Podcast Episodes

Bonus episode: Empowering diverse voices through storytelling

Jun 6, 2023

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

May 30, 2023

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!

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

May 23, 2023

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

May 16, 2023

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

May 9, 2023

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

May 2, 2023

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

Apr 25, 2023

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

Apr 18, 2023

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

Apr 11, 2023

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.

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]

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Ep 27: Danyel manages a momentous merger

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Ep 26: Product improvements without breaking the bank

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Ep 25: Leslie adds a new product to her lineup

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Ep 24: How to foster workplace diversity and inclusion

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Ep 23: Toyin leverages small business success to drive community impact

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Ep 22: Pros and cons of a business partnership

Pros and Cons of a Business Partnership

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Bonus episode: Empowering diverse voices through storytelling

Bonus Episode: Empowering Diverse Voices Through Storytelling

Bonus episode: Live from Dallas: US Veteran Matt has a plan

Live From Dallas: US Veteran Matt Has a Plan

Ep 28: Miguel connects with his community to grow his brand

Miguel Connects With His Community to Grow His Brand

Ep 27: Danyel manages a momentous merger

Danyel Manages a Momentous Merger

Ep 26: Product improvements without breaking the bank

Product Improvements Without Breaking the Bank

Ep 25: Leslie adds a new product to her lineup

Leslie Adds a New Product to Her Lineup

Ep 24: How to foster workplace diversity and inclusion

How to Foster Workplace Diversity and Inclusion

Ep 23: Toyin leverages small business success to drive community impact

Toyin Leverages Small Business Success to Drive Community Impact

Ep 22: Pros and cons of a business partnership

Pros and Cons of a Business Partnership

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