is diversity in income, diversity in perspective, diversity in a walk of life. So when you think about diversity and you want to incorporate it into your very large or very small business, remember that, uh, hiring a woman doesn't always serve you in the way that you may hope it is going to serve you. Hiring a Black person or an Asian person or whomever is not gonna serve you in the way that you may think it's going to because someone from Southeast Asia and someone from East Asia have two very different cultures, and there's not any single group in any society that exists as a monolith, regardless of their common denominator that ties them together. So my biggest CTA [00:15:00] is look for nuance and find that diversity and perspective and leave space for it, because that will actually benefit all of us in the long run in a much more important way than checking a box.

[00:15:12] HOST: Box checking for the sake of box checking, diversity for the sake of diversity helps nobody. And I want to make sure we hear the last thing Lee said one more time.

[00:15:22] Lee: Look for nuance and find that diversity and perspective and leave space for it, because that will actually benefit all of us in the long run in a much more important way than checking a box.

[00:15:35] HOST: Repeating this because I think it was so beautifully said. So then, how can we spotlight diverse stories in a way that serves the story itself and the community? Here's Lori's take on it.

[00:15:45] Lori: I think sometimes the mission is like missed the looking for diverse stories, like the act of like, it has to be diverse. It has to reach a new audience, it has to reach a demographic that we haven't gotten to yet. We really need a new quota. We really need this demographic of people. [00:16:00] Versus like just knowing that our stories are interesting, important, that these voices matter. That our experiences also aren't just needled into being my, I'm not just a woman. I'm not just Latina. I'm not just first generation. I'm not just that, that having experiences in this country also relates to other people who don't have to be Latina. What's amazing is to see stories that are sort of pitched as this is a story for a Latina to tell how much further they go and how many more people who are not at all from the same sort of like diversity check boxes as me, write me saying the ways that that experience reflects themselves and reflects their own experiences or reflects their family's experiences or someone that they know or that that sort of highlighted an experience within themselves that they didn't even realize was something significant or that that happened to them. And that's, that's an interesting perspective.

We continue spotlighting diverse voices when. Remember that there are communities out there looking for content. Doesn't have to be Latino content, doesn't have to be Black content, doesn't have to be white content, just has to be good content. And the gag behind having like the awesome voice behind it, that's Latina. That's just. [00:17:00] That's just icing on the cake, right? Because I'm gonna talk about my experiences. I'm gonna talk about where I come from, where I've been, what I've seen, what I've done, what I've been through by nature of being Latina. That just lends to some stuff that's gonna resonate more with my community, but it's also gonna resonate with other people too, who have different experiences and they don't have to look like me or be from where I come from. I think it's less like, hurry, find the diverse voice. It's more just remembering, like you said, there's so much talent out there from our communities and business dollars and cents. You need my community, but you're not gonna get us by talking about the Latino issues. You're gonna get us by creating good content. We're here to ingest what speaks to us, what reminds us of the stuff that, you know, we enjoy ingesting. And if it tastes good, you'll come back. And I think it's just remembering that audience yes, wants to be spoken to by somebody who resonates with them. But a lot of audiences want that. And I think, you know, people who come from our communities, we have that. We have that to give. And, you're not doing anyone any favors to put a, a creator of color in the seat to, to change the narrative and to bring new perspective. That's a good thing for everyone.

[00:18:00] Kulap: I had a writing teacher that shifted things for me and he, he said that, write so much about you yourself, be so detailed in your experience that it's about all of us. When you write on the surface, when you generalize, it's about no one.

[00:18:15] Andrea: I loved what Kulap added there. Be more detailed about your own personal, unique experience because that makes it more universal. I honestly love digging into the amazing stories behind all the small business owners who come on This is Small Business. Their stories are fascinating and of course, I always learn so much from them. And one of the constants in this conversation and the ones I’ve had in past episodes of the show is, tell your story, especially as a small business owner who started a product out of a personal need. There’s a question I get asked often from small business owners, naturally as a podcast producer, I get asked if they should consider starting a podcast for their business. My answer is not an easy yes or no because it depends on your goals. However, I do think that it helps tell your brand story and build a loyal customer base. [00:19:00] So during the panel, we also talked about how podcasting can help us drive more diversity in storytelling. Especially with how easy it is to just start a podcast. I mean you could probably start one right now if you wanted to. Here's what Lee and Mike had to say about that.

[00:19:17] Lee: When I'm working on a pod or I'm working on a new episode of a pod in my mind, I'm competing with your favorite song. So if I can't make something that is as emotionally dynamic, has as much range as as fun to listen to as your favorite song. There is nothing keeping you from clicking next on Spotify and going to whatever else is in your queue. I'm really competing for your attention and I need to take that very seriously. So I look at what we do as art. So for me, I'm trying to make something that you are going to score a moment of your life to. It's gonna be the soundtrack of whatever you were going through at that moment, and that's how I think you open up conversations and you invite the audience in. [00:20:00] And if you approach it from that perspective, then you will find success in sharing your perspectives with other people.

[00:20:06] Mike: I see stories and storytelling and art in general as creative problem solving. So like, how can I present this narrative. How can I tell this story? What's the best way? Do I need scene tape? What am I gonna do to present this? How am I gonna frame this so that I can get what I need? What kind of scoring do I need? What sound effects, what can I do to enhance this story? And I think there's a lot out there. Like if you're into Oatmeal delumper, there's an Oatmeal de Lumper podcast. So whatever it is you're into, you can find, but at the same time, there's still gonna be, you know, 10 oatmeal de lumper podcasts. So if you are trying to tell a story and if you feel it's important, if you're excited about it, hopefully you're gonna get somebody else excited. You have to be excited about the stories you're telling. You have to be enthusiastic about the stories you're telling. And I think coming back to what I said before, you have to be enthusiastic about telling stories. [00:21:00] You know, the more diverse, the better. But it's still, like you said, it's gotta be a good story. You know, you've gotta grab me. Okay. Because yeah, I, I've heard stories about things I don't care about, but it's told so well, like, wow, now I care about it. So that should be your goal, like, You want to make a podcast for somebody who doesn't care about oatmeal to like, want to go out and buy some oatmeal now.

[00:21:20] HOST: When you tell a story, people care more. So, we've talked a lot about the importance of diversity and sharing your story. And why diversity for diversity’s sake isn't the best. We opened up the conversation to the audience and had a question about what you should do if you get an opportunity that's very obviously diversity for diversity's sake.

[00:21:40] Lee: If that opportunity can serve you, then you should take it and you should exceed whatever hopes they had for you in taking that opportunity. If that is not an opportunity that is given out in earnest and you don't feel like your perspective or your voice is being heard or listened to, now I really am strong advocate for advocating for yourself [00:22:00] and your own voice and your own perspective. So a certain amount of responsibility is also on us as the people in those rooms to be the change that we want to see. As much as it is for the people who are decision makers to seek out those voices for the sake of again, bringing them in to whatever it is that you're already doing.

[00:22:20] Mike: If it's an opportunity for you to advance not just your career, but whatever it is that, you know, I, I tend to feel being an artist doing what we do, it's a purpose. It's a calling. It's something that you're gonna do. So if it's gonna advance what you do, even if you know they're only doing it to check a box, fine. You've got a box to check too.

[00:22:40] Lori: I think we carry the weight of feeling like we have to do all the work. Yes. Like we're talking about like, you know, deconstructing systems that are working against our communities or you know, that have been built that we don't succeed. And I think you walk in with a sense of responsibility to fix that. That's a lot to fix. And also you're not getting paid for that labor. You got walk in the room and you get paid to do the job that you got hired to do. And all the extra that is extra what you can pull off. That's significant. [00:23:00] But I think we also go to bed with a lot of responsibility for the success of our whole entire communities.

And the higher we go, the more we owe. That's a lot. And it can break you on the way to remaining in a business that desperately needs your voice and your passion. So I think it's, it's twofold, right? Make sure that you don't go in putting every single thing and every amount of progress that needs to get made on yourself. And also make sure that when you're in an interview, you're interviewing them if they're talking about lifting you up, your voice, your experience, your perspective on things, get it in writing. It's very nice to hear that you want my voice. It is a totally different thing to see that in action and to watch you get written out of a script, to watch your story pitch, get turned down to watch the perspective or the nuance or, or the empathy with which you are talking about a character be shifted because somebody else's narrative or perspective doesn't see it your way.

It is crucial that you write the language that will uphold exactly what they're saying. They're hiring you for, for the works that it translates when you're actually in the room, [00:24:00] that you have the authority, that you are given the permission and that you are given the trust and sort of the hands off to yes, make sure that this work is, is quality standard. Make sure that this work, you know, meets all of the checks and balances that this place, you know, has been known to do. It's up to, up to snuff. It's gonna have the same reputation, the same quality of work. But in terms of the voice, yeah, I'm shifting the voice. You don't have to like the content, but that's what I'm here to do is, is be a different voice.

[00:24:25] HOST: That was Lori Lizarraga, the host of NPR’s Code Switch, Mike Sargent, the co-host of the Brown & Black Podcast, Kulap Vilaysack, the co-host of Add To Cart, and Lee Adams, the Producer of The Midnight Miracle. Thank you for listening today, I had such a wonderful time speaking to Lori, Kulap, Lee, and Mike and I've learned a lot from them. So, even though this episode was different than our usual programming, I cannot leave without sharing some key takeaways:

One. Your unique story matters, and can make a difference in the lives of many. So don’t be afraid to speak up and share who you are. [00:25:00] As Kulap's teacher told her, the more detailed and personal you are with your story, the more universal it will be. So, don't shy away from writing about personal experiences because it WILL resonate with a wider audience. As a business owner, and if you’ve listened to past episode of This is Small Business, you already know how powerful stories resonate with audiences and can lead to life-long customers.
Two. If you have the power in the room, if you are the leader, take risks on people who don't look like you or who you might not understand. And make sure you give feedback and encouragement. Businesses can succeed when you listen, try something new, and leave space for diversity in stories.
Three. Remember, diversity for the sake of diversity helps no one. As Lee said look for nuance and find that diversity and perspective and leave space for it. Diversity is not just about race and gender, there’s so much more to it that you can think about when you’re telling your brand story.

I'm curious – How are you empowering others to share their own stories? [00:26:00] Or if you've got your own story to tell, I'd love to hear all about it. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for this special episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

[00:27:00] CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:27:25]

Bonus episode: Live from Dallas: US Veteran Matt has a plan

Learn about effective business planning.

[00:00:06] Andrea Check-in: Right now we're at the Hyatt, outside the Hyatt, and we're entering the Veteran Edge 2023 conference, and it's by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families. And Amazon likes to come to these events because a lot of our Amazon sellers are veterans, and we like to support them in any way we can.

[00:00:30] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a weekly podcast brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and grow your small business and -- as always -- I'll make sure to call out all the key takeaways at the end of each episode.

This is Small Business has been on the road. I went to Dallas to attend the Veteran Edge conference by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families or IVMF for short. This special episode might sound slightly different than our regular ones [00:01:00] because I got the chance to be at the event in person and interview our guests live. The Veteran EDGE conference is for veterans, military members, and military spouses. And it allows them to get together to network, develop relationships, and meet other aspiring entrepreneurs. Whether they've been coming to Veteran's Edge for a while…

[00:01:28] Impromptu Interview Speaker: Why are we here? I like to come to Edge as someone who has worked with entrepreneurs for the past 10 years and share my knowledge with them to help them succeed.

[00:02:00] Host: Or if it was their first time at the event…

[00:02:03] Rebecca: This is my first time at Edge, so I'm really excited to be here. I'm just experiencing the energy and the vibe and I'm just so grateful to IVMF for, um, partnering with, our organization, the National Association for community college entrepreneurship.

[00:02:20] Host: And while I was there, I got the chance to talk to Matt Butler, a military veteran, Founder of Rollers, and Co-founder of Tally Tumbler. But first, I'm going to hand it over to my past self to fill you in on the details of the event.

[00:02:36] Andrea Check-in: And so right now we're entering the event, which is in the lobby, first floor. You can see already that there's a lot of people with their badges. Veterans here to meet, speak to each other, and right now I think there's some keynotes going on and some goody bag, merch tables. [00:03:00] I think that a lot of people come here to network, meet other veterans, try to learn from them. Actually, Matt, who we're talking to today, is a coach for other veterans that can leverage their experiences to learn about creating their own small business or being an entrepreneur, aspiring entrepreneur. So, right now there's a lot of people working, sitting down, talking to each other. And actually what's interesting about this as well, it's not just for veterans, but their families as well, military spouses, which we've had on the show.

Hi. Can you tell me a little bit more about the conference we're at right now?

[00:03:35] Check-in person: Yes, yes. So this conference of course, is Veteran Edge and it's a conference to provide knowledge and skill sets to veterans, military spouses as well, to kind of ignite that interest to start a business. So it's a lot of networking, it's a lot of insights related to business aspects, but most of all, it's a great conference to provide those tools and skill sets to open up a business or start their own company.

[00:04:00] Andrea Check-in: How many people attend this conference?

[00:04:04] Check-in person: Today, I wanna say probably a little over 200 or like 240 around that number. Um, there's a good turnout and of course, you know, these veteran and military spouses are looking for these resources to upscale their businesses. So this is our fifth Veteran Edge conference, and then there's only one year where it didn't take place because of covid in 2020.

[00:04:24] Host: At the event I got to sit down with Matt Butler and a live audience.

[00:04:31] Andrea: Matt Butler, thank you so much for being on, This is Small Business.

[00:04:32] Matt: Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:04:33] Andrea: Tell me a little bit about: who you are Matt?

[00:04:38] Matt: I'm a veteran of the US Air Force. I was in, uh, 20 plus years. I moved around quite a bit in the military. I was on 10 different deployments. I spent the majority of my time flying on a reconnaissance aircraft called Joint Stars, which is a big 707 aircraft. So you can imagine a big commercial aircraft that had a radar on the bottom of the aircraft [00:05:00] for surveilling, uh, maritime and the ground environment. So that's what took me overseas and on deployment quite a bit. I did a lot of other things of testing equipment for UAVs, which the media calls drones and unmanned vehicles. Spent some time on staffs, so Virginia and uh, the Pentagon. So I kind of took me all over the place. It was really fun.

[00:05:21] Andrea: And then you got here, to being an entrepreneur and owning your own business. Tell me that journey from deciding that you wanted to be an entrepreneur to Rollers.

[00:05:32] Matt: I don't know if it was so much that I wanted to become an entrepreneur, that maybe entrepreneurship found me so, I was missing being with friends and family on one of my deployments. I think I, I was missing a friend of mine, from college's wedding and uh, this is when we're doing a lot of back-to-back deployments and I grew up in Minnesota where we played a lot of outdoor games. And so I was reminiscing on those memories of playing bocce ball and horseshoes. [00:06:00] And, uh, in entrepreneurship when people find a problem and they can find a solution that usually will equal an opportunity.

And so, at the time when I was reminiscing about being back in Minnesota and hanging out with friends, I was thinking there's a, a lack of outdoor games on the market in retail. I kept seeing the same games on the store shelves for probably the past century. So I started imagining another outdoor game, and I took elements of the game that I didn't like. For example, corn hole are really heavy, big boards, they don't really fit too well in a person's trunk of their car. Horseshoes can be a little dangerous. It's, you know, metal horseshoe that you're slinging back and forth to each other could hit you in the shin. So all sorts of things and so I was thinking of a new outdoor game and I made a combination of bocci ball and horseshoes.

[00:07:00] So you've got two goals to the game and six discs, and you roll these discs in underhand bowling motion towards the goal, and the discs have numbers on them, and whichever side the discs fall on are the points you get. Fairly leisure game. You're not gonna really injure yourself playing it, but, uh, a fun game. I've always been involved in sports and being outdoors, and so part of that fits into Rollers because it's something that I enjoy doing. So when I got back from one of my deployments, I prototyped Rollers in my garage. I've got some woodworking skills that I learned on one of the military bases and prototyped rollers in my garage and showed it to some friends and family and they liked the game and they actually, we played at a barbecue and, and had fun playing it.

And they told me how, how well they liked the game and I thought they're just being nice but then somebody actually wanted to buy it from me, which is different. There's a transaction that somebody wants to give me money for something that I created, [00:08:00] and so I had a bunch more made in the garage. I took those games that I had made and brought them to my church craft fair, but I had what's what people in business called is a MVP, which is a minimal viable product. And when I was at the fair, I had about 50 sets made. Somebody asked if they could play the game outside in front of the church. So I said, sure. So they took a set and they went out there and everyone that came to the church to go to the craft fair was seeing people playing Rollers, and were inquiring on what the game is and they said, you can buy it inside. And so because of that marketing, which I didn't really know was ongoing, I actually sold out of those 50 sets the first day and I didn't have anything to sell the next day. So that light bulb, you know, popped on over my head, what you see on cartoons and that where I might have an idea for a business here.

So this is why I didn't look into going into entrepreneurship right off the bat. It was more something that found me over the development of a problem that I saw. [00:09:00] And a solution and opportunity. And fast forward to today with Rollers. We sell it in hundreds of retailers across the United States. We've expanded internationally.

[00:09:16] Andrea: A couple of things that you mentioned stood out to me. Before we were talking right now I was in the lobby and talking to some of the attendees of IVMF and I was telling them that from the conversations that I've had with a lot of small business owners or aspiring entrepreneurs, one of the things that they are the most fearful of and that stop them from taking that next step is how do you find money? And one of the attendees mentioned that for him, he thinks that one of the most intimidating things is solving a problem...

[00:09:45] Andy Gold: the biggest thing in my opinion an aspiring entrepreneur needs to focus on is whether or not there's a problem worth solving before they chase money. Cuz oftentimes you're right, like novice entrepreneurs will go chasing money. [00:10:00] They gotta do, think they have to do capital raising, but they don't even know if the problem they've identified is a real problem that needs to even be solved.

[00:10:11] Andrea: Matt, you just mentioned that you were trying to solve that problem for yourself, but also it found you. You were very passionate about what you were doing. You didn't even think that this was going to be what it is today. And then another thing is the MVP is so important. We actually talk about in episode 13, Serwaa Adjei-Pellé mentioned that if there's anything that you can do as a small business owner, it's get out in the market as fast as you can so that you can get that live feedback from your customers. So you've already, as we mentioned, talked about the MVP. You talked about being passionate, you talked about finding a problem, a solution, and you also started another business, right?

[00:10:50] Matt: I did, we've got another product called the Tally Tumblr. It's a score keeping Tumblr, so think of like a Yeti or one of the brand names that are out there for tumblers, [00:11:00] but it's got rings that are around it. It's for keeping track of different sports, like yard games, like Rollers or bocci ball. But then there's also a tennis version. And then also a golf version.

[00:11:11] Andrea: Being where you are now and now that you have that second product, what would you say are those top three lessons you've learned in this journey?

[00:11:18] Matt: I would say the first one is having a plan going in, which is what I've always been used to in the military is developing a plan. I've always developed it on every level, but for people that are wanting to either buy a business or start a business, they need to have a structure to what they're doing, and that's probably why when you said you inquired with some other folks is they're wondering about the money or maybe they're worried about risk or maybe they're worried about a problem, but there's a lot of great free resources that are out there that can help you with a template for creating a plan. And they can ask you questions and you can categorize different things [00:12:00] like what are your demographics, what are your risks, who's your target audience, uh, your sales strategy, things like that. So things like that would probably alleviate some of the people that are here as they're getting into a brand new business of having a plan going in.

So a second item would be finding something that you have interest in because it's not a sprint in your business. It could be. But if, if you want to get up and feel energized about what you're gonna go out and do, you need to have something that you're passionate about. I'm passionate about Rollers because it's in the sporting goods realm. I like the outdoors. I like the leisure competition. I grew up playing a lot of sports basketball. Tore my ACL a couple times. So those competitive sports are kind of out the door. So now I'm competitive Rollers and lawn games and things of that nature.

[00:13:00] Same thing with Tally Tumblr. It's, it's a sporting goods item. It has to do with sports and golf and tennis, and I still enjoy playing those and so passionate about those. So I enjoy doing those day to day and meeting other people that are into the sporting goods.

And then the third, I would say networking. It's real important to network with other people, like-minded people, maybe people that are in your line of business or just in business in general. It's part of the reason why I'm here today in Dallas at the Edge Conference as I'm trying to expand upon my network. And also, I've had a lot of, uh, mentors that have helped me. Pay it forward to me by helping me out. And so I've tried to do the same thing by helping other people here with, with helping them in any pitfall or problem they may have and help out with any questions they have. But networking something that is very essential to any business because there's a lot of other people that have done the things that we're doing. [00:14:00] And if we can learn from any mistakes they might have made, we can hopefully eliminate not making those same mistakes.

[00:14:08] Andrea: You mentioned planning and then being passionate. Going back to planning, you touched on how being in the military helped you with this. I'm guessing it obviously helps with discipline and keeping yourself accountable, but how else has that seeped into your entrepreneurship life now?

[00:14:25] Matt: Well, you already hit one. Discipline is definitely something that's, uh, helped me being disciplined in the military and then being disciplined in business. And another one that I discussed a little bit is planning and business planning and developing. I think it was Benjamin Franklin that said, if you fail to a plan, you plan to fail. So same thing. You can go and act on your business if you'd like to without having a plan. But your probability of failure is going to be higher. You're putting yourself at risk, and so you should do your due diligence of planning.

[00:16:00] So in the military, planning is an integral part out of every level being in the military from the tactical to strategic level of different units. And uh, when I flew on joint stars, we spent a full day planning prior to conducting our mission. And then we flew our mission that following day. And then on the day after that post mission, we would do a debrief and lessons learned so we could pull out the good and bad about what we conducted on the mission to see how we can better. That's the same recommendation I would have in business. It might not be a full day of doing mission planning, but you should have a level of planning as part of your thought process for business.

If you want to pull out a small pad of paper, if you want to take out a sheet of paper and just start putting things together in a structured form. And for me, I honestly did not initially create a business plan, but once I did, I, I felt a lot of relief of [00:16:00] getting all of my thoughts and processes onto a single source. So it helped me communicate what I wanted to do. For me, I almost felt like I took a box, a puzzle. And took all the pieces and threw them out on the table and then started piecing 'em together. That's what I felt the business plan was. I could figure out my demographics, my finances, my strategy, my marketing. I could put them in paragraph format, which is, which is really powerful because for me it got, I had all the pieces and parts in my mind it was all there. It just wasn't structured. That's what I think. That's good about a business plan, so you're structuring your communication.

Another thing that I learned about being in the military is being focused on a mission. Uh, and that would be the same for a business. Businesses come up with what are their mission, what are their visions or strategy? And at every level in the military, there's a mission for every unit. For the Air Force, the Navy, the D-O-D, everyone has a mission. And so everyone in that company, including the founder, myself, [00:17:00] we’re focused on what that mission is. You go back and revisit that mission, that that's, that's why you're here in conducting business. So I think that that's been instilled in my mind from the military as being on the same page.

Then third, I would say working together in teams is a, a real important part. At some point in business, you're gonna have to work. If you're hiring people, you might think, well, I can operate my business by myself, but you still have to work with maybe manufacturers, buyers of other companies, other people to help develop your business. So there's always a teaming effect that, that you have to put into there, and that's communicating. And in the military, we're, we're always working as a team. When I flew on joint stars, we had 22 different people that were on the aircraft. Everyone knew their role and their mission, and, uh, that's important to be able to communicate amongst people. I mean, you could be completely independent in whatever business you do, but that's one of the items that helped me, is being able to work with teams and other people.

[00:18:00] Andrea: And what, I think makes your story unique -- being a veteran who’s a small business owner – leverage your community, right? so it’s not just leveraging the community of small business owners but of veterans.

[00:18:13] Matt: No, you hit the nail in the head. It's exactly what's going on here is everybody is doing this in a teaming effect essentially. You come across all sorts of different people that are selling candles to soaps, to real estate, to me, selling sporting goods. Somebody else might be selling board games, but the, the business mindset is still the same. And so the fundamentals of it are still the same. And so no matter the industry that you're in, you still have value that you can add to other people and that can, people can derive from other people cuz you have people that are making millions of dollars that are here and you have people that might still be in debt because they just started their business.

So you've got all walks of life, but everybody's here to support anyone here. I mean, I bet if I were to walk out and ask for assistance from anyone that's at this conference, they would bend over backwards to help out because that's just part of that [00:19:00] brotherhood, sisterhood amongst just the veterans that are here. Even the spouses. I say veterans a lot, but I include the spouses when I say veterans.

[00:19:09] Andrea: We actually had one military spouse. Her name is Nadia Martinez, and she is a military spouse who employs, the women, she employs are military spouses. I think that's really powerful and hopefully, when I have my own small business, I would love for that to be the case as well.

[00:19:25] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. I'm talking with -- Matt Butler, a military veteran, Founder of Rollers, and Co-founder of Tally Tumbler. You can find out more about both of his businesses in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? The small businesses we feature on the show are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. [00:20:00] One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

[00:20:32] Andrea: I'm going to do some rapid fires now. Are you ready?

[00:20:36] Matt: I am ready.

[00:20:37] Andrea: What is one thing you can't live without that helps your business?

[00:20:40] Matt: It is my smartphone, the one item that I turned off for this podcast for you. So I'm living without that right now. But, uh, no, I've, I've got all of the things that I need in the palm of my hand from photography to communication.

[00:20:53] Andrea: I'm honored that you turned it off for me. Wow. Another small business, you admire?

[00:20:58] Matt: That's a tough one. I know you're trying to stump me on this, [00:21:00] and may sound cheesy, but here it goes. So, I admire, really, all the people that are here tonight, honestly, because they're trying to start something or get involved in business, and I admire them for wanting to come here to better themselves, to develop, engage, network, and all of those things. Uh, and they're serious about it. I mean, because they spent time traveling here, they're on Thursday through Sunday they're here, and that that's a lot of time to be out. So I know that they're serious about it and I just applaud, anyone wanting to start a business, but especially the people that are here because I know that they're veterans and spouses like myself.

[00:21:40] Andrea: Stop. That was a very nice answer. What is your advice to other small business owners?

[00:21:44] Matt: If you're a small business owner or you're looking to get involved in a small business, I would look at the free resources that are out there, there's a lot of them out there. You just have to look for them. So the small business administration, and you can look at sba.gov, can give you business templates. [00:22:00] If you look at their website, they talk about if you're initially starting your business or if you're growing it or if you're trying to further, they give you different stages. So anyways, the SBA is great and then they have, different entities throughout the United States called small business development centers. And then for veterans, they have veteran business outreach centers. They're growing and they're real helpful, very specific to veterans and spouses. So again, using free resources that are out there.

[00:22:28] Andrea: A book you recommend early-stage small business owners read?

[00:22:54] Matt: So the first one that comes to mind is a book called Victory, which is for small businesses. [00:23:00] It's actually written by a gentleman that's here. His name's Larry Bratton. He's a Green Beret and he is, uh, very involved in IVMF programs, but his book is extremely helpful. It starts off just talking about the foundations of business, things to think about. There's another one called deliberate discomfort by Jason VanCamp. Uh, Jason is another Green Beret, so I don't know if there's a pattern there about these Green Berets here, but, uh, Jason has different chapters in the book that talk about discomfort of other people that were in his unit and organization and just different perspectives. And so it's, it's almost like multiple books into one, but the, the synopsis of the book is, um, you need to deliberately on purpose, put yourself into uncomfortable positions to make yourself comfortable. I mean, you can't just take the easy way every time. I mean, you can, but if you wanna better yourself for your business. And so I enjoyed, uh, reading Jason's book, deliberate Discomfort.

[00:23:57] Andrea: What is the biggest misconception of being a business owner?

[00:24:00] Matt: I would say when you see that meme or cartoon of somebody in their flip flops on a hammock that's kicking back and they have a Piña Colada or a Mai Thai or whatever, your drink of choice is just kicking back because you're a business owner, entrepreneur. I, I feel like a lot of people think that that's what it is when you get, when you become an entrepreneur and you're, you're running your own business, but that is really not the case because you are going to be married to your business. Uh, sometimes your weekends disappear because you're working on your business. There's a lot of time that goes into the business. You might be up late for, you know, something you're working on all sorts of things. So there's a lot of hard work that goes into it, but, I, I don't wanna be too negative about it, but there's a lot of reward that comes with it as well. I think that, uh, that's why I go back into selecting a business that you have interest in, you know, I think the, the best thing that somebody can find is if there's something that you would do for free, [00:25:00] that's work. But then you actually get paid money. So it's almost like a bonus. But that would be the, the best job to have as something that you would do free, but you actually get paid to do so.

[00:25:10] Andrea: So now is the portion where we allow one or two Q and A’s from the audience…

[00:25:15] Audience: So, so Matt, my question for you is, you talk about how challenging it is to be a small business owner, and we also know serving the military had its challenges as well. I wanna know what motivates you when things are super challenging and you just wanna give up. Because even though we have that military experience, there's always gonna be a day where you just wanna give up. What motivates you?

[00:25:35] Matt: There's probably a little bit of DNA in myself in regards to persistence and tenacity, and I did also learn a lot of that in the military about myself. That you know, you don't always get everything that you need in the military. You have to make do with what you have sometimes, and uh, sometimes that can be challenging. I mean, there's been days where I think that I am an absolute [00:26:00] business wizard when it comes to things and I'm making a lot of money. And then usually when that happens right around the corner is there's gonna be something that, uh, you know, maybe I got a little too arrogant about something and something's gonna catch me off guard and I'm gonna make a poor decision on something. And I have all sorts of those examples. Uh, I was at a conference, and I saw a diagram, an XY chart, and it showed a squiggle. Going in the upward trajectory, but it, what, what that was implying was that in business, it's not just exponential that you hear about in business magazines and stories of, you know, is there's our ups and downs in businesses all the time, but hopefully you just keep the trajectory going in the way that you want, which is usually up.

[00:26:48] Andrea: Matt, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It was great to have you. And thank you for your service.

[00:26:54] Matt: Thank you so much for having me on. And it was my pleasure.

[00:26:57] Host: That was Matt Butler, a military veteran, [00:27:00] Founder of Rollers, and Co-founder of Tally Tumbler. Thank you for listening today -- I’ve learned a lot from speaking to Matt and I'm feeling so inspired by all the people I met at Veteran EDGE. As always, here are some key takeaways:

One. Have business that helps solves a problem and a plan in place. Before you start to think about how you'll fund your business, you need to have a plan that will set up your business in the right way and help you succeed. And most importantly, think of how your business idea is solving a problem and for who. A plan can come in many different forms and as Matt mentioned, there are many free resources out that that can help you with some templates, like the Amazon Small Business Academy of the Small Business Administration. A plan will help you stay on track and lead you in the right direction when you’re starting out. And in solving a problem, you can also understand who your customer is and how you fit into their daily life, which eventually can help you iterate [00:28:00] or even start a new business, like Matt did with Tally Tumblr.
Two. Make sure you're passionate about your business. Starting and owning a business is not always what we think it’ll be. After two seasons of hosting This is Small Business, I’ve learned that it’s a lot more work, discipline, and determination than I thought going into Season One. We've heard this from so many people. But like Matt said, you'll be spending a lot of time on your business, so make sure you're working on something you love.
Three. MVPs. Your minimal viable product. We’ve talked about this in the past. But when it comes to starting out with limited resources, it helps to test your product out in the market first, before investing additional resources. Matt did this with Rollers and his 50 unites sold out in a day! Customer feedback is gold.
and finally. Networking and leveraging your community is key and can drive a lot of the word-of-mouth marketing [00:29:00] that you just can’t buy in business. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, and if -- like me -- going up to strangers is a challenge, Matt says to try to find conferences that have people with similar interests. Like a conference for veterans interested in entrepreneurship.

I'm curious – Do you have a small business? Or are you in the process of starting one? I'd love to hear more about it! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site [00:30:00] at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for this special live episode of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:29:40]

Ep 28: Miguel connects with his community to grow his brand

Learn about growing your brand.

[00:00:04] Miguel: I feel like every great news or great decision usually has a lot of work or a lot of resources that have to do at the end. And I can probably say the same thing for when we've gotten the bad news. You know, it was probably too early for us, or, or we wouldn't have been ready, or it would have been more than we can chew.

[00:00:30] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a weekly podcast brought to you by Amazon and I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. I can't believe that we've reached the end of Season 2 of This is Small Business. This show is all about learning how to start, build and grow your small business. Throughout this season, I've talked to talented and inspiring small business owners and experts who've given me a bunch of advice that I've stored away in my small business playbook. I hope you’ve learned as much as I have.

[00:01:00] As a Latina and aspiring entrepreneur, I wanted to explore what it means to be a Latinx founder and business owner and how we can leverage our communities to start, build, and grow a small business. I wanted to speak to someone who started out in the corporate world and then branched out to do their own thing, and that’s why I reached out to a business owner who I truly admire, Miguel Leal. Miguel is the Co-Founder and CEO of SOMOS Foods, Mexican food with authentic recipes and plant-based, non-GMO ingredients. Before SOMOS, Miguel was the Chief Marketing Officer at Cholula (a personal favorite brand of mine) and he served as Executive Vice President of Marketing at KIND Snacks (another brand I love) where he met SOMOS' co-founders Daniel Lubetzky and Rodrigo Zuloaga. I'm excited for you to meet him.

[00:01:55] Andrea: Miguel, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. I'm excited to hear your story.

[00:02:00] Miguel: I am so excited about this conversation. Thank you so much for the opportunity to tell a little bit of the SOMOS story.

[00:02:05] Andrea: Tell me a bit about yourself and how you got here.

[00:02:08] Miguel: I was born in Monterey. I have a big family, you know, over 31st cousins and all of us get together over the weekends. We used to go a lot to see my great-grandma at the border, and you know how border towns are. I, I don't need to tell you being from Matamoros, but we would always go and see her and then cross the border to do our shopping. And I love those trips. And I think just finding out all these different products that we had in the US that we didn't have in Mexico, like I'm a little bit older than you, but we didn't have any, you know, peanut butter or a hundred different brands of cereals. Really got me into packaged goods, and especially food. And as I moved to the states, I came here to do my college and my graduate degree. [00:03:00] My mom will come and visit me, and she will always make these recipes, you know, chilorio, picadillo, you know, even like her rice that I love. And she would leave me bags in my freezer that I would like treasure and share with friends and take out from time to time. And then, you know, as life went on, I think it was no surprise that I ended up working in food. I, I love food.

[00:03:28] Andrea: At what point did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

[00:03:31] Miguel: I came from a family of entrepreneurs, so everybody in my family. My dad, both of my grandfathers, my uncles. So I think, you know, starting your own business and going down on an entrepreneurial journey was just part of our Saturday conversations. When I thought we were talking about, you know, work or a career, we were really talking about entrepreneurship and my grandfather especially, [00:04:00] I am the oldest grandson in that side of the family. Him and I grew up really, really close. You know, I, I felt in a lot of ways that he was my best friend and, you know, he was an entrepreneur, started many, many different companies. Some of them were very successful. And, and he was really my inspiration in this journey. He would always tell me, it doesn't matter what you do, be the best one at it. And I think, you know, I, I, I thought a lot about him when we decided to start, SOMOS foods.

[00:04:34] Andrea: I grew up with parents who were small business owners, and I relate to the feeling of the inevitability of becoming one yourself. Every time we would talk about anything on the dinner table, it was like, okay, so I know you have this job right now, but what are you learning about this for when you have your own small business? Like it's never about climbing the corporate ladder, it’s more like, okay, [00:05:00] all of these are teachings and learnings for when you're your own boss for when you have your own small business and what are you going to learn from that? And so I feel like it's super ingrained in me. To see everything from that point of view.

[00:05:16] Miguel: You are so right and I can really understand where you're coming from because in a way I was maybe the odd one to be working for someone else in, in my family. And to exactly your point, every, every time that we would go, like Cholula was, just not only an amazing brand and great career-wise, but it was a very rewarding financial transaction for us. And I remember calling my parents and my uncles and they were like, great, now you have money to start your own business. So it was like that was always something to aspire on, but it's like a fish in water. You, you don't even see it until you step out of it.

[00:06:00] Andrea: This is exactly what I want to talk about -- what it means to be a Latinx entrepreneur. Because I think that the journey for Latinx communities in business is different from other groups. Do you think that part of that journey is tied to this idea of the American dream? That this is what you should aspire to be, to build your own legacy?

[00:06:20] Miguel: There are like three different answers that I want to give you here. So I'm gonna start with that notion of is this the American dream and, it's kind of like a journey of one, but I, I would say it is slightly different Andrea. I would say that it is the Mexican-American dream. So a lot of us, like you and me, we were born in Mexico and we love our culture, but appreciate so much about the US, the way business are done here, the way opportunities are here, and a lot of us left families and, you know, different things in order to come in and, and do a life in this country [00:07:00] because we thought there would be so much opportunity and in my story, that was the case. But I think where it is a little bit different for us, Mexicans coming into the countries that we think the epitome is of the dream is not only make it but have something that you created and you called your own. Because as a Mexican culture, we are very entrepreneurs.

So if we are able to not only to start a business, but start a business in the greatest economy that has ever existed, then it means that we have really made it. And I think, you know, that was a little bit of the story of SOMOS. You know, I, I see it very clearly. My, my two co-founders, are also Mexican-Americans. We were all born in Mexico and for different reasons, we, you know, immigrated to the US and, and this country [00:08:00] has been so great to us. We, we don't forget where we come from, but we do think bringing those values and making it happen here is the epitome of the, not only the American dream, but, but like I was saying, the Mexican American dream.

[00:08:14] Andrea: Tell me more about how you’ve leveraged your community to help with the growth of SOMOS.

[00:08:20] Miguel: Well, you know, that is really the story of SOMOS because the story of SOMOS is the story of three friends, you know, the three of us, we're working together. I met Daniel Lubetsky, who's my co-founder because 15 years ago we were probably the only two Mexicans in New York, in the food CPG space, CPG’s, uh, consumer product goods. And a friend of us said, hey, you know, the two of you are from Mexico. The two of you moved here. The two of you work in CPG, you should meet, you know, you should start building this community. [00:09:00] Daniel was the founder of Kind. Rodrigo, also our third co-founder.

And through all those years we would go out to dinner. The three of us in New York City and see how much Mexican food changed at restaurants in the last 10 years, Mexican food became more authentic. It became healthier. It became a lot more like the food we used to eat when we were growing up in Mexico. And we never saw that change on the shelf at retail. And we decided to become that change that we wanted to see. People should be able to cook conveniently delicious and nutritious Mexican food. Not only, you know, hard shell yellow tacos of TexMex cuisine. So I think that was one way that we were able to leverage our community and without that community, [00:10:00] you know, SOMOS wouldn't exist today.

The other piece that I would like to add is where I feel like I have been very lucky that I wish, you know, sometimes the Latino or the Mexican community we don't get enough of is when I started my journey of entrepreneurship, I had someone that looked like me that I could look up to because Daniel Lubetsky is Mexican. He looks like me and he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in my space. And I think representation really matters. And again, I was, I was very lucky to have met Daniel at the beginning of his journey and see him succeed so much with Kind. But I think, you know, watching him now on Shark Tank with Mark Cuban and very successful people, the top entrepreneurs in this country, you know, makes me realize that, that I also can do it, [00:11:00] and to see him help other entrepreneurs as well. I think, you know, community and representation are two things that have been very important in my journey and the journey of SOMOS.

[00:11:11] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. I'm talking with an amazing entrepreneur -- Miguel Leal, the Co-Founder and CEO of SOMOS Foods. You can find out more about SOMOS in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? The small businesses we feature on the show are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, [00:12:00] Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

Coming up, we’re continuing the conversation with Miguel and diving into some of the key lessons from his journey as a small business owner. Because this wouldn't be a This is Small Business episode without uncovering key learnings that Miguel picked up along the way.

[00:12:33] Andrea: Miguel tell me some of the most important lessons you’ve a learned as an entrepreneur.

[00:12:38] Miguel: Probably the best advice I received was from Daniel, my partner, who was an entrepreneur before we started SOMOS. And this was so interesting to me. I don't think I really understood it when he said it to me, but I asked him; I'm about to go on this journey, you know, what would you have told yourself [00:13:00] when you were at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey?

And he said: the highs are not as highs and the lows are not as low. And I couldn't really grasp it, you know, before we started our first transaction or we engaged in the first, you know, hire for the company. And now that we are 18 months into it, I totally get it. When you are an entrepreneur, it feels like every decision or every news that you're getting day in and day out, is putting yourself and the company on the line, and it feels like that because it is if you only have one transaction and that transaction is not successful, that is a hundred percent of your transaction so you feel like everything is on the line and it feels incredibly personal, [00:14:00] but now I understand his advice was to look at the journey.

So if I look at myself through the lens of that journey, in order to be able to make it, I need to make sure that when I am having those highs, I am staying grounded. And when things don't come your way, I can be that uplifting voice to lift the rest of my team and kinda keep ourselves looking at the long view of building a beautiful brand through hopefully many, many years. And I think that was great advice for me as a new business owner.

[00:14:40] Andrea: What are some examples of one of those highs and one of those lows?

[00:14:45] Miguel: I mean, I think getting your first big order, your first retail partner that you would go national. You are so excited that all your friends that live in, you know, Oregon or the Midwest [00:15:00] or Florida are able to now buy your products. So your friends are always calling you, where can I buy them? And your first retailer to go national, you are so excited. But then you realize that it's gonna take a lot of money to work out, you know, the working capital required to do something like that. And you know, the journey is always like that. I kind of feel like every great news or great decision usually has a lot of work or a lot of resources that have to do at the end. And I can probably say the same thing for when we've gotten the bad news. You know, it was probably too early for us, or, or we wouldn't have been ready, or it would have been more than we can chew. And, uh, I've, I've been trying to work a lot on giving it everything that you have and then, you know, when things don't go your way find a way to let go and move on and, you know, things will happen in the right time.

[00:16:00] You know, in every relationship that we have with a retailer, with a distributor, with a team member, we've always tried to take the high road even when things didn't come our way. And what you realize is that it is a small industry, and you end up doing businesses with people. You know what they say? That people don't remember what you tell them, but they always remember the way you made them feel. I think when I understood that, things really changed for me, and they really changed for the business. So trying to keep that piece into perspective that it is a long road. The success of SOMOS, you know, is not solely my success or the success of Daniel or Rodrigo or even the success of the team members that we have today. We're a very small but mighty team. It is a success of such a big community [00:17:00] of partners and retailers that have given us the opportunity. And I think those things really progress and build over time.

[00:17:10] Andrea: I want to take you through a lighting round of questions. To get started, tell me one thing you can't live without that helps your business.

[00:17:20] Miguel: It would probably be my Calendly subscription. I think I pay five or $6 a month. You know, we're a small company, so we don't have admins or people managing our calendars. So with a very quick link, I can probably get rid of 10 or 12 back and forth emails to find out time and give someone access to my calendar. It's something so simple, but also that I could not imagine living without.

[00:17:50] Andrea: Is there another small business you admire?

[00:17:53] Miguel: So I've become good friends with the founder of Fly by Jing. And I love [00:18:00] what fly by Jing and what Jing has done for Asian cuisine, especially making Sichuan food more accessible for everyone. I specifically admire her the way that she does storytelling. I love the way she talks about her background and incorporates it to the mission of the company. But even in small things, like when they discontinue a product, I think their storytelling is very intentional, but it's also incredible interesting. And I just love that, I am so glad about our friendship and that we're going in this entrepreneurial path.

[00:18:42] Andrea: What’s a book you recommend aspiring entrepreneurs read?

[00:18:45] Miguel: I would recommend Do the Kind Thing by Daniel Lubezki, my partner. As we mentioned, everybody associates with Kind bars, the end of Kind bars, this super successful [00:19:00] mission driven better for you, iconic brand. But what the book will tell you, and it's a New York Times bestseller, is all the struggles at the beginning and how his first couple of businesses failures led to the success of Kind. So I think it's a great business book and it's also a great book for someone that is thinking about how to incorporate mission, brand and product together. I think it's a beautiful story on those two fronts.

[00:19:36] Andrea: What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?

[00:19:40] Miguel: Well, I feel there is this huge misconception about starting your own business that a lot of people wanna start their own business to quote unquote, set their own hours, and probably nothing could be farther from the truth when you have a small and nimble team. There's always more work to be done and you know, you're always [00:20:00] kind of at the hours that the business needs you to be in, but when you're building something that you love and you believe in, it is definitely worth it. But I would say be prepared to change plans and constantly be available for your partners.

[00:20:15] Andrea: What is your advice to other small business owners in general?

[00:20:20] Miguel: I think everybody feels like entrepreneurship is a solo sport. You know, maybe like tennis, but I think it's a lot more like football or soccer, that you need a strong team. If you are doing things by yourself or you don't surround yourself. I'm very lucky that I have a fantastic thing at SOMOS. But hiring team members that you believe in and trust and that have the same sense of ownership that you do, and probably most importantly, that aren't afraid to disagree with you is has been critical to the success of SOMOS, and I think it's critical to the success of your business.

[00:21:00] Andrea: What is your advice to Latinx entrepreneurs?

[00:21:05] Miguel: My advice to other Latinos that are aspiring entrepreneurs is don't shy away from your story and the why behind the brand that you're building. We have so many great stories of grief and growth and perseverance, and what you're gonna find out is that your story is interesting, and it would allow consumers to connect with your brand.

[00:21:27] Andrea: Miguel, it was a pleasure to have you on This is Small Business. You have an amazing story, and an inspiring brand, and I am very excited to see SOMOS continue to grow. Thank you so much.

[00:21:37] Miguel: Thank you. It's been, uh, such a fun time to spend with you and talk about our backgrounds, talk about SOMOS. I really, really enjoyed it.

[00:21:47] Host: What a wonderful way to end this season. That was Miguel Leal, the Co-Founder and CEO of SOMOS Foods. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing from inspiring business owners and experts on This is Small Business so far. [00:22:00] And this episode is no different in terms of more lessons to add to our playbooks, here are some of the key takeaways from my conversation with Miguel:

Share your story. Don't shy away from making the story behind your brand, a key part of your communication. Like Miguel mentioned, representation is important, and it'll help make your brand memorable and audiences will be able to relate to your story making them potentially life-long customers.
The highs are not as high and the lows are not as low. When you reach an amazing milestone that you've been dreaming of, you should definitely celebrate -- but this is just part of the journey so make sure you try and stay grounded. And if you've hit a wall or fail at something, you have to try and stay positive so your team members and employees don't get too discouraged. And, yes, think about what went wrong and why, but then, move on.
Don't burn any bridges. It's a small industry and as Miguel mentioned, [00:23:00] people don't remember what you tell them, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. So, try to take the high road in every relationship whether you're talking to a retailer, a distributer, or a team member.

I'm so glad we got to end this season with Miguel’s story. And some of these lessons reminded us of other topics we’ve covered on the show like making sure you're hiring the correct people for your team and that entrepreneurship isn't -- and shouldn't be -- a solo journey.

I'd love to know your stories wherever you are in your journey. Whether you're about to start your own business, in the process of it, or maybe even developing a new product for your already established business. I'm echoing Miguel here, but it's important to share your brand story and I can't wait to hear what you send me. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

And be on the lookout for more episodes soon! We've got some really exciting things coming up that you won't want to miss.

[00:24:00] And if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for the season two finale of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:25:10]

Ep 27: Danyel manages a momentous merger

Learn about preparing and managing a business merger.

[00:00:00] Danyel: So they had the missing capital that we needed and the strength on the back-end side of different verticals and core competencies that they brought to the table from a supply chain model perspective. But we had that foundation that was already in place of e-commerce, of scaling on a retail side, of knowing how to have marketing strategies with micro influencers and getting the strategic partnerships. Those were already there.

[00:00:33] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a weekly podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and grow your small business - and because I know it can get overwhelming, I’ll make sure to call out key takeaways at the end of every episode.

Something a lot of small businesses might think about is: M and A, which stands for mergers and acquisition. [00:01:00] And very simply put: it's when another company buys another company. And there's so many reasons to do it -- maybe you want to exit your company or you think your business will thrive better. But when do you know it's the right time for your business to merge with another business? And how do you set up your business in a way that results in a successful merger?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Kison Patel, the CEO of DealRoom and M&A Science, about when you should consider a merger or an acquisition and all the little details you'll need to consider if you decide to do so. But first -- I want you to meet Business owner, Danyel Surrency Jones, the Co-founder and ex-CEO of POWERHANDZ, a sports and fitness product tech platform. We've had Danyel on the season finale of season 1 and since then, she's managed to merge POWERHANDZ with another business. Another fun fact, Danyel is now part of the Amazon team! Since our first interview with her, [00:02:00] she has become the Director of Amazon’s Black Business Accelerator. So, I'm excited to hear why and how she managed the momentous occasion of PowerHandz’s merger.

[00:02:10] Andrea: Danyel, thank you for being back on This is Small Business.

[00:02:14] Danyel: I am excited to be with you.

[00:02:17] Andrea: Let's talk about an interesting turn of events, what are you doing now?

[00:02:21] Danyel: I am now working with Amazon as head of the Black Business Accelerator, as well as working with ASBA, our Small Business Academy. And I'm just thrilled. And thinking back on the last two years, I'm right where I am supposed to be. And I, I talk about this, that I manifested Day One and I really believe that I did based on my overall why and purpose of how I help the underserved and how I help small businesses through the journeys and the bumps and bruises and the milestones and successes that I have experienced [00:03:00] as a black woman-owned business.

[00:03:03] Andrea: It’s exciting to have you onboard with all your experience. Especially what we learned from you in Season One and your experience founding and leading POWERHANDZ. Which has recently gone through a very exciting merger. Can you tell me more about that?

[00:03:17] Danyel: We knew from day one that when we unpacked our market, we were competing with multi-billion-dollar companies, and we knew in order for our company to scale in the sports and fitness space that we had to connect with the right capital, with the right resources, with the right strategic partners, in order for us to get our technology and innovation in the hands of every single community globally. And that's how we built the company. We built the company from an intentional model of how do we get our foundation in place? How do we scale and make it attractive for the right partner to come in and say, [00:04:00] this is how power hands can add value to what we're doing, so that together we can truly be great? And that's what we've done through last year, closing our tender offer and then doing a strategic merger with Vanguard Holdings.

[00:04:18] Andrea: You took care of thinking about how to set up your business for a possibility like this in the future. And now that you’re living it, can you talk to me about what that merger has been like? And from a small business owner's perspective, what are the things that we should think about when we set up our business in a way that is going to help us be attractive for a type of merger like the one POWERHANDZ and Vanguard Holdings are going through?

[00:04:45] Danyel: When you are thinking about where you're going and what your roadmap is for your business, the first thing that's part of your foundation is making sure that your business has a solid financial model in place. [00:05:00] Because if they're very serious about either being an investor and putting injecting capital or acquiring your company, whatever the equity model looks like, they wanna get into your financials, so it's super important that day one, throughout the course of building your business, that you build a strong financial model. Your p and o, you have a team of accountants. You have – either if it's a contract CFO, or as you continue to scale and grow, you're able to hire a CFO, but making sure that your financial model and that your accounting is in order is super important. That will tell the story about how serious you are with your business because you can't have a poor financial model or a lack of understanding what your five-year performer is and asking someone else to invest in your business. [00:06:00] That shows that I understand historically where I am and I understand where I'm going in the future.

Then next, when you think about making your company extremely attractive to other strategic partners, is the, the way in which you execute your go to market strategy. For instance, PowerHandz is very heavy on the digital marketing side. We were also very heavy on the influencer marketing side as well as looking at our e-commerce from an omnichannel perspective, having that very grounded. So when you look at the trends today and you think about what collectively adds to a company's strategy and provides value to their value card, is it a digital roadmap? So, do you have a presence where you're able to seek out new customers as well as engage with existing customers? What is that roadmap? [00:07:00] From an influencer standpoint, who are your evangelists? Do you have micro influencers? Do you have brand ambassadors that are part of your company? What does that go to market look like from a campaign strategy perspective, strategic partnership perspective? Do you have national organizations that believe in what you do and that have integrated your model into what you do?

The next is team. An investor truly wants to know whether they change the landscape, your team or not. They wanna understand who is a part of your team that got you where you are today. So did you invest in having someone that looked at your business from a strategic landscape perspective and they helped on the business development side? What was your customer service landscape like? How did you invest in that model to make sure that not only were you serving the customer, but you also had a, um, a voice of customer process in place, right? [00:08:00] To understand and hear what the customer liked about your product or what they didn't like about your product or service that you were delivering. How were you able to gather data along the way to really understand the insights as to how you strategically attack your market segments and how you put programming together, and how did that lead you along your paths. What your legal counseling looks like was super important. Again, if I had to summarize, I would say your financial modeling, the people that you have in place and your go-to-market strategy and how that all creates 360 model.

[00:08:40] Andrea: Having a strong team, solid financial modeling, and a go to market strategy, how did you know that it was the right time for this merger for POWERHANDZ?

[00:08:50] Danyel: You know, when you know. You prepare yourself throughout the course of your journey and very early on, our second year, we received an offer [00:09:00] for a very well-known fund to buy and purchase 60% of our company. We said no. It didn't make sense for us. We knew we were not going to get the value and frankly, at that time, the organization, we didn't feel really good about where they would take PowerHandz. So we continued to build. We continued to make mistakes, get through the very tough times, and then get to some milestones and we continued to scale. Once we opened up our series A round, we learned from our seed round and we knew within that series A round that has had to be smart money and this had to be smart money to set us up for our next opportunity, which was who was gonna be sitting at the table who wanted first right of refusal to buy POWERHANDZ? That's how we went into that round. Understanding who our partner was, [00:10:00] how we added to their particular vertical, where the gaps in their organization may have been, and how we could truly grow together. So once we, this particular investor invested in our series A round, we were very intentional about taking them on a journey.

Because we knew once we took them on a journey through PowerHandz, we became more attractive to them. And not only did they understand the benefit that we could bring from a sports and fitness vertical where they were trying to merge into, they also knew that one of our challenges in the boundaries that we had was human capital. So once they added that fuel into our organization, they saw our ROAs increase. They saw our ability to close strategic partnerships. They saw how we strengthened our omnichannel and our sales grew. So they had the missing capital that we needed [00:11:00] and the strength on the back end side of different verticals and core competencies that they brought to the table from a supply chain model perspective. But we had that foundation that was already in place of e-commerce, of scaling on a retail side, of knowing how to have marketing strategies with micro influencers and getting the strategic partnerships. Those were already there.

[00:11:30] Andrea: Not wanting to oversimplify what this is, but it's like any relationship. And we've talked in previous episodes about finding the right business partner and a lot of it’s complimentary. Finding that person who has the strengths that you don't and vice versa.

[00:11:48] Danyel: You know, a lot of people sit back and we wait for the chance to come to. No, you have to cease opportunity and that's what we did. [00:12:00] Not only did we think about our investors from a friends and family round perspective, seed convertible note in series A, we also thought about where we wanted the company to go from a long term. So, the first part was how do we get our investors a return? And that's why we accepted the tender offer. Then it was a third-party tender offer to participate in that tender offer. And then we went through the strategic merger. And then we were also smart about what the terms of that strategic merger was. Many people think when they do a strategic merger that you have to release all of your equity to whoever that individual is. Well, we still own 51% of the company, and it is still a black woman owned company and I am head of the board. I'm no longer CEO of that company. I am still a co-founder. We knew that it was an opportunity to [00:13:00] turn over the reins to get someone to our next, but we did not from a legacy perspective, have to give up the ownership of our company in order to gain strength.

[00:13:13] Andrea: Still owning 51% of the company and not giving up ownership to gain strength is a big consideration. So, when thinking about merging your small business, what are some of the top things that someone should consider for setting up your merger in a successful way?

[00:13:30] Danyel: First you, you really need to understand why you started. Right. It's super important for you to answer that question when you're thinking about how you're going to exit your business. So if you started based on wanting to exit with a company that is going to keep your business alive and help it grow, right, and you wanna join that team, it's important for you to answer that question. If you started with a mindset of an exit for it to grow, [00:14:00] and then for you to see it grow and for you to completely be removed from that business, then you need to answer that question. Or if it is an exit where you want to strategically combine with other companies in order to grow through acquisition, those are all very important questions for you to ask. So the first is for you to understand. Why did you start and what is your exit gonna be?

The second is for you to look at your business model and to build your foundation. Building your foundation includes really understanding financially, how I put my five-year performance in place to know how I am going to become profitable. What does that road look like? With that financial modeling, you have to have your p and o in place so that you understand how you're driving that [00:15:00] from month to month and quarter to quarter. That's gonna be the first question that a company whose attractive to you from a standpoint of how do I take where the business is today and I grow it? They're gonna wanna see your historical financials as well as your future projections for your financials.

The other huge point is your people and your team. When a company acquires you, depending upon who. They will want to either keep some of your team or they will bring in their team in order to fulfill some of the functions that they feel you have gaps. Make sure you have your team in order. Make sure you're able to explain what their role is and make sure you're able to really understand who should go with that company as part of that exit, and then who you should negotiate to get a package so that they can go into their next.

[00:16:00] Andrea: Danyel, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It was amazing to have you again and to be able to work with you now too.

[00:16:08] Danyel: Thank you so much.

[00:16:10] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Danyel Surrency Jones, the co-founder of POWERHANDZ and now the Director of the Amazon Black Business Accelerator. You can find out more about POWERHANDZ and the Amazon Black Business Accelerator in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Danyel gave us a lot of valuable advice on the things you should consider when merging with another business. It seems like the process should start earlier on in your small business journey while you're figuring out your why. Once you have that nailed down -- it all comes down to figuring out where you can find a partner that will complement your business, it reminds me of the Swiss Cheese model that business owners Dorielle Price and Jamelah Tucker mentioned in episode 22.

[00:17:00] Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? The small businesses we feature on the show are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

PowerHandz is also one of the businesses in the Amazon store that leveraged Amazon Ads to reach audiences and grow their business. Amazon Ads offers a range of products and information to help you achieve your advertising goals, [00:18:00] for registered sellers, vendors, book vendors, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors, app developers, and/or agencies. With Amazon Ads insights, reach, and premium entertainment properties from music to streaming, you can connect with the right audiences in the right places, both on and off Amazon.

So far, we've talked about why and when you should consider merging and we’ll dive in deeper into how to set up your business in a way that leads to a successful merger with my next guest: Kison Patel, the CEO of DealRoom and M&A Science. I'm excited for you to meet him.

[00:18:42] Andrea: Kison, it's great to have you here. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

[00:18:45] Kison Patel: I got into a career doing m and a advisory where I would help business owners buy other businesses, sell other businesses, and grew that practice to work with corporations. Was really interested and excited about the technology. [00:19:00] I was shaping and springing up in many different industries. I worked on a startup that failed miserably, but in that experience, I got to work with software engineers firsthand. And I was absolutely intrigued by the way they utilized project management software to build software. And kept reflecting back to my experience in m and a thinking, why not a project management tool for managing mergers and acquisitions? Why are we doing everything on these Excel trackers? And it's a complicated, cumbersome process. And that's where it led to starting the company Dealroom in 2012 as a project management tool for m and a.

[00:19:44] Andrea: When it comes to thinking about mergers and acquisitions, what are the first considerations one should make?

[00:19:50] Kison Patel: We're gonna talk about strategy a lot because that's where a lot of this stuff should originate. Really having clarity on, on what your strategy is. [00:20:00] So if we think about why do companies buy other companies? They could want the product, the technology, and say, hey, if I could buy this product and offer it to my customers, I can generate additional revenues by doing so. They may look at a company that's doing similar to what they're doing, but they primarily want their customer base so they can expand and grow their market share. And that's gonna be the emphasis to make sure they preserve and keep those customers happy. So then in turn, maybe sell them additional products that they have and grow revenues that way.

Sometimes you may have two light companies and you just see opportunities to cut operational costs and be more efficient and generate value that way, and focus more on the, the cost synergies, which people tend to drift towards because they're very predictable, whereas the revenue synergies tend to be more complicated and I'll take a lot more effort to achieve. You could be building a product and find technology that will help you bridge that roadmap and get you there quicker. You could be [00:21:00] buying a business just for the business.

So when you think about here's all these reasons why an organization buys another organization, then when it, when you look at its time for you to, whether it's buy or sell should really align with that. And you can almost bucket this with the type of founder, maybe there's a level of self-reflection there, if your goal ultimately is to maximize the value for yourself and walk away the big of a check as possible. Or is it geared towards the mission that you set out to do? Because that, that can help guide you in different directions.

If you're selling a business, when you get an understanding of why you're selling it, are you selling it to maximize and get the most money you can? Or are you selling it to find the best home for your business that it'll continue to grow? If you're going to objectively try to get the most cash as possible, you're probably gonna hire an investment bank because they're gonna build a competitive auction and use their network that that's what they do for their practice and be able to get you the highest price. [00:22:00] They give you a lot of options in a short period of time, and, and really get your business marketed well. A lot of lipstick all over it, and really get the top, top dollar. The thing to be mindful of is, is that is a process that'll get you there in the shortest timeframe and get you a, a high value.

But in that process, you do deter some buyers. You deter the smart buyers that aren't gonna overpay for a business, and those buyers tend to be the better operators, better culture, better organizations. That could potentially likely be a better home for your organization where people can grow. They have careers that they can grow ahead of, you know, you get a bad acquirer, they buy your business and destroy you. And the biggest regrets I've seen from founders big check aside is when they look back and see what they built, crash and burn. And that's something they can't take back. You don't wanna be in that situation. So, you know, are you setting that company up for real success as a whole? Is this, is it the right move? [00:23:00] Does it really make sense to bring those organizations? It's a lot of work to do that, you know, did it make sense culturally? Are they gonna blend and mesh together? Cause we've seen that blow up when the cultures didn't mesh well.

When you do get that real clarity on that type, what your priorities are, then it, it'll allow you to get you in the direction. Are you taking the short game or long game? Now, the short game, you hire the bank, they'll guide you through the process. Make it competitive. When you're taking the long game. It's not a shortcut, either, it's, it's a lot of work because you have to proactively develop the relationship with these organizations that are likely to be your, your acquirer. And it is a very much a relationship game. Most of the time it's about a year of relationship development to get to that point, when you're really comfortable to put an offer letter to together and you're dealing with a nice proprietary deal, principle to principle, and you had to be proactive about it. Now, the good thing is a lot of times those organizations tend to be organizations that are good partners. So you can start off with building the relationship that may lend to a [00:24:00] partnership, see how that goes, and if that may validate that organization to bring an offer to bring your company in, in together. You know, but it's, it's so different, right?

You're gonna go down the short path, hire the bank, move through a fast process. Probably get you there in six months or do you, do you take the long game and court those relationships that could take you maybe 18 months, 24 months, but even longer. But you, you should develop that period. I think a good founder should nurture those relationships. So you always have that option. You can always fall back and hire the bank to run an accelerated process, but if you do really strong networking with the strategics in your industry on who would be your likely acquirers, and they're good relationships to have in general. Like they're the ones that'll help you out. They're the ones that you can learn from and just do some deals to help grow your business faster.

[00:24:51] Andrea: So, if we go the long route, what are some things we should think about that can lead to a successful merger with another business?

[00:25:00] Kison Patel: With making the deal successful, let's look at five things. One, the vision. Is there alignment, executive principles, working together on the deal, on the vision, like where's the end state? Can we bring that to, to the front of the deal so that we just are on the, on the same terms of what we're doing here? It starts there, which is pretty fundamental. I think the big thing that gets overlooked is values. When each respected executive can understand each other's organization's values. What it does is it helps you understand their culture and when you can really understand their culture, you'll start surfacing how things are really gonna come together because it's the way our teams work.

You know, you got an organization's very top down culture, leadership, and another organization's very bottoms up that's not gonna come together well at all. You can identify some potential red flags that may prompt you to call the deal off that may not be good to, to bring these organizations together. And that happens, but, you know, you don't wanna sign the deal and then find that out. So I, I, I do think [00:26:00] that there should be alignment around that spending time to get on the same page and understand each other's culture so you know exactly what you're getting into.

And then, the third one is your go-to market. We're thinking of this vision that we created and and are shaping our deal around what is that go-to-market gonna look like together? I want to go beyond just, here's what the flow chart of what it's gonna look like. Like let's map out customer journey and talk through this from the customer's perspective and understand what is that really gonna look like when these organizations come together? Then we can understand, you know, how are we gonna deliver it? How are these sales teams gonna come together in the functional organizations? But having alignment on what that go-to-market is gonna look like combined would be the next big thing cause that's the thing, if it gets screwed up, you lose a lot of value.

The other part is your integration planning. There's so much you have to plan on how you're gonna combine these companies together, and a lot of organizations come late to doing this, [00:27:00] and they'll do it when they're close to close. The worst thing to do is after close. Best thing to do is in the beginning. You're obviously gonna go do a lot of diligence to make sure there's no big risk. Red flag items something missing, a lawsuit you didn't know about, things like. You're gonna go through a big exercise and even hire external folks to help you do diligence and identify those risks. While you're doing that, you should iteratively and proactively develop your plan and how you're gonna integrate the company and have your team members involved. A lot of the same folks doing the diligence and, and start outlining it and really shaping it to what needs to get done. And if you can do it in a craft full way with the company that you're planning with them and getting them aligned on that vision and how they're gonna participate so they're not in the dark, that helps. Now you can't do anything ahead of time. They call that gun jumping. So you can do all the planning you want, but as long as you don't tinker with anything in the company, you'd be fine.

And last thing, I guess it expands off of that integration planning, but just really thinking about it from the other company's perspective. [00:28:00] Because when you're going through this process of buying a company, you think so much of yourself and on your side of the table, protecting your company and, and the risk and things like that, how you're gonna get value to the company. But you gotta put this big emphasis on the people experience for the other side. You know, essentially you're hiring everybody, right? Those employees worked for a completely different badge. And all of a sudden they're part of your company and they didn't choose that. So from their perspective is what is that people experience like? Can you do a sense of reverse diligence and help them understand your organization, the different business lines, where they're gonna fit in. Provide that transparency, but engage them to learn about your organization. The worst thing you do is you don't communicate this stuff. You create a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt. When people hear m and a, they don't know if they have a job, recruiters are calling them, they become vulnerable. So it's really important to have them do the diligence in your organization and be part of what they're getting into.

[00:29:00] Andrea: Could you also talk about hiring a good lawyer that'll help you through the m and a process?

[00:29:07] Kison Patel: This is one of the most important hires in doing m and a. You wanna befriend the best m and a lawyers out there. They will help you more than anything else. In fact, a lot of times they can give you so much advice cuz they've seen so many different deals and they can help you structure the deal better beyond protecting yourself with, with the risk and, and, and so forth, liabilities. I would put extreme amount of to network, to talk to other executives, folks you know that sold businesses in your similar industry. Ask 'em for referrals. I, I would really dig in to make sure the, that lawyer has done similar size deals and ideally in the same industry. Just really spend the time to get the one that has done it before, has had expertise in that similar type of deal that, that you're anticipating on and has done some volume of it. It is such above and beyond multiple full investment to have that inherent knowledge and experience on your side.

[00:30:00] Andrea: Thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. I’m sure that a lot of our listeners are going to find this very valuable.

[00:30:09] Kison Patel: Thanks, Andrea.

[00:30:10] Host: That was Kison Patel, the CEO of DealRoom and M&A Science. Thank you for listening today -- I’ve learned a lot from speaking to Danyel and Kison. As always here are some key takeaways:

One. If you're interested in an m and a, figure out why you want to do it. As Danyel and Kison pointed out, there are lots of reasons why you might merge your business. Is it just for money? Or do you want to find the right partner who will help grow your business? Is this a short or long-run type of investment?
Two. Figure out what value your business will offer another company. Obviously, it's important to make sure your financials are all good -- but what else can you offer? Perhaps you have a customer base that the buyer wants to tap into, or maybe you've got great marketing skills. Danyel mentioned having a solid financial model in place, [00:31:00] a strong go-to-market strategy and the team you need to make this merger successful.
Three. Kison pointed out 5 ways to ensure your merger is successful. One. Vision. What are the end goals of this deal? Make sure to talk about the outcome you're hoping to achieve so everyone is on the same page. Two. Values. It's really important to understand each other's values and culture to know early on if the merger is going to be successful. When you understand the values, you'll be able to see how your companies may merge and identify some potential red flags. Three. Your Go-to Market. After you shape your deal around your vision, you'll have to figure out what your go-to market is gonna look like. And this goes beyond just making a flow chart. You also should think about it from the customer's perspective. Four. Integration planning. How are you going to combine the two businesses that are merging? And it's best to plan for this early in the process. And five. Put yourself in the other business' shoes. [00:32:00] When you're doing an M and A, you're also hiring a lot of people at the same time. And a lot of employees get worried when they hear "m and a," so make sure you communicate with them to avoid any stress or fear on their part.
And finally. Get a really good m and a lawyer. Preferably one with experience that could help you with the deal as a whole, not just the legalities.

I'm curious – Are you considering an m and a in the future? How are you preparing for that? Or maybe you’re in the process of one or already went through that experience. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are [00:33:00] if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

And don’t forget that if you’re selling in the Amazon store, Amazon Ads can help your ad experiences reach audiences where they shop, read, listen, and watch. Learn more in our show notes!

That's it for episode 15 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

On our next episode – and our season 2 finale, we’ll be talking with Miguel Leal, the Co-Founder and CEO of SOMOS Foods and former Executive Vice President of Marketing at Kind bars, about his business journey.

Until next time – This is Small Business, [00:34:00] I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:34:24]

Ep 26: Product improvements without breaking the bank

Learn about product improvements without breaking the bank.

[00:00:00] Robert Ralph: My definition of product iteration would be obviously creating other forms of your product. And for me it's maybe a little bit more simple than other companies because my core product is a popcorn kernel. And it's just like, how can I iterate off of that? Well, packaging is the number one thing for me that would describe my iterations.

[00:00:22] Andrea: Okay so how you define product iteration is different -- it really depends on your business. But one question on everyone's mind when they want to experiment with product iteration is: Do I have enough money? So let's get into that.

[00:00:37] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our TISB Minisodes - shorter episodes for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about how you can iterate a product without breaking the bank with the founder of Princeton Popcorn Company, Robert Ralph who also goes by Farmer Bob.

[00:01:00] Andrea: Tell me a little bit about Princeton Popcorn and how it came to be.

[00:01:05] Robert Ralph: Well, Princeton Popcorn is a vertically integrated popcorn producer. So what that means is, yours truly Farmer Bob, plants the seeds, raises up the crop and then harvests it. And then after harvesting it, we clean it and condition it and package it. And American made packaging by the way, and then, uh, distribute it to the store. So I like to say we're seed to store. And we do it kind of the hard way so that we can keep control of the quality at every single step of the way. It's somewhat unique that that's done that way because most people specialize in one segment of that production. But being new to farming, I figured that I had to go direct to consumer, and the only way I would be able to survive in my opinion or my thought process, was to have a really excellent product.

[00:01:50] Andrea: So you carry a couple different iterations of your product, could you talk about how and why you decided on those iterations in particular?

[00:02:00] Robert Ralph: I initially started with a one pound and a two-pound tub, and then I graduated to an eight pound because people wanted larger packages. I have a 50-pound bag as well sell a lot of those. But then I also got into the six pack of one pounders, which is a surprise seller for me, and it is a really good gift item. That one was born out of financial reasons. My initial plan when I set out for Princeton Popcorn was to plant the seeds, raise it up and harvest it, and then pop it, flavor it and package it and sell it ready to eat, already popped popcorn.

So I had a few things that I stumbled on getting to the pop flavor and a package part, and I was lamenting that fact to a friend. And by the way, I don't have any investors. I don't have a bank loan. You know, I don't have millions of dollars, so I have to be very careful here. And I was getting to the point where it harvested my first crop in 2019, and I couldn't quite get the pop flavor package up and running. And one of my friends said, [00:03:00] well sell the kernels. So I thought well, you know, I do need some revenue cuz I've got a lot of money sunk into this, so I need to get some sales going. And I ordered one- and two-pound tubs and when they got delivered I took 'em off the truck with my forklift and one fell out and it happened to be this little tiny tub. And I thought, oh, that's cute. They sent me like a miniature sample of some of their product, the packaging company. But actually it turned out to be the one pound. I just didn't know it was gonna be that small. And I thought to myself, I can't sell that. Like there's no way I can sell that. I'm embarrassed to sell something so small. That's, that's one pound? But I just bought 4,000 of them, so I've had to do something. So I did the one pound and the two pound, and I will tell you, I sent like a dozen of each up to Amazon for FBA. And I thought, well, if they don't sell in six months, I'll call 'em back.

Well, at any rate, as it turned out, those things sold like the same day, and I was really surprised. So right there, I had a one pound and a two-pound iteration of the same exact product, [00:04:00] and it wasn't even what I was originally intending. So a lot of times I think you just have to be willing to pivot and just do what you can do. Deal the hand that's dealt to you or you know, pivot whenever you can. And then, I ended up getting the eight-pound idea because it was just more economical for customers and they really liked the product and they, they didn't want to just keep buying one-pound tubs or two-pound tubs. So that was a different scenario. The customers ultimately they're in charge. They'll tell you what to do.

[00:04:30] Andrea: Am I right to think that you knew that you'd arrived at the desired result because it was selling or were there other factors that played into you knowing that?

[00:04:38] Robert Ralph: Certainly the sales matter but also customer comments. So people can be very, um, since they're doing it on the internet, very revealing and unguarded on what they say in a product review or email directly on my packaging, I say, Hey, here's my email address. Email me if you have any problems popping it, okay. So, it's what they say and what they don't say. If you don't get any feedback of like [00:05:00] “this packaging is too small or it's too hard to get a scoop into,” or comments like that. I tried to think 'em out as best as I could to make sure it's good packaging before it goes out there.

And then the sizes too. But I will emphasize that you don't know until you try. I was trying to get into the pop flavored and packaged and that was delayed. So I decided to sell kernels. Well, I realized I had a lot of kernel. So then I ordered in some 50 pound bags and then I packaged the popcorn into it and I sent those off to Amazon thinking much like the one and two pound, hey, if they don't sell, uh, take 'em back. It's a wild seller. People love that popcorn in the 50-pound bag. It's obviously the best value. It's a lot of popcorn. So that one was just literally experimentation, but I do know that my customers love it, and I guess I got kind of lucky. I will also tell you that I did iterate a four pounder. So I thought later if the one pounder and two pounder are selling, well, a four pounder, that'd be perfect. It was a bomb, it was the same exact packaging, [00:06:00] you know, just a larger tub. And it didn't sell for whatever reason people would, they skipped from the two pound to the eight pound, but they wouldn't buy the four.

[00:06:08] Andrea: Customers are specific. So how did you manage to get all of this done without breaking the bank?

[00:06:15] Robert Ralph: I didn't do 'em all at the same time. I started out with the one and two pound, but then it took me a while to get to the eight pound, and I will tell you that there, it, it's easier in my packaging to experiment with a one and two pounder than it was the eight pounder, the eight pound I thought about a lot before I committed to that. And the reason is, you could buy the tubs and the lids and then a certain number of labels and fill those and you could even pay a little bit more and buy fewer quantity. But even a pallet is like 2000 quantity of the two pounders is 4,000 of the one pounder. However, if I made a mistake, I would have a lot of bags that I'd have to figure out what to do with, and that either a mistake because it was the wrong size, like it's not gonna be a good product, or if I made a spelling error. [00:07:00] So I had that thing tripled, quadruple checked by everybody I knew, I was like, will you please pour over this and read every letter? That would be where that would've broke the bank. I mean, because it's a, a big investment.

So it's easier to experiment where you have less to lose. And the different tub size – it’s like the four pounder, you know, I ordered a pallet of those. I believe there was a thousand on the pallet, and I eventually sold through them and at the very end, I started doing some discounting on them. And just to move them and then be done with it. Just wipe my hands clean of the four Pounder. So, you know, just don't risk too much is what I would say in the experimentation phase. And then it's okay also to order fewer quantities, pay a much higher price. And it's not that economical, but you're in the experimentation phase, so maybe you're not gonna be as efficient, but you could figure out winners and losers. And then if you got one that you think is really, or it's proving out to sell really well, [00:08:00] then order big, try to get the per unit cost down.

[00:08:04] Andrea: I think that a clear tip here is don't break the bank quite yet while you're experimenting but leave room to experiment. And what I got from that as well was during the experimentation phase, it's okay to buy less of something like packaging even if it's more expensive. Because you still have storing fees to worry about and what you'll do with it if it doesn't sell. So, making sure that you get a good amount to test, but not too much and not too little, right?

[00:08:28] Robert Ralph: Yes. And give yourself some latitude too. You're gonna make mistakes. And you know, what if I had produced this eight pounder, for instance, and it didn't work. Okay. It didn't work. At least you know now. And if you haven't bet the farm, no pun intended, then, you know, you'll live, just lick your wounds, move on, and you're just that much smarter, but don't stop trying. You gotta keep trying and don't give up and allow yourself to fail on some of these things. You know, the Four Pounder was a great example. This six Pounder was actually the opposite. The six one pounder, six pack was a surprise success. [00:09:00] I'm thinking about putting three, two pounders together in a three pack and see how that goes. I, you know, I would presume if the two pound is our number one quantity seller and the six pack of the one pounders is a, uh, hot product, that a three pack of the two pounders would work too. But I don't know, I could come up and find out that that's a dog. Nobody wants it, but that's no big deal. I could retreat outta that pretty easy.

[00:09:22] Host: That was Farmer Bob, founder of Princeton Popcorn Company, talking about how to iterate your product without breaking the bank. As always, here are some key takeaways:

One. Product iteration is different for every business. You don't have to create an entirely new product, it could just come down to quantity or even packaging. I loved Farmer Bob's idea to take inventory that he already has and sell them in a pack of six!
Two. Keep a close eye on sales and customers. Ultimately, your customers are gonna decide what product stays and what goes. So, make sure you try to get feedback through comments or via email. [00:10:00]
Three. Don't be afraid to experiment but also be really careful with taking risks. Maybe consider buying less quantity even if it'll be a little pricier. And this leads us to...
Four. It's okay to fail. Put that into account while you're experimenting and make sure that you're not "betting the farm" on that iteration.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about merging your small business with another business to become medium-sized.

If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: [00:11:00] This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:11:15]

Ep 25: Leslie adds a new product to her lineup

Learn about growing your product offerings.

[00:00:02] Aicha Sharif: When I launch a new product with a founder, you know, we really focus on that minimal viable product, that MVP. Making your first sale is for me, one of the most important steps for a founder and new business owner. Don't get stuck on: I gotta perfect this. I gotta make all the marketing moves. I gotta create all the different parts of the business before I launch. You have to test early on because you really don't know what the customer is gonna respond to the best. Which part of your story is gonna echo the best with them.

[00:00:33] Host: Hi, This is Small Business -- a weekly podcast -- brought to you by Amazon and I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build and grow your small business - and because I know that could get overwhelming, I’ll make sure to call out key takeaways at the end of every episode.

So once you’ve launched your business and you’ve got this great product that’s really successful; naturally the question that comes to mind is: well, what’s my next successful product? [00:01:00] And how do I make sure that my next product is gonna be just as successful – or hopefully even more successful – than my first one? But then other questions start coming up like when should I even consider thinking about a second product? And how can I duplicate what worked in that first product, but also create something new?

Coming up – I’ll talk to Aicha Sharif, the chief experience officer and Dean of Rocket Club Academy about when and how you should approach product iteration, especially if it’s your first time doing it. But first – I want you to meet business owner Leslie Pierson, the President of Hot Taco Inc. She’s running this business for her son who created a card game called Taco Vs Burrito when he was just 7 years old. And right now, Leslie is working on their second product, so she’ll be giving us a glimpse into what they’re doing and why they decided to start working on a second product.

But before we get into Taco vs. Burrito.

Voicemail: I have a question about pivoting your business once you've been in business for a few years. [00:02:00] I have had my business for 10 years and it's very successful, but there's more that I wanna do, and I do have the time now that my business is so successful. I have the time to pursue this other option, but I'm not entirely sure if I should go ahead and go for it.

I started my business in Albuquerque by myself. I'm a single member, LLC, and I teach therapeutic horseback riding. Yes, doing it by myself was a challenge. I have some family support, but no one in my family is a horse person, so mostly I've been doing this on my own with my wife's help occasionally and this is a dream come true. This job is something I've dreamed of doing without having the words for it, since I was a child. I would love to explore how as a solopreneur you can pivot and maintain your original business [00:03:00] while attempting to pursue another interest. Like for me, writing kids books.

[00:03:08] Host: For those serial entrepreneurs out there. This question really gets at this issue of staying focused on your core values and core offering. It focuses on a question that many business owners may have. How do you know when it's okay to pivot your business? Is it even wise? Can you shift your attention somewhere else and feel confident that your initial endeavors won't evaporate or collapse. We'll be addressing your questions in future episodes, so stay tuned and if you wanna hear yourself on This is Small Business, click the link in the show notes and ask us a question or share your small business story.

[00:03:48] Andrea: Leslie Pearson, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It's a pleasure to have you.

[00:03:52] Leslie Pierson: Oh, it's so great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:03:55] Andrea: So tell me about Taco vs Burrito.

[00:03:57] Leslie Pierson: We have a very strange origin story [00:04:00] of our game because it was invented by my son. So we're a big game family, so, Taco vs. Burrito is a card game, and we always played a lot of games when my son was very young. On a vacation, we would usually take one game for each day, like simple card games. And then at the end we'd usually ask him like, which one did you like best? What did you like about it? So I think that trained him into thinking about how to improve games or how to change games. So he'd be like, I like this one, but I didn't like this part of it, or I like this one or this is my favorite and this is why. So, you know, we back a lot of projects on Kickstarter, like games, a lot of games start there. And then one day when he was seven out of the blue, he says, I wanna make a game called Taco vs. Burrito, and I wanna do a Kickstarter. And I'm like, Um, okay, how do you play this game? And he's like, I don't know yet, but it's called Taco vs. Burrito and I wanna do a Kickstarter. And I'm like, [00:05:00] maybe you could just make it on paper for your friends. You know, I'm thinking, you know, seven years old, he doesn't get how the world works and like, you don't have to do it that way. You could just have fun. He said, uh, nope. I wanna do a Kickstarter. And I'm like, it's a lot of work honey. I come from making product. I'd done Kickstarters before and had a product that I had done, that we did, uh, Shark Tank for. So there was a part of me that wondered, did I mess him up by making him think he has to make a big game to do something that he wants to do?

So, yea, I thought it was just gonna be a little fun day cuz he said he wanted to know how to make the game happen and we sat down and we were just writing out like all the things he would have to do. And I thought, this is gonna educate him how you take an idea, and you make it a product. I was never thinking he was gonna do it. And um, so, and then after we finished that conversation the next day, he's like, he just started working on the list. Like each little thing. [00:06:00] And uh, it was fascinating. So we got really lucky because, um, we had a dog at the time he's passed, but we would always walk the dog on the weekend. So Saturday and Sunday, Alex and I would walk the dog down to the local, to a coffee shop that's about two blocks away from us and we would take one card game and then we would take the latest version of his game. And we just did that on Saturday, and on the way back home, he would say, oh, you know, we should change this, or we should add this. And we'd change it. It was all on paper, just card stock. After a while we just really enjoyed playing the game so much. We didn't even wanna play the other games. And so we were like, okay, I guess it's ready. And you know, people ask me sometimes like, how did you, how did you do it? And I was like, well, it was just meeting him where he was at. If he had lost interest the week after we talked about it, there would never be a game, like it was. I wasn't gonna push him. You can't really push a kid at seven. They'll rebel really fast.

[00:06:57] Andrea: That’s so amazing! [00:07:00] And then what happened once you got to the Kickstarter phase?

[00:07:04] Leslie Pierson: Yeah. So that was fascinating to me because I had done a Kickstarter before for my other product line, and I really thought, okay, this'll be fun. He'll see. We'll make one run of this. We'll do the Kickstarter, we'll make a few of the games, and then that'll be it. You know, like this is really a great little project and we were very clear in the Kickstarter. It was made by a seven-year-old. So I'm thinking, who's gonna give this kid money? They can't see the game. They can't play the game. I mean, they could see the game because we made videos, but they can't play it. So they don't know. You know, they're going on a gut if they wanted to back it, but I think people love to support young entrepreneurs. They just love it. So the first day we started the Kickstarter, we had started it in the morning, well, first off, we had this big moment where we're like, okay, honey, now you get to push the launch button for the Kickstarter. And he's like, okay. So he hits the launch button and then my husband was like, okay, I'm gonna go sit down [00:08:00] and I'm gonna be your first backer. And he goes to sit down and someone had already backed the game and I'm like, oh my God. Like this is crazy.

So we go to pick him at lunchtime, because we were doing this thing at Comic-Con, there was, they had a little indie game showcase. So Alex was gonna play the game with other people. It was really gonna be fun. So we picked him up at ah noon and we asked him what he thought his sales would be, and he was just thinking, you know, like, mom, dad, and whatever. And it was fully funded by noon. He was like, over the moon, excited and in the end it, it made about $25,000 with no promotion really of any kind. People just really liked the concept, I think. I think also tacos and burritos are funny and people are very opinionated about which is better, so I think that helped.

[00:08:50] Andrea: I'm definitely a Taco fan -- BUT I also love burritos. Tacos just have a special place in my heart. This story is so so unique. [00:09:00] I love to hear stories about young entrepreneurs. Which also reminds me of Max Ash from our first episode of This is Small Business who created a mug with a hoop at age eight. So we previously talked about how you're getting ready to launch a new product based on the success of Taco vs. Burrito. Tell me a little bit about that.

[00:09:22] Leslie Pierson: Yeah, so we are, you know, we've had this in the works for a little while, but it's, we're doing a newer version of the game. So it's all inspired by a trip to Japan. So we had gone to Japan and my son was like, oh, this would be so fun cuz there's so much cool stuff in Japan to make a Japanese themed version of the game with a lot of food from Japan and you know, just some of the Kawaii cutie stuff. So we're really excited about that. That's gonna be so much fun.

[00:09:55] Andrea: I wanna dive deep into this particular topic which is adding a new product based on the success of the first one. [00:10:00] Did you decide to add a new product to this line because Taco vs. Burrito was a success? Or were you just kind of testing and learning and when you liked the idea of a Japan-themed game, you followed up on it?

[00:10:13] Leslie Pierson: We are a little different than a lot of companies that sell on Amazon, where like if you were in the kitchen space and you're thinking, oh hey, here are some natural evolutions of your kitchen line of products, it makes a little more sense when you're like thinking, okay, what can we add that rounds this out? Really, to be honest, for us, our, our company is a little different than most in that we don't make anything unless Alex wants to make it. He's, he now 12, so he started this when he was seven, and he wanted to do a like fifth anniversary version of the game. So that's where it kind of came from. And building off of what already works seemed natural cuz it's what we love playing. You know, I think if you're your own customer and you do the thing that you love or you want. [00:11:00] It's a lot easier to get excited about all the work it takes to launch a new product. I find personally if I just picked another game to make that wasn't related and didn't feel as energizing, I don't think I'd put my heart and soul into it. And I think unless you keep that passion, I maybe – bigger companies with lots of people, it's different, but we're tiny. So, we don't have the ability to just kind of churn out product.

[00:11:26] Host: Part of the success story of Taco vs. Burrito and a super valuable resource that Leslie and her team used was Amazon Transparency to proactively protect her brand from counterfeits and ensure that every unit shipped is authentic. Amazon Transparency uses secure, unique codes that identify individual units and stop counterfeits from reaching customers, improve customer engagement, and give brands valuable insights to help organize supply chains. To learn more about Transparency and how it can help you protect and build your brand, visit: www.transparency.com [00:12:00] or visit our show notes at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

For more: Brand Protection Marketing page for Transparency (www.transparency.com): https://brandservices.amazon.com/transparency/?ld=aonatradsgnpm&ref=aonatradsgnpm and Taco vs. Burrito case study: https://brandservices.amazon.com/learn/case-studies/taco-vs-burrito/?ld=aonatradsgnpc&ref=aonatradsgnpc

[00:12:06] Andrea: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a 12-year-old wanted to do a 5-year anniversary. Like that's branding at its finest. I also love that you are super supportive of his ideas and doesn't pressure him to do anything he doesn't want to. I think a key element to Taco vs Burrito and your story is making sure that you're passionate about your first product and making sure that it's where you want it to be before even thinking about moving on to the next one. Because you're doubling the amount of work.

[00:12:37] Leslie Pierson: Totally agree. I think the thing that used to work, so I, I've been doing product for a while and Amazon is always evolving, right? So there was a time, I think probably in the, you know, late. You know, maybe 2000 17, 18, 19, that I hear from other entrepreneurs that you could launch a lot of things and they hit, because Amazon was growing and [00:13:00] there wasn't as much competition. Now there's so much competition. Some friends of mine have said that it's kind of the end of product, the beginning of brand. Like you really need to think about what you want, be passionate about it, build a brand, think about it that way, versus thinking about just what, what's the next product we can do? Because it's a lot harder than it used to be. And it comes through authentically if you're passionate about it, you don't realize it, but it does, you know, I think people can see in a listing or in a product page, you can kind of tell when it's just kind of thrown up there and they're not passionate about it, or if they've really done a lot of work and really optimize it. I, I feel really lucky that our business only does things that Alex wants to do because it causes me to pause and really do as much as I can for the existing product before moving on, because we're not churning out a lot of product.

[00:13:56] Andrea: So as a small business owner, how do you think I would know when I'm ready to launch a second product?

[00:14:00] Leslie Pierson: I think if you think about what you're passionate about, so somebody with one product and a lot of passion might have a lot in the pipeline that they wanna do, like, you know, they're passionate about a specific area and it naturally lends itself to a bunch of products. So, I was listening to a podcast with Mark Deplass, he's a director, and he said once, I'm at a point – because he has a production company – any idea I have, I can do it. Doesn't matter what it is, I can make it happen. If I have the idea today, I can get it made. And he said, but that doesn't mean they all should get made. Right. So the way he does it, and I love this, he says he gives himself, when he has a new idea, he gives him myself, I think 48 hours, he calls it to make out with the idea. Like, let himself like let his creative juices go. Then he writes it down and he puts it in a drawer, and he says, after a month, if I forget that it's in the drawer. It wasn't meant to be. And I love that concept of kind of [00:15:00] allowing yourself to take a break and see if you just can't wait to do it.

And if you can't wait, go for it because you're in it, but for, for someone like me who has like quite a lot of ideas often. In other product lines, you know, with Taco vs. Burrito we only do what Alex wants to do. But if, if left in my own devices I could come up with a million ideas, it doesn't mean they're all good or that I should go forward on all of them, or that I have the passion it takes to sustain it from idea, to product, to launch, to growing it. So I loved that. And I think of it all the time when I have an idea, I'm like, I'm making out with, I like the making out with the idea part of it too.

[00:15:38] Andrea: That's great advice. How do you find that balance of replicating what was successful in your previous or first product, but also providing your customers with something new and fresh?

[00:15:50] Leslie Pierson: I would say there are elements that you can duplicate and then there are other things that you can't be sure you can duplicate. And one example of that is going into a new market. [00:16:00] So Tacos vs. Burrito is now in Amazon, we're now in Canada, which when we duplicated what we had, it worked great in Canada. Very similar customer. We also went into the UK. That's a little harder cuz they're not passionate about tacos and burritos, so you can't rely on the same thing, so, so making sure you stay inquisitive, and you really don't expect you can copy paste because it doesn't work that way. There's usually some pivoting you're gonna need to do within it. Maybe it's the name or the, or the colors or the different kinds of things are needing to be looked at to make sure that you can try to recreate the success.

So for us, you know, we love Kickstarter because it builds a following before you launch. That is a beautiful thing about it. So we kind of have a model where if we're doing a Kickstarter, we do it in the Spring. So we'll do it March, April, [00:17:00] and then we will ship all the product to the customer and then we'll send it into Amazon. And that helps us build momentum pretty quickly. So that right now is how we've done it, that part has worked repetitively, but the other parts, things are always changing. Amazon changes. The way you launch has to change. The beauty of Amazon is they give you all the tools that you need to be successful.

The part that you have to bring to the table is the curiosity and the ability to pivot and keep trying when something that used to work doesn't work anymore. Let's try another thing and be, like I said, inquisitive and resilient. You know, some things won't work again, and it's depressing when they don't work again. I'm not gonna lie, when you think like you've got it all dialed in and it doesn't work the way you expected, it's not great, but then just take that moment to see what else can I learn? What's new? What am I not taking advantage of?

[00:18:00] Andrea: Making sure that you have those moments learned and doing a retrospective is really important. And doing that retrospective as these moments are happening or right when they end is the best way to do it, because if you let too much time pass, you'll forget all the challenges you went through, right?

[00:18:13] Leslie Pierson: A hundred percent. After any big event, like if you do a Prime day or a Black Friday to Cyber Monday, you know, taking the time to sit down and say what worked, what didn't work, can help you when you're getting ready to do a similar type of big event. There's a way to run a business called E-O-S. It's entrepreneurial operating system. We use that. And so we have to look at our business every quarter. What went well, what didn't go well? What are we gonna do next quarter? And we set our goals for the next quarter, and then we see what went well, what didn't go well. I think you're right on in taking that moment to look back and see what worked, what didn't work, and learn from it and just keep going.

[00:18:50] Andrea: Leslie, is there anything else you'd like to say.

[00:18:52] Leslie Pierson: One thing that works for someone else, doesn't work for another person. And so, you know, we might do Kickstarters to go into Amazon. [00:19:00] It might not work for most products; it works for us. It might not work for other things, it might not work for every product we do. So if I was gonna give any advice to someone starting out is just, you're gonna need to pivot a lot and enjoy the ride. You know, there'll be highs, there'll be lows, but at the end of the day, it's a fun ride and it's a fun game.

[00:19:20] Andrea: Leslie, thank you so much for being on, This is Small Business.

[00:19:24] Leslie Pierson: Thank you for having me.

[00:19:27] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Leslie Pierson, the President of Hot Taco Inc. You can find out more about Taco vs. Burrito in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

I love how supportive Leslie is to her son and was surprised at how much control he has over some of the creative decisions in the company. And Leslie also gave us so many tips when it comes to considering whether you should start working on that second product. She points out that as a small business with a small team, she can’t afford to be churning out products left and right, [00:20:00] so instead they have to focus on creating products that they're excited about. And of course, not every idea is a great one, so when you have a new idea, she suggests sitting on it for a little while – make out with it for 48 hours – and then forget about it for maybe a month or so. And if you can’t stop thinking about that idea, then it’s probably worth making.

Did you know that nearly 60% of items sold in Amazon's store come from selling partners - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses? Taco vs. Burrito is one of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand webinars, Q&As, [00:21:00] events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

You know, similar to Leslie’s 48-hour rest period, there’s also other ways to test out your new ideas and that’s why I’m talking to my next guest: Aicha Sharif, the chief experience officer and Dean of Rocket Club Academy. She’s also a serial entrepreneur who runs a small business called Aicha Sharif & Partners where she helps other small businesses build, launch, and scale their brands. I'm excited for you to meet her.

[00:21:40] Andrea: Aicha, it’s great to have you on the show. Tell me about yourself.

[00:21:44] Aicha Sharif: So I actually grew up in Morocco and all my life there and left at 21. But what makes that particular snippet of my life special is because I, uh, learned negotiation skills from a very young age because I had to convince my family [00:22:00] that I need to go to high school and college, and I was the first woman to, out of a family of nine siblings, to make it as a girl to high school and college afterwards, and paved the way for my sisters who all came after me. And then afterwards, pretty much all the girls in my community, and then getting a scholarship to go to London and study international business. And then I landed a dream job with 3M in the UK in their product management team. And at the age of 27, I was leading a big department aerospace and automotive with a lot of people, with a lot of experience that know the culture very well. But I relied a lot on just the fact that I love working with people and I'm interested in people, and I can build systems, but I also can focus on the humane aspect of relationships.

One of the startups or businesses that I am part of is called Rocket Club Academy, and I coach children seven to 14 [00:23:00] to launch their own businesses. It's magical. The more I coached and spoke to these children who are either seven or 10 or 14, it really, the age doesn't matter. They are so close to their source, to their identity. It's not foggy in their head who they are. Why do they wanna do what they're doing. And it's very wholesome. A lot of it is coming from: I wanna help. And at the core of it, everybody really, if you're starting a business to make money, you are gonna get tired and you are gonna do the wrong thing. That's a core value that I think for entrepreneurs is very important to me to share, is that you have to start a business to solve a problem.

[00:23:37] Andrea: So far, we've had two young entrepreneurs on This is Small Business, and the fact that there's even more young entrepreneurs creating small businesses and a school to help them and their parents with that is so cool. I can't wait to see what they create! But let's get into today's topic: Product iteration. So, if I'm a small business [00:24:00] and I created my first product, and it was successful. When should I start thinking about adding more products to my brand and how do I even do that?

[00:24:08] Aicha Sharif: I think that's a fantastic question. It's a question that a lot of founders toil with, and with small businesses, it's always a question of resources. Everybody has limited time. But on top of it, as a business, you know, that's small, you only have so much money for your runway. You only have so many people, and you only have, you know, so much access to extra help that you can afford. And so when I launch a new product with a founder, you know, we really focus on that minimal viable product, that MVP. Making your first sale is for me, one of the most important steps for a founder and new business owner.

Don't get stuck on: I gotta perfect this. I gotta make all the marketing moves. I gotta create all the different parts of the business before I launch. You have to test. Test early on because you really don't know what the customer is gonna respond to the best. Which part of your story is gonna echo the best with them? [00:25:00] Who you are? What's your brand identity? So that MVP really doesn't answer that. The MVP only does some initial validation that people wanna exchange money for your product. It's that energy exchange, right, that validates it. If nobody wants to pay for it, it has no place. And you have to go back to the drawing room.

The next step that I work with founders on is know what is that unique value? It's the U-V-P. What is it the unique value that you add that nobody else can do? Now you have to articulate that, and you have to position it well, and obviously you have to think about pricing the right market, the right messaging, the right channel for you.

And then finally it's, what is that lovable product? For a founder, before they think about, oh, I'm making enough money. Now I gotta go launch the next one. Is your product talked about? Do you have people who come to you and say, oh my gosh, I can't have enough, and it doesn't have to be thousands, a hundred people. You need to have a hundred diehard fans. When you have that, now it's time to actually start testing something else.

[00:26:00] What I also believe is that it depends on the core values of a brand. A lot of founders tend to jump into a product launch, et cetera, but then they're constantly changing the personality of the brand, and I think that's dangerous. I think it's very important that founders early on do their homework and know their foundation in terms of who are you. Let's say you are a telehealth business that's just starting to venture into healthcare. If you know yourself and why you're doing it, and for example, one of your core values to reach, to bring health and healthcare to people who can't access it in remote places, then you are gonna go to the rural countries. Your strategy, your product, your market is gonna match that. And so it's kind of a long-winded answer to when you launch a product or how you launch a product, but it all stems from your core value as a brand. So then at that point, when you have your diehard 100 fans, you can take a group of those fans and say, I wanna test this. Can I do it with you? And you can find a structure where you test. It doesn't take too much of their time.

[00:27:00] One of the things I warn founders about is retention versus new revenue. Experience is very important. So as a small business, you have your core team now that supported this growth, but now you wanna try something, you wanna add something new. What a lot of founders do is they add the same responsibility for discovering new markets and selling new products on the same people that are retaining this baseline of business. That is dangerous. That's where burnout happens. And I think that's when an ecosystem comes in where you're really structuring the team with jobs, responsibilities, accountability, and also bringing them into the vision of what's next. And that's fantastic because what's next could be a layer of another team that lives under the team that built the original product. A lot of that comes from the culture itself, comes from how do you use your resources and what's important to you. Because as a business, if customer service, for example, is the most important thing to you or how fast you are, you know, as a business, [00:28:00] then you are gonna put the resources behind that and that's gonna dictate what new product is gonna come next.

[00:28:06] Andrea: Following that thought, how do you think a small business owner should duplicate what is working while at the same time trying to balance something new? Because I think that you could run the risk of not being different enough or risking too much and being so different that you're moving away from what drew people to you in the first place.

[00:28:23] Aicha Sharif: It's not so much about, you know, what's new, it's the pivoting. If you're not pivoting, you're stagnant and you need to create new stories to talk to your customers. You can't be talking to them about the same thing over and over again. So creating those stories come from connecting with your customers that you've started with from day one. Those are the people that taught you who you are with you, and those are the people that helped you shape your product to be even better. Now, retaining those customers and also going to the next thing, innovating with the next thing. I think that's when conversations really are important and that's when the art of creating that attention [00:29:00] that the brand needs to stay relevant, but at the same time speaking with the authority and with the conviction about who you are, while you are also creating something new. And that doesn't necessarily have to be bringing a completely new product to the market. That could be, I'm partnering with a different brand, you know, instead of just one item, it's actually a package that solves this other problem. So I think that's when it doesn't always have to be customer facing. It can be behind the scenes. I think that's where it becomes very individualized and it depends on the business and what they're trying to solve and who they are going towards.

And I think something that small businesses don't always do very well is partnering with other smaller businesses. We tend to focus on just what is, when is the next big client, when is the next, you know, campaign. But there is an art to develop in partnerships that can allow you to look innovative, creative, have a story to tell your product [00:30:00] increases in value without you having to reinvent the wheel, and so, you know, I always believe in growing organically, but whenever there is an opportunity to partner up with another business, I'm also open to that because I'm in love with the process of learning. And so as long as you as a founder, you're in love in with the process of learning, but you also are in love with the process of failing. Because that's when, you know, we don't tend to learn the greatest from victories. We learn from losing, you know, we tend to go back to the drawing room and what did we do wrong, et cetera. When we win, we just move on next, we're great. And so that process is really important and I think there is a lot of merit to pivoting slowly. Once you've established that core brand duplicating it could be a new market, could be a new channel, could be a new partnership. And then testing something new that's completely gonna position you in a different space. It has to be rooted in the core values because that's when you don't lose focus or consistency.

[00:31:00] One of the things that founders have to build in very early on with their mindset is consistency. You are beaten today. You've lost a client. You couldn't, you pitched somebody, you didn't land it. How do you find that motivation to wake up the next day and do that again? Pivot. Slightly different, knock on that same door again. That's the consistency. Founders typically are very active minds. You know, it's a hundred things they wanna try and that's where focus and micro focus is really important. And something that I think I learned through Rocket Club especially is the micro focus. We don't try to do everything all at once. We try to focus our attention as a small team on one thing at a time. And so that really helps the whole team to rally behind the quarter or behind one campaign or behind one objective, and then move on to the next focus.

[00:31:53] Andrea: Aicha, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:31:56] Aicha Sharif: It's my pleasure, Andrea. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:32:00] Host: That was Aicha Sharif, the chief experience officer and Dean of Rocket Club Academy. Thank you for listening today -- I’ve learned a lot from speaking to Aicha and Leslie and I’m looking forward to Taco vs. Burrito’s new game and seeing what the young entrepreneurs from the Rocket Club Academy come up with. Here are key takeaways I learned from Aicha and Leslie:

There is a lot of competition out there. So you really need to think beyond just your product and consider your branding. Leslie suggests working on something that excites you and consider what you’re passionate about, just like her son with Tacos and Burritos. Because when you’re passionate, authenticity comes through which is a big reason Taco vs. Burrito has been successful.
When considering a second product and having new ideas, Leslie told us about making out with the idea for two days and then putting it aside for a while. And if you can’t stop thinking of that idea, then you should start working on it. And even though you definitely should sit on your ideas, [00:33:00] Aicha also adds that you shouldn’t let perfectionism stop you from launching your product.
Both Leslie and Aicha talked about pivoting. You can’t just copy and paste what works. You need to think about what new things you’re offering your customers. One way you can think about what works and what doesn’t or what you can do better is by examining launches, or seasons through retrospectives. Where you can as yourself, what has gone well? What hasn’t? and What are we doing differently next quarter?
And Aicha broke down 3 steps to thinking about adding new products, first knowing what your minimal viable product, or MVP is, which is the version of your product that isn’t perfect yet but is good enough to share with early customers who can provide feedback to help you make it better, then you think what is your unique valuable product, or UVP, the unique value you add that now no one else can do, and then your lovable product, is it talked about? Do your customers tell you how much they love it and why? [00:34:00] Because this leads to your die-hard fans.
When you decide you want to create a new product – you really need to make sure you’ll be able to handle it. As Aicha said, there’s a lot of resources that go into creating a new product – like money and of course people! So you need to make sure you’re prepared for that.

I'm curious – Are you thinking of introducing a second product to your business? What led you to that decision? And if you’re in the process of doing that, I’d love a little peek behind the curtain! Let me know what you’re doing to make it just as successful as your first product. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this.

That's it for episode 13 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

On our next episode, we’ll be talking about how you can make sure you create your second product without breaking the bank [00:35:00] with the Founder of Princeton Popcorn Company, Robert Ralph, or as we like to call him Farmer Bob.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:35:30]

Ep 24: How to foster workplace diversity and inclusion

Learn about fostering workplace diversity and inclusion.

[00:00:00] Jennifer Kim: Diversity, equity and inclusion refers to the holistic practices that make your company more diverse by improving upon everything that you do, whether that's hiring, performance management, feedback, communications, so that internally you are building a stronger team, which then leads to better innovation, better communication with your new team, better able to serve the customers that you have.

[00:00:28] Andrea: Doesn’t matter who you are, you benefit from diversity and inclusion. So I want to talk about the how. Let’s get into how we can foster workplace diversity and inclusion.

[00:00:40] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our This is Small Business Minisodes - shorter episodes for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode, we talk about how to foster workplace diversity and inclusion with Jennifer Kim, the Founder and CEO of Workflow.

[00:00:58] Jennifer Kim: So, I am the founder CEO [00:01:00] of a company called Workflow. We work with startups well, primarily from tech to get people operations, hiring, diversity, inclusion, right from the very, very beginning. So we do that through courses, a community, really anything that helps people take this work seriously given that when you're running a business, getting people right is the most important thing you can do. So I started Workflow.

[00:01:26] Andrea: How can I, as a small business owner ensure diversity throughout all my practices, like the culture of the company from hiring to marketing vs just infusing the company with the word diversity?

[00:01:36] Jennifer Kim: So diversity work, you can see it as a leadership development challenge for yourself. I'll give you an example. Let's say you're running a small business and you are trying to hire a new employee. The easy thing to do is tap into your own network friends, acquaintances, You get a couple maybe interested people, like, okay, this sounds good enough. You know, you're hired. [00:02:00] That is one way of hiring, but by sticking to what's comfortable, maybe what we're missing out on is a pool of candidates that were maybe you wouldn't have considered, that wouldn't have gotten access to you, but ultimately, they end up being a really, really fantastic hire for you.

So diversity is a really key point. It's not necessarily the goal itself. Diversity is the result of really excellent people, HR, culture, practice. So when your hiring is really, really good, you are going to get more diverse players into the fold because instead of just hiring from my friends who statistically, according to studies, they're much more likely to look like you. They're coming from the same background, but that means they probably have similar strengths, but also the same blind spots. If you're building a business, you want to be really building for diverse range of skills, able to see around corners, think much more nimbly, act flexibly, in which case people from different backgrounds [00:03:00] are actually going to help you achieve that more. From there, you're going to be constantly making improvements to your employee experience, your culture, making sure you're open to feedback. And you know, whether you're trying to stay a small business or not, what you're really doing is making your business so much more nimble instead of just hiring many copies of you.

[00:03:22] Andrea: How do we implement that mindset to make it happen?

[00:03:24] Jennifer Kim: So a lot of this work comes from initially having the mindset. I personally do not believe I am good enough to convince you that diversity matters if you already decided you don't care about it. However, what we can do is for people who do care, people who already understand that, you know, valuing diversity means better working environments, better output, better performance, which by the way is not an opinion. This has been scientifically proven over and over again through many, many studies. From there, it is really taking a much more thoughtful, holistic approach to everything that you do internally.

[00:04:00] You know, a few years back I was hiring for an IT position. So when we put up that posting, I think it was like 90 plus percent of applicants were male passing. So if we just went to the convenient way of like, okay, let's just hire, you know, interview a few of these people and see who's the best. We were guaranteeing that this person would end up being a male employee. And that's not a bad thing. If that is absolutely, you know, who is the best hire, that's what we need to do. But to ensure diversity, we decided to go one more step. Why don't we send out a few reach outs on LinkedIn, tapping our networks. Hey, we have this fantastic role open. Here's who we are as a business, why we think this is a good role. So we went out of our way to go tap into some folks who weren't actively looking, but we thought could potentially be good for this role and by targeting people from more marginalized backgrounds, our final slate of candidates ended up being something like, I think it was like two men and two women. [00:05:00] From there, it happened to be so that one of the women was just so wonderful. We would love to have you on the team. If one of the men had been the best ultimate candidate, we would've hired him. And by doing this process, we would've been sure that this is the absolute best candidate. So even if it takes a little, you know, more work, don't you care about having the absolute best talent possible for your team? It's not just more work, if you really believe that people are so critical to getting it right to improve your business.

[00:05:30] Andrea: Can you point out your top two ways to ensure diversity within your business?

[00:05:34] Jennifer Kim: So when it comes to hiring, one of the most important things you can do is actually be very thoughtful and intentional in the very, very beginning when you are literally writing the job description. You can really think about what are the business needs of this role? What does success look like? What would someone already have to know? Like what are the like actual requirements versus what can you teach them on the job? [00:06:00] What are some must haves versus what are some nice to haves? Really going for this exercise and writing down, honestly a lot more longer than you would think, than condensing it down, because what that does is once you have an actually useful job description, you can use that to guide your interviews.

When you are asking very focused interview questions based on, oh, you know, we have a plan to, let's say, open up a new office next year. Therefore we need someone to do X, Y, Z. Ask questions about X, Y, Z. Have you done that before? What does that look like for you? What are some risks that you foresee? So that allows you to ask really relevant job specific questions. When we don't have that, that's when our biases will fill in the gaps. That is when our questions and our judgements go to like, did I like this person? [00:07:00] Because without that anchoring on the actual business need, we then tend to let our biases make our decisions for us.

The second has to be about what do you do to retain, let's say, you know, you're hiring for great diversity, but if people aren't staying, what are we really doing? It feels like a lot of wasted effort. So ways to ensure retention. If there is a imperfection, some kind of bias in your systems, whether it's communication, promotion, performance management processes, maybe you have a really bullying, toxic boss in the workplace, guess who is gonna be the first to feel those effects? It's always the underrepresented people.

So something that I would encourage for all business leaders to consider when someone comes to you with a complaint or a concern, really take it seriously. You know, if someone says like, hey, I'm uncomfortable working with this person, our instinct might be like, well, I'm not uncomfortable with that person. [00:08:00] That person's really nice to me. Like of course they are. But what if that person is not just being sensitive, but they're warning you ahead of time to things that you can't see? Because instead of making it their problem, you could actually go investigate, you know, pay attention, try to gather more data, because often these things really fester.

So overall, you know about retention, it is true that at both organizations there is a discrepancy of retention rates of people from majority groups versus people with marginalized identities. Try to pay really careful attention to why that is. Can you make small improvements? Can you take employee feedback surveys? Are you making yourself available during, whether it's one-on-ones, anonymous surveys with an actually, you know, really competent HR team so that you are receiving that feedback about how to ensure really great culture for particularly marginalized groups because the changes that you make will [00:09:00] end up making things better for once again, everybody.

[00:09:03] Andrea: Jennifer, is there anything else you'd like to say?

[00:09:04] Jennifer Kim: Yeah, this is a really exciting time. It really is. We are really, I think, at a pivotal moment in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space where for a very long time, decades, it was possible to be a great business leader without honestly having to worry about diversity. That is not the world that we live in anymore, if you wanna be a leader, diversity is a part of your job. And I can understand it can be really intimidating. But it's just like any other skill by really taking a, a learner's mindset, doing your research, getting coaching, getting help, trying different things, being honest with your people. I am confident that everyone can really benefit from seeing themselves as a leader that really embraces diversity.

[00:09:50] Host: That was Founder and CEO of Workflow, Jennifer Kim. Diversity is going to help your business succeed -- and this is all backed up by data. So putting in a little extra effort in getting the right people and making sure your business is a [00:10:00] safe and healthy environment for employees is worth it. Here are ways you can ensure diversity in your business that Jennifer mentioned.

One. When it comes to hiring, write a thorough and detailed job description to avoid any personal biases that could come up later in the interview and make sure to look for employees outside of your circles.
Two. Ensure retention aka keeping your hires. Underrepresented people are usually the first to face any type of bias or issues in the workplace, so make sure that you listen to your employees when they bring up any issues -- like feeling uncomfortable with a boss or a manager.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about how and when you should offer additional products and how to replicate the successes of what already works.

If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it on your phone. [00:11:00] Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:11:20]

Ep 23: Toyin leverages small business success to drive community impact

Learn how your business can impact your community.

[00:00:03] Toyin: So it's actually been profitable because more people identify with the honesty, and the way we're going about having impact. And because of that, they wanna support us. So that's where I think impact meets profitability, I'm honestly with that, believe that most people are good and there are enough people in this world that identify with goodness, with giving back, and being kind.

[00:00:30] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business -- a weekly podcast -- brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build and grow your small business - and if that sounds like a lot – don’t worry because I’ll call out key lessons at the end of every episode so it’s easier for you to digest.

Something that many of us want to do is help others and have an impact on our community, but when you’re a small business owner, sometimes the idea of giving back can feel impossible – [00:01:00] often it feels like you either have to choose between business growth or community impact. So how can you do both? Is there a way that giving back and helping your community can help your business? Even if you can give back, how do you get over the guilt of benefiting from it – maybe through tax deductions or marketing? And if you want to help your community through your business, where do you start?

Coming up – I’ll talk to Nadia Martinez, Founder & CEO of Kallie & Co., a not-just-for-profit company dedicated to the ethical manufacturing of women’s shoes, about all the different ways you can help the community while growing your business. But first -- I want you to meet business owner Toyin Kolawole, the Founder & CEO of Iya Foods, a Gluten-Free foods manufacturing company. She’s here to let us in on how helping the community can contribute to growth in your company and how you could get there too – even as a small business owner.

[00:01:57] Andrea: Toyin Kolawole, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:02:00] Toyin: Thank you for having me.

[00:02:02] Andrea: Let's jump right in. Tell me about Iya Foods and how it came to be.

[00:02:06] Toyin: I was born in Nigeria. I moved here about 20 years ago to go for my MBA at Kellogg in Northwestern, I grew up as the first daughter, but the second child of five and anybody who's grown up in an immigrant household, and I think that's also common in many American households as the first daughter, you're kind of like the assistant mom, you know, you're cooking, you're doing all of that. So, and my mom had many businesses, but not in a rich way because entrepreneurship growing up in a place like Nigeria is a necessity thing because there's a lot of unemployment and a lot of under employment. So one of the things she had was fast food. So I was the one who wake up in the morning, go clean up the place, go make the fast food, and sell it, and then clean up afterwards.

So I had that kind of entrepreneurial background just as a way of life to make ends meet. And then after that became a private equity analyst. For those who don't know, private equity is you're literally investing in businesses. Did that for a couple years before Kellogg, and then Bain and Company. [00:03:00] And I have two kids, uh, 16 and now 14. So one of the things I wanted was for my kids to have a positive experience with, you know, African culture, Nigerian culture specifically. And one of the best ways I think people can do that is food, right? So what I would do is take ingredients I had grown up with and then make everyday food. So like, take plantain flour, make pancakes, take cassava flour, make bread. And my children loved it, I started to notice that these ingredients that I grew up with, that to me are African superfoods, were beginning to trend in the US and people were making amazing products out of it through innovation, which is something that is very powerful in America. So the mom in me that had been by default doing innovation at home to use all these ingredients to make delicious food connected with the private equity, the consultant, the entrepreneur part of me to create Iya foods. And that's how Iya Foods came about. It literally started my home and just kind of merged every part of my personal life and my career and my business life. [00:04:00] And then it became a business and that's how we started making good food with good ingredients. But I draw a ton of inspiration from what I call African Super foods.

[00:04:10] Andrea: There’s such a powerful and beautiful connection to your brand and who you are as a person. This reminds me a bit of what Serwaa said in episode one of this season two that also features Justin Forsett from Hustle Clean. She said that the best businesses are an intersection of being passionate and knowledgeable about the business while also providing value to costumers which sounds like Iya Foods. So we're here to talk about how helping your community and growing your business can go hand in hand. Tell me about the impact that Iya Foods has on the community.

[00:04:46] Toyin: That's something that's actually been very important to me growing up because you know, like I mentioned, we weren't wealthy and there were really difficult patches like a lot of families are familiar with, and there were so many days in college, in school where I got by on the kindness of others. [00:05:00] So because of that part of me who had benefited from the kindness of, you know, sometimes family, sometimes friends, sometimes strangers, um, my faith and just me as a mom, impacting the community was instant in even when we founded in the company. So we started something that we call Share the Love, and that is born out of one of our key values, which is shared prosperity and integrity of purpose. Those two things were so important because you can share prosperity and they can be integrity in your purpose. And that's something I wanted in the DNA of the company so that we're building a company that was just all about profit. And so how have we been able to kind of live out that value of share prosperity and integrity of purpose is through our Share the Love. So we do Share the Love in four ways.

Number one is Share the Love customer. If you're not thinking about your customer as human beings or as people who deserve the best ingredients and clean food, you know, you're out of business. We see more and more consumers gravitating towards wellbeing, towards foods that are made with ingredients that they recognize and they know. So that's obviously our number one, cuz that's our number one priority.

[00:06:00] Number two is, Share the love Farmers. As an African and as a Nigerian, I've learned a lot about the ecosystem and the food chain. And I see it over and over again. How many African communities in Nigeria, in West Africa, all across Africa that grow the foods that we all eat, that we all enjoy from, but these people are still really poor. And that's something that always, always bothered me. And so not only has that been good from an impact perspective, it's actually been good from a business perspective because we had a situation with Covid where a lot of companies were going through a lot with supply chain, but we have farmers, a community of farmers that felt a part of our mission, a part of our vision, a part of our business, so that not only did we get through covid with adequate supply, we actually became a net supplier to our competitors. And we've built on that.

And number three is, um, Share the Love Environment. Something most people are passionate about.

And last but not least, is Share the Love Children. That is personally the strongest one for me because I'm a mom. [00:07:00] We actually take care of an entire orphanage in Nigeria because the social systems in Nigeria is not the same as the US. We started with 13 children. We're now up to 22 children. We take care of the feeding. Take care of the housing, take care of the education, and provide mentorship. But that's in Nigeria. Here we donate to a lot of food banks and we're very specific about donating to food banks that are more family oriented so we know that the foods that we're donating are going to families. And we're a small business, but that's something I believe in because:

Let me, let me summarize everything with a proverb. I love Proverbs. I live by Proverbs, so there's one, I'll say it in my native, in my Yoruba language. I'll say the direct translation and the proverbial translation. So there's a proverb that says [Yoruba proverb] and the literal translation is eating is not fun if somebody else is lacking. But the proverbial translation is food is sweeter when shared, [00:08:00] and we live by that at Iya Foods. We leave by that in everything that we do. So that's one way that we've had a lot of impact.

But the quick last point I wanted to make is it hasn't only been good from. From an impact perspective, it's actually been good from a business perspective because we have people who are keyed into what we're trying to achieve, and they will work with us to make sure that we get what we need.

[00:08:26] Andrea: Thank you for sharing that. I’m so inspired by you. Can you tell me in what ways helping your community and having that impact helps your small business grow?

[00:08:35] Toyin: So it helps the small business. I'll get to that in a second, but it also helps me personally, you know, which is really important. I talk a lot about entrepreneurial mental health. How do you feel about the work you're doing? How does it help? How does it motivate you as a leader and being somebody who is Nigerian and also American, you know, I'm used to two general perspectives about Africa. One is the safari. The other is the poverty, [00:09:00] even though there's so much in between, right? You know, there are people getting their coffee and going to an elevator, on a laptop doing work. But there are also people who live in a hut. It's not one story.

There are multiple stories and there are multiple experiences. So there's been a, there's been a general reaction to how aid and charity comes from what a lot of Africans would call the western world, where it's very needed, but people feel, still feel devalued, unworthy. So for me, as somebody who's also was Nigerian and also American, it was important to connect impact and giving back in a way that doesn't make people wanna be you, but wanna be the best of themselves in a way that doesn't make people feel unworthy. And that's one of the reasons I'm so proud of what we do, because people like me who are diasporas, who have come to America you know, for education and do more stuff, it's important that we carry that mantle because we understand these communities. We understand that somebody else might come and see a hut [00:10:00] and see somebody that is just really poor and doesn't have any skills. Well I see different because I grew up in that environment. I grew up with those people. So for me personally, it's been very, very impactful.

As a business, it's impacted us in many ways.

A. is how am I building a team? So right here I'm talking to you, but there are three of us in this room, and I know how my team reacts to the impact that we have. It makes them feel good about their work. So from a motivational perspective, it's motivating the team we have here in ear foods and anybody who runs a company will tell you that you can motivate with paycheck, you can motivate with other things, but you need to have some other things, some other soft things that motivate people. So it really, really motivates the team. It motivates buyers, it motivates partners. It's gotten a lot of people to actually be interested in helping us because they're like, you know what? We bought a truckload of this from you this year, but we see what you do in that village and we wanna be a part of it and wanna be a part of it with you. So it's actually been profitable because more people [00:11:00] identify with the honesty, and the way we're going about having impact. And because of that, they wanna support us. So that's where I think impact meets profitability, I'm honestly with that, believe that most people are good and there are enough people in this world that identify with goodness, with giving back, and being kind. And that has been really good also for us because then they in turn support us. They talk about it to other people and they support us. And then we get people who shout us out on Instagram, on social media. So that's been, I think, one of the biggest impacts on the business, even though, to be honest, that's not why we started.

[00:11:42] Andrea: As a consumer, this resonates with me because I see this reflected a lot in my purchasing decisions. If I have two similar products but one of them has a clear message of how it impacts the community, I'll probably buy it even if it is more expensive. Because -- well I'm in a privileged position where I can afford it. And I'm getting the product I need and helping others at the same time.

[00:12:00] Toyin: It's actually interesting you mentioned that because you know how I mentioned about giving back without making people feel unworthy? We actually do the same thing on the customer end, which is we know that we have to produce good food that is tasty at an affordable price and give customers a reason to keep buying us just based on the quality of the product, because we also don't want to guilt people into buying our stuff. So we're very intentional, whether it's in giving back or communicating how we have impact or how we give back to the customers, that any feeling you have around that is a positive one, so that if you are the recipient of that impact, you don't feel unworthy or you don't feel there's something wrong with you. But if you are a customer who's supporting us, it's like you said, it's a nice to have. We're not guilting you into buying a product that is great. We make sure we make great products first, and then you just feel good about the fact that you're getting something good and affordable, but then it has all of these other really nice things that you identify with.

[00:13:00] Andrea: So at the end of the day, the quality of your product cannot be beat. That has to be your priority before anything else because that's what's going to keep customers coming back and customers are what's going to keep the impact of your business going. So we talked about how helping your community can help your business grow, but how do we get there? Could you mention what small business owners should consider when it comes to tying their business goals to the impact that they make in the community? What do those goals look like when it's not just about growth in the business?

[00:13:38] Toyin: Yeah. So what I usually do when I wanna answer those kinds of questions is I always start from either of two things: What result do I wanna achieve so that way I can walk my way backwards? So think about like a GPS, right? If you put in the address, it's gonna tell you turn left turn right? But a more powerful tool that I use is ask myself, who's the most important person or what's the most important thing I need to focus on?

[00:14:00] So let's pick a business goal. Let's say I have a business goal to get to a hundred million dollars in three years, but at the same time, I wanna have an impact on my community. And then start to think who's the most important person in that goal that I wanna achieve, and obviously is the customer. Right? And then think, what are the things I can then do to make the customer feel good about working with us to get to that goal? So that's why we have the Share the Love campaign in our case that had four different things that we're walking on, which is number one: focus on the customer, give them good food that is affordable, that is impact. People don't think about that as impact, but how many customers do we have that go to stores and they really need a good snack for their kids or a good bottle of juice, but they're completely bombarded with dishonest ads or dishonest positioning. So that's why I put customer first as just focus on the customer, give them what you believe they want, cuz in a way you're having an impact on that customer's life [00:15:00] when you're able to buy something good and something healthy and something that fits what you actually want at an affordable price.

And then the second I mentioned was farmer. So that's what we really start to do and say in this circle. And I remember when I started to see my life, my impact, my goals, my business goals as a circle as opposed to a ladder, it really changed a lot about how I approach everything, because if you see it as a ladder, right, you have to clamp over processes, over people, over thresholds to get to the top. But when you see it as a circle, including your community, it makes it easier to make those connections between your business goals and having an impact on your community.

I'll give you one more example. So for us, we're working hard to get to, to cross that a hundred million number. So for us it's a circle and say, who are the people in this circle and in this ecosystem that help us get there? How do we make sure that there's shared prosperity and integrity of purpose, which is why we rolled it into one of our values. So how we sharing that prosperity with our customers, how are we making sure that the customers benefit from our journey to a hundred million dollars. [00:16:00] We price fairly. We're not looking for opportunities to, to make more money with the cheapest product, we get good ingredients. If we have an opportunity to buy two types of ginger and one is better, we buy the better one even if it costs more, that's impact. Uh, the farmers, how we paying them more, how we paying them fairly? How we having an impact because we actually see them as part of that ecosystem. I see everything as a circle and all of us within the same ecosystem trying to get to the same goals, and it helps me in deciding how we then get to that a hundred million goal so that the prosperity is shared, it's shared with customers, it's shared with farmers, it's shared with children, and we're being good stewards of the environment as well.

[00:16:44] Andrea: I really like the idea of it being a circle and not a ladder. Can you list your top three goals for Iya Foods in the next year?

[00:16:52] Toyin: So top three goals. Obviously grow revenue, we're still a business. We're on our path to that a hundred million magic number, working very hard on that. [00:17:00] Obviously, a close second is I really care about the people that work in Iya Foods and they all know. I still have to lead but I care about those people making sure that personal goals are fulfilled, making sure that people feel like they're part of something that is bigger than them. And together we all kind of fit into that big piece and can make it happen. Um, so I, I feel an immediate and direct, daily responsibility for everyone that is a part of Iya Foods. So making sure that they're growing and they're happy with the work that they're doing is an important goal.

And last but not least is, you know, the impact we're having that we've been talking about throughout the podcast. I'm hoping that we can get from 22 kids to over a hundred kids in our orphanage. The living conditions, no matter what we're doing, the living conditions aren't great. I feel guilty all the time. I see the living conditions my kids are in and I see the living conditions those kids are in. And I know that even with all our helping, I wouldn't put my own kids in the current condition. [00:18:00] So I wanna do better with the orphanage. Um, have the kids have better education, better living conditions, and be able to see them through from where they're born, you know, to when they enter college. It's a big, big goal of mine and it's something I take very seriously and we keep getting better. I'm better at every year.

I don't know if I mentioned it earlier of the course. Some of the kids that we have in this orphanage, I'm gonna try not to get emotional. Are kids that were born by people with mental health on the side of the road where when they come to the orphanage, they don't even have names we have to give them names. So the proprietaries of the orphanage will give them names like Success. So the kids' last name is Success or Goodness or Joy. Those are the kind of kids we're talking about. Beautiful kids that I see myself in them, but they've just been dealt a really, really difficult hand. So it's an important goal for me to keep improving the way we're able to take care of those children. And that's something we've been doing better and better at every year. We hope to continue.

[00:19:00] Andrea: That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing. And here’s hoping you do meet those very important goals. Toyin, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It really was delightful to have you.

[00:19:12] Toyin: Same here. Thank you, Andrea.

[00:19:17] HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Toyin Kolawole, the Founder & CEO of Iya Foods. You can find out more about her company in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Toyin gave us so many different options to how we can approach giving back as a business owner and how it can help you grow your business. I love her circle approach to – well everything! It’s definitely something that I’m going to implement in my everyday life. Another point that I loved is giving back includes your customers. And you do that by giving them the best product possible which means maybe spending a little extra on better quality ingredients or materials. [00:20:00] After all, your customers are the ones that'll make it possible for you to give back to the community.

Did you know that nearly 60% of products sold in Amazon's store are from independent sellers - most of which are small and medium-sized businesses?The small businesses we feature on the show are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

My next guest is Nadia Martinez, Founder & CEO of Kallie & Co. She is a military spouse and a mother, both of which have influenced the way she gives back through her business. I'm excited for you to meet her.

[00:20:40] Andrea: Nadia, hola, tell me about yourself.

[00:20:43] Nadia: So, I was born and raised in, uh, Mexico. My parents divorced - my parents divorced when I was, uh, very young. So my grandmother raised me until I was almost 13. And after that time, after she passed away, when I was almost 13, I moved to Tijuana with my mom and her family. [00:21:00] And about 16 years old, my parents decided that I was gonna start crossing the border to go to school. So I started as a senior in high school without speaking English. So the only thing that I knew how to say was, hi, how are you, you know, in like the very shy accent. And I was able to get my high school diploma, learn English, within a year. Went on to learn, uh, some Italian, and at the same time that I was learning English, and a few years later I met my husband.

I was very young. I was 20, we got married at 21, became parents at 21. And I mean, we did the whole military family gig because he was active duty in the Marines at that point, which is why I decided to start a business because every time we relocated it was difficult to find a job or a job that would be enough for me to put my child in daycare. So I said, you know, I'm going to have this challenge every time I move, so I'll go ahead and start a business and that's actually how I came up with the idea of Kallie & Co, [00:22:00] it means Casey and Allie together it's the names of my daughters.

[00:22:04] Andrea: Your background is very familiar to me. I also started studying in the United States when I was around seven years old, and I also didn't know English. I like to refer to us as border children -- growing up in Mexico and crossing the border to study in the states. And I feel as a fellow border child, that it gives you a unique perspective on a whole bunch of things, but specifically business. Since we're talking about giving back to the community while growing your business, do you think your perspective influenced how you approached your business model?

[00:22:33] Nadia: Yes, a hundred percent. And actually, um, the term that I like to use to describe the company, Kallie & Co is not just for profit. Not just for profit, is something that I heard at a conference in Orlando from the founder of Kind Bars. And he said that not just for profit means that we care about profits, but at the same time, we care about making a difference. And I remember that a few years back when I had my last job, I was telling my sales manager, [00:23:00] I said, hey, how about we do this type of business where we can make a difference? You know, I had this idea, and the answer was very harsh for me. Back then I was, I was way younger, so he said, we are not a nonprofit company. We care about money. We're after sales. I said, well, you can make sales and still make a difference. So that was the date that I said, one day I'm going to have my own company with this business model, and I will add him on LinkedIn and show him that it's possible that you can make money, but you can also make a difference because when there are not many businesses that follow that model, it can be scary. And quite honestly, his job was to produce right, to increase revenue, not to go and try to make a difference in the world directly one-on-one or in a specific community. So I said, forget about it. I'm going to do it. I did not say it with those words, but I still did it, right? My reaction was, I was so annoyed by it because I said, how can you not see what a difference you can make, but also you elevate the culture of the company. [00:24:00] You also elevate your brand because people are not just searching for a company to shop from. They're looking for a community. They want a community. They want to be part of something.

[00:24:12] Andrea: How do you think that businesses can find ways to help the community while at the same time growing their business?

[00:24:17] Nadia: A lot of the times they don't understand the importance of community building, of having a firm identity. And I've suggested to some of my clients or former clients, how often do you work with kids in your community? How often do you work with teams that you can sponsor? Well, I actually didn't even think about that. Well, you're selling this type of product and your buyer persona happens to be a mom. Trust me, there's a lot of awareness that you can create and don't just go for the sale, which obviously we're all after the revenue, otherwise we wouldn't be able to remain in business. But when you make it part of your existence, part of your identity. Giving back becomes such a powerful tool, not only at the personal spiritual level because you know you're contributing to a better tomorrow. At least that's how I see it. [00:25:00] But also to grow in a community too, growing the loyalty of those who follow you.

One of the, the clients that I have, and I was able to connect her with the local, uh, nonprofit. When she was talking, she said, hey, I want to help you guys. You know, my consultant suggested doing this, but I'm starting to feel very selfish because I also know there will be a benefit for it. And one of the comments that she got that I'll never forget was, there is nothing wrong with helping each other out. Everybody, or at least most people know that when they make a contribution is tax deductible and there's a reason for it, right? Because in a way you're being compensated, I guess you can say it for supporting another company for supporting somebody else's mission. So there's some shame that comes sometimes with, gosh, will people think that, I mean, and I really shouldn't care about it, but, um, will people think that I'm doing this so I can get a tax deduction, but it's so dear to my heart to contribute [00:26:00] and donate shoes. But when this client said, you know, I feel so much better about it because I was reminded there is nothing wrong with helping each other out. There's absolutely nothing wrong.

And if as a business you want to contribute to that, you should do it because it feels right for you. But it's not your fault that the IRS says that you can also get a tax deduction. There shouldn't be any shame around it. So, bottom line, it's okay to help each other out. It's okay that a nonprofit gets the help, or a special group or a local group, whether it's sports, religious, it doesn't matter while also getting something in return. I mean, think about it. If I'm able to be in a position where I can continue to donate, why wouldn't I do it just because other people might say, oh, it's a tax deduction. It is however you want to see it. To me, it's making a difference to the IRS is a tax deduction to a nonprofit or another local group, it's a big donation that makes a difference. So there are different labels around it. Its just however people want to label their efforts.

[00:27:00] Andrea: How can I make sure that my goals for my small business at the same time impact my goals for the community?

[00:27:08] Nadia: So I don't think it has to be directly related to what you're selling or the product that you're offering because in all honesty, there will always be places that need our help. And I think that's something that people tend to forget, um, the here in the United States, just because we're the most powerful economy in the world, it doesn't mean we don't have needs. Our backyard is full of places that have a lot of needs, and in this case, my husband and I, and as a family, we decided that it was a really good idea, really good place for our other company to sponsor the security system for our church. So it doesn't go right. It doesn't have to, but you still can find ways to make a difference.

Let me give you another example. Let's say that you have a women's boutique store. And they want to support different charities, local charities or groups. It's not, [00:28:00] it doesn't have to be necessarily giving away leftover inventory because what if you want to support a group of young men or young boys who play soccer, right? Well, how about giving you an a thousand dollars grant so you guys can go buy this? You can go buy that. Bottom line, they don't have to limit themselves by their product or service if they truly want to make a difference.

[00:28:20] Andrea: I think it’s also important to know that you can make a difference and make money at the same time.

[00:28:25] Nadia: I tell my daughters all the time, hey baby, you know, I don't want 'em to have an unhealthy relationship with it. Because as a business owner, you have to be on top of your finances. It's like everyday conversation in my house. Not from the greedy point of view, but also imagine how much difference you can make with that money. You know, how much you can help, how much you can empower the moment that I could, I went and I hired military spouses. My staff is actually military spouses too, and they're all still active duty. Their husbands are. And those are people that I met along the way. So, you know, you can make a difference in so many ways, [00:29:00] but you will need money as a business to survive and also to continue making a difference in your community if that's the path they want to take.

[00:29:04] Andrea: So there's other ways to give back that don't necessarily have to be about giving in that sense. Just like how you're hiring military spouses.

[00:29:12] Nadia: Giving is not just financial. You know, I give my time volunteering, uh, my daughter's school, my husband gives his time volunteering at our church, and he does a lot. My oldest volunteers at our local library tutoring kids. There's this misconception that you give back. You have to give money. No, that- there's a lot that you can do. You and your staff can go and serve meals at a local shelter, you and your staff can go play with puppies, you know, at a shelter too. So there's more to it. And these ladies that work with me, they came with no knowledge. I just said, uh, these are people that I care about. One of them is actually my best friend. And I said, I want to teach you everything that you'll need to survive, to, to thrive, not survive, thrive in this world of digital marketing.

So they came with zero knowledge but giving back also meant [00:30:00] sharing my knowledge with them so they could monetize it. So they monetized what I teach them. I pay them, you know, and I pay them well. So there's more to it than just financial resources and just giving back, which is why making money is so important because look where it goes. It's gone to the church; it's gone to these ladies that helped me and work with me. It's gone to shoes being sent to Africa, sent all over New York, here in California. There's a whole lot more to it.

[00:30:25] HOST: That was Nadia Martinez, Founder & CEO of Kallie & Co. Thank you for listening today -- I’m super inspired by both Nadia and Toyin and the incredible work they’re doing while also growing their business – and I hope you do too. As always some key takeaways:

One. First focus on making quality products for your customers. This has to be your priority because that's what's going to keep consumers coming back and customers keep the impact of your business going.
Two. You can start small and local. I know it could feel like there's so much going on in the world, but the best way to help [00:31:00] is to start small and to help the people around you. When you start there, maybe you'll reach a point where you can help people all over the world -- just like Nadia and Toyin.
Three. Giving back and having an impact on your community doesn't have to be financial. You can find other low-cost ways to have an impact and help your community. For example, Nadia hires other military spouses and she talked about organizing volunteer days with your staff.
And four, one of my favorite lessons from today, treat business -- and life -- like a circle instead of a ladder. Because when you're kinder to your employees, suppliers, farmers, sources, and customers, they're going to want to stick around because they believe in your businesses' mission and vision.

I'm curious – do you give back through your business? As we learned today, giving back doesn’t have to be financial, so in what ways are you giving back – or planning to – through your small business? Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – [00:32:00] it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

That's it for episode 11 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

On our next episode, we’ll be talking about how to foster workplace diversity and inclusion with Jennifer Kim, the Founder and CEO of Workflow.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:32:44]

Ep 22: Pros and cons of a business partnership

Learn about working with a business partner.

[00:00:00] Dorielle: If you're looking for a business partner, there are many factors to consider, including the workload and your work preferences, your resources, their fields of expertise, are you working a full-time job while you're trying to start the business? Would the partner be more accessible and flexible in their schedule? Do you have the resources to start the business, the funds, and your personality. Are you a fact finder? Um, are you detail oriented? And it may benefit you to have a partner that's more creative and idea focused so that you can complement each other.

[00:40:00] Jamelah: I agree with my sister. I think we like to think of our partnerships as, kind of the Swiss cheese model. You want the holes in the cheese to, to not line up on every slice so that everybody has you know, the same deficiencies and the same strengths. So we try to kind of like stagger our Swiss cheese holes a little bit, so that where one of us is not as great, the other one can complement and vice versa.

[00:01:00] Andrea: You also happen to be sisters, so I think you might have had years of practice. There's a lot to consider when going into business with a partner. So let’s get into it.

[00:01:12] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our TISB Minisodes - shorter episodes for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be discussing the pros and cons of having a business partner with Dorielle Price and Jamelah Tucker, sisters and co-founders of Easy Peasie.

[00:01:35] Andrea: For context, tell me how you decided to partner on Easy Peasie.

[00:01:40] Dorielle: It started as a mom hack for my youngest son. I was switching to formula sooner than I wanted to, and I knew that he would not be exposed to the flavors that he would've been exposed to through breastfeeding. So I turned to my sister, and I was like, Hey, turn your pediatrician brain on, I have this issue that I wanna try to resolve. [00:02:00] So I told her, and she did some research. We did some experiments and came up with the idea of drying and grinding vegetables. So we did that and added it to his foods. And over the next couple of years we had this vegetable seasoning on our tables. And family and friends tried it and they liked it, so we decided to bring it to market as Easy Peasie. And we named it that because it's easy to add vegetables to your meals and it has peas in all the blends.

[00:02:34] Jamelah: That is it. She's my little sister and she's extremely competent. So being the big sister of somebody who has always been very successful is difficult. And so, in the few times in her life that she asked me for help, I jumped on it. I knew I had to shoot my shot, so I was happy to help.

[00:02:55] Andrea: Not everyone might have the benefit of a partnership like this, but let’s start with the pros. [00:03:00] What are the top benefits to having a business partner?

[00:03:05] Dorielle: I believe you can, you know, split your responsibilities, split the workload and you can get more stuff done. And having someone to bounce ideas around with is very beneficial and coming up with solutions and new products and things like that.

[00:03:20] Jamelah: The other thing I think that's really important, that a partner brings you is just that moral support. You know, like kind of that encouragement to keep going. I really don't know how those solopreneurs do it. I, I mean, I think that's why it's important to have a network even for us in a partnership, we always gain from opportunities to learn from other small business owners.

[00:03:40] Andrea: Tell me about the cons to having a business partner.

[00:03:42] Dorielle: One of 'em is just, you know, there’s, there’s gonna be disagreements, you have two different people, different personalities, and different ideas, different ways of doing things. So there will be disagreements, but it's just a matter of establishing a way to resolve those disagreements, [00:04:00] whether it's a third party or just making a compromise to work things out together.

[00:04:05] Jamelah: Disagreements I think can be challenging, but I, I also think that disagreements sometimes, um, spark, um, innovation and, you know, kind of, having an opportunity to see something, see a problem or a solution from a different angle, I think are helpful things not just in business, but I think in life as adults, I think it's helpful to just learn how to resolve conflict.

I guess the other con I would add is that having a partner can sometimes slow down how things go. I mean, the decision-making process and when we have those times when, you know, her and I can't necessarily come to an agreement in that moment and where something gets delayed or something gets, you know, kind of, we have to circle back to it. I always, I think about that parable that, that says you can go faster alone, but you go further together. And so I think, you know, sometimes, the fast decision is maybe not always the right one. So I think sometimes we're forced to kind of slow down and be intentional and and mindful about what we're doing, [00:05:00] and I hope that makes our business better.

[00:05:02] Andrea: Do you have a third party that you go to when you disagree?

[00:05:05] Dorielle: Mom

[00:05:05] Jamelah: Mum

[00:05:08] Andrea: Of course, you do. I love that. But what about something more formal?

[00:05:13] Dorielle: We started off with a legal operating agreement and just covered all the bases on those things.

[00:05:20] Jamelah: Our mom does definitely do some conflict resolution between us, but we also do have the good fortune of having mentors, business mentors, but we were definitely lucky that when we started our business, it was I think my old accountant at the time that set up our incorporation paperwork and like our articles in incorporation and he said that straight away. He was like, yeah family, mm-hmm. Families, it's great, but sometimes things fall apart. And so you guys should make this official, make everything as, you know, as official as possible. It doesn't necessarily prevent conflict. But when things are not good, or, you know, in the event that it's not Dorielle and I that are doing the conflict resolution that we're so good at, [00:06:00] but it's someone else's introduced into the equation having paperwork in advance I think is helpful. So we got good advice from the beginning, which I think was really important.

[00:06:10] Andrea: Is there any reason I wouldn't want to go into business with a partner?

[00:06:15] Dorielle: Yes, so if you don't need a partner. If you have all the resources you need to start the business, if you have the time, the funds, the expertise. I don't think a, a partner is necessary. You can have the specialists and the contractors to help you with those certain tasks that you need done, that you might not have the bandwidth to do. But as far as the management side of things, if you can handle it, no, no partner needed. And, you know, having a good partner is beneficial, but also having a bad partner can be detrimental. So if you find an individual that doesn't align with your goals or your vision, then it's not worth [00:07:00] bringing them on and just disagreements all the time and not benefiting your business.

[00:07:07] Jamelah: I agree with Dorielle and I was actually thinking about, I have examples of friends that are also business owners that they initially had a business idea but were worried about the workload. And kind of knowing that they were going to need help in other areas in order to get the business off the ground. And so I kind of watched them go through the pros and cons of, should I just have a consultant or do I actually wanna partner? And so, I would say in both of those examples, they ended up taking on partners and now a few years into the business, one of them ended up with three partners in the business. And literally just a couple weeks ago, she said to me, I don't know if we really needed that third partner. And splitting off one third of your profits is a lot. So I, I completely agree with Dorielle. I mean, you really have to make sure that, that person's value, what they're bringing to the business is really worth that equity because if it's someone [00:08:00] that you don't need for a long period of time, it's someone that you need a particular skill or a deliverable from. And that definitely is someone that a contractor to you, maybe a short-term employee something to that extent, but not a partner. So I, I would be very mindful and intentional about that.

The second thing I will say is for my personal life, I think that not, not everybody does great in partnerships, and so I think that's not always something that we know about ourselves as young people. I think we learn more and more about ourselves as we get older. Being in a partnership requires those conflict resolution skills. It does require compromise. It requires, I think, a lot of self-reflection, and not everybody is willing to do that work. So I think that in business and in life, I think it's important to have, if you're going to have a partner, to make sure it's someone who's willing to do the work that it takes to be in a good partnership.

[00:08:50] Host: That was Dorielle Price and Jamelah Tucker, co-founders of Easy Peasie talking about the pros and cons of going into business with a partner. [00:09:00] As always, here are some key takeaways.

You might not need a business partner. Giving away equity is a big deal so make sure that person is worth it. Who knows, maybe the extra help you need could be done by a contractor or an employee.
If you've decided you want a business partner, make sure you've honed your conflict resolution skills because every relationship has some roadblocks and a business partnership is no different.
The Swiss cheese model. Make sure your business partner isn't an exact replica of you and your skills and instead has complimentary skills that could add value to your business and maybe a different perspective.
Protect yourself legally even if it’s family. We’ve seen this in the past episode with Meghan Wolfgram from SwiftPaws. You never know what might go wrong in the future or if you'll need an outside person to help resolve some conflict between you. And this leads us to…
00:10:00] Have a third party to go to in case you disagree. This could be mentors, other business owners, or even…your mom.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about how you can help the community while growing your business.

If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:11:00]

Ep 21: Meghan parts ways with her business partner

Learn about parting ways with your business partner.

[00:00:00] Meghan: I think the first thing that we did was we both thought about what it could look like, and we tried to come up with some agreements on our own. How could I buy him out? How could the company buy him out? How could he exit without the risk of things going south to the point where he may have to try to come back in and help rescue it. So we started working on our own and together. Okay, if we did this and that and this many years, and we just realized that we were making a tangle and it actually brought up more questions than we had answers to.

[00:00:40] Host: Hi, This is Small Business -- a weekly podcast -- brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build and grow your small business – at the end of each episode I like to call out key lessons learned during the episode so it’s easier for you to digest.

A difficult conversation that not a lot of people talk about is [00:01:00] parting ways with a business partner. Maybe you both just don’t want to work together any more or are in different stages of life or maybe you had a falling out. Whether it’s a friendly split or not – it’s tough and there’s so much that goes into separating with a co-founder like how do you deal with all the legalities? How do you make sure that your business isn’t affected during that process because it could take up to months to finalize the split? Is there something that you could do early on to prepare for it? Should you even go through with it?

Coming up – Meghan Wolfgram, Founder and CEO of SwiftPaws, a health & wellness enrichment brand for pets, tells us about her experience when her business partner decided he wanted to part ways with the business. Naveen Thomas, Director of the Business Transactions Clinic and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University and one of our guests who you might remember from season 1, comes back to help us unpack all the legal jargon that might show up in a separation agreement.

[00:02:00] Andrea: Megan thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today.

[00:02:03] Meghan: Andrea, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

[00:02:05] Andrea: Tell me about SwiftPaws and how it came to be.

[00:02:08] Meghan: So SwiftPaws is an American manufacturer of enrichment product for pets, and what that means is that our flagship product is a kit that lets you create a game of chase in your backyard and you control the speed and direction of a fake squirrel that goes zipping around the course, and then your pet gets to chase and catch to their heart's content. And now we've grown into a family of products that all have something to do with enrichment, anything to get your dog or cats brain or body moving. And as we grow, we look forward to offering that for other types of pets and species as well. It got started the year that I graduated from university. I'd just been working really hard and I thought, okay, instead of going straight into the workforce, let's take a summer off. Let's relax, have a little fun. And my idea of fun was to compete and train in dog agility with my dog at the time, [00:03:00] who was a miniature pincher named Pretzel. And I was thinking to myself, you know, what other dog sports are out there? It started to open up my viewpoint on what I could do with my dog.

My agility trainer at the time told me that she had never had more fun than when she participated in this thing called Lure coursing. So she explained it to me that it's this fake squirrel that gets dragged around the grass and the dogs get to chase it. And I'm like, oh my God, this sounds awesome. And Pretzel, I mean, he lived to chase things, squirrels in the backyard, lizards he loved chasing. And at the time, because he was a miniature pincher, he actually wasn't allowed to compete. So being a little bit stubborn and you can call it resilient or whatever term you want to use, I knew I had to try it, and by the time I looked into it, I realized that equipment cost like $4,000 and that just was not affordable for a recent college grad and I actually ended up building a machine with the help of my dad, who's a pretty handy guy.

[00:04:00] And at the end of the summer, I had a crude but working machine and it was awesome and Pretzel loved it. So to finish up the summer, go out with a bang, I decided to invite all my agility friends over for a big party Lure coring fun day. And we had 60 people show up cuz the word got out. And at that event, people came to me and said, hey, when are we gonna get together and do this again? And so it snowballed. So from there it turned into me providing this as an activity once a month in my hometown, just for fun. And about a year later is when we founded SwiftPaws as a company that could make this equipment cuz I realized that other people may wanna be able to have access to it too.

So Pretzel was the dog that got me into all of this, and I lost him last year, which was really hard. He was 14 and a half and I got him when I was 16 years old. And so that dog was my sidekick growing up. But one of the amazing things that the engineers that we were working with did early on was they put Pretzels paw print on the bottom of the design of the product. [00:05:00] And so what started out as just a really cute addition to the product has become a legacy. So Pretzel’s paw prints live on the bottom of every single one of our products. And I just think it's so cool that I get to carry his legacy on. It's literally the coolest thing I've ever done in my life, and I look forward to the next 10 years.

[00:05:20] Andrea: I think we could just end this interview here because this is beautiful. I have two dogs, Shakespeare and Juliet. They’re Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. And I can’t even think about the day they won’t be with me anymore. But… we’re here on a mission, to talk about going into business with a partner, or actually more specifically, parting ways with a business partner. Can you tell me about who you started SwiftPaws with?

[00:05:50] Meghan: So it takes a village, right? And in my case, when I did that very first event, that barbecue is actually when what ultimately would become my business partner [00:06:00] in starting SwiftPaws sort of approached me and John was my former business partner and he and I were in very different stages of our lives. I had just graduated college, he had recently retired, but we knew each other socially and he was a big part of my life back then. And so, whereas I was thinking about buckling down and starting to interview and looking for a real job, John saw this magical thing happen at this first event and he said, Hey. He said, you know what you guys built, that's really cool. Do you think that other people would want something like this? So it planted the seed that, hey, this thing that I just did for myself because I wanted to give it a try and it wasn't accessible. Maybe it's something that we could do for others.

[00:06:45] Andrea: And fast-forwarding a bit, when did you first have the conversation of potentially parting ways?

[00:06:50] Meghan: So he and I made the decision in 2017 to stop producing our one and only product at the time, which was the professional grade equipment, [00:07:00] and we took the resources we had and we turned those and focused them on developing what would become SwiftPaws Home, our consumer grade version. And that took longer than expected. It cost a little more than expected, but at the end were able to launch SwiftPaws Home with a successful Kickstarter in 2018.

Fast forward to early 2019, and that's when John approached me and he said, you know, from where this company started, this was something to have fun with, to iterate and test. I love being creative, coming up with new ideas, and you take it out into the field and you run dogs and you bring me back feedback and we work together. And he said, and now we are busting our butts inside of an office trying to manufacture and assemble because we did it all in house, the first thousand SwiftPaws Home units, and I say that with emphasis because up until that point, we had only ever made about 100 total [00:08:00] professional grade machines. So we went from a hundred machines in our whole lifetime of business to making a thousand in the first run. And so that's really, I think the turning point was he said, this is becoming a full-time job and he had come out of retirement in a way to start SwiftPaws with me. So really that's how he approached it. And looking back, I didn't see it at the time, but he really had the foresight to go, this is really a division of the paths. And he didn't see wanting to commit what he knew it was going to take, and he also didn't wanna hold the company back. So it was really a lot of foresight on his part to approach me that early in the year and say, let's work through this. I don't wanna hold the company back, but at the same time, I don't want another nine to five.

[00:08:50] Host: A small reminder that the information provided in this podcast is not legal advice and should not be construed as such. Instead, the information provided is for general informational purposes only. [00:09:00] Moreover, the information in this podcast does not create any attorney-client relationship between you and the podcast contributors or their respective employers. You should not act upon any such information without first seeking qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. The hiring of an attorney is an important decision that should not be based solely on anything we speak about today.

[00:09:23] Andrea: Take me through what had to occur when the separation started.

[00:09:27] Meghan: So we knew that we didn't know how best to go about a split so we started reaching out and looking for resources. And just to put this into some timeframe perspective, he approached me in early 2019 in February or maybe March. And ultimately that wasn't completely finished until November of that same year. So the split did take quite a while, but I think having patience with these kinds of things is really a value. [00:10:00] Just taking a little bit of extra time to think about how best to go about it and to have everybody's best interests in mind. Your own, your partners, and the companies is worth taking a little bit of extra time to do. And I'm not a very patient person, so me saying that is a lot. It served us both well. I think the first thing that we did was we both thought about what it could look like, and we tried to come up with some agreements on our own. How could I buy him out? How could the company buy him out? How could he exit without the risk of things going south to the point where he may have to try to come back in and help rescue it. So we started working on our own and together. Okay, if we did this and that and this many years, and we just realized that we were making a tangle and it actually brought up more questions than we had answers to.

So probably about the summertime we connected with a local resource, shout out to Groundswell Startups, [00:11:00] which is a nonprofit startup incubator and mentorship resource. They're an amazing resource for founders, small businesses of any size, really. Even people just thinking about getting into it because they provide free resources and mentorship on a number of different levels. Everything from engineering to legal, to whatever you might be interested in. So we both approached this resource as, hey can the mentors at Groundswell sit down with us both and help us consider the company moving forward and how we can manage to part ways without hindering the company? And that was really the turning point where it went from he and I trying to figure out how can we make this agreement work without big risk to him and without hindering the company. And it wasn't until we got what I would consider to be real resources, who had seen these types of things before involved, where we started to actually put a semblance of how it could work together.

[00:11:57] Andrea: What are some of those considerations that were made [00:12:00] once you had that help that allowed you both to part ways in a safe way without disrupting the business or both of your investments?

[00:12:10] Meghan: Investment is a great point there because up until that point, the two of us had made significant financial investment into the company. So that was one huge consideration is, you know, how do we protect that investment and then how do we continue to move the needle forward for the company? So one thing that was brought up almost immediately that I wasn't thinking of at the time, because I was so focused on the interactions that we were working with, was the company is going to need more capital moving forward if it's to grow. We don't have enough cash in the bank to even purchase materials for another thousand units, by that time, we'd sold out of product. So okay, we don't have quite enough cash in the bank for another thousand units. And if I take what cash I have to buy John out, where's the company gonna be moving forward?

[00:13:00] So just even thinking long term on things like that, it was like, Okay, so now we're considering that the company is going to then have to move into raising capital post this split. And then how do we set that up to where the split isn't an issue? So that was one of the first things that the mentors sat down with and talked with us about. And ultimately, one thing that I do have to say is that I didn't realize quite how much of my best intentions and the company's best intentions my partner had at the time, because he kept bringing things up. Like, what about this? What about that? And I'm thinking to myself, gosh, could we just get this to the finish line? I just wanna move forward. All that uncertainty was keeping me up at night. And he was really right to question all the little nuance because once we did get professionals involved and we had you know both legal help and the mentor resources, those things come up later and I have gone on to raise money for the company and capital for the company. And if those things weren't so well taken care of in the agreement. [00:14:00] So for example, we assigned the patent, which was in both of our names to the company as an entity. Something as simple as that could cause trouble later on. If you haven't sorted it by the time that you're looking for future investment.

[00:14:14] Andrea: This was, to a certain extent, an amicable split, which is not always the case. Could you talk to me a little bit about how you were able to protect yourselves through this?

[00:14:25] Meghan: Yeah, that's a good point too, because one thing I don't think we've talked about yet is risk. So as much as when you're dealing with a separation or a split, you're talking about how much and the function and what about a future reward if the company goes on to have great success, right? But there's also the element of risk. So things as simple as if my former partner were to maintain an ownership equity, would he then still have a responsibility, even if only fiduciary to the company, but he's not affecting any change [00:15:00] so could the company go on to have a lot of new investors and potentially a new board? And maybe at some point I'm not even as involved as I once was. You know, all these things come

up and then what happens if there is a downside? And some of that responsibility falls back on somebody like him who hasn't been involved. So risk and how much risk aversion somebody has is really important to consider. How much exposure you want to have is really important to consider, and those are the types of things that we spoke about with the mentorship resources and then also on our own and together with legal resources.

Because, I was young, I didn't have a ton of assets, but as he was older, he had other assets that he wanted to protect as well. I think at the end of the day what, where we settled, which was the company actually repurchased his interest in the company. Um, but we also left him with something that, you know, if the company does have an upside later on or an exit, [00:16:00] there will be something there for him without the risk attachment and the responsibility attachment. And that took a very long time to work out, but it's ultimately very appropriate. And he was a huge part of this company getting formed. We were 50 50 partners. He carried me sometimes through the beginning stages of the company. He had a lot more business savvy than I did, and I might have had a little bit more energy. So we very well balanced each other. And, as much as I think he had my best interest in mind, I always, even when I was speaking on my own with legal resources, I always told them, in no way do I wanna limit what possible reward he could have coming to him. This is a very amicable split. I want to make sure that he's taken care of as well, and I think that's important too. If you were willing to go into a partnership with somebody, you should always remember, even if, you know, we butted heads [00:17:00] on various topics throughout the years. We had a very healthy working relationship that includes good and bad, but while we didn't always agree, I could always remember just why I got into business with him in the first place and the success that he helped the company find, so I would never regret taking a little bit of extra time and care to make sure that he was taken care of for the future of the company too.

[00:17:24] Andrea: I love the way you approached that. You mentioned that during this process, one question would lead to another, and in your view, what are the first few questions you should ask yourself when beginning to part ways with your business partner, especially when it's a 50/50 type of partnership?

[00:17:40] Meghan: I think the first question you should ask yourself is really the why, but the why from your own personal perspective. So in my case, I wasn't thinking about splitting, but he came to me and said, Hey, let's start thinking about this. So that was a bit of a surprise, but at the same time, then I had to think about, okay, [00:18:00] if we were going to split, how would I move the company forward?

The next question, I think you should ask yourself immediately after that. Would I be just as happy if the shoe was on the other foot? Especially if maybe the relationship isn't quite as strong or if there's some tension. One thing that I ultimately had to do was think about would I be willing to sign this agreement to take this deal to exit the company in the same way that I'm asking my partner to? And it took me a while before I got to that realization, and once I did, I actually eased up on some of the points. I thought, man, he's really being a stickler about this specific clause or this line and this agreement.

And then, I think it was maybe one of my mentors who runs a local doggy daycare, and she's the one who said, Meghan, would you take that deal? If you were the one leaving, would you be worried about that sentence in the agreement? And it did change my paradigm and perspective on it. [00:19:00] And it was probably a few months later when we finally ultimately closed on it. And there was one more thing because there's always one more thing. But at that point I was at so much peace with it that I said, of course. And it's, I think that's very important as much as the why are you splitting? Is it the right timing? Is it the right reason? But also then would I be willing to take the same that I'm asking?

[00:19:25] Andrea: I think this is a powerful question to ask yourself. And I don’t know if everyone takes the time to stop and think about it like this. As we know, things can get heated when money is at stake.

[00:19:37] Meghan: I think that so many times people have these types of experiences and they don't wanna talk about them, or there's a little bit of maybe shame or, you know, yeah. I used to have a business partner. I've just learned that honesty is the best policy and the company has had so much success since then. There were a lot of ups and downs. We had our moments of tension, [00:20:00] but now to be able to look back on it all and to see the company growing, he really truly had that foresight when he said, this is going somewhere. I'm not sure that this is the journey that I want to be on right now and I really have him to thank for that.

[00:20:13] Andrea: Meghan, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:20:17] Meghan: Andrea, thank you for having me.

[00:20:21] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Meghan Wolfgram, Founder and CEO of SwiftPaws. You can find out more about her company in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Meghan gave us so much information about what went into the separation with her business partner. I didn’t expect that it could take months to part ways and I loved that she stressed the importance of being understanding and trying to put yourself in the shoes of the person who’s leaving especially if the split isn’t friendly. Did you know that more than half of the products sold in the Amazon store come from small-and-medium sized businesses? SwiftPaws is one of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. Learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

My next guest is a familiar voice that showed up in season 1 in Rod Johnson’s episode. Co-founder of Blk & Bold. In that episode we spoke about protecting yourselves when going into business with a partner. And since this episode talks about parting wasys with a partner, we knew we had to reach out to Naveen Thomas again. Naveen is the Director of the Business Transactions Clinic and Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU. He does a great job of explaining all the legal concerns that might pop up when you’re parting ways with a business partner. Let’s talk to Naveen.

[00:21:48] Andrea: So, what’s the first thing that happens when a founder decides to leave a company?

[00:21:53] Naveen Thomas: Usually when a founder departs a company, the company and its founders need to work out lots of issues, and they typically memorialize these terms [00:22:00] in a document called a separation agreement or some variation of that phrase. And this agreement can address a wide variety of issues, and it needs to be specific to each company's situation. There's no one off the shelf or off the internet template for a separation agreement that's necessarily gonna work for your company. You need to think through the issues that are specific to your company and each founder, both those who are staying and those who are leaving.

Now, some of the most common issues that a separation agreement would address are:

Would the departing founder's equity be repurchased? If so, at what price and at what time? If the departing founder contributed money, how are you gonna deal with that? Will the company repay it? Will that contribution be treated as debt or convertible debt? A separation agreement will almost always contain a release and waiver of claims, which basically states that neither party, neither the company nor the departing founder is going to sue one another. [00:23:00] They're basically saying they don't have any legal claims against one another.

Another clause that frequently appears in separation agreements are non-disparagement clauses, which basically says that neither party can say bad things about the other party, either in public or in private. These provisions are very common. Another common provision is a non-solicitation provision. Non-solicitation provisions can do many things. They typically prevent a departing founder soliciting or hiring away the company's employees. So the departing founder can't just take a whole team with them. They'll also prevent the departing founder from taking or working with the company's customers, or vendors or suppliers potentially. These are all things that should be thought about, carefully. How much of the departing founders’ activities do you really want to restrict here? Is it really a problem for them to work with the same customers or suppliers? [00:24:00] If not, then maybe you shouldn't include that restriction. This is in the spirit of being generous to and accommodating of the departing founder.

Another provision that sometimes appears in separation agreements, but shouldn't go without saying, is a non-competition provision or a non-compete for short. Basically, a non-compete prevents a departing founder from engaging in certain activities within a certain geographical territory for a specified amount of time. So there are basically three dimensions to a non-compete, right? The scope of the covered activities, the geography, and the duration, and all of these factors are really important to consider when you are drafting a non-compete provision. If you are going to draft a non-compete provision, it should typically be narrowly tailored to the activities that would really be harmful to the company.

[00:25:00] So before you even think about drafting a non-compete, you really should talk to a lawyer who is licensed to practice in the state in which you're located and can advise you regarding that state's laws. Now, if you don't want to use a non-compete because you think it's unnecessary or unfair and those things are often correct, then you can sometimes

accomplish some of the same goals using a non-disclosure agreement instead. If what you're really trying to prevent here is misuse of information by the departing founder, then the non-disclosure agreement might be more appropriate and less contentious.

[00:25:33] Andrea: Okay that was a lot. I wrote notes here so, to recap, you mentioned a waiver of claims where neither party can sue one another, non-disparagement clauses where neither party can say bad things about the other, non-solicitation provisions which prevent founders from doing various things like hiring away company employees, a non-compete which could get complicated depending on which state you’re in and, [00:26:00] non-disclosure agreements, which prevents recipients of disclosing confidential information. Having this overview, what are the usual issues that you see arise?

[00:26:13] Naveen Thomas: Many of the problems and arguments that tend to arise can be avoided by addressing these issues in advance. Preferably when you first start the company. But if not really at any point when things are still going well and you're more likely to come to a fair agreement with your co-founders. Now a lot of companies will agree on an operating agreement or a shareholder's agreement that specifically says what will happen if a particular founder leaves. And that can be a pretty complex process to navigate that you'll want to think carefully about, but there are other even more basic principles that can help you avoid a lot of these problems in the first place.

One of the most common points of disagreement in a separation is the amount of equity that each founder should have and retain. [00:27:00] In fact, discord over this issue often contributes to separations arising in the first place. So an early discussion, an agreement on each founder's equity. Is key to long-term harmony as well as an easy separation if necessary. Beyond just agreeing on equity stakes, the founders should often agree on a vesting schedule too. Now, according to a vesting schedule, the founder's equity gradually vests over a set period of time, often about four years. So if you leave the company after two years, you lose half of your equity because half of it is unvested at that point. If you leave after four years with a four-year vesting schedule, then you get to keep everything. And this is often seen as a fair way to reward a founder for their work with the uh, company at an early stage, even if they end up leaving. And it also gives them an incentive to stay with the company rather than just take with their equity and run. For this reason, venture capital firms and other experienced investors are usually gonna wanna make sure that all the founders and key employees have vesting schedules. [00:28:00] So this is particularly important if you anticipate seeking financing from any of those kinds of investors.

[00:28:08] Andrea: Okay, so if you're set up right from the beginning, you'll still be going through negotiations if and when the separation time comes, so how do you avoid disrupting your business while the negotiations are taking place?

[00:28:20] Naveen Thomas: I think a big part of this depends on how involved that founder is in the operations of the business. Sometimes a founder just contributes a lot of capital, but then kind of takes a step back and is rather passive in the business operations. Other times, a founder is integral to the business operations and needs to basically keep working until you find a suitable replacement or another way to make up for their impending departure. So as you can imagine, the issues that you need to address with each of those types of founders are quite a bit different. With the first founder who's just contributing capital, a lot of times what you need to consider is, you know, can the company repay whatever they contributed? [00:29:00] If not, how are you going to deal with that contribution? Can you treat it as convertible debt so that initially it's a loan, but if you enter into an equity financing, then that contribution will turn into equity at that point, that kind of approach really makes sense only if you're expecting venture capital investments, but otherwise you might need to trade it as just a loan.

[00:29:22] Andrea: Can you tell me some of the options that the remaining founder can think about when considering what to do with the departing founder's equity?

[00:29:30] Naveen Thomas: The company might be interested in repurchasing the departing founder’s equity, especially if its investors don't want this person who is no longer affiliated with the company to have a large economic and voting stake in it, where they can continue to exercise control of it even after they've left. So, will the company be repurchasing that equity and if so, at what price? If your company hasn't had an equity investment before, [00:30:00] it might be difficult to arrive at a fair valuation of that equity. And also if the company is going to be repurchasing, the departing founder's equity, will it repurchase it all at once, will it have enough money to do that or will it need to do this gradually over time? Those are issues that you might address in a separation agreement. There are a lot of financial obstacles that might get in the way of resolving that agreement, but there are different creative ways that you can approach that situation and arrive at a fair way to deal with the departing founders’ equity.

[00:30:35] Andrea: One thing that Meghan talked about was making sure that whatever is signed is good for both parties and thinking about it from the perspective of the person who's leaving versus the person who's staying and what does that mean in the future. How do you make sure that happens? Especially if the separation isn't friendly?

[00:30:50] Naveen Thomas: Often it takes a long time to work out the proper terms of a separation before the parties can actually sign it and the founder can depart cleanly. [00:31:00] During that time, the founders might need to continue to work together, even while they're negotiating the terms of this separation, and that can be a tricky situation. In any negotiation, it really helps to understand the other party's perspective, and when you're talking about co-founders, that's something that you're particularly well placed to do because you were just in the same situation working together as co-founders, so you should be able to understand where they're coming from. And you shouldn’t forget what their perspective is and what they're trying to get out of this. So try to really understand what their interests and concerns are in this separation. Why are they leaving? What are they hoping to do afterwards? And when you're trying to accommodate them, keep those specific interests in mind. And if there are any problems, any disagreements that you have in the negotiation, [00:32:00] remembering to focus on the underlying interests and concerns as opposed to just what your preferences are, will help you identify new solutions to those problems, rather than just argue back and forth about which party's position should prevail.

[00:32:18] Andrea: This has been a lot. But very very helpful. As one of my last questions, can you tell me about working with lawyers through a separation process like this?

[00:32:28] Naveen Thomas: If you've been running a company together, you might have a lawyer and you might consider that person to be your lawyer, but it's important to remember that if the lawyer is representing a business, their client is the business. That arrangement makes sense when the founders are working together to run the business, but when the founders are separating, their interests might diverge and that means that the company's lawyer might not be able to represent all of the founders together. [00:33:00] Instead, the departing founder may need to retain their own lawyer to advise 'em regarding the separation agreement and whether one lawyer can advise multiple founders in this process really depends on how aligned the founders are in their interests. Are those interests generally aligned or are they becoming antagonistic? The more divergent their interests become, the harder it is for one lawyer to represent them. In that case, each party might need their own lawyer to negotiate the separation agreement, and the departing founder in this situation, and their lawyer will want to review each provision in this separation agreement carefully in light of their anticipated activities.

I realize that many of the detailed terms that I described earlier can be a bit overwhelming. But if there's one thing that you should take away from this, it's that it's going to be easier [00:34:00] to think about and address these issues with your co-founders in advance while you're still working together then if you wait until your plans diverge.

[00:34:15] Host: That was Naveen Thomas, Director of the Business Transactions Clinic and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University. Thank you for listening – when it comes to legalities, there are many many considerations and it can be overwhelming to go through these processes. The main thing that Naveen stressed and that we also learned from Meghan is that it’s better to have these conversations at the beginning of the business partnership rather if and when a founder or partner decided to leave. Here are other key takeaways:

When it comes to separation agreements, there isn’t one size fits all. So make sure to not just get professional help, but get the right kind of help. We’ve talked about this in past episodes, but it’s worth mentioning how important it is to have legalities and agreements set in place that take into account a potential split, prior to the business setting off.
[00:35:00] Here are some topics of conversation to have early on in your partnership: 1. Amount of equity each founder should retain; 2. A vesting schedule; and 3. Intellectual property ownership. Naveen mentioned several clauses to consider like a waiver of claims where neither party can sue one another, non-disparagement clauses where neither party can say bad things about the other, non-solicitation provisions which prevent founders from doing various things like hiring away company employees, a non-compete which could get complicated depending on which state you’re in but is meant to limit someone leaving from entering into something similar that could compete and, non-disclosure agreements, which prevents disclosing confidential information. That’s a lot. And this can be tricky to navigate, so again, make sure to seek the appropriate legal advice to make these decisions.
[00:36:00] Within the bigger questions you should ask yourself if there is a split is, how do you protect your investments while still moving the needle forward for the company? Bigger questions need to be broken down into smaller ones that might not seem important now but will be down the line, like assigning patents for SwiftPaws and ensuring that they would still be able to look for investments.

When protecting yourself, consider each possible risk to staying or leaving the company. And take the time needed to do it right and consider all of the possible outcomes and contingencies that need to be in place. It’s better for each person, and for the business in the long-run. I love that Meghan stressed how important it is to be kind and to try and put yourself in the departing founder’s shoes when going over the agreement. Plus Naveen did say that – other than having one less person resent you – being generous towards the departing founder has other advantages like continuing to work well together while the separation agreement takes place because as we learned that could take months.

[00:37:00] I'm curious -- if you have a business partner, do you have anything set in place to protect each other and the business if either of you decide to leave? Or if you’re in the process of parting ways – how are you handling it? Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier to do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

That's it for episode 9 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

On our next episode, we’ll still be talking about business partners, but we’ll be taking a few steps back to discuss when you should consider a business partner and the pros and cons of having one with Dorielle Price & Jamelah Tucker, co-founders of Easy Peasie who also happen to be sisters. And when they have disagreements, they like to call mom.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:38:00]

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:38:12]

Ep 20: How to manufacture your own product

Learn about manufacturing your own product.

[00:00:00] Ash Heather: I think the key is as a small business, if you're thinking about getting into your own manufacturing, as I said, you have to model it out and then, you know, if you can create a good model with inputs and outputs, then you can kind of make the cost benefit analysis to: is this worth it? Because as I said, if once you say, yep, let's do it, it's still a long road to go down and an expensive road because, you know, it could be a year or two till you're actually churning out product here. So you kind of keep your existing suppliers going, but you're also behind the scenes creating your own sort of supply chain. So it's an expensive exercise. So for a small business, they need to weigh up. Is it worth it? In a lot of cases it may be not worth it.

[00:00:43] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our This is Small Business Minisodes - shorter episodes for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode, we talk about how to get started if you want to manufacture your own product.

[00:01:00] I'm speaking to Ash Heather, Co-founder of Epic Water Filters. Of the many small businesses I have spoken to, Epic Water Filters is one of the few that decided to try manufacturing their own product. This is Ash telling us a bit about how Epic Water Filters came to be.

[00:01:16] Ash Heather: I spent a long time living in Asia, mostly in Singapore. I had 10 years in Singapore. And one of the things that struck me was the amount of plastic bottle pollution, especially, you know, on the rivers and the beaches. And so when I moved to the US, I kind of naively thought, well, maybe I can try and do something to try and alleviate the problem. So I started Epic Water Filters with the idea of, you know, one providing people with an option for safe, healthy drinking water, but also to stop people using single use plastics for water.

[00:01:48] Andrea: So, depending on the product, entrepreneurs can shy away from building their own product from scratch, doing something completely new. Let’s talk about what happens when you do decide it’s worth [00:02:00] manufacturing your own product, like you did for Epic Water Filters. Why did you decide to manufacture your own filter?

[00:02:08] Ash Heather: We've been going for say, six years buying filters and you know, the products from other suppliers and that was good. But you know, there's been a few factors that have led us down this path of making our own filters. One is logistics issues, especially over, you know, the last few years with Covid, et cetera. Two, products we were getting from China, so the pitchers that'd come over to the US with a tariff. And that was really starting, you know, obviously it hurts the bottom line and even our US suppliers were letting us down a little bit. You know, they had supply chain issues, you know, some choke points, et cetera. So there was a few factors that led us down this path and, you know, we think if we can pull it off, then, you know, we've removed a vulnerability from our business in terms of we can control our own destiny, you know, in terms of supplying ourselves with filters. Hopefully it'll alleviate supply chain issues, et cetera, [00:03:00] as long as we execute it well. I guess the idea of the tariffs was trying to bring a lot of production back to America. So we're a case in point. It's kind of working, at least for us. So, you know, a lot of factors, but as I said, you know, executing is the hardest part.

There's a lot of planning involved, setting up the manufacturing facility, designing the product, in our case, the filters. And it takes longer than you think. There's a lot more involved in it. You know, things like, possibly looking at patents, you know, design patents, utility patents, all those things have to be taken into consideration, trademarks. And then obviously you wanna make sure once you're set up and you're actually making the product, whether it's any kind of widget or filter, that you're actually making a high-quality product. So a lot of testing involved, et cetera. So it's a long process. So a bit like building a house, whatever you think it's gonna take, I'd probably double that and double the budget.

[00:03:54] Andrea: Is this something you think product-based businesses should consider?

[00:04:00] Ash Heather: I think initially, unless you've got a very unique product or an invention, you should look to get the product made by a manufacturer. So find a supply chain and then prove the concept, you know, you wanna make sure that the business you're starting is sustainable because once you jump into manufacturing it can be expensive. It generally is expensive, you know, in terms of capital, equipment purchases, you know, injection molding tools, blah, blah, blah. So, that's what I would recommend is don't go straight into manufacturing yourself, especially if you have no experience in it, which I didn't.

[00:04:30] Andrea: So the reason you decided to try to manufacture your own product is because your need wasn't being met with what was available out there in terms of suppliers, so you thought it would be more efficient and effective to do it on your own.

[00:04:45] Ash Heather: Yeah. And we're trying to create a better product too than we were getting from our suppliers. You know, our product is good that we have been getting over the last years, but we're trying to make it better and then we'll own the IP of it as well. We’re putting design utility patents on our new filters, [00:05:00] trademarks, et cetera. So it's gonna add value to the business, and just like I said, we want to control our own destiny because, you know, over the last few years, every now and again, our filter suppliers would not be able to supply us. And that affected the business. You know, it affected our bottom line. I think in business the more you can control, you know, the variables, it makes the opportunity and chance for success a little higher.

[00:05:25] Andrea: You mentioned getting your patents and trademarks. What does that actually mean in this context?

[00:05:32] Ash Heather: You know, for utility patents and design patents, you need some point of differentiation especially for a utility patent. And the filters we are coming up with both the picture filter and the bottle filter. They have got some points of differentiation from any other filter out there. But you know, it's not easy getting a patent. There's a lot of legal work involved and design work, blah, blah, blah. So, you don't have to do it to go into your own manufacturing, but I figured its just a, [00:06:00] another sort of arrow to our quiver. You know, it adds value to the company and same with trademarks. You know, we're trademarking the filter technology we're coming out with as well. So it's just little things like that, that if you go down the avenue of doing your own manufacturing, you should explore because, you know, if you put all those elements together, it adds a lot of value to the business and probably allows the business to, you know, grow at a faster rate I'd imagine.

[00:06:25] Andrea: If this is the path I want to take, of manufacturing my own product, where should I start?

[00:06:32] Ash Heather: One of the first things we did was kind of model out the next few years in terms of how much it would cost to set up production, leasing the warehouse or whether you buy the warehouse, however you want to do it. You kind of have to model all the inputs. And then obviously the outputs being the filters for us. Probably for the next two years in terms of the bottom line, it's not gonna make a big difference to us because producing in the States is generally more expensive. You know, labor cost is higher than generally from offshore [00:07:00] but as we scale, you know, say in two, three years time we're making a whole lot more filters than we currently use. The economies of scale really kick in. So I think for especially a small business, you know, setting up manufacturing can be really expensive.

[00:07:15] Andrea: Being where you are now in the process, what are some learnings that have forced you to shift or reevaluate your decision?

[00:07:24] Ash Heather: I mean having no background in manufacturing or setting up a manufacturing facility and designing filters, et cetera. You know, cuz I've got smarter people than me that are working for us doing that. So, you know, obviously I've got Oliver to help with the e-commerce and warehousing logistics. And Joel, my co-founder, you want have a very good complimentary skill set as part of the team. And once we decided to go down the manufacturing avenue, you know, then we hired filtration engineers, warehousing people, experts at setting up manufacturing facilities. So I think that's the key is, just get people of a complimentary skill set in to help you. Don't try and do it all on your own cause it won't work out. [00:08:00]

[00:08:05] Host: That was Co-founder of Epic Water Filters, Ash Heather. Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation:

Is it worth it? This'll take a lot of time and a lot money, so you need to know why you're planning on manufacturing your product. Will it add value? Maybe you want to create a patented product. Or is there something wrong with your current manufacturer that you know you can do better? Do you want more control over your products? Model out the time and costs you would incur to make something like this happen. And to answer these questions you need to…
Know your supply chain so that you understand the gaps and the right people you need on your team so that you don’t do it all yourself.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you're still trying manufacturing for the first time, have a plan B. If you can, keep your old manufacturer in case something goes wrong -- [00:09:00] which hopefully it won’t – but try to stay with your current partner suppliers until you're ready to fully move on. And though we didn’t talk about this on this episode, I wanted to introduce you to Amazon Ads. Especially, because Epic Water Filters is a small business that has found success using Amazon Ads resources. They offer a range of products and information to help you reach your advertising goals. You can learn more about them and how they can help your small business on our show notes.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about an experience that could be awkward for some: parting ways with your business partner. Meghan Wolfgram, CEO and Founder of SwiftPaws talks about her experience going through a business partner separation.

If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. [00:10:00] It's easier to do it on your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:10:25]

Ep 19: Chevalo and Monique search for a product supplier

Learn about finding product suppliers.

[00:00:00] Monique: We trust our team, but at the end of the day, it's our word, and if something doesn't get done, everyone's looking at us, they don't know who's behind the scenes. So we have to make sure that we're in there and we're checking, and what we say is happening is actually happening.

[00:00:14] Chevalo: The turnaround time and quality equation is always something that is bumping up against each other. I mean, you want something quick, but you want it to be done right. And so it's always kind of a balance in there. How can it get done?

[00:00:31] Host: Hi, This is Small Business -- a weekly podcast -- brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build and grow your small business - I know it sounds intimidating - but I'm also learning with you, and will call out key lessons at the end of every episode for you to use on your small business journey.

A crucial part of setting up your business is figuring out shipping and fulfillment if you aren't manufacturing your own product – after you have your idea – how do you bring it to life? [00:01:00] How do you ship it to your customers? Who do you trust with creating your product? It can get complicated pretty quickly plus in this day and age where shipping can take one day, you’ve got a lot to think about. And even after you figure all that out, there’s still a lot of options and different solutions to shipping and fulfillment so which one should you pick?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Serguei Netessine, Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives and Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, about all the questions you need to answer when you’re on the search for a supplier. But first -- I want you to meet business owners Chevalo and Monique Wilsondebriano, Founders of Charleston Gourmet Burger Company – and I’m sure you can tell by the name of their business but it revolves around food – which is quite possibly one of the trickiest – and I imagine the hardest – products to deal with when it comes to shipping and fulfillment because of the shelf life.

[00:01:58] Andrea: Chevalo and Monique, thank you for being on This is Small Business.

[00:02:00] Chevalo: Happy to be here.

[00:02:02] Monique: Absolutely.

[00:02:05] Andrea: Tell me about Charleston Gourmet Burger and about how you balance being able to sustain that good quality while at the same time growing to be able to share with more customers.

[00:02:16] Monique: I will say for us, Charleston Gourmet Burger Company was created out of love. It really was. It's created from, you know, our love of hamburgers, our relationships, stuff we do with our family. So for us, that's what we do when we're creating products with Charleston Gourmet Burger Company, we create it with that same love. So every ingredient that we put in our products, it's lovingly put in there. And I, I tell moms that when we're at grocery stores and we're sampling, if we wouldn't feed it to our kids, we wouldn't feed it to yours. And so everything that is put inside of our products, all the ingredients, it's lovingly put in there. We know exactly what's in there. And so for us, it makes it easy when we're coming out with new products because we make it exactly how we make it at home. [00:03:00] You know, we know who's manufacturing our products, we know the process. So for us, it's not a hard process to do.

[00:03:10] Chevalo: And all of it all ties in from the branding to the labeling. Cuz how we see it is when somebody gets one of our products, one of our Charleston Gourmet Burger products. It's not just about the taste and the formulation of the product. They're really getting a piece of us. And so from the time we started out in our backyard or in farmer's markets to the company growing to the part of being a regional, then a nationwide company, and selling, all the across the country. All of that has to be part of the equation. You know our look, our branding, the ingredients, the experience, the customer experience all has to translate no matter what the size of it is. So, no matter who gets our product in their hands, however way they get it, whether it's coming directly, it's coming in the mail, it's coming from Amazon. [00:04:00] All of that has to be included, and that's why if it grows and when we grow, it's fantastic because all of that is all included in the experience.

[00:04:10] Andrea: I feel that love and that warmth through how you both speak about your passion that is Charleston Gourmet Burger. And I can also see that coming through in the branding. So you spoke briefly about manufacturing. I want to take one step back. Since this is specifically a food product, I imagine there are considerations to be made when manufacturing and also for shipping.

[00:04:33] Chevalo: Oh yeah. There's a lot of considerations that we have to make in the manufacturing and shipping, because one main thing with us is our products are all natural. You see, there's no preservatives with it. So even though it has a two-year shelf life, it's important for our particular products that we have as short a time from manufacturer to the time it's on a person's table. [00:05:00] So the manufacturer to table time has to be as quick as possible for the customer to have the maximum chance of having a great experience. So, we monitor every day. We are in there. We're making sure that if we more has to be shipped, more has to be manufactured… we have to keep that manufactured to table time as short as possible so that the customer has a great experience.

[00:05:27] Andrea: Ok, considering how vital that shelf-life date is for how, take me through how you find the right suppliers in your case.

[00:05:35] Monique: When we first started, we had no idea what we were doing. So it was important for us to be able to get out there to network with other people that were in the food industry. And so we started joining different professional organizations like the Specialty Food Association because we knew that a lot of the people that were in those organizations, they weren't only people that had, you know, products like ours. [00:06:00] They were also people that wanted to provide services for people like us. So we were able to find reputable companies that could manufacture our products. You know, for people that just are starting out, maybe they don't have a big budget. There were companies, that can manufacture your product. If you're just beginning, there were some people, you know, once you're starting to scale up, they had the capability to scale your product. We were able to find our labels because when you have a food product, a lot of people don't know, but all labels aren't made the same. You have to have a particular type of label depending on how your product is made. And so we were able to find all of our suppliers just from joining these professional organizations. And another thing that was great about it is that all of these companies, they're vetted. So you know that if you're using a company from there that you're gonna get a good quality product, you know, so that was important for us, and it was an important lesson to learn because when you're starting out, you don't know like, where am I gonna get my suppliers from? Who's gonna make this?

[00:07:00] Andrea: Now that you knew that these are suppliers you can depend on and you know that they have a good track record, how did you evaluate that one was better over another?

[00:07:11] Chevalo: Well one, as Monique mentioned, is the relationships. And yes, that they were vetted, and we got to speak with other people who used these suppliers. But what was important also to us, cuz at the time we were looking at really maximizing our chance to scale and so companies would have to have certain certifications and capabilities. And when you looked at that like, oh, like a company that would have like a bioterrorism certificate. Every supplier doesn't necessarily have that. Those sorts of certifications are pricey and every producer doesn't have that. So that was one way how we were able to differentiate what companies we could really go for and to supply us.

[00:08:00] And, you know, we wanted our product also to be of quality. So we had to vet them to say, hey, you know, can you source these natural ingredients? Our burger products are very particular, you know, we just don't sometimes use just off the shelf ingredients in ours, and we're very particular about what is in there and where it's sourced.

[00:08:20] Monique: But also Chevalo and I were dreamers. Okay. And so when we first started, I remember we laid on the bed and we run out a list of all the stores we wanted to be in. And we had like, all the top stores. And so, for us, when we were finding a new manufacturer, we would have conference calls and we would speak with them on the phone. There were sometimes we've actually gone and visited to see like where the product would be manufactured and it was important for us

to have someone that wanted to be a part of our team that was gonna dream with us, that was willing to get in there with us, roll their sleeves up and say, okay, this is what the packaging is gonna look like. Okay, this is what we're gonna go in there and present. These will be the samples. [00:09:00] And it, it wasn't like, you know, the first company we went to, we found that, you know, we had to do our homework, you know, we had to get on the phone. We had to sometimes fly, sometimes drive to different places to find that right manufacturer, and I'm glad we did that. Because you know, we used several different companies now, and they're not all in South Carolina and that's okay. But we kind of feel like we have that team, like we call it our All-Star team. And so everyone has the vision, everyone's part of the dream.

[00:09:26] Andrea: This reminds me a lot of Episode 11 of Season one. It featured August Graube, the owner of Fort Boards and it's, kind of like these gigantic Legos. He brought up that when it comes to manufacturing, sourcing his particular product, the options are: do you go with a larger less expensive manufacturer overseas or maybe a smaller American sourcing company and maybe it would be a little more expensive. And he decided to do the American one because it was smaller and because he felt like he had what you just described, that connection [00:10:00] where he could just call someone whenever he needed help or if something went wrong. They would have that one-on-one communication. Thinking about it in those terms, would you say that you would also choose something even a little more expensive because of that one-on-one relationship?

[00:10:18] Monique: We have absolutely done that. When we were choosing packaging for our frozen hamburgers, we chose a company in Ohio and it was four times more expensive than a company that was right here in Charleston, but we would have weekly, sometimes daily, once it got down to the end, conference calls and they were just very, very attentive to our needs. And, you know, sometimes there were call outs on the phone that Chevalo and I didn't catch. And they were like, oh, well, you know, this is off, this wasn't corrected, this wasn't updated and we hadn't even caught it. And so for us, yes, it was more expensive. But you just couldn't beat the attention to detail that we got, you know, we felt like we were their only clients. [00:11:00] And I know they had so many, but we really felt like we were the only ones, and it was worth every penny. We easily could have gone with the company that was here and they actually produced a box for us. And it was done in like two days. But we didn't speak to anyone over those two days, right? Like it was just like, uh, we put in the order and that was it, and we were just told to come pick it up. And that was all. That's all we got, you know, now I'm not knocking it because that may be the option for someone else, but for us, we were happy with the choice that we made.

[00:11:30] Chevalo: This goes to show even in the world of the internet and virtual, relationships matter. Mm-hmm. It's the connection between people and it doesn't always boil down to just dollars. We have a premium product, and so, we really want to deliver a premium experience. In order to do that, we're looking for the best. It's not always just a dollars and cents, just cheapest. And we realize and we appreciate our customers because, you know, they're willing to pay for a premium product [00:12:00] to do what is necessary, to have a premium product and that they can get their hands on that's the best, and it's our job to deliver that.

[00:12:10] Andrea: I think it’s also important to ask yourself, as a small business, what kind of relationship you want with a supplier, not just what kind of relationship you need. So, if I’m just starting out, what would be the top three questions you think I should ask myself when deciding to go into partnership with a supplier?

[00:12:26] Monique: I would say the number one important one would be their turnaround time, because you need to know, if I put in an order with you, when will you be able to get this? When will you be able to have it ready? You need to know that. I would also say number two would be minimums. Like how much are you expecting me to have manufactured because you don't wanna enter into a relationship to where they're saying, oh, you need 40,000 every month. So I would say, you know, are there any minimums? Um, and also, are they gonna make you sign a contract [00:13:00] because there are some companies that will say, okay, if you're going to use us, we want you to sign a contract, but you can only use us for the next five years. But that's a long time. And sometimes it's written into the fine print, and you may not see that. They may not call that out to you. So I would say to make sure you ask these questions up front, because let's say in year two. You don't like the job they're doing or they're just not meeting the deadline. Well, you've signed a contract to say that they're exclusively gonna be your only manufacturer for five years, and now you're stuck. So I would say those are like the top three call outs.

[00:13:38] Chevalo: Well, the only thing I would add is do you have mechanisms for us to monitor the quality of the product that you're producing. You know, what mechanisms are in there, can I go in there at any time when you're producing our product and look and check. So cuz we are hands on wanting to always be on top of the quality of what's being produced. [00:14:00] And so that's a question I would ask.

[00:14:06] Monique: And for us being in food, we have to see because people are trusting us and they're gonna feed their family, you know, our product and they're going on our word. If we can't see it, how can they trust us?

[00:14:18] Host: A pause to go over the four very important questions to ask your suppliers: 1. What’s their turnaround time?; 2. Is there a minimum number of products that they expect you to manufacture?; 3. What type of contract will they make you sign? And 4. What mechanisms do they have in place to monitor the quality of the product?

[00:14:40] Andrea: One of the things you mentioned was turnaround times and mechanisms to ensure quality. Bridging those two, how do you ensure that quality products arrive on time to your customers?

[00:14:50] Monique: Well, what Chevalo and I do, we will just pick random boxes. We'll open 'em up, we'll see, and there have been times to where we've actually caught something, um, we have two [00:15:00] mechanisms put in place to ensure that our products do not leak. Well, it just so happens, you know, and it was during Covid, they didn't have a lot of staff, and I don't know what happened, but that initial foil barrier was not put there, and we ended up catching it. So just little things like that, you have to just physically be hands on. We love our team that we've created, but it's still up to you to check to make sure it's getting done the way it's supposed to be getting done. I keep everything I have organized; I have folders for everything. So I always know, okay, this is when this went out. Okay, this is when this is supposed to arrive. Chevalos really good with tracking. He'll call the trucking companies and say, okay, was this picked up? When is it gonna get delivered? So again, it's either you're gonna have to hire someone to be on it or you're gonna have to do it, but you have to be on time. And even though we trust our team, but at the end of the day, it's our word, and if something doesn't get done, everyone's looking at us, they don't know who's behind the scenes. [00:16:00] So we have to make sure that we're in there and we're checking, and what we say is happening is actually happening.

[00:16:10] Chevalo: The turnaround time and quality equation is always something that is bumping up against each other. I mean, you want something quick, but you want it to be done right. And so it's always kind of a balance in there. How can it get done? But I tell you, we're so happy with our suppliers. There are times when we wanted to get it. We, hey, we gotta get it to the consumer. But they're like, well, hold on, because the bottles have to be filled at a certain temperature. And then it has to go down in temperature. It has to sit for a certain point before it's released to be able to be shipped to a customer or to a distribution. And so there’s times when we wanted it a day earlier and they're like no, quality first. You cannot cut corners in any way. And we like that.

[00:17:00] Andrea: So quality beats speed and get people on your team who are so into the mission that they care for you and for what it stands for more than being a yes man, I love that. Any other considerations that small business owners should make when it comes to shipping and fulfillment?

[00:17:15] Chevalo: I think a consideration that should be made for shipping and fulfillment should always be that they can do what you want, what you specify in an expeditious fashion and so you don't want to give up or to compromise really on them being able to do what you really want, that you envision for your product and always realize it's really up to you. And if a company cannot do it for you, then you have to maybe look for an alternative or figure out a way for the company to really understand what your vision is.

[00:17:56] Monique: It was important they were able to scale with us. [00:18:00] And so I remember when we first started, you know, we were this small company and like we would get our stuff manufactured and sometimes Chevalo would rent a trailer and he would pick it up and then we would get it shipped out. But then we ended up moving into, hey, we're going on Good Morning America. Hey, have you guys ship out thousands, so we ended up having to, you know, to scale it up, but it was nice because they were able to grow with us. Mm-hmm. And so you want a company that is gonna be able to grow with you so that you know when you, as you're expanding and you're scaling, that they can be right there with you, you know, along that journey.

[00:18:34] Andrea: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

[00:18:38] Chevalo: Relationships are important and advice I always like to say should be taken from people who truly have done what you are looking to do and in that particular genre. So, will somebody who knows about fashion distribution and sneakers from overseas and getting them in different sizes, could they give me great advice? [00:19:00] Yeah, they can, but it's not the same as speaking to a food manufacturer who's manufactured food and is in the game right now, in real time that it's not the same. So I would say if you're gonna seek out counsel or advice from people, only take it from people who truly know what they're talking about cause they're done, or they're actually doing what you want to do.

[00:19:30] Monique: And I would just add to that we meet so many people that are just standing on the sidelines cuz they're trying to gather all the information before they start and it's impossible. Mm-hmm. It's never going to happen. You're going to make mistakes. We all have. So just get out there and get going and, and start doing. Because the only way you're gonna learn is if you actually do it. You just have to know going in, I'm gonna make mistakes and just be okay. And just, and just get going that's the only reason why we know any of this. When we started, we didn't know anything. [00:20:00] The only reason we know is cuz we got in there and, and we rolled up our sleeves and we had to learn the process. And so just get going.

[00:20:09] Andrea: Chevalo and Monique -- thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:20:12] Monique: Ah, thank you so much. It was an honor for us to be here.

[00:20:16] Chevalo: An honor for us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[00:20:20] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Chevalo and Monique Wilsondebriano, Founders of Charleston Gourmet Burger Company. You can find out more about their company in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Chevalo and Monique gave us a lot of things to consider when figuring out who to partner with for product sourcing and for shipping and fulfillment. I love how they prioritize having communication and transparency with their sourcers because they care a lot about the trust that the customers put into their products -- especially since their products have a short shelf life. So thinking about the team that'll come along with your shipping and fulfillment choices is super important. [00:21:00] But even though you definitely want a supportive team, you should be wary of yes people. You still want team members who will keep you grounded and give you realistic expectations.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold in the Amazon store come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Charleston Gourmet Burger is one of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. Learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

[Possible VOICEMAIL]

My next guest is Serguei Netessine, Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives and Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm excited for you to meet him.

[00:21:45] Andrea: Serguei thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:21:48] Serguei Netessine: Thank you for having me, Andrea.

[00:21:50] Andrea: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

[00:21:52] Serguei Netessine: I'm an academic, so first and foremost, and I've been doing research on e-commerce logistics, fulfillment, supply chain management [00:22:00] and in general on kind of innovation around e-commerce space for some 20, 25 years now. I'm also a very active angel investor, so I invest a lot in startups. I also invest in venture capital funds, which invest into similar kind of small businesses, hoping to help them grow. I also work a lot with big companies, helping them innovate. Very often it has something to do with omnichannel strategy, e-commerce strategy. And uh, last couple of years I've been working at Amazon part-time, one day a week, kind of helping Amazon innovate, which a lot of it is around fulfillment, selling, sourcing and all that stuff.

[00:22:42] Andrea: Let’s start at the beginning. What is product sourcing?

[00:22:46] Serguei Netessine: Product sourcing means basically finding the right product that you want to sell then identifying the mode in which you're gonna source it and finally finding the right suppliers. [00:23:00] And so for the first part, which is figuring out which product to sell, you might want to look at trends and what's popular. Uh, you might want to go to industry shows and, you know, do all these kinds of things to identify what is the right product to sell.

Then there are different modes of sourcing. You could just buy the product outright from wholesalers and stock the product and then sell it to customers. You can try to find a manufacturer and manufacture a product, and it could be a branded product or kind of white labeled product. Or you can go drop shipping ground route, which means you never even touch the product. You just find the supplier and supplier ship the product directly to the customer. And for all of those modes, you will need to ultimately identify the supplier, visit a manufacturer, drop shipper, or wholesaler.

[00:23:47] Andrea: How do you think I should evaluate a supplier that is good for me? What questions should I ask?

[00:23:52] Serguei Netessine: So there are lots of questions to ask, and I think number one question that usually pops up in everyone's mind is price. Where can I get the cheapest price? [00:24:00] Right? And usually, this is an important question, but I think it's tied very closely with the question how exactly you want to source your products because different sourcing modes, uh, will require different capital, different outlay of cash. So if you want to manufacture your product, that will probably give you the lowest cost. You can probably find the relatively cheap supplier in China, for example, and you can negotiate with the supplier specifications of the product and get a very low price. But this probably means you have to pay some money for engineering design of the product, most likely there is gonna be a pretty large minimal order quantity. So supplier is not gonna do it unless you guarantee a few thousands of items, for example. And so the trade-off is yes, per unit cost is gonna be small, but then there is gonna be this initial outlay of cash and you will also have to worry about things like transportation, custom clearance. [00:25:00] The product is gonna ship, sit on a ship for a few months and all this headache until it comes to the port, and you have to handle it somehow and so on.

The kind of a second, the medium kind of option is to find a wholesaler in the United States, maybe who already has this product. and this would be kind of a medium investment because you need some cash to go buy the product and then sell it, distribute it, figure out logistics, how you're gonna deliver it to the customers. And by far the easiest and the kind of the lowest investment from the investment point of view approach is drop shipping. So you find someone, a drop shipping supplier who already has a product, has the capability to ship this product directly to your customers. So all you have to do is find customers. You send the customer address to the supplier, supplier slaps your label on the product, and then product goes directly to the customers. The problem is, of course, your margins are gonna be the lowest in this case. Uh, so the lowest investment cost, [00:26:00] but also the lowest margins because the supplier is gonna charge you for holding inventory and stocking product and shipping and slapping label and so on.

[00:26:10] Andrea: So, essentially for every choice there, you have to evaluate what you have to give in return. Like what's the catch? Because nothing is going to be the ideal choice, but there will be the best fit depending on your goals, your cash flow, and what the product is, right?

[00:26:25] Serguei Netessine: Yes, exactly. What matters a lot is what the product is. So if it takes a books which was the first product that Amazon used to sell, right? So at the time people didn't print kind of books on demand. They didn't self-publish or anything like that. And so, you know, you go to publishers, publishers already have inventory, and actually publishers have capabilities to ship those products wherever you want. Uh, which is what Amazon used in 1995, 1997. Right? Now, of course what it means is everybody can do it. So barriers to entry are very low. [00:27:00] There could be lots of people like you who can find this, drop shipping suppliers, and tomorrow they'll be selling the same product potentially at the same price and on the other side of the spectrum, if you want to be really unique, you want to have branded products, you want to have something that only you offer, then you go and find a manufacturer and create a branded product just for you. This will mean some kind of outlay of cash but on the upside, you are unique. You are standing out, you are creating kind of awareness of the brand, of your product. So, that's kind of another trade off: the entry cost.

And then of course there is a whole logistics angle, which is how you're gonna handle deliveries, how you're gonna handle logistics, inventorying, warehousing, and so on. So that's also another outlay of cash potentially and depending on the product, it can be very significant. If you are selling something highly innovative with highly uncertain demand. Let's say something technological. You might buy inventory from the manufacturer or from the wholesaler, [00:28:00] and then demand never materializes and technological products become obsolete very, very quickly. So then you might be stuck with inventory, which is becoming worthless overnight, so that's kind of another consideration. Versus if you sell diapers, diapers are diapers, they will always be in demand. So eventually you will sell them, maybe not at the kind of a fast rate that you anticipate, right? But then your risk of inventory, holding inventory that will be worthless is pretty low.

[00:28:28] Andrea: Okay that was a lot of information -- with all these options and pro and cons -- risky cons – what are some other considerations to make that you think are important to customers?

[00:28:38] Serguei Netessine: Nowadays everybody expects to get their products very quickly and moreover, they expect other things like I want to be able to track product, I want to be able also to return products. So who's gonna do reverse logistics? That's also an important question. One of the important questions to ask wholesalers or manufacturers or drop shipping suppliers, will they accept returns? [00:29:00] And how are you going to handle those returns? Do you want to somehow agree with the manufacturer wholesaler that the product is gonna go directly to them? Right? So the, the returns process needs to be discussed and negotiated as well. And you might have to deal with many suppliers. In fact, what you might want to do, even for the same product, you might want to have options. You might to have a main supplier and then backup suppliers if something happens, you want to be able to say, hey, you know, I have this backup.

So, what a lot of companies do nowadays, they buy inventory from the wholesalers or manufacturers and to maximize margins they try to sell that inventory first, but then if the customer places an order and you are out of stock, you don't have anything to sell, then you quickly turn around and go to a drop shipping supplier who ships this product directly to the customer at a lower margin, but at least the customer is still happy.

[00:29:57] Andrea: Anything else you think we should consider?

[00:30:00] Serguei Netessine: You also might want to think about your pricing because pricing to a lot of small and medium sized businesses; they think about pricing in a kind of a very traditional way. It's like, I'm gonna establish the price. I'm gonna buy product for $100. I'm gonna sell it for $200. But there is really no reason to have fixed prices. All people have different ability to pay. And so what you might want to do is also think through some kind of a clearance sales, which are related to your inventory. For example, if you start having too much inventory in your warehouse, well, let's have a clearance sale. Let's have some kind of a discount, right?

You also might want to think proactively about pricing differently for different delivery speeds, right? Some customers will pay a huge premium to have a product shipped faster, right? And so nowadays offering these kinds of options can actually make you lots of extra money. But in general, when you promise delivery the important thing to remember is what matters is customer satisfaction. And customer satisfaction is a difference between two things. [00:31:00] One is expectation and the other one is what I actually get, right? So if you promise me one week delivery and I get product within two weeks, that's a problem, right? Because the promise was not fulfilled. And so what you have to evaluate suppliers on is consistency in the delivery lead time as well. So they might tell you it's an average one week, and what it means is it could be one week every time. And that's a problem if you're making some kind of promises to your customers. So, remember that. Remember to check how consistent is the supplier in delivering on time?

You also might want to check availabilities that supplier offers, right? So supplier will say, oh, we offer you 10 million products. Well that's great, but at any point of time, maybe half of it is out of stock and they cannot even tell you when it's gonna be in stock. [00:32:00] So, that's also very, very important to verify how accurate suppliers are with claiming availability. And then what is the kind of average availability? It may seem like a lot of products, but if most of them are out of stock, that doesn't really help you. Uh, you might also want to think about sampling suppliers. So you really want to find the suppliers that gives you some samples first so you can look at the product, touch and feel and evaluate. And then you might want to do some trial runs with the supplier. Say, look, you know, how about can we do something for months or a couple of months? And then I see how consistent you are and we will go from there.

[00:32:33] Andrea: I’ve learned a lot. And it feels a bit overwhelming, trying to keep up with all the considerations I need to make. Do you have a word of advice for that?

[00:32:42] Serguei Netessine: The question comes to listing lots of choices and creating some kind of a scorecard. You just list a bunch of criteria that are important to you, price, delivery, speed delivery, consistency, quality, availability, handling of returns and so on. [00:33:00] And then, evaluating each supplier on each of those criteria in your scorecard. So a lot of it is about research. A lot of it is about doing kind of your homework, checking on the suppliers, and thinking through what's important to your small and medium sized business.

[00:33:16] Host: That was Serguei Netessine, Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives and Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Thank you for listening -- I learned so much from our guests today – they managed to turn a complex decision into something that’s a little easier to digest. Customer satisfaction comes first. And we’ve seen that again and again across episodes. It’s the reason small businesses exist. So you need to make sure you meet expectations, and manufacturing and shipping and fulfillment plays a large part in meeting those expectations. Here are some of the key takeaways I learned from Chevalo, Monique, and Sergeui.

First you need to figure out what kind of manufacturer you need [00:34:00] and what kind of relationship you want. Do you want that 1:1 all-in type of relationship where they run with you? Or something a little more hands off? Then, you need to do your homework. Sometimes even fly to see manufacturers in person. Because it’s an important relationship and you want to do things right. Networking and joining groups within your industry help you get started in getting the right team on board.
Make sure that the supplier is aligned with the particular things that you need for your product. And that they’re the right ones for it. As Chevalo and Monique mentioned, to them it was also important to have a supplier that would be willing to be in the thick of it with them.
Once you’re down to deciding who is best for your business… for your dream team, ask yourself: 1. What’s their turnaround time? 2. Is there a minimum number of products that they expect to manufacture? 3. What type of contract will they make you sign? 4. What mechanism do they have in place to monitor the quality of the product? [00:35:00] An added 5. And 6. From Sergeui Which are 5. check if they are consistent with their shipping times, and 6. ask if they have samples available. If in your scorecard, there are a couple of possibilities, consider what makes them stand slightly apart from the rest. Where are they going above and beyond? Like with a XX certificate.
It’s also important to remember, that every choice comes with a pro and a con. So make sure to know the risks. For Chevalo and Monique, it was more money. But as Serguei said, it depends on the product and your goals, but you will need to weigh what is most important to you when making the decision. For Charleston Gourmet Burger, it was about the 1:1 relationship and also knowing that the company they chose would be able to scale with them.
Two added considerations by Serguei was reverse logistics and having a plan b supplier. Making sure you have something in place [00:36:00] for when customers want to return a product, which is also something we talked about with August in episode 11 of season one.

And, we’ve spoken a bit about this in past episodes, but make sure that when you seek advice, it comes from someone who has done the specific thing you’re looking to do. Don’t get analysis paralysis and keep overthinking of how and when to start… just get going. You’ll make mistakes, and that’s ok… This is Small Business after all.

I'm curious -- what choices are you going to take when thinking of shipping and fulfillment for your business? Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

That's it for episode 7 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon.

[00:37:00] On our next episode we'll continue our conversation about shipping and fulfillment but with a twist – what if you’re manufacturing your own product? We’ll be talking about how to get started if you decide to go down this route and all the possible risks of manufacturing with Oliver Crane & Ash Heather from Epic Water Filters.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:37:36]

Ep 18: The importance of taking time off

Learn about why you should take time off.

[00:00:00] Art Markman: You know, being able to work at your peak requires being able to work when you're at work and not work when you're not at work, and so that's true on a daily basis. It's important to be able to come to work refreshed, to be able to be resilient to all of the little things that are likely to go wrong, particularly in a small business.

[00:00:22] Andrea: I know I struggle taking time off. Just a few months ago when I turned one year at Amazon, I was sent an email reminder that I should use my vacation time and just the thought of stepping away made me a bit anxious because well, I like my work, but also because I feel like things won’t get done unless I’m here, which is really not the case. So, let's get into that.

[00:00:50] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our TISB Minisodes - shorter episodes for those of you who want a quicker binge. [00:01:00] On this episode, we talk about the importance of taking a vacation and how to set up your business in a way that allows you take that -- probably much needed -- time off. I'm speaking to Art Markman, a professor of psychology and vice provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of several acclaimed books including Bring Your Brain to Work by the Harvard Business School.

[00:01:28] Andrea: Tell me why it’s important to take time off.

[00:01:30] Art Markman: In addition to being able to take that time off on a daily basis, a little bit of time, you need to have some larger blocks of time to get away from work. And that's important for several reasons. Some of it has to do with resilience, the accumulated pain of all the little things, the death by a thousand cuts that goes on when you are, an entrepreneur or when you're running a small business, that can be exhausting to the point where you may no longer [00:02:00] really be able to come back from the small things that have happened and the stresses of day-to-day life. And so getting away from work can be helpful there, but also when you run a small business, you are responsible not just for the strategy of what's going on, but also a lot of the details of the day to day. And it can get very easy to get sucked into those day-to-day details and not really think strategically about what's going on with your business.

One of the best ways to get that higher level view of what's going on in your life is to create distance. And one of the best ways to create distance is to physically create distance to get away from work. And one of the things that that does is it takes you away from a lot of the day-to-day grind and it gives you this other perspective that allows you to start thinking about what am I really trying to accomplish in my business and am I actually meeting those high-level goals?

[00:03:00] Andrea: If it's incredibly important, then why is it so hard for us to take time off?

[00:03:05] Art Markman: I think there's several reasons why it's hard, one of which is we often just don't trust that things are gonna get done in the way that we expect them to while we're away. And so we feel like, oh, it's so crucial that I'm here every single day, that things would just fall apart if I stepped away. But I think another piece of it is that it actually often just doesn't occur to us to take time off because, you know, one of the nice things about working at a university is that I'm still living on the academic cycle, which means students arrive in the fall and then there's a break between semesters there's another semester, and then there's the summer. And so there's this natural ebb and flow to the work that you do in ways that suggest now would be a really good time to go away. When you work in a small business, [00:04:00] you have seasonal aspects in many businesses. But there isn't really a time that suggests now's a really good time to take some time off. And in fact, in many small businesses, the things that are traditionally holidays for other people are actually workdays for you. So, there's that combination of not really being reminded by the world to take time off combined with this inability to let go and allow some of the other folks that work for you to take over some of your responsibilities.

[00:04:32] Andrea: So how do you take time off in a way that would be beneficial?

[00:04:36] Art Markman: So to actually take time off, it needs to be time off. I mean, I, I said earlier, that the ideal state is to work when you're at work and not work when you're not at work, which means go away and don't work, don't be checking your work email, don't be checking your phone for texts from employees. I mean, obviously if there's an emergency, people need to reach out to you. [00:05:00] But short of something is literally on fire, uh, let it go. It'll all be there when you get back, and I think that's crucial. Unfortunately, most of us don't really prepare well for that. So one of the things that's really crucial is we should always be teaching other people to do our job.

You know, the problem with the notion of delegating things is that we think that delegating starts at the time that you have to give up some of your responsibilities to someone else. Actually, delegating starts before that because you have to be teaching people the intricacies of your job from the beginning. And so you constantly wanna find people who work for you, who can ride along with you, whether it's to client meetings or to sit in on meetings where there's a difficult problem being discussed or to engage in a sales call, whatever it is that your business does, you want people coming along with you, even if they're just there to observe. [00:06:00] And then over time, to actually give them an opportunity to try some of the things that traditionally you've done with your oversight, so that by the time you're ready to go on vacation, you have utter confidence that people will be able to handle just about anything that's gonna come up short of a fire.

[00:06:22] Andrea: Are there things you can do as a small business owner to set up your business in a way that allows you to take time off?

[00:06:28] Art Markman: There's always gonna be a few things that only you can handle, but if you're not constantly teaching somebody else to do your job then, you're not really ever gonna be in that situation where you can take time off. And so that's absolutely the most important thing you can do. And then, you know, the other thing you have to look at is, depending on the nature of your business, are there times when you may want to choose to go dark for two weeks? Are there times in the calendar when you can actually shut the business down? Again, that's not always feasible. If you're running a retail establishment, [00:07:00] or you're running a restaurant. People may expect that you're gonna be open all the time, and you may need that in order to maintain a reliable customer base. But if there's a way of shutting down for a couple of weeks, well then you can really go on vacation because nothing can go wrong.

[00:07:17] Andrea: Is there an actual amount of time that you need for the time off to be beneficial?

[00:07:21] Art Markman: So I actually believe that you need several different kinds of vacations over the course of the year. I think that periodically it's important just to take a long weekend, to have three days where you go away, and you just allow yourself to decompress a little bit. And then I think it's also important to have at least one trip a year where you, and I'm saying trip here, staycations really often don't count, a trip where you go away to some other location for a week. Now, it doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to be staying at a luxury resort. You don't even necessarily have to go far. [00:08:00] You might find a nice state park, an hour’s drive from your home and stay there for a week and or go camping. It doesn't have to be something that breaks the bank, but changing your physical location matters because, your world around you reminds you of all of your responsibilities and all the things that you have to do. And if you don't physically get out of your environment, then all of the reminders of your work are gonna be living with you for the entire vacation.

[00:8:32] Andrea: And what can employers do to ease the ability of their employees to take some time?

[00:8:38] Art Markman: So I, I think it's important to value vacation, not just for yourself, but for your entire staff, for everybody who's working with you. The most important thing you can do is actually to take vacation yourself. I often tell people in business that there's what you say, what you do and what you reward, and the people who work for you listen to those in reverse order. [00:09:00] So no matter what you say, if you yourself never take a vacation, people are gonna say, oh yeah, you're telling me I should take a vacation, but if I wanna be in your position one day. If I wanna own a business, that means I can never take a vacation. So, so you've got to demonstrate the behavior you want yourself.

And then I think you wanna find ways to reward people for taking vacations, which means that you wanna be sensitive to any opportunities that come up that you don't inadvertently penalize somebody for going away. So the, you know, rewards include things that are punishments. You don't wanna put somebody in a position where they go on vacation and then miss out on some great career defining opportunity. And on top of that, you really want to. I always find it's important to catch people doing good things. So one way to do that is when somebody comes back from that vacation, sit there, and have a conversation with them about how did it go? [00:10:00] Tell me about what you did, was the real highlight of getting away and demonstrate that you're interested in the life that they led while they were away, rather than saying, well, it's a good thing you're back. All these things went wrong while you were away. Ah, we barely held on without you.

Small business owners spend a lot of time at work and a lot of time worrying about work. They may miss out on family time. They may miss out on time with friends. Whatever it is, make sure you reconnect with that. Make sure that you really help the people in your life to recognize that you do care about them even on those days when work is dragging you back into it and vacations are a great time to do that.

[00:10:43] HOST: That was Art Markman, professor of psychology and vice provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, reminding us of why it's important to take a vacation and how to set up your business in a way that allows you to take some time off. As always, here are some key takeaways about why and how you should [00:11:00] go on vacation.

Sometimes you get sucked into the day-to-day tasks; taking some time off and being physically away from work can allow you to have a different perspective when you come back. Plus you really don't want to get burnt out from overworking yourself.
Delegate. To actually take some time off and not stress about what's happening at work, make sure other people know how to perform your tasks.
Make sure you spend time away from your work environment. It doesn't need to be an expensive getaway and don't check any emails or answer any work calls -- unless something's literally on fire.
Lead by example and reward vacations. If you have employees make sure you show them that they can take some time off by doing it yourself and when employees do take some time off, reward them for it -- it could be as simple as asking them how their vacation went.

[00:12:00] That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about product sourcing, specifically shipping and fulfillment considerations for when you aren’t manufacturing your own product.

If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it on your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:12:54]

Ep 17: Renee aces achievable goals

Learn about setting achievable goals.

[00:00:05] Christina Wallace: So, knowing what your ultimate goal is will help you say, well, if it's this versus that, I know which one wins. But having that goal isn't enough. You need the mechanism for how you're gonna achieve that. And mechanism can mean a lot of different things. It could mean you have the resources to do that. I didn't just set a goal, but I ensured that I have the people and the money and all of the people around the table, I need to pull this off. It could also mean I've got the tools, the frameworks, I have the knowledge that I need in order to go and achieve this goal.

[00:00:38] HOST: Hi, I'm Andrea Marquez and This is Small Business -- a weekly podcast brought to you by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and grow your small business. At the end of every episode, I like to call out key lessons learned so you can apply them to your own small business journey.

I want to thank those of you who have reached out to use with episode ideas, and reviews through email at [00:01:00] thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com One email from Justine said: “I am starting my own business. I am in the process of setting up my business plan and I have very much enjoyed listening to your podcast. I have found the sessions easy to listen to and very informative. Thank you.” … well Thank you! Justine, for listening to This is Small Business.

Something that I noticed is often overlooked when starting a business is not only setting goals, but also making sure you have the right mechanisms in place in order to achieve these goals in the most efficient way possible. And this is something that I'm sure everyone has gone through, even if you're not a business owner. I know we all have goals, and the bigger the better right? But how can you make sure your business is on the right track of achieving that goal, especially if it's going to take a while to get there? And how do you set up the right mechanisms that allow you to achieve these goals?

Coming up, I'll talk to Christina Wallace, a senior lecturer [00:02:00] at Harvard Business School where she teaches entrepreneurship and marketing. You’ve heard her on the show before on episode 14 of TISB, which is episode 2 of season two, where she talked about the top three business mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make. So make sure to also give it a listen if you haven’t already.

Before we speak to Christina, I want you to meet business owner Renee Manzari, Founder and CEO of Livity Yoga. She's a yoga and Earth Lover who is passionate about positively altering the future of this planet and exploring circular solutions. And she has some pretty amazing but huge goals she's trying to reach so I'm sure she'll have some valuable insights on setting up goals and the mechanisms to meet them.

[00:02:45] Andrea: Renee Manzari, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It's a pleasure to have you.

[00:02:50] Renee Manzari: Thank you so much for having me on your show, Andrea.

[00:02:52] Andrea: So let's jump right into it. Tell me about Livity Yoga and how it came to be.

[00:02:56] Renee Manzari: My background is actually in investment banking, [00:03:00] but I started Livity Yoga for a very personal reason. After I fell ill, I started to live a healthier lifestyle, which included yoga, but the more I did yoga and the more I bought yoga products, the more I realized that plastic products such as yoga mats were adding to the ongoing plastic pollution crisis. So I decided to create a brand of yoga products. However, I soon realized that sustainable just wasn't enough and it was a meaningless term, and we needed radical solutions to really face the problem with climate change. And so I decided to just dig deeper and do some more research. And so I came across the circular economy, and what that means is that you are designing your products using reclaimed materials and ways so that it can be reused over and over again, as well as designing your products to last longer [00:04:00] because there's no way to make something green without making it last longer, and that's where we are today. We are best known for our cork yoga mat, which is very versatile. It's not just for yoga, it's actually for Pilates, as well as other exercises, and most of our product is actually made from Cork, which means that you can actually use it for very sweaty workouts. And most of our products can be found on our Amazon website.

[00:04:27] Andrea: And from what I've seen, your products are really pretty, so no one's giving up on the aesthetics in order to be sustainable. And I love that your products allow people to work on themselves while also helping the planet out by not contributing to waste. So, we're here to talk about setting up mechanisms and goals in a way that prepares your business to be successful. But before I even get to that, can you just tell me a little bit more about what it means to be a small business and to be part of the circular economy?

[00:04:57] Renee Manzari: Yeah, so we're building a [00:05:00] hundred percent circular yoga brand, and what that means is that we are intentional with our design. It's not just about making products that are sustainable, but also being intentional with the designing products to last longer, but also using reclaimed material so that it can be used again and again. To do this, we have partnered with TerraCycle as well as select yoga studios as collection points to collect recycle, as well as upcycle unwanted yoga mats, as well as other sporting goods so that we can upcycle it into new products that we're developing. But I just believe that with respect to having a sustainable business model, it does require more steps. It does require higher expenses. However, we are proud to do that.

[00:05:48] Andrea: I admire that you take pride in having a sustainable business model even if it comes with higher expenses and a lot more effort. I want to dig deeper into what makes it so hard. [00:06:00] Because I know that a lot of small businesses have to weigh this option of, do I wanna do this, be sustainable and really make an impact even though it's going to cost me a lot more? Or do I prioritize making a profit and all the other things that I need to do to get the business off the ground, because it's not easy to do that and then worry about the sustainability aspect later?

[00:06:22] Renee Manzari: Yeah. I must say it is more expensive and more time consuming because you have to find the right materials, you have to find the right design for your products, even find the right manufacturers that are sustainable, but also aware of your environmental goals and can supply the sustainable materials that you need for your products. There's also a higher expense with respect to the material cost because manufacturers that do supply eco-friendly products, they tend to charge higher. And there's also other expenses with implementing a green business model. However, what I [00:07:00] would say to other businesses that are considering implementing a green business model, you don't have to do everything at once. I know I've actually been approached by other companies, by offsetting or, you know, doing other green activities for our business. But I believe that once you do things from the beginning were designing your products to be sustainable, start from there. And then you can look at other sustainable initiatives and goals for the near future, but you don't have to do everything at once.

[00:07:28] Andrea: That's great advice. Now that we understand what Livity Yoga does - your mission, priorities, and the importance of social and environmental impact to the brand - let's talk about mechanisms and setting goals. I'm sure a lot of our listeners will agree with me, but the word “mechanisms” sounds super corporate-y. It's just not a word that I use in daily life. So before we dive into mechanisms which are the things we can do to achieve goals, could you talk to me about goal setting? [00:08:00] How do you decide on the goals that you wanna set for your small business?

[00:08:05] Renee Manzari: Well, I believe that it's important to set big picture yearly goals, as well as short term goals in order to ensure that your brand continues to evolve as well as achieving the goals that you have set. Our goals are always set around our mission to give back to environmental nonprofits through our partnerships. We also set, of course, Quarterly KPI objectives. I also set metrics around each of these objectives as well as timelines and action plans around them so that I can hold myself accountable, ensure that I achieve these goals and also keep track of them.

[00:08:53] Andrea: Can you give me an example of a short term and long-term goal that you've set for Livity Yoga?

[00:09:00] Renee Manzari: Okay, so our North Star metric actually involves around diverting a million yoga mats from landfill by 2026, and with that wider north star, you know, goals. We actually do set KPI objectives - at most five KPI objectives. Of course, we do set objectives with respect to sales, marketing, product development, as well as giving back, but they're all support our North Star goal with respect to how much plastic waste or yoga mats that we divert from landfills. And so with respect to that high level goal, we will break it down into the five key objectives, and of course, set different tasks. And of course, I use my calendar. I would also set projects around each of these objectives and track the progress of those objectives using whatever tools that I use.

[00:10:00] HOST: That’s an ambitious goal! To restate here, Livity Yoga’s North Star goal is to divert a million yoga mats from landfill by 2026, and attached to that they have KPI objectives in terms of sales, marketing, product development, and giving back, that will help them achieve that North Star. So being very clear about what the North Star of your small business is, sounds like a key first step to setting the rest of your goals.

[00:10:25] Renee Manzari: I think your North Star should be what your vision is for your company, whether it is within the next 10 years or even five years. And for us, we set our North Star in terms of how we envision our company and we always envision our company to be a brand that was not just focused on sustainability but created a movement around sustainability. Created a movement around the circular economy, and that's where we started in terms of setting our North Star. [00:11:00] And, uh, with that we devise shorter objectives in order to achieve that North star goal.

[00:11:08] Andrea: So in terms of setting up mechanisms to achieve these goals, you work back from what your ultimate dream for your business is, and then break it down into things that are achievable.

[00:11:18] Renee Manzari: Exactly. You have to start with the vision because the thing is, during the day and during the weeds of everything, there's always gonna be distractions. There's always gonna be new ideas, but how do you prioritize what is important? You have to stay focused on your North Star because there are things that they'll be nice to do, but it doesn't align with your vision or your North Star. And so those are the things that you say no to because there's gonna be so many competing priorities. But you have to learn to know what to say yes to and what to say no to. And how you find alignment is based on your North Star.

[00:11:52] Andrea: Is there anything else you’d like to say about being a small business owner?

[00:11:55] Renee Manzari: I would actually say that. You're not always gonna know everything. [00:12:00] And I thought that, I think I felt inadequate as a business owner in the beginning, but I soon realized that it's okay to experiment. Experiment with your business, your business model, your pricing, your products, and being a business owner is a learning process. You don't need all the skills. You're not gonna know everything, but you actually do learn along the way. You learn about the business world. And I also found that during these times, the environment is really changing and so it's really good to always evolve and adapt and so it doesn't make sense to stick to one thing. I think it is great to always continuously learn and grow and develop new skills, and it's okay to change, you know, change your mind and make mistakes and do things all over again.

[00:12:57] Andrea: Renee, thank you so much for your time and for everything you're doing. [00:13:00] I am just very excited to see you meet your goals and that I got to hear about all of the mechanisms that you've done to work towards that.

[00:13:08] Renee Manzari: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:13:11] HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Renee Manzari, Founder and CEO of Livity Yoga. You can find out more about her company in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Speaking to Renee about setting goals and mechanisms for your small business has me feeling super motivated to set my own goals and mechanisms for my non-existent small business. In order to achieve things, you first need to know where you’re going. What’s your aim? I'm sure -- like Renee -- you also have huge goals that you want your business to achieve and having mechanisms in place could help you focus on your goals and it could even make bigger goals seem less intimidating and easier to take on.

My next guest is Christina Wallace, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School [00:14:00] where she teaches entrepreneurship and marketing. We've had Christina on the 2^nd episode of our 2^nd season of This is Small Business - after this episode - you should definitely check out if you haven't already. Christina takes us through the top 3 business mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make. She has a wealth of information on businesses so for those of you who haven't listened to her before, I'm excited for you to meet her.

[00:14:25] Andrea: Let's start from the beginning, as a small business owner, why is it important to not only have goals, but also set mechanisms to meet them?

[00:14:33] Christina Wallace: So you have to have goals. They don't have to be any specific goal, but you need to know what you're driving toward, right? So strategy without tactics. Terrible choice. Tactics without strategy, also a disaster. Sun Tzu has some great quote on this in the Art of War, but I'm really over the war metaphors in business, so take my word for it. The point of this is you have to know not only where you're going, but what matters most when you face tension. [00:15:00] Right. Where are you gonna make the tradeoffs? So, knowing what your ultimate goal is will help you say, well, if it's this versus that, I know which one wins. But having that goal isn't enough. You need the mechanism for how you're gonna achieve that. And mechanism can mean a lot of different things. It could mean you have the resources to do that. I didn't just set a goal, but I ensured that I have the people and the money and all of the people around the table, I need to pull this off. It could also mean I've got the tools, the frameworks, I have the knowledge that I need in order to go and achieve this goal. So whatever that piece is that you need, that allows you to get there, you need to ensure that you don't just have the dream, but you've done the work to ensure it is achievable.

[00:15:47] Andrea: All right, so let's talk about goal setting first. How do you decide what goals you should set for your small business if you're in the beginning stages?

[00:15:56] Christina Wallace: So a lot of this comes down to your priorities, [00:16:00] and this is gonna be an incredibly personal process for you and whoever else, the stakeholders that you have in your business, whether it is a co-founder or investors or even employees that you feel like are an integral part of how you design what is gonna come up the next year, three, five, whatever you're driving toward. But ultimately you start from the why. What is your mission? What are you here to do? And then you back solve. Now that you know why you show up in the morning, what do you care about in the next, call it three to five years? What are your strategic priorities? And then you back solve from that. Okay. You know what you're going toward. What are the activities that you're going to put in place that will get you closer to those priorities?

And then the very last piece of this, which is crucial, you have to have a specific metric. How will I know that I reached that goal? And this is the sort of thing that at the end of the year, [00:17:00] it should be a very clear yes or no. If you set a metric where you get to the end of the year and you're like, did I meet that goal? I'm not sure. It wasn't a very good metric, so be really thoughtful about how will I know that I achieved this? And you might be thinking, well, obviously you'll know if you achieved your goal or not. This can be harder than it sounds. I know a lot of small business owners that the first time they do this, they actually spend more time trying to figure out what the metrics are, what the goals are, then they have to do to actually track those goals throughout the year. Right. The act of putting this process in place can often be the most valuable part of goal setting.

[00:17:40] Andrea: So, what are some mechanisms that you've seen that have worked in the past?

[00:17:45] Christina Wallace: I mean, there are so many different frameworks. You can make SMART goals, you can make a balanced scorecard is one that I have seen frequently where you start with those strategic priorities and then you outline the activities and the metrics. But crucially, you do this across [00:18:00] all of the key components so that you see it all in one place. It almost becomes a dashboard that you're looking at all at the time. Because the point is not just to achieve any specific goal, it's that are you achieving the entire larger picture, which is right, the suite, the portfolio of goals that you've set for the year.

You can do it in other ways. My favorite one is super simple. Why, what, how, when: these are questions that we've learned, you know, in like third grade writing of how do you tell a great story, but it's relevant to your goals too. Why do we care about this? Right? That's our true north. It keeps you focused on, what gets us outta bed? What am I gonna do? How am I gonna do it, and when am I gonna be held accountable for that? And I think this is a really interesting framework because it starts with, as you think about how do I roll this out to my company?

The why; you gotta have clear alignment with everyone. You have to have communication with your company. If these are your goals and you don't share them with anyone else, [00:19:00] probably not gonna get anywhere. So how can you be really strategic and intentional about sharing the why and telling that story to get people on board and running all the same direction toward these goals.

The what? Again, clear metrics. What are we going to do and how will we know that we've met them? I cannot stress this enough. If you don't know if you've met the goal, that's a problem.

The third is the how, and that's the resources. How are we going to actually pursue these activities, achieve these targets. If you don't have the resources in place or you don't give your team the resources, it's not fair to set that goal. And I think that's often where you feel some real frustration in your business. If you have a team and you've asked them to shoot for the moon, but you won't even give them a ladder, let alone a rocket ship, right? So how can you make sure that the how is lined up with the what and the why.

[00:20:00] And last is the when, and that's really about accountability. When are we going to say whether we've met this goal and don't let that kind of inch forward. When are we actually going to say, okay, this is the end. Is it the quarter? Is it the year? What is that timeframe that we are running toward?

[00:20:21] Andrea: You mentioned being realistic about your goals -- shooting for the moon but not giving people a rocket ship to get there -- I loved that by the way. But I think that resonates with many people, even those who aren’t small business owners, businesses-- big, small and everywhere in between -- are constantly looking for this movement, this growth, and yet we are sometimes limited by headcount, funding, finances, et cetera.

[00:20:47] Christina Wallace: Yeah. I mean, it's a real tension where companies are giving employees less and less in the way of resources and expecting more and more. And in some cases, in some cases [00:21:00] maybe they were over-resourced. Maybe there were too many people or there was too much budget. And so it doesn't drive the creativity, the ingenuity, and the entrepreneurship. Maybe the constraints will drive creativity. But in most cases, if you have been cut to the bone repeatedly, and I think there's a strong argument to say many companies, large and small, have had a history of cutting back for the last decade or two. There comes a point where your team will break, right? No one wants to be part of a losing team, and no one wants to feel like they're underperforming. And if you give them less and less and expect more and more, they're either gonna give up, quit, or burn out. So, being really realistic about the resources and crucially, not just each individual goal, but back to the bigger picture, are all of these goals collectively realistic for this year? [00:22:00] For this time period or these resources, and this is where you wanna be thoughtful about how can I visualize all of these pieces together, and that could be a Gantt chart where you line them up on a time base to say, whoa, we're trying to squeeze a lot into this three-month period. Maybe we should spread it out.

Or it could be something just like a budget where you line up all of the investments and you're like, Oh, turns out to do this properly it’s gonna take more cash than we can afford. And so from a cash flow basis, we're gonna push this goal to next quarter or next year, or we're gonna go and look for the resources we need. To ensure that we have the cash to really drive all of these goals. So just being really thoughtful about how can I line them up and look for those bottlenecks, look for the constraints. And then again, this goes back to your priorities. If I'm gonna be super ambitious, then I gotta go get the resources. [00:23:00] If I would be more comfortable kind of spreading these out, maybe it doesn't have to be this year. I can push something over to next year. It all depends on what matters most to you.

[00:23:11] HOST: A small pause here to highlight some of these mechanisms that Christina mentioned. She mentioned SMART goals which stand for setting specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely goals, asking why, what, how, and when, using a Gantt chart to line up goals on a time base and get an overview of how realistic they are in a given timeframe, and/or lining up your investments and making sure you are accounting for the actual budget you need to achieve those goals.

[00:23:43] Andrea: Super important to highlight all of these things and I think it's top of mind for many people. Really quick side note, have you ever read, by any chance, Playing to Win by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin. Have the book here next to me.

[00:23:57] Christina Wallace: Yes. Oh my gosh. That is a fantastic book. [00:24:00] I quoted it in my first book New to Big. they do some fantastic research on this mindset of playing to win versus playing not to lose, and just how differently you approach an opportunity if you have that mindset of like, this is on the line and if we get this, we're gonna make it, versus, I have this, and if I take the risk, I might fall short and then I'm gonna lose everything. And even if it's the exact same outcome, I think they have a great example in soccer players and penalty kicks. But even in that moment, that mindset of playing to win versus playing not to lose. Changes how you approach opportunity.

And I, I see this often in, you know, if you're thinking about like, what are some mistakes that people make when they're trying to set goals, right? How do you not do this the wrong way, which is already a super stressful place to start the conversation. But there's this duality where there are some small business owners that will swing to too ambitious of a goal. [00:25:00] And they'll say, we're gonna have 30% growth year over year. And then their team hits 17% and they feel like we lost. And then there are small business owners that might have not ambitious enough of a goal, or they say, we're gonna grow 5% a year. And the team is like, well, we could do more than that, but I guess, okay. We'll go for seven, right? So, some of this depends a little bit on like what's your mindset? What's the mindset of your team? But your team wants a challenge. People love a challenge, especially as a group, rise to the occasion. Give them that story, give them the motivation for why. But then keep in mind the people want to win and they wanna feel like they're on a winning team. So if you are constantly setting ambitious goals that you know, your team can't reach, at some point, even if they're doing great work, they're gonna feel demotivated. So be really thoughtful [00:26:00] about what's actually gonna get them going.

And then the other two mistakes that are probably just as problematic, setting too many goals. If everything is a priority, nothing is. So be realistic about what you can achieve in the timeframe and with the resources you've set. And then the last one, which seems like a no-brainer, and yet I've seen it more times than I can count. Nobody knows the goals. You've set them. You had this great strategy session with yourself, and then you didn't share them. So the rule of thumb. Internal communications is you say it until you are sick of saying it, and then you say it three more times, right? It's a little bit like getting a toddler to do something. You have to say it so many more times than you think because they've got a lot on their mind. They're being pulled in a lot of directions, and your team is too. So being really clear and consistent on why you're driving toward this future, [00:27:00] what that future looks like, how will you know when you get there and when are we gonna hold ourselves accountable for having gotten there? That's sort of the framework that's gonna help you be successful.

[00:27:12] Andrea: When I'm setting goals for myself, I try not to over promise myself anything or set too many goals in one year. But one of my goals from years ago, was getting free books to fuel my book addiction and somehow that happened. I ended up with a partnership with a book publishing house and now they send me a lot of their books to review now.

[00:27:35] Christina Wallace: I just love that this even occurred to you as a goal that you should reach for, and yet I think this is a perfect example of like, well, what matters to you if you know you've got a book habit that's fairly expensive. Let’s be smart and creative. About how we might be able to subsidize that book habit. It’s a perfect encapsulation of figure out what matters to you and use that.

[00:28:00] I think so many small business owners feel like they have goals that they should run toward, right? That depending on what you're reading, or maybe you have a little a group of other small business owners that you meet up with and there might be things that matter to you that might feel very silly, like having more flexibility in your day to spend time with your kids and maybe you feel like that's not a legitimate goal. But that is absolutely a legitimate goal. These don't just have to be financial goals or growth goals or profit goals. They can be of anything. What matters to you? These could be sustainability goals. These could be about human capital, growing your team and empowering them to live their best lives. Whatever's the reason why you decided to be a small business owner. Those are legitimate things to set goals against.

[00:28:53] Andrea: Any last things you’d like to say in terms of setting goals and mechanisms?

[00:29:00] Christina Wallace: Don't be afraid to set. B - HAGs: big, hairy, audacious goals. I know it's a terrible acronym for what is otherwise a really exciting idea and I say this with the same breath that I just said, don't set goals that are too ambitious. But I think sometimes we have an idea for what we want, and it just seems too audacious to put it in writing or to say it out loud or to be something that we would ever go toward, like having free books, and yet, if it's something you want, don't be afraid to put it out there. It might be a goal that takes several years, a decade, whatever that that timeframe is that you say, I don't know when I'm gonna get there. You just told me to set actionable goals within a discreet timeframe. I get it. But at the very least, if you've got this big, hairy, audacious goal, put it somewhere. Make your little vision board or whatever that thing is, a sticky note on your monitor, [00:30:00] and just have that front of mind. As you get outta bed every day to say, why am I doing this? Just have that front of mind of like, maybe someday I'm gonna figure out how to get free books.

[00:30:15] HOST: That was Christina Wallace, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School where she teaches entrepreneurship and marketing. Thank you so much for listening today -- I hope you're feeling just as excited and motivated as I am to set those big, hairy, audacious goals. This episode had so much helpful information and as always, some of the key takeaways I learned today with Renee and Christina are:

Goals help you in times of tension. Setting goals is important because it allows you to say no to opportunities that don't align with what you achieve which gives you more time to prioritize opportunities that will help you get where you want to go. But how do you set these goals?
This leads us to Two: Know your why and back solve. As Christina mentioned, figuring out your goals [00:31:00] can be an intimate process. You have to ask yourself -- and maybe even investors or other employees that are important to your business -- what is your mission? What do you want to achieve? And once you have that figured out, back solve to know how you'll get there. Renee did this by setting her North Star for Livity Yoga.
Three. Let people know! An easy but often missed step. And also, don’t set too many goals at once, because if everything is a priority, then nothing is.
Four. Make sure you have the resources in place for your goal. You can't get to the moon without a Rocketship - Thank you Christina, I loved that - so make sure you’re equipped with the tools you need to achieve your goals; and if you don't have these resources yet, then maybe readjust your goal.
Five. Have a metric. You need to figure out a way to track your goal. It sounds easier said than done, but a lot of people struggle with this. Some of the mechanisms that we talked about were SMART goals, [00:32:00] asking why, what, when, how, Gantt charts, and investment timeliness.

So what goals and mechanisms do you have for your small business? I'd love to know. Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you thought of this episode by leaving a review. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. You can also leave us a review on Apple podcasts – it’s easier to do it through your phone.

That's it for episode 5 of season two of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Next on the show, we'll be talking about the importance of taking a vacation -- something that a lot of business owners struggle with -- and setting up your business in a way that ensures you can take that vacation with Art Markman, Professor of Psychology and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez [00:33:00] -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:33:20]

Ep 16: How to attract investors

Learn about attracting angel investment and venture capital.

[00:00:00] Allen Lau: Not all companies should be or could be venture backed. A very small percentage of the companies would belong to this category. What's the characteristics of this category? They could be very, very fast growth, for example, 50% year over year growth, or in the early, early days could be a hundred percent, 200%, or even 500% year over year growth. On the other hand for the angel backed, or even self-funded companies, they are almost like polar opposite. And I would say most companies would belong to that group. They don't need a lot of capital but many of them would need some capital to get the ball rolling.

[00:00:42] Andrea: Ok strong start to this topic that is angel investment and venture capital. I’m excited to dig a bit more into them.

[00:00:50] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our TISB: Minisodes: shorter episodes for those of you who want a quicker binge. [00:01:00] These are packed with helpful information in 10-15-minutes. On this episode we continue the conversation on funding your small business and jump into angel investments and venture capital with Allen Lau, Co-founder and Venture Partner of Two Small Fish Ventures and the Co-Founder and former CEO of Wattpad and Executive Advisor to WEBTOON Wattpad.

[00:01:27] Andrea: So, if I've exhausted my bootstrapping options, which one should I chose? How do I even know when and how to choose between the two: angel investment and aiming to raise venture capital?

[00:01:40] Allen Lau: Well, you look at the type of the business, like realistically, how fast you can grow. If you exhausted the self-funding station, you know, you need some more capital to survive, then you, you have to ask yourself, okay, how much capital do I need? What is it for? And after attracting that capital, [00:02:00] can I get to profitability? If so, how quickly? These are the questions that you have to ask as yourself because, uh, if you don't ask yourself, the investors would ask you and you better be prepared to have all those answers.

Basically, any investor would wanna know; what is planned? Is it buying equipment? Is it buying the stove in the kitchen, or is it for something else? And any investor, what they are really looking for is a very simple idea: they put $1 into a box that's box owned by you. At some point, they wanted take out, say $2 or $3, get some return. So, you have to ask yourself, if an investor give you a dollar, if you use it properly, well, you must use it properly. It's not an if you must use it properly, but how? Have that answer. And by investing [00:03:00] that dollar into, say, buying, some amazing food in the kitchen, you, you can attract more patrons in to, to your restaurant then you generate more revenue. This is your expectation, how much more people you can attract, and that's how much more revenue you can attract. And then how much more profits, uh, if you haven't achieved profitability yet, when and how, and how much you project you can do.

And these are, once you have answered these questions, then it's black and white, whether this is an investible opportunity or not. And, uh, by knowing that you would know, from an investor perspective, at some point perhaps you, you share the profit back to the investor, depends on the arrangement. You share the profit back to the investor, then the investor would know, okay, I put a dollar in three years later, I probably would get back maybe 60 cents, and then another two years get back another 60 cents. [00:04:00] So, you know, they can do the math and, and make a decision.

[00:04:04] Andrea: Let's double down on that. If I decide to go the venture capital route or the angel investment route, I need to be very, very clear about what I'm gonna use this money for, what the profitability is and what my investor's going to get from it. Right?

[00:04:20] Allen Lau: Yes. I guess for venture capitalists, they might not care much about profitability early on because for venture capitalists, what they are looking for is actually the growth because the growth would drive the value of the company. They know they might need to provide more capital in a few tranches down the road. So for an early-stage company, sometimes profitability might not be the first thing that, that they ask for. They may think about this. They might consider that, but the most important thing is high growth. [00:05:00] And that's why this is, only a very, very small percentage of the companies would fall into the venture backable category because through high growth, you can increase

the value of the company pretty drastically. And that's how venture capitalists make money because eventually when they sell the shares, whether, uh, to other investors or in the public market, that's how they make money. So, profitability might not be the first number one consideration as long as they can see the trajectory to get to that point at some point in the lifetime of the company.

[00:05:38] Andrea: As a small business starting out, who has already exhausted self-funding, should I consider angel investment and venture capital?

[00:05:47] Allen Lau: I think a lot of people would consider external capital first, that's probably not the best idea because in a way you're giving a percentage of your company. [00:06:00] So let's say you raise capital, you give away half your company to raise the capital to, to drive growth or get to profitability. The math has to work for a year, right? If you are choosing between: continue to bootstrap or raising more capital. You give up half. Eventually you, you have to get it back, right? You are sharing half the profit with the new investor. For example, if you don't think the new capital would give you at least double your profit or revenue. Depends on what you wanna measure. Then, it is not a good deal for you as an owner because you give up half the company, but you perhaps, uh, will never get back half the profit ever. You might not have a choice, but that might not be the best option.

Raising capital is a very, very important decision, but raising the right type of capital, from the right profile of investor is also extremely important. [00:07:00] Imagine a venture backed investor invested in a slower growth company, the investor would not be happy, right? Uh, if an angel investor invested in the company and realizing, okay, this is a high growth company. We need to raise a hundred million more capital. It's, it's, Originally, it's not the type of company I imagine my share could be diluted, you know, uh, that person might not be happy. I thought I just put in $10,000. I can get back, you know, $20,000 in, in two years. I didn't realize it will take 10 years to build this gigantic company. I'm not in it. I don't want it. It could be like that. So that interest alignment is very, very important. So pick the right investor, choose carefully, choose intelligently. It’s like marriage, it's not writing a check, a transaction and, and see you later. You are walking along with that investor for a very, very long time and, uh, if you don't have to raise, [00:08:00] maybe you shouldn't, then you can a hundred percent control your companies on your own terms, and that's okay too. So, uh, there's no right or wrong answer, but there's a right or wrong answer for your specific company, and you just have to make the right choice.

[00:08:17] HOST: That was the Co-founder and Venture Partner of Two Small Fish Ventures, and Co-Founder and former CEO of Wattpad Allen Lau. Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation:

Raising external capital shouldn't be your first choice. It’s a tricky situation because you would need to be sharing part of your company with someone else, or several others. So maybe consider other options, like bootstrapping, grants, and loans as we discussed in our previous episode with Darlyng and Co, before you consider giving up some shares. But if you reach that point, it's not a bad thing, sometimes you might need to raise capital, especially when your target is fast growth.
The most important thing for venture capital [00:09:00] is a fast-growth trajectory even before looking at profitability. You need to have a clear plan that you can show investors for how and when you think you’ll achieve major growth milestones year over year. And this also goes for angel-backed businesses, where investors might be considering other things first in an exchange for equity, but will still want to know what the plans are for year over year growth.
Picking the right investor is super important. I love that Allen compared it to a marriage. You'll be spending a lot of time with your investor so make sure you're both a great fit for each other and aligned with the goals of the business.

That's it for episode 4 of season 2 of This is Small Business, a short and sweet episode of our This is Small Business Minisodes series, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about setting goals for your small business and how to make sure you reach them.

Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, subscribe and tell your friends about us [00:10:00] by sending them a link to this episode. And we want to know what you think. So, leave us a review on Apple podcasts – it’s easier to do it on your phone. OR email us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:10:34]

Ep 15: Detara finds funding for her business

Learn about bootstrapping, loans, and grants.

[00:00:04] Detara: Are you profitable? Are you making money? Do you even need to be raising capital? Cause even though we're having this conversation, some businesses are pretty healthy, and their profit line is just remarkable. So look at your numbers. Have those hard conversations with your accountant. Ask them, well, if I can get investment for $10,000 non-equity or $5,000, what impact would that have on my business in the next three to six months? Have those hard conversations. Get the answers. If you're not sure, find a mentor. There are so many people that is deep into the financial world and they literally love talking about money, and they will talk about it with anybody that wants to listen.

[00:00:50] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business -- a weekly podcast -- brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This show is all about learning how to start, build and grow your small business - [00:01:00] I know it sounds intimidating - but I'm also learning with you, and will call out key lessons at the end of every episode for you to use on your small business journey.

As always, we appreciate and take into account your comments So thank you August E for leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts. August said that This is Small Business is “Great info from some entrepreneurs in the thick of the small business world.” Thank you!

One very important - and some would say scary - part of any business is money. How can I fund my business? It's actually a popularly Googled question that people look up when they want to start a business. And I totally get why, I mean, it's such an overwhelming and intimidating subject to approach. Money can also be a barrier for early-stage entrepreneurs and can stop people from continuing a business or even starting it in the first place [00:02:00] - even if they are passionate about the idea. So how do you get funding? What are the different options available? And trust me there's a lot but then how do you choose one that’s right for you and your business?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Kerry Hannon -- a strategist on entrepreneurship and finance who has written more than a dozen books on entrepreneurship-- about raising capital for your small business. But first -- I want you to meet business owner Detara Williams, the co-founder of the award-winning baby brand and lifestyle company, Darlyng & Co. When her company started, Detara had to delve deep into the world of funding so she could make sure that her business could continue to grow and meet demand. She found a way or maybe I should say ways, to fund her business and she's here to let us in on all her secrets.

[00:02:57] Andrea: Detara Williams, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:03:00] Detara: Thank you for having me.

[00:03:04] HOST: It’s important that I mention, that the information provided in this podcast is not legal advice and should not be construed as such. Instead, the information provided is for general informational purposes only. Moreover, the information in this podcast does not create any attorney-client relationship between you and the podcast contributors or their respective employers. You should not act upon any such information without first seeking qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. The hiring of an attorney is an important decision that should not be based solely on anything we speak about today.

[00:03:35] Andrea: So tell me about Darlyng and Co and how it came to be.

[00:03:40] Detara: Sure. So Darlyng & Co started around eight years ago. We're about to hit our eight-year mark. When my daughter Alethia was born, so she was around two months old. And during that phase, you know, we get all the tips as new parents, but no one warned us about the teething stage. So, she started teething at two months old [00:04:00] and she was constantly chewing on her hands. And her dad at the time was home on paternity leave and he came up with the idea of, well, you know what, all the teethers on the market seem just old fashioned. They are plastic. We don't know the material they're made of. We don't know the liquid that's inside of it. So, we wanted something a little bit safer and as parents that we didn't have to one: stand there and self soothe her all day. And parents, you know what I'm talking about. So we came up

with the Yummy Mit, which is our first product. It was our first invention. It is a teething mitten that is worn in a hand by the infant and they're able to self-soothe themselves. And from there we were able to garner other products through just listening to our customers, having more kids and just, parenting and wanting to solve those everyday parenting problems.

[00:04:50] Andrea: I'm very curious what was behind the name? What went behind Darlyng & Co.?

[00:04:55] Detara: So we wanted a name all parents could, you know, [00:05:00] just think about that name and it became a household name. And we thought about names that everyone called their child and it's darling. And so everyone actually thought it was like a play our last name, but it was actually just calling your child darling. And. That loving endearing term, and we thought, well, everyone could relate to this cuz when your baby's born, whether it's the grandparent, the aunt, it's like, oh my God, like the little darling. And so that's where the actual name came from. We wanted to just be broad and anyone can use it.

[00:05:28] HOST: We're not gonna be talking in depth about being able to legally protect your brand name, but we do cover it in Episode 1 of Season One with Jen and Max Ash of Max’is creations. Detara just pointed out a very important thing when it comes to branding name - it is being able to protect it.

[00:05:47] Andrea: Let's move on to money, specifically, funding your small business, because that is a popular topic for small business owners. It comes up all the time in all the conversations I have with many of the small business owners [00:06:00] that are in the early stages. Right. It is daunting. It is overwhelming. Whenever you think about money, in any scenario, it doesn't even have to be starting a business, it can seem like everything is rigged to go against you because it is very complex. So, first, talk to me a little bit about your relation to money, and how you feel about even bringing up the topic of financing your small business.

[00:06:26] Detara: Absolutely, so when we started, we bootstrapped, we used savings, family savings. I remember our parents were like our first investors. And we didn't know the term family and friends’ investment. Then we just knew like, hey, can you fund this PO? Cuz we, you know, we have all these orders and they started to believe in the product and what was going on because it was selling. So it's like, oh, if we invest now we are gonna get payoff anyway, cuz we're the parents, so that was our first kind of relationship with getting any type of funding.

[00:07:00] And I remember we got our first Chase account and that was our first business account. And they gave us a credit card for $5,000. And that was our first line of credit. And I did not use it. We did not touch that because my education around money at the time was just, hey, you don't take a loan if you're not able to pay back. You don't go into debt if you're not able to pay back. I didn't know how people in the business world were using money to fund their business and pay it back. So, I did not touch that credit card. I did not use it. I just kept using our cash flow. Luckily at the time we had cash flow, our products were selling, but it was selling really fast and we were scaling, so I needed money to expand. So, two years later was when I found out about pitching, and that's where the magic started.

[00:08:00] HOST: I think something that resonates with me is how important it is to determine what your relationship is to money first, before you even start to consider funding and how you're going to approach raising capital for your small business. Money is a difficult topic for some people. I was raised by immigrant parents and one thing they taught me was never to owe money to anyone - ever. So when it comes to funding; bootstrapping seems like the obvious safest starting point to me.

[00:08:30] Andrea: So, let's start by talking about the differences between bootstrapping, loans, and grants.

[00:08:34] Detara: Bootstrapping was essentially what we were doing when we started. We were just using our cash flow. So, if we made 10 to $20,000 that month and we knew the next month, our sales would go up. So, we would probably make 30,000 dollars next month based on the sales that we were having. We knew that 20,000 that we made would have to go right back, into ordering more inventory. So if we ordered inventory, say 10,000 pieces [00:09:00] the month prior to it, we would then have to scale to 20 pieces just to keep up with the demand. And so that's essentially what we were doing in the beginning. We were bootstrapping, using whatever money that we were making, putting it right back into the business. We did not pay ourselves; we did not see a profit even though there was profit, we did not see it. And that's something I strongly advise against today. Pay yourself first, like even if it's a hundred dollars a week, just put aside some money because you have no backup plan with this journey we call entrepreneurship, so just put aside some type of money, um, not just, hey, let me pay my rent out of this month, and I'm good. No, put aside some money for yourself. And for me now, when I get a

paycheck on Friday, that motivates me to work harder cuz I'm like, oh, I could pay myself. Like I'm gonna work harder. So that's the first lesson in bootstrapping.

When it comes to loan, you have several different types of loan. [00:10:00] I do wanna warn cuz there's a lot of predatory loans, especially against small businesses, so you wanna make sure you do your research. If you find a loan that you're interested in and they're like, hey, we'll give you this amount of loan. Ask the interest rate. Hey, what other small businesses have you worked with that I can talk to? So, you can ask them their experience. And I think that's something that's lacking in the community. We don't talk amongst each other with what we are doing, what's working for us. Definitely have those hard conversations and ask those questions. Just read the fine prints, ask questions. I know a lawyer is expensive, so there are a lot of pro bono lawyers that may be able to go over those contracts for you. So look into those things, but make sure you read the dotted line, and just do your research on loans. One thing that's helped me when it comes to loans – and I look at credit cards in some aspect as a loan. So if I open, say, a business account, um, and this is something it took me a while to actually do, [00:11:00] but if you open, for example, when I started my hair care company, Peculiar Roots, we opened a business account and our small business banker was, we came in with cash to put into that account and he said, put away your cash. He said, I'm gonna give you a credit card that has $10,000. Use that to start your company. And then pay it back as you go. That means your hard cash, if there's an emergency, you can use that. If you need more inventory, you can use that. So that's one way I started to look at my small banks as a loan provider. Even though it's a card, interest rate is minimal to, well, it depends again on your credit score, but the interest rate was minimal to what I would have to pay somebody else, a third party. And having that personal relationship with them, they would increase our credit card amount. So, if we paid that back fast, oh, your credit card is $20,000, we're gonna up that to $30,000. Um, so those are some ways you can use those small banks, they are willing to work with you as a small business.

[00:12:00] And then pitching is essentially going out there, finding grant opportunities that's willing to invest in your business with no equity taken. Which is amazing. So, you're not having to give any equity to these organizations. Most of the times they just have extra cash that they're looking to give away from their nonprofit, and so they wanna invest in your dreams. And so that's a great way to do it as well. And that's one of the strategies I've been using for the last few years.

[00:12:35] Andrea: Can you talk to me a little bit more about some of the grants you've applied for that have been helpful for the journey of Darlyng and Co.?

[00:12:43] Detara: Yeah, I'll share my first grant experience. There was like a pitch competition. I remember I had to actually fly out for this competition. At the time, I believe it was $5,000. And I didn't have to do much for it, but tell my story, I remember I was a nervous wreck. [00:13:00] I didn't know what a pitch was. And I was just happy that they accepted my application and, I think we had to pay for our own hotel, which was fine, but they flew us out. I hang with a cousin that was in town, and so I didn't have no cost, no overhead. And I remember going to this pitch competition and there was a young man. And he was just like, oh, I do this every month, every week I go around and I pitch, and I never start any of these businesses. And I was like, what? But I have a valid business. I have a business that needs funding right now. And you do this as a hobby. And that's when that world of pitching, like just, I started to do research and I saw like how many competitions there were and there are literally people that take advantage of this, but never start the business.

[00:14:00] Cuz essentially what you're doing is you're pitching your idea. It could be an idea, it could be a business to a panel of people that will invest in you. And even some of them you walk away with absolutely nothing. Some of them, you may come in third, you may come in first, but when he said that, it just made me so much more determined to win because I knew I actually had a business that needed to be funded. And so I started to work on my story, and I didn't overthink it. I was like, my story is unique. I was a regular mom at home. With my daughter going through an issue that any parent is gonna go through. The difference with me at the time was I took action. I decided to execute on that idea, and so I went and I pitched that story and that was my truth, right? That was my truth. I pitched it. We came in second. That was my first competition. I came in second and I was like, whoa, I don't have to pay you back. This is crazy. And then from there, I started to just enter pitch competitions, [00:15:00] and I wanna say this, sometimes we think our pitch story has to be dramatic, it has to be sad, it has to be some type of trauma involved. It could be so simple as I was nursing my baby and she was teething, and I needed a solution. I went out there and do it. I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured it out. And look at where we are today. And because of where we are today, now I want to make that idea and that vision even greater, and I would love your investment. See, I just pitched y'all. I just pitched y'all.

[00:15:35] Andrea: Do you have any advice for anyone who's thinking of pitching for grant money?

[00:15:40] Detara: If you're pitching, be very clear on what you're gonna use the money for. Don't show up to a $10,000 pitch and say, I'm gonna use the money just for inventory. Today, that's not enough. What impact are you gonna make once you get that funding? It can't just be: I'm gonna generate revenue for myself to pay myself like it has to make a greater impact [00:16:00] on the people around you, whether it's your employees, whether it's your first hire you wanna make. So being very, very clear in what you're gonna use the funding for is so, so crucial and a lot of entrepreneurs miss that key part of pitching.

[00:16:18] HOST: So we've talked about bootstrapping, loans, and pitching for grant money. But I'm sure right now you have one - or a couple - questions on your mind: Where do I start? As a small business owner in the early stages, how do I know which to consider first? Detara’s story is a little bit about trial and error and seeing what fits. What’s right for you.

[00:16:39] Detara: It took me eight years to even consider venture capital. And fundraising and all those things. It took me eight years because one, that wasn't my world. I wasn't in that world. I didn't really start paying attention to it until I started to see the reports of black women not being funded. And I was curious like, what does that mean? [00:17:00] Should I be seeking funding? Because then it becomes appealing like all my friends are doing it. But then having those real conversations with them and asking them questions that matter to me. So if you're listening to this, start asking around the questions that matter to you as a small business: is your goal to exit your company. Cause that's one major thing that a small business, we don't talk about exiting our company. We think we're gonna be there forever, when in reality, you may wanna exit your company in three to five years. So in order to do that, you may need to just scale, a little bit faster and venture capital may be the route for you. I've heard entrepreneurs say. I don't want to exit my company, but I wanna scale really fast to go compete with those companies, so in order to do that, I can't keep using my cash flow. I can’t keep running my business like this. And there are business like, well, I could just go get a loan cuz that's like, I have a mom-and-pop shop and I wanna keep running in that way and I wanna go to my local bank [00:18:00] and get a small business loan for $5,000 and that's gonna buy me my supplies and I'm gonna be able to be fine. So it really comes down to what your end goal is.

So, just do your research, look into your own companies, look on your numbers. Before you even start raising grants, look at your numbers. Are you profitable? Are you making money? Do you even need to be raising capital? Cause even though we're having this conversation, some businesses are pretty healthy, and their profit line is just remarkable. So look at your numbers. Have those hard conversations with your accountant. Ask them, well, if I can get investment for $10,000 non-equity or $5,000, what impact would that have on my business in the next three to six months? Have those hard conversations. Get the answers. If you're not sure, find a mentor. There are so many people that is deep into the financial world and they literally love talking about money, and they will talk about it with anybody that wants to listen. [00:19:00] There's also predatory competition out there as well. So look for those. If you're looking for non-equity, make sure you read the fine prints that they're not trying to take any equity. Ask questions. If you win a competition, ask what the payment terms are. Make sure you're prepared to be paid. In order for these entities to pay you, you have to have a legit business bank account, they're not gonna cash app you the money, they're not gonna PayPal you the money, again, it's a tax write off, so you have to have a business account. I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs win competitions and they're not able to get paid cuz their business is not legally set up. So just make sure everything is okay legally on your end as well cuz it goes both ways.

And I'm gonna plug Amazon. So, when we started on Amazon, we made around like $10,000 the first month. Crazy. We were just like, what? And we started to grow so fast that Amazon was like, [00:20:00] they had just started their small business loan. So, they sent us a letter and they're like, we can give you $10,000, And all we're gonna do is the money that you make on Amazon, we're just gonna take a small percentage of that every month. Game changer. Game changer cuz what? We were guaranteed to make money cuz our products was flying off Amazon so fast. And two, we were able to get that, like they literally deposited that money y'all in 24 hours, like right to our bank account. I was able to make that purchase order and I was able to pay that back in like three months. And then they kept sending bigger amounts, so it went from $10,000 to, here's 20, here's $50,000. That was our first, like loan that we got from before, even the banks, that was our first loan. And we still get those offers today. Like, hey girl, you want some cash? You want some cash to like get your inventory? Again, read those terms, make sure you could pay it back [00:21:00] on time and make sure those interests are not going to eat you up or your profits daily where you can't make payroll or you know, just simple things like that.

[00:21:12] Andrea: Detara, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business.

[00:21:16] Detara: Thank you for having me.

[00:21:20] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Detara Williams -- co-founder of Darlyng and Co. You can find out more about her company in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Detara gave us so many approaches to funding your business and of course one of her favorites was pitching for grant money. She was so passionate and confident in her story and that led her to winning grant money that played a significant role in the journey of scaling her small business. So, it’s worth thinking about how you tell your story, because that comes to play not only in how you fund your business, but also in your company culture [00:22:00] and what you transmit to your customers, as we’ve learned throughout This is Small Business.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold in the Amazon store come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Darlyng and Co. is one of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. Learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

Also, if you’re curious to learn more about the Amazon lending program that Detara mentioned: Amazon Lending provides business financing for eligible U.S. small and medium-sized businesses, with a simple application and no lengthy paper work. Sellers on Amazon can access capital in a matter of days. That way, you can get your business goals… financed. To learn more, you can also visit our show notes on our website: thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

[00:23:00] My next guest is Kerry Hannon, a senior columnist and on-air expert at Yahoo Finance. She's written over a dozen best-selling and award-winning books on career management, entrepreneurship, personal finance, and retirement. I'm excited for you to meet her.

[00:23:18] Kerry: I'm sort of a workplace futurist and I look at entrepreneurship and small business. I write about retirement as well in personal finance. All kinds of money related things. And I've written 14 books, and one of those books is Never Too Old to Get Rich, and it's all about entrepreneurship at midlife. So I really got into that whole idea of entrepreneurship and I, I'm fascinated by it. I also wrote a book called What's Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job. And in that book, I spent three and a half years traveling around the country and meeting people who had done something for maybe 20 or 30 years and shifted to do something completely different. [00:24:00] Most of them were entrepreneurs and I was just incredibly inspiring. And, you know, I realized that it's so much of our souls that we want to be, our own bosses, right? We like to have the autonomy and the opportunity to kind of do work with meaning and purpose, and a lot of that comes from doing our own businesses. And I'll, I'll finally say that I grew up in a small business, so I, you know, we talked about business around the dinner table and the breakfast table and all kinds of things. So, you know, it's really close to my heart.

[00:24:30] HOST: This the part where I started fangirling because Kerry's book What's Next sits right here in my bookshelf. It was gifted to me when I was completely lost and had no idea what I wanted to do next and luckily, it led me to podcasting. Anyway, I'll try my best to contain myself.

[00:24:48] Andrea: Kerry, what are some ways you can fund your business?

[00:24:51] Kerry: So before you start clawing around to find the money, let's start right with you. You've got to do a budget, right? Ah, roll your eyes. Nobody wants to do a budget, [00:25:00] but you have got to figure out what you've got coming in, what you have going out. Where can you get lean and mean? Can you pay down some credit card debt? Get yourself in a place where you can be nimble because money. All of the entrepreneurs I've interviewed, money is the biggest stumbling block. I mean, debt is a dream killer. We all know that. And so if you can get financially fit, that's gonna give you the opportunity to really be nimble.

Okay. The second piece, you have got to think about what are your personal resources, the number one way people fund their business, is personal savings. You know, there's all this romantic idea that you're gonna get angel investing and all these people are gonna come scampering over to give you some money to launch your business. Well, they might say, great, and pat you on the head, but frankly, a lot of it is gonna come from within. So you really need to think about what your resources are and that you're not going to dip too much into your own financial security so that you're not risking it all. But number one is gonna be personal savings.

Number two is, okay, your friends and family, they love you. [00:26:00] They absolutely love you and so if you have a great idea and you're enthusiastic and they have the opportunity, they have the wherewithal, they'll help you out. But you got to

be sure that you structure this, don't make this a loosey goosey kind of arrangement. You want to actually have it down on paper, that you're gonna pay them back with interest in a certain time period. And this way it can be a low, low interest rate. It doesn't have to be a huge amount, but it keeps you accountable and it makes them feel that they are not being taken advantage of in some way.

Obviously, the next simple thing is crowdfunding, right? We all know those platforms are out there and that's one way to do it. You develop your fans that way. Your devotees, people who think you're fantastic and they wanna be part of startup, they wanna help you. And you know, you might have some reciprocal thing that you give them some goods and services in return for them funding in this method. There's another kind of crowdfunding that's called equity crowdfunding [00:27:00] that's a little more nuanced and it's getting more attention. These are people who can invest small amounts in your business. It can be a hundred dollars, but these people, they bring these investors together for you under an umbrella. They do expect to be repaid. But it's a stretched-out period.

Bank loans are your next thing. Right? And today interest rates are kind of bumping up. It's a little crazy out there. I'm not sure it's the best way, but the small business administration is the place to go to. You know, they have all the resources of people that do SBA backed funding. You've gotta have a pretty solid business plan and most people are gonna want, uh, you to have some skin in the game that you've shown that you've invested in your own business. Some people top home equity loans, not a bad idea. If, if you can get a low interest rate in today's world, again, maybe not the best, uh, strategy, but I, if you have equity built up in your home, it is a possibility.

The ones I tell people not to do and not everybody listens to me is, try not to tap your retirement funds. [00:28:00] You're kind of jeopardizing your future in the long run. So I'm not a big fan of that. There are ways to do it, and if you're responsible, you can get in and out and repay it.

[00:28:10] HOST: To recap on what Kerry mentioned. She talked about self-funding, in other words, bootstrapping, or tapping family and friends, and making sure you also put everything down on paper, even if it’s a family and friends loan. Then she talked about crowdfunding as a way of making fans part of your business journey. She also mentioned loans but making sure you pay close attention to interest rates, just like Detara mentioned. She also suggested against taping into retirement funds. So that was a lot, but let’s focus on bootstrapping, loans, and grants for now.

[00:28:46] Andrea: Kerry, what considerations should be made when bootstrapping?

[00:28:50] Kerry: If you're gonna be self-financing this, you need to be very rigorous about how you're going about this. And be sure that you have money set aside. [00:29:00] You know, I like to tell people, if you have this idea that you wanna start something, give yourself some runway. I mean, if you have two or three years. And I know that sounds like a lot, but to really like start, you know, making sure you have savings set aside that you can tap easily, that you don't jeopardize being able to not pay your bills and, so forth. And start in baby steps. You don't have to jump in with $10,000 or something. You can start in small stages, and I think that's the way to really think about, change your mindset that yes, you have this big audacious dream; you're gonna get there. Break it down in pieces. The other beautiful thing about starting the business is in today's marketplace, you don't have to necessarily go it alone running. You can have a virtual workforce, so you don't necessarily have to be hiring people. You can, you know, have someone come in and, you know, helicopter in and help you with bookkeeping once a month.

[00:30:00] But these don't have to be big expenditures, you know, you need to really do your business plan and think it through about where, what's the minimal amount you need to really start launching your business? And a lot of people do launch as side gigs, right? While they're working their main job. And this is a great way to actually do it because you're not pressured to make it grow too quickly and you can just let it grow organically on the side while you're earning a steady income to make sure you can pay those monthly bills.

[00:30:28] Andrea: You mentioned the importance of having a crisp business plan and making sure you have that budgeting plan done. Are there specific things you should look out for when creating that budget or business plan when it comes to funding and money in the long term?

[00:30:44] Kerry: When you're really putting together your financial package, you need to have a really good credit score. And that means that you've shown that you pay your bills on time, that you don't have too much debt already. These are things that you can structure, so now this will help you get a business credit card if you need one. [00:31:00] This will help you get funding or a loan if you do need one. It’s very important to have that sort of clean bill of financial health before you

launch into anything, so you're not distracted by other expenses that are gonna take away from what your business demands. I think probably the most important thing though, is not to try to grow too fast, to go in baby steps and so that you're not spending above your head and that's so hard to do because we get so enthusiastic and excited about our business. But if you can do some pre-selling of things, that really helps you start bringing in cash flow, even before you've officially launched your business. You might wanna even continue to be consulting, so you want your business to be the main, your main focus. But that doesn't mean you can't be earning some money on the side that can help cushion you.

[00:31:48] Andrea: Okay, so let's move on to what I assume is a lot of people’s favorite funding option: grants.

[00:31:55] Kerry: That's a good way to get started, it's a wonderful source. And it's not money you have to repay. Look around, in your community, [00:32:00] your Chamber of Commerce, even your Rotary. But again, the virtual world has exploded. So it doesn't necessarily have to be somebody in your back door that has a grant program for you. But you know, this is the time. If you wanna grant, it's kind of a rigorous process for the most part because these can be very competitive. But if you are willing to put the time in to do that and really write a strong proposal and identify why you, why this product or service and why now? If you don't wanna be the writer of this grant, there are many people who write grants as a source of income. And they know the little wiggles to get you through this process.

[00:32:43] HOST: For some reason hiring someone else to write a grant proposal for a small business never occurred to me. But it does make sense to leave it to the experts, plus it allows you to focus on other important things. But for those of you who do want to take on that grant proposal…

[00:33:00] Kerry: …the whole process actually can be super beneficial to you as a business cuz it forces you to think about some of these questions: how does it impact the world around us? What is your business gonna look like? Who's it gonna help? You know, they wanna be making an impact on the world. So often that's what you need to get that into your secret sauce of that message.

[00:33:20] Andrea: So now that you're ready to take on grants and possibly got over the fear of writing a grant proposal. Let's face another fear inducing way of funding your business: Loans.

[00:33:32] Kerry: Nobody wants that, but it's okay. Sometimes it is the right thing to do. I don't put it as my number one step for getting money. As I said, with interest rates these days it's kind of a tricky environment. So, I personally think you wouldn't wanna go too long range of a loan. The other thing is to talk to other people in your industry that you're launching into and see if there are any financial lenders or financial institutions that really are aligned with your industry, [00:34:00] that they tend to be more receptive to businesses in this certain industry. They understand it.

[00:34:06] HOST: By the way, Small Business Association, also known as SBA, is a great resource that comes up again and again whenever we talk about funding your small business. SBA offers pro bono work for lawyers, finance teams, and they'll help set you up in a way that will help you succeed in the future.

[00:34:23] Andrea: Is there anything else you would like to say?

[00:34:25] Kerry: I think a small business is the actual engine of this country. I mean, it is essential from an economic standpoint. You know, we pay taxes, we contribute to the economy in a way that is amazing. And there is that realization that's out there. And so I think it's don't be daunted by it, but also this is, you have to be sharper than ever about how you use your resources. Don't jump in with some huge audacious goal. Have that out here. But start with the practical and go from there.

[00:34:57] HOST: That was Kerry Hannon, a senior columnist and on-air expert at Yahoo Finance. Thank you for listening today -- [00:35:00] I have so many different funding opportunities listed down in my playbook and the idea of getting funding seems a little less daunting. As always, some of the key takeaways I learned today with Detara and Kerry are:

First things first, you should probably start by creating a budget. This will help you determine what’s coming in and what’s going out. And then you can also figure out the minimal amount of money you need to really start launching your business. Because as Kerry mentioned, it’s best to start slow and make sure you set yourself up for success before starting your business. And I know, that's definitely easier said than done - but there are resources out there to help you like the Small Business Administration.
Bootstrapping: is a good place to start. Funding it yourself. Once starting, Detara mentioned that they didn’t pay themselves as founders at first, but she thinks that you should try. She mentioned putting aside some money for yourself as a way to continue motivating yourself. [00:36:00] Along the lines of bootstrapping is getting money from friends and family. Kerry says this is also something to consider at the beginning but making sure that any agreement is in paper so that it’s not a loosey goosey arrangement. This is so you can keep yourself accountable.
Loans: before considering any, do your research. Ask questions. Read the fine print. Consult with a lawyer. An important question to ask is: what’s the interest rate? Kerry suggested looking into resources offered by the Small Business administration.
Grants: Detara’s journey to pitching for grants has so far been successful because she is able to tell her story in a way that transmits her passion and belief in the brand. The great thing about grants is that there are opportunities for investment that don’t require paying anything back. Detara suggests that when pitching for grants, it’s important that you’re clear [00:37:00] on what you will be using the money for AND you need to have a business bank account and all of your legalities in order so that the grant money can be deposited.

I think we learned that you don’t need to grow too fast. And ask yourself questions along your journey to make sure you're doing the best thing for you and your company. Detara’s choice to continue getting funding through pitching because she felt like venture capital wasn't gonna work for her is a great example of making sure you're doing what’s right for you.

I'm curious -- what approach are you going to take to fund YOUR small business? Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

That's it for episode 3 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Remember -- you get to hear me talk about businesses every week now. [00:38:00] Every other week we'll be bringing you short, straight-to-the-point business lessons in the form of This is Small Business Minisodes.

On our next episode we'll continue our conversation about money and dive into taking on investors and raising capital with Allen Lau, Co-Founder and former CEO of Wattpad and Executive Advisor to WEBTOON Wattpad.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:38:48]

Ep 14: Top 3 small business mistakes to avoid

Learn what business mistakes you should avoid.

[00:00:00] Christina: There's a lot of different ways that you can think about mistakes. Sometimes you have to do something the wrong way, and that's what tells you, there's a right way.

[00:00:10] Andrea: I love that. Let’s reframe the way we see mistakes, right? So, after all, it really comes down to what a mistake means to you, right? They can be areas of opportunity or important lessons to carry with you throughout your journey and sometimes the only way to learn something is by making a mistake. And that’s just part of the entrepreneurial journey. But even with all that in mind, some mistakes can be avoided if you borrowed someone else’s learning or if you would’ve done more research. I’m excited to talk about some of the most common mistakes you’ve seen.

[00:00:43] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is the first of many shorter episodes of our series called This is Small Business Minisodes. We know you don’t always have time to listen to longer episodes so these are packed with helpful information in 10-15-minutes.

[00:01:00] On this episode we talk about the top three small business mistakes that early-stage entrepreneurs make. I’m speaking to Christina Wallace. She’s currently a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, where she teaches entrepreneurship and marketing.

[00:01:18] Christina: The first one is you don't have to do everything yourself. Build a bench. And this one is hard because I think a lot of small business owners, they like doing a lot of different things and they also have their eye on the bottom line. It's cheaper to do it all themselves. But you do this and you can burn out, which is not helpful to the business in the long run. But also, you're not an expert at everything. Maybe you shouldn't be the one doing the tax return. Maybe you shouldn't be the one negotiating those deals or thinking through that operational complexity.

This one, this one is so hard. I absolutely suffer from this one. People who are creative and, entrepreneurial, [00:02:00] they're interested in kind of, tinkering and learning on the job, right? A lot of this is what makes us want to be small business owners, and yet burnout is real. And if you have everything sitting on your shoulders, it's called a key man risk part in the gendered nature of that phrase. But it can't be all on you. Another way that we phrase this as the hit by the bus test, if you get hit by the bus, as gnarly as that might sound, will your business survive? And if the answer is no, that's a huge risk in your business. You don't want the answer to be no, right? You want to have something in place that can survive you.

A couple of tactics here. Hire slowly. But as you hire, look for employees that have an owner's mindset. I know it can be scary to bring other people into your business because they're not gonna care about it as much as you will. That's just a fact. But there are absolutely [00:03:00] people out there who have an ownership mindset, who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and you can evaluate them and compensate them, incentivize them. Along those lines, you can think about giving them a small piece of equity or giving them bonuses at the end of the year based on the success of your firm. So that they have the bigger picture as part of their motivation. And not just what am I being paid for? What's on my job description? So, hire slowly, grow your employees, incentivize them accordingly.

And lastly, surround yourself with good advice. So one of the things that small business owners often suffer from is you may not have a board of directors, you may not have folks that you are turning to on a regular basis to help you dig into those issues or to hold you accountable for some of the goals that you're setting. So how can you create almost like a synthetic board of directors? You're mutually invested in each other's success, [00:04:00] but you bring to the table different skills, different networks and you are dedicated to helping each other succeed.

[00:04:09] Andrea: You mentioned something that resonated with me and probably with every small business owner, which was, it's really hard to get people to care as much as you do, and that ends up making you feel like you have to take everything on, on your own, but that doesn't have to be the case. So, let's move on to the second mistake.

[00:04:32] Christina: The second big problem that I see, over and over again, is just about managing cash flow. Cash is king, right? Revenue is great, profit is better, but cash is what's gonna make the difference about whether you stay in business or not. So especially if you are in the position to grow you keep your eye on the cash flow forecast and don't grow out of business. If you're thinking about what's my revenue for the year, or what's the profitability, whether it's on a unit basis [00:05:00] or across an entire business line, that is ultimately, that's the money that we get to keep and feel like we've been compensated for the risk we've taken, the effort we've undergone. But you can run out of cash in what is otherwise a very profitable business. So things like a business that has extreme seasonality where you might get all of your revenue in a part of the year but you have systems or people, or expenses that run the full year long.

Also situations where you might have a long time before you get paid by customers. If you're in a business that sells to other businesses quite frequently, you might have payment terms that are sixty, ninety, a hundred and twenty days. So you're performing the work you have to pay employees for having done the work. But you're not getting paid for a couple of months. So even though on a net basis it's a really great business, in the short term, how are you gonna pay rent? [00:06:00] How are you gonna make payroll? So keeping an eye on cash is going to be the most important lever. Otherwise grow out of business for what is otherwise a successful business.

[00:6:11] Andrea: And what are some ways that a business can manage their cash right?

[00:6:14] Christina: So a couple of key ways to do this. Number one, put liquidity in place before you need it. So think about things like a revolver or a line of credit at a bank. You can go out and get even just a really, bare bones and unsexy, loan from your small bank, that just provides you a little bit of that cash cushion to prevent those crunches. Second, you wanna keep an eye on any lumpy cash flow throughout your year. So, this is hugely dependent on whatever business you're in the industry, the geography, so many moving pieces. But you will know best if you are gonna have lumpy cash throughout the year. Or if it's pretty consistent month over month. So, you wanna have visibility, you don't wanna be surprised by [00:07:00] this cash flow situation.

And then lastly, be creative. So if you're in a business that gets paid 3, 4, 5 months later from your customers, maybe go and try to negotiate something a little better. Talk to them, especially if you are smaller and they're a big company, they might have standard terms, but you can say, look, we're a great partner, but we're gonna go outta business if you keep insisting on these terms. Do you have flexibility? So just really thoughtful ways to say, I don't have to accept the cash flow as it is. I can make the cash flow be what I need it to be, and be proactive about.

[00:07:38] Andrea: Let’s jump into the last mistake to look out for.

[00:07:41] Christina: And then the last one is really about premature scale. So, particularly if you think you've got a great idea, you're excited about what you've built, you are wanting to grow. The next big question is, okay, what next? How do we scale this? And the problem there is that if you haven't [00:08:00] really figured out all of the pieces of the business model that fit together, you haven't put the right resources in place and the right systems in place, you might scale something that's broken. And, fixing a scaled problem is way more expensive and hard than fixing a small problem.

So everyone is motivated by this idea of growth, right? That all of your friends, your neighbors, your spouse is like, you have a great thing going. When are you opening the next location? When are you expanding? And that's great. That ambition, that vision is amazing. But before you scale, you wanna be super clear on the usually one to three metrics that drive your business. What are those things that actually are the engine of what makes you money? You wanna be super clear on that because that is what you're gonna keep your eyes laser focused on as you grow this business and [00:09:00] you wanna be sure you have the resources in place, the team, that bench, the capital, that cash flow, you wanna have those resources in place before you start out deciding you're gonna go sign a lease for that location or you're gonna go and add that new product line.

And then the last one, which I think is just as important as the first two is be sure you want to scale. Not everyone wants to build an empire and that's okay. There's a lot to be said for having a modest, profitable, really, wonderful business that might be able to empower you to have all the other pieces of your life that make you happy. So, growth and scale for the purposes of being able to say, you are growing, you are scaling. It's not always the right choice. So make sure you know what you want.

[00:09:49] Andrea: That was serial entrepreneur and Harvard Senior Lecturer Christina Wallace giving us a Harvard level crash course in business. If you didn’t take notes, not to worry, because here are Christina’s top three [00:10:00] mistakes to look out for if you’re starting out:

Build a bench. I know it’s difficult when you’re a small business and especially if you’re a creative, but you don’t need to do everything on your own. Like Christina mentioned, if the business can’t run without you, then that’s a huge risk. So surround yourself with good advice and maybe you could try to slowly hire people who also have an owner’s mindset and incentivize them.
Manage your cash flow. Even profitable businesses can run out of cash especially those that get all their profits in a part of the year or that have to wait a long time before getting paid. So make sure you keep an eye on your cash flow, put liquidity in place before you need it and try to get creative with your solutions: maybe you could negotiate or get a deposit upfront. Just make sure you're being proactive about it.
Premature scale. Make sure that you have the right resources in place before you scale because fixing a scaled problem [00:11:00] is gonna be a lot more expensive than fixing a small one. And even though scaling and growth is great, it’s not for everyone and that’s okay. Don’t feel pressured to grow if you don’t want to.

That's it for episode 2 of season 2 of This is Small Business, and the first of our This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. On the next episode, we'll be talking about a topic that keeps coming up: finding money. We'll be going into detail about bootstrapping, loans, and the often fear-inducing grants.

Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, please subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we want to know what you think. So, leave us a review on Apple podcasts – it’s easier to do it on your phone. OR email us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, [00:12:00] with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:12:12]

Ep 13: Justin tackles the top 3 steps to start a business

Learn about starting your business.

[00:00:02] Justin: I would just want to encourage entrepreneurs because this is a hard, this is a hard role of being a founder, of being a CEO, and it’s, it's the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Right. And I used to get tackled by 300-pound men every Sunday.

[00:00:25] HOST: Welcome back to the second season of This is Small Business – now a weekly podcast, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host Andrea Marquez -- and your guide to the world of small business insights you'll get when you listen to this show...which is kind of funny --because actually -- I'm not a small business owner. But I do come from a long line of people who own and operate small businesses -- and right now -- like you -- I'm on a learning journey to find out what it takes to make a small business succeed. And who knows? -- Maybe one day I'll start a small business of my own.

Ok, so for Season 2 [00:01:00] -- we're getting SUPER organized. We're gonna be walking through all the stages of a business life cycle: starting out, finding funding, setting goals, sourcing products, product iteration, and growing a small business. The idea is I want to go along this journey with you, no matter where you are on that journey, either barely starting out or maybe ready for that next step. My conversations with business owners and leading business experts are going to focus on extracting the most valuable and useful information for you that I will distill at the end of every episode.

During our break we had some great feedback from listeners like Ruby89P who said she “was thrilled to listen this podcast as a small business owner, and [that] it helped [her] tremendously! It’s very inspiring to listen to other business owners from different industries! Highly recommend!” Thank you, Ruby89P!

So with that, I can't wait to get started [00:02:00] -- because -- just like you -- I've got a LOT of questions.

Getting your small business idea off the ground can often be a little scary. And if it’s your first small business, you don’t always know what to expect or what first steps to take. What I learned in Season One, is that it's a really good idea to be intentional from the outset. But how do you do that? What are the first few steps you need to take to get your business off the ground? How do you ensure you set up a good business plan that lets your business become an entity that makes money? Coming up -- I'll speak to Serwaa Adjei-Pellé -- a business strategist -- who will walk us through a few pro-tips for getting your small business started.

But first -- I want you to meet Justin Forsett. Justin is a former NFL player, and founder of the company Hustle Clean. They make packaged wipes, created especially for use after a workout when -- you know -- you don't have time for a full shower and you have to be presentable. [00:03:00] Such a simple, great idea!

[00:03:05] Andrea: Justin, thank you so much for being with us today. Tell me about Hustle Clean and how it came to be. What’s your origin story?

[00:03:12] Justin: …the origin story. Hustle Clean is a mission driven self-care brand for the active lifestyle. So we're essentially a line of restorative self-care products to help the everyday athlete with wellness, recovery, and hygiene. It started from a place, that I came from in sports and fitness. I played the NFL for nine years. I was a pro bowl running back for the Baltimore Ravens. I was around and in locker rooms throughout my entire life. And within our community, within sports and fitness, we're always pushed to produce results by any means necessary at any cost. Right. We just want results. And with that mindset it really caused a lot of issues inside the locker room, whether it's bad hygiene habits or burnout, anxiety, stress, depression, and really [00:04:00] there was no self-care or personal care tools or items inside of the locker room in this community, besides a hot tub and a cold tub. And those things were cool, but they, they were really surface level.

So we say, Hey, let's be the solution to that. And we wanted. First attack this problem when a shower is optimum and not possible because we all sweat and we're all always on the go and had these dynamic schedules. So we created this disposable washcloth that removes sweat, dirt, and body odor. And it was a great solution. So I just grew the brand essentially as a side hustle because my day job, I was with the Seattle Seahawks playing when I started this company. And I would go to the local shops in Renton, Washington, in Kirkland, Washington. And I would just, after practice, I would say, Hey, if you sell my product in there, I'll make sure I come back. I'll sign, I'll do autograph signings. I would show up at events I like the Seattle Marathon. I would bring players with me like Marshawn Lynch to like sign autographs, take pictures, and just added value so I could get placement within the store. And I was hustling like that for years until I eventually retired [00:05:00] from football in 2017, excuse me, and fully immersed myself in the business as CEO and co-founder, and really started hitting the groove within the business and started taking off. We got on shows like Shark Tank, Good Morning America, and then started doing more brick-and-mortar retail. But that was the point where we really started to really grow and evolve our brand into providing a full assortment of care to this consumer.

[00:05:25] Andrea: This started as a side hustle and you were able to grow it into something bigger, did you always envision that? Did you think: Once I'm done with the NFL and playing football, this is where I want to go.

[00:05:36] Justin: For sure, for sure. I believe my third year in the NFL, around 2010, I saw, it was a Sports Illustrated article that came out that said 80% of NFL players, two years after they retire are, are either bankrupt, divorced, or depressed. I was like 80%. So eight out of 10 players are in those categories, and I'm like, I don't wanna be in that number. I don't wanna be in that statistic. So started thinking about things that I was good [00:06:00] at, things that I, I loved to do and I was passionate about. And it just let me down the road of entrepreneurship and I felt like if I could build a business, leverage the NFL and the platform that I had, it'll really help me in my transition phase. So that was my goal.

[00:06:13] Andrea: And did you have experience as an entrepreneur before then, or was this your first rodeo?

[00:06:18] Justin: This is my first rodeo. My parents were entrepreneurs. They were in the restaurant game. We had a barbecue restaurant so I saw the work ethic, I saw the grind, I saw the discipline and the commitment, and you know, it really kind of laid the groundwork for me in becoming an entrepreneur and reason why I wanted to leap right in.

[00:06:35] Andrea: Thank you for sharing your background. So I want to dive deep into starting a small business. Hustle Clean exists because you saw a problem that you wanted to solve, and the unique opportunity to solve it, given your background. It was a side hustle and now it's your journey and it's part of your legacy. So how does one start? That's what I want to dive into today. Because it can be overwhelming to think about many things at once, so, [00:07:00] I want to start with your big three. Can you tell me the top three things that someone who already has an idea should consider before they even think about raising capital for their business.

[00:07:13] Justin: I would say one, you have to really nail down your why. Like, why are you really trying to start a business? Why do you want to come into this space of entrepreneurship? Because everybody thinks they are cut out to be a founder, but most businesses don't make it, right. It is very difficult. It is time intensive. So a lot of times people get in here because when I wanna make a lot of money, I wanna be able to make my own schedule, you know, make my own terms. And I don't wanna answer to anybody. And all those things are, you know, really cool and seem really amazing from the outside looking in. But entrepreneurship is a team sport. Right. So you're always gonna be working with people and you're gonna have to communicate with others, and you're probably serving somebody. You gotta have, in order to have a business, you gotta have customers. So you answer to your customers, [00:08:00] like, so your why is gonna be important because you're gonna have a lot of difficult conversations, a lot of difficult decisions to make, and it's gonna be very trying at times and you're gonna question why you're doing what you're doing.

[00:08:12] Andrea: Once we have that why down. We know why Hustle Clean exists. We know where it comes from and the problem that exists and what we're trying to solve for. What comes next?

[00:08:21] Justin: The second step when you have an idea, you kind of know your why, this is a step that a lot of people skip over, but I think it's important to have your house in order. As an entrepreneur and as a business. When you first start out, before we talk about raising capital and with having your house in order, I mean, your legal. Right, your operating agreement like in place, and especially if you have, co-founders, uh within your business, so I think that's, that's a big point that businesses skip out on because it's all, it's you in a honeymoon phase when you first start your business, everything is, going right and you're excited about the idea and the opportunity ahead of you, [00:09:00] and you forget that stuff because some people change over time, right? There's feelings that change with the business perspectives that change, and you gotta be able to adapt, and you need necessary steps in place to have smooth transitions when that does happen in life. Like if somebody was like, I don't wanna do this anymore. You gotta have some legal paperwork behind it. So you work with your lawyer, somebody that focuses on the business, somebody on this business space. You know, if it's consumer package goods, find you someone that really understands it, kind of understands the law of the land within whatever state you in, wherever, you've kinda established business and lay it out there. That's what, that's what I would say is number two.

[00:09:37] Andrea: Okay, so we have the why, and the legalities in place. These are very important as they’ve been mentioned a lot in past episodes of the show. What would be that next step after legal considerations, in your opinion?

[00:09:50] Justin: I would say having a sound business plan. And that I think encompasses of a lot of things. Cuz we need to make money at the end of the day. Before thinking about raising capital, [00:10:00] how can we make this business an entity that is, it is making money and has cash flow. So I think about are you gonna do the research? To write to see how big your industry is. Are you going to have points of distribution? What are your main channels for sales? And do you understand your customer and their habits and their behaviors and where they're gonna purchase for you. So having that sound business plan or how you're gonna make money, how you're gonna pay yourself and, and your team is gonna be crucial.

[00:10:27] Andrea: I want to tackle this one first. Because “Business Plan” can mean different things to different people. What do you think should be the first questions to ask when preparing it?

[00:10:36] Justin: Who's gonna buy this? Who's the customer? Who are we trying to serve? Because everything in your business should be built around the customer. You have to be obsessed and extremely focused on the customer. So when you talk about the business plan, like you want to be able to build something, where you're gonna be able to authentically show up in places that your customer is going to purchase. You wanna be able to send messaging to them and create a go to market strategy in which you [00:11:00] know that your customer is going to relate to, that they understand and that it resonates with them on emotional standpoint, not just a transactional standpoint.

Those are some of the early questions, but then: how big is this group of people? What's the, what's the actual, size of the pie? Right? Is this like a really small lifestyle business where you're not gonna really need a bunch of funding in order to get this thing off the ground and to really establish it? Or is this something where this is a billion-dollar opportunity and you're gonna need like, you know, maybe VC capital to come in, someone to, to lead around. You're gonna have to start a series. You start thinking about, okay, I'm gonna have to have a seed. I'm gonna have to go series A, series B, or what have you. You start thinking about, what does it look like? What kind of business do I want to run? Am I looking for an acquisition? Those are things that you have to start thinking about. I don't think you should obsess about it because you actually gotta do the work and it's about execution. And when people ask me like, what do you want for the outcome of your business? I really want options, right? [00:12:00] But there's certain things that you're gonna have to do in order to build a, a business that is worth acquiring if that is something that you are looking for, right. So you should be thinking about a couple of those things that I just mentioned in your business plan.

[00:12:15] Andrea: And it’s all new language for a first-time small business owner.

[00:12:18] Justin: I mean, I feel like you have to think about these things because it changes the way you operate in your business. If I had a fourth step, the fourth step would be creating a huddle. And what I mean by that, and it's a football analogy, I'm the football player. Creating a huddle is like, you gotta get a group of people in your business to help you, like mentors, advisors that are gonna pour into you, that are gonna help you on your journey and really establish your identity as a brand. And help you miss some of the pitfalls that you can't see yet, right? Because you're so young, you don't understand everything, so you're still learning, growing. So you gotta have coaches in your life.

[00:12:54] Andrea: I am all for the analogies, by the way. So keep them coming!

[00:12:58] Justin: When I was in a huddle with Peyton Manning, [00:13:00] I played with Payton Manning for uh my rookie year, and I was in Indianapolis with the Colts. He would gimme three things in every huddle. He would gimme warning, he would gimme encouragement, and he would give me instruction. Every single huddle he would give me that thing. And that was applicable, not only to a football field and having a huddle in that experience, but also in business. Like you gotta have warning, encouragement and instruction along the way.

And I reached out to people that were in the industry to really help me to think about, okay, what should I be thinking about right now? How can I grow? As a, as entrepreneur, how can I evade some of the, the missteps that commonly happen within my space and my industry? So when I did that early on within my business and talking to other entrepreneurs and other people in my space, they kind of helped guide me to my thought process and thinking like, okay, at some point, you're gonna need to make money because your industry requires a lot of cash flow, right? I started think about, okay, the industry that I am is gonna require a little more capital. So I have to put ourselves in a position where we look at least enticing to early-stage investors.

[00:14:00] Andrea: Are there any things that you wish you would've done differently that you have learned from and would offer as advice to entrepreneurs starting out?

[00:14:07] Justin: I would say a couple things. One: values are important. You have to have core values which your company stands on, and it's important not only for you internally, but when you bring people in, right? So you know what you're looking for because again, entrepreneurship is not a, is not an individual sport, like it is a team sport. But if you don't have an identity and you don't have values in place, it's really hard to really know what to bring into your team and when you're building your team and building a huddle in order to help you execute.

And early on, if I'm honest with myself, we didn't have those core values in place. And like what we actually stand on: what are things, what are non-negotiables within our company in which we do not tolerate at all? Right. What are things that we champion within the, within our company, even at a small stage. Because what we got into, even as a, as a company, Early was just like we, [00:15:00] we weren't in a place where we were having just like real authentic conflict that is healthy. I would say healthy conflict because there is some bad conflict that happens within business, but you're facing conflict all the time and you need to be able to manage the conflict and you need to be able to embrace conflict.

And if you have core values in place, it'll really guide you on how you operate in hiring people that can really handle these issues or conflicts that pop up. So now as a company, I have a couple pillars. Like you have to be real brave and relentless. Cause that not only reflects us as internal as a company who we are, but also it reflects our customer. And then you have to exude faith, fight, and freedom. Those are things that are non-negotiable within our company. Like, so if, if you wanna be a part of our company, you gotta have that hustler's mindset. Like no excuses. We're not just problem spotters over here, we're problem solvers. So I really, if I could go back, one of the things that I would do would be have those values in place.

And then the other thing would be focus. [00:16:00] Having like laser focus on who your customer is and the opportunity at hand, like be great at something. Don't try to spread yourself too thin. Like early on there were so many opportunities, especially with our hero product. The Hustle Clean disposable washcloth, the body wipe. It was great for campers, hikers, military, athletes, fishermen, uh, flight attendants, all these different categories, and we are like, oh man, the sky's the limit. We're gonna be able to take over the world. Like this is, this is the next thing. Best thing since sliced bread. And when, when you're trying to master all of 'em, you master none of them, right? So you gotta really laser focus on like, what you're trying to do, who you're trying to go after, understand them better, be obsessed with them, and then operate from there. Then once you own that space and own that core customer, then you can start branching out. But I failed at that early on within the business.

[00:16:48] Andrea: What are some of the constant worries you hear from early-stage entrepreneurs, and what do you have to say about them?

[00:16:56] Justin: There's a lot of worry around, the, the instep of funding. [00:17:00] Especially when you think about, you know, I'm speaking, I'm a minority owned founder. I'm a black founder of a consumer package goods company, right, in Hustle Clean. A lot of times, uh, within the sector, whether you're minority, uh, black and brown, women led companies, we're often over mentored and underfunded. So we see a lot of entrepreneurs worrying about, "man, if I build something right, will I have what it takes in order to get the money in order to take me to the next level?" That is one of the things that I'm seeing. Like money is a worry, right? And then you put your, your life savings or you put a lot of sweat equity, um, into and capital into this business and like just worrying about, uh, will you have enough fuel in the tank? And I would say, build something worth investing in. Start small and not necessarily try to go so fast. And I know it's enticing to like go, just like leap all in and say, I'm going to, to leave my current job and I'm gonna go and just like immerse myself [00:18:00] in this business, this startup. And I don't know what's gonna happen. I, I'm, I'm of the belief like, you gotta do what you gotta do till you can do what you want to do. So if that, is that being a side hustle, and you're just like earning some income to help fund your, your business and your dream, your passion, then do that. But just start slow. You're worried about things that are outside of your control, like excel at the things that you can control, right? Your attitude, your effort, your preparation, you know, owning your customer. Those things that you control, focus on those things.

[00:18:30] Andrea: As one of my last questions, you mentioned minority groups being “over mentored and underfunded." In your opinion, what should be done for these small business communities?

[00:18:41] Justin: Right. I wholeheartedly believe that we, we need more, uh, funding within the diverse communities, because it does take money, right? But there's also creative tools out there that we can use, whether it's looking at grant options, whether it's, you know, debt or SBA or you know, even early on of a strategy of ours that we implemented was like, [00:19:00] how can we go to these pitch competitions and win, you know, 10 or $15,000 here and there in order to get money? And so we just gotta be scrappy right until culture or the, until the people that have access to the capital until they catch up.

We just, we figure it out because we have to. Right, there needs to be more of us, uh, there needs to be more representation within these categories and at a broader spectrum. And I feel like. If we can get more people backing that sentiment, get more people that are putting dollars along with mentorship. Because information is important. That is a barrier to, to a lot of folks as well. But we need people that are gonna both do the, the mentoring and doing the funding pouring into these businesses.

And I would just want to encourage entrepreneurs because I would just want to encourage entrepreneurs because this is a hard role of, of being a founder, of being a CEO, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Right. And I used to be tackled by 300-pound men every Sunday. [00:20:00] And this is very, this is, this can be very trying. And, and football can be very detrimental to your outer being, but entrepreneurship can be very, very detrimental to your inner being, right?

We see high levels of anxiety, depression, burnout, um, divorce all those things, right? So I just want to encourage the entrepreneurs out there just to, to love the journey. Don't get caught up in just like the end point of the, the destination, because I don't know if we all ever arrive to the place that we want. Just like try to find fulfillment in what you're doing. Be transparent, be vulnerable, talk to people. Just know: you have value outside of what you're doing, and love the journey.

[00:20:43] Andrea: Justin, thank you so much for your powerful message. And thank you for being on This is Small Business.

[00:20:48] Justin: Thanks for having me.

[00:20:53] MIDPOINT: HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. That was Justin Forsett -- [00:21:00] former NFL player and founder of Hustle Clean. You can find out more about his company in our show notes on our website thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

I think Justin raised some essential points about the things entrepreneurs often forget to focus on when they are just starting out -- and the extra challenges sometimes faced by business owners of minority-led companies. His football analogies were great, too, by the way. I love the idea of creating a "Huddle" -- people who can surround you and your business with support, and give you advice, teachings, and encouragement...

Did you know that more than half of the products sold in the Amazon store come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Hustle Clean is one of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. Learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

[00:22:00] My next guest is someone you DEFINITELY want in your huddle. Serwaa Adjei-Pellé [pron: SAYwah - ah JAY-pel AY] regularly teaches CEOs proven corporate strategies that help them launch, grow and pivot their companies. I'm so excited for you to meet her!

[00:22:14] Serwaa: So my name is Serwaa Adjei-Pellé. I'm a business strategist and also a podcast host. I run the, “She's Off Script” media company where we create resources for small businesses. Prior to doing all this, I worked on Wall Street for almost a decade, where, one of my favorite things was to work on the 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative, where I got my love for working with and mentoring small businesses.

[00:22:40] Andrea: In your time working with small business owners, what are some of the common mistakes you see toward the beginning of their journeys?

[00:22:46] Serwaa: So I would say we get an adrenaline rush from brainstorming, from writing ideas down from dreaming about what could be, and I would say a lot of people who are dreaming about launching businesses get stuck in that dreaming phase. [00:23:00] Because it's so much fun. There's not much risk in dreaming and brainstorming and writing down. There's risk in executing. So I would say that's a first, the first hurdle a lot of small businesses need to get over before they even start a business. But, next, I would say that people need to think about why they're looking to start a business because your why and your passion is going to fuel you.

So whenever people feel like they're ready to go to the next stage and actually select a business idea, I often encourage them to look for the idea that sits at the intersection of their passion and the market need, meaning that they are solving a problem that is actually out there and it's not simply something that they think is gonna be cool, and also at the intersection of their, their expertise. It's something that you are skilled at and can deliver with your eyes closed. Because running a business is difficult and if you are learning as you go, when it's time to actually deliver the solution, [00:24:00] it's gonna make it monumentally more difficult to actually do anything. So it's important that that business idea you finally go with is at the intersection of those three things.

[00:24:09] Andrea: What are the steps you think someone should consider after they've had the idea? After they've settled on their why, but before they're considering finance.

[00:24:18] Serwaa: Finances should come way, way, way down the road. I think definitely don't over invest right away because so much is in flux when you're first starting a business, but after you have your idea, it's important that you create a minimum viable product. And all that means is you need to figure out: how can I put in the least amount of effort in order to deliver a solution that solves a problem for somebody? So, don't go thinking you have to build this $12,000 website when you don't even know how you're going to make money. Step one is figure out how to create your minimum viable product. And there's some sub steps that go under that. You know, as I mentioned, knowing who [00:25:00] you're building this product for, like who's your target audience, and once you do that, it's gonna really influence how you move forward. Once you have that MVP it's important that you let the world see it.

Earlier on, you mentioned, you know, what are some of the things that kind of hinder people who are looking to build businesses from getting to the next step. And part of it is perfectionism. People want to sit in their basements and tweak and tinker until they feel like it's, it's perfect. And unfortunately, when it finally comes to market, when they're finally ready for people to see this perfection they have created, it's crickets. Nobody wants to purchase it. No one wants to buy it because unfortunately, there's a little bit of ego involved there. You don't want your ego to be bruised, but it's very important that you take your MVP out there, let people see what it is that you've built, and people will vote with their wallets. I know we're in a world where social media people hype you. They're telling you, "oh my gosh, it's amazing. I would absolutely buy that." [00:26:00] And then when you put it out there, nobody purchases it. So it's important that you take your MVP step to actually put it out there and allow people to give you their feedback. Sometimes the feedback is nobody purchased.

Sometimes the feedback is people will purchase it and they will return it, or they'll hop on Amazon and you will hear everything that's in the reviews. I love to say when people are in the market research phase to go on sites like Amazon and read the reviews. The three-star reviews are gold because people who have five-star reviews, they are so excited about it, they just write loved it. People who absolutely hated it, and for some reason they just wanna come, you know, spew their vitriol all over you. They're just like, it was terrible and that there's nothing constructive about that. But three-star reviews... as we like to say, they've got time. They're gonna sit there and tell you step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, about you know, what you could have done better. Take the feedback that you receive and use it to iterate, meaning use it to improve upon your product.

[00:27:00] Now, given that you started at a low-cost point, then once you receive purchases, you can reinvest that into improving that minimum viable product. So don't tinker and spend so much money that honestly may or may not pan out. Get it out there, get the feedback, and continue to improve.

[00:27:23] Andrea: What happens if I do go out to market and I realize that no one wants what I have?

[00:27:29] Serwaa: You go back to the drawing board and hopefully you have a sense for why it is no one wanted it. If at the very foundation of whatever you created, it's not solving a problem for someone, and you think it's super cool, then there's an issue there. So you may have to go back to the foundation and figure out if it's really the way you're presenting it. Are you presenting it as something that is a solution to someone's problem? I would say even digging further into the kinds of solutions that that exist, and I think there's a different sense of urgency [00:28:00] that's associated with each of those solutions. So, for example, are you a painkiller? Meaning that it's -- I have a huge headache. It's at the front of my mind. I need a painkiller. So is that the kind of solution you have? Essentially the next one is, is it a vitamin? So is it something that's a nice to have solution? Nice to have, you know? But I could live without it.

[00:28:24] Andrea: I had heard of this before, it's vitamin, painkiller, or cure.

[00:28:30] Serwaa: There you go. So I would say there's a different sort of urgency between a pain killer, and a vitamin, or a cure. So you need to think about the type of solutions that you are offering. And unfortunately, there's just more money in painkillers but there's also a higher barrier to entry, right? Meaning it may take you more research, it may, you may need to be more of an expert, or you may need to spend more money in order to enter the market of the painkiller class of whatever it is that you're trying to build.

[00:29:00] So you kind of have to figure out where are you fitting in as you are building products. But I would say there's always that, inclination to head towards whatever is gonna make you the most money. Unfortunately, if it also doesn't align with your passion, then you are, you're probably gonna dwindle very early or give up very quickly because it's something that you're not passionate about. Or if you're not an expert at it, um, and you're not passionate about it, but there's a lot of money in it, then there's the other problem because the barrier to entry's too high for you. You're gonna have to research every single step, and you may or may not get it right, or you don't have the money to hire the experts who will get it right for you. So you have to be mindful of that three part balance as you're looking to build your business.

[00:29:45] Andrea: Super helpful, and I think that at the end of the day, it connects to the why, right? if it doesn't intersect with your passion, you're gonna get tired. Like that's the midnight oil.

[00:29:54] Serwaa: It does. I would say if you build a business plan before you've done all of these phases that I've, I've just mentioned, [00:30:00] your business plan is just conjecture, it's just guesses. And unfortunately, when you enter the thick of it -- it's blown away and it's gonna be collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, because it was really not based in any fact. It's based in numbers that you researched on the internet. So I would say there are certain situations, for example, if you're looking for a bank loan, they will require a business plan or a business plan from you. They wanna know that you've thought things out, but they're also gonna require that you have some sort of a proven track record of making money or you know how you'll be able to pay them back in the future, right? So that's where your business plan with your projections are gonna come in handy.

But other than that, I like to say there are other ways to map out what it is that you are planning on accomplishing, maybe goals, or targets that you are setting for yourself to keep yourself accountable. But don't procrastinate by over researching. You don't procrastinate by researching [00:31:00] and you know, creating and crafting this 30-page business plan that you're never gonna look into again, and that is not actually gonna influence how you will build your business.

[00:31:08] Andrea: What are some of the top questions you think early-stage entrepreneurs should start considering?

[00:31:13] Serwaa: If you are, are building a company, I, I would say there are a couple directions that people tend to approach it. It's the inside out approach versus the outside in approach. So are you doing things because you as a company believe you know what's best, right? So you're gonna impose what you believe is best on your end consumer or are you taking the outside in approach where you're looking at, you know, the market, you're looking at your end user and you're able to let them know, or you're able to then make decisions based on what they need. So it's imperative, I would say, to be focused on your customer because that could make or break you unless you are Steve Jobs, right? I mean, he created something that, or multiple things [00:32:00] that we did not know that we needed. And for him it was inside out, I'm going to create something. I'm the visionary and I know people are going to want it. So if you believe you are Steve Jobs and you're creating something that is just so visionary that has no, you know, equal out there, absolutely take the inside out approach.

If you're looking to build a business, you will probably start and stop five ideas before you land on your unicorn idea. I don't think anyone gets a hole in one on their very first shot out of the gate. So the way you learn is by doing. And if you are willing to put yourself out there, if you're willing to learn by doing, that's the only way you're gonna be able to see results. So put yourself out there. You might find that you're able to build something that has more impact than you ever imagined.

[00:32:51] Andrea: Serwaa, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It was a pleasure to have you.

[00:32:56] Serwaa: It was great being here. Thank you for having me.

[00:33:00] HOST: That was business strategist Serwaa Adjei-Pellé [pron: SAYwah - ah JAY-pel AY]. She's also the host of the ”Off Script podcast” where they share stories of female entrepreneurship. I hope you got as much out of listening to Serwaa as I did. The idea of "outside in vs inside out" approach to building a business is definitely going in my playbook. Thinking it over -- I'd say Justin Forsett's Hustle Clean takes an Outside In approach -- since he's addressing a NEED for athletes-on-the-go.

I'm curious -- what approach does YOUR small business take? Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you thought of the episode by leaving a review on Apple podcasts – it’s best to do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard – share this episode with anyone else who needs to hear it!

As always, some of the key takeaways I learned today with Justin and Serwaa are:

One of our episode favorites, start with the WHY. [00:34:00] When considering this question, some new ways to look at it presented by Serwaa were to think about how your idea sits at the intersection of your passion, market need, and your skill. Like Hustle Clean, it helps if you think about it from the outside in and know that there’s a problem you’re solving for your customers. A subsection of this thought goes back to thinking if your business is a vitamin (nice to have but not necessary), painkiller (short term fixes), or cure (making problems go away). And since running a business can be hard, it helps if you’re passionate about the idea enough to go through the ups and downs of the journey and that you’re also skilled at whatever it is so the learning part doesn’t have to be so heavy.
When starting out, it’s good to have an operating agreement in place. We’ve talked about in Season One, in episode 7 with Rod Johnson and Naveen Thomas. In the long run, this will help you have the healthiest start to unforeseen circumstances.
[00:35:00] Creating your Minimum Viable Product, BEFORE your Business Plan. Your MVP will allow you to go to market as quickly as you can and gather needed information like… who will actually buy it? Serwaa suggests really paying attention to those three-star reviews to learn about how you can make your product better, or how you fit into your customer’s lives. Which takes us to…
Your Business Plan, once you have some proof of concept with your MVP, then you can strengthen your initial hypothesis for why your product is valuable to your target audience. Do your research and understand who that customer is and how big that group of people is. When you laser focus on your customer, you also remember that you can’t be everything to everyone when starting out, like when Justin mentioned Hustle Clean wanting to be the product for all types of customers instead of being the best product for one type of customer first.
And finally, as an extra point… [00:36:00] find your huddle early on. Those that provide you with warning, encouragement, and instruction early on.

I hope you'll consider me -- and this show -- part of your "huddle" as you continue to play along in this big, messy and exciting entrepreneurial game.

That's it for episode 1 of season 2 of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Remember -- the show's gone weekly now. And also new to the show, every other week we'll be bringing you shorter, punchy episodes in the form of This is Small Business: Minisodes.

So our next episode will be part of the This is Small Business: Minisodes. We’ll be tackling some of the top business mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make with Christina Wallace from the Harvard Business School. If you like what you’ve heard, don’t forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform or leave us a review on Apple podcasts – it’s easier to do it through your phone. OR you can email us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

[00:37:00] Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:37:26]

Ep 12: Season One rewind with Danyel Surrency Jones

Take a look back at key lessons from Season One.

[00:00:01] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. I can hardly believe it -- but we've reached the finale of our first season of This is Small Business. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and grow a small business. If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know… I’m new to this… or maybe I should say I was new to this. Through each episode I have been learning about what it takes to be successful at running a small business. All season long I’ve had fascinating conversations with small business owners and experts – and filing away the key lessons I learn into my “small business playbook”. Today – in honor of our season finale – I want to highlight some of the brightest ideas I’ve heard from some of our season one guests. To help me parse through some of these ideas – I’ve brought on a very special guest.

But before I introduce her, shout out to one of our listeners who said they “enjoy the [00:01:00] small business stories and the expert advice and tips it provides, as a small business owner myself. It sparks some questions and answers they didn’t even know they needed. Easy to listen to and easy to follow. It’s a great podcast for business owners in all stages, highly recommended. It will not disappoint!!!” Thank you so much! That’s why we do what we do on This is Small Business.

[00:01:28] HOST: Danyel Surrency Jones is a proven business strategist with over two decades of executive leadership experience in top Fortune 500 companies and global start-up ventures. In other words, Danyel is no stranger to starting something new. And this definitely isn’t her first rodeo. Danyel's last venture -- POWERHANDZ-- is “a sports and fitness product tech platform, that encourages skill development and human performance through innovative products, technology and services.” In 6 years, [00:02:00] its core athletic training products have been sold to consumers in more than 87 countries, and established a digital footprint with millions of youth and professional athletes, coaches and communities focused on everyday fitness goals. A serious success story and I’m excited for you to meet her!

[00:02:24] ANDREA: Danyel, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today.

[00:02:28] DANYEL: I am excited to be here. Are you kidding? Thank you so much.

[00:02:30] ANDREA: As you know Danyel -- This is a special end-of-season episode. So what I thought we’d do today is this: I’m gonna share with you some of my favorite moments – the most powerful insights that stood out for me this season as I’ve been on a learning journey to understand small business. I’ve grouped these lessons into 3 categories: How to START a business, how to BUILD a business, and how to GROW. I’m hoping you can tell me how each of these moments [00:03:00] resonates with you – and share some relevant examples from your own journey with your company, POWERHANDZ. Or maybe just share some insights from your years of business strategy – whatever comes to mind first. Ready?

[00:03:14] DANYEL: I'm ready.

[00:03:15] ANDREA: So we're going to begin with "how to start a business." And the first episode I’ll look back at is going to be with Young King Hair Care, a company that makes hair care products for young black boys. So when it comes to starting out, one thing I've learned is that it's important to start with the why. Why does your business exist? What gaps are you filling in the market? And a way to do this is by thinking about the customer. You have to understand what their experiences are and why they will give your brand the time. Here's what one of the founders of Young King Hair Care, Stephan Miller, had to say.

[00:03:52] Stefan: It's such a great thing. And I think for the business, you've gotta know that why is stronger than anybody else, right? Like what's why is your motivation? [00:04:00] Why is it impactful to others? Because you've gotta, if you don't know that, then you're just another brand. You might have cool packaging, you know, your product may work, but it's the greatest brands create an emotional connection while still delivering on performance.

[00:04:16] ANDREA: So, Danyel, does this register with you? What does having a strong “why” mean to you?

[00:04:23] DANYEL: Yeah, it registers with me. It's like literally what I think about every day. And the word "why" it's, it's so awesome because that word, right, is so synonymous with living life. It really is your purpose. So when you think about your "why" from a brand perspective, I mean, it should be the compass that really guides you in everything that you do. As a brand, when we're creating and we're ideating, we're breathing our own oxygen and that's cool. But what we're really trying to do is we're trying to create air [00:05:00] that we want everyone else to breathe, and that air is going to change life. It's going to breed something that does cause an emotional connection within your audience and your consumers and within communities. And once you do that, it really has more of a deeper meaning to you and really breeds a deeper meaning for your value card. I believe without a shadow of a doubt, that if you focus on your "why," and you allow that to be your guiding compass, the revenue will absolutely come, right? You know, starting a business is, is hard enough and, and you can get stuck just thinking about the money that you need to have to start the business. And if you can get past that and really say, "would I have any regrets if my idea is set on the shelf, versus lived in the community?" Then I really think that if you can answer that question, [00:06:00] very honestly with yourself and say, you know what, I want my idea to live in the community then definitely you should push forward.

[00:06:10] Secondly, I think that when you think about your brand and your why, I often think about the Dallas Cowboys and I make a joke about it in my home that they haven't won a championship since 1995. However, when you look at the American team, right, that is still the favorite franchise that brings in 7 billion of revenue every year, there is something behind that brand that keeps consumers coming year after year after year. And it is that emotional connection. So that's, that's huge when you think about what you want your "why" to mean to someone else.

[00:06:49] HOST: I enjoy that example, as a Texas girl myself. So what Danyel is saying is that, to get started, it’s important to think about your why because it’s the oil that keeps the engine running. [00:07:00] It’s your NorthStar. And it has to have some depth to it because it’s what will keep you going when things get tough. And customers will connect with that even more as well because they know that there’s meaning and value to what you’re offering.

[00:07:14] ANDREA: In keeping with the "starting your business" trajectory. I've learned that it's a good idea to bring in accounting and legal advice as early as possible to make sure that your plans are viable. And the second episode I want bring up is episode seven where we talk with a lawyer, Naveen Thomas, who's the director of the Business Transactions Clinic at the NYU School of Law. Here’s some of what he had to say.

[00:07:40] Naveen: So try to work with an attorney from the planning stages to identify potential legal issues. You know, this may sound like a shameless plug for my profession, but it's not, you shouldn't wait until you encounter some complex legal tasks that you can't handle on your own. You want to make sure that before [00:08:00] you start implementing your plan, that it's legally viable. For instance, if it turns out that your business plan requires you. To obtain expensive licenses in all 50 states. And you can't afford that process. You might need to change your plan. Similarly, if you're doing a more traditional business, you might find that it requires certain licenses from local and state governments. Those aren't laws that you wanna violate, and it helps to identify those requirements as early as possible. These are things that a lot of people would miss. If they're not working with an attorney from the outset.

[00:08:34] ANDREA: So Danyel, listening to that, what lessons come to mind that you've learned the hard way, maybe regarding getting good legal advice out of the gate?

[00:08:42] DANYEL: I am so thankful that we realized that we needed an attorney as part of our team from day one. Legal is order that you're establishing within your business from the very beginning, right? Just like there needs to be order in, you know, [00:09:00] your community and in your household. In your business and the structure of your business, that is super important because, um, one, it starts with how you're setting up your business. Is it gonna be an LLC? Is it going to be a C Corp? Is it gonna be an S Corp? Number two, in making a decision about that type of structure, how does that then impact your taxes? How does that then impact your employee structure with your full-time employees versus your part-time employees? All of those things are super important and then, like POWERHANDZ, if you add in the fact that from day one, we had, um, aspirations to have a 501c3. So then how do you add your foundation right into that layer of your business?

[00:9:45] HOST: For additional context, a 501c3 is the portion of the US Internal Revenue Code that allows for federal tax exemption of nonprofit organizations. Danyel is talking here about the non-profit wing of POWERHANDZ, called Power to Give, which is dedicated [00:10:00] to building character in youth through athletics and academics. More on that in a second!

[00:10:05] DANYEL: Let's not forget: protecting your business from day one, we have three patents that are part of POWERHANDZ, and day one, we knew that when we created our first emerging technology, which was our anti grip, weighted basketball gloves, there was nothing like that out there in the market. So we wanted to make sure that we were not only the first, but we also had that finalized from a legal perspective. So we do have a design and utility patent that is associated with that particular product, as well as our name POWERHANDZ from a trademark perspective and our tagline "train with purpose." So for us, because we had a lawyer in the very beginning who focused on business law as well as intellectual property. That is very important.

[00:10:57] ANDREA: So when thinking about protecting your brand, and yourself, [00:11:00] it’s important to consider who you go into partnership with early on. I learned that it's very important to have the difficult conversations first. We talked to Rod Johnson who is co-founder of Black and Bold Coffee. His co-founder, Pernell Cezar and him are longtime friends. And Rod talks about why it was important to have these conversations, regardless of the fact that they had been friends forever. Here’s what he had to say.

[00:11:30] ROD: So we just had some very honest conversations and because we had that 20 year foundation, it made it a little easier for us to discuss some of those challenging topics. Like you mentioned, Hey, what happens if one of us dies, which is pretty morbid, you know, when you think about it, but it's, it's an inevitable, right? It's something that. It is bound to happen or, you know, what happens if you don't wanna do this anymore after five years and you want to exit, right? What are we building this for? So we were just having [00:12:00] those conversations and we figured that it would be best to do it early on while we were still friends. Right. It's like, let's talk about this while we still like each other, because if there's a point of contention down the line, it may be difficult to navigate those conversations at that time. And very early on, we had an operating agreement that was our north star if you will.

[00:12:22] ANDREA: Danyel I know you co-founded the nonprofit side of POWERHANDZ, the Power to Give Foundation. And its mission is to provide athletic and academic programs to youth in underserved communities. What has that co-founding experience taught you about starting an important endeavor with another person and the kinds of upfront conversations that you need to have?

[00:12:43] DANYEL: I have always been an advocate of, "let's talk about the black elephant in the room." I like being different. So instead of white elephant, well, let's call it the black elephant in the room, right? Those courageous conversations really allow you to think about [00:13:00] what are the mistakes that you could make, ahead of time. And really plan out: "what if this happens," right? This is not speaking into the universe that this is going to happen, but this is saying "it's okay if it does happen, because we are starting a business." With starting POWERHANDZ. I started it with my husband. That's huge. You can look at the statistics on how many couples start businesses together. And I really established a thought process and a rule very early on that we have to remember the reason why we chose each other day one. And that means why we chose each other as business partners, because our skillsets complimented each other for that phase in our business, and why we chose each other as husband and wife. And you separate those two. So that was one of the first things I learned about [00:14:00] having a conversation about the black elephant in the room is with my husband. Let's establish boundaries as to what are you good at? What am I good at? How are those things are gonna complement each other?

[00:14:13] The other thing that was super important to us as brown founders, is, we set around our board and we said, not only are we gonna create POWERHANDZ from a profit standpoint, but we're also gonna do good in the community. That was a tough conversation because we're sitting around the table with investors, talking about how we're going to sell units, to get revenue, to have a positive P and L and oh, by the way, each year, we're gonna take a percentage of that and pour back into the community so that kids can learn from the lifelong lessons that you can get from playing sports. And unapologetically, that's what we're gonna do. And I'll never forget. One of our board members turned and said, we're gonna talk about giving away money before we make money? And I said, absolutely we are. [00:15:00] Because when we do good in the community, that's gonna come full circle from a brand perspective, and we're gonna capture more mind share and make more impact along the way. So those tough conversations are super important to have.

[00:15:15] ANDREA: I think that's incredibly powerful.

[00:15:17] DANYEL: Well thank you.

[00:15:20] HOST: MIDPOINT REBRAND: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez -- and I'm in conversation with an amazing entrepreneur -- Danyel Surrency Jones of POWERHANDZ, and The Power to Give Foundation. What we're doing today is listening. Listening to the lessons that small business owners have been generously sharing with me all season long – and to get Danyel's impressions and tap into her experience. I recommend you to go back and check out some of these episodes in full if you haven’t already -- they are full of dreams, drama, and great ideas for how to grow your business.  

Did you know that more than half of the products sold in the Amazon store [00:16:00] come from small-and-medium sized businesses? The small business guests that you’ve heard from on This is Small Business are part of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. Learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

And since this is our season finale, I’d like to give a shout out to all our guests on the show, as well as you! Our listeners. We’re excited to see that the This is Small Business community has continued to grow over episodes and we are listening to your feedback through comments on Apple Podcasts, as well as through our website.

Next up – Danyel talks me through the building and growth stages of her company – with help from some more show highlights from earlier in the season. Get ready for more great tips coming!

[00:17:00] ANDREA: So moving to "how to build a business,"

[00:17:02] DANYEL: Yes.

[00:17:04] ANDREA: That brings me to my next question, which is building a team. Apart from your co-founders or your core team. This is about employees. This is about other people that are part of the journey of your business. And we talked to Kyle Goguen the founder of Pawstruck a company that provides pets with healthy treats and food. Here he tells us about his process for finding his super team.

[00:17:26] KYLE: So the whole goal is to get the right people and as many of those potential right people into the funnel as possible. And so we put every single applicant through a pretty significant application process and also a second assessment. Which assesses their skills. And that gives us a way to really compare people, head-to-head outside of just a resume. I have, you know, very mixed feelings about resumes. Like resumes can be really misleading and really not give you an idea of someone's true experience, level and skills. [00:18:00] So I think the assessment does a really good job of cutting through the noise for us. So we're weeding out people that won't fit for our culture. And if they pass that test, then we move them onto the final one-on-one round, which is kind of bringing it all together, them proving that they have the skills and the culture fit that we think they do based on the previous stuff.

[00:18:24] ANDREA: Danyel, hearing this, and in your experience building a team for your business, what are the things you look out for in order to make sure that you're bringing the right people on board?

[00:18:35] DANYEL: Excellent question. Because you can't build a company by yourself. A team and your people really build your company. So it, it really starts with a day that you establish your "why" --you really look at your mission, vision and values. When you are either working with a recruiter or you're telling your friend or someone in the industry [00:19:00] that you are looking to fill these positions, in order to help your small business grow, right, they need to be able to communicate: here's what the culture of this organization is about. Here's when you look at their value system, this is what's important to them. For the first time, four years ago, we added to our value system that we are faith based. People need to understand that that is very important to the way in which we operate and the way in which we look at serving. So we added that. So that cultural explanation of who you are. That represents your why needs to be very clear because then that will transition to when you and or your team are looking for the right people to join.

[00:19:48] I think it was Bill Gates that said when he's looking for people to add to his team, that he looks at intelligence, energy and integrity. I couldn't agree with him more. [00:20:00] I also look at will. Because when you're hiring individuals, especially when you're a small business, I am going to be completely transparent with you, your budget for hiring FTE's as a small business, will not look like the budget of a fortune 100 and 500 company. So the individual that you're gonna hire may have really great integrity and an amazing passion and will to get the job done and to come in and increase their learning curve and help the company grow. But they may not have all the experience that a fortune 100 or fortune 500 budget can afford. So you need to make sure that you're very clear with yourself and your team as to here are the individuals that you wanna bring into the organization that have that entrepreneurial mindset and have that will, and that passion and that intelligence to think strategically [00:21:00] as well as to roll up your sleeves and be an implementer and an executor. That is super important.

[00:21:07] ANDREA: I really appreciate that. You mentioned that as a small business, you may not be able to afford a head hunter and going after super, super expensive talent. So it really is sometimes about sitting down and evaluating beyond just what's on paper. As a young professional, I appreciate when people say that because when I was starting out my career, I remember thinking I may not have a lot of experience, but I have a lot of will. I will work hard and I am ready and open to learn. And I’ve learned that there’s value in that too.

[00:21:43] DANYEL: Yeah, there is absolutely value in hiring someone that has the will and the passion without having all of the experience and talent, in order to fulfill that job. I will take that person any day.

[00:22:00] ANDREA: My next two questions are about marketing. So one of the things I learned through the first episode with Max'is Creations is that you have to set aside at least one hour a week for marketing for your business, cuz it is that important. What do you think of this approach? How much time do you dedicate to marketing your own business and especially at the beginning of your business, when you're wearing many more hats than you are now?

[00:22:25] DANYEL: When you think about the time that you're spending to tell someone else about your story, right? Not about selling, but about your story, that should occupy a good portion of your week, not your day, but your week. Because if people don't understand your story, how do they connect and engage with you in order to feel that emotional connection about what it is that could possibly [00:23:00] change their life. And that's how I look at marketing. I can think of an idea a minute, right. But an idea is nothing without really having a connection to a consumer that says I have something that makes your life easier. I had a couple that was 80 years old when I was growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, and I asked them they had been married for 54 years. And I said, you know, what's the secret to you all being married for 54 years and you still just act like you get along. And they said, waking up every morning and thinking about how can I make your day better? And for me, that's marketing. A brand, a company should be looking at what they offer today and how the consumer behavior is changing and meet them where they are. [00:24:00] And that's what we do and have done with POWERHANDZ. This little old brand, right, that started with one influencer, started with one product and one vision. Because of our marketing, we have been able to scale, not only of course, into five different sports plus general fitness, but into 87 countries, because we now understand the behaviors of our customers and what it is that we can do to help them get better and perform better and change their overall statistics in health. So all of that was done because the core of marketing exists and that's marketing that we push. And that is also marketing that we pull from our customers and strategic partners.

[00:24:52] ANDREA: I'm going to bring up Filthy Food founded by Daniel Singer. One of the things he talks about is looking for compatibility [00:25:00] between your customer and your unboxing experience. Filthy Food makes fancy olives and drink mixes and things to make your cocktails pop. So here is what Daniel had to say about that.

[00:25:13] DANIEL: Where does the experience start? Does it start when the package arrives, is it a certain color that's gonna create an emotion? Is, does it have a certain shape or does it arrive when they've gone through the packaging? Cuz their motto and their ethos is about sustainability and less car and less packaging and less outer. So I think as an owner of a brand or somebody that's really trying to create an emotional connection with people, which is really what we all do. It's where does the vacation start? Where does the emotion start? So I think packaging's important based on meeting the expectation of the consumer. And if you don't, you're gonna disappoint them.

[00:25:53] ANDREA: This aligns with what you just said Danyel, about meeting customer expectations through your products. What else comes to mind in terms of [00:26:00] meeting the expectation of the consumer and how have you able to go after that with Powerhandz?

[00:26:05] DANYEL: So if you listen to what your consumers tell you. What it is they want and what it is that they're trying to achieve, that is your unboxing experience. I do believe that packaging is like everything. And when I talk about the packaging, I mean the complete experience. So from the colors that you choose, your branding guidelines, the font that you choose that tells a story on your experience. If you're modern, if you're strong, if you're bold, right. The DNA of your brand and who you are to when they unzip, right. What makes them feel connected? We are marketing of course to kids, we're marketing to a generation where they love flash. And we wanna make sure that it's something that they're proud to put on a court, proud to put on a field, proud to take into a gym. So all of those things [00:27:00] are so important, but I'll tell you the one thing that stands out for us about the unboxing experience: it's education. You cannot run from education on our brand. We really pride ourselves on how do we teach you to do what you do very well from an athletic perspective, blend our innovation with it, and then watch your performance excel. So in order to do that, you have to be motivated by seeing others doing the same thing by hearing from experts and trainers in the fields and strength and conditioning coach and coaches and fitness influencers, tell you how you go from level a to level B to level C and D. And that education for us is truly "the unboxing."

[00:27:55] HOST: I love this educational, experiential approach to the idea of "unboxing" -- [00:28:00] that it's not just about the packaging itself. It's about what the packaging is teaching you about the product. So for me, packaging is incredible, but education is invaluable.

[00:28:13] ANDREA: So now, moving on to growth, the last two lessons I'm going to bring up are from the same small business, Back to the Roots, started by Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora. And I really enjoyed hearing about this first lesson because it’s tied to our learnings at Amazon, there’s even a building named after it which is: Day One. It’s about keeping your day one mentality and working as if you’re starting out because the moment you start thinking that it's day two, that's when you plateau.

[00:28:42] DANYEL: Oh wow!

[00:28:42] ANDREA: And this is what Nikhil had to say about that.

[00:28:46] NIKHIL: I think the mindset that Alex was speaking to is what helps us continue to grow every single day. I think Amazon is the best in class at this. We've been so inspired by just philosophy of day one and treating every day, like day one still. [00:29:00] And the moment you think you're a bigger business, the end is near so to speak. And every day thinking like, Hey, I'm still small bits of a startup. We've taken a lot of inspiration from the Amazon culture around just because, you know, revenues grow and a team's grown, we can't lose. Scrappiness. And I think the hustle and the, you know, the desire to take risks and make pivots sometimes. And, and we, we try to think about that a lot.

[00:29:23] ANDREA: All right. So listening to that Danyel, talk to me about your "day one" mentality and how it's holding up several years into running POWERHANDZ and what you have felt that the advantage of keeping that day one mentality has been.

[00:29:37] DANYEL: Man, that question gets me emotional. It's crazy. And the reason it does is because when you're an entrepreneur and you're building a business, your "day one" starts hit every idea and every new season. Um, when you're starting [00:30:00] your business, your thought process is how am I gonna take this idea that we have this exciting innovation that we know will change lives like we did with our first patented product in basketball and how are we gonna scale it to all of the youth to help them with the fundamentals? Fundamentals. And as you continue to grow and scale that whole thought process over, and you should never think that you have arrived. It is that mindset of being a grinder of being someone that has the resilience and the grit to get through each season that allows you to grow. And if you lose sight of that and start thinking that you have arrived or you're on day 15 and not on day one, [00:31:00] then you will definitely get, as my mother used to say too big for your britches.

[00:31:06] We at POWERHANDZ and, and I am so humbled by our team. We continue to stick to the basics. We continue to think about the fundamentals because that is not only the innovation that we're creating. That is the messaging that we are leaving with every single community. If you take care of the basics and you train with a purpose, then you will meet your goals. It's slow and steady that wins the race. And for me, for every entrepreneur, if you don't keep that mentality, something will happen in your business that will knock you back into that mentality. So it's either you do it on your own, or you gonna get forced to do it because that is just absolutely [00:32:00] how the universe works. Right? I did not know that that was part of Amazon's philosophy, but it explains their ability to scale into these different enterprises based on a silo mentality. They scale without having all the answers. They create without having the total structure and solution together. It is day one, we're gonna have grit. We're gonna have resilience. We're gonna have strategic planning and we're gonna figure it out. And that's exactly what we've done in POWERHANDZ

[00:32:38] ANDREA: Powerful! I love that. Danyel, one of my last questions for you is based on "zigging when others zag" as a way to stand out and keep growing. And you'll be hearing from the co-founder of Back to the Roots. So you heard from Nikhil already, and now you're gonna be hearing from Alejandro. This is what Alejandro had to say.

[00:33:00] ALEJANDRO: One thing that we try to hold present is to Zig when others zag, whatever space your small business is, there's a hundred other folks trying to do it better, bigger, cheaper than you are. I mean, this is a 24/7 job to be an entrepreneur and to compete and win in your category. And I think winning means trying to do things that really wow, the consumer and putting that consumer first. How can we do things different?

[00:33:26] ANDREA: So Danyel to stand out, especially in front of a customer, it's about thinking how you can be different while putting them first and meeting their needs as we've spoken about already, not just their wants. So what tips do you have for doing this? Because I feel like it takes some bravery to do things differently.

[00:33:48] DANYEL: Oh, it takes a, a tremendous amount of courage. And one of my favorite quotes by someone I know that is my best friend, says that, "courage is being bold [00:34:00] enough to scale innovation outside the box because you realize the box was never designed for you." And that is Ms. Danyel Surrency Jones and when I wrote that quote and discovered that that was my DNA, that I should never be upset that I don't fit into a box, or I should never be upset about a no, because I absolutely know that in order for whatever I'm doing, that could be POWERHANDZ that could be Power to Give. That could be, um, any other entrepreneurial venture or project that I'm working on. My mindset has to be, how do I take my gifts and serve in a way that I am supposed to serve, not looking at what the competitors are doing but looking at [00:35:00] what my gifts are going to afford me to do with an incredible team that is going to then help me scale that idea and ability to serve. So I look at courage. I don't look at competition. I look at self, I don't look at what everyone else is doing.

[00:35:21] ANDREA: Is there anything else you would like to tell small business owners or entrepreneurs?

[00:35:26] DANYEL: I will tell you that it is a common place for the road that you travel to be tough. Do not ever look to the right or look to the left and think that someone has a better story than you do. Believe in the story that is written for you. Dream beyond your wildest dreams and know without a shadow of doubt, have that optimism that no one can take away anything that is meant for you. [00:36:00] And you will get there, cuz I am absolutely living proof that that story can come true.

[00:36:08] ANDREA: Danyel, thank you so much for everything you've given us today. All of the wise words, all of the lessons that I will definitely be putting away in my mental playbook that I'm creating. Thank you for being on This a Small Business.

[00:36:22] DANYEL: Thank you. Same. This has been amazing. And I applaud you and please continue to tell your story as well as tell all of these other small business stories. You don't know how much we need you, so we appreciate you.

[00:36:37] ANDREA: Thank you.

[00:36:39] DANYEL: You're welcome.

[00:36:42] HOST: That was such a great way to end our first season. Danyel Surrency Jones -- total force of nature. You can learn more about her and POWERHANDZ in our show notes. I am so honored by all the wisdom that was shared with me here on This is Small Business. As always, here are the key takeaways [00:37:00] I learned today with Danyel:

When it comes to starting your business… start with the WHY. We’ve said it many times before but it must mean that it’s incredibly important because everything connects to it. It’s your NorthStar. So as you’re ideating and building, make sure to answer the most vital question if you haven’t already: Why are you doing this?

Early on, you want to bring in legal advice. As Danyel said, legal is order that you're establishing within your business from the very beginning. Ask as many questions as you need to, and also connect with a lawyer that understands what type of legal advice you need. And legal advice is especially important when it comes to protecting your business and yourself. Which is why you need to “talk about the black elephant in the room." As Danyel mentioned, have the uncomfortable conversations with your partners at the beginning. It will help you plan out your future better, and prepare [00:38:00] for potential bumps in the road.

When you’re ready to build, it’s important to bring the right people on board. So make sure that when you hire a super team, you’re able to articulate a clear why so that the people who join are aligned with your same mission and vision and are as passionate about the why as you are.

On marketing, two important things: tell a story and listen to your customers. Marketing starts with telling a story because that’s what people remember the most. If people don't understand your story, they won’t know how to connect or engage. And you have to continuously connect with customers to learn what they need the most and how they need it.

And on growing, keep that day one mentality that forces you to think scrappy and to continue being innovative, and of course, zig when others zag. Danyel saw it as not putting yourself in a box and focusing on your gifts and what you are able to give to others, [00:39:00] which is a big part of the brand ethos of PowerHandz.

[00:39:05] It is only our first season -- and I've already learned so much -- but I want you all to know -- we're striving to keep that "day one" mentality as we plan great things for our NEXT season. Be sure to keep a look out for new episodes, early next year. We’ve been listening to some of your feedback and This is Small Business will also be in video format in our next seasons, which is very exciting for us. Plus some other surprises that we’ll be adding based on your feedback. We’re listening! So make sure to let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts through email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com or on our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. And in the meantime -- I hope today has encouraged you to go back and comb through some of the gems in our previous episodes this season.

Thank you so much for listening and for coming along this journey with me on This is Small Business!

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host [00:40:00] Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:40:20]

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Ep 11: August prepares for the holidays

Learn how to leverage a spike in demand.

[00:00:05] HOST: When the holidays are looming -- stores are booming. Orders go up and delivery timelines shrink as the clock moves towards the "big day" and for many small business owners in retail, let's just say it doesn't feel much like a holiday at all.

[00:00:24] Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. On each episode - I gather valuable insights that we can all file away in our small business playbooks and use on our small business journeys. I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of the year! I’ve enjoyed our time together and am excited to keep going and growing together on This is Small Business. Remember to let us know what you think by subscribing, leaving a review, sharing with your friends, or emailing us thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com. [00:01:00] Shout out to therapistcv for leaving us a review. This is what they said: “truly enjoy listening to ‘This is Small Business’. It feels authentic and personal to me on many levels. The conversations with each small business owner feel focused and naturally flowing. The conversations often leave me feeling inspired and hopeful to pursue my own goals. I love that each story is different and personable, they remind you that we all face challenges in different ways and we are all trying to make a difference and persevere by creating our own paths.”

I love this review. And this is why we do what we do. So join therapistcv and let us know what you think of our little show, This is Small Business.

[00:01:50] HOST: The retail market in the run up to the holidays is "on fire" and it can be a lot to deal with. If you're a small business owner, how can you prepare for the holidays in advance, so that you can maximize the retail opportunity [00:02:00]-- but also enjoy some time off? To help us answer this -- I'll be introducing you to a professor of supply chain management at the McCombs School of Business at University of Texas. But first -- I want you to meet someone who can literally help you build a fort to withstand the pre-holiday rush. Remember how much fun it was to play with forts when you were a kid? To build your very own castle, or hut? Well, August Graube remembered. And he wanted to recreate that kind of imaginative fun for kids today. So, August founded a unique company called Fort Boards. And I'm going to let him tell you all about it.

[00:02:42] AUGUST: Fort Boards is a fort building kit for kids. And it got started…I was doing project management for a museum exhibit company that did museums all over the nation. And we were working on a local one here in Seattle for a kids exhibit. And I had made these large Lincoln log type boards for kids to play with. [00:03:00] And you could just tell when doing kid testing with them, that kids just loved playing with something full scale. And I was like, well, duh. Yeah. Like I loved playing with forts as a kid and like build, I spent hours playing with forts out in the country. So, I looked to see if there was anything good out there on the market. And it seemed like it was a, a bit of an open space. So I decided like, I think I can design and build something and get it to market in like six months. And I had never brought anything to market before, so it took close to three years to, to launch it. But, uh, when it launched, it was, yeah, it was really good success and lots of press and awards. And so it's been going now for a little over six years and, yeah, it's, it's been a, a fun journey.

[00:03:44] ANDREA: That is amazing. And I'm glad that you brought up that instead of the 6 months you thought it would take you to launch, it actually took you three years. It puts into perspective the amount of work it takes to launch a business. Can you tell me more about why it took that long?

[00:04:00] AUGUST: Part of it was the design phase. I think I spent more time on the design phase than I probably needed to just cuz it starts to feel like your baby and you don't really wanna launch it before it's ready and fully baked. So that's why it was a, a long, long launch.

[00:04:15] ANDREA: Your target audience are kids. So how do you get to those kids? Who buys your product and when do they buy it?

[00:04:23] AUGUST: It's safe for infants on up, but the kids that really get it and love it are like the eight, nine-year-olds. And those are the kids that really start to be able to freeform build. Like, they become really inventive and they come up with things that I would've never thought of before, like, you know, robots and like one, one kid built a coffin to scare his, his babysitter around Halloween, you know, to jump out of and, you know, stuff like that. It's just like what?

[00:04:47] ANDREA: I wish this existed when I was a kid, but I mean, there's no age limit, right. So, I technically could still...

[00:04:55] AUGUST: No age limit. Yeah, totally. And I, I kind of had my nieces in mind when designing this cuz they live here in Seattle, [00:05:00] like I do. And like my sister and I grew up out in the country and you were able to sort of explore your own world out there and run around until dinner time and come back. And no one was watching you and it's kind of a shame. Kids today can't really do that. And so, I wanted to have Fort Boards be that kind of little adventure forum, where they could still build their own worlds and hide out in it and sort of feel like that kind of independent nature, like, like we had growing up.

[00:05:27] ANDREA: It's like bringing the treehouse that we all dreamed of having when we were young, indoors. I love that. So, considering this is a toy, I imagine the holidays represent a spike in demand for Fort Boards, right? I’m thinking this is a perfect holiday gift.

[00:05:41] AUGUST: Yeah, it's the case mostly because of price point. So the toy industry works on, you know, sort of two different occasion. One is birthday parties and that's like, 20 to $40 price point. And then there are the holidays which parents are willing to spend more and grandparents are willing to spend more and it's kind of the big-ticket items. [00:06:00] And so, since Fort boards is $50 an up it, uh, situates itself, well for the holidays, um, and less so for, for birthdays. My demand it's between like 60 to 65% of yearly sales happens during the holiday seasons.

[00:06:17] ANDREA: How do you prepare?

[00:06:19] AUGUST: It was difficult at first to like, mentally deal with that because you, you kind of feel like during the year it's like, oh my God, what am I doing? Some of my life? Like from January to October, you're. Man, I gotta figure out something else. Like this is not working. What am I doing? Like I better start interviewing around. And then like November, December hit, and you just feel like Scrooge McDuck swimming through your money, a vault. And it's just a, you know, an avalanche of sales all at once. And so I've, I've since learned to deal with that mentally, but, uh, from the actual business standpoint the main thing is trying to forecast appropriately for the holiday season. And that's the, the trick.

[00:07:00] ANDREA: And when do you even start preparing for this rise in demand?

[00:07:02] AUGUST: I'm not an expert at it by any means. But what I do is just have an Excel spreadsheet that has monthly sales throughout the year. And that goes back from when the company first started. And so I'm able to look at the previous month's sales and how that's stacking up with the year prior and do an average of percent wise of like what percentage a volume am I expecting during the holidays? Um, based on what the, the yearly sales have been thus far. So in, in June, or they're about to make a decision on how many containers to bring in and, um, and do it that way.

[00:07:36] ANDREA: As a small business owner what should I do to ensure that I'm ready?

[00:07:41] AUGUST: If you're just starting out, I would say go smaller rather than larger. Cuz you do learn a lot of lessons from labeling requirements too. I've had friends that have launched product and one of the stickers that covers the cap to make sure that, you know, it's like sealed properly, [00:08:00] just aesthetically, but like, you know, customers care if the seal's broken all of those stickers and shipment, like it was hot and those peeled off. And so someone had to go by hand and stick every one of those stickers back on, you know, one by one by one in container loads, full of product. And so there's a lot of stuff that you can't anticipate when you're first launching a product and a lot of those bugs get figured out and the kinks need to get worked out. So when you're first launching, definitely good to do a quantity that you can learn on to begin with.

[00:08:35] ANDREA: I'd be terrified as a small business owner if I have a product that I know will receive more attention during the holidays. So is it better to over index? Like if by the end of the holiday season where I have that spike, I have a lot of leftovers versus being out of stock?

[00:08:53] AUGUST: I mean, it's a whole science of, you know, supply chain, logistics and storage. Like the complicated answer to that is to [00:09:00] look at what your storage fees are and, um, compare that to what lost sales would cost you.

[00:09:08] HOST: I knew it. I knew there had to be math involved! Turns out, August has a system that he likes to apply to figure out just how many "extra" fort boards to bring in during the holidays.

[00:09:19] AUGUST: And so you could figure out a number there roughly of like, if I'm over-indexing by X percent, I'm gonna start losing money because of storage fees. Um, but I'd say that the easy answer is in general, like try to shoot for maybe 150% or 125% of what you think you're gonna need for that holiday season. And that, can keep it simple, but of course your Excel spreadsheets can be as, as large and as complicated as you want to try to figure out where the, um, the correct amount of over indexing would be to make sure that you're in the sweet spot of not having a lot of storage costs after the holidays, but making sure you're not running out during the holidays.

[00:10:00] ANDREA: So based on everything you've learned, what are some things that you would've done differently when it comes to being a small business owner and leveraging spikes in demand or preparing for them?

[00:10:11] AUGUST: I've only had one serious mistake in those six years. And that was where I was. Um, I eventually had to move production overseas to China cuz when I got the volume high enough, it just, I couldn't compete with doing US production. So with China coming through customs it can be very unforgiving. And when I first started, I didn't realize that I needed to do specific things. And so, I didn't have a, um, safety document, the CPC along with my like first few shipments of product, I don't think. And so, one day my shipper says, you know, where's, where's the CPC. And I'm like, I, I, I don't know what, like you deal with it. And so, like finally, when they started really raising the red flag, I, I realized what I hadn't been doing and needed to do. I mean, it had been safety tested before, but I got, [00:11:00] I created the right paperwork and submitted it to customs. Uh, but it was two or three days late, I think, in the timeframe they needed it by. And so, because of that, it sat in a customs warehouse for a month. So, they're charging you fees while like warehouse fees while it's sitting there. And the warehouse fees are extremely high. And not only that, but like the, the truck, the container that it's sitting in is charging you fees. And so, after that month, it ended up being 11 grand that it cost. And, like, it took me probably a year and a half to where, when I thought about that, I didn't just have this horrible feeling in my stomach. You know, it's like, cuz that's coming straight outta your own pocket.

[00:11:45] HOST: A CPC document is a Child’s Product Certificate that must accompany products imported into the US that are made for or intended for use by children. In the US, children’s products are defined as a consumer product designed or intended primarily [00:12:00] for children 12 years of age or younger. You can learn more about this on our website thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. August laughs about it now -- but I'm sure at the time -- this delay and extra cost was a serious blow. Definitely not something that would put you in the holiday mood, right?

[00:12:20] AUGUST: But as far as the other logistics planning, my thinking was that two thirds of the population is on the east coast and one third on the west coast. And so having something that's a little bit closer to the east coast cuts down on shipping charges. And it's something I have to think about a lot with my product, cuz it's big and heavy. And so shipping costs really eat into a lot of margin. And so, um, I ended up going with the warehouse in Indiana. And they're more expensive than some that I've heard of, but they're small enough to where they give me personal service and I've always got a guy that I can reach out to and talk. And he emails me back [00:13:00] usually within 30 minutes and him and his team are very willing to make changes or adjustments or work with me. And, um, and so that mitigates a lot of the risk of those lessons learned. So say like Amazon doesn't like how the label's being placed. And so, he can, you know, next time he's placing the label differently or, you know, something's wrong with the packaging and there needs to be a barcode in different place or a different barcode. Like it's obviously great to make costs as cheap as possible, especially warehouse costs, but. It's when you're first starting out, it was really good to have a warehouse that was very responsive and flexible to your needs. Cuz then you could catch those mistakes as they happened and fix 'em right away.

[00:13:42] ANDREA: How have you been able to leverage spikes in demand?

[00:13:46] AUGUST: Amazon takes a lot of the... the work out of spikes in demand. What I do to, to leverage when I know demand is gonna happen is I try to make sure the product gets in front of people's eyes before that, [00:14:00] and so it's, it's mainly just a marketing thing and it's for Fort Boards and the other brand Blaster Boards, it's a lot of, um, Uh, influencers. So YouTube influencers, uh, love the product and love building with it. And, um, you know, it makes for an engaging video. And so, uh, I, I leverage that a lot before the holiday season so that kids are looking at it and seeing it, and then eventually asking for it for, uh, for Christmas. And I think that that sales tactic is called the, uh, "kid cries. Mommy buys."

[00:14:32] HOST: Kid cries, mommy buys. Oh yeah. That's some effective pre-holiday season planning -- for sure. There are actually a lot of ways to predict and deal with holiday demand, but it is one of those things that's part art, and part science. August says it takes time to learn.

[00:14:50] AUGUST: I think forecasting is the biggest challenge to, learn how to, to do properly. And that just comes with time and sort of learning from your mistakes there. You learn your lessons along the way [00:15:00] and, uh, and hopefully they're not too expensive.

[00:15:04] ANDREA: …and hopefully you’re also filling out all the right paperwork.

[00:15:07] AUGUST: Get your paperwork in line. Yeah.

[00:15:10] ANDREA: August, thank you so much for your time.

[00:15:13] AUGUST: Thanks so much, Andrea, for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:15:18] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. I'm so glad we got the chance to hear from August about his super-fun and unique company, Fort Boards. You can check them out this holiday season on Instagram, and learn more about them in our show notes, and on our website, thisismallbusinesspodcast.com.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold in the Amazon store come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Fort Boards is one of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. Learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com. [00:16:00] And, while I've got your attention -- what I'd really like this holiday season would be if some of our listeners would share their ideas for upcoming shows with us. It's easy to reach out. Just send us an email to thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com and let us know what you think. And if you are enjoying the show, text a link of this episode to your friend.

If you're a small business owner yourself, and grappling with questions like how to deal with spikes and dips in demand, or other questions about supply chain management, check out our show notes for more resources, again, at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

[00:16:35] HOST: So… to learn more about how to get your ducks in a row before the holiday season, I reached out to Edward Anderson, a professor of Supply Chain Management at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas.

[00:16:50] ANDREA: Professor Anderson thank you so much for being on This is Small Business. It's a pleasure to have you.

[00:16:55] EDWARD: Oh, it's my pleasure to be here. Thank you.

[00:16:58] ANDREA: I'd like us to start with things [00:17:00] small businesses should keep in mind when preparing for a spike in demand.

[00:17:04] EDWARD: When you're looking at a spike in demand, there's a couple of different types of spikes you might be looking for. One spike is that there just might be some high season for your product each year. Another spike might be. Okay. My product is selling at a relatively low rate. It's just going on, and then all of a sudden it catches on and it explodes. And you don't really wanna be in a situation where you can't meet demand. And then the last one is there's just unexpected spikes that don't have a lot of rhyme or reason for them, or other shocks in the other direction. So, we've been having a lot of that, thanks to COVID. There were spikes and certain types of products that we wouldn't have expected, uh, prior to COVID if things had developed normally, and now we're getting gluts in places we don't expect. So if you have to manage a supply chain and think about demand, this is a really tough time.

[00:18:00] HOST: OK so this is interesting to me. There's not one -- but at least 3 different causes for demand spikes... so I guess the first thing you need to do if you're a small business owner is learn the different reasons why demand might spike -- and come up with strategies for each case.

[00:18:18] EDWARD: And then you have to ask yourself couple more questions. Number one is how easy and how quickly can I get my raw materials to me? Or the components I'm going to be using? You have to think about, well, how quickly can I get them to me, how much they cost to store? So those are two major issues that you have to consider. These days, all things being equal, I would, and I know it's hard to do this in a lot of cases, but to the extent I could, I would like to source my things or source my parts and components from places in the United States, Canada, or Mexico. Someplace where, it can be trucked in as opposed to relying on overseas channels, [00:19:00] which are another level of complexity that still hasn't resolved itself.

[00:19:05] HOST: Interesting. It sounds like Edward thinks that in today's climate -- the overseas shipping adds a wrinkle you may want to avoid, if you can. Though as we heard from August -- manufacturing on US soil isn't always the economically viable choice for a small business owner... it all depends.

[00:19:23] EDWARD: The other thing you need to know too, preparing for a demand spike. And it's rather shocking to me how few companies actually know this is, if you look at what parts you need to make your product. Figure out who's making them and where they're located. And there's been some surveys done recently, at least one survey I've read is that on average companies know only about 50% of the parts where they are located from. So if you pick out a part at random for a product you're making [00:20:00] a manufacturing firm would have about a 50, 50 chance of knowing where that part was made in the world. It's a complicated business and people have been taking it for granted for a long time. And to be fair, it's kind of hard. But the first thing I would recommend to a small business owner is just know your supply chain, know what your build of materials is, where your parts are coming from. A lot of small businesses in particular, get them from distributors and that's great, but you wanna understand what the parts are. Who's actually making them? The distributor can only do so much if say the makers in Shanghai and there's another COVID shutdown.

[00:20:40] ANDREA: Why is it important to consider supply chain and demand? Because I don't think that it's something that is immediately at top of mind for a lot of people who are starting out their business. And it's something that I feel you are forced to learn as you go. So why do we even have to start thinking about this sooner rather than later?

[00:21:00] EDWARD: Well, so. I actually teach operations and project management for startups. A big problem for a startup is, uh, for the owners, there's just so much that needs to be done. And the first thing that needs to be done is well, does somebody even wanna buy my product? What is my product? The unfortunate thing that's happened to some extent, is that there's so much legitimate focus there, but you forget about, well, it's not only about figuring out what the customer wants, but what can you actually give them with reasonable, certainty? And that backend, oftentimes isn't explored until late in the game. And it can be a real problem if you don't really consider it upfront. So, you know, when I talk to my students, for example, I'll tell them, start figuring out what your market wants and then start figuring out, okay, here's what I can provide them. And then iterate through that. What do they really want versus what I can really get them and so on and go through several trials. Uh, the lean startup would say [00:22:00] they might even call them sprints, but basically you just, you try a product, a mock up product with your customers. See how it works. Take your learnings. Go back, make another iteration, another prototype and keep going.

[00:22:12] HOST: It's interesting to me how both August and Edward have acknowledged, in different ways, the role of mistakes in the learning process of small businesses trying to get a grip on predicting demand and surfing the supply chain.

[00:22:25] ANDREA: I find this whole thing fascinating. Probably since my dad is a distributor, so since I was little, I have heard about this a lot. And there's just so many different considerations to make. As a small business owner, how do I forecast what I'm going to need? Because what if I ask my distributor for like 10 pens and I only end up using three, what do I do with the rest of them?

[00:22:50] EDWARD: That is a timeless question. And yeah, so, I mean, you can make some guesses about what your demand is going to look like. If you're a new business, [00:23:00] and you're trying a product that hasn't been made or offered to the consumer before then, you know, you can look at similar types of products and try to figure out what their high seasons are and what their demand unpredictability is and so forth. It won't translate over perfectly, but it's better than just sticking your finger into the air and, you know, guessing. And then, the other question you're asking, which is a tough one, is what happens when you over order? What do you do with it? Do you try to clear it out?

[00:23:31] ANDREA: You can't return it, right?

[00:23:32] EDWARD: Usually not. There are some things you can return. So that's worth investigating. And just like you said, with respect to getting the paperwork straight. That's really important. And that's something people don't think about that much either. And that needs to be dealt with. Uh, I've had students whose main jobs in life are running import export businesses and they're forever fighting with, the appropriate forms to fill out and regulations and so on.

[00:24:00] ANDREA: So it sounds like for small businesses, especially NEW small businesses, predicting demand accurately when you don't have a lot of sales data yet is particularly tricky.

[00:24:11] EDWARD: You can, you can make educated guesses,

[00:24:14] ANDREA: Ballpark.

[00:24:15] EDWARD: You can ballpark things. You know, the one thing you know about a forecast is that's going to be wrong, right? So the question is, how good a forecast can you develop? Um, I would say. It depends so much on the firm in question. Uh, but there is a tendency sometimes for firms to, if they end up on the shortfall side to just try to sell at a relatively low cost to gain market share. And this is the opposite problem to what you were asking. But if you don't have enough goods, you know, maybe you ought to charge them at a reasonable profit for yourself rather than trying to establish market share when you don't have enough, supply to even take care of your current customers.

[00:24:58] HOST: In other words -- don't talk a big talk [00:25:00] if you're not prepared to walk a big walk.

[00:25:03] EDWARD: So that's something that is a common trap that people fall into. Another issue it needs to be thought about. And this happens particularly with, um, clothing startups, is what happens if you get returns, what do you do about it.

[00:25:18] HOST: Right! I had forgotten about the whole issue of returns -- another X-factor to contend with in your supply and demand balance... affecting everything from cashflow to storage, I'm guessing -- and very difficult to predict.

[00:25:30] EDWARD: And I'm going to tell you, there are no really easy answers, but it's worth thinking about that ahead of time, what you're going to do. Couple classic examples of companies that decide that they're gonna offer more size alternatives than other companies and they were online and they were just destroyed by the fact that there were so many shirts and blazers and so on being returned to them. There's other companies that've had product defects, which cause returns, [00:26:00] but I mean, it's kind of obvious in some way you wanna make sure there's good quality going out, but you do need to think about returns. If you're in that type of startup where you might possibly be dealing with that sort of thing. Also cosmetics, hair care, that's vulnerable to returns as well.

[00:26:19] ANDREA: What are the first three things to think about when it comes to supply and demand logistics?

[00:26:23] EDWARD: Oh, believe it or not. Usually what I start doing is I actually figure out, I tell my students, okay, what do you need to actually build your product? And just draw up okay, what's our value proposition? Who's gonna buy it? Um, what is the product gonna be? What are the channels, are you gonna sell it online? You're gonna sell it through a distributor or what have you. So that's one side and then the other side is okay at a high level, how much is, are we going to try to build ourselves? How much are we going to have somebody else build it for us? And we just pay a premium on, and if we're gonna build, usually the answer is, yeah, we're gonna buy some and yes, [00:27:00] some we're going to build ourselves and we have to figure out which parts roughly speaking. And we also have to figure out what kind of people do we need in our organization? Clearly you want somebody on board who understands how to design the product even if it is designed by somebody else. They have to know enough about it so that they can specify what you really want, um, going from customer needs. Trying to explain that to people who are going to produce it for you is not immediately obvious. And there's loads and loads of companies who die doing that. And then there's another person who has to be brought in, which is somebody who actually understands manufacturing and they don't necessarily have to be a founder. There are people who actually consult and do this for you.

But you don't have to be an expert in everything, but it's good to know a little bit about what you're doing in everything. Right? Do really take a look at the parts that you're going to be using to build their product, understand where they can't come from and what the risks associated with that are. [00:28:00] You may decide for example, and this has happened that you're dependent on a real rare type of specialty chip from say Malaysia, and you may find out, well, I could actually substitute a much more common chip that I could buy in three different continents. And you're not going to know that unless you go in and dig into your supply chain a little bit. So last commandment is know your supply chain.

[00:28:25] ANDREA: The whole process of figuring this out can be overwhelming for aspiring entrepreneurs or small business owners. So this has been very helpful. Thank you for your insights.

[00:28:35] EDWARD: You're welcome.

[00:28:39] HOST: That was Supply Chain Professor Edward Anderson from the University of Texas. As I said, the logistics of supply and demand -- especially in the ramp up to the holiday period -- can be a little intimidating. But what I learned today thanks to August and Professor Edward is:

Figure out what you need in order to build your product. And follow that [00:29:00] by determining how much you will outsource to build it and how much you will try to build yourself. It helps to know your product from the inside out. Understand who it’s for, why they want it, what it's made of, and how you're gonna get it to them. You need to know where every part of your product is coming from. And since as small business owners we sometimes wear many hats, figure out who you need to have be part of your business that understands manufacturing or that you can consult with.
When starting out, it’s difficult to forecast spikes in demand. You can look to similar products and figure out when their high season are. But be prepared to learn as you go and sometimes even make mistakes, like with August and his CPC. You can try as you might to mitigate risks but part of being a small business owner is learning as you go as well. Some ways August mitigated risks was by determining a good quantity that you can learn to begin with and not manufacturing oversees and seeing how he could keep manufacturing [00:30:00] as cheap as possible while not jeopardizing the quality of his product. August also recommends working with warehouses that are flexible to your needs when you’re starting out because you’re able to catch mistakes and fix them right away.
Once you have a couple of years under your belt, it gets slightly easier to learn about demand in your product. August keeps an excel sheet that has his monthly sales throughout the year. This way he’s able to look back at previous months and see how they stack up against years prior and average it out. He suggests that the sweet spot for forecasting is when you don’t have a lot of storage costs after the seasons of spikes for your products while also making sure you’re not running out of inventory during those seasons. Start by calculating how much money you would lose due to storage fees if you over index.
When it comes to leveraging demand, make sure your product is in front of your audience’s eyes, way before the season in spike happens. August does this by working with influencers [00:31:00] who like Fort Boards about 6 months in advance.
Anticipate returns. They happen. Figure out what you'll do when they start coming in. Keep track, and adjust your numbers going forward according to the rate of returns you're getting.

If there’s something we’ve learned on This is Small Business so far is that small business owners learn a lot as they go. So, maybe, after all your work, you might still run out of stock. And that’s ok! You learn, iterate, and keep going every time.

All great lessons to add to my small business playbook. I'm excited to see this stack of good ideas getting bigger and bigger. Here's wishing you all the best this holiday season. And as a gift to us, please help us get better and let us know what you think! You can leave us a review on apple podcasts -- or email us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com.

Next episode will be a special one. We’ll be doing a season one recap of our favorite key learnings for starting, building, and growing your small business. [00:32:00] So don’t miss out on this exciting season finale.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:32:35]

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Ep 10: Kyle hires a super team

Learn how to hire a super team.

[00:00:02] KYLE: Hire sooner than you think, you know, Ii business is going well, or you think it'll go well, you're gonna need help. And it was probably yesterday that you should have hired. You definitely can't do everything yourself.

[00:00:15] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. On each episode - I gather super valuable nuggets that I'm filing away in my small business playbook for future reference if I decide to start my own business one day. At the end of each episode -- I call out key takeaways for you to use on your small business journey.

Now, I'm no business expert -- but one thing I'm learning, the more I speak to smaller business owners -- is that it's super important to have a good team of people around you to help you execute your vision. So how do you do that? How do you go about finding the right people to help your business get lift-off? It's not that simple. You have to look at [00:01:00] personality type and qualifications. You have to identify what your business needs now -- and what it might need in the future. And then -- of course you want to think about things like references, and commitment, and whether the person is a good fit for your team.

Coming up -- I'll speak to a hiring and recruitment expert with 40 years of experience helping companies find and retain what he calls "A-Players" or top-grade employees. He's got a whole system for hiring that you're going to want to hear. But my first guest today knows all about the challenges of hiring a great team -- from the inside out. Kyle Goguen is the founder of Pawstruck -- a company that makes all natural dog treats. The company has grown rapidly -- and Kyle has had to keep pace with the growth through strategic hiring. He's here to tell us all about it.

And as always, before we get started I want to remind you to subscribe to This is Small Business on your preferred platform, and rate us on Apple Podcasts. [00:02:00] Leave us a review and let us know what you think. Shout out to listener William Prescott who said that they’re loving the podcast! Thank you! They mentioned that as a small business owner, it can be tough to find the time to find mentors that can help in different areas of what you do. So to hear from both the small business owner and the expert has been a great way for them to imagine how they could implement expert advice into their own practices. They 10 out of 10 would recommend us! So thank you and please join William Prescott in letting us know what you think of our little show This is Small Business.

[00:02:45] ANDREA: Kyle, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today. I'm excited to talk to you.

[00:02:50] KYLE: Yeah, same here. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:52] ANDREA: Tell me about Pawstruck and how it got started.

[00:02:56] KYLE: Sure. Junior year of college, I adopted a boxer puppy named Tyson. [00:03:00] When I first got Tyson, I was trying to be a good dog owner. I visited a bunch of local pet stores getting 'em all the treats and shoes and, and different supplies that I needed to train him and, and to take care of 'em. And I was very much on a college students' budget. Tyson wasn't picky at all about the products that I was buying him, but I, I noticed, kind of a trend there in all the stores, everything that I wanted to buy had a ton of artificial ingredients. Stuff that I couldn't even read or understand on the ingredient label there. So I went home, searched on the internet, tried to find something I could buy online, some treats and chews with simpler ingredients that I could actually afford and realized what I wanted wasn't available. So that was my “AHA” moment back then in college. And I started working on getting Pawstruck up and running and right after graduating college, I think within six months or so, the business and pawstruck.com the, the initial website went live. [00:04:00] And to this day, our goal is to make it easy and fun for pet owners to shop online and give their dogs wholesome products. And yeah, it's been a fun ride and it's been super rewarding to build up a big team over the years, of a bunch of dog owners like myself. And I think we're up to about 40 people or so, and we're looking to hire a few more by, by the end of the year.

[00:04:25] ANDREA: All of these years later here you are with about 40 people and you keep growing.

[00:04:32] KYLE: Yep. That's right. Super lucky to have made the jump that early on. And I think if there's any college kids or anyone of any age, Really, my advice is just, you know, make the jump and make it happen. There's never like the perfect timing, but, I think college age kids, it's the perfect time cuz like I said, you're, you're used to eating ramen and your life is much simpler than most.

[00:04:57] ANDREA: So what does the word “team” mean to you? [00:05:00] What makes a right team member for Pawstruck?

[00:05:04] KYLE: That's a tough one. And I think team has meant many different things to me and Pawstruck over the years. Early on I waited too long to hire. I'd never managed a team, never hired people. And so at that time it was really just, okay, I'm in over my head. We've grown to the point where I can't do everything and the business is going to cease to exist unless I get someone in here. And so at that point it was just, desperation was probably what “team” meant. It was just like, get some other hands on board that can help. Now it's, it's way different. We're, you know, really trying to build out the right culture, the right skill sets, like we're way more, way more particular when it comes to hiring. But I've, I've just learned a ton over the years and I've been able to network with other business owners and really learn from them to understand how to find the right candidates, how to weed through the right candidates and build the team that, that I want. And that's been key, [00:06:00] is really documenting exactly what it is that I'm looking for. And then actually going after it.

[00:06:06] ANDREA: So this is super important. What are the key lessons you've learned in finding candidates for Pawstruck?

[00:06:12] KYLE: It's a numbers game. You have to get enough applicants into the pipeline to better your odds of finding the perfect candidate. So the way that we do this is number one, we're a completely remote team aside from our warehouse where we fulfill orders. And so that opens us up to way more candidates, as opposed to people who happen to live in a, you know, 10-mile radius, of your office or something like that. And then two, we spent a lot of time writing our job listings and description. We think of it like marketing copy, you have to get the readers excited about your company and job. So you get more applicants. If you just write some generic, you know, legal jargon, that's not fun. And that's not the people we wanna attract personally.

And then we make sure to post on all the job boards and we, we pay for ads essentially [00:07:00] to get them featured, to get more people applying. So the whole goal is to get the right people and as many of those potential right people into the funnel as possible. And so we put every single applicant through a pretty significant application process and also a second assessment. Which assesses their skills. And that gives us a way to really compare people, head-to-head outside of just a resume. I have, you know, very mixed feelings about resumes. Like resumes can be really misleading and really not give you an idea of someone's true experience, level and skills. So I think the assessment does a really good job of cutting through the noise for us. So we're weeding out people that won't fit for our culture. And if they pass that test, then we move them onto the final one-on-one round, which is kind of bringing it all together, them proving that they have the skills and the culture fit that we think they do based on the previous stuff.

[00:08:00] ANDREA: And who's part of these internal decisions for hiring people?

[00:08:04] KYLE: So early on, it was just me and then for a while it was just myself and one other person. And now. Whoever we have leading a specific department, if we're hiring to that department, um, they, along with our HR admin person are the ones that do the initial finding of candidates. So they create the job listing. They post it, they get those applicants into our funnel. Essentially, they're weeding people out. And once they get farther down into the interview process. Then I'll also get involved and wanna chat with people. And it goes both ways. Like I want to be involved at that point to make sure that I agree that these people are a good culture fit, but also I get involved to sell ourselves, like the really good candidates, us as a company, we need to sell ourselves to them and convince them that there's a ton of opportunity. Like, it'll be a fun place to work. Uh, you know, [00:09:00] all of the things that an A plus player would seek out in a job. That's my job to explain to them why we are that for them.

[00:09:12] ANDREA: Can you give me an example of what you would tell me if you wanted to hire me?

[00:09:16] KYLE: Something that I always bring up, we often look for entrepreneurial people. Because we are really fast growing and we want people to kind of like own their specific role and take it and run with it. Um, so what I talk about with people is like, oftentimes we're looking for... you know, even if it's like a hobby, like something that you're doing on your own or some interest you have outside of just work. And I explain to people that we encourage that. That'll never be something we'll hold against people. So in the past, I've, you know, given people time to work on, you know, writing their novel, they were working on, or starting this like influencer account that they wanted to do. And, uh, we've encouraged it. And, you know, even allocated a little bit of time during work hours for me to [00:10:00] help almost like consult in some ways, if they wanted it, happy to talk through their business plan or, or their goals and give them advice. So I don't know if that partially is selfish cuz I'm nosy and wanna know the cool projects that my team is working on and be a part of it. But also I think a lot of the, the, the people that we're looking for see that as a benefit that the leadership team that's trying to hire them is invested in their future. Both in the job that they're being hired for and outside of that too.

[00:10:28] ANDREA: That's really cool. And I think that's something that a small business owner listening could apply because I was certainly drawn to that! I have a lot of hobbies and actually podcasting, this is something I got into as a side thing from my actual job. The first company I worked in, helped me to, you know, gave me the time and gave me some resources to start my first podcast as well. And to me, that was a big draw and part of what made me happy to work there. So have you ever hired someone and realized after [00:11:00] that it isn't the right fit?

[00:11:02] KYLE: I think everybody who's done any amount of hiring has made mistakes and hired the wrong person. And what I've found is oftentimes it was my own fault. You know, usually it's not someone who's lying on their resume or, you know, something like that. It's usually that I didn't go with my gut. Um, or we didn't outline the responsibilities or the role well enough, especially for new roles, like really understanding who would be a good fit for that and made mistakes there. So I guess to expand on that a little bit further, what I mean is we got excited, like, you know, there was candidates with these cool background and we're like, great, look what they can bring to the table, but that really didn't matter for the role.

[00:11:52] And so that's tough as a manager to, to reflect and understand that you made a mistake and, and what was hard for me early on, in especially was just being honest [00:12:00] with the person and having those hard conversations and talking through with them, Hey, here's what we need from you, here are the expectations. Is this something you can do? And then on both ends being honest and figuring out whether the person can do it and if they can't, moving on as soon as possible because, uh, it's for that person's own good as well. There's no point in wasting time in a role that they don't have a future in it. They don't like, and vice versa with someone who's not gonna be able to do what you need them to do.

[00:12:30] ANDREA: Okay. What would be some pieces of advice that you would give small business owners that are barely starting out. So, tap into Kyle when he was barely figuring out who to hire and bring on his team. Some tips you would give about how to even bring the right people in.

[00:12:50] KYLE: I guess it's really two avenues that I would recommend the first being start networking with other business owners in your industry as soon as possible. So for me, [00:13:00] I'm, you know, I'm in the pet industry, but the best people for me to network with are eCommerce business owners. So people who sell on Amazon, or maybe they sell on their website or other channels like that. So I found, you know, a handful of groups like that, and those people are often hiring the exact same roles that I need to hire for. And if you find people who are a step or two ahead of you, they've already hired everything. And so as you start to make friends and, and meet people and know people there it's as easy as emailing someone and saying, Hey, you know, I know you hired a marketing manager last year, you mind, if you share your job listing and job description with me? So that's the main thing I would recommend. If you don't have that network or you're still building that out, then the backup plan is just going on Indeed or wherever else you find jobs as an applicant and just going and finding other similar companies that are looking for the same roles and just download all of their job listings to a folder and then just cherry pick the best stuff and the stuff that you care about and want. Like just [00:14:00] take inspiration from stuff that's already been done well, and make it even better.

[00:14:04] ANDREA: I love that. And then as you get bigger, I'm thinking about how Amazon does its hiring practices. Obviously, the CEO is not involved in every single hiring decision. That would be impossible. But I do remember that they do teach you how Jeff Bezos, way at the beginning, he was involved in every single hiring decision and he set up the process of interviewing to what it is today. So I think that's also important, right? Like setting up those mechanisms in a way that it doesn't need you to be there while at the same time allowing the needs for your company to still be met.

[00:14:42] KYLE: Yeah. That's exactly right. I mean, hiring is like almost any part of your business. At a certain point, you have to build, you know, standard operating procedures, that your team can replicate. Otherwise, they're just gonna be reinventing things every time they go do it, and you won't have consistent, you know, output or hiring in this case. [00:15:00] So like the way the things that we've been doing to make sure we're always hiring the right fit is. You know, we have very specific core values for our company that our team knows, and those are listed in job listings. And it's very clear to applicants telling them like, Hey, we don't hire anyone unless they fit all these things. So make sure you fit and you wanna work for a company that values these things.

And then we also have a set of questions that help identify good culture fits. And those are always the same. And we have examples of what are good answers and bad answers. So people can get an idea of what they're looking for. And then outside of that, you have to tailor the questions to the role, obviously, but the culture questions are almost always the same. And that's the most important thing when we're hiring, you know, uh, there's a lot of people out there that are good accountants, for example, but an accountant that's gonna cause problems with the rest of the team, cuz they're not a good culture fit, that's a huge issue and we don't want that.

[00:16:00] ANDREA: And I think one of my last questions for you, Kyle, is, what is something you would've done differently based on what you've learned today?

[00:16:08] KYLE: Yeah. I think my biggest piece of advice, especially for people who are early on in their business is, hire sooner than you think. If business is going well, or you think it'll go well, you're gonna need help. And it was probably yesterday that you should have hired. You definitely can't do everything yourself...

[00:16:23] ANDREA: When would be the right time to start hiring? Because you say hire sooner than you think, when is that moment that should trigger you to like start looking into that?

[00:16:33] KYLE: It's so hard, especially for new business owners with like smaller, limited budgets to decide when to hire. That's what I experienced at least. Right. It's like I didn't have a bunch of money set aside to bring anyone on. Um, looking back if I would've known what I know now, I would've told myself like, all right, as soon as you're in the weeds spending, you know, a lot of your time doing something that doesn't actually bring value to the business, that's probably when I would hire. So to give you specifics, what I mean by that early on, [00:17:00] I was doing all the fulfillment and customer service. And I did that for a really long time, which was great because I knew the business in and out. But at a certain point, when I was spending, you know, upwards of half to three quarters of my time shipping orders and answering the phone, I couldn't work on the things that would really grow the business. And not that we don't value the people that answer the phones and ship orders, but it is easier to find someone to help you out with that than hire someone to run your business. And it is also cheaper. So I think that's just maybe set, set your own number. It's like, all right, once I get to 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week where I'm doing something that I could easily pass off to someone, then go hire it and don't wait until it's taking up all of your time.

[00:17:50] ANDREA: Thank you so much for your time, Kyle.

[00:17:53] KYLE: Thanks.

[00:17:55] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. [00:18:00] That was Kyle Goguen -- the Founder and CEO of Pawstruck... a dog approved source of healthy snacks and treats.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Pawstruck is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com. And just a reminder that we want to bring YOU the ultimate listener experience through our podcast too. So if you have thoughts you want to share with us, send us a message to thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com, and if you enjoy listening to This is Small Business, text a link of this episode to your friends right now!

Kyle mentioned a few interesting things that jumped out at me. 1 -- he feels that a great culture fit is even more important than a great resume. And 2 -- [00:19:00] He urges people to hire help when they find they're spending too much of their time working on tasks that could easily be accomplished by others. And finally -- as you heard Kyle say -- it can be tricky to know exactly when to hire. The formula is different for everyone. And when you're a SMALL company -- hiring is a BIG decision. In a way, the smaller the company, the more critical it is to hire the right team.

To help us get some more ideas for how to hire an A-Plus "Topgrade" employee I'm joined by Brad Smart. Brad is the Founder and CEO of Topgrading, a consulting and software company dedicated to helping companies of all sizes improve performance and profits by hiring high performers. He's been in the business for over 40 years -- and he brings a wealth of perspective and some pretty cool stories. I'm excited for you to meet him and hear what he has to say.

[00:20:00] ANDREA: Brad Smart. Thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today. I'm excited to talk to you about a few things.

[00:20:05] BRAD: Happy to be here. This is consistent with my passion to share what knowledge I have with small business owners.

[00:20:14] ANDREA: Can you just give me a little bit about your background, your expertise, and why you're here?

[00:20:20] BRAD: I was a freshman in college, found business 101 kind of boring, but I knew I wanted a business career. Psych 101 was interesting. So there was a local management psychologist, talked with him and he made it seem that this is a way of maybe doing some things that are really cool and interesting. That talent is all important. So hiring is all important as a professional. You could be interviewing candidates for upper management positions, coaching people, doing team building. That sounded cool. So I went back home and went through yellow pages and saw some firms of management psychologists. Linked up with one [00:21:00] and they sort of mentored me and they said, I have to get a master's and a PhD in psychology that our clients will think you're really smart and have deep insights into people. Aha. So I went, got a masters, got a doctorate, and I joined the company, and here I was doctor Brad Smart expert in interviewing, expert in hiring, but I had never conducted an interview. Right.

[00:21:27] HOST: I. Love this. Brad -- whose last name is literally "smart" and who is a hiring expert with many years of experience – admits the irony of getting his start as an expert in something he hadn’t yet done himself. Sure he had the credentials on paper -- but he'd never actually done the thing he was hired to do. But clearly -- he was intelligent, passionate, and curious. All good things in a prospective employee.

[00:21:57] BRAD: And so I was the new kid on the block. [00:22:00] I asked a question after about a week and I feel stupid that I hadn't asked it earlier. How good are we? What do you mean? Of the people we interview and recommend for hire and are hired, what percent turned out to be the high performers that our clients want? And the senior partner I was talking to said, I don't know. You're the new kid on the block. Go talk to our clients, introduce yourself and ask them the question I did. And a couple weeks later it’s clear. The answer was about 33%. Wait a minute. We are the experts. And only 33% of the people we recommend turn out to be high performers? And I remember telling my wife, if I were a medical doctor and two thirds of my patients were leaving the hospital in body bags every day, this would not be too cool. So did I make a mistake and I, should I change careers or?... I instead said, I'm going to try to figure out why [00:23:00] hiring is so poor, frankly, and what solutions are. And I've devoted my life to it. Published six books on hiring and, um, my seventh book is focused on small companies.

[00:23:15] ANDREA: So I’ll ask you the question you’ve probably been asked many times before, how do you find the right people to join your team and avoid hiring the wrong ones?

[00:23:25] BRAD: Topgrading is all about hiring best of class. So that means recruiting a lot of people to start the funnel. And then you go through the steps of applicant, screening tools, and interviews, and so forth, down to hiring, hopefully an A player. You've got to use job boards, probably. All right. The job boards, there are a bunch of them, And yeah, there's some costs associated with them, but they all use artificial intelligence and they go after not just active candidates who have submitted their resume some place, but passive candidates [00:24:00] whose LinkedIn profile is out there. They find you wherever you are and so you can get a lot of applicants.

[00:24:10] HOST: I'd never really thought about the difference between active and passive job seekers. And I guess what Brad's saying here is that the job boards are particularly helpful for finding those people who are great -- but who may not actively be hunting for a job.

[00:24:25] BRAD: So even for the very small companies, it's worthwhile considering. Something else, use your people, use your people to recruit, make it something you talk about all the time. All right. Who do you know? Among your associates of friends, neighbors who might be an A player, high performer with our company. And if you recommend someone and we hire them, we'll give you a bonus. And the more A players you hire, the more A players will be interested in joining you. [00:25:00] A players wanna work with A players. That's what makes it a growth company and fun to work.

[00:25:06] HOST: Brad is really big on this A-Player idea... and so I asked him to define it a bit more for us.

[00:25:13] BRAD: A player. The way we define it covers a lot of competencies depending on what the job is, but it also definitely includes “fits the culture.” Has to. Someone can be outstanding at what they do and not fit the culture. And you fire them after three months that's not an, A player in our definition, they have to fit the culture, uh, which is obviously very challenging. You know, in the pandemic and hybrid models are being used and work at home or in the office and so forth. It's a moving target but one you just absolutely have to pay attention to.

[00:25:46] ANDREA: Are there any red flags, I should look out for?

[00:25:50] BRAD: Be sure when you start filtering through the resumes you get, tell anyone that you think you might want to talk with that a final step in hiring [00:26:00] is for them for candidates to arrange reference calls with managers they've reported to. That is huge. That will guaranteed improve your hiring success. The red flag is when, when their eyes get big and they say, uh, uh, uh, they're stumbling, they're stuttering. A players will say, sure, They're happy to do it.

[00:26:26] HOST: As Brad was talking - I started thinking, calling all those former managers could add a lot of time to your hiring search. But Brad's idea -- to have the candidates themselves arrange the reference calls -- is kind of brilliant. It puts the onus on them -- and tests both their motivation, and the truth about their relationships with their former bosses. But I did wonder how the job-seekers would react to this. Brad is blunt about this:

[00:26:50] BRAD: If anyone hesitates or they say, I don't think I could get my managers to talk with you. What's really going on is "busted!" Right? [00:27:00] My resume has a bunch of hype and I've excluded things from my resume and I would do it in the interviews. I was prepared to not disclose the fact that I was fired from three companies. So that's red flag number one. Another red flag is just, uh, is turnover. If people have only held jobs for six months, six months, six months, and you need them for three years, at least in order to justify hiring them, then that just won't cut it probably for you. So you need to have all that information. You need to have total information. And the recommended interview is a chronological interview where you go through the whole career and then you look for those red flags. And you'll see, as you go to job, two job, three job four, they overcome mistakes and failures. They maximize their strengths and you see how those acorns evolved into the Oak tree.

[00:27:57] ANDREA: That’s amazing. Thank you so much Brad for all of your valuable [00:28:00] teachings today.

[00:28:02] BRAD: Well you’re very welcome. Happy to do it Andrea.

[00:28:04] HOST: That was the illustrious Brad Smart - from Topgrading, a consulting and software company dedicated to helping companies of all sizes improve performance and profits by hiring high performers. I learned so much from both Kyle and Brad today -- and I hope you did too.

Some of the key takeaways for hiring a super team I’m adding to my small business playbook are:

Hiring is a numbers game. Before you can hire the right people to be on your team, you have to make sure that there are enough applicants to choose from. Kyle suggested that having remote roles helps widen your pool of applicants. And another way to attract more applicants is making sure that your job description sounds like something that your ideal applicants would want to be a part of. See it as a marketing exercise and find ways in which readers who are potential candidates get excited about your company.
And then, of course, you need to get the word out [00:29:00] so posting on all jobs boards is essential, and you can even pay for ads on them to ensure that the most people possible see those open roles. Brad also suggested leveraging employees and them connecting to their existing networks. Who better to talk about your company than employees themselves?
Once you find some candidates, you’re going to want to start weeding out the people who might not be a good fit for your business. Kyle and I talked about setting up a standard operating procedure to help cut through the noise and also replicate what works so that hiring practices are consistent and as a small business owner, you eventually don’t have to be involved in every part of the process which frees you up to keep running the business.
Then, once you get to the actual interviewing part, a good piece of advice that Kyle shared was showing prospective A players that leadership will invest in their growth by giving employees time to also work on their hobbies [00:30:00] or side hustles as a way to ensure that they have an opportunity to be entrepreneurial.
To avoid hiring the wrong people, both Kyle and Brad suggest, outlining roles clearly and making sure you’re hiring the right person for the role, not just because you’re excited about them. And of course, let candidates know that they need to set up reference calls with managers they have reported to in the past and pay attention to candidates with high turnovers.

Definitely all lessons to add to my small business playbook -- which is getting pretty hefty, I might add.

That's it for This is Small Business today.

On the next episode I will be talking to a small business that Lego lovers like me will particularly like. For toymakers, it can be difficult to plan for a full year considering large spikes in demand during holidays. So we’ll be learning about leveraging spikes in demand, and supply chain forecasting. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, [00:31:00] subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode, and we want to know what you think so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com).

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:31:35]

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Ep 9: Ruby makes the leap to selling online

Learn how to make the jump to selling online.

[00:00:02] NICOLE: Very simply, I think that the path to purchase is not straight. And so we cannot expect a consumer to only go to a brick and mortar store. The desire of one customer is going to be very different than another customer. And we need to make sure that that path to purchase is seamless. So whether you have a brick and mortar store or you sell online exclusively, or you're looking to be everywhere, the option nowadays is basically, yes, please, be everywhere you can.

[00:00:32] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. On each episode - I gather super valuable nuggets that I'm filing away in my small business playbook for future reference if I decide to start my own business one day. At the end of each episode -- I call out key takeaways for you to use on your small business journey.

Today, it’s very hard to find any business [00:01:00] that doesn’t have some sort of footprint online. And the more I have talked to small business owners and experts on this show, the more I’ve learned that it’s not only critical to be online, but also to consider how your business shows up online. So, I wanted to explore when and how a product-based small business decides to go digital. The journey is different for everyone and I was especially intrigued by how a handmade business manages to go online and when they’re ready, considering they are the ones fulfilling orders one by one. Like my first guest today, Ruby Hong creator and founder of the all-natural and nature inspired handmade soaps, candles, and beauty products company - Beets and Apples. Ruby started out by working late into the night perfecting her products and recipes and selling them at her local farmers markets before she made the leap to selling online where, since then, her business has been booming!

[00:02:00] Later, I'll also be speaking with Nicole Leinbach, the Founder and Publisher of RetailMinded.com, a well-respected retail industry resource that has been recognized worldwide for its leading business insights since 2007. And as always, before we get started I want to remind you to subscribe to This is Small Business on your preferred platform, and rate us on Apple Podcasts. Leave us a review and let us know what you think. We need those so we can keep getting better!

Shout out to listener nuckcicle who said that as a small business owner they have learned a lot from this show. So have I! So thank you for going on this journey with me. Join listeners like nuckcicle in letting us know what you think of our little show This is Small Business.

[00:02:54] Andrea: Ruby, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today.

[00:02:57] Ruby Hong: I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:03:00] Andrea: So I should mention before I jump into questions that I have tried your candles and what I do carry with me in my purse is your organic coconut beeswax lip balm.

[00:03:11] Ruby Hong: Yeah, those are the best.

[00:03:12] Andrea: I love the candle as well! And what Beets and Apples is doing. So tell me about Beets & Apples, how did you get started?

[00:03:20] Ruby Hong: I grew up watching my mother who also ran a small business. She ran a brick-and-mortar store and it just always, it kind of inspired me watching her to go to work. She had a sense of pride and joy and excitement and, you know, to be the owner. And I was like, oh, I wanna be her. Like, I want to make her proud. One day I'll come up with something and I'll have my own small business. And so it was something that I always knew that I would be doing. I just didn't know what I'll be selling, but the universe always makes a way and leads you. And, one of my favorite ways to distress is taking a long hot bath. [00:04:00] And that kind of occurred me that, you know using these products, and why don't I make it for myself? That's a hundred percent natural and that’s available for local customers. So that's how it started. I start giving out the products like bath salts and soaps and candles to my friends and family, and they loved it. And so that led me to selling in a farmer's market and then on Amazon.

[00:04:26] Andrea: So you started with a small group of people who you knew, they reacted positively, and you decided to branch out to farmer’s markets.

[00:04:34] Ruby Hong: Yeah. So like, when I first had like my first product, like bath salt and soaps. I knew that if you are gonna grow your business in this market economy, you have to go online. Like I knew that it has to be all online is the future, but, just because you have your website, nobody's gonna come and buy that product. It's very hard. So it was just obviously the natural way for me to go to farmer's market. [00:05:00] It's very easy. As long as you're local and you set up a venue and then they give you a booth to attend every week.

[00:05:09] Andrea: So why did you decide to go to farmer’s markets before going online? If you knew that it was going to be better to be online eventually?

[00:05:17] Ruby Hong: Yeah, because, when I made Beets and Apples, I obviously I had a website made, but it was nothing there. I didn't know, as a small business owner, how to attract customers to my website. It's something that I've never done. So obviously that's why, even though I knew that online is the way. I never thought about selling on Amazon or selling on online. So it just, it was kind of just learning time for me. And going on a farmer's market was really great because it helped me learn a lot from meeting my customers face to face.

[00:05:50] Andrea: And then at what point did you decide it was time to go online?

[00:05:53] Ruby Hong: I always knew that there is a limit to selling offline. [00:06:00] Customers are only there when they attend the farmer's market or when the retail brick and mortar shop is open, right. The hours are very limited, but, when I knew was when I got an invitation from Amazon handmade, like, “Hey, we are opening this.” Artisans are welcome to join. So I said, oh, let me just start selling here. And I had a very little hope that I'll make it. But I was gaining confidence in myself as a business owner and in my products at those six months that I was selling at farmer's market, I knew that I had a great product. So I started listing it on Amazon handmade and it started getting a lot of attraction and orders and I knew, oh, this is a time for me to stop the farmer's market. Cuz it's a lot of work. You have to produce and bring. So I need to focus on online. So that's when I knew when the sales were growing online, I felt safe that, oh, now I can move and focus on growing my business online.

[00:06:57] HOST: So for Ruby, selling at the farmer’s market was a type of prototyping, [00:07:00] testing out small batches of her product and seeing reactions from customers in real time. It helped her test, learn, and feel ready for when she made the jump online. This was especially helpful during the pandemic, when more customers moved online for their purchases.

[00:07:18] Ruby Hong: After the pandemic my business doubled on Amazon because that's when everybody was at home. Like their brick-and-mortar shop was closed and everybody was pretty much shopping on Amazon. And I think people found that refreshing that Amazon carries handmade products from all different local makers. So, yeah. It's a very good channel for me as a small business owner to reach thousands like millions of customers all across USA.

[00:07:50] HOST: It’s interesting to see that not all channels might be right for your business all the time. This reminds me about our conversation with Daniel Singer of Filthy Foods in episode 8 [00:08:00] “Daniel nails product presentation” where we talked about meeting customer expectations though packaging. Based on what I’m learning about from Ruby, you also need to consider meeting customer expectations through channels and making sure you’re meeting them where they are. For Ruby, a farmer’s market, while helpful for testing out, isn’t exactly the prime place for her particular product if she wanted to grow.

[00:08:26] Andrea: What were some of the things that you considered before going online?

[00:08:31] Ruby Hong: So, the things that I really considered going online were: Is my product really good enough? Cuz there are thousands, millions of products that sell online. You have to have your clear value proposition. You have to know if your product is actually what customer wants and, you know, I, it was very important for me to create a product that makes customers lives very happy [00:09:00] and meaningful. And that's why I turned Beets & Apples to specialize in Gift sets, but not just the gift sets, but gift sets with fun themes, like Happy Birthdays and promotions. And secondly, the thing that I considered was: what's the right channel for you to sell your product? For me, it was Amazon cuz obviously Amazon with prime, I'm able to work pretty much like free at my own time. Amazon will deal with the products and shipments and customer service. There are already millions of people ready to buy.

[00:09:41] HOST: So, have a clear value proposition that ensures you stand out among the sea of other products; which is a constant we’ve learned throughout episodes, as well as choosing the right channel for your product because not everything might work the same. Ruby had a fun case study that she shared with me [00:10:00] for why going online is critical and why knowing which channel is best depending on your product or service.

[00:10:07] Ruby Hong: My father-in-law and my mom-in-law here run a mom and dad upholstery business for 30 years. They actually have a physical store and they didn't believe in the power of online. So I, as a daughter-in-law wanted to be nice to them and I set up their online website for them. I listed the works that they did. I talked about their stories. I created the online form where the customers can reach out to them and it made such a big difference. Just having that online presence. Like “I saw these photos that you did. Can you do it for me?” You know, “I saw that you guys do this business, like this type of work. Can you do this here?” So it was very helpful. So I'm, I truly believe the channel. You always have to go online, any business from any background [00:11:00] should have a presence online if you wanna grow.

[00:11:03] Andrea: I love that! Gotta go the extra mile for the in-laws!

[00:11:07] Ruby Hong: …you have to be nice too. Yeah, my in-laws.

[00:11:11] Andrea: So, considering you’re a handmade business, and that you produce everything yourself, and then you talked about how going online gave you more traction and orders increased, how do you handle the quality of the product in a way that ensures you meet customer expectations on time?

[00:11:27] Ruby Hong: I do pretty much everything. Packing, making sure everything goes smoothly, marketing, right? But I made sure that I had a good team and we were very specific on the quality control following specifically like the ratio of the beeswax to the oils and everything we had meticulously written down and from the temperature of the candles we had to follow the rules that we had set. And the quality part was, I think, I guess a bit easier for me, [00:12:00] cuz I've already gone through selling my products at farmer's market. I knew what customers loved and wanted. You have to go through a lot of trial and error to come up with the best quality. And also because of the online, I had to be really good at packing, shipping. It's incredibly hard. And also because we want to be gentle to mother earth. I wanted to use less plastic packaging, so it costs more, but it's really worth it in the long run.

[00:12:32] Andrea: What are some things that you learned that you would do differently in the process of taking your small business online?

[00:12:39] Ruby Hong: I wished I joined selling online sooner because it's a lot of time, time is literally money. Once you start that step, once you start your first step of selling online, you'll figure it out. As long as you don't give up, you keep digging, you study, you study the market and you know, I, I just wish I could sell it a lot sooner.

[00:13:00] HOST: Go online sooner than you think because you’ll figure it out along the way. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I’ll be filing that one away in my playbook for sure. And Ruby shared two last pieces of advice for small business owners.

[00:13:15] Ruby Hong: You don't have to spend a ton of money on hiring a professional because you have to have capital to keep going. If you run out of the money, you can't test your ideas. You can't create a product. So don't waste money on hiring marketing professionals or hiring expensive photographers. You don't need to do that. I made a mistake early on for the Beets and Apples logo. We hired a designer and we paid $1,000 to just create my logo, but looking back, I mean, it's great. It turned out great, but it's those little things. You can save and put those finance into actually improving your products. And another thing would be. [00:14:00] Just keep hustling. It is tough out there. There's so many competitions, but it's a rewarding journey. You'll meet great customers. It's a very fun and meaningful journey to run a business and make an impact on customer's life in a positive way. It will get hard, but don't give up on that.

[00:14:27] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. That was Ruby Hong -- Founder of Beets and Apples... with great candles, soaps, and my personal favorite coconut lip balm. I’d definitely recommend Beets and Apples if you’re looking for a great gift box with little goodies you can personalize.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Beets and Apples is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources [00:15:00] offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com. And just a reminder that we want to bring YOU the ultimate listener experience through our podcast too. So if you have thoughts you want to share with us, send us a message to thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com, and if you enjoy listening to This is Small Business, text a link of this episode to your friends right now!

If you’re a handmade small business owner, your small business journey can look different. So that’s why we have Amazon Handmade, our artisan-only community of sellers. So if you’re looking for a selling process on Amazon that fits your needs, check out Handmade at Amazon to learn more or visit our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

To learn more about making the move from farmer's markets or in person, to the online marketplace [00:16:00] I reached out to Nicole Leinbach, owner and founder at RetailMinded.com, who's going to help me understand a little bit more about how to navigate the transition from hitting the pavement to riding the online airwaves.

[00:16:13] Andrea: Nicole Leinbach, thank you so much for being on this small business with me today.

[00:16:18] NICOLE: I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks, Andrea.

[00:16:20] Andrea: Tell me a little bit about your background.

[00:16:22] NICOLE: You know, I've been a small business geek since basically forever. I remember being a little girl and walking up and down my local main street with my mom shopping like many moms and daughters do, but I was always drawn to those local main street stores versus the mall. And I've just genuinely appreciated small business. Since then, and always, and while I've of course worked with big, big companies along the way and still do, I simply have a passion for supporting small business. So I found Retailminded.com about 15 years ago. And that came after having national roles with a variety of retailers of all sizes. [00:17:00] So I have a really extensive retail background on the wholesale and retail side. And when I founded retail minded, my goal was to optimize small businesses so that they could wear all those hats that they have to by delivering news education and support through retail minded.

[00:17:16] Andrea: So let's jump into going online. Can you tell me why you think small businesses should consider moving online and what the benefit is?

[00:17:23] NICOLE: You know, very simply I think that the path to purchase is not straight. And so we cannot expect a consumer to only go to a brick and mortar store. The desire of one customer is going to be very different than another customer. And we need to make sure that that path to purchase is seamless. So whether you have a brick and mortar store or you sell online exclusively, or you're looking to be everywhere, the option nowadays is basically, yes, please, be everywhere you can.

[00:17:51] Andrea: And when do you think is a good time to go online for a brick and mortar?

[00:17:55] NICOLE: I think you need to be online right away personally. [00:18:00] So as a small business owner, you can expect customers to look in a variety of places to discover you. You know myself, I am a 44 year old woman who has habits that have shaped me over the years, but my 20 something year old niece shops very differently than let's say I do. Or my 60 something year old mother-in-law would shop very differently than I do. So we need to remember that the generational preferences of how consumers shop are also different, but data tells us that online is where part of their destination or discovery begins at across every generation.

[00:18:35] Andrea: Ok, what I'm hearing is you really have to go where your customer, your target customer, is going and really understand not only whether they're going online but also where they are online. I personally usually either go directly to the store, or go to Amazon.

[00:18:54] NICOLE: Absolutely. That user journey is so unique though, to each customer, which is why that path to purchase varies. [00:19:00] There are a lot of generations that prefer to know what their peers think before they know what a brand cares to share. You know, the Amazon four-star store would share real time reviews of what customers are sharing. And that's the reality of how customers make decisions. They want to hear what their peers think. And again, that does cross the generations. So whether it's in real time being updated through signage or whether it's being shared by a peer to peer site, or sometimes it could just be two people interacting via text or email sharing their preference. Hey, I bought this, check this out, or those affiliate links that a lot of people are sharing nowadays as well.

[00:19:40] Andrea: Word of mouth. As a podcaster I think word of mouth is probably the most powerful type of promotion there is. So what are the things that you think a small business should consider before they go online? How do they know that they’re ready to be online?

[00:19:55] NICOLE: Yeah, great question. You know, when you're a small business, you obviously have a lot of hats. [00:20:00] But one of the things that hopefully is not intimidating is also a lot of the technology available to them. And the one thing I always remind small businesses is make sure you're looking upfront at the integrations available among those technologies. So what does that mean? It means that if you are to go to a company that provides an eCommerce template, so you can build your own eCommerce site, you wanna also make sure that it integrates into marketplaces so that your inventory is totally being managed in control across in different places, or you wanna make sure that you have an understanding of sell through from one site to another site, because the reality is, is if you're really gonna boost yourself to be on that path to purchase no matter where customers go, you will be selling at a lot of different destinations, right?

So your website alone, isn't going to be the only place you're going to have marketplaces like Amazon to sell on. You wanna make sure all of that is visible [00:21:00] so that you have full clarity to what's being sold. What's missing what you need to do. You wanna have, of course, inventory management, you wanna have supply chain, clarity, logistics, the transportation, the shipping, the labeling, all of this stuff can be very easily managed, but you need to have that integration. I go back to that keyword there's integration, make sure that you have technology that is seamless to work with one another. There's a lot of companies that integrate into Amazon, right. So that they are actually optimized and they've been approved by Amazon to be among the tech partners that support them, whether it is through let's say warehouse distribution. Right. So even though Amazon has its own warehouses, many sellers also have their own warehouses that Amazon still ships from. So there's a lot of variables and that's where the of course challenges come in. You need to make sure that there's clarity in your own understanding of your inventory and how it's being sold through [00:22:00] external marketplaces like Amazon. And then if you have your own website, how does that work too? Because your own website is a whole other ballgame, right? So there's gonna be a lot of layers there, and that's why it's so important to upfront ask what integrates. You might find a technology and think this sounds savvy and great, but if it doesn't have a lot of integrated partners, you might wanna question if it's really for you.

[00:22:26] Andrea: What other things should small businesses owners keep in mind?

[00:22:30] NICOLE: Keep learning, you know, there's a lot of great resources out there, like podcasts. The trade shows that are available are so important to go to it's where you source your inventory. And while there is sourcing available online, of course, getting to these real physical live trade shows also bring to life experiences that not only allow for connectivity of networking, but also learning from the companies like we were just discussing the technology partners and the various industry leaders who can share with you, [00:23:00] why or how. I really do encourage those small business decision makers to wanna keep learning because there's constantly evolution in retail and in commerce and specifically in selling online.

[00:23:14] Andrea: Oh yea, staying up to date is incredibly important because everything is shifting so quickly. So how do you leverage both the positives of being in person and online for a better customer experience?

[00:23:28] NICOLE: I actually think that's a super exciting question. The reality is, is that is our world today. That's not just how we shop. So when you say online or brick and mortar, it's also how we live. We communicate the same way to our partners, our children, our coworkers, that way we see them sometimes, but then we virtually stay in touch other times, you know, so it is the reality of 2022 and certainly going to be the reality of the future. So I think managing it and finding balance is absolutely essential. [00:24:00] And those that actually pick one or the other, it's not that that's necessarily bad or wrong, but it's definitely, um, not leveraging the best and the most exciting things that they could bring to life because life comes full circle, are when you blend your digital and brick and mortar. Let’s just say, if you have a website and you don't have a physical brick and mortar experience, there are still brick and mortar ways. And when I say brick and mortar, really what I'm meaning is just being in person. You can do that by doing a pop-up shop or being a part of your community, local, you know, farmers markets, if it were to make sense, but you could also do it by just being a part of the community. Being a part of lots of chambers of commerces and different variety of groups have ways for you to get in touch and be there like once a month, and who are your local other business leaders that you can just connect with?

So if you're in the conversation in a real-life way, not just from behind the screen, [00:25:00] that does contribute to your local economy and to your local understanding and to your best interest of really just consumer growth as well. I think it's so important to understand consumers. In both that digital landscape, but also the real-world landscape. So even if you don't have, let's say four walls to support your business in a way that allows consumers to connect with you and still be a part of experience, you can connect with consumers, because I do think that will ultimately impact some of the choices you make in whether it's inventory or marketing or communication or social media sharing.

[00:25:32] Andrea: Considering that not a lot of businesses start out with a large budget, do you think it's better for me to just go in scrappy as long as I'm going or really get set up first before I’m officially active online?

[00:25:47] NICOLE: I'm gonna use my own real-life example here at Andrea. So, you know, I've had retail minded for over 15 years and along the way, launched a variety of extensions of the business. In May of 2023 [00:26:00] I'll launch yet another extension, but we've, you know, officially started the conversation it's called stimulate and it is a B2B trade show within the sexual wellness category. And so in doing that to your point, is it totally polished and perfect yet? No, it is not. Is it ready for a full reveal? Probably not to the best that it could be, but have we launched it? Heck yes, we have. Because that is what you need to do. You just need to push ahead and move forward because the conversation just has to start happening. There's always gonna be an opportunity to improve. There's always gonna be an opportunity to say, Hey, we could have done better, but if we don't put it out there, we're never gonna get those strides. Moving ahead. So. Hopefully that answers their question in regards to do I think people should wait. No, I think that pausing too long actually just takes them backwards. Make sure that it's not, you know, so scruffy that if people were to look at it, you might turn them off instead of say, Hey, I'm curious, of course, [00:27:00] but people do have a very compassionate understanding of “its business.” And in this case, it's small business and small business has a lot of heart.

[00:27:08] Andrea: Is there any other advice you’d like to share?

[00:27:10] NICOLE: I think when you're a small business owner, you have to accept that with success will often come failure or at least set back. So sometimes your efforts won't always be what you wanna gain from them. So your effort might be. I'm going to move forward by 10 strides and we're gonna gain, you know, this much revenue this year, but instead something happens, whether it's something like COVID that you have no control over, or maybe supply chain impacts something that you really invested in, or possibly consumers in marketing. And let's just say, celebrities might influence a shift in consumer behavior. Those are unexpected challenges that are very realistic. Don't let that take you so far backwards that you don't still move ahead. Sometimes being paralyzed is the biggest problem of all. So take a deep breath, analyze it, consider what you can do [00:28:00] and move ahead. But I see too much pause. Small business owners take such long pauses before they move ahead sometimes that it hurts them.

[00:28:10] Andrea: Nicole. Thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today. It was a pleasure to have you.

[00:28:15] NICOLE: Thank you for having me, Andrea.

[00:28:19] HOST: That was Nicole Leinbach from Retailminded.com. I think that going online can be overwhelming when you think about making the process of discovering and purchasing your products easier for customers. The journey may not be the same for everyone, but it definitely deserves strong considerations like, when and where you show up in a way that makes sense for you and doesn’t add extra work. So, some of the key takeaways for taking your small business online that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking with Ruby and Nicole are:

Think about how your product compares to everything else out there that is similar. Before you’re ready to show the world, it’s good to evaluate where you stand among the competition, [00:29:00] that way you can meet customer expectations once you go online and they discover your product. If you want to learn more about standing out among the competition, I recommend you listen to episode 2, Eva Jane stands out in the crowd, with Eva Jane Bunkley if you haven’t already.
So, once you have a quality product, think about the best places to reach your customers. What is the right channel for your product and for your customer? You can try different channels depending on your specific goals at a given time as a business. Maybe to start off, you want to go the route that Ruby went in and start at farmer’s markets to test out your product and then expand to social media, on a direct-to-consumer website, or a marketplace like Amazon. Don’t forget the power of being both online and in person too. And learn to leverage both for your business. This doesn’t mean you need to have a dedicated brick and mortar, but it could be through networking events, pop-ups, or even some placements in local shops. [00:30:00] As Nicole said, be everywhere you can be in a way that enables you to connect with your target customers. And think about how product discovery differs across generations.
When you do decide to go online, it doesn’t have to be perfect. So as Ruby mentioned, don’t spend a ton of money on getting set up online and instead think about how you spend that money since you could instead be using it to make your product quality better. And Nicole used the example of her own website launch. You can make it better as you go, but of course, don’t make it sooo scrappy that you deter customers from connecting with your brand.
And finally, leverage technology to have the ability to completely integrate your small business across marketplaces. Before you go all in with one company, consider if you will be able to grow the way you want to grow without having to switch to another solution later on. Make sure you have technology that is seamless to work with one another.

[00:31:00] Definitely all lessons to add to my small business playbook – and I’m excited to see how my lessons learned have continued to grow. That's it for This is Small Business today.

On the next episode I will be talking to a small business that all dog lovers like myself will enjoy. We’ll talk about what it takes to hire a super team who is as committed to the mission and vision of your small business as you are. And when your mission and vision is to provide quality treats for your best friend dog or cat… it’s especially important to make sure that your team is onboard. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode, and we want to know what you think so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, [00:32:00] with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:32:10]

Ep 8: Daniel nails product presentation

Learn about creating the ultimate unboxing experience for customers.

[00:00:05] HOST: You know how when you give a present to a little kid, half the time -- they're more interested in playing with the box --or the bubble wrap -- than the present itself? That's because there's something special about the WAY a product is presented... the package it comes to you in... the color and texture of the wrapping, the feel of it, the time it takes to open. I mean... It's the crinkle of brown paper packages, tied up with string, right? Sometimes, the box the product comes in, is just as important as the product itself.

[00:00:43] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. On each episode, I talk to an expert, and a different small business owner... maybe someone like you! [00:01:00] At the end of each episode, I will sum up the key takeaways for you to use on your own small business journey. So keep listening.

Today on the show I was inspired by the unboxing videos I see on social media. I enjoy watching them, sometimes eve more than the product review itself. So, I wanted to learn about the unboxing experience, why is it important? What makes it stand out? Is it actually helpful for brands? To figure all of this out I'll be speaking to a product and packaging designer who's going to tell you how to energize your brand by focusing on the "unboxing" experience. But first let me introduce you to Daniel Singer -- from Filthy Food, a company that makes high quality cocktail mixes and garnishes. You know -- things that make your drinks fun. Daniel is thoughtful and charismatic. I think of him as a kind of "olive philosopher king." [00:02:00] You'll see what I mean in a second. When I first met Daniel -- which was actually about a year ago -- the first thing I noticed was was a very wonderful speaker and has a wonderful voice -- perfect for podcasting.

[00:02:16] Daniel: I think it's just the accent really.

[00:02:20] Andrea: It's more than the accent.

[00:02:21] Daniel: well, maybe we'll see. We'll see.

[00:02:25] Andrea: So let's jump right in. Tell me about Filthy and how you got started.

[00:02:28] Daniel: Well, Filthy is a cocktail garnish and mixer company and, and we try to make people's drinks better. About 12 years ago now we saw this incredible Renaissance happening in cocktails. People were moving towards fresh ingredients behind the bar, fresh herbs, fresh juices. And so areas of the bar that weren't really evolving were really being exposed and olives and cherries were really poor quality. Olives came in big gallons. The brine would turn rancid before anybody got through it. And as more bartenders started to take real pride [00:03:00] in what they were doing, they were just really rejecting those chemically cured commodity fruit.

My brother was a documentary maker and he was coming from Iraq as part of a tour with a force recon unit. And I sort of pitched him the idea for Filthy to come with me, to, to look at olives, explore olives. And he says, you know, I've jumped out of airplanes 2000 times. I've been Iraq in Afghanistan for the last two years. You want to start a cocktail garnish company? And I said, yeah, I do, actually. He said, well, I thought I was bloody crazy. Let's do it. So we thought it was gonna take us three or four months, but there are 700 varieties of olives on the planet. And so this three or four month journey turned into a two year olive pilgrimage where we looked at 230 varieties of cultivatable olives and just met all these incredible families and went to all these amazing regions. And we came back to America with four barrels of naturally cured olives. [00:04:00] So all other olives are chemically cured. They're highly commoditized. So it takes about three or four days to turn them from a fruit on a tree, into what you would see on your plate. And we just thought we could do better if we could just naturally cure with salt and water.

So we came back to America with four barrels, and then we built the business for the next three years, not with the same four barrels, but for the next three years out of the back of my wife's minivan here in Florida, going from bar to bar, and my brother was going around on subway trains in New York, and bartenders told their friends. Now 12 years later, you'll find Filthy in some of the best bars, restaurants, hotels, cruise ships, airlines, on Amazon, of course, some of the best places in the world. So yeah, just finding something that you love and, and just committing fully to that experience and that moment.

[00:04:50] Andrea: I love that story. And since I met you back in, when was that? Like November?

[00:04:56] Daniel: I think it was, that’s right.

[00:05:00] Andrea: I now ask when I go to a restaurant or a bar, I ask about the brand of their olives or their cherries. And if it's not Filthy, I'm always like, have you heard of this brand? It's really good.

[00:05:10] Daniel: Thank you so much. Well look, it's really kind of you, because I think ultimately kindness is a big part of what we do. You know, a lot of times people are going out they're meeting friends, maybe it's the one night, a month they're out with their partner or they've valet parked the car or got a babysitter. And I think anybody in hospitality it's about taking care of people. It's about making sure the people on the other side of the bar have a great time. And so I think, you know, we always say with Filthy, people may not necessarily notice that we're part of the experience, but we believe they'll feel it, they'll feel it as part of this overall experience of that wonderful bar or restaurant is trying to create for them.

[00:05:48] Andrea: And it goes beyond being a good business. Right. It's also about creating a differentiating experience for that customer.

[00:05:56] Daniel: A hundred percent. And even down to the tiny little details like an olive [00:06:00] that goes inside of a drink. And I just love to see people's faces when they discover our product for the first time. I just find that wonderful: being kind to people, doing something beautiful and having them appreciate it.

[00:06:10] Andrea: I want to really learn about your journey with customer experience, but I know that if I don't ask this question, I will kick myself. Why Filthy, why that word?

[00:06:21] Daniel: So all of you can tell from my accent, I'm not from here. I'm from little island in Europe where it's always raining. And, um, Mark, my brother is only 10 months younger than me. So as kids, we were always outside and playing and getting covered in mud and always being happy. And my mom was always like, look at you. You're bloody filthy the pair of you. You're bloody filthy. We're just about to go out and you're bloody filthy. So. Being filthy is how we look at life. You know, don't dip your toe in. Don't get a little bit dirty, get filthy in everything, cuz that's where the joy is. So we thought wouldn't it be interesting to start a company that was really maniacal about quality and guest experience and call it Filthy. [00:07:00] And so we are called Filthy cuz that's our perspective on everything. All- in, a hundred percent, relentless, obsessive, committed.

[00:07:10] HOST: Sold! Right? I love how clearly Daniel understands the mission and ethos of his brand. Basically -- to get the most out of life, and to celebrate all the little details. It makes a lot of sense, and you can see how that idea -- coupled with high quality product -- would catch on. So at this point -- you're probably picturing what the Filthy customer experience is like. Specifically, I mean the way they package, box, and present their products. And you might think from Daniel's description of his brand's identity, that their unboxing is filled with extra goodies like little cocktail umbrellas and fake ice. But actually -- their unboxing is kept relatively simple. I asked Daniel how they arrived at this simple approach. He told me that they used to have a much more complicated unboxing experience. [00:08:00] Here's why:

[00:08:02] Daniel: Sometimes on your jar you don't always have the real estate to communicate all of the things that you think are important when you're building a brand. So we felt, okay, by having this unboxing experience and by having something that the jar went into, we could communicate all of this other messaging that we felt at that time was really important for our consumers and people that love the brand to know about. We could be more provocative in a certain way. And so we went down this particular path, really about creating emotional connection with people and using the additional packaging as a way to connect with them beyond what the jar or the product quality could communicate.

[00:08:46] HOST: But then -- they changed tack. The jar labels they have today are simple and bright. The packaging functional. The unboxing experience is trouble-free. So how did they get from there -- to here?

[00:08:50] Daniel: I'm an incredibly dyslexic human being, which means that I don't get any of my information from reading it. I really get it from trying to be present and really listening [00:09:00] and really trying to understand what's important to people. So the last couple of years, supply chain challenges, the cost of things like cardboard, all of these things affect your business. So you think to yourself, wow. Do I really need all of this over-packaging? Do I really need all of this other stuff as prices are going up? Rather than raising prices, can we be more conscious in the way that we are providing packaging? So what is actually really important? Why don't we just ask consumers, what's really important to you? So we had a database of about 4,000 early adopters, I would say at the time. And so we started to do a lot of email surveys and incentivizing people to take the time to, you know, just give us some feedback. We learned a lot going on the journey. You know, we thought having a big unboxing experience would be something that a lot of consumers really resonated with, that they wanted to have this moment where the package arrived [00:10:00] and they opened it up, and there was this incredible experience. And the feedback that we got from listening and putting out loads of surveys was most people want to have something that shows up in one piece. That's gonna be as they expected it, provide value for money for them and add to their experience. And unboxing, at least for Filthy, on the surveys that we did, was the least important thing that our consumer was concerned about.

[00:10:25] HOST: Ok, so no extras in the box like little umbrellas then. I guess it makes sense, if you think about it: the people who are "unboxing" Daniel's products -- a lot of them are busy restauranteurs and bartenders. So they really just want a quality product that is easy to open when you have a full bar and you need more olives -- stat!

[00:10:46] Daniel: You know, I was always, just so conscious about every little moment of interaction with people and what we found through the transition was could we spend more money on raising awareness or improving [00:11:00] the timeframe for shipping or whatever it was as opposed to an unboxing experience, which was a massive, massive revelation for me.

[00:11:11] HOST: So as Daniel learned -- when it comes to the unboxing experience, sometimes less is more. But that doesn't mean the packaging isn't important to Filthy. Their labels and containers are simple -- for sure -- but also vibrant, and full of life -- just like Filthy.

[00:11:26] Daniel: What I do think though is that with the jars and the way that we communicate the brand on the packaging, that's important because I think every time you open your refrigerator, you should have these little moments of joy, or if you're going to your friend's houses, and you're gonna take something with you they should be little moments of joy. So I think we spent a lot of time on not necessarily the unboxing experience, but really about the packaging and how it communicates and makes it so simple and gives people, recipes and guides them to QR codes so they can see videos, and gives them little animated illustrations on the back. [00:12:00] So, so they can really understand about the product without reading about it. You know, going back to being dyslexic. I always thought, God, I wonder if people really do read the back of jars. I mean, I don't, but I wonder if people do, and then we thought, well, what if we make it illustrations and tell the story about our black cherries being slow- cooked in copper pots through this little, little illustration. So I think we really try to put a lot of time and energy into the way that the package, the jar actually engages with the consumer, as opposed to necessarily the stuff around it.

[00:12:30] HOST: By the way -- those cherries are super delicious! So yeah, while I admit to loving a fun unboxing experience, in the case of THIS particular product -- I kind of just want as few barriers to the cherries as possible!

[00:12:45] Daniel: Now, maybe if people were gifting our product more and not just, you know, smashing martinis at home and, and doing all of those wonderful things, right, that maybe unboxing would've been more important, but it wasn't. It was not about making decisions by committee. [00:13:00] But I think it is also sometimes just taking the temperature of what's important to people at any one moment in time. And, and that was very valuable to us. So we did, we, we stopped a lot of extra and over packaging through an unboxing experience, which actually was much more sustainable moving forward. So that was a good thing.

[00:13:18] HOST: There's a lesson here, I think, about looking for compatibility between your customer and your unboxing experience. And I like the "test and learn" approach that Daniel took. He listened to his customers -- during a pandemic -- and was prepared to adapt to what they wanted. I'll put that one in my small business playbook for sure.

[00:13:34] Daniel: We started to really understand more about ourselves, our own personal evolution. And we just learned that for us at that point, it wasn't about putting it in a cool box that said loads of stuff.

[00:13:45] Andrea: I'd like to know based on that feedback you received, when do you think that packaging does matter?

[00:13:52] Daniel: So in our world, it's really about what is that expectation we've created. And I think. A lot of times that's down to and [00:14:00] can be associated with the price point that you're charging. You know, like if you're buying a very expensive piece of jewelry or, or something that's predominantly directed towards gifting, you probably want to have that moment of anticipation. Where, what is it? It's a surprise. I I'm engaging with it from the outside. There's certain companies that do a great job of owning a certain color in people's consciousness. If something arrives that's in a turquoise box, everybody gets excited way before they open it. And so I think you get to that moment where it's about where in the journey does the engagement start? And I think this is really key, you know, looking at other brands in the space like Virgin, as an example. Virgin, always used to say, um, your vacation doesn't start when you land. Right. It starts when you get on the plane.

And so I think where does the experience start? Does it start when the package arrives, is it a certain color that's gonna create an emotion? Is it, does it have a certain shape? [00:15:00] Or does it arrive when they've gone through the packaging cuz their motto and their ethos is about sustainability and less cardboard and less packaging and less outer stuff ? So I think as an owner of a brand or somebody that's really trying to create an emotional connection with people, which is really what we all do. It's where does the vacation start? Where does the emotion start? So I think packaging is important based on meeting the expectation of the consumer. And if you don't, you're gonna disappoint them.

[00:15:30] Andrea: Do you see Filthy changing that experience once again, or, or bringing something additional to the table in the future?

[00:15:38] Daniel: I can tell you categorically that sustainability is a huge part of everything that we think about. So I think as the world continues to evolve, we have to continue to evolve. We try to be at the forefront of what's happening in packaging in general, based on a whole lot of different things that get considered all the way through, like I said, it's about being kind, it's about being thoughtful. It's about living this journey [00:16:00] every day with people that are like-minded in their thinking, that challenge how good you can be and constantly evolving. Cuz if you don't, somebody's gonna come along and just do it better.

[00:16:10] Andrea: I am so impressed with how in depth you've gone to, to really bring that experience to customers to really bring them on the journey of Filthy. And I wanted to really congratulate you, and hopefully be talking to you again.

[00:16:25] Daniel: Thank you so much. Take care.

[00:16:27] Andrea: Thank you, Daniel, you too.

[00:16:30] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. That was Daniel Singer -- who -- as you heard -- believes in getting filthy.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Filthy Foods is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com. [00:17:00] And just a reminder that we want to bring YOU the ultimate listener experience through our podcast too. So if you have thoughts you want to share with us, send us a message to thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com, and if you enjoy listening to This is Small Business, share episodes with your friends too!

Daniel mentioned that when it comes to unboxing, in the case of his customers, less is more. But for some brands and customers -- more is more. It's incredibly important to pay attention to customer expectations. Sounds sensible -- but like most things in small business, I'm learning, easier said than done. How exactly do you design your packaging and unboxing experience to meet customer expectations? What do you do if you find your customers expect something MORE than a brown cardboard box? My next guest is Kaila Piepkow from DOX Design. They're a super cool company that breathes life into your brand’s mission, vision, and values with the power of visual storytelling. [00:18:00] Kaila loves to sprinkle design magic into the unboxing experience -- and she's going to tell us how -- and why it matters.

[00:18:09] Andrea: Kaila thank you so much for being on This is Small Business with us today. Tell me a little bit of your background.

[00:18:15] Kaila: So My name's Kaila Piepkow. I'm the owner and creative director of Dox Design. We're a boutique branding and packaging design studio. We've had the pleasure of rebranding over a hundred businesses and I have a little small team of illustrators and designers that band together every day to create what we call drool- worthy designs.

[00:18:37] Andrea: Let's start with the why, why is that packaging design and boxing experience so important?

[00:18:45] Kaila: So for a lot of small businesses, especially e-commerce, your packaging and unboxing experience is really the only tangible touch points that your customer is gonna have to interact with you. It's the only time they're gonna physically have something in their hand, [00:19:00] that's from your business. So what makes a small business or brand memorable is obviously the emotion, and the story behind the brand and the customer experience that you bring to the table. And unboxing is just one of the best ways you can do that. I always use a case study of one of our clients, Dogs of Charm City. They're a small e-commerce company over in the east coast for Instagram obsessed dog parents. They sell a lot of dog apparel, dog home goods. Um, and our team was able to rebrand them, but also design an unboxing experience around their brand.

It was super colorful. It had witty language. It was really interactive. They actually personalized each box with the dog's name. Um, and just from that box during the pandemic, her business went viral. So everyone was filming their unboxing experience. They were posting images on social media with their dog, tagging them. You know, it was pretty much free marketing [00:20:00] because every other person who was following them, that was a dog mom was seeing this box, was seeing this brand. The results of one year of her launching her unboxing experience, her online sales increased by 297%. And her social media following went from 4,000 to 21,000. So if it's done correctly, meaning you have a deep understanding of your audience. You have a deep understanding of your brand. The unboxing experience can be a very powerful marketing tool for a small business.

[00:20:30] Andrea: Is there a time when the unboxing experience doesn't matter to the customer?

[00:20:34] Kaila: Yeah. So I think where it might not matter is if you're more of like a functional product. So kind of an example, maybe if you order, I don't know, like, an everyday household item, like window cleaner, that's something that's more functional and you might not even think about what box it comes in. You just want the window cleaner. But you know, a lot of small businesses, they're not just trying to have one and done customers and sell one product. A lot of them, especially when they come to us, [00:21:00] they're trying to create a brand. So I don't know if you've ever heard of Grove Collective. They're an independently owned cleaning product brand. So yes, they sell window cleaner and you can buy window cleaner from them but they definitely understand the importance of branding and unboxing. They're all about being natural. They're all about being approachable. So when you get their products, it's all in a reusable unboxing experience. They usually include like a bonus gift to their customers. They have some really nice branded print material that tells their story. And this kind of makes you more connected to the brand and want to support them.

So chances are, you know, if you have the generic brown box with window cleaner, you're never really gonna give a second thought to it. You might buy it again when you need it, but you might go with another brand, but if a company like Grove made an impression with you, then maybe you're gonna follow them on social media. Maybe you're gonna tell a friend about them and next time you need cleaning supplies, you'll have some brand loyalty to them because the first impression they made [00:22:00] with their unboxing experience was memorable.

[00:22:04] Andrea: So I wanna take us to the beginning of the journey of a small business owner when they're first ideating and bringing their idea to life. Where do you think that prioritizing packaging and the unboxing experience should fall, with everything else that they should be thinking about?

[00:22:18] Kaila: Yes. Cuz as small business owners we wear every single hat. I relate to that being a small business owner myself. Um, so, when we're thinking about the unboxing experience, I have a lot of clients who will come to us and they're like, oh, we need an unboxing. And maybe they have very limited funds to invest. But they don't even have a brand yet. They don't even understand like what their story is or like what their tone is. So a lot of times I'm like, eh, pause, pause. Before we spend all this money on designing a box, you know, printing the box, you really should have some solid foundation of your brand strategy for your business. If you're coming to someone and you're like, oh, I'm gonna create some packaging, but you know, I don't know if I'm a fun brand or I don't know if like being environmentally friendly [00:23:00] is super important to me. Like those are important questions. You should be asking yourself when you're designing the unboxing experience when you're creating the materials that go into it.

[00:23:10] Andrea: And, does your customer base make a difference? Does that somehow change your focus in terms of the unboxing experience?

[00:23:16] Kaila: Absolutely. Yeah. So, I kinda have a little exercise. I run all our clients through. It's like, who's your audience? And then who are you as a brand? But instead of thinking about your audience in terms of like "female, 20, lives in the city," like thinking about how your brand and your business is a part of their life. Where do they buy their coffee? Are they a Starbucks girl or are they shopping at like the indie coffee shop? Where do they shop for their clothes? What kind of car do they drive? What music do they listen to? What do they do for fun? Like starting to think of your audience and their personality can help you start to think about like how that box would fit into their life. So I do think the deeper you can get with that and the deeper understanding you can have, um, the more it can influence what that unboxing experience is.

[00:24:00] Andrea: Okay. And so let's say this small business owner already, understands what their brand story is, and now that they do understand this, they realize they don't have the biggest budget for personalization of a box. Where does someone start that can have a large impact without spending a bunch of money or capital that they don't have yet?

[00:24:14] Kaila: Yeah, totally. I think the more thoughtful you are with your unboxing experience, the more impact it has. I see this a lot with like, you know, handmade shops. They might not have the budget for like a full branded box. But when you open it, there's like a handwritten note in there. And the, the handwritten note relates back to them somehow. I actually just got like a candle and it was like a natural all organic brand. And they had like hemp paper that they wrote on. And then they put like a little like dried flower on it. And it was like that, that doesn't cost that much to do that, but it was thoughtful. And it related back to who they were as the brand, the flower they used was actually like the scent of the candle. And I was like, oh, that was a nice little personal touch. I mean, it probably cost her like $3 to buy that paper, write the note and put the candle in it. [00:25:00] So there are special touches you could do like that. Maybe inside the box. A lot of times I will tell our clients, like you can buy like colored mailers that are about the same exact price as a plain you know, brown box. And if someone sees like a lime green box that might get them a little bit more excited than just like the generic brown one, you know, so just utilizing where you can, those kinds of thoughtful touches, I think really will make an impact.

[00:25:26] Andrea: Let's say I do have the budget to invest. Where do I start?

[00:25:30] Kaila: Yes. Well, you could hire a design firm like us, so there's a lot of designers out there who will actually help design the entire unboxing experience. We're actually partners with Packlane. So that's where we get all of our boxes printed through. And you can get a full custom mailer inside, outside box, but also, again, still thinking about what that interior is like, like what other things are you packaging in there? You know, what kind of branded postcards, thank you cards. Do you have a little client gift you're giving out that's thoughtful? [00:26:00] Just thinking about that overall experience and how they're gonna be interacting with it and kind of going full force with that. If you have the budget, especially if you're e-commerce or you don't have a physical location for someone to interact with your business or product, really challenging yourself to think about that box, that like you are shipping, what your store or what your business would be to your customer in their home.

[00:26:23] Andrea: I’m curious. As an Amazon customer, I recognize the box a mile away, and I’m already excited. I know recognize the tape, I know how to open the box faster, almost like muscle memory. Can I still create that unboxing experience through Amazon?

[00:26:40] Kaila: Yeah, there is ways that you can incorporate that even if you're shipping through Amazon. I actually have one client that sells on Amazon. They sell essential oils and they have like a little gift pack that they send out of the three essential oils. So we design like a little mini mailer box that goes inside of the Amazon box. Instead of just having like the loose oils in there. [00:27:00] And so it's like a three pack and then it comes with like a little diffuser charm gift. And it tells like their whole brand story when you open it up, it's like little smaller, so it's less waste, and it's a lot less expensive to produce. And I would say that like the Amazon unboxing experience is like an experience in itself.

[00:27:18] Andrea: Absolutely. I shop a lot of small businesses. I try to buy most of the products of the small business owners we interview. You know, we do our research. We really understand what they're trying to do. And I think that every time I receive an Amazon package, one I'm immediately already excited. And then, two, when I open it and I see this carefully packaged small business product inside of an Amazon box and that to me is already a story. It’s already an experience. It's a level of trust. Because you understand the brand.

[00:27:53] Kaila: Exactly. And it's different for every business because every business has a different story to tell and has a different brand. So it all just depends on like what that is.

[00:28:00] Andrea: So I think one of the last questions I'll ask you, Kaila. Are there any tangible tools or pieces of advice that you would give small business owners who are starting to think about this unboxing experience that they could just like write down and be like, okay, these are the things I have to think about for this particular topic in my business.

[00:28:18] Kaila: Yes. Well, first and foremost, as you've heard me say about a million times, having a solid understanding of your branding. We call it like the brand vibe at Dox design. So are you a fun and bright brand? Are you more edgy? Are you more natural? And then actually having the visual toolkit to implement that tone. So this is where our team kind of comes in. So what are your brand colors? What's your brand font. Do you have brand illustrations? Do you have brand patterns? Do you have visual tools that you can use to actually design that box? Cause if you just have a logo, it's gonna be very hard to design that unboxing experience. And then I think kind of an added bonus to unboxing is the more interactive you can make it, [00:29:00] the more storytelling you can make it, cuz customers remember story. I think it's more of a memorable experience that gets them excited and ultimately wants to make them film it or post it. Tell their friends about it.

[00:29:14] HOST: Kaila even spitballed some initial ideas for Daniel that she thought might add to the Filthy unboxing experience, just in case they ever decide to "dive back in" to that world…

[00:29:24] Kaila: Imagine yes, you get like a bloody Mary mix. But then imagine like if the unboxing experience had like a fun, like drink recipe stack, and a matching glass as a gift, and maybe the box opened up and there was like a way to fold it, to like, have it be like a makeshift bartender, like counter, like how much more memorable would that be for their customers. And I could see that going crazy on YouTube of people taking the branded glass and sitting it there, opening up the drink recipe, mixing it together with their box in the background and having that kind of be like a viral marketing moment for them. So like the more interactive you can make it [00:30:00] and like, really think about like how that makes sense for your brand and how you would translate that. The more memorable it will be as an unboxing experience. And it'll leave a better impression on your customers.

[00:30:10] Andrea: Kaila. Thank you so much for your time, this was all very valuable.

[00:30:14] Kaila: Thank you so much, Andrea. I really appreciate you guys having to me.

[00:30:18] HOST: That was Kaila Piepkow of Dox Design. And as you can hear -- a designer like Kaila can really help you by coming up with loads of different ideas to help you design a fun unboxing experience. But then again -- as Daniel from Filthy said -- sometimes your customers care more about the product and less about the unboxing. In which case -- a pared down and environmentally friendly unboxing experience leading to a practical and enjoyable product might be the perfect choice.

Some of the key takeaways for creating the ultimate unboxing experience for your brand that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking to Daniel and Kaila are:

Before you even think about the unboxing experience, you need to understand who your customer is [00:31:00] and what your brand represents in their lives. Kaila mentioned a fun exercise of understanding what their day-to-day looks like and where you can fit into that.
You need to make decisions about your brand. What is the mission, vision, and personality? That’s being able to answer questions that go beyond just your brand logo, but also the visual ways in which you communicate with audiences every day and throughout all customer touch points.
Then, it’s about looking for compatibility between your customer and your unboxing experience. What expectation have you created for them? Where does the experience start? Do you want to build anticipation before they open the package? Is it part of the brand experience to elevate expectation as they open the box? Or maybe, your product is more functional, and it’s just about getting to the product as quickly as possible. How do you meet the expectation of the customer?
If you don’t have a large budget, [00:32:00] you can still be thoughtful about the customer experience. You can still create a brand connection through little things that will become memorable.
If you do have the budget, challenge yourself and think about the outside and inside of the box. Envision the experience for your customers and invest on the added moments that create an emotional connection with your customer. And there are a lot of agencies like Kaila’s that can help you with that. The more interactive you make it, the more you tell a story, and we know that customers remember stories which leads to brand loyalty.

The truth is -- no two brands are exactly the same -- so it follows that there will be a lot of variety in unboxing experiences. But since so much of the way we shop these days is e-commerce driven... we should really think about unboxing as a key part of the whole customer experience. And look -- after you untie the bow, rip off -- and of course, recycle -- the paper, and open the box -- [00:33:00] what's inside is this simple message: First -- figure out who you are. Then, figure out who your customer is and what they expect in an unboxing experience. Then, try to give it to them without losing sight of what makes you YOU.

That's it for This is Small Business today.

On the next episode I will be talking to a handmade small business, a small but mighty team that started selling in farmer’s markets and saw a huge change when they decided to sell online. We’ll learn about how to successfully take your small business online. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

[00:34:00] CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:34:15]

Ep 7: Rod and Pernell divide and conquer

Learn about setting up a successful partnership and protecting yourself.

[00:00:02] Naveen: "Trust among co-founders is essential to a small business. You can't succeed without it, all the legal protections in the world aren't going to help you overcome a fundamental lack of trust within your partnership. So it's great if you have that, but trust alone is not enough." Eventually your situation is going to change one way or another, someone might want to leave the business or change its direction. And it's in these situations that legal and contractual devices can help your business stay on course, and maybe even prevent a problem from arising in the first place.”

[00:00:36] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. And -- just so you know -- I'm new to this. But I'm taking everything I learn in my conversations with business owners and experts -- distilling it into actionable lessons -- and filing it away in my small business playbook. [00:01:00] By the end of this episode, I will recap everything we learn today into tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey.

Today I'm going to dive into starting a business with friends. The general advice is -- don't do it. Yet many, many people do go into business with friends, or family, and make a real go of it. So I really want to know -- what is the recipe for success when it comes to working with friends? How do you divide responsibilities? And how do you protect yourselves? A bit later in the show -- we're going to hear about this topic from a legal point of view.

But first - we’re talking to Rod Johnson from Blk & Bold coffee, the first nationally distributed Black-owned coffee company in the US. Not only do they make great coffee, they have a strong social mission. Blk and Bold donates a portion of their proceeds to youth focused non-profits. [00:02:00] Which is great... Like their coffee! I'm serious about my coffee so, you can trust me when I tell you this is the good stuff. Rod and his co-founder Pernell Cezar started out small -- but now their coffee is in major retailers across the country -- and through it all -- they've remained friends. So I can't wait for you to hear what that journey has been like for them.

[00:02:31] Andrea: Rod, thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today. I'm very excited to have you on the show.

[00:02:37] Rod Johnson: Thank you so much for having me. I am equally thrilled to be here, looking forward to a great chat.

[00:02:42] Andrea: So let's dive right in. Tell me about Blk and Bold and how it got started.

[00:02:47] Rod Johnson: Sure. So Black and Bold is the brainchild of my friend of, of 20 plus years. I pause in saying that, because that, that is a reminder that we've had to put up with each other's shenanigans for, for the majority of our lives. [00:03:00] But, you know, it was that, that friendship that led us to want to branch out away from our corporate careers at the same time and look to build our dreams around something that we cared about a lot. That being coffee and community. So we got the bold idea to start roasting beans in Pernell's garage, and ultimately grew it into the business that we know today as Blk and Bold. So essentially we are a coffee roastery, located in Des Moines, Iowa, that, essentially bridges the gap between community impact and specialty beverages. We give a portion of our proceeds to organizations that support youth in need across America.

[00:03:41] Andrea: I always get excited when I can see the direct impact that anything I buy or any product I consume, that is has in helping others in any way or, or the, the environment. That's one of the reasons I really love Blk and Bold. So taking us through that journey [00:04:00] … How did you guys decide to even start working together?

[00:04:03] Rod Johnson: So I mentioned we had the foundation of our friendship. With that we have shared values and, similarities as to what motivates us and obstacles that we were able to overcome that, you know, just through lifelong conversations we knew that, if ever we wanted to team up and become a dynamic duo in business that we would have a little bit of an advantage given the overlap in that Venn diagram. And so it was, an organic relationship that, met a fork in the road, if you will, as it pertains to: do we continue to, um, climb this corporate ladder and run the rat race? Or do we try to change our trajectory and take a hold of our legacy, and connect it to something that is more resonant to how we see the world? So it was just that, that gumbo, if you will, that we leaned on to build our business and start it in the first place.

[00:04:58] Andrea: Do you think you guys would've done something like this. [00:05:00] If it weren't with each other as co-partner?

[00:05:03] Rod Johnson: Absolutely. We are naturally wired to, you know, be self-starters to be go-getters and risk takers. So whether it was together or on our own solo paths, I think entrepreneurship was in the cards for us.

[00:05:17] Andrea: What was it about this? Is it the product? Was it the partnership itself that made this come to fruition and get off the ground?

[00:05:26] Rod Johnson: It's a combination of all of them. So let's start with the product. You know, this was something that we really cared about. We had spent a lot of time in coffee shops, given our respective corporate careers and having to do a lot of travel. You know, what's the best landing spot? It's your nearest coffee shop or your nearest Starbucks. And, when you're in that culture at least myself, I'm, I'm observant. And I see how there's a sense of community within those establishments. And we knew that we wanted to provide that to people regardless of, of where they lived. You shouldn't have to live next to a coffee shop to indulge in a top tier product or, or having that, [00:06:00] that sense of community. So it was just the affinity for, the product in and of itself that I would attribute some of our success in getting the business off the ground.

[00:06:12] HOST: Side note, in another part of our conversation, Rod shared that he and Pernell group in Gary, Indiana, and there weren’t a lot of high-end coffee shops there when they were coming up – so the affinity he described for the product and community was really responsive to a need he experienced and saw an opportunity to meet.

[00:06:33] Rod Johnson: There was a, a real definitive mission that we were trying to accomplish. This idea of conscious consumerism. You referenced that one of the reasons why you've gravitated towards our brand is that we stand for much more than just selling a product. And as of the fall of 2020, we earned our B Corp certification. Which is the gold standard in businesses that are looking to prioritize purpose [00:07:00] as much as profit. So, you know, having that at the core of our entrepreneurial endeavors, I think really, compelled and motivated us to see this thing through because the end recipient, is a demographic that we really resonate with.

[00:07:15] HOST: I'm constantly inspired by the purpose and mission of small business owners. It's almost always about more than just the business for them. But what makes these guys different is that they're building the mission on, in, and around a lifelong friendship. I feel like -- the stakes are higher for them if something were to go wrong.

[00:07:33] Andrea: Did you have any uncomfortable conversations in terms of like contracts and what happens if one of you wants to leave? Like, what happens if one of you makes a mistake? And, even though it's coming from friendship and from mutual love and respect, you need to protect yourself and the business. So, how did you talk about that?

[00:08:00] Rod Johnson: Yeah. So we just had some very honest conversations and because we had that 20 year foundation, it made it a little easier for us to discuss some of those challenging topics. Like you mentioned, "Hey, what happens if one of us dies?" Which is pretty morbid, you know, when you think about it, but it's, it's an inevitable, right? It's something that is bound to happen. Or, you know, "what happens if you don't wanna do this anymore after five years and you want to exit, right? What are we building this toward?" So we were just having those conversations and we figured that it would be best to do it early on while we were still friends, right? It's like, let's talk about this while we still like each other because if there's a point of contention down the line, it may be difficult to navigate those conversations at that time. And so, you know, very early on, we had an operating agreement that, was our north star, if you will.

We, divvied up our ownership percentage based on the, the responsibilities, and the investment that, that we made at that time. And so we tried to have [00:09:00] as much structure in place very early on. So that then allowed us to focus on growing the business. That was our approach. And I recognize that not a lot of founders are in that fortunate position. And, um, to that point, I'm, I'm grateful. You know, my business partner just so happens to be one of my best friends.

[00:09:20] Andrea: If I'm thinking about this from a small business owner perspective and I'm barely in the stage of starting a business with my best friend… we haven't even gotten into these conversations yet. What would be your advice for the first questions you have to pose to each other, uh, in starting those negotiations?

[00:09:42] Rod Johnson: What is the end goal? Um, that was a question that continues to evolve as our business ascends. You know, are we looking to be acquired? Is this something that we wanna hold on until, you know, we're, we're old and gray and when we can pass on our children? Do we want to bring on investors [00:10:00] and, uh, have other people at our, at our cap table? Those were, you know, some of those early questions. And then that will, influence what type, how you formulate the business. Is it an LLC? Is it a corporation? You know, do you not need a business partner? Should you just be a sole proprietor? And so we just let the conversation naturally progress, but, uh, a good starting point is, you know, what, what is the end goal? And that's really how you should start anything, at least in my opinion, is build something with an end in mind. Um, so that your, your steps are always in alignment to that objective.

[00:10:35] Andrea: And then one thing you mentioned was dividing responsibilities based on your investments at that time. What was that like?

[00:10:44] Rod Johnson: Yeah. So, we are based in Des Moines, Iowa, which is where Pernell's wife is originally from. So Pernell, uh, completed his undergrad at University of Northern Iowa, where he met his wife. They moved around for work, had their first child. And moved to Des Moines, Iowa. [00:11:00] All the while I was on the west coast, living in Sacramento doing my best job of avoiding the snow. And synonymously, we were building the business. So I was more responsible for curating the digital experience. Standing up our philanthropic efforts, and really all things marketing. While Pernell took on the heavy lifting of operations and, finances as well as any, legal matters, that would eventually come about.

And that's essentially how we broke up the ownership and assessed, a value to that percentage based on what we needed to get up and running. We needed to buy a sample roaster. We needed to retrofit his garage so that we could actually do the roasting. We needed some raw materials, et cetera. And so, you know, we did our best job of being as scientific as possible, and, and trying to, you know, make sure that things were fair and, and equitable. [00:12:00] And to that point, I think that we're both satisfied with where we landed.

[00:12:05] Andrea: When you mention Pernell, you have this little smile and you can tell that you really respect and love him.

[00:12:12] Rod Johnson: Yeah, that's my, that's my real friend, you know, I mean, we met each other when we were 13 years old and we've been through a lot together. I mean, I I've watched him grow up though. We're the same age. Like I, I had the privilege of watching him evolve into an executive. Right. You know, this is the same little kid that, you know, I used to bully on the basketball court and, and now, you know, he's the, the CEO of a profitable business that started in his garage. So I'm super impressed by him and, um, tip my hat to him as much as I possibly can because he deserves it and I'm happy to sing his praises.

[00:12:50] Andrea: I hope he listens to this podcast when it's out so he can--

[00:12:54] Rod Johnson: I'm gonna make him listen! (laughs)

[00:12:57] Andrea: So going back to, uh, more legal things, [00:13:00] when did you guys know it was time to bring in a legal advisor or a lawyer to, to actually come and, and dig deep into this contractual partnership?

[00:13:14] Rod Johnson: Yeah, very early on. Pernell gave me the initial call asking me if I drank coffee, August of 2017, it's like, "Hey man, do you drink coffee?" And at the time, not a coffee guy. I pinpoint that moment as to when Blk and Bold started. By December of that year, we had an LLC, as well as an operating agreement. So we moved pretty fast.

[00:13:40] Andrea: Wait, so you're a coffee person now, right? Hopefully?

[00:13:45] Rod Johnson: I would say by definition, yeah, I drink much more coffee than I drink tea. At the time I drank tea like two or three times a day, whether it was chai or, or green or, uh, some type of black tea. That was, that was my jam. That was my thing. And that's because I really wasn't exposed to the higher grade of coffee. I'd only I associated coffee [00:14:00] with this terrible drink that, that caffeinated you, that gave you an energy boost. Right? That I saw my grandparents drink some pretty low-quality coffee for years. And I didn't even know that there was another world out there. And, um, Parnell had actually sent me some beans. He's like, "you should try these. I'll tell you how to. And, you know, then tell me afterwards." I drank it, I was like, "oh, I actually enjoyed this. This is pretty good." And that started me going down that rabbit hole of the coffee industry. And so it was just a, a random conversation. Like, "do you drink coffee, dude?" And, and that just snowballed into building a business.

[00:14:42] Andrea: Curious to know, what happens if you disagree?

[00:14:45] Rod Johnson: Which happens often. Uh, we're very passionate individuals and there are sometimes where we bump heads and, um, you know, [00:15:00] we defer to the greater good, we know that the, the disagreement or the dispute is not rooted in anything malicious that is coming from a good place is all for the greater good and, um, cooler heads prevail almost always, right? We'll, we'll both lay out our arguments and, um, we are believers in testing and learning. Not, not for the sake of being vindictive. Like I, I told you so, I know your thing wasn't gonna work. But it's just more so to figure out, okay, what is the best plan of action? Or how, how can we come to a solution that benefits everyone that takes into consideration all of the nuance of this decision? So, you know, it's just a matter of, you know, "keeping the main thing, the main thing." That's a saying that we throw back and forth to each other often. It's like, okay, let's make sure that we don't go on too many tangents.

[00:15:48] HOST: Is it just me -- or do you feel like Rod would make a good marriage counselor? He just has this wise and kind of dispassionate way of looking at disagreements that keeps an eye on the big picture.

[00:16:00] Andrea: And I feel like I know the answer to this already, but has there ever been a situation where a disagreement has led you guys to go back to your contract and be like, this is what we agreed on toward the beginning. So, "no."

[00:16:17] Rod Johnson: Fortunately, we "haven't. I'm okay with deferring, especially if it's an experiment and I can take a backseat to let your test go first. And then if it works then great, that was the right decision. But if it's not working, let's pull the plug and then let's, let's pivot into another idea.

[00:16:30] Andrea: How did you come to the decision that he was gonna be CEO and you were gonna be CMO?

[00:16:35] Rod Johnson: Great question. It is largely attributed to our professional careers. So, um, dating back to my undergraduate days, uh, I have been a nonprofit fundraiser, so I started off interrupting people's dinners, asking them for 20 bucks to donate back to their Alma Mater all the way to reaching different Heights within that, that industry. While Pernell worked on a for-profit side of things. So it just made a lot of sense [00:17:00] based on what we were good at. The, the skills that we brought to the table for, us to, to have those roles. But I'll be very honest with you as a small business, we do everything, right. So it's, those are just so that other people can have some level of delineation between he and I, I mean, it's impossible to be so narrowly focused when you're trying to build a small business.

[00:17:34] Andrea: And what would be your advice for future co-owners?

[00:17:37] Rod Johnson: Be transparent. I think a lot of you know, breakups, a lot of divorces, a lot of professional disputes are rooted in a lack of transparency. You know, if you trust this person, you know, with your livelihood, it behooves you to be open and honest with them and expect the same in return. Parnell and I, again, you know, have very direct conversations [00:18:00] because there's no one else at the executive level within our company. It's just, he and I. We have to do that for the sake of the business. We will be doing a disservice to the 20 plus families that rely on us for their livelihood if he and I are not upfront and honest with each other. So I just recommend for anyone that's going into a partnership with a friend or not to be as honest and as forthright as humanly possible.

[00:18:30] Andrea: And do you think people should bring in legal advice, the sooner, the better?

[00:18:34] Rod Johnson: Absolutely! Normalize that. You you normalize that in, in your interaction so that it's not awkward down the line. Right. You know, that they say that you should, you should pray when things are going well. Right. And not just when, when the sky is falling. And that's kind of the case, you know, for running a business. Like you know, in case of emergency break glass, let's just know what that lever is. So that when it's time to actually break the glass, we're, we're not frantic and running around like chickens with our heads cut off. So normalize that as early as possible. [00:19:00] And I think that you'll be better off.

[00:19:03] Andrea: Rod. Thank you so much for your time and for being on This is Small Business.

[00:19:08] Rod Johnson: Thank you. I appreciate you!

[00:19:12] MIDPOINT: HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm you host, Andrea Marquez. I loved the lessons Rod shared about being transparent, working to your partner's strengths, having difficult conversations first, and making sure to always have the end goal in mind. On this show, I want to continue taking you guys through my journey of figuring out what it takes to start a small business today by asking small business owners themselves and focusing on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Blk & Bold Coffee is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon that have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes [00:20:00] on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

[00:20:06] This Black Business Month, Amazon is committed to celebrating, amplifying and supporting a diverse set of businesses through This is Small Business and so I want to give a special shout out to some of our Black-owned business partners and experts who have graciously shared their wisdom on This is Small Business, including Rod Johnson, Eva Jane Bunkley, Chelsea Whittington, and Cora and Stefan Miller. And remember one of the best ways to thank them is to support and shop their businesses! I also want to remind you of Amazon’s tools and resources which include the Black Business Accelerator, which can be a great option for Black entrepreneurs to level up their own small business playbook and take their [00:21:00] business to the next level.

Coming up, sharpen your pencils because we're gonna get technical. I called in the legal department. Naveen Thomas is Director of the Business Transactions Clinic at New York University's School of Law. He helps people understand how to set up their businesses and partnerships in a way that will serve them when the going gets tough. Because everything I'm learning so far about business tells me -- things do NOT always go according to plan.

Before we get started with Naveen, I want to take this time to ask you… how can we do better? Our team has enjoyed producing these episodes for you and we want to make sure you’re loving them as much as we do. So share your thoughts with us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com.

[00:21:50] Andrea: Naveen. Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm excited to hear your thoughts on a couple of things.

[00:21:55] Naveen: Thank you, Andrea. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:21:58] HOST: The information provided in this podcast is not legal advice [00:22:00] and should not be construed as such. Instead, the information provided is for general informational purposes only. Moreover, the information in this podcast does not create any attorney-client relationship between you and the podcast contributors or their respective employers. You should not act upon any such information without first seeking qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. The hiring of an attorney is an important decision that should not be based solely on anything we speak about today.

[00:22:39] Andrea: So I'm going to jump right in. How should small businesses co-founders set up their partnership?

[00:22:43] Naveen: There are a lot of different possibilities. One of the first questions that people try to answer when they're starting a business is, what kind of entity should we form? Should it be a corporation? Should it be an LLC, a partnership or something else? If it is a corporation, what kind of corporation should it be in which state should we incorporate? [00:23:00] Those are all really important questions that need to be answered. They involve complex legal issues, relating to corporate law, securities, law, and tax. Actually, one of the biggest considerations there is, is each person's personal financial situation.

So it's really important to get appropriate tax advice. That's one of the first pieces of advice I'll give to anybody who's starting a business is to speak to an accountant. It's not something that everybody thinks to do independently, but the sooner you do it the better. But even before you start an entity, you need to think about preliminary issues and that relates to your business plan itself. Is it viable from a business perspective and from a legal perspective? Especially if you're trying to do something novel, especially if you're trying to do something in the technology sector, that's been not been tested, but even if you're doing a more traditional business, a lot of different legal issues could arise with your business plan. So try to work with an attorney from the planning stages to identify potential legal issues.

[00:24:00] You know, this may sound like a shameless plug for my profession, but it's not. You shouldn't wait until you encounter some complex legal tasks that you can't handle on your own. You want to make sure that before you start implementing your plan, that it's legally viable. For instance, if it turns out that your business plan requires you to obtain expensive licenses in all 50 states, and you can't afford that process, you might need to change your plan. Similarly, if you're doing a more traditional business, you might find that it requires certain licenses from local and state governments. Those aren't laws that you want to violate. And, uh, it helps to identify those requirements as early as possible. These are things that a lot of people would miss if they're not working with an attorney from the outset.

[00:24:48] HOST: Ok that was A LOT of important stuff. So small recap: ask yourself what kind of entity you want to form which will help you determine what kind partnership you will have, [00:25:00] consider each person’s financial situation and get some accounting advice, at the same time, get legal advice to make sure your plans are viable. Got it? But, what happens if you don’t have the budget for all this necessary advice?

[00:25:17] Naveen: I know attorneys can be quite expensive. But if you are a small business, um, especially if you're operating in a low-income community, or if you were a social enterprise with some kind of, uh, public interest mission integrated into your business model, then you might qualify for pro bono legal services from a variety of sources including a law school clinic, like the one that I run. And some things to keep in mind when working with lawyers, don't just work with the first person you find. A lot of times, people work with lawyers who are recommended by their advisors or investors. You need to work with someone who's representing the company, not anybody else. Otherwise, you might get advice that isn't really in the company's best interest, but that's really furthering somebody else's. [00:26:00] Also, make sure that you find a lawyer that has experienced representing startups and small businesses, because the issues that arise with these types of ventures are very different from those that arise in large multinational corporations.

[00:26:16] Andrea: So, don’t just get any lawyer, get a lawyer with the specific area of expertise that you need. I mean, these are all amazing pieces of advice and tools that small businesses have to keep in mind. And I'm kind of curious, even if there is trust and you found the right partner, from the beginning, how do you make sure that all parties are protected and that you're doing the best thing for the small business and its future?

[00:26:43] Naveen: So first, I don't want to downplay the importance of trust. Trust among co-founders is essential to a small business. You can't succeed without it, all the legal protections in the world aren't going to help you overcome a fundamental lack of trust within your partnership. So it's great if you have that, but trust alone is not enough. [00:27:00] Eventually your situation is going to change one way or another, as you just alluded, Andrea. Someone might want to leave the business or change its direction. And it's in these situations that legal and contractual devices can help your business stay on course, and maybe even prevent a problem from arising in the first place.

One thing that I often see in representing startup companies is that all of the communications, at least at first are coming from one person. Who's kind of the, the point person for communicating with the lawyer. And this is understandable. Not everybody has a time to set up a conference call at the same time with a lawyer. But the problem is that there is a risk that the point person, the person who's communicating with the attorney is the only person who is really communicating the company's needs and that the other founders interests will not be adequately represented. So ideally you should really make sure that all founders [00:28:00] are communicating with the company's lawyer so that everyone's interests are covered.

[00:28:05] Andrea: So how do you lay a good foundation so that if there is a huge major disagreement between co-founders that everyone's protected and there's an easy way to come to that decision?

[00:28:16] Naveen: Agree on certain terms in advance that will address common situations that may arise. Like, a founder, leaving the company early, for example. A common tool for dealing with that situation is transfer restrictions on stock. So that before somebody transfers their stock to an outsider, they have to offer it to the insiders, the other founders. That's known as a right of first refusal. This is a way to prevent random people from becoming co-owners of your company, without everybody's consent. So that's one thing. Another common tool is a vesting schedule, right? Where, uh, typically that might last for four years. And basically what that means is that, if somebody leaves after [00:29:00] halfway through the vesting schedule, then they lose half their equity, right? So this, this gives them an incentive to stay with the company longer, right? So it might prevent specific types of problems, but no contract is going to be able to anticipate every contingency, every situation that might arise, that would, that would be impossible where at the very least very time consuming and expensive. A better approach is to come up with governance mechanisms that deal with situations when they arise. So that it's not just an unorganized disagreement, but that there's a formal process to follow in the event of any decisions.

[00:29:40] Andrea: Naveen, is there anything else that you think small business co-founders should keep in mind when starting up?

[00:29:46] Naveen: Yeah, absolutely. A big issue that founders deal with very early on in the process is how to split the equity in the company. Right? A lot of people assume that everyone should just get an equal share [00:30:00] so that if there are three founders, it's a third, a third, a third, there's an inherent sense of fairness in this. Then a lot of people default to that. But that's not always the most sensible approach. And if it's not the most sensible and fair approach, then eventually founders could get upset with it and decide to leave. If a founder feels like they haven't been adequately compensated, then that may discourage them from staying with the company long-term. So when you're deciding how much equity each founder should get, consider all of their contributions and the values of those contributions.

[00:30:36] HOST: This got me thinking... what would my contributions to a company be? I do have a pretty good sense of humor, -- and I'm great with words. And then I think about Rod who said he and Pernell each had different but valuable skillsets. So I asked Naveen, what ARE some of the different kinds of contributions founders and co-owners might bring [00:31:00] to a company?

[00:31:02] Naveen: So what could those contributions be? Those could be their services to the company, right? As an employee, what duties are they performing? What products or services are they providing? Are they contributing cash? Are they contributing any kind of physical property, like computer equipment or real property? Like a, uh, a physical space in which you're working. Are they contributing intellectual property, like technology that they've developed? All of these things should be considered and valued when determining how much equity somebody's going to get in. One other thing to consider is how much time are they going to commit to the company going forward? A lot of times you have founders who have very different contributions. For example, you might have one founder whose main contribution is startup capital. But that founder might not remain very involved on a day-to-day basis.

[00:32:00] And then you might have another person who doesn't have any money starting out, but who is going to commit a lot of time to the business. So to really be fair to each founder and ensure that they are each going to think that they got a fair deal, which is what really matters here. You need to accurately assess each person's contributions to the company. So that's one really big issue that I think, needs to be taken seriously. And it can be very complex. But not every disagreement can be prevented and sometimes what you need to focus on is mitigating the adverse effects of a disagreement. For example, one thing that commonly happens in startup companies is that a founder is no longer happy working there and wants to leave. And you can't force someone to continue working with you. What you can hope to do is limit the damage that they can do to your business when they leave. And one of the ways to do this is to have every founder at the outset, [00:33:00] sign a contract with the company, saying that all of the work that they do, all, everything that they invent, all the intellectual property that they create in the scope of their work for the business, belongs to the business.

[00:33:15] That way, even if somebody is to leave the company in the future, they can't bring their work with them and use it for another purpose. You could of course ask them to sign more restrictive what we call covenants. Uh, in addition to just this general IP assignment that I'm talking about, for instance, you could ask them to sign non-competition and non-solicitation provisions, but those can be a bit more controversial and they're not enforceable in every state.

[00:33:44] HOST: As Naveen has been explaining -- every situation is different. But hopefully you got a bit of an idea of some of the possible things small business owners and entrepreneurs may want to consider when they form partnerships, or when they incorporate their new business.

[00:34:00] Andrea: Naveen, thank you so much for all of your valuable information and time.

[00:34:05] Naveen: You're very welcome, Andrea.

[00:34:06] HOST: And that's it for this episode of This is Small Business. I hope you feel a bit more informed around the idea of going into business -- and maybe even going into business with friends. There was a lot of useful and super important stuff packed into this episode. Some of the key takeaways for protecting yourselves when co-owning a business that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking with Rod and Naveen are:

If you’re co-owning a business, have the uncomfortable conversations first. This is important. Don’t wait for something to happen in order for you to have those conversations down the line. It should be top of mind when going into a joint venture, so that you can then focus on growing the business. One of the first questions you can ask yourselves is: what is the end goal? Where would you like the business to be in 5, 10, or 20 years? And then work with the end in mind. [00:35:00]
And when having those conversations, it really is up to each partnership to decide how to divide ownership or shares, but one thing that Rod mentioned was considering each level of responsibility and investment. Like in the case of Blk and Bold, Pernell took on heavy lifting in terms of operations and finances considering they started out in his garage.
When you have disagreements, it helps to keep the “main thing the main thing.” Keep in mind the bigger picture and don’t go off into too many tangents.
Also, it’s a good idea to bring in accounting and legal advice as early on as possible to make sure your plans are viable. But don’t just get any lawyer or accountant, get a lawyer and accountant with the specific area of expertise that you need.
You can’t account for every problem [00:36:00] that arises in the future when you’re starting out, but a good way to address that is to come up with governance mechanisms that prepare you to deal with those situations when they arise. So that there's a formal process to follow.
And finally, transparency breeds trust. Be transparent as possible with your partner and always keep the end goal in mind.

WRITE THESE DOWN! There’s a saying I’ve heard many times from my family in Spanish: cuentas claras, amistades largas, which translates to: clear agreements make for longer friendships. And I’ll add, and stronger businesses.

On the next episode I will be talking to a small business owner who started his small business alongside his brother, from the back of the truck of his wife and now has his product in huge establishments like hotels, bars, cruise ships, and more. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget [00:37:00] to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:37:30]

Ep 6: Marina gets seriously sustainable

Learn about the small ways you can make your business sustainable.

[00:00:05] Marina: There was this all or nothing dogma of, if you don't do this perfectly, you're a terrible person or you're greenwashing because you're, you're doing this, but you're not doing that. And so I think that is part of our education and part of the way we're trying to change consumer's mindset is just doing the little actions which are enough and which are good.

[00:00:25] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. By the end of this episode, I will recap everything we learn today into tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey. Today, I'm so glad you chose to listen -- because I think this is a super important topic: making your business environmentally friendly. There's a lot of bad news out there about the environment. But today, I want to focus on someone who started a business to make a positive contribution [00:01:00] to a cleaner, greener world. I think this is something that will be important to me -- when I eventually start my own business -- but I know that "going green" isn't always easy. It can be hard to source the right materials, there can be extra cost involved, and let's face it... a ton of research. And yet... it's something we need to do for the planet AND it's something that matters more every day, to customers. So how do you go green -- and stay afloat? Today I'll speak to sustainable transformation expert Shannon Kenny. But first -- I'm joined by Marina Tran Vu, founder of EQUO, a business that sells sustainable alternatives to single use plastics.

[00:01:48] Andrea: Marina. Thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today. I'm very excited to talk to you.

[00:01:55] Marina: Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

[00:01:58] Andrea: Tell me about EQUO. Tell me how [00:02:00] it got started and where you are today.

[00:02:02] Marina: I came over to Vietnam about three years ago. Um, it wasn't for the reason of starting this business, it was actually just to help out my family. I was only meant to stay for one year. And then unfortunately the pandemic happened, and I kind of got stuck in Vietnam, but I also started EQUO during that time.

And, EQUO is a sustainable brand that provides a hundred percent plastic free and compostable solutions for everyday single use plastic items. So that's just a really fancy way of saying that we make products that are sustainable out of sustainable materials, like grass, rice, coconut, sugar cane, and coffee to replace anything that's single use plastic. So something that you use once and throw away like straws or utensils or bags.

[00:02:44] Andrea: And what brought you to do something like this? What was the source of inspiration?

[00:02:50] Marina: Honestly the inspiration for all this first off was when I first came to Vietnam, um, unfortunately sounds a little bit sad, but I had no friends and I was in a foreign country. I didn't know anyone.

[00:03:00] Andrea: ...which usually happens when we move to another city, state, country etc.

[00:03:05] Marina: Exactly. Exactly. So what I did, um, to kind of occupy most of my daytime was I went to visit a lot of the different cafes and coffee shops. And Vietnam is very, very well known for that. It's one of the largest exporters of coffee in the world. And basically in every nook or cranny, you will find a coffee shop with, it could be a basement, could be a random condo way down an alley. So I went to visit those. And, uh, for the first time I saw something green in my drink and it was floating and I was like, what is this? And it turned out to be a grass straw. And so that was my first experience of a type of straw that was not made from plastic or paper. So that was kind of the first part.

And then the second part was basically a couple of months later, my nephew was born. And I realized, you know, um, that he might have a tougher time of growing up in this world than I would. I was fortunate enough to grow up in Vancouver where it's beautiful, there's tons of nature. And I wanted him to have the same sort of experience. But at the rate we're going, [00:04:00] you know, he might actually have to move to Mars to kind of live out the rest of his adult life. And I just really didn't want that to happen. So, um, that was all my other inspiration.

[00:04:10] HOST: Ok I know I'm new to this whole universe -- but that's definitely the first time I've heard a small business owner say "I started my company so my nephew wouldn't have to move to Mars." And I mean -- she's joking... but only partly. She's also kind of serious. She's motivated to create a better world for those coming along behind her -- and I just love that. So I asked Marina to walk me through how her products are made -- and the impact they have on the environment.

[00:04:39] Marina: Well, each product is quite unique in how it's made. For example, our coconut straws are actually made out of leftover materials from the coconut. So after all the water and the flesh and the shells have been extracted, sometimes you kind of get this leftover material and we add a bacteria to it, which eats away at the leftover coconut material to form a paste. So that's kind of one example.

[00:05:00] Another example is, um, the coffee straws that we have are actually made from the used coffee grounds that are gathered from different cafes and restaurants, um, and then put together a combined with another sort of, um, organic acid in order to be molded into our straws. But the common thing amongst all of our products again, is that they're a hundred percent plastic free they're compostable, and, um pretty much for all of them they're made out of materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill. So helping really to promote that circular economy.

[00:05:31] Andrea: And I'm just crazy curious, but did you have a background in this or how did you even begin?

[00:05:37] Marina: Not at all. My studies and my background came in kind of marketing and business. So I graduated from the University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business, studying marketing. And then also, for my entire career, I worked at companies like Unilever, Bacardi, LG doing brand and marketing for them. Um, so product launches were something that I was very used to, but I think a lot of that curiosity [00:06:00] that comes with working within marketing, a lot of it comes from trying to figure out what makes the consumer tick. What makes a consumer want to purchase something or buy something? And so for me, there is that curiosity there of why, you know, I see this green thing in my drink all the way in Vietnam, but I'm not seeing everywhere else in the world.

And so that curiosity led me to kind of look into the history. Sustainable straws. And I found out that these were products that were existing for a very long time. So you're talking with decades and centuries. These are not new products, but when you take a look at the market share of, of sustainable straws, other than plastic and paper, it was less than 0.1% market share at that time. So that means that there was something that wasn't resonating. Maybe it wasn't getting enough exposure or people didn't know about it.

[00:06:46] HOST: Marina's marketing curiosity kicked into high gear. She thought -- these straws are great. The world needs less plastic and more grass straws -- they've been around for ages... so how come nobody outside Vietnam seems to use them?

[00:07:00] Marina: So that's really kinda what led me down the path of building this brand, building a brand that would be eye catching that would educate consumers on the different sustainable materials that are out there and also make sustainability fun. It was one of those things where, again, I didn't come from a sustainability background, but trying to learn about it and trying to come into that sustainability community, I did find that there were certain things such as gatekeeping around whether or not you were sustainable enough to be part of this community. And so I wanted to build a brand that was inclusive and fun versus what I had seen as my own experience, trying to start my sustainability journey.

[00:07:35] HOST: Marina spotted how that question "are you sustainable ENOUGH?" can feel accusatory and demoralizing for those who are just setting out on the sustainability journey. It can drive people away -- which is not a good outcome. So kudos to her for overcoming that and creating a product -- and a brand ethos -- that feels accessible to everyone. Buying less plastic is something in everyone's reach.

[00:08:00] Andrea: I'm going to ask a hard question, which I'm sure you probably have been asked before, but does it actually make a difference? If I, as a consumer change my use of straws to be your kind of straws?

[00:08:12] Marina: Yeah. I think that's a great question. I would equate it to something like, you know, voting within an election. Most people think that, you know, I'm just one person, it's just one vote is not going to make a difference. But when you, accumulate that altogether, it does make a difference. All these little small actions that are sustainable combined together can have a really, really big impact. And if we have everyone just thinking that, oh, I'm not going to make a difference, and everyone's just going to continue to do the same action, which will harm the environment. But if everyone, or maybe even 10% of those people start to say, you know what, I'm actually going to make it a little bit of a switch that could influence other people. And those accumulated actions and efforts can have a huge impact.

[00:08:51] HOST: It's a fair point. But another hard question I felt like I had to ask: what about the process of sourcing, packaging, and distributing these eco-friendly products? [00:09:00] I wanted to know -- how sustainable is that whole process?

[00:09:06] Marina: It's definitely a journey. The reality is that, you know, I think there's a lot of economies of scales. There's a lot of efficiencies that have come through business by non-sustainable products. One example would be for example, palletization of your products and how we ship products. You know, it might be plastic pallet or might be in a plastic box instead. And we've gotten used to those things and because we've gotten used to those things and they've been used for a very long period of time, the cost efficiencies are there. But as long as they're being truthful, I think consumers will be a little bit more receptive to the message.

[00:09:37] Andrea: And can you tell me in what ways your business, the, you know, the making of the product, is environmentally friendly?

[00:09:46] Marina: Well, I think there's a couple of things that we do that are quite different. So first off, you know, just the product itself is very, very sustainable. The packaging that we use, is either recycled packaging or recyclable. So I still promoting that kind of circular economy [00:10:00] or that reuse, and the sustainable aspect as well. And then on top of that, my team is actually fully remote. So there's kind of some of the, I would say, you know, it's a little bit of a smaller impact, but it's kind of saving some of that time and carbon emissions from traveling to go to the office. And then from there, I would say that just in our advocacy, I know it sounds a little bit weird, but advocacy and education itself is, um, sustainable in terms of its actions as well. Cause we're basically trying to get people to switch their mindsets as well as understand what else is available out there for them to adopt as a sustainable behavior.

[00:10:34] Andrea: It's really hard to change consumer behavior. It's easier to just fit into their lives how they're already operating. So what are you doing to influence your customer to not just, buy your straws or your products, right, but also to be part of that mission of sustainability and have it seep into other parts of their lives?

[00:10:54] Marina: Yeah, no great question. That’s actually the ethos of our brand and our brand is about making sustainability as easy [00:11:00] as possible. So for example, with our straws, they are all made to be single use as well. So the idea is that you would just use our straws that have a plus straw, and you're already doing better for the environment. You don't have to change your behavior. You don't have to carry it around or wash it or anything. You just use it once and you throw it away as well. But it's just made of a much better material that is a hundred percent plastic free and compostable.

On the other side, is the, the way that we're trying to get people to change their mindset, in a little bit of a different way, is the approach to the sustainability category. So we actually do take photos of our products, you know, in plastic cups. Cause sometimes people may not have, you know, a solution to a plastic cup. So we have our products like our coconut straw in a plastic cup and taking a photo of that because we really do want to emphasize that any small action helps and if you're not doing sustainability perfectly, that's still okay. So I’m really encouraging that as well.

[00:12:00] Andrea: I'm thinking about this from the perspective of our listener, of our small business owner, of our aspiring entrepreneur, who is, is maybe having this idea, but wants to make sure that, you know, the whole business aligns with this mission. What are the sacrifices that you've had to make as a small business owner, as a business, to be able to live up to this?

[00:12:21] Marina: The reality is that right now um, and, and I'll be the first to say it being sustainable is more premium, more expensive to do for any sort of business, including our own. And those costs right now, we do have to pass on to our customer with the expectation that, you know, if we're able to get a lot of people to adopt our solutions, that we'll be able to bring the entire categories sort of pricing and price point down. But, first off, just acknowledging that we're not going to be able to appeal to everyone and get all the customers that use straws right now, for example, or using, you know, forks right, now to be our customers because of our price point.

So it's really kind of admitting that [00:13:00] and then really targeting those who can adopt our solutions right now. So that's the first thing. The second thing that we've had to sacrifice as a company is a lot of time, I would say we do take a lot more time to educate, people bought our products, to get people, to try our products actually. And that's something that a lot of other probably non-sustainable businesses would have to focus on. You know, we're focusing on not just the product education, the sustainability education aspect as well.

A lot of what we do is actually trying to correct assumptions or misconceptions about sustainability or our products, or really trying to prove that we aren't greenwashing. And that can take a lot of time away again from, you know, some other things like operations or sales.

[00:13:40] HOST: Greenwashing is when a company does something on the surface that implies sustainability -- like simply putting a green label on a bottle -- but actually is not sustainable in any way. This is not what Marina is doing -- but it doesn't stop the haters from hating. By Marina's own admission -- it can be tough to step into the environmental business arena. [00:14:00] You constantly have to keep up on your research, defend your choices... fight the good fight.

[00:14:07] Marina: But it's something that we think is extremely important to do in part of telling our story. But part of also convincing consumers to switch to our products.

[00:14:16] HOST: Here's the challenge: Despite the fact that there's growing consumer demand for companies with a strong Environmental and Social Governance (or ESG) record -- there are also entrenched systems, and sometimes, higher costs associated with environmentally friendly manufacturing and distribution... It's a tough problem for a new business owner, but Marina says she's learning to tell the story of her brand in a way that breaks down resistance to it, one customer at a time. One example she gave me was around the issue of cost.

[00:14:48] Marina: And a lot of people say. This plastic straw is one 10th of a cent. Whereas your straw is like 3 cents or 5 cents. So why am I going to pay right now so much more for that [00:15:00] 50 times more, 30 times more or whatever more for this right now. And I say, okay, well, right now what you're looking at is just the physical costs, but you're not looking at the intangible costs. For example, you know, this plastic straw, Yes, it's one 10th of a cent, but guess what, it's going to break down into tiny little microplastics that are going to enter your body, enter the oceans, entering animals, and start to have a lot of health effects. Those health effects to get treated will cost something. The disposal of these microplastics and those plastics will cost something. So in essence, that, you know, one 10th of cent has now turned into 10, 20, a hundred dollars and all the costs that are associated with that. So if you think down in the future, you know, if you're a little bit more forward thinking, um, then you'll see that maybe the cost difference it isn't so clear cut as one 10th of a cent versus 5 cents. So that's how we try to tell the story and paint a picture. And so that's one way we try to overcome it, but I know a lot of other brands struggle with that too. And again, it's all about storytelling.

[00:16:00] Andrea: So how do you as a small business, get your suppliers or vendors or just partners, to want to live by that mission: the journey of figuring all of this out with you?

[00:16:11] Marina: I think when you give people numbers or show people context, they start to realize that, you know, this is a big problem that we need to address immediately. For example, you know, um, a report just came out about how microplastics were found in, uh, human lungs and, and the human blood for the first time ever and so that really, I think puts things into perspective for a lot of people. And then the second thing I think we try to do is, make sustainability something that is engaging and fun again. You know, there's a lot of doom and gloom that's always around. And like, if we don't do this, we're all going to die in the next 10 years. Or, you know, all the polar bears are gonna become extinct. When you have that narrative all the time, it can become a little bit, depressing almost as, um, as a conversation to have. So we try to kind of turn around and, you know, stick a little bit of humor into it. [00:17:00] Try to make sustainability more fun. Like, "did you know that, you know, if you have a rice straw, you can also eat it afterwards?" If you're really, really that hungry, you know, they, the coconut straws are really cool because they're kind of like this coconut sort of texture, the sugar cane straws, they smell like sugar, the coffee straws, they smell like coffee. You know, those are the types of things that I think will pique people's interest.

[00:17:22] HOST: I did NOT know that you can eat your rice straw afterwards. But now that I do know -- I'm not gonna rest until I try it. And I think that's basically Marina's whole sustainability message. No matter what kind of business you're running -- there are things you can do to inch yourself onto a sustainable path. Just start small -- and give it a try.

[00:17:44] As we have discussed on other episodes -- starting a small business is not for the faint of heart. Marina started EQUO in the midst of a global pandemic while isolated from her friends and unsure of what the market would bear when it came to eco-friendly products. She has a few words for other people just starting out.

[00:18:00] Marina: I would encourage that, you know, if you're having a rough time. Like just know that there are thousands of other small businesses having the same sort of rough time. And if you really believe in it, you really want to pursue it, you'll make it happen.

[00:18:16] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. That was Marina Tran-Vu -- founder and "Chief Everything Officer" of EQUO -- spelled E-Q-U-O. You can find EQUO's eco-friendly convenience products on Amazon.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? EQUO is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com. And just a reminder that a podcast only helps if you listen to it. [00:19:00] So if you know someone who needs to hear this episode -- I hope you'll share it as soon as you get the chance. And if you have thoughts you want to share with us, send us a message to thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com.

OK, having heard Marina talk about the constant need to be educating consumers and industry partners -- it seemed like a good idea to bring out a serious eco-expert. Someone with a lot of experience helping small businesses make eco-friendly choices. So up next -- I want to introduce you to Shannon Kenny -- AKA "Mama ECO."

[00:19:34] Andrea: Shannon. Thank you so much for being with us today on This is Small Business. I'm very excited to be talking to you.

[00:19:40] Shannon: I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:19:42] Andrea: So can you give me a little bit about your background.

[00:19:45] Shannon: Yeah. So I'm originally from Trinidad and Tobago, um, born and raised there and have lived in the States for about 15 years. And, slowly merged my way from, uh, you know, a life sucking job into doing what is really important to me. [00:20:00] And that's focusing on sustainability. So initially I started focusing on the personal sustainability side of things, and then over the years, my business kind of shifted to also support businesses. And that's the way my, my consulting comes into play, where I help mostly small to medium sized businesses realize the sustainable opportunities that they have, that they may not be aware of.

[00:20:19] Andrea: It's so different to think about sustainability when you're a small business versus medium versus a large corporation. And like what your footprint means is also entirely different. Right? So as a small business owner, in what ways can I make my small business environmentally friendly?

[00:20:38] Shannon: A big sort of barrier to entry that a lot of small businesses come up against as they go, like, first of all, I'm wearing 10 million different hats, especially if it's like a solo-preneur, a very small business with a small team. So, you know, to prioritize sustainability is, is often tricky for a lot of small businesses.

And then the next thing they think of is like, well, I don't have the income per se to allocate to this. Like again, small businesses are not, you know, [00:21:00] raking in millions and millions of dollars to allocate to, to this kind of thing. So, you know, it's really about focusing on the things that are in your control and the things that are accessible to you. So, a lot of clients that I've worked with, they're a small, let's say product business, and they'll say it. "With the size of my business. I can't customize my packaging because I can't do like a minimum order of 10,000 units. That's just not in my budget." So a lot of small businesses they can only really work with what's accessible to them.

So that's the first thing is just focus on, what's accessible to you. That may be packaging that may be sourcing as many ingredients as locally as possible. You know, um, that may be thinking about like your, your carbon footprint and how much energy you consume as a business. It really kinda depends on the type of business you have.

[00:21:49] Andrea: I'd like to hear your advice on applicable tools that I could begin thinking about that maybe across the board, any small business owner could implement.

[00:22:00] Shannon: So the one very easy thing that any business can do is to make sure that your website is as eco-friendly and carbon neutral as possible. So a lot of people don't know this because it's not something that we see, but like a website has a carbon footprint. Every time we use our phone or a laptop has a carbon footprint. Right. But there's actually web hosting, companies that offset the carbon footprint of your website. And many people might not know like how it runs in the backend. When you have a website it's running all the time and what enables it to run all the time is you have these like server farms, which are basically just buildings with tons and tons of computers that are just running all the time. So first of all, you have the energy required to run those computers, to make your website run. And then those computers also generate a ton of heat to, so that also being blasted with air conditioners in order to keep them from overheating. And so that is what contributes to the carbon footprint of a website.

[00:22:50] HOST: I confess I hadn't thought all that deeply about the carbon footprint of a website before... but it makes sense. [00:23:00] Something has to keep those pixels... pixelating. But here's an example of one of those "pretty simple to change" ideas for greening your small business.

[00:23:11] Shannon: And it's really accessible for any business owner to just switch their web hosting company. It's one of those things where it's like, you just flick the switch. You don't have to ever think about it. It's if you compare the pricing, it's the same price. And in some instances, it's even cheaper. So again, looking at it from a budget perspective, it actually could be in your favor to use a green web hosting. And then one other sort of added bonus of that is they also make sure that all of the coding on the backend is optimized and very minimal. And what that means is that your website's also going to load faster and websites that load faster, get ranked higher on, on Google in terms of SEO. So it's kind of one of those things where yes, you're doing the right thing, but you could also save money and Hey, your websites might perform better. So there's lots of these little added, um, benefits and, you know, that's something that literally every business can tap into.

[00:24:00] Andrea: Wait, that's crazy. I had no idea that this was even possible. And I was about to ask you, but what is the sacrifice? Like if I do do this, I'm imagining that there has to be some downside to, to changing my website to something like this. So then now I'm asking, why doesn't everybody do this?

[00:24:20] Shannon: I think, you know, it honestly comes down to, you don't know what you don't know and, small business owners, again, they have a million different hats that they're wearing. So, you know, they're not going to be, you know, going knee deep into this kind of nuance kind of stuff. And once, you know, then at least you can try to make that decision. And, a lot of times when you signed up for a hosting company, you sign up for a year or three years or whatever it is. So, you know, if you already have an existing website, finish out your contract and when it's time for renewal, then you can make that switch. So it, it really just depends on where you are in that journey.

[00:24:50] Andrea: There's this general notion that if you do environmentally friendly things, there's sacrifices and an additional cost that comes with that. Right? So [00:25:00] what are these changes that I can make that don't translate to such a large burden or sacrifice, especially with a smaller budget as a small business?

[00:25:09] Shannon: There are always going to be certain things that cost more. For example, if you choose to create a product out of compostable materials as versus plastic, which is made from fossil fuels, it's going to be more expensive because you're opting into doing things the right way. Okay. So there will be certain things that presently will cost small because there's a lot more people who are buying and manufacturing plastic products than there are people buying and manufacturing, compostable products. So there's a supply and demand issue where once more businesses and more consumers start to shift to those more environmentally friendly products, the cost is going to come down because that's just how economics work. So if you're looking at physical things like product packaging, ingredients, that kind of thing, ethical sourcing, yes, those things are going to cost more. But there's also a lot of things that you can tap into that don't cost more. So, you know, the web hosting is just one example of that.

[00:26:00] Another thing is, sustainability isn't just about the planet, right? It's also about people. So as a business owner, it's very much within your control to make sure that you pay your employees fairly. You treat them fairly. And actually when you, when you have a very strong ethos or core set of values as a business, when you hire people, they are more invested in your company, which means you have less turnover, which it just translates to greater profits. So, you know, that's another thing as well. And then, you know, also in terms of just like sourcing locally, so I know that a lot of your, your listeners are product companies. The more that you can source as locally as possible, and sort of bring your supplier chain closer to you, then that's also going to be able to have cost benefits. Because you have more control over your supply chain.

[00:26:45] Andrea: What kind of incentives are out there for small business owners to encourage them to take environmentally friendly measures? Are there certification programs? Discounts? Things that might make business owners go "this is in my best interest?”

[00:27:00] Shannon: Okay. So here's the thing. The world is shifting towards a more sustainable mindset. We are hearing about climate change all the time. I mean, it's, it's literally coming at us from every angle. And the thing is businesses can either choose to start shifting towards sustainability now, or they can wait until there's really not much of a choice. And then they're going to have to play catch up. So it's in a business's long-term best interest to start thinking about these things now so that they can plan and they can execute in terms of that. And then also there's a lot of green certifications, or environmentally friendly certifications, like 1% For the Planet or B Corp. There’s a whole bunch of them and customers actually look for those certifications. So it also helps in terms of transparency where if a customer sees that logo or that name on your product, then they know that there's a certain level of integrity or trust that they can put behind that. And so it's almost, uh, an easier sell [00:28:00] to a consumer if they are coming across your product for the first time.

And there's, you know, option a and option B and option B is part of 1% For the Planet. I'm going to go with option B, especially if the price is the same, you know. Or even if it's nominally a little bit more. Me as a consumer I'm going to go towards that product. So there's a lot of benefits in terms of, those green certifications. I kind of have a love, hate relationship with those certifications because they're a great thing if they're used with integrity, but they can also be used to manipulate consumers and, um, to greenwash consumers, and green washing is essentially when, you know, consumers are made to believe that a product is more environmentally friendly than it actually is.

[00:28:40] HOST: Absolutely -- as we heard earlier from Marina -- the practice of greenwashing is something that really confuses consumers and muddies the waters for brands that are legitimately trying to make steps towards sustainability. Shannon says some green certifications are a good idea -- but they're definitely not for everyone -- and they can be mis-used.

[00:29:00] Shannon: It's a bittersweet kind of thing. And the next thing to think about in terms of those green certifications is a lot of them aren't financially accessible to small businesses because you do have to pay to play, essentially. Yes, you do have to do certain things in order to get that certification. But at the end of the day, for especially a very small business, it might not be accessible. So what I always tried to tell businesses is like, if you want to work towards that certification, that's great. But focus on the things that you can actually do internally right now and communicate that to your customers and be as transparent as possible so that they know what your values are.

[00:29:32] Andrea: Focusing in on the actual manufacturing of the products for a moment. What are some areas small business owners should think about in terms of going green?

[00:29:42] Shannon: One thing is to think about waste in terms of your supply chain. So again, every time you can waste less as a business, whether it's on packaging, materials, shipping, all this, this kind of stuff, um, then that translates to savings, which translates to profit. So, you know, let's take food for example, and they [00:30:00] have a certain amount of food that gets wasted along the supply chain. That's literally money going out the door. So thinking about how can we, re-engineer the supply chain to avoid that waste so that we can then again, translate that into profits. The shorter something travels the lower, the energy is required to transport it. So just trying to think as sort of locally as possible. Make your microcosm of, of a business as, as small as possible so that you have as much in control so that you're not wasting as much. And so you're not, you know, essentially spending on money on things that you really don't need to.

[00:30:33] Andrea: Shannon. Do you think it's possible in the current economy to create a thoroughly environmentally friendly business --- supply chain, manufacturing and distribution -- and NOT have it cost more than a regular business?

[00:30:48] Shannon: If you're looking at those specific parameters, no, it is going to be more expensive as we stand in the current economy.

[00:30:55] Andrea: Hard question, but I'm glad I asked it because, okay. It's good to know. [00:31:00] I mean, you're making sacrifices here, but then why would I want to do it?

[00:31:05] Shannon: Well, you know, it depends why you got into business in the first place. What I find is that with a lot of the clients that I work with, they didn't start the business to make a quick buck. They started it because whether the product or the service, it was something that was really important to them. And they're using business as a way to facilitate that value system or that mission. So it just depends what type of business owner you are. It's not for everybody. I meet people and it's very clear that it's not a priority and that's okay.

But at the end of the day, that is the direction that businesses are moving in. You see it in some of the biggest companies in the world, they are participating in it. So, you know, the question is, do you want to get on the train now or do you want to be chasing the train as it's already moving on from the station?

[00:31:50] HOST: I asked Shannon -- AKA "Mama Eco" who by the way has an eco-friendly affiliate store on Amazon -- to share any last words for small business owners wanting to [00:32:00] "up their green quotient."

[00:32:02] Shannon: If there's a small business listening right now and they're wondering what they can do, I would say the first thing to do would be to, to write down all of the different things that you run your business on. So website, you know, mailing lists, you know, do you use packaging? Write down all of the different things that you use for your business and look at each of those things and say, okay, is there anything here that would be sort of low hanging fruit to start with in terms of sustainability? You know, a simple one would be, you know, if you have business cards, you know, what are they printed on? They printed on recycled paper. So that's like an easy, you know, simple switch. And then another thing too is, is every business runs on electricity, which for the most part comes from fossil fuels. And if you have a, an energy bill in your name, uh, electric bill, you can actually, uh, depending on where you're located, switch to getting your energy source from renewable energy. So those are just kind of like a couple of little tips for people getting started that are really applicable to, to anyone. You don't have to have it all figured out. Your customers don't expect you to have it all figured out, [00:33:00] but I can guarantee that if you communicate what you're doing right to your customers, now they're going to be lifelong customers because they are invested in your mission.

[00:33:10] Andrea: I love that. Shannon. Thank you so much for being with us today. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

[00:33:16] Shannon: Thank you so much for having me happy to help.

[00:33:20] HOST: That was Shannon Kenny -- Mama Eco -- with lots of great thoughts on ways for small business owners to take steps towards going green. By the way, fun fact, Amazon has partnered with some third-party certifications to highlight products on Amazon that meet these sustainability standards. So, if you are a brand that sells on Amazon and you have relevant certifications, that can be shown to customers. I think this is pretty important considering how Marina and Shannon both talked about how customers are increasingly interested in supporting products that help preserve the natural world. You can learn more on our website thisissmallbusinespodcast.com on the show notes. So, per usual, [00:34:00] some of the key takeaways for transitioning your business to a sustainable one that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking to Marina and Shannon are:

Focus on the things that you can control. You might be overwhelmed by everything we hear in the news about climate change, but that doesn’t mean that you have to implement HUGE changes to get on the sustainable train, ad Shannon called it. There are small things that you can do that are within your control.
Small ways in which you can make your small business environmentally friendly: making your website eco-friendly, sourcing as locally as possible, seeing how you can waste less as a business, using recyclable packaging, going fully remote with your team, and remembering that sustainability is also about people so it’s paying and treating your employees fairly.
When part of your brand mission is sustainability, advocacy and education are important because you have to go through an additional hurdle [00:35:00] of getting consumers to switch their mindsets and adopt new behavior. And to start, it might be better to target those who are able to adopt your solutions first, before expanding your reach.
And be as transparent as possible with your customers. Be clear with your customers about which of your products, and processes are "green" and which ones may not be. Communicate your values and your mission, because that has the potential to make one-time buyers into long-term loyal customers.

[00:35:33] Bring your customers along on your journey of trying to do right by the planet. They will appreciate your authenticity -- and maybe even pay a little more to support your mission. After all -- Everyone wants to do their bit for Mother Earth. So when it comes to saving the planet -- the biggest thing for small business owners to remember is: you 're not alone.

On the next episode I will be talking to two childhood friends that started their small business out of their garage and now [00:36:00] they’ve grown their business into the first black-owned coffee company with nationally distributed products. They recently made an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show as part of the final season. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

[00:36:50]

Ep 5: Alejandro and Nikhil make the jump to medium-sized

Learn how you can scale your business from small to medium.

[00:00:03] Nikhil: As you continue to grow the team around you, your partners, your investors, you're no longer able to do everything yourself as the company grows. Thinking about what it takes to go from a small to medium size business, what comes to mind is just how that transition, who you do it with, becomes more important than what you're doing.

[00:00:23] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. This show is all about learning how to start, build, and scale a small business. And -- just so you know -- I'm new to this. But I'm taking everything I learn in my conversations with business owners and experts -- distilling it into actionable lessons -- and filing it away in my playbook. By the end of this episode I will recap everything we learn today into tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey.

Today, I'll be speaking with Chuck Templeton, a long-time entrepreneur, founder and former CEO of Open Table, [00:01:00] and now Managing Director of S2G -- a Venture firm that helps early-stage and emerging companies scale their businesses.

But first -- I want you guys to meet one of the businesses that S2G is backing. Back to the Roots is a "small but mighty" company with a huge vision and a ton of heart. They make and distribute these really cool indoor gardening starter kits. You can grow mushrooms -- carrots -- onions -- flowers... all kinds of stuff. And they make it super easy. Their mission? To reconnect every family & kid back to where food comes from - "no green thumb or backyard needed." Which is a good thing -- in my case.

[00:01:42] HOST: Back to the Roots has been on a pretty wild growth trajectory lately going from small to medium. For extra context, we’re defining small and medium-sized businesses based on Gartner’s definition which defines small businesses by the number of employees and annual revenue. Small businesses [00:02:00] have fewer than 100 employees, and medium-size businesses have between 100 and 999 employees. When it comes to annual revenue, small businesses are defined as making less than $50 million in annual revenue and medium-sized businesses make between $50 million and $1 billion dollars.

These are big jumps. And I want to know -- what does that actually feel like? What keeps them up at night as they grow from a small business to a company that is starting to make a real dent in their category?

So -- let me introduce you to founders Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, who have had big dreams ever since they started their small business.

[00:02:46] Andrea: Nikhil andAlejandro, thank you so much for being with us on This is Small Business. I'm excited to talk to you guys.

[00:02:54] Nikhil:Thank you for having us on, and we're excited to be chatting with you too.

[00:02:58] Andrea: So tell me how Back to the Roots got started.

[00:03:00] Nikhil: So Back to the Roots, Andrea, got started actually during our last semester in college and Alex and I we were both undergraduates at UC Berkeley and a few months away from graduation, undergrad business majors, we both thought we knew what we were doing, had job offers.... And we were sitting in this business ethics class a few months before graduation. And we hear a professor bring up this one sentence in this lecture about sustainability that "gourmet mushrooms could potentially grow on recycled coffee grounds." And something about that one sentence, this idea of just turning waste into food and, what was going in the trash and upcycling that, you know, we separately, we both actually heard that sentence in a class of about 200 people. And after that class independently were the two, I guess, crazy kids that thought that was kind of cool, and emailed that professor for more information. He wrote us both back and said, "you know what? this other kid asked me about it too.You guys should probably meet up." And that, that put us, on this incredible journey.

[00:04:00] Andrea: That is an amazing story! So let's fast forward. And then, at what point did you guys know that this was going to be a lot bigger than you imagined?

[00:04:08] Alejandro: I think we believed that this could be bigger than we imagined from the get-go. We were really driven, and so I think we always had this mindset of we believe wholeheartedly in the American dream. Both of us from different backgrounds. I immigrated from Columbia to a small town in Michigan, Nikhil, first-generation Indian, and I think that American dream was instilled and we saw it first hand through our parents moving here and, you know, making a life and a family out of really tough situations coming here without speaking much of the language or knowing anybody. So I think we believe that at our core. So even when we created the company, our website, the first image, wasn't a mushroom farm. It was an image of a beach and...

[00:04:48] Nikhil: A hammock,

[00:04:48] Alejandro: A hammock. Yes.

[00:04:50] HOST: The guys had an image of a pristine environment -- everything existing in a kind of natural harmony. A sustainable dream... In other words -- they saw "The Big Picture."

[00:05:00] Alejandro: Even though the whole thesis was, we could take coffee waste, charge Starbucks and Peet's, so get paid as waste collectors and then sell the fresh mushrooms to local farmer's markets and grocery stores. Even though that was what made us quote unquote, leave our jobs, our first image, wasn't a picture of fresh mushrooms. It was a picture of a beach and a hammock.

[00:05:22] Nikhil: The start of this company it actually was called Better Ventures, BTTR Ventures, which stood for Back to the Roots. It was something about, you know, building a better world and kind of connecting us back to something deeper and going back to our roots. And I think it's been an evolution. I think what that's meant for us and how, how big that vision can be.

[00:05:37] HOST: All right. So they started off growing mushrooms out of coffee grounds -- but pretty quickly -- they evolved.

[00:05:43] Nikhil: We now have a whole line of indoor small space grow kits. So even if you don't have a big backyard in green thumb, you can start gardening to over a hundred varieties of organic USA - grown seeds. We have raised beds, soils, plant foods. Really want to build the organic gardening brand for the next generation. [00:06:00] For us gardening is about something so much deeper now. It's about reconnecting to where our food comes from, and just reconnecting to the earth as well through it.

[00:06:09] Alejandro: Nikhil and I always joke that we may not solve world hunger while we're alive. But if we can inspire the next generation of kids, families to grow food at home...Imagine how more connected America would be, how more connected the world would be, by just seeing stuff grow. It's freaking magic to see something grow and sprout out of nothing. I mean, that is entrepreneurship at its best is what a plant does every single time. It's, it's pretty wild to see.

[00:06:42] Andrea: I love that lens of responsibility. And I have to say that I didn't even think or consider ever doing that until COVID, the pandemic. I was like, we need to have our own greenhouse. Like we need to grow our own food. So I think that what you guys are doing is incredibly important. You guys have grown so much, [00:07:00] have so many big names who have backed Back to the Roots, and I'm so excited that people are seeing the vision and understanding of what this could mean for future generations. So, can you guys tell me a little bit more about that shift from, being a small business, to where you are now?

[00:07:18] Alejandro: You know, it's fun to say that we've doubled the business year over year for the last four years. We're now in a hundred-million-dollar POS brand. Which is super exciting when you start thinking about the millions of homes that our products live in, as we speak right now. And at the same time, we feel like we're still a small business. Like we're still just scratching the surface. We say we are on our warmup lap. We believe that our product should be in hundreds of millions of homes in America. We believe we should be in every gardener's indoor garden and their kitchen. We believe we should be in every outdoor garden with our products and make it easier, more fun to garden at home. [00:08:00] And then we also believe we should be in every single classroom in America. So for us, it's like, we're just getting started.

[00:08:07] HOST: Back to the Roots is clearly on a mission to grow -- just like the seeds they sell. But as they grow, I wanted to know... what concerns do they have? What are they dealing with operationally, and emotionally, as they're scaling up?

[00:08:20] Nikhil: Where we are today with, you know, a much larger team in much larger distribution and investors. I think a lot of what goes through our mind, one, I think we just, we feel the responsibility more now from just the people on our team and our team members. And I think that responsibility to make sure we continue to create an environment that's a place of growth for everybody is that's a real one. And you know, when we've had to go through tough times and always try to make sure, you know, can we, can we hit payroll? Cause we feel like every time we make it, we bring someone on this team, it's a promise we're making them and "Hey, this is a place that you can grow with us for not just a month or two." You know, we want people to grow with us for a decade. So I think that that becomes more real as you kind of start growing from a small business as an idea to really, you know, having more people on staff.

[00:09:00] HOST: I can hear the heaviness of that responsibility in Nikhil's voice -- and to be honest-- that's one of the things that freaks me out about the idea of running my own business. Here you are -- suddenly responsible for other peoples' lives. Your little idea is growing up -- gaining momentum. But how do you keep the fresh ideas coming while managing concerns like cash flow, investors, and employee payroll?

[00:09:25] Nikhil: I think that the mindset that Alex was speaking to is what helps us continue to grow every single day. I think Amazon is the best in class at this. We've been so inspired by Jeff's philosophy of "day one" and treating every day, like day one still. And the moment when you think you're a bigger business then " the end is near," so to speak. And every day thinking like, "Hey, I'm still a business. I'm a startup." We've taken a lot of inspiration from the Amazon culture around just because, you know, revenues grow and the team's grown, we can't, lose that, that scrappiness. And I think the hustle and the, you know, the desire to take risks and make quick, you know, pivot sometimes. We try to think about that a lot.

[00:10:00] HOST: So it sounds like the guys are trying to stay humble -- keep it real -- even as they grow. They make it seem kind of easy, but you and I both know it's not. So I pushed them to explain: How did they get to that "next level" where they were able to start carving out significant market share in their category?

[00:10:21] Alejandro: One thing that we try to hold present is to Zig when others Zag. Whatever space, your small business is, there's a hundred other folks trying to do it better, bigger, cheaper than you are. I mean, this is a 24-7 job to be an entrepreneur and to compete and win in your category. And I think winning means trying to do things that really wow the consumer and putting that consumer first. How can we do things different? I think number one is our focus is around being a hundred percent organic. Another big focus of ours was being able to solve the consumer's needs by being a multi-category garden brand. So nobody in the space before Back to the Roots [00:11:00] could start a garden from scratch under one brand. It required a bunch of different brands to start a garden.

[00:11:08] HOST: So. Dare to be different. Put the costumer first and anticipate their needs. Two excellent tips. But then there's the logistics of it all. How do you get your product into the hands of as many people as possible? Alejandro thinks that businesses should do a really good job at using multiple channels and being both in physical stores and online.

[00:11:32] Alejandro: And we built it one brick at a time, one store at a time and we would sell to Amazon. We would sell on our website. And our idea was if we build it long-term enough, people will want to buy us in store or online. And through that, I think it's led to having long-term relationships with all our partners. And I think that goes back to the zigging when others zag. And I feel like to get from a small to medium sized business, you got to take risks. Meaning you got to think differently [00:12:00] than the rest of the marketplace in order to get that respect from the category. I think it's more important to think about what consumers are going to want to buy over the next 10 to 20 years. That's how you become a category captain. And that's how you're able to get a lot more shelf space, a lot more "unfair" share of attention from your retail partners, from your consumers.

[00:12:20] HOST: On the one hand -- it seems like the guys at Back to the Roots have it all figured out. They hedged their bets with direct to consumer and retail distribution. They "zigged and zagged" at the right time. But they're the first to admit that a lot of what they know now -- they learned the hard way!

[00:12:38] Nikhil: The other part that as we think about going from a small to medium business, that's just important for other entrepreneurs, I think to not forget is, in that transition, 99.99% chance of what you think is going to work is not going to work. And that's okay. And the faster you realize that things are not going to work, so your eyes are open to be able to correct that and constantly be in a state of learning versus trying to prove your hypothesis [00:13:00] right in any way possible. It's a whole different game where now you're just trying to solve the "what" and solve the "how" of your business.

[00:13:09] HOST: I'm hearing this message loud and clear from the different entrepreneurs I've been speaking with. So many of them have spoken about "failing fast." And about not being afraid to change your products or your tactics -- "the what and the how" of your business -- if something's not working as you scale up. That said -- Nikhil still feels that some things should remain sacred...

[00:13:32] Nikhil: But I think one piece of the long-term vision that you should try to stay true to is what builds a brand is keeping your "why" consistent. If your why, and your north star of your brand stays consistent, your consumers, your retailers, your partners, they'll go with you as you have to change your what and your how, because they know what you're trying to do. What's allowed us to be here today is that our north star has never changed our, why has never changed.

[00:13:58] HOST: So in other words -- never start a business you don't believe in. [00:14:00] You may not know the what or the how right away-- but you'd better be clear on the why. Because as Alejandro said, growing a business from small to medium sized enterprise is a full time, 24/7 job. You need to love it.

[00:14:15] Andrea: Can you guys give me an example of a moment where you had to look back to your why, but change direction or pivot in some way.

[00:14:23] Nikhil: The second product we sold and launched in the kit category was actually an at-home aquaponics hydroponics system called The Water Garden. So imagine now we spent five years just obsessing over mushrooms, growing fresh produce mushrooms, and then selling mushroom kits, and then saying, we're now going to sell a hydroponics kit. That's a self-cleaning fish tank that grows. People around us thought we were crazy. They were like, you guys were mushroom guys, and now you're selling me a fish tank. But for us in our hearts, we're like, this is just another really cool way of connecting back to the environment and growing food sustainably using aquaponics. And this is true to our mission of connecting people back to their food. And this is a different way of doing that. [00:15:00] And, you know, it's still one of our top selling items all these years later.

[00:15:03] HOST: As someone who has a lot of crazy ideas -- I appreciate that story. And I also love the way Nikhil and Alejandro think about serving a need that some customers may not even know they have... yet.

[00:15:15] Alejandro: It's not about just addressing the current market, but we looked at also how many people don't garden today because of their fear of screwing up their fear of killing a plant. "I don't have a green thumb. I don't want to try this." And we noticed, and I think that was one of the opportunities is we noticed that so many people love the thought of gardening and think I'd like to try, but I'm going to make a mistake. And we saw like, wow, this is a pretty big consumer base already. If we can create products that are simpler and more fun, more, I think sustainable to speak to that consumer, that maybe we can convert those consumers and actually make them gardeners or, you know, novice gardeners. And then obviously speaking to the hardcore gardener already was important for us too.

And pandemic made people. and you referenced this earlier Andrea, you know, made people more self-aware of what they were eating, where their food came from [00:16:00] and wanted it to, you know, wanted to try growing food themselves. And I think that almost expedited, 10 years of slower growth turned into, you know, a ton of younger consumers wanting to try a gardening. And we were there to create products for them to make things simpler, easier a community for them on, you know, digital community on social media, through our website. And I feel like we were at the right time at the right place. But we've done that through just relentless, year over year, just staying in business, staying relevant.

[00:16:30] Andrea: I completely agree with that. One of my last questions for you guys, when it comes to going from small to medium as a business, is, what is something you would do differently based on what you've learned now?

[00:16:40] Nikhil: I think first and foremost, the biggest question to ask for anybody is what do I want? What's the growth that I want. And I think being really honest with yourself before you start hiring a team, because there's no right or wrong answer there, right? Like entrepreneurship, there's no one path. There's no one answer.

[00:16:58] Alejandro: And then the other one is don't get analysis paralysis. [00:17:00] You know, we all know that nobody's got a crystal ball, our business, is going to face many challenges over the next few years, and all we can do is do our best, but that includes the word DO so we gotta do, we gotta take action. Don’t just sit back and over analyze. If you want to do that, you know, become a professor. Entrepreneurship is about doing and taking risks and failing and learning from them.

[00:17:25] Andrea: I am very inspired by both of you by not just your partnership and what you've been able to start and grow. But also about your mission and what Back to the Roots is achieving now and what I hope it continues to achieve. So thank you so much for the work you're doing. Thank you for being on This a Small Business, and I hope to be talking to you guys soon.

[00:17:46] Alejandro: Thank you, Andrea.

[00:17:48] Nikhil: Thanks for having us.

[00:17:52] HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. Do you have a small business that wants to grow and grow... [00:18:00] like a plant in a garden? Well, on this show, I want to take you guys through my journey of figuring out what it takes to start a small business today by asking small business owners themselves and focusing on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Back to the Roots is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon that have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

Coming up, we'll hear from a Venture Capital firm about what they look for when they're thinking of supporting a business. But first -- just a reminder that a podcast only helps if you listen to it. So if you know someone who needs to hear this episode -- I hope you'll share it as soon as you get the chance. And if you have thoughts you want to share with us, send us a message to [00:19:00] thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com.

Ok. I can't wait for you to meet my next guest. Chuck Templeton he’s a Managing Director at S2G Ventures, where he helps emerging entrepreneurs and companies scale their businesses. Nobody could accuse Chuck of having analysis paralysis. He's been an active entrepreneur at many different capacities. He was the founder of OpenTable, an online restaurant-reservation service, first Chairman of GrubHub, an online and mobile prepared food ordering and delivery platform, and an early-stage advisor for several other startups. These days -- Chuck has a pretty cool job. At S2G, he helps entrepreneurs use their business innovations to find solutions to the most urgent environmental and societal problems facing humanity today. This is no doubt one of the reasons S2G invested in Back to the Roots.

[00:19:56] Andrea: Chuck Templeton. Thank you so much for being on This is Small Business today. It's a pleasure [00:20:00] to have you.

[00:20:02] Chuck: Andrea, it's great to be here. I appreciate it.

[00:20:04] Andrea: You're here because of Back to the Roots. They have spoken very highly of you but before we even dive deep into the Back to the Roots, can you just tell me a little bit about your entrepreneurial background?

[00:20:15] Chuck: My real sort of entrepreneurial story I think started as the founder of Open Table. And so it really happened one day when watching my wife try and make restaurant reservations. Sort of in the early days of the web, you know, back in the nineties, frankly, and she spent, one Saturday morning trying to book reservations for the next Friday, Saturday, Sunday night. Her parents were coming into town. And, like she'd call restaurants and they'd be closed or, you know, one wasn't open yet and was going to be closed on Saturday, but were open on Sunday. And so it was just got to be this mess. I'm like, Hey, there's gotta be a better way.

[00:20:46] Andrea: Leading us to today. How did you first learn about Back to the Roots and what made you want to get involved?

[00:20:54] Chuck: So we were an early stage food investor, to try to reinvent the food system and make it more sustainable, more healthy, more distributed. [00:21:00] And when we first met the Back to the Roots team, they had, they had started their company first in how you could grow coffee out of mushrooms. And so they started that business and then they had a ready to grow business and a ready to eat business. And so the ready to eat business was really interesting for us because they were trying to do, you know, low ingredient, pure sort of products that had, you know, source back to the original sort of supplier.

[00:21:22] And so we liked both of those businesses. However, building two businesses at once is very complicated. It's hard to build one. And so they really focused on being, you know, the garden brand of the next generation. And, you know, we've been very excited to follow them in their progress. And so we, you know, have been investors for six and a half years now and just have really seen this team, and company come a long way in their maturity, how they go to the market, how they innovate so it's been a really exciting ride.

[00:21:48] Andrea: And you keep saying "us" who is us?

[00:21:50] Chuck: SDG ventures, we're food and ag venture fund. We invest all across the supply chain. So we look at it from a systems approach trying to go [00:22:00] both the supply side and the demand side. So we invest way upstream in the ag space. But we also do sort of what we call the messy middle, which has all the, you know, the transport and, product, you know, manufacturing and that kind of stuff.

And then we have a last mile at the consumer side, so CPG products and, in-home and, and delivery. And so we have about a billion dollars on our capital that we invest across those three broader areas. And, you know, so the ag, the supply chain in the, the food side of it, and, we do anywhere from, 500 K up to 50 million into any one business looking for companies that are making the food system more sustainable, more healthy, more distributed, mitigate, or adapt to climate change or increase food access. So really trying to take an impact approach or an impact lens to helping us transition or transform the food system.

[00:22:47] Andrea: There are many small businesses out there, or companies that are doing, maybe not something similar to back the Back to the Roots, but something that your company would want to invest in. Right. So what is it about them? Exactly. [00:23:00] That you said, "okay. Yes. I'm going to go in here"?

[00:23:04] Chuck: Yeah. So, we're venture investors, right? And so we're not the right capital for every type of startup. Obviously there are some that, you know, should do more friends and family round or local types of businesses. So what we look for, at least what I look for in entrepreneurs is really a couple things. So one is an entrepreneur who will get out of the building, if you will. Someone who will go out and they're hustling, they're talking to their customers.They're not in the back room hypothesizing about what some someone may want or whatever. And so I think one of the things that these guys have done is they're on planes or at customers, you know, doorstep. Alex moved to, to one of his customers sites for a month to be able to work with them closely, to really figure out how to make sure they had a product configuration that worked for them. Right. And so getting out of the building is one of the main things that I look for.

[00:23:53] HOST: "Get out of the building" ... a phrase that echoes a bit strangely in this work from home era -- but it's still an important concept. [00:24:00] It reminds me of Nikhil and Alejandro's observation that when you "do your best" as an entrepreneur -- that involves actually DOING something.

[00:24:10] Chuck: Two is really thinking about, entrepreneurs who hear and take feedback. But ultimately make their own decision, right. But we want them to be learners and people who are growing as, entrepreneurs because, this is a dynamic world and things are changing all the time. And if they're not keeping up with the changes that are happening in the marketplace, because they already know all the answers, then that's a big red flag for us. And there's a third other aspect, which is sort of obvious, do they have unit economics, can they make money at the single unit of sales in what they do. Because obviously if you can't do it at the unit economics, you can't do it at scale. So this next question is, is how do we think about scale? And do they have an idea for how big this market can be or what the opportunity is?

[00:24:54] Andrea: Thank you for putting them that way, because Alejandro and Nikhil both talked about that. And I think that's one of the important things [00:25:00] that most of the small business owners we speak to are trying to figure out at the inception of their idea. What does that look like over time? What does the brand look like as well? Like what can you attach to it to keep growing? And how is it going to change in a way that you don't lose your customers and that they're willing to go along that journey with you, which I think was another important thing that they mentioned.

[00:25:24] Chuck: Customer discovery. What does the customer really need? I have ideas of what the customer needs, but who cares right. It’s what is the customer really need? And so having that ability, you know, the whole adage of, you know, two ears and one mouth, right? Like, you know, listen twice as much as you talk. There's a difference from what the market wants and what the market needs, right?

Because the market oftentimes needs lots of things that they don't necessarily want, but they need them. And so that's where it is hearing what they have to say. It's parsing that the right way. And then it's really figuring out how to build a product that will suit the needs of, of their particular customer.

[00:26:00] HOST: This whole notion of customer "wants" vs customer "needs" is pretty interesting. I think of how the guys from Back to the Roots told me they thought about what kind of easy-to-use gardening products would get reluctant gardeners out into the garden -- they designed for that need -- and carved out a new space in the market.

[00:26:18] Andrea: Do you have any advice or suggestions for how a small business can set themselves up in a way that will allow them to scale quickly to medium sized?

[00:26:26] Chuck: Certainly, I think about the evolution of a business and maybe this is oversimplified terms, as idea, validate, infrastructure, and scale, right? Sort of you have an idea. You know, someone may like this, or someone may want to buy that. You validate it by selling a couple of them and going out to the market, then you really think about the infrastructure. And then you think about scale, right? And so at some point in that, as you're growing, the entrepreneur needs to move from working in the business to working on the business. Right. And scale is about process. [00:27:00] It's about doing the same thing faster, more, efficiently, more cost-effectively right. To be able to move through that. Right. And so when you're thinking about it, it's all the time is "how do I polish the friction off of this process?" "How do I make this process more scalable?" "How do I, reduce the cost and increase the efficiency in this?"

[00:27:19] I'll sort of go back to sort of, Open Table. We had to sell to restaurants. Some of them were really great at, you know, lighting a candle and cooking a meal, but didn't have a lot of the other practical skills that you might expect business people to have. And so, you know, we had to sell it to someone, oftentimes who was a CEO, right. Have their own business. They might have three to five to seven restaurants or something. They would come in at 10 or 10:30. You could sell till 11:30. Then you, you had, from 2 to 4:30, you could sell them. But outside of that, you couldn't oftentimes, the busser would, cut their hand and have to go to the, the emergency room. The host might fall in love and move to Barcelona. And the wine person may not show up that day.

[00:28:00] Right. Like the chaos that happens. And so if we're going to sell into that environment, We have to really think about how do we adapt our process to make it work for them. Right. If you have a sales person who needs to sell to a CEO, but they've only got four hours a day to sell, that's pretty limited. So what we had to do is then work on the, the sales process. Right. And so we got the sales process down to about a 35 minute meeting. So everything is about if you're going to scale with anything, you need to figure out how to get really super-efficient at doing things over and over and over again. And again, that sort of comes from, really understanding the customer's needs and the customer's challenges and the customer's opportunities and how you can position your product to be successful there.

[00:28:43] Andrea: Knowing everything you've learned now, what is something, that you would have done differently?

[00:28:48] Chuck: It took me a long time to learn the idea of maniacal focus. Right? Cause I think one of the challenges with entrepreneurs early on is that, it's not opportunity that is their challenge. It's focus [00:29:00] that is their challenge. And I think Amazon's even a great story. Jeff started off with books, right? He didn't start off with AWS and, you know, delivery and all that stuff. He started off with books, right. And he figured out the marketing books. And then he added to it from time to time. You know, with Open Table, the original idea was going to be, it's going to be called Easy Eats. And it was going to be Easy Putts and Easy Docs and Easy Cuts and all these other verticals, these, these reservation verticals. And, you know, what we realized is that, you know, the restaurant world is a big enough opportunity for us to be able to go after, to make a real business out of it. And so by decluttering, you know, and moving away a lot of the stuff, which is also what the Back to the Roots team did, you know, they got rid of the ready to eat stuff and really focused on the ready to grow stuff and became world class at that because they were able to really focus on it.

[00:29:52] Andrea: And you mentioned those things that attracted to you to Back to the Roots. And what really caught my attention was that you know both of these people, [00:30:00] like you talk to these people. Alejandro and Nikhil are amazing. So was it a gut thing? Was it trust? What was that additional factor that if you saw it on paper and it was the same two companies that would distinguish one from the other?

[00:30:16] Chuck: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a very important aspect of certainly entrepreneurs and who they partner with, oftentimes, especially who they get investment from, because not every investor is thinking about the business and the exit and the time horizon, the same way the entrepreneur is. And so, you know, when you get into a relationship, it might be a 7, 8, 9, 10-year relationship you have with this investor. I mean, we're six plus years in with Alex and Nikhil, and we're not close to, you know, I mean, the company is doing great, but we're not ready to exit it yet. So it's going to be another 2, 3, 4 years before we think about, you know, a potential exit for them. And so I do think that having a good gut feeling about that and having a working relationship with them and me really believing in them [00:31:00] that they do have this learning culture to them and that they are going to grow and it's about, you know, getting it right versus being right. So a lot of that is a gut feeling. It is a personal relationship. You know, it's not like a stock you can buy and sell, you know, when you're investing in early-stage companies

[00:31:16] Andrea: I know that there's certain degrees of involvement from different types of investors. There's some that will want to be more hands-on involved. Others that will be more hands off. So what would be your recommendation to keeping a relationship that helps the company or the business to keep growing?

[00:31:33] Chuck: There's a great job advert that Ernest Shackleton, who was an Explorer back in the early 1900's, it talks about, you know, his job advert that was, you know, "long, darkness and, hazardous conditions" and all these sorts of things like that. And he was very upfront about that. And so I think being upfront with your investor and being able to have discussions both good and bad about the opportunities and the challenges in front of you, I think is a very important thing, cause investors can help [00:32:00] problem solve too.

[00:32:02] HOST: So there's one more big note for my evolving small business playbook. Be upfront with your partners and your investors. because, hey, while Shackleton the explorer met an early death and his ship, The Endurance, got trapped in the ice-- nobody ever accused him of false advertising.

[00:32:21] Andrea: Thank you so, so much for being with us today, Chuck, it was a pleasure, really to have you.

[00:32:27] Chuck: Yeah, me too. I'm super excited.

[00:32:29] HOST: And that's it for this episode of This is Small Business. I want to thank Chuck Templeton, Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez for coming on the show today. Some of the key takeaways for scaling from small to medium that I’m adding to my small business playbook are:

No matter how big you get, treat every day as if it’s “DAY ONE.” At Amazon, that’s one of the first things we learn. It’s important not to lose that scrappiness, and willingness to try things and take risks.
Zig when others zag. [00:33:00] There is a lot of competition out there, I don’t need to tell you that. So to stand out, especially in front of a customer, it’s about thinking how you can be different while putting them first and meeting their needs, not just their wants. Because as Chuck mentioned, many times, customers don’t know what they need and that is an opportunity.
Know that not everything you try is going to work and that’s ok. Because to grow from small to medium, you need to take risks. And it’s not about focusing on what didn’t work but about how fast you’re able to correct, and solve the problem.
When it comes to managing relationships with investors and customers, during critical stage of growth, listen twice as much as you talk, and question your decisions, but never stop moving. Don’t, get stuck in analysis paralysis.
Have a clear why. Don't be afraid to change the "what" and the "how" of your business as you grow and streamline your processes -- [00:34:00] but cling to the"why" like the mast of a ship that's way out on the ocean.

I really enjoyed this episode. Back to the Roots, like all the other small businesses I’ve spoken to, are doing amazing things.

[00:34:17] On the next episode I will be talking to a small business owner who was inspired to create a product that has a positive impact on future generations. And her product can be used, and eaten! Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

[00:35:10]

Ep 4: Cora and Stefan build organic loyalty

Learn how to attract customers organically.

[00:00:02] Stefan: So for us, when we started out, we were like, hey, we don't have enough. You know, we were still like, our corporate jobs were paying to keep the lights on, do all this. And we were taking any extra money and putting it into the business for, for products. But then we were like, Hey, if we can't get out, if we can't go, advertise or put up a billboard or do a tv commercial, what we could do is connect with people in the community. We can show up at events, we can partner and we could do various things to amplify that message. And I think you always want to try to find like-minded individuals ,be it, if it's brands, it's companies, or just people that help and that resonate with you.

[00:00:42] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. I'm on a mission to learn all I can about what it takes to own and operate a small business so that maybe one day -- I can start my own. So, on this show -- I'm making it my "business" to find out everything I can about what it takes to turn a great idea [00:01:00] into a small business by asking small business owners themselves and focusing in on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through. I want know how to think scrappy and small -- and of course -- how to grow and succeed. By the end of this episode, I will recap everything we learn today into tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey. I've got some great guests today andI can't wait for you to meet them.

[00:01:30] HOST: Cora and Stefan Miller are a dream team, in more ways than one. A happily married couple and parents to a young boy named Kade, they also run a successful company together, called Young King Hair Care. Their mission? Simple. To "redefine male grooming for the next generation of Black and Brown men." Cora is the Co-Founder and CEO. She has 10 years of experience as a leader in corporate social responsibility, [00:02:00] program development, operations and communications. Stefan is a seasoned marketing leader with marketing and sales management background. For over a decade, he led high performing teams in multiple industries and Fortune 100 companies.

Right now -- Young King uses organic social media marketing to great effect -- to grow their company, sure, but ultimately -- to talk to their community about boys and men of color, and how we think about self-care. Organic social media marketing is a strategy that helps you connect with potential customers by sharing content that reflects your brand’s personality and voice. And I think that the better way to understand organic social media marketing is when you see it in reference to paid social media marketing. Paid social media marketing lets you target audiences that you know will resonate with your brand the most and in a competitive environment where brands are all vying for customer attention, [00:03:00] this is precious real estate. However, not everyone has the budget to invest in paid social media marketing, especially small businesses. Young King, is a small business that has chosen an approach that meets their capabilities and goals which is to connect with their customer in an organic way that builds a lasting relationship.

I want to learn more about how they do it. When it comes to marketing and advertising, how can a small business get the biggest returns on their limited funds? Let's meet Cora!

[00:03:38] Cora: I was busy working my corporate job. I was a VP for external affairs for United Health Group, so I just was climbing the ladder, kind of just doing my thing. And then of course they always say, when you have children, your whole world and your perspective on life changes and that's exactly what happened. I had my son Kade, in January, 2017. [00:04:00] And he was born with all of this hair. And it's crazy cause I wanted a boy so badly cause I didn't want to have to deal with hair. But then I get this boy that has these just gorgeous curls. And so when he was about, six months, his texture started to change and I was really looking for products to help me really help style his hair. And it's interesting, when I was looking for him, it struck me that there weren't any specific hair products that were tailored for young boys, of color. And so when you think about the natural hair industry, everything is very female marketed, female scented, female design, like everything is very focused on young women, but nothing that really speaks to a young male of color. And as my husband says, I'm a forever do gooder. Like my background is in social impact. That's what I did for United Health Group, so when I see a problem, I'm like we have to fix it. [00:05:00] Like why, why are there not any products where our children, our young men are treated at the forefront versus an afterthought?

[00:05:10] Andrea: I really, really admire what you're trying to do and what you're achieving already. What would your friends and family say when you would tell them about this idea?

[00:05:20] Cora: When I spoke to family and friends, they were like, "yeah, that's a really great idea." And so they actually gave me the validation to keep going with it. When we first launched, we had such great positive feedback from people that stopped by our booth. People came by and they were like, oh, this is a great brand. How long have you been, you know, in business? And we're like, we just launched a week ago. And they were like, "what?" We're obviously on Amazon, and then of course we have our own DTC channel and we're just continuing to grow. It’s just been a crazy whirlwind journey, but we just feel so grateful for all the support and people that genuinely appreciate our mission and what we're trying to do.

[00:06:00] Andrea: That is big. I mean, Young King is fairly new and it started during COVID as well. So, right now, what would you say is one of your biggest challenges?

[00:06:10] Cora: One of our biggest challenges is obviously with growth. And so what we've done is really focus on building up our ambassador program. So those people that are like die hard, like love Young King, "Ride or Die" for us, really partnering with them to create more content, and kind of leveraging their own channels to reach new people.

We’ve also done more kind of formal, I guess, influencer partnerships. We really didn't have a strong influencer strategy at all, because again, people would just post us and we were like, great, this is great. But now actually being more like strategic about those partnerships, the content and the channels in which we leverage that content? Being able to bring on, an email marketing team to really help us create robust [00:07:00] campaigns and flows. So that once someone becomes a part of the Young King family, i.e.purchases products or, engages with our site, then we can actually, reach out to them. So, you know, we've put a couple of different strategies in place tor eally help us more on the kind of organic grass root front versus relying so heavily on paid marketing.

[00:07:24] HOST: I can really hear the thoughtfulness that goes into the Young King organic social marketing strategy. It's the difference between "letting it happen" and "making it happen." Their organic social strategy sounds like a well-ordered campaign. And there are benefits in both organic and paid social media marketing. When it comes to paid marketing, you’re able to target your ideal customer, reach a larger audience, and drive leads and conversions. With organic marketing, if done right, and as we heard from Cora, when you really take the time to understand your community, it leads to brand awareness and [00:08:00] relationship building. It can take more time and require experimentation, but it’s also worth the investment to be able to retain customers in the long-run and turn them into evangelists. Cora says a lot of this strategy is owed to her husband Stefan, an experienced Marketing and Brand Strategist.

[00:08:19] Cora: So my husband is, Young King's CMO or chief marketing officer. And of course, you'll get to talk to him a little bit later and he'll tell you his background, but he comes from marketing, literally his education professional experiences, all around marketing, and he's done it for some really cool big brands. I always tell people that my husband is my secret weapon because he literally is the one that encouraged me to actually talk to other parents to understand, is this really a gap in the marketplace? And I'm happy now too, because I left my corporate job, in fall 2020, and I was working on the business full-time by myself. [00:09:00] But he recently came on full time in the fall of last year. So now we're a force to be reckoned with together working full-time on the business, him leading all of our marketing efforts, and me doing everything else.

[00:09:15] Andrea: Wow. So the dynamic duo or the power couple, is that what the kids are calling it these days?

[00:09:21] Cora: Yes.

[00:09:22] Andrea: That is amazing that he also went in full time. And so what is it like to work with your spouse?

[00:09:29] Cora: Oh gosh,

[00:09:31] Andrea: I've heard many things across the board cause like my parents would never, like, they love each other, but they could never work together like that.

[00:09:40] Cora: I know people ask us this all the time, but the funny thing is it's actually been really great because, both of kind of our skill sets, and the things that make us who we are and so great when it comes to our professional selves, you know, we didn't learn that about each other until working on the business. [00:10:00]

And I think for me seeing that in him and seeing, the intelligence, the thoughtfulness, the, the, you know, the love and passion that he even has for marketing, he gets so excited. Like he geeks out over, you know, things that I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't even think about this right now. I actually find it, uh, I find myself like even loving him even more to see him in his element. We certainly balance each other out and you know, so far knock-on wood. It’s been great working with him. The only caveat is, is like, then we find ourselves at dinner or we're supposed to be taking a day off still talking about the business, but-

[00:10:31] Andrea: There's no rest from that.

[00:10:33] Cora: Oh my Gosh. He used to work for a major CPG food company. When we would go grocery shopping, he used to walk each and every aisle to understand who was out there, what their packaging was looking like. I said, I'm ready to leave this grocery store. Can you please get out of the aisles right now? But he was just like all in.
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[00:10:56] Andrea: Which I think is key to what you're trying to do with organic growth at Young King. Right? [00:11:00] So like your husband is, is doing his job... he’s going above and beyond, because you want to think about. Since you are leaning so much on organic growth, you're thinking about that word-of-mouth experience and, and going to like the, the start of it. Like, how does someone see the packaging? How do they use it? And so what would you say would be the next step here moving forward, or do you think you want to just stick to this until like the industry forces you to change that strategy?

[00:11:30] Cora: We have a couple different paths, right? Because we were born in a pandemic, literally we launch and then a pandemic happened. One thing that's exciting for us is actually getting back to in-real life events. So a part of that organic strategy is actually showing up in the places in the markets where our customers are at. So big trade shows and these popular festivals and vending events, we're really excited about that. As my husband says, like we're on street team as the founders, [00:12:00] being able to meet people in real life. I think that's the most exciting part of our new marketing strategy.

And then of course, paid ads still play a role. So it's not like we're going to stop doing that, but it's how are we spending it efficiently, and spending it in ways that, are actually impactful? So in real life events, you know, doing more sampling and seeding, partnering more with influencers. I think those elements that we've started to implement, we'll still continue to do, throughout the year.

[00:12:33] Andrea: One of my last questions for you, Cora would be, what would you say has been like a key decision that you've made to take Young King from passively doing well, to like really being in the game now and being competitive and, and taking it above and beyond?

[00:12:51] Cora: Hmm. I would say a kind of a key moment when we were like, okay, Young King, this is, this is becoming a bigger thing [00:13:00] than we imagined, was really, you know, and it's kind of unfortunate, but the season where there was social injustice in June. There was a lot of attention on black owned businesses and black owned brands.

And so because people started to search and seek out black owned businesses, they found us. And then even more so at a time, you know, where, you know, black and brown men were being targeted. And, you know, we felt like this angst, we were a company that was actually celebrating an uplifting young men of color. And so it just all kind of came together where people were like, I want to know more about Young King to the point where we had about, four months of inventory on hand and we got wiped out in six weeks of all that inventory.

It was, you know, sad but incredible. But so then we were like, okay, we need todo this. We need to do this. [00:14:00] We recognize what we're doing for the culture. We recognize the impact that we're having. I even had a man reach out to me, who had adopted a black boy, who had very traumatic experiences. And he was crying to me on the phone saying, you don't even know how much this product has meant to our family. And even helping him get his confidence back and being able to help him do his hair and teaching him what to do in the steps to do it and like I'm here bawling on the phone. And it's so crazy that I even answered that call. Cause I normally don't answer unknown numbers, but he like found me and we were crying together. So it's just like moments like that. That really reaffirm, like we're doing something so great and so powerful for young men of color and that we just need to keep on and keep doing it no matter, the sleepless nights and the exhaustion and the money that we are pouring into this. [00:15:00]

Cause we were bootstrapping at the time too. We're just going to keep going. And you know, here we are two and a half years later, just so excited about the community that we've built, the support and the love that we receive almost every day. And so for us, this is just, it's just the best thing that we could do.

[00:15:18] Andrea: And I think that this message, your story, is what's helping with organic growth and getting creative on social media. Thank you for sharing your story and for being with us today.

[00:15:26] Cora: Thank you so much. I had a great time and I appreciate you just allowing me to share my story.

[00:15:33] HOST: MIDPOINT REBRAND: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. On this show, I want to take you guys through my journey of figuring out what it takes to start a small business today by asking small business owners themselves and focusing on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Cora Miller, who you just heard, [00:16:00] owns one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow.

So at this point, Young King has been doing great with organic word-of-mouth marketing. They like to speak to their community of ride or die fans and partnering with influencers who really connect with their product. Their story is great, they are filling in a gap in the market, and they're doing it together, as parents to Kade.

Coming up is the part of the show where I normally try and talk to an industry expert... someone to provide context on the conversation we've just heard with our small business owner. But this time round - the tables are turned. Or at least leveled. Or maybe it's not a table at all. It's more of a living room couch. And beside our small business owner [00:17:00] on that couch maybe with a remote in his hand, is my next guest. Stefan Miller who is a marketing expert and thought-leader who also happens to be Cora's husband and business partner.

[00:17:17] Stefan: Love that. I hope you guys told Cora that, that I'm a "thought leader", so I can use that at home.

[00:17:22] Andrea: We do not want to be the cause of any... (laugh)

[00:17:27] Stefan: (laugh) Ah, okay. And it's on recording, so we're good.

[00:17:31] Andrea: This is a unique experience for us, so I'm excited to be able to talk to the other part of the dynamic duo. Thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:17:41] Stefan: Super excited, super excited. You guys already heard from my better half.

[00:17:44] Andrea: And she speaks your praises, by the way. She really introduced to us to how important it is that you both bring in your specific talents to Young King and how you work well together because you have different strengths and are able to build off of each other [00:18:00] very well.

[00:18:01] Stefan: Yeah, you know, we had never worked together, but it was great to see like how we were able to both bring what our superpowers are and bringing them together and then make an even bigger superpower. So hopefully I'll try to give a little additive, to Cora's side of things.

[00:18:14] Andrea: So let's dive deep into your area of expertise and what you bring to Young King.

[00:18:19] Stefan: So, you know, I've worked at Johnson and Johnson at General Mills, at Coca Cola at Red Bull. So I've been trained to know how to look at how do you stand out. More importantly, it's not just for standing out, but how do you resonate to somebody? And I think, you know, I love the joy of just being able to connect with people and connect to see how can we provide them a benefit. Right? And I think it's, the beauty of Young King's story is that we realized that there was boys and young men of color that were like our son that had been dealing with this problem for so long. So that part has been fun to truly craft a brand in something that is personal for us. I think that honestly [00:19:00] helps us in our organic storytelling because it is our story. We didn't create a product just to go make profits or to go sell it to somebody. It was like, this was fundamentally a need in our household.

[00:19:11] Andrea: So when it comes to marketing and advertising, how do you think that a small business can get the biggest returns with limited funds?

[00:19:20] Stefan: You have to have, frequently, this level of scrappiness with you. And how am I, how can I go and connect with people? Everything doesn't have to be paid but what value can you provide? So for us, when we started out, we were like, hey, we don't have enough. You know, we were still like, our corporate jobs were paying to keep the lights on, do all this. And we were taking any extra money and putting it into the business for, for products. But then we were like, hey, if we can't get out, if we can't go, advertise or put up a billboard or do a tv commercial, what we could do is connect with people in the community. We can show up at events, we can partner and we could do various things to amplify that message. And I think you always want to try to find [00:20:00] like-minded individuals be it, if it's brands, it's companies, or just people that help and that resonate with you.

So, you know, for us, word of mouth was critical. When we were doing and we were developing a product we spent and we surveyed over a hundred parents, right. And when we were going in launch, we, we talked to those a hundred parents and we said, Hey, we finally have created what we talked about and we're going to incentivize you. Like, we can give you a discount and help you really, amplify where you can get in for helping us build this. But then if you share it with your community, you can also benefit.

We activate our community. Right. And that's because we, we have been able to realize by asking and knowing as parents, what is valuable to them? Like, you know, one of the biggest things that's helped us is that we started the brand out by doing a lot of education videos. Because most guys, when we were younger, our default was that we just went to the barbershop every other week to cut our hair off. [00:21:00] So it's one thing to have the tools, but then it's another thing to know, like what do I do with them? All right. So just by educating people about what is hair growth look like? What does being able to have a hair care regimen look like? That's when we were able to provide a value, the consumer that then they was able to say, oh, I need to now find that solution. And then, you know what? Young King can be that solution for you.

[00:21:24] Andrea: So you're, you're working backwards from the customer and really thinking about who that customer is, what their day-to-day looks like and where Young King fit into that.

[00:21:35] Stefan: Exactly. You have to be able to put yourself in that consumer's shoes. And it's, it's funny, it's people always kind of joke, like you have a haircare company and you have no hair. Like when we started out, like when Cora first brought the problem up, I had just thought, cause I hadn't been down in haircare island probably like 10 years. And then I was like, wait, I really thought something had changed. And then I saw the products that were from when I was in high school and college still there. [00:22:00] And I was like, wow, why, why is this still the same? There's been no change. There's nothing representing a new generation. And it was at that moment. And then I was like, I see how we can be a benefit.

And it's interesting. I'll tell you, so one of the things Cora and I are super methodical about is that it's strategy and execution. And I think for us especially as people of color, we come from a community that has a richness of ideas. I mean, just innovative thinkers coming up with solutions. But historically, where we've fallen flat is the execution on it. Right. And I think it's interesting, as, as the world becomes more diverse as we come more inclusive, it's sometimes other people can't recognize the gap because it doesn't impact them. You know, so for us it was, "Hey, no, there's oh, there's plenty of hair care products for men." And it was like, "ah, yes. Have you thought about a boy with textured hair or very thick and coarse hair [00:23:00] or curly hair." And they're like, "oh, wellI just assumed because, I've got insert any large-scale brand name." Right? And it's not sometimes you go and you have to have this curiosity. To your point, you're like, nobody else has done this. Why? Has somebody else tried it? And it's failed. Has somebody else done it, but not done it well. And you just get into this, you get into the why's: why is there nothing? And why did nobody see this?

And it just allows you to get to that deeper and try to get to that root cause to then determine. Yeah, is it an idea or not? And then you're like, oh wait, it might be my superpower. I just figured out something that nobody else saw.

[00:23:36] Andrea: I believe it's called the five whys mental model because it's one of my favorites I've used. I also have a background in marketing and I've worked with marketing agencies, I use it even in my daily life for things like, why am I thinking about this?

[00:23:51] Stefan: Yeah, it's, it's such a great thing and I think, like, for the business, you've got to know that "why" stronger than anybody else, right? Like what, why is your motivation, why is it impactful to others? [00:24:00] Because you've gotta, if you don't know that, then you're just another brand. You might have cool packaging, you know, your product may work. But it's, the greatest brands create an emotional connection while still delivering on performance.

[00:24:15] Andrea: Whenever I'm talking to small business owners, that's kind of the heart of everything, right? Like what's the reason you started and, for Young King, from what I'm hearing, it's tied to your son and something that you struggled with as parents and wanting him to, to grow up and feel comfortable with his hair!

[00:24:34] Stefan: Kade came out with a head full of hair. I mean, full 'fro, um, when he was born. And you realize though, it's, it's realizing the personal, but it's also realizing the larger macro. In the world we live in today, like representation is so key, right? You need to be able to see yourself. You need to know that in any place, any door or space, you command that you are welcome in that like I am supposed to be here. And we know how [00:25:00] the world at times sees young men of color. And it's like, how can we show, how can we show you and give you the confidence to be your full self? Like, we always kind of joke, like we're black boy joy in a bottle as like, you will be able to bring your full happiness, whatever space you go to.

[00:25:15] Andrea: I love that. So I want to zero in, as we start wrapping up here, what would you say are the top tangible tools that you could give to our listeners that help build loyalty, organically?

[00:25:28] Stefan: You heard me talk about community, but you have to activate the community. You know, a lot of times people capture things: Emails, texting, numbers. But they never do anything. They never cultivate the audience. So the number one thing is talk to your community frequently, right? Understand why they are choosing to invest their time. We only have 168 hours in a week, right? Why are they giving your brand time in their life? You have to be an active listener as a brand owner. And then lastly, I would say too, then it's, once you've done those things now, how do you supplement? [00:26:00] Because you can have a balance of, creating that community, understanding their needs, but then how do you surround them? So for us, we do a lot of those things, like, honestly, because we listened to our community, it helped to show us who should we partner with. You know, we heard convenience was a lot, so therefore we went and we're like, oh, we need a launch on Amazon because I do majority of my shopping on Amazon. Because of all the other stresses in my life, I need my products to show up in two days. I just, this is the value that I need.

So having those organic conversations led us to being in the right distribution to again, be a value to our consumer. So, you know, a lot of small businesses, especially consumer products also go and say like, oh, I just need to get in store. Let me get in store. Let me get in distribution. Every single place. Right? And it's really like focus on the need of that community and that consumer you're serving and let them tell you where you should go.

[00:26:49] Andrea: So how do you talk to this community though? What would be the best ways or is it like through social media? Do people even respond to emails and email back? Like how does that happen?

[00:26:58] Stefan: It is crazy. I used to never think I was like, ah, nobody reads emails. [00:27:00] Nobody does these things. And, as you're building your business and I don't know if a lot of people know this, so I'll share it cause it was a shock when I first learned it. But you know, when you're looking and building a healthy business, probably about 30% of your revenue a month is probably coming from loyalty and retention. So it amazes me: SMS messages that we send out. We have live conversations with people on texts that are just like, they text us back, like "keep doing what you're doing, love this."

And you're like, well of course I text everybody else. So if a person feels like they can text Cora and I or Young King or ask a question. Obviously social media plays a large part. So for us, you know, we, again, the way we activated our community is spotlighting. Like if our goal is to change the narrative of the beauty industry, and then largely as the world, what we do is we feature our community. Like, here's a submission from this parent. Hey, here's the dad doing hair, doing these things while cooking in the kitchen. All right. All of these things. [00:28:00] And it's like, let's spotlight these parents and these family and these Young Kings, by helping to uplift. So that just motivates everybody else because we start conversations around like, "oh, my king does this too." or "my king does this." We always say like the YK fam is always invited to the cookout and we are going to have a digital cookout. It might be a text cookout. It might be email cookout. It might be a TikTok cookout, regardless. We always want the YK family to come. Because I always think like in our community, like a cookout is a sign of love, like if you make it you're good. And that's how we feel about the fam. And I think that's the aura we give out and the, and the fun, that like, why people want to be a part of it.

[00:28:39] Andrea: This has been great stuff. Thank you. So, so, so, so, so, so much I loved geeking out on all of these things with you and learning more about Young King, and it has been a pleasure truly to speak to both of you who are doing so much for the community and who are being so innovative and creative, because as you and Cora mentioned, this didn’t exist before and you guys made it happen. [00:29:00] So thank you so much for being on the show.

[00:29:03] Stefan: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:29:08] HOST: Cora and Stefan Miller from Young King are such a strong example of what's possible when small business owners -- who are family -- work to each other’s strengths. My head is spinning with advice about creating community, activating it, and then supplementing it with kindnesses and incentives wherever possible.

So here are some of the key takeaways for building organic loyalty that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking with Cora and Stefan:

I see it in three steps: Understand. Connect. AndCultivate.
So when it comes to understanding, we’ve heard this before, but it’s important to start with the WHY. Why does your business exist? What gap are you filling in the market? A way to do this is by thinking about the customer. Understand what their experiences are and why they will give your brand their time. [00:30:00] Where does your brand fit into their daily life? Young King invested in surveying their ideal customer. And there are many tools that can help you with focus groups that can help you understand your customer better.
Then, there are many ways to connect with your audiences in ways that don’t require big ad spends. It’s getting out there and talking to people. It’s going to local markets, reaching out on social media, anything that gives you the chance to introduce your brand and tell your story…like a podcast! It’s all an opportunity. But of course, make sure you have a great story to tell… As Stefan said, the greatest brands create an emotional connection while still delivering on performance.
SO once you have understand your community, and connected with them emotionally, it’s time to surround them and cultivate that relationship. This is through consistent emails, sms texts, and social media. [00:31:00] And as Stefan told us, people actually read, and respond. Because they are able to connect. Because they are ride or dies. And of course … leverage your fans by telling their story. Feature your community. Meaningful products resonate with people and create evangelists from customers. When you focus on your customer, and telling a great story that resonates with them… building loyalty comes organically.

[00:31:28] On the next episode I will be talking to a small business that’s in the process of scaling from small to medium and is making large waves! Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego-- and thanks for listening! [00:32:00]

[00:32:02] CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:32:20]

Ep 3: Shannon goes all in on mental health

Learn how to create a healthy work environment.

[00:00:00] Shannon: some of the best performing businesses, have some of the best people policies. Especially in small businesses, those are the organizations that thrive because people feel valued. They feel part of something that gives them a sense of accomplishment.

[00:00:17] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. I assume, since you're listening right now, you're curious about what makes a small business tick. Maybe you're an entrepreneur yourself, and you're looking for tips on things like how to scale up, hire a great team, or promote your brand. Or maybe, like me -- you're dreaming of starting a small business one day, and wondering if you've got what it takes. On this show -- I'm making it my "business" to find out everything I can about what it takes to turn a great idea into a small business by asking small business owners themselves and focusing in on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through. I want know how to think scrappy and small -- and of course -- how to grow and succeed. [00:01:00] By the end of this episode I will recap everything we learn today into tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey.

You know, the more I talk to different small business owners, I’m always super impressed by their grit and mental fortitude. I'm understanding that it really takes a lot of mental resilience to run a small business. Especially with the long nights, and the feeling of always being “on” 24/7. Though rewarding, it can be stressful at times. So how do you maintain mental wellbeing in the middle of all the stress? And how can you help your team manage it in a way that makes them feel valued while allowing your business to keep growing?

[00:01:42] HOST: The contents of the podcast, such as text, graphics, images, and other material contained are for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your condition. [00:02:00] Never disregard professional advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.

[00:02:09] In a few minutes -- we're going to meet a workplace mental health expert who will help us answer these questions. But first -- let me introduce you to an entrepreneur who truly cares: about the world, and about her employee’s mental wellbeing. Shannon Goldberg is a 'C.Z.W.O.' That's Chief Zero Waste Officer. She runs a cosmetics company, Izzy Zero Waste, and she strives --every day -- to meet her own incredibly exacting environmental standards.

[00:02:38] Shannon: We created the world's first zero waste beauty brand that is also certified carbon neutral and all of our components can be washed and refilled more than 10,000 times. Meaning the mascara tubes and lip butter tubes that we're creating today can be around for the next 2,500 years.

[00:02:55] HOST: See what I mean? She's not playing around.

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[00:02:58] Andrea: Shannon. [00:03:00] I am so happy to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being with me.

[00:03:04] Shannon: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited as well.

[00:03:06] Andrea: Let’s dive right in, how did you come up with Izzy, and what is it like today?

[00:03:11] Shannon: Yeah, so I've been in beauty for 16 years now. And I never had the experience of working on a clean or sustainable beauty brand. And I knew that the world was definitely headed down a more sustainable path. And I remember being in quarantine, stuck at home like everyone else. And I remember just coming across this article from National Geographic. And it cited, the beauty industry goes through 120 billion units of unrecyclable plastic a year. And I remember just being like shook to my core, like, oh my gosh, I've been part of the drama. I've been part of the problem. I never thought about plastic waste. And you know, once you read something like that, you just can't help, but obsess over the details and want to learn more. I mean, "knowledge is power." And I became obsessed [00:04:00] with that whole idea of like, what - what's happening with all of our waste, where is it going and how can I make this better? And that's really where the idea of Izzy began.

[00:04:10] HOST: If anyone else has that slightly uncomfortable feeling right now...you're not alone. I myself have a handful of empty plastic mascara applicators and lipstick tubes sitting in a drawer at home. And if I 'multiply' this by everyone who wears mascara... wow! Luckily -- Izzy Zero Waste has a hack for that.

[00:04:31] Shannon: The idea to create bottles out of medical grade, stainless steel came from the medical industry. My team and I just started to question like, how do surgeons and dentists get around using the same tool on multiple people a day invasively? And the truth is they use a triple medical cleanse to remove all the bacteria buildup and microbial buildup. And I realized we could do that same exact thing in beauty, we could actually create a brand solely based on refills that would get endless uses to really like, be a [00:05:00] true solve for our industry. And that's really, how Izzy started. And it really is a first of its kind. So I'm just excited to no longer be part of the problem.

[00:05:10] Andrea: That's amazing. The lengths you went to, to not just, you know, have your own business and product, but also to make sure that that product helps the world in some way, or has some positive footprint. And so we understand what your product is: as a makeup user, myself,

[00:05:28] Shannon: Yes?

[00:05:29] Andrea: How do you refill mascara? That seems crazy to me. Like how do you put it back into that tube?

[00:05:35] Shannon: So you don't have to do anything yourself. The whole idea was that we wanted to make sustainability easy. And what happens is you receive your products and it shows up fresh on your doorstep or mailbox. I should say you have 90 days with that product, which is like a normal run-out rate.

And then 90 days later, fresh formula shows up at your doorstep. And that's your aha cue [00:06:00] to sort of put your old used product back in the reusable shipper that comes with a prepaid mailer solution. You stick it back in your mailbox and it's just this easy seamless turnover. The whole idea is we're zero waste. So nothing ends up in landfills or oceans. And just to like really break it down how obsessive we were during the entire product development process. So you know, the truth about the steel is that it can be washed and refilled over 10,000 times. But we do use 94% less plastic. So we do have our wand and our wiper made out of a PCR plastic. But what we do from there is when we collect back the used products, we actually grind the plastic down to its original virgin resin, and we find post-consumer use for them.

So right now, I'll give you an example. Um, the, the plastic wands and wipers are easy. We just remelted down to the plastic and make it new again. But for our lip applicator, we couldn't do that cause it's a spongy material, but we were able to find another use for that smudgy material. And it's now going into seat cushions for children's chairs in schools.

So there's all these uses. [00:07:00] These post-consumer uses that we really had to dream up. And then the water that we use for our triple medical cleanse to make sure we get rid of absolutely everything before we refill the components with fresh formula, even that water is purified and renewed, so it never ends up in oceans or landfills and we keep our waterways clean.

[00:07:19] Andrea: I am so impressed. That’s truly amazing. This must be a large haul though, how many people are on your team?

[00:07:26] Shannon: So it's so funny, you would think we would have this big team, but the truth is there's I think four people running our brand.

[00:07:33] Andrea: that to me is crazy!

[00:07:34] Shannon: It's crazy.

[00:07:36] HOST: This is a small team with big goals, goals that take a lot of work. And I was thinking about how much work each individual team member must have plus the mental toll that the pandemic has taken on everyone. Investing in your business’ mental health should be a priority, not only because of their general well-being but it is also tied to productivity which in turn affects the business growth. According to the World Health Organization, [00:08:00] for every Dollar put into scaled up treatment for common mental disorders, there is a return of $4 in improved health and productivity.

So I wanted to learn more about how such a small team like Shannon’s is addressing mental well-being.

[00:08:18] Andrea: you're doing all of this -- only four of you! And, and so what is it like as a leader of this very small team, trying to make such a large impact? How do you help everyone navigate that world of not burning out and, and staying mentally healthy?

[00:08:36] Shannon: Yeah. So that was the interesting part. So not only is Izzy an unusual brand, never been done before. We also launched the brand in the middle of the pandemic in 2020, and we did it, we somehow launched this brand within nine months without ever seeing each other in person.

It was obsessive phone calls and texting and zoom and the whole thing. The truth is, is that we became family. We speak to each other[00:09:00] multiple times a day. Things happened within the pandemic. Two of my partners had babies, new babies, another one got a new puppy and everyone's sort of navigating this tricky time together. This year, I would say the last two years is really about meeting the team wherever they're at.

You know, a friend said this to me the other day, we all sort of show up to work in our daily lives with an invisible backpack of issues of, of problems. We all have challenges and problems and our daily lives. So it’s one like, learning to see yourself in each other and know that, you know, life is really a series of moments, ebbs and flows, ups and downs, peaks, and valleys, and seeing your team where they are that given day, knowing when people on your team need a break, of course, new babies come in the mix, you need to take time off. And I think what's cool about us is that we're all willing to roll up our sleeves and learn how to jump in wherever we can, but also knowing like, alright, does this problem really needed to be solved today? Can it wait a week? And just like always taking a moment to take inventory of where we are and [00:10:00] how we can get through the day in the most mindful and peaceful way possible.

[00:10:05] HOST: I think we need to pause for a second here. Because what Shannon just said kind of flies in the face of everything I've always heard about workaholic entrepreneurs burning the midnight oil, and startup culture being one big churning pool of stress. Treating them like family? Pausing to have babies? Can it wait a week? I think these things sound like they might be the key to keeping her staff happy. But how does occasionally slowing the pace affect her company's growth - - and where does her own mental health fit in to the picture?

[00:10:38] Shannon: One of my biggest challenges right now is taking Izzy from a small business to a big business. Making sure that we are healthy on all fronts, mentally, financially, physically as a brand. As a leader, the thing is, if I'm not mentally healthy, then the team's not going to be mentally healthy. So every day, [00:11:00] I really wake up and try to be mindful of how I can take care of myself so I can take the best care of my team.

[00:11:07] HOST: Even though the pandemic is winding down, addressing mental health is something that continues to stay because it has now become a business metric. Leaders are learning that mental health directly impacts productivity and growth. And investing in employee mental well-being makes so much sense when we consider that we spend a big chunk of our time in the workplace. The benefit that small businesses like Izzy Zero Waste have, is that they are starting out their business with this in mind and know that they have an opportunity to create a structure that fosters mental wellbeing from the inception of the business.

[00:11:42] Andrea: So what was that moment where you realized you had to do something about this and drop a few things on the side, just so that you could focus in on how everyone's doing?

[00:11:53] Shannon: So someone like me, the way I'm wired, I am go, go, go, go, go. But I've also been labeled a pressure cooker, [00:12:00] which is not, not a good way to exist, right? It's like you take on the problems of the world. You try to solve everything in a day.

You're taking, in my case, I'm taking care of my family as well, managing my home, my children, my, my work, and often I get to these points where I feel maxed out. And I feel like I'm going to explode any moment and, and that's not cool for anyone to go through. So I think that was a moment for me where it's like, all right, normalize, feeling feelings, and, and also understand, and, and truly be empathetic towards your team and be aware of when they're not okay. So, me feeling a pressure cooker like that, that happens all the time. I experienced that frequently and that's when I know, all right, slow down, just slow down. Like let's, let's do a moment of resetting and oftentimes, it's, it's like a five-minute meditation on the Peloton app. Sometimes it's like lighting a candle and listening to music or taking a bath and just like resetting when you know you're not okay. It's these little micro-moments that ended up having a really big impact.

[00:13:00] But another moment, a few months ago, someone on my team, one of, you know, the lead executive members, had a moment where they were not okay. They weren't Okay. And it was an honor for me to tell this person. Go, go get the help you need, go, go do whatever you need, whether it's a retreat or, counseling, whatever it is, like take these two weeks off into yourself and get better because if you're not good, the work's not going to be good and it's not worth it. And these things can wait.

[00:13:30] Andrea: I think that's incredibly important too, being aware of: how is the person you're with doing? The person you sit next to every day and asking those questions is super important. So are there any practices that you're making official as you grow Izzy that you're considering to implement aspart of the company culture to help with mental health in general?

[00:13:50] Shannon: Yes. So one thing when starting my own company, I wanted to put these practices into place right away.So that, I mean, again, there's only four of us-

[00:14:00] Andrea: Four mighty ones, I will say!

[00:14:03] Shannon: Four really hardworking people, but I, I had to sort of reflect on my past, to determine what the future of Izzy should look like. And I took inventory of past jobs and past situations that just weren't okay. Things that like really made me feel like I was losing it or that I had imposter syndrome or that I wasn't good enough or smart enough, or that I didn't earn my seat at the table. And what were those problems and how do we make sure they don't come to life in Izzy, how can we make sure that they don't manifest themselves in this, you know, new brand world that we're creating?

So I happened to be in a good part of life, right? Like I've had my own struggles, but like, I can honestly say to you today, like I go to bed happy every day. I love where I'm at, but it came with a lot of struggle and it was really hard to get here. But I think when you're sort of in a good place that's probably the most important time, because that's when you need to look at your friends who are not, or your coworkers who are not in a so good place [00:15:00] and like really being there for them and seeing them and hearing them and listening to them and, and really like taking that opportunity when you are in a good place to help people on your team who may be not in a good place and just being an ear or a shoulder to cry on like really being empathetic towards them.

And then I would say, just keeping the lines of communication open. There used to be a common saying in my past life, stay in your own lane, you're in marketing. You have no business in sales or product development. And that, I just don't believe in that. I believe in a flat world culture where we can all weigh in. And just because you, you may be the social media manager doesn't mean that you may not have a great idea for the next best product that we didn't even know about. So that idea of being inclusive and just because I'm five years older than my social media manager, it doesn't mean that she's not as smart and doesn't have as good of ideas.

And then the last thing is like, a sense of humor goes a long way. So my team, like we're constantly cracking jokes. Like I am the queen of mom jokes and corny things. [00:16:00] And laughing is amazing because it also allows your team to loosen up and not feel so rigid around you. So like being more human around each other and like, you know, laughing about the silly things that happen throughout your day.

And it just makes the conversation that much more fluid.

[00:16:16] HOST: So just to recap -- Shannon mentioned a few key things that she does to foster workplace mental health:leading by example, creating a space where people feel comfortable sharing ideas no matter where they are in the ladder -- and fostering a culture that isn't agist, and doesn't take itself too seriously.

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[00:16:35] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. On this show, I want to take you guys through my journey of figuring out what it takes to start a small business today by asking small business owners themselves and focusing on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? [00:17:00] Shannon Goldberg, who you just heard, is one of the many small business owners selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

Coming up -- I'll be speaking to a workplace mental health expert about some other specific things small business owners can do to improve the mental wellbeing of their employees, and themselves. But first I hope you've been enjoying my conversation with founder Shannon Goldberg from Izzy Zero Waste. What jumps out for me is how Shannon's "slow down and doit right" philosophy runs all the way through her business -- from the ways he handles her products, to the supportive culture she strives to create.

[00:17:52] Shannon: And we all sort of choose how to show up each and every day. And I think. The important thing to know is you have a choice and you don't, [00:18:00]if you're having a bad day, you don't have to fake a smile and fake your way through the day, like it is okay. And I just, I love that the world is sort of embracing that, that we are people, and we all have a story and we all are complex creatures with issues that need to be heard and seen.

[00:18:18] Andrea: Thank you so much, Shannon.

[00:18:20] Shannon: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was so much fun.

[00:18:22] HOST: Such a cool and inspiring brand -- and a powerful commitment to mental health. Shannon really inspired me. I don't know what my future business will be -- but when I eventually start it -- I want to be sure to take some of the spirit of Izzy Zero Waste with me. From women empowering women, to keeping it real when you're having a bad day. I don't think it's naive to say that. Authenticity really matters to younger generations-- and so does mental health. So to find out a bit more about what we can do in our jobs and workplaces and small businesses to create a culture of mental wellbeing -- I reached out to Sheila Lord. [00:19:00] She's the founder of a UK based company -- BMR Health and Wellbeing. And she's well-known for her ability to "cut to the chase."

[00:19:10] Andrea: Sheila, thank you so much for being with me today.

[00:19:13] Sheila: You're welcome. It's great to be here.

[00:19:15] HOST: Sheila's company leads the way in mental health support programs for workers, all of which she says have a definitive return on investment. BMR coordinates employee helplines, mental health workshops, team building events, digital mental health tools, and other workplace wellness programs. But what triggered me was when I read that Sheila believes workplace wellbeing isn’t just about fruit bowls and yoga. She's insistent that you can’t simply magic away employee stress by ‘fixing’ people.So if you aren't fixing people? What ARE you fixing?

[00:19:52] Andrea: With your extensive on mental health in the workplace. Can you tell me, as a small business owner, why it's important to consider your team [00:20:00] or your employees’, mental wellbeing?

[00:20:03] Sheila: If we're not looking after the mental health and wellbeing of everybody, in a small business, we really, really feel the impact of that in terms of productivity. So it's really important that everybody in the business, is operating, and functioning and performing as well as they possibly can.

[00:20:19] Andrea: I'm not a small business owner myself so, all of this is new to me and I really want to understand, how could I, as a small business owner begin to approach the topic of mental health wellbeing with my team in a way that sets foundational success for the growth of the business?

[00:20:38] Sheila: I think one thing that we do when it comes to workplace mental health is that we really overthink it. And we really over-complicate it. And our mental health goes up and it goes down, we'll have good days. We'll have bad days. We'll have days where we absolutely fly and we're absolutely thriving. And that could go for weeks and months. And then bam, life throws us a curve. And it knocks us off our feet. And all of a sudden, [00:21:00] our mental health may take a nose dive. But what we need to have in the workplace, what we need to have from employers is, a work environment whereby it's okay for us to feel comfortable and safe that we're not going to be judged, that we're not going to be, kind of deemed you know, non-functional or not worthy just by speaking up and say, well, actually I could do with some help and I could do some support.

[00:21:23] Andrea: And can you give me an example of to implement this at a small and large scale?

[00:21:30] Sheila: Well, I think that needs to be training within organizations to have an understanding of mental health. So some basic mental health awareness training, is essential, in the organization.And also an understanding from people that are in the position of looking after other people, of managing people to understand what that managing people really is and what that actually includes. Because a lot of the time when we talk about having managers in the business and managing people, we're talking really about managing performance on work performance or not actually [00:22:00] managing thoughts and feelings of people. And actually in the role of a manager, we're there to guide, we're there to support, we're there to resource, develop, and give our staff all of the tools that they need to be able to do their job well.

So I think it's really, really important. That managers understand what their responsibilities are when it comes to workplace mental health and that they understand the basics of mental health and the most common signs of mental ill health, so that they're trained and understand how to have a conversation that might be a bit delicate. And equally employees need to have that awareness. You know, we, as individuals need to know what basic mental health is, and that's not always taught to us. Mental health has always been this stigmatized area. That until probably the last 10 years or so, it started to kind of, you know, the barriers have started to break down. [00:23:00] We've started to talk about it more. There's a lot more education in workplaces, but we've still got a long way to go, but knowledge is power.

[00:23:08] Andrea: Knowledge is Power. Funny. That's exactly whatShannon said when she read the article in National Geographic about plastics in the beauty industry. Knowledge is power -- and once you have it -- there's no going back. Maybe we as a society are finally getting past the point of denying the importance of mental health.

[00:23:25] Sheila: And once we understand our thoughts and feelings, once we understand that having a bad day and feeling like we can't cope with it and we can't get through today or feeling like we're struggling is normal, it's just part of life's ups and downs. It's no different to having the common cold. We don't beat ourselves up when we have to take a duvet day because we've got blocked sinuses and a migraine. So why do we feel the shame when we have the mental health equivalent. And I think it's really important to have that education and that awareness.

[00:23:55] HOST: Education and awareness. Makes sense. You can't solve a problem till you know it exists [00:24:00] and you know how to talk about it. But if it were just a matter of education and awareness -- I feel fewer businesses would be struggling with this issue right now. So I asked Sheila what she thought the main mistake small business owners make is -- when it comes to trying to help their employees mental health.

[00:24:16] Sheila: A lot of businesses fall into the trap when it comes of workplace mental health of trying to put initiatives in that focus on teaching individuals to be more resilient to stress. When actually what we should be doing is looking at the organizational factors. i.e. in what way that we do our jobs is making us stressed? So do we have, for example, a very bad relationship with a coworker? Teaching me to be resilient to a poor relationship with a coworker is counterproductive. Yeah? You're wasting your money teaching me to be resilient to a behavior that I shouldn't have to accept in the first place or relationship that shouldn't be acceptable in the first place. What we need to do [00:25:00] is to look at what's causing the stress from a work factors level, and deal with those factors. For example, it could be high workloads, you know, it might be that we're under-resourced.

We're not stressed because we're weak. And because we can't cope, we're being stressed because we're being pulled to the edge of our limits.

[00:25:24] HOST: So in other words -- treat the root cause. Sheila says understanding this is critical. The health of your business could depend on it. She also says it needs to be an ongoing effort.

[00:25:36] Sheila: Well-being and mental health at work cannot be "an initiative", something that we do from time to time. If it's an initiative that gives the impression that it's something that we do temporarily. When things go wrong, we pick it up, we play with it. We put some yoga around it. We put some fruit bowls. We all sit around and holding hands and singing happy songs and doing a duvet day. And then all of a sudden everything's right with the world of work. It doesn't work. [00:26:00] It really doesn't work.

[00:26:05] HOST: So what does work? Sheila says she's a believer in exercising good old-fashioned empathy in the workplace.

[00:26:13] Sheila: We seem to leave the human out of the human being when we walk through the door and we tend to become these little robots that have to manage, we have to do this. We lose empathy. We have to be tough. We have to be taskmasters. That doesn't need to be in the workplace. You know, some of the best performing businesses, have some of the best people policies. Especially in small businesses, those are the organizations that thrive because people feel valued. They feel part of something that gives them a sense of accomplishment.

[00:26:44] HOST: I love Sheila's advice. It's so solid -- but I was curious to know how a small business owner could spot a problem with workplace mental health before it blew up into a full-blown crisis.

[00:26:56] Sheila: One of the important things that we really need to do is talking to [00:27:00] and consulting with our staff, either through workshops or through survey tools, and asking them what are the areas of work that contributed to your feeling stressed?

And by gathering this data, we'll pull this information from employees. We will then consult with employees and understand from them what are the things that we can do as an employer to start to move this forward? Because, we can have all of the reactive tools in place: so we can send people to counseling, we can send them to get treatment and make them better after they become ill. But it's far better if we create an environment where talking to them on a regular basis, listening to them and preventing ill health from occurring in the first place and addressing things at the root cause.

And I always, I always liken it to say if we were making products on a production line. And at the end of the day, if the widgets that were coming off at the end of the production line were broken in some way or damaged, we wouldn't employ a team of people [00:28:00] to fix the widgets. We'd employ a team of people to understand what in the process was going wrong.

[00:28:06] Andrea: Again. Straight to the point, Sheila... and I love it. That is a great way to think proactively about workplace mental health. I think that image of fixing broken widgets vs. fixing the process is going to stay with me for a long time.

Well, Sheila, thank you so much for all of your input today and for all the work you're doing,

[00:28:30] Sheila: Thank you. It's been nice chatting to you.

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[00:28:33] HOST: And YOU for listening.

It’s clear to me that investing in good mental health in the workplace has an impact on productivity and business growth. Organizations thrive when employees feel valued, and this goes way beyond addressing mental health one month a year, it’s about creating and, as a leader, continuing to foster a workplace culture where employees know there is room to grow and thrive. Some of the key takeaways for fostering mental health and avoiding burnout [00:29:00] that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking to Shannon and Sheila are:

Leading by example: as a leader, it’s always good to start by looking into yourself and understanding how you can do better. When you show those around you that it’s ok to communicate what you are feeling, or even take a day for yourself, you show them that they can feel comfortable with doing the same. Which in turn will lead to a healthier work environment where people are able to hit the ground running and keep growing.
Creating a space where people feel comfortable sharing ideas and being their authentic selves, no matter who they are or where they are in the ladder. And creating this space means asking questions and making sure that everyone knows they have a voice and not judging others too harshly.
Implementing education and awareness, especially among people managers so that they know the basics of mental health, [00:30:00] signs to look out for, and how to have difficult conversations and ask the right questions.
Treating the root of the cause by surveying your team regularly, not just when something goes wrong. Surveying can be anonymous or it can be by having one-on-one conversations with your team so that you understand what isn’t working. Remember Sheila’s example about fixing broken widgets vs. understanding what is wrong in the process and addressing that.
And lastly, humor! Having a sense of humor goes a long long way. Not taking yourself too seriously. Even if your mission as a company is to save the world, it doesn’t mean you don’t get to be human.

[00:30:50] I hope you got as much out of this episode as I did. As we said --everyone's mental health is up and down these days -- but I believe we really are making progress when it comes to understanding the importance of maintaining good mental health both at home, [00:31:00] and at work. It's everyone's responsibility: employers, employees... and more than anything, we owe it to ourselves.

On the next episode I will be talking to a power couple who leveraged organic social media to grow their small business. They’ve even been featured on Shark Tank! Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

Until next time – This is SmallBusiness, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

[00:31:50] CREDITS: This is SmallBusiness is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio.

[00:32:00]

Ep 1: Max scales his side hustle

Learn how and when it's time to scale your side hustle.

[00:00:05] MAX: I’m Max. I'm the Chief Creator of Max'IS Creations. I first designed the mug with a hoop in second grade, we were in art class and our teacher told us to make a mug. I like basketball, hot chocolate. So, I decided to put a hoop on the back of the mug. My friend started to copy me and I, I got a little annoyed by that.

So, I asked my mom...

[00:00:26] JEN: He was a little kid and he came home and he was really upset. The kids, the other kids copied his mug. And, you know, I did say, you know, when you grow up, people will not only pay you for your art, but they'll pay you for your ideas. And he's like, what do you mean? And so I said, well, you could make 20 mugs and sell them for $10 or someone can make a thousand bucks and give you $2 a mug.

And this eight-year-old kid in the ride home from school did the math and he's like, I want to do that. And so I said, that's a great thing to do. And he said, well, how do you do that? And I said, well, I don't really know how you do that. But there were people out there that know how to do that. And a few minutes go by and we're driving home and he goes, mom?

And I said, yeah?

And he goes, I don't know any of those people.

[00:01:08] HOST: Hi,I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. I assume, since you're listening right now, you're curious about what makes a small business tick. Maybe you're an entrepreneur yourself, and you're looking for tips on things like how to scale up, hire a great team, or promote your brand. Or maybe, like me -- you're dreaming of starting a small business one day, and wondering if you've got what it takes. On this show -- I'm making it my "business" to find out everything I can about what it takes to turn a great idea into a small business by asking small business owners themselves and focusing in on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through. I wanna know how to think scrappy and small -- and of course -- how to grow and succeed. By the end of this episode I will recap everything we learn today into [00:02:00] tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey. So keep listening. Things are about to get interesting.

[00:02:15] MAX: We started reaching out to different people and designers to first make 3d printed mugs. And then we found a manufacturer who we work closely with who makes the mugs now.

[00:02:27] JEN: And so that is how the business started.

[00:02:29] HOST: Ok --so now you've met MAX Ash and his mom, JEN. There's pictures of Max's original prototype mug on his website -- Max'is (spelled M-A-X' IS Creations). It's this super-cute clay mug that has a hand-fashioned basketball hoop on it... you know... to make drinking your hot chocolate (or in my case, coffee) more fun. Since then -- the mugs have evolved to more sophisticated basketball, baseball, hockey, and soccer designs [00:03:00] (one of which I’m already a proud owner and have eaten ice cream in). Each with some kind of hoop or net -- perfect for dropping-in those tiny marshmallows. Such a great idea. I feel like only a kid could have thought of this!

[00:03:15] JEN: My husband was really smart. Max and I are doing a lot of the work. And then there's my husband behind the scenes is doing his piece and he had the brilliant idea to make sure we protect his intellectual property. And so we filed for a patent before he went to Fenway park and showed anybody this product.

And he has actually monetized his intellectual property. He has six patents.

[00:03:35] HOST: Six patents between the age of 8 and 17. I think this shows how important it is to protect your intellectual property to be able to then scale your business. Without protecting his intellectual property, Max wouldn’t have been able to keep growing to where he is today! His mom is super proud, for obvious reasons, but there's even more to the story.

[00:03:56] JEN: So,Max happens to have dyslexia. He has a language-based learning disability. [00:04:00] He goes to a special school for kids who learn differently and they do a lot of multi-sensory learning, which is why he was making this mug in art class.

And at the time when he was eight years old, we were worried about his future. And we were worried we had this bright kid, but he had a learning disability, which we now call a learning difference, cause we think he's differently-abled. When he came up with this idea, we're like, oh my gosh, this kid's got one over on all of us.

But in the beginning it was really like, I wanted to teach him about his strength and that his ideas matter. And so for us, this business has become a labor of love.

Not only to help Max sell mugs because Max is definitely an entrepreneur and is interested in monetizing his ideas, but also to showcase to other parents the upside of seeing the world differently. And that instead of just looking at what our kids maybe struggle with to look at what their talents and strengths are.

[00:05:00] HOST: It strikes me that this is pretty good advice for any small business owner, actually. Don't limit yourself because of your differences – focus on the areas where you know your unique strengths and ideas can shine. You can always get help to do the things you need support with. It's an approach that's worked well for Max'is Creations.

[00:05:19] ANDREA: So seeing this from today, what was that moment when you said "we're going to invest more time than we thought on this quote, unquote "side hustle"now, and actually see what we can do."

[00:05:33] JEN: I was calling retailers and different people looking at like any, you know, is anybody interested in this? And we had interest from a company called UncommonGoods. And so they ordered a small amount and they put it up on their website and they got thousands of likes of the product and they ordered two containers full of mugs. And so Max was profitable before he got his first shipment. And I would say, that was the first kind of moment where like, oh my gosh, [00:06:00] we're in the mug business. And then there've been a series of other inflection points that have led to more time being spent on the business as the business has grown and gotten more complex. And Amazon was really the other major inflection point. The people who are our manufacturing team, our sourcing team, who is another family business who've been amazingly instrumental in our business. They put up the mugs on their Amazon storefront and they started to sell.

And so Max got offers from companies that want to buy his business. He didn't want to sell the business, but we met with these people to learn about how they value the business. And, you know, they kind of gave Max a number and, and Max has a different number. So, Max told them what his valuation, what he wants to sell the business at, if you were ever, ever to sell it.

And it's a big number. And so, people told us, well, you're not there now, but you could get there.

[00:06:53] ANDREA: I love so much that you were able to do this as a team together and use your strengths and that as parents, you were able to give wings [00:07:00] to this idea as well.

[00:07:02] JEN: But I don't think his goal in life is to grow up and continue to run just a mug business. I say, "just" because I expect Max will have multiple businesses, but we have a few years with him being the face of the brand and a lot of people resonate with his story. And we are engaged with Understood.org, which is an online resource for families, for parents of kids who learn differently. And Max actually donated $25,000 to them last year. And we're continuing to, to engage with them and they want kind of to tell Max's story as well to inspire other kids. But we feel like there's this window of opportunity. And if we went from what we were selling to a million dollars in a short period of time, we thought, well, now's the time. So, we've got a few years.Maybe we should just go all in and invest. And as Max put it, if, if we're selling all these mugs without us doing anything, just organically, imagine if more people knew about it.

[00:08:00] HOST: So as you can hear, Max and his family are at a turning point. The fun little idea that they initially supported to help Max learn a valuable lesson has turned into a full-fledged and quite successful small business. Now they have some big decisions to make.

[00:08:18] JEN: And so that led us to have this conversation of, do we want to invest? Do we want to spend the time and the energy and the money to invest and we can't do it ourselves. And so we're now bringing in some advisers, some people who've done this before to kind of help us a little bit, and you know, Max talked about some of the places we're thinking of investing. So product development, Max had an idea for a product, and some product extension. So we have a design team that's now working off of his idea.

[00:8:50] HOST: Max's mom says there are still some areas they could focus more on -- but a lot depends on what they decide their long-range goals are.

[00:8:58] JEN: We're like, [00:09:00] well, should we also invest in social media marketing, which we've done nothing. And all of this goes back to this family conversation of, well, what do we do? You know, either for us to have people who are helping us run it or eventually. You know, to sell it, whatever he wants to do with this amazing idea that he had, that the world would be better if we could play with our food.

[00:09:20] HOST: I think it's great how Max's success is rooted in who he is as a young person, but also in the rock-solid support he's received from his parents, and from the entrepreneurial community in general.

[00:09:32] JEN: We learned a lot, like we didn't know how to value the business and we were not business people. And so we're like, oh wow, this is actually like, people want to buy your business Max. Like, it's really good. And so that got us to talk to other people who then talked to us about the opportunity. And we haven't done a lot to build the brand, so to speak. Again, we just let Max's story tell itself.

But in addition to like the product line extensions and the Amazon advertising, we actually have some other things [00:10:00] in the works to grow the brand. So we licensed to a company in Australia and they made some mugs we don't sell in Australia. So they made some mugs for a couple of years.

And Max just got a royalty and we have another licensing agreement in place for an exciting new thing coming up this spring and kind of us partnering with other companies to leverage their expertise, to take his brand and his ideas to the next level. And so that also is a way for people who don't want to do it all themselves, like we like the thought of ordering more mugs and more inventory and managing all of that is a little scary.

And so partnering with people who do some of that, but who will tell Max's story is, is another thing that like we have on the books, so to speak and we're working on some fun things to take his idea and do different things with it.

[00:10:54] HOST: So, I was curious how all this was sitting with Max -- who is now at the age where he's starting to think about college. It occurred to me that the goals of a 17-year-old [00:11:00] might be pretty different from those of an 8-year-old. I asked him what his interests are these days.

[00:11:11] MAX: Space and astronomy. I wanna find extra-terrestrial life in the universe. I probably eventually want to go to Mars, but I don't know about the moon.

[00:11:28] ANDREA: The world is, is just not big enough anymore. Is it.

[00:11:32] JEN: I will say also, you know, Max has done a million dollars in sales in the past year, which means he's done several millions of dollars of sales over the years. We invest that money back into the business. We have a huge order of mugs on the water and in queue for holiday season this year already.

[00:11:55] ANDREA: Max, this one's for you. As a young entrepreneur, what would be your advice to other young entrepreneurs [00:12:00] who have an idea, but don't know where to start?

[00:12:04] MAX: The biggest thing is you got to keep it simple. You can't, can't go all out on the first run. My idea was luckily pretty simple. Some people's may not be, but I think you have to go to the, the first step in it and see how that works. And then if you have to learn like what's good, what's not, and then you can kind of level it up by there, um, and kind of see the success that it has step-by-step and like leveling it up.

[00:12:32] HOST: And like his mom, Jen, Max is quick to attribute some of the success of his small business to the support he's received along the way.

[00:12:41] MAX: Getting help from other people is a big thing. Finding great partners to work with, working with your family, working with your friends and just finding people who will help you in the long run is very important. And, you also have to like, just stick with your gut. If it feels good, then, then you should [00:13:00] stick with it and you should be confident in your idea.

And, try and not give up and just, persevere.

[00:13:08] HOST: I asked Max if he saw any connection between his entrepreneurial streak, and his passion for outer space. I mean... you never know. I was thinking... maybe he'd design a rocket shaped mug. But his answer was much bigger than that.

[00:13:26] MAX: So like I found my mug idea, kind of out of the blue and nobody else had, so I'm hoping that in the future, I can use my, my crazy ideas to find some aliens in the universe.

[00:13:42] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. And I'm your host Andrea Marquez. On this show, I want to take you guys through my journey of figuring out what it takes to start a small business today by asking small business owners themselves and focusing on the pivotal moments, decisions, [00:14:00] and challenges they are going through.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Max and Jen, who you just heard are one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

I loved talking to Max and his mom about their hopes and dreams for the business. And what struck me is that before you even think about scaling your business, you need to protect your intellectual property, and then-- as you start to scale up a business -- you really have to ask yourself: Is this what I want to be doing? If it is –then it’s about focusing on what investments you need to make to really make it happen. For Max, getting help was a very important part, especially now as the business continues to grow, like Max. [00:15:00] Max enjoys being a business owner -- but he also has big dreams, like any 17-year-old. He told me he wants to head off to college -- maybe visit South America or Canada... and of course -- as you heard -- he wants to find alien life. At the same time, his business is doing really, really well -- and his parents feel they kind of owe it to Max to help him run with it and grow the business. At least for a while. So they're looking for help with that. The kind of help my next guest can offer.

Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization, with over 16,000 members worldwide. He's also the author of a suite of books, and the Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 200 partners on six continents. He teaches at MIT, and has spent the past four decades helping companies scale up. He's definitely one of the people [00:16:00] to call when you're looking for advice about how to help your business "grow up."

[00:16:05] ANDREA: Vern. Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm very excited to hear your thoughts on a couple of things.

[00:16:10] VERNE: Well, I'm looking forward to it.

[00:16:13] ANDREA: First, can you just give me a little bit about your background?

[00:16:18] VERNE: It’s a riches to rags story. My dad had a very successful company in the rocket space, you know, era, and, and then he lost it all in the 73 recession and we sold off everything, had what we had left on a couple of wheat trucks, and I moved from Colorado to Kansas and he and I became janitors.

And the rest is history. I learned business at 16 and helped build a company while I was in college. And then look, I felt like had already been in business for a dozen years so in 84, I launched the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs. Then Y E O YoungEntrepreneurs Organization. [00:17:00]

Then we all got old. And so we got rid of the 'Y'... And today it's the Entrepreneurs Organization, 16,000 members. And then I've got a company globally that, that serves that market. So that's kind of the quick story.

[00:17:13] HOST: Ok...so at this point, as a newbie to the small business world -- I was curious...as I often am, to hear what he'd have to say about businesses facing a challenge like Max'is Creations. In other words: How and when should you scale your side hustle? I asked him what he thought was the single most important thing someone in a position like Max should consider.

[00:17:33] VERNE: So I want to, I want to share what Bill Gates actually ended up considering the best question he'd ever been asked.

Entrepreneurs like this, gentlemen, they're wicked smart, but sometimes we just end up working on the wrong question. And it was a question that Regis McKenna taught the late Steve Jobs and Intel and Genentech.

And when I was in college and I had this idea, I wanted to build the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs, I said, all right. [00:18:00] "If Regis was good enough to help Steve get to 2 billion in his twenties, maybe he's good enough for me." So I cold called him and that's one of the things you do.

You just have to be bold. And I said, look, Regis, I want to build the world's largest entrepreneurial organization. Would you help me? He said "yes." I was his only free client he ever had. It was like 80 grand back then in 82 just to engage him. And he said, all right, I'm going to teach two things.

He said, you need to set aside one hour a week for marketing. So the first lesson here is, and the research is clear. Our senior faculty member at MIT at Roberts found when he studied high growth companies, one of the keys is somebody was focused on marketing and you need marketing to attract attention, investors, talent, new customers.

And then he said, here's what I want to do in that one hour.

And he said, and this is the question: Take a piece of paper out. Who are the 25 [00:19:00] most important influencers that you need to be talking about and getting behind your idea? And he said the bigger, the names, the faster you will scale. Now I'm young, and broke, and so I'm like, all right, it's 1983. President Ronald Reagan, look I'm kid at Wichita state. I'm going to get the President of the United States to be the first to use the word entrepreneur, no president had ever done that. And Andrea, I did and got invited to the White House. And then I put down Steve Jobs and I put down Michael Dell.

And then there were two important magazines, Inc, which is still around today and, and Venture. And I put down 20 more names and all we did was spend an hour, every week, figuring out how I was going to get to one of those people, including the President of the United States to get behind my idea it's crazy: 36 months later, we were global.

[00:19:55] ANDREA: Wow.

[00:19:56] VERNE: And so that's what I would encourage them to do. Take a piece of paper out like Steve Jobs [00:20:00] did when he said, I want to launch what became iTunes.

He made a list of the top 25 players in the music industry. He didn't know one of them, not one of them would return his phone call. So then what do you do now? Who do I know that can get me to that person? And Steve knew Don Henley drummer of the Eagles invited Don over said, Hey, Don, you know anybody on the list?

He goes like, I know that guy. He said well connect me. And it was crazy, you know, 24 months later, he's like the king of music distribution. I was like the king of collegiate entrepreneurs globally. So make the list and work it.

[00:20:35] ANDREA: Okay. So basically the first thing is marketing, in a general sense. And then the other thing is very specific to maybe influencer marketing or, or investors or people with a, with a certain level of expertise, name, and brand that can stand behind and legitimize or, or give a certain reputation to your product.

[00:21:00] VERNE: Yes. Yes. And it's a combination of all of those on that list. And be bold, be absolutely bold.

[00:21:07] ANDREA: And when do you, as a small business owner, when is the right time to do this?

[00:21:15] VERNE: So it just depends on what your ambitions are. This, this young guy has huge ambitions from what we can tell. At the same time, the thing he's going to have to watch out for you do not want market share. You want profit share. And so in essence, he has got to cross this chasm where he is actually saying no more than yes.

And that's how he preserves his values is getting crystal clear, and who you have on that list is going to reflect the values that you want to maintain as you continue to scale. So the list can be local, or it can be global depending on your ambitions.

[00:21:50] ANDREA: Okay. So thinking about someone like, for example, the young entrepreneur we're talking about, who's also growing up and going to college by the way, [00:22:00] he's been with this company, this idea for about 10 years now and he started when he was very young. So now he's at a stage in his life where he's, he has to balance this and the priorities of this business very differently now. So what advice would you offer to him or someone like him? Who's balancing a lot of different priorities while at the same time trying to grow a business.

[00:22:28] VERNE: In a phrase, "routine sets you free." And it sounds like a contradiction. But for instance, the importance of a daily huddle with whoever it is that you're working with to try to get something done that seven minutes, same time, same bat channel, will save you over an hour and a half of trying to track people down, email, slack, all these other kinds of communications.

And that's actually what my book's about. [00:23:00] You know, it opens with a guy, Alan Rudy. He was working 80-hour weeks. And when we got it, when he got finished, he was working, he was getting it done in eight hours.

[00:23:10] HOST: By the way – in case you're curious -- you can find all of Verne’s books on "Scaling Up" on Amazon.

[00:23:15] ANDREA: I completely understand on routine sets you free. And even though I'm not a small business owner myself, when I do become one, I think the hardest part that I see from my family, who most of them are small business owners is, you have to be your own boss and set that routine and making sure that yes, you're going to have many different competing priorities, but you do have to stick to some sort of schedule, because no one's telling you what to do anymore.

[00:23:48] VERNE: And then that brings up what is the other key? And, and again, I've, I've been lucky to curate from a lot of people, much smarter than me. And so that's where I turned to Marshall Goldsmith who wrote the book What Got You Here, Won't Get You There, [00:24:00] and every CEO, he coaches, he coached Hubert Jolie, you turned around Best Buy, I named his book, the best business book last year on Amazon. And, and that is to have a peer coach. It's different than a mentor. It's different than advisor. It's a peer. And so you want to choose somebody else. Who's somewhat doing what you're doing, roughly same age. And what we do is we figure out what are the five things we have to do every day to be, you know, my case, better father, better partner, better leader of my company. We're really there just to support each other, as, as friends and accountability partners. It is the single most powerful thing I've ever done to hold my own feet to the fire and why I founded the Young Entrepreneurs Organization.

There's 16,000 entrepreneurs now around the world who are not alone. And that was my favorite quote: "It's okay to be independent, but no reason to be alone."

[00:25:00] ANDREA: And so my next question is kind of two-fold. What would you say are the most common mistakes people make when they're trying to scale up their small business? And, what advice would you give to overcome that mistake?

[00:25:15] VERNE: You know what? It's trying to go too big too soon. Ironically. You have to start local. And I'm talking about in your neighborhood, like you think you have a product that can sell, you know, globally or whatever, make it local first. So another way to say that the riches are in the niches. And so Southwest airlines started just surveying salespeople. You know, other people could fly with them, but they focused on traveling salespeople. So really go as narrow as you can. Initially, Amazon started just selling books.

[00:25:53] ANDREA: Is there any other big, common mistake you see for people who are trying to scale up?

[00:26:00] VERNE: We see it in four areas, people strategy, execution, and cash. And so the first around "people" is sorting out who you're going to partner with. And man, you partner with the wrong folks and it becomes bad. Around "strategy," it's the idea between riches in the niches is you got to figure out what word or two you can own in the mind to the market.

That's the essence of brand job to be done. And we're always trying to do too broad of a job, and that's why you want to get more specific. You know, I want to own two words, scaling up. "Execution" is doing too many things and then "Cash," it really is important to not raise money. Friend, you know, we tend to go out to friends, families, and fools, and it just creates a lot of pressure.

You're much better off to bootstrap as much as you can and get the customer to fund you.

[00:27:00] ANDREA: Curious to know what's the most important piece of advice you would give small owners who want to make the jump from small to medium.

[00:27:09] VERNE: Just be bold.

So I'll tell you maybe a final story. So I truly am poor, when I go off to college. And I'd read how Andrew Carnegie was poor and how important it is though, to live in the right neighborhood. So you meet the right people. It is the sum total of the relationships that you're able to make.

So, I get this job with this company called Superior Supply Company as a freshman. I mean, I need to make some money. And I heard, that the CEO, lived in the best neighborhood and he lived in this mansion. So, about the third day on the job, I made sure I bumped into him in the hallway. And I said, I'm your new engineer doing drawings. "I said, "I hear you live in a beautiful place."

He goes, "yeah." He goes, I said, is there any chance I could live with you?" And he's like, like "what?" I tell him the Andrew Carnegie story, which I think, you know, got his attention. And he goes, [00:28:00] "well, let me go ask my wife." So he does that night and he comes back and said, "she thinks it's a good idea." And, because I didn't know, I started in the summer... they were snowbirds. They would leave to Naples, Florida for the winter. So she, she thought it'd be a good idea that there was somebody in their place over the winter time.

But she felt she should charge me something. So, my rent was $50 a month to take care of this mansion while I was in college. And I ultimately, he became my mentor. I became number two and we were about a $12 million company. But more importantly, he introduced me to everybody in town that were very significant business people that many of them are still acquaintances and friends today. That supported me early on in my ventures.

[00:28:50] HOST: Isn't that the wildest story? I mean, imagine having the guts to ask your boss's boss's boss for a place to crash. And then turning it into a huge business opportunity for yourself. [00:29:00] This is wild. I could barely believe what he was telling me.

[00:29:08] ANDREA: So to conclude with this Verne, I will ask you.

What is a lesson you have learned that someone like our small business owner who is young would benefit to learn from now that you're in this part of your life?

[00:29:21] VERNE: Sell sooner than later, you know, when you are most excited about it is when you should sell it because selling a business is convincing whoever's going to buy it, that this thing has got a huge future and they can sense it in your being.

[00:29:42] HOST: That was Verne Harnish -- author of Scaling Up, and founder of the Entrepreneur's Organization.

There are too many important lessons learned in this episode. So some of the key takeaways for scaling your side hustle that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking to Max, Jen, and Verne are: [00:30:00]

First you need to protect your intellectual property! You need to get your trademarks, patents, and protect your brand so that your idea is protected from being copied and you're able to scale through other businesses.
Then, think about what you need help with to get your business idea off the ground. Figure that out and look for the help you need. You will be able to move faster and smarter from the start.
Set aside at least on hour a week for marketing, this should always be somewhere on top of your list. This makes a lot of sense to me: figuring out what story you want to tell and then how you market is key, so that you make sure you reach the right audience.
Write down a list of the most important influencers or partners that you need to get talking about your business. The bigger the names, the faster you scale. And I think that this is kind of what we see when small businesses get mentioned or promoted by influencers with large followings, [00:31:00] they suddenly take off.
To repeat some of Verne’s quotable points: 1. routine sets you free and the 2. riches are in the niches. Routine allows you to free up your mind for what’s important because you have the daily planned out, and you can’t be everything to everyone.
Verne suggests that if your small business does takeoff, and there are interested buyers, you should sell sooner rather than later. When you’re most excited about the business, is when you’ll be able to transmit that the best and when people will be more interested in investing.
And lastly, what has got to be one of my favorite lessons learned… be bold. I mean… Verne’s story about asking his CEO to live with him… crazy! But that sure was bold.

I hope you enjoyed these conversations as much as I did.

[00:32:00] On the next episode I will be talking to a 2X Emmy Award Winning Makeup Artist who turned her passion into a small business. Meanwhile, if you like what you heard, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas, and tell your friends about us too!

[00:32:25] Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:32:50]

Ep 2: Eva Jane stands out in the crowd

Learn how to stand out among the competition.

[00:00:07] CHELSEA: I say people support people, not necessarily products all the time. And when they hear your personal story behind it, the passion, all the things that you have gone through to get to this point and how you're still struggling and trying to build and grow, they're more likely to support you.

[00:00:26] HOST: Hi I'm Andrea Marquez -- and This is Small Business – a podcast by Amazon. I have a bit of a confession to make. While I do come from a long line of entrepreneurs and small business owners, I don't actually KNOW that much about small business. But -- I really, really want to learn, so that maybe one day -- I can start my own. So, on this show -- I'm making it my "business" to find out everything I can about what it takes to turn a great idea into a small business by asking small business owners themselves and focusing in on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through. [00:01:00] I wanna know how to think scrappy and small --and of course -- how to grow and succeed. By the end of this episode I will recap everything we learn today into tangible, actionable takeaways for you to use in your small business journey.

On today's show -- as you just heard -- I've got an incredible expert lined up. Chelsea Whittington is the Chief Executive Officer at C WHITT PR -- a busy and successful PR Agency. She's gonna give you some great tips on how to promote your small business later in the show.

But first -- I want to start with a simple but critical question. As a small business, how do you stand out-- amongst all the competition that's out there?

To help me answer that, I’m speaking to EVA JANE BUNKLEY, a 2x Emmy Award Winning Makeup Artist, and the founder of Eva Jane Beauty, [00:02:00] a line of makeup tools for "Making Beauty Easier".

[00:01:55] HOST: I actually connected with Eva Jane because of her participation in Amazon’s Black Business Accelerator, [00:02:00] which is dedicated to helping build sustainable diversity and provide growth opportunities for Black-owned businesses. Black owned-businesses can grow their business with access to financial support, strategic business guidance and mentorship, and marketing and promotional support. Eva Jane is a one-woman solo-preneur and I 'd heard she was going toe-to-toe with some pretty big manufacturers -- not to mention thousands of online makeup influencers. So, I was curious about her journey to try and get her products noticed in such a crowded field.

[00:02:37] ANDREA: I love your product. I love what you stand for, your mission, your vision, everything. So I kinda want you to take us through it and hear some of the milestones of the journey to becoming a small business owner.

[00:02:50] EVA: Sure. So,I was a freelance makeup artist, of course, heavily service-based in that space. I worked in television. [00:03:00] But I was on set one time at one of the stations and I was preparing a woman. She had to get to set quickly. News is live. There's no grace, it's a hard out, they have to get out there. And I tend to be kind of a messy artist. I like to spread things out. Things are all over the place. And my go-to tool is my blending sponge. I love just how a nice supple and malleable sponge can kind of blend that foundation or make corrections. And I just needed to do some finishing touches on her face. And I realized that among the melee, I could not find where I put the sponge I was using on her. And I'm just searching, you know, and time is ticking down. And seconds can seem like minutes or hours when it comes to news and when it comes to live TV. And she's getting nervous in the chair and I'm starting to get nervous because I'm like, I can't find the sponge. Oh my God, did I drop it? [00:04:00] And the thought just popped in my head. If I had this thing attached to my finger, then I wouldn't be looking for it. You know, that'd be one less thing and I can save time and I just kind of put a pin in it and I was like, huh, a sponge on my finger. That would be pretty cool. And that was kind of the origin story of the makeup bullet. It was just being in a moment and wanting to solve a problem.

[00:04:26] ANDREA: So, you had this idea. When was it that you decided to take it from an idea to a reality and, like, what was the journey to saying “I'm going all in”?

[00:04:38] EVA: Really, I got in my way more than anything else, the doubts creep in, you know, when you have that epiphany, you're like, oh my God, this would be amazing. And then all of the other voices come in, like, that'll be hard. Can you do it? Do you have enough money? You know, will other people like it? Because one thing that I knew about myself was [00:05:00] I was great creatively. I'm like, I'm a great creative person, but if I ever go in business, I'm going to need a partner because I don't know that side of it. I need somebody that's going to be the numbers and all that. And so that was weighing on me and in the back of my mind, like, I don't know if I could do this by myself. Because I really didn't have the confidence that I would be able to do it and see it through cause it was just such uncharted territory for me. So that, it took me almost about 10 years from when I had that epiphany to actually doing it.

[00:05:34] ANDREA: Ten years...

[...]

..., wow!

[00:05:37] EVA: It was almost like 10 years. But it wouldn't leave me alone. It nagged at me and nagged at me and, finally, it was just the encouragement of somebody who was in the very niche, beauty tool industry. Shana King, she was amazing. She worked with a company that manufactured makeup brushes, [00:06:00] and she said, you know, Eva, she said, I have been all over the world and I've traveled, looking at shows, so I've never seen anything like this. She said you could be sitting on a gold mine. You need to go ahead and do this. And just that one little bit of encouragement, amazingly, pushed all of the fears and the trepidation and the hesitations and the woulda coulda shouldas aside that were in my heart. I met her in January of 2012. And by December I had my first prototype in my hand for the makeup bullet and that, following May, I was in New York, launching my product at the makeup show to my peers, other professional makeup artists, and it was a hit!

[00:06:48] ANDREA: Eva Jane, I'm kind of curious, what was it about Shana that helped you? Was it because she had this experience? Was it because she was also as a business owner? What?

[00:06:57] EVA: I think. When I, I just met a [00:07:00] perfect stranger who was very, very entrenched in the industry, very well-connected and she didn't want anything from me, you know, she just wanted to encourage me and let me know that "I think this is going to be a winner."

She said, like you need to do this yesterday. Like do it. So, at that point there was no way that I was just going to just sit on it because the voice was getting louder and louder.

[00:07:27] ANDREA: And also, you realized you don't need the numbers partner that you thought you needed, and it's something that you can do yourself.

[00:07:34] EVA: Exactly. That was the other thing. I mean, we, we are very good at telling ourselves what we can't do sometimes. Who knows what, what your full potential is. You could take yourself on a wonderful adventure.

[00:07:46] ANDREA: So, I mean, I am not a small business owner myself. I think a lot of that comes from that courage because I could definitely relate to what you said at the beginning. I am not a numbers person. [00:08:00] And I always think if I did have a great idea, I would need someone to help me out with that because I don't even know where to begin.

But what I am hearing and understanding is your challenges and your goals will definitely change with your business. Eva Jane right now with the makeup bullet, what would you say is one of the biggest challenges you're facing?

[00:08:20] EVA: I'd say being on the other end of the bell curve, you know, when you are the new shiny thing, everybody wants you, you know, so if you can outlast that point where it just becomes, not the new shiny thing. And everybody's like, "oh yeah, I've seen that." Then you're doing all right. I've gotten lots of advice. Like, okay, now you've got to launch the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And I'm like, okay. But the next thing has to make sense. It has to fit in with my mission. Like my mantra is "Making Beauty Easier." I truly want to give tools to people that [00:09:00] they can really enjoy their lives and not have to sit in the makeup mirror forever, struggling to make themselves look presentable. You know, most women they're going to spend about four to six minutes. I'm like, if I can empower people who don't have natural artistic ability to walk out the door and be confident, not, you know, “I'm self-conscious”, then I've succeeded. And that's what brings me joy.

[00:09:26] ANDREA: And I am one of those women. I am your target audience. Definitely. I do depend a lot on professionals and I try doing my makeup the fastest way I can, that it doesn't look awful. So, I've seen how the beauty industry... it's exploded. Like I am now a fan of all of these like beauty influencers, even if I'm not a person who knows how to do my makeup, just like the idea of looking at these people who do their makeup for an hour every day. How has it been for you to break into something so crowded [00:10:00] where there's people that have, and all of these, like celebrities that are making all of these tools, as you say, or launching their new makeup brands and it's, there's so much, how has that been for you?

[00:10:14] EVA: I am an individual and I feel that I have something to offer to other people that is different from what anybody else does. I'm unique. So therefore, I'm not going to say, oh, I'm not going to come out with this product because there's similar things in the market or whatever. I'm offering it in a way that nobody else can because it's coming from Eva Jane. So, I struggle a little with the whole social media and getting out there and paint in my face all the time and showing people but I'm working on that side of it too.

[00:10:48] HOST: Standing out is not an easy feat. Especially since there is so much information being constantly thrown at us. And in the beauty industry, it sounds like shelf space (both physical and digital) is key. [00:11:00] Branding, and how the product fits into that space in a unique and distinguishable way might be a good place to start so that it doesn’t get confused with other similar products.

[00:11:11] EVA: When I created the makeup bullet, shortly thereafter, like in a year or so, I walk in a big brand store and then there were products that were obviously meant to, to kind of solve for what I was already solving for. Then came the dupes that were outright, just knockoffs of the makeup bullet. So if you just heard, "oh, there's this sponge that fits on a finger now," and you walked into one of these big retailers and you saw it, you'd be like, "oh, that must be the thing that people are talking about."

And you'd be, you'd be fooled.And then you'd go, oh, this isn't so great because the experience isn't going to be as great. And then you just write off my product, probably like, oh yeah, I've tried one of those finger sponges, but no, you have not tried the finger sponge. The one [00:12:00] that started all, the one that was designed to really make your makeup application easier.

[00:12:05] ANDREA: Because you knew that something like that would happen, how did you prepare for that?

[00:12:09] EVA: Build up my brand and let people hear my heart behind why I release anything. Why I attached my name, Eva Jane, to anything. The makeup bullet, I guess the main regret I have is when I first did the packaging, I did not put my image on it. I did not even put my name on the box. I put nothing really about me. It says like "created by an Emmy award winning makeup artist." And I was watching one review and the girl was looking at it. She was like, "I wonder who it was, man. I love this product, but I wonder who created it?" You know, and I put this, this kind of bad girl looking blonde white model on the box. Cause I was like, I don't want people to think it was quote unquote, an "ethnic" beauty product. It's an "everybody" beauty product. And it was just slightly before the very strong [00:13:00] Black Girl Magic movement and, you know, we were on everything and it was just kind of before that so I was, just kind of like, I'd like to be behind the scenes. I'd like to just push this product out. I'd like for everybody to accept it. And I would say that. You didn't ask me the question, but I'm telling you that would be my main regret.

[00:13:21] ANDREA: I really appreciate you sharing that. So if I were to mirror back what you shared, you: (1) doubled down on making your product stand out in terms of quality, then (2) focused on distinguishing your brand and attaching it to your name/your profile, and (3) your top lesson learned is to put yourself front and center – you are part of what makes your product unique and customers will appreciate that. Anything else you’d recommend?

[00:13:49] EVA: You know, challenges are always going to be there. It's going to be new level, new devil. And it's just like, you gotta just deal with them and take them as they, as they come. It's like [00:14:00] fight as much as you can, and then just make sure it's not anchoring you in such a way that it's preventing you from progressing. That's what I want to encourage people to, to look at.

[00:14:14] ANDREA: Cause at the end of the day, how can you keep iterating? And keeping in mind how your product can get better to address a need in the customer’s life. Which is a way to stay ahead of copy cats.

[00:14:26] EVA: Totally, totally.

[00:14:28] ANDREA: And well, right now the, the beauty industry, I think it's rebranded itself to be very much about self-care. It's not just about how do you look most beautiful, but making sure that you feel beautiful as well. And if you could go back, you said, you'd change that cover to include your image. And so moving forward, I think, would you say that this is something you're going to start incorporating more into everything you do in the business side of things, making sure that people know who Eva Jane is and why she's creating these products?

[00:15:00] EVA: Yeah, definitely. You know, just trying to figure out how do I incorporate my story more? So, am I gonna put my name on the next iteration of packaging? Yes. Right now. I'd say the priority is to continue to expand my brand and get into not just the tools side of it, but also the color cosmetics. I have an eyebrow gel and eye gel that's coming out. That is kind of a dual purpose. I, I very much believe in things in your beauty kit, being able to solve, not just one problem, but two or three. So, um, being able to, to do two different things with one product, I think is, one thing I've, I've focused on lately when it comes to introducing more products to the Eva Jane line.

[00:15:50] ANDREA: So, introducing more products as part of, also, the strategy you're taking in the next steps to grow your business.

[00:15:56] EVA: And, and it's been working. It really has. [00:16:00] I've seen my, sales on Amazon, just jump because, you know, people see, "oh, you have a store here on Amazon. you know, the makeup bullet." And if that's all there was, it's like, "okay, I'll see you again when I need another makeup bullet". But if you see that there are other solutions I have that work in with, "oh yeah, I need to enhance my eyes. Oh, you have something for that." And so, I, I am seeing that now that I've launched some brushes and my silicone detail angle brush people are just adoring. And I, I love that. So, anything that I put out there I've, I've thought about why it needs to be included. I've thought about the why's behind it.

[00:16:40] Andrea: So in addition to the other things we’ve talked about, standing out over time also includes retaining customers. And you do that best when you think about expanding your product line within the brand you’ve already carefully curated. Do you [00:17:00] have any resources you’d recommend?

[00:17:02] EVA: So, when I was approached by the, Black Business Accelerator through Amazon to, to become a part of that cohort, I said, "oh, yes", because this was something that I desired to do. Here's the thing. I have goals that to some, my goals are small, you know, they're small steps to, to, to test things out and to try things out. Like I just want to, I'm selling about six products on Amazon, not even thinking about it in a month. I want to get up to 100 products in a month. And I looked this morning and it was up to like 135 products in the last month. And I'm like, oh my goodness. Like, what I'm doing is working.

But just being able, to have that coaching has, has been awesome. So, I very much believe in Accelerators as a small business owner. So, you don't have to think, oh, I'm just a creative, I don't know the numbers because you really, when you do start your business, you're not doing it alone [00:18:00] if you seek out those resources that are low cost, no cost all around you.

[00:18:09] ANDREA: ...and there are many of those.

[00:18:12] EVA: There are many, of those. There are many, so Andrea, are you ready to start your small business?

[00:18:19] ANDREA: Great question! Well… I know there are plenty of existing resources for when I do. So, I know it’s important to take advantage of coaching, mentorship, and accelerator opportunities, and also being part of communities that can give me feedback to keep learning, iterating, and building an even better strategy or product.

Eva Jane, thank you so much for being with us today. And I'm excited to see where the makeup bullet goes or what other products you bring to life using your voice, your brand. And hopefully now your face will be on the box. So, we all know where it's coming from.

[00:18:58] EVA: I really appreciate this opportunity. [00:19:00] It's been fun talking to you. So thank you so much.

[00:19:10] HOST: MIDPOINT: You're listening to This is Small Business -- brought to you by Amazon. I'm your host Andrea Marquez. On this show, I want to take you guys through my journey of figuring out what it takes to start a small business today by asking small business owners themselves and focusing on the pivotal moments, decisions, and challenges they are going through.

Did you know that more than half of the products sold on Amazon come from small-and-medium sized businesses? Eva Jane, who you just heard, is one of the many small businesses selling on Amazon who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. You can learn more about them in our show notes on our website ThisisSmallBusinesspodcast.com.

I hope you've been enjoying my conversation so far.

So … how do you rise above all the noise, and competition? [00:20:00] To talk this over -- I reached out to Chelsea Whittington. Chelsea is the CEO of C. WHITT PR -- where she develops public relations and social media strategies for an impressive range of clients. I figured she'd know a thing or two about how to get your story out there. So, I started by asking her this:

[00:20:20] ANDREA: In 2022, where we are being thrown so much information constantly through different mediums, how do I stand out as a small business in an already established and very competitive industry?

[00:20:32] CHELSEA: That is an excellent question. And that's when we start talking about the storytelling piece of it, whatever your product might be, and you are experiencing difficulty in standing out, I say, go back to the source that inspired you to create the product in the first place. Was it named for a loved one? Did you overcome a tragedy? Did you stumble across this? And now proceeds are benefiting a [00:21:00] nonprofit. Did it inspire someone else along the way? And now that person becomes an ambassador to help again, ignite your brand? Also, what is your, your product or service evolving into? So maybe what it started off looking like two or three years prior. Now it may have an additional feature. There may be additional offerings. Does it come in a new color? And are there individuals whom you can even on a smaller budget -- be your influencer nation, the endorsers, those who can say "I use this product and I like it better than any other in the market, because, and have a strong, "because." Why is your product so much better than everyone else?

Would it be the ingredients? Would it be the time that it takes to get that product to line versus the competition if you will? Because we always know, even in my line of business, there's somebody [00:22:00] coming for me and I have to be ready and I have to be able to make myself stand out. And I say, when you put your story on it and when I buy your product every time I get it, I think about "Wow --that's that little girl that made that sacrifice" or "the one who graduated college and was determined to be an entrepreneur. And now she has done it." Because people love a good triumphant story when you've overcome obstacles to get to your success. So that's what comes to mind when I think about those who are challenged with making themselves stand out. Your genuine passion will come out. If you continue to push it consistently.

[00:22:41] ANDREA: And this does not happen overnight.

[00:22:43] CHELSEA: It does not.

[00:22:46] ANDREA: So once I've injected myself, is that enough?

[00:22:47] CHELSEA: It'll never be enough if you're truly passionate about what you do, you will find yourself reinventing adding on, on a regular basis. Otherwise, how will we ever grow? [00:23:00] And you have to stay on top of the trends in your specific discipline. I studied people who do what I do better than what I do so that I can learn. What are the tricks of the trade? What are people talking about in my industry right now? How I can make myself relevant right down to what's happening in the news today. There are some businesses that have become successful overnight, just because they had a product or service that met a need that happened to align with what was going on in the world today. And so, to me that says there are countless [00:28:00] opportunities. If we are persistent, we're willing to research our competition and we're willing to continue to re-invent ourselves no matter how long it takes.

[00:23:48] ANDREA: When do I know that it's time to hire someone like you, an expert like yourself to help me with PR marketing and rebranding after I've done all of this, of course.

[00:23:58] CHELSEA: Yes. So, the first thing I tell potential clients [00:24:00] is beware of hiring professional help if you are not ready to deliver. So, if that person hires PR to do outreach on all of the different areas we talked about from media relations, email marketing, social media, grassroots, all of these things. Will you be able to meet the demand? If the answer is "yes" -- you've checked that box. The next thing is take a look at your own personal efforts. Have you gotten some media coverage? What does it look like? Is it just local or have you gotten some regional and national hits that are of great significance? If you have not been able to achieve that on your own, that's another sign to say, okay, I probably will need some professional help.

And having those contacts. That's another key thing as far as having contacts with the media. So, your everyday person can't just call a newsroom and say, "Hey, Bob it’s Chels. I got a great story for you. Can I have your ear? [00:25:00] Can we talk?" And so, relationships are priceless. If you don't have those connections and have found yourself in a stagnant place where I'm just not getting that type of traction. My social media following is just not being built. Those are the types of signs that you need to hire a professional and what we will find as small business owners, we do everything. From unlocking the door in the morning sometimes to counting the change in the register before the shift begins. So, I understand time is also a factor when you don't have time to promote yourself and people don't know you're there, then it's time to get some help. And it doesn't always have to be somebody like me. There are students right now sitting in classes, in universities, across this country, they're learning the science of marketing and how to build. And so, if you don't have that big giant budget, maybe it's that intern who in exchange for a small stipend, [00:26:00] exposure to your brand, as well as perhaps school credit can also assist in your promotional efforts. And then that way, you know, that someone is posting on your behalf each day, someone is helping to build your following on a regular basis.

[00:26:16] ANDREA: Talk to me a little bit more about what it means when the brand is an extension of yourself.

[00:26:24] CHELSEA: When your brand is an extension of you, the opportunities for creativity are endless because no one knows you better than you. So, if you want to insert emotion in your messaging, if you want to insert tears in your messaging, happy moments in your messaging all while again, taking your consumers and potential customers along for the ride, you can do it, especially if the product bears your name, and so it becomes personal. My brand is an extension of me. It's like your family member. And so, I always [00:27:00] encourage business owners when they want to shy away from being the face of the brand, they feel like it's arrogant, I say people support people, not necessarily products all the time. And when they hear your personal story behind it, the passion, all the things that you have gone through to get to this point and how you're still struggling and trying to build and grow, they're more likely to support you. So be all in for your brand, whatever it takes and tell that story and keep telling it. You got to keep pushing it in every angle, every audience and every opportunity thrown your way.

[00:27:38] HOST: That was Chelsea Whitt, CEO of C. WHITT PR.

Some of the key takeaways for strengthening your small business brand and standing out among the competition that I’m adding to my small business playbook after speaking to Eva Jane and Chelsea are:

Before you even begin telling your brand story, make sure your product stands out in terms of quality. People need to not only see your investment in quality but also feel it and trust that your product will deliver as promised.
Then, leverage your personal brand story to add depth [00:28:00] to your product or brand, which will pull in customers. People connect to stories and will remember you or your product more and find value in what you offer.
Before you hire professional help for promoting your product, make sure you are ready to deliver because even getting help with marketing and promotion will require work as a small business owner to have enough product ready to ship, and in the quality you promise customers.
And last but not least. A good time to hire some PR help would be when you are in a stagnant place and have tried a lot out on your own but don’t seem to be gaining traction where you aren’t able to put your story out there and reach new customers.

[00:29:00] On the next episode -- I'll be talking to a woman who started the world’s first zero waste beauty line. Meanwhile-- don't forget to subscribe to our podcast so you can be up to date with new episodes, let us know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or email us at (thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com) with episode ideas,– and if you like what you heard, tell your friends about us too!

That's it for today on This is Small Business. I'm Andrea Marquez -- thanks for listening.

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with audio and story production from JAR Audio. [00:29:54]

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