Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 6 quick questions with Lulu Ge, Founder of Elix (Part 2)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. Question number one is, what's your why? Why do you wake up every single day and work on Elix?
- 0:19To show that there's a world where purpose and profit can coexist and to help millions one day be able to tune in to the signals from their body and discover the healing potential of Chinese medicine.
- 0:32Love that. Question number two is, what's been your favorite marketing moment so far? When we launched the news of Alixis Clinical Trial, we actually went on a media tour, about 16 different morning TV, news shows, radio shows. And my favorite was speaking with news anchors in places like Tennessee and Ohio, and these news anchors sharing their stories.
- 1:01about their periods on air. And many of them mentioned it was the first time ever in their career that they talked about their period on live morning news show. And they could not believe we were getting to have this conversation. And it was amazing. That is amazing. That's so cool. I love that. Wow. Wow.
- 1:24And it just goes to show like we, no matter how powerful the person or how successful put together they are, everyone has had an oh shit moment. Everyone has struggled through something in their body that they are trying to figure out. And it was just awesome to hear their personal stories and talk about like what's normal, what's not, when we should get help and all that good stuff. Good stuff. Indeed. I love that. The oh shit moment.
- 1:52I mean, I'm not going to lie. My period actually came on my wedding day and surprised me. Showing up in all the right times that are interesting to show up. Got to love our period, but oh my God, sometimes. What the heck?
- 2:11Question number three is what's your go-to business resource when it comes to like a book or a podcast or a newsletter? So I love your podcast. Thank you. When I was thinking about starting a business, I think podcasts like these are so incredibly helpful. Yeah.
- 2:27There's a book called Your Brain at Work that I think is just like a Bible for how to understand the way our brains work and how we're wired to be distracted. And I feel like if you can figure out how to hack your own brain, you can hack anything else because mindset is everything in life. And so I love this book and I give it to all new team members at Alex's.
- 2:55Oh my gosh, this sounds so cool. So how to wire your brains? Wire our brains? It's called Your Brain at Work. Your Brain at Work, way off. Your Brain at Work.
- 3:06And it basically, it goes through different stories of this couple. It's also kind of like relationship therapy, FYI. But it goes through different scenarios of this couple and how their day unfolded and basically like how they got totally overwhelmed. And then it gives you some like neuropsych theories, tips, and then it replays their days. Like if they had kept these like brain hacking tips in mind, how the day could have gone.
- 3:33Oh, interesting. I'm going to order that after this call. That sounds great. Love it. I love it. Cool. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
- 3:50So I start every morning with a 20-minute meditation. I love the Manjit meditation app, M-A-N-J-I-T. She is an incredible friend, healer, Reiki master. Her family ran an ashram in India. And her meditation app is unlike anything else that exists because it combines self-hypnosis, sound healing therapy, and meditation.
- 4:19meditation. So there's something for everyone there. I highly recommend the Manji app, but I start my day with a 20 minute meditation with her app. And then I try to get some sun and fresh air. Research actually shows if you get sun first thing in the morning, it helps with circadian rhythm. Vitamin D is great for hormone health. And then I sit down and this is actually an exercise from Manji. List 10 things you're grateful for.
- 4:47Most of us do gratitude journaling with maybe only two or three. Ten really cultivates that mindset of abundance. Ooh, I love that. I'm going to try that. Ten's good. Ten's a lot. I'm going to be out there thinking, like, what am I going to add to this list?
- 5:05Well, I find that it wires my brain to go through the day noticing the good instead of focusing on the bad. I like that. That sounds like a great ritual. I'm going to give that a try this week. Thank you so much. Yeah. Question number five is what's been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you?
- 5:25Oh, so many. I feel like if you're not making a ton of mistakes, you know, there's probably learnings to be had. But some of our worst mistakes has to do with how we conduct tests on our customer journey. And so recently we ran a test on one of the pages of our website. And to be honest, I don't.
- 5:48There was a huge miss in terms of how the test was set up and test probably cost us $50,000 and worse than the money it cost us. It led to zero learnings. So we had to rerun the test with the mistake fix. And so that's going on now. Oh, my gosh. What does that even mean, though? Like a $50,000 test on a website? What is that?
- 6:11What does that mean? Like, basically, we didn't have a transaction set up the right way on the back end. And so, yeah. And basically, what it taught me was that and what it taught us as a team is that as we're growing and scaling,
- 6:27we need to design processes that minimize human error because everyone has so much on their plates. And like for big things like this, you know, we need to have almost like multiple eyes on it before it goes live. And then once something is live on site, we need to make sure we have QA processes to double check. So it was great in a way because we didn't have processes around how to launch tests. And now we do.
- 6:53And now you do. Great. Well, gosh, we found the silver lining. Question number six, last question. What is just a crazy story, good or bad, that's happened during your time building this business?
- 7:09So many crazy stories. I will say the one that sticks out right now in my head is last week for the Elixir offsite. We've been talking about how can we...
- 7:27How can we, as a team of ambitious people, be less afraid to make mistakes and celebrate our failures as learnings? And so I actually surprised the team with an improv coach who arrived to our off-site.
- 7:46And as the coach walked in and I announced that our surprise activity was improv comedy session, I quickly realized that it may not have been a good idea to surprise the team because the looks on all their faces. But I was so proud of how, even though the initial reaction was like, oh, my God, are we seriously doing this?
- 8:06Um, the coach did a really good job of getting everyone up, playing games, laughing around. And by the end of the first hour, we had moved on to skits and people who I would not have imagined was like, you know, saying anything.
- 8:24And the whole concept behind improv is you don't let your team members fail. You support any wacky, crazy idea they have with yes and, and you continue building. And even if a scene flops, it's okay. You jump in, you pick the ball up, and you keep rolling with it.
- 8:44And I was just so proud of how the team came together and emulated inanimate objects from like there was a furniture scene to like a magical like spaceship scene. You know, we just had so much fun together and to see people who never really collaborate together, you know, saying yes and to all the wacky ideas was just so much fun.
- 9:09That's super cool. I love that. That is so much fun. Gosh, this was so much fun. Thank you so much, Lulu, for coming on the show and sharing your journey with Elix. I'm so excited to see what comes next for you in 2023. Thank you so much, June, for everything you do for the female founder community. Thank you.
- 9:37Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
- 10:01And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
- 10:24As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
- 10:39Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
- 11:04And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
- 11:26As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.