Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / SUMMER ‘23 - Bootstrapping a Puzzle Brand to 250,000 Units Sold, with Jiggy Founder Kaylin Marcotte (Part 1)

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SUMMER ‘23 - Bootstrapping a Puzzle Brand to 250,000 Units Sold, with Jiggy Founder Kaylin Marcotte (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Dune here. I'm recording this quick message to let you know that over the next few weeks, we'll be playing some of our favorite episodes from the past year while I spend some time with my best friends and family back in my other home, London. If you missed these episodes the first time around, they are so good and packed with so much value. I know you're going to love them just as much as I did recording them. See you soon. Bye.
• 0:27
  This is Kaylin Marcotte for Female Startup Club. Hello, welcome back to the show. If you're new here, hi, I'm Dune, your host and hype girl in business. Every week, we learn from seven, eight, and nine-figure female founders to understand their blueprint in business when it comes to money, marketing, and mistakes.
• 0:57
  women like Kaylin Marcotte, the founder of Jiggy Puzzles. And if you've been around FSC since the very early days, circa beginning of 2020, you might actually remember our first interview together. It's number 10 if you want to go back and check out Kaylin's story at the very beginning of her journey, as we were chatting when she was only a few months into building Jiggy. And it was actually also the beginning of my journey with building Female Startup Club,
• 1:28
  So today we're getting up to speed on what's happened in her world since then, and we deep dive into the power of her business model when it comes to collaborations with female artists, strategic partnerships with corporate clients, and how she managed to get on Oprah's list of favorite things.
• 1:44
  And while I've got you here, if you're a founder yourself or you're just getting started with putting together your ideas to launch a business slash side hustle, something I've come across that's a problem for every founder at every stage is capital. Every entrepreneur or future founder that I speak to, myself included, struggles with the money piece.
• 2:04
  We all need more money. So we've put together a comprehensive list of every grant and accelerator that's live right now, and we're keeping it updated weekly. And there's some really good ones that are closing in a couple of weeks' time that you should totally jump onto and apply. To access the document for free, go to femalestartupclub.com forward slash grants to get your copy. Alrighty, let's jump into today's episode. This is Kaylin for Female Startup Club.
• 2:33
  Kaylin, hi, welcome back to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, I'm so happy to be back and yeah, talking years later. It's great to be here again. I know.
• 2:45
  It's so great to be here again. For anyone listening, we had our first interview ever, which was back in early 2020. It was episode number 10 for me. So it was like seriously early days. But you had actually just launched your business the November before. So yeah.
• 3:05
  It's kind of wild because in those years I've watched from afar the success that you've had and the growth that you've had and all these exciting things happening. And then on our side, we're at the 500-ish mark. It's been a journey for both of us. And I'm so excited to be back doing part two.
• 3:24
  I'm excited to hear what's been going on. I know. I love it. It's been so fun to watch you as well. And just kind of, yeah, cheerleading from afar. And I'm excited to dive back in.
• 3:36
  Thank you so much for saying that. I feel like I want to explore kind of, there's two ways that we could go about this, but I want to, I think the best thing to do is anyone who's listening should go back to the very first episode and kind of hear that early story and the why you started and the how you started. And today we could pick up from where we kind of left off in that early 2020 mark, um, you
• 4:00
  talk about what's happened since then, maybe cover some highs and some lows, and then get into a deeper dive discussion around collabs and partnerships and what's been going on. Cool.
• 4:12
  That sounds great. Let's rewind to early 2020, pandemics hit. You're like in the early days. What was going on? Oh my gosh. It was wild. Yeah, wild time. So, you know, I had been thinking about this idea for years at that point. And so finally left my job and started really working on Jogi and launched November of 2019. And yeah.
• 4:41
  you know, some of the trends I was already seeing happen that gave me the conviction to even start around, you know, unplugging from technology and kind of wanting to get away from screen, self-care, mindfulness, and this appetite for like analog activity. So those were already happening. But then, you know, add in
• 5:04
  everybody in the world being stuck at home for a puzzle company, you know, it, it honestly just kind of threw me into this tailspin in some great ways and in some really challenging ways. And it's just been like a sprint really, you know, we're, we're catching our, our breath now, but those next probably two years.
• 5:27
  We're really just kind of a daze. But back to the beginning of 2020, so we launched November 2019 and went right into holiday season. So I knew there would be some seasonality. A lot of people have great fond memories or traditions around puzzling together with their families during the holidays. So that was kind of our first marketing around the holiday season for 2019.
• 5:56
  We had only done one production run to that point. So, you know, we had our vendors, we had our supply chain, but we really only, you know, kind of troubleshot it once. And so... How many units did you have? We had... The initial order was 10,000 units.
• 6:17
  But I split it up. So I, you know, basically part of the negotiation with the factory was that was their minimum, minimum, minimum. They would not like accept my business for less than that. But I was like, all right, so what if I pay for like the raw materials of that amount? But I don't, I don't, you know, I'm just starting out. We're going like cold start. I don't think I need that many, you know, in our warehouse. And actually at that point in my living room was where I was shipping from.
• 6:43
  Uh, so, you know, I took delivery on the first, let's say couple thousand. And so I still had an allocation from that initial, you know, run quantity. Um, so as soon as we saw like the writing on the wall and going into the new year, anyway, you know, we did have some marketing plans around, um,
• 7:02
  dry January and an activity to do when you're, when you're sober over the weekend and, you know, Valentine's day, like date night, you know, have a date night in. And so we were already starting to sell through that. So I ordered the next batch and then, you know, that mid March weekend when I was in New York. So, so it was fairly early that it was just full shutdown. You know, everyone at home and we saw immediate, um,
• 7:31
  you know, overnight people looking for activities, you know, like media outlets writing about what to do and puzzles kind of coming to the forefront. So immediately ordered all the rest in and had already gotten out of my living room and had a warehouse that could fulfill much more quickly. But yeah, we immediately went into restocking because did end up selling out of that first full run.
• 8:01
  And so, um, I kind of saw, you know, even with, even with placing as quickly as I could, we were going to be sold out for about two months. And so, you know, I'm a six month old company. Yeah. Like I'm so early. I'm, um, I'm a six month old brand and it's like, the demand is now like, I'm, I'm, I'm missing the moment, you know, I'm missing this window of opportunity, um,
• 8:29
  And so we did a couple of things then, which I think people can take some inspiration from. So the first, of course, everyone, you know, was moving to gift cards and like how else you can support these small businesses, even if they are sold out. So we did a fun spin on our gift cards where we made them puzzles. So it was a mini 24 piece, like postcard size puzzle. And so on the back of it was where we wrote the redemption code. So you'd get it in the mail, just in an envelope.
• 8:58
  And then you have to put it together, you know, to redeem it once you're back in stock. So that was kind of just an added layer of fun, fun little surprise and delight for people. But then really what I, you know, I was just trying to troubleshoot. Can we store some elsewhere? Can we change the packaging to at least have something available for sale? And so what I was able to get, you know, just off the shelf,
• 9:27
  were blank white puzzles. And so, you know, it's a puzzle, but there's nothing printed on it. And so it was kind of this, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, like aha moment, where I was like, well, my whole thing is I have this community of artists. And so I got these blank white puzzles and I live in New York, don't have a car. So I rented a zip car, you know, fully masked and gloves and everything. And I drove around to our New York
• 9:57
  based artists and dropped off these blank white puzzles and they hand drew and hand painted on them. And, you know, essentially created these one of a kind original pieces of artwork on a puzzle. And so we hosted an auction for them and raised money and it was split between the artists and COVID fundraising efforts for New York City. And so it was a really
• 10:20
  special campaign that ended up, you know, getting media coverage and actually being not just a quick temporary fix, but actually a really special moment for the brand. So that was kind of our first six months of COVID was trying to restart quickly, scrambling, you know, doing our original hand-painted campaign and trying to just
• 10:45
  kind of meet the moment, wait lists, gift cards, and stay as relevant as we could while being sold out. It's interesting because I feel like for you, you were really leaning into at that stage, the bootstrapped founder, everything was kind of the word of mouth, like you every day hitting the internet pavement, trying to get your story out there. But actually what's come out of that is how you've kind of,
• 11:12
  you've really went for that grassroots approach and that inherently built that word of mouth marketing moment for you, which it seems like such an obvious thing, but I feel like it's actually often forgotten. People shouldn't be turning straight to launching paid media ads or, you know, blowing thousands of dollars to companies.
• 11:31
  get things happening, you should be organically trying to find these ways to reach your target audience through innovative campaigns and through kind of just getting your story out there, which is exactly what you did. Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, just especially from my experience at the startup before the scam that I was at before Jiggy, you know, we took a very kind of grassroots and community driven approach as well. And so I think in some ways it's just felt so,
• 12:00
  organic and just much more authentic of a way to build a brand to me. But also, you know, strategically, um, I think it, it's just so much, you know, it's a longer play, but I think it's what actually makes a business defensible, especially if you have a product that can be knocked off and, you know, and, and competitors will pop up. I think, um,
• 12:25
  I think ultimately it's what makes you stand out, what gives you longer legs and gives longevity to the idea and what makes it a more defensive business. So both kind of just from my core, what I had experienced already and what I was comfortable with and felt more authentic, but then also certainly I think it's in the best interest of the brand too. And it is so easy. I think there was certainly a period of time where like,
• 12:54
  everything was a, you know, DTC, Facebook ad machine, just, you know, come up with some product, even drop ship a product from, you know, don't even make it yourself, pump money into ads. And like, there you go. You have, you know, you have your, your e-commerce business. And I think that model, you know, just kind of ran its course and it is a bit tired. I think,
• 13:18
  Consumers do want to know what's behind it. And, you know, if you're really just selling a product, buying ads and paying for acquisition, a moment when you're sold out or there, you know, something goes wrong, like there's not that much to fall back on. So I think when you approach it from a bigger, from a why, you know, what is the why behind the brand, then...
• 13:46
  It was, you have, you know, coming up with hand-painted ones, like, it was because we had this community of artists and this mission around it. Like, it was, that's what allowed, you know, being able to meet the moment in an authentic way versus, I think, just, you know, having a product that you push out. Quick win. Exactly. Exactly.
• 14:10
  I feel like from that moment for the blank kind of puzzle with New York artists moment, that must have been a guiding moment as well, where you were like, okay, this actually works. This is something that we can build into our strategy ongoing. What was your approach from then on with collaborations and partnerships, whether it was strategic or whether it was the female artists that you were working with? What was your kind of guiding strategy moving forward? Yeah, definitely kind of...
• 14:40
  proved this hypothesis that people, you know, would see puzzles as art. And I think that was, you know, the premise in the beginning was, okay, puzzles, there's this product. I think it can be a more fun experience and, you know, be differentiated if it's not just cheesy stock photography, but it's actually beautiful pieces of art. So let's start there. And then, you know,
• 15:10
  you know, we auctioned these and they went for three, 400 to like $4,000, $4,500 was the highest, you know, so someone came over $4,000 for, you know, yes, an original, a hand, hand on original on a puzzle. And really that was kind of a proof of concept, if you will, that this idea of puzzles being the vehicle, but for a piece of art,
• 15:37
  um, had traction and, and that there was interest there. So from there, you know, definitely saw this concept of, of collaborations and more kind of limited runs, um, as, as having a lot of potential. So working with, um, both larger artists, you have an artist, um, partner who she, um, you know, has a couple million Instagram followers and just shares, um,
• 16:03
  shares her art there and does drops of her prints and stuff. And so we do a rotating collection with her that's, that's swapped out on a seasonal basis and then working with brands too, especially brands with, you know, really strong visual identities and really, you know, fun in-house creative and assets and,
• 16:28
  So that's been a great part of growing and just getting in front of like-minded audiences through those partnerships has been a great growth channel. Yeah, absolutely. It's genius on all levels. Like you're reaching their audience. You're coming with new exciting things for your audience. It's a really PR worthy moment. It's kind of like the dream business model in so many ways. Yeah.
• 16:54
  Totally. I think get fresh product, which you're, you know, you're always trying to, to launch new SKUs and just keep it interesting and dynamic for your existing, you know, customers and then getting in front of new customers in a way that, that feels, you know, that feels like a, like a fun original idea and not, not too heavy handed or, or, or too
• 17:24
  to have, we've done, you know, really fun, like a non-alcoholic drink. And so really fun scenes of, you know, a puzzle party with the beverage and Winky Lux. My friend, Natalie, runs a cosmetics brand, Winky Lux, which, you know, was blown up and is in Target and is foreign all over. And they have really strong prints, like packaging prints. They're known, kind of iconic,
• 17:53
  prints on all of their packaging. And so doing something that recognizable for their customers on a puzzle was really fun. And then, you know, even really making it more of a, almost a marketing vehicle for the partner as well. So for example, we worked with the music artist, Casey Musgraves, who was releasing her new album. And so along with,
• 18:20
  you know, the vinyl and stuff for the album, we put the cover art onto a puzzle and she sold that alongside the album release. So it's one, not only a way to just, you know, out of the product, monetize the audience more, but to have it be much more interactive. And, you know, people would get a QR code leading to the album and a message from her,
• 18:47
  on the puzzle. So, you know, to be listening to her music while piecing this puzzle together and then get a fun like multimedia experience was something totally new to her fan base. And so using puzzles as an engagement tool and, you know, the fact that, yeah, maybe they could have bought a poster and put it up on the wall, but, you know, people spend eight,
• 19:16
  10 hours doing your puzzle, like the, you know, the, the time, um, of engagement on really just like an advertising, you know, people wait tens of thousands, millions of dollars for 30 seconds of a customer's attention, 10 seconds, maybe. Um, and so the fact that, you know, partners can put their branded imagery on a puzzle and people would spend 10 hours with it, you know, was a real kind of value add.
• 19:43
  or them as well. So definitely a win-win that we plan to continue and has become really core to the business.
• 19:52
  And for something like that, when it's kind of like a, a brand, a branded partnership that could have also been a white label moment, but you've leaned more into the collaboration side of it. How does the actual, like, how does that work in terms of the model for numbers? Like, is it like a commission or they pay up front or what's the back end of that? Typically we do a, yeah, like a royalty split. So yeah,
• 20:20
  because we are, you know, a lot of much bigger players. It's essentially licensing. You know, they would, you know, Disney or something would be looking at licensing out their characters and everything. But since we've really tried to approach it as, you know, people who are aligned with our audience that we can create a real, you know, win-win moment for, and the fact that we're still small, you know, self-funded bootstrapping business,
• 20:51
  we've just by necessity done most of our deals on the, like the backend of sales. So it's essentially a rev share that we split on the backend, depending on the party. You know, if it's an artist and a partner and Jiggy, then we'll do like a three-way split. So figuring that out. And there are some partners who I totally understand bring a lot of value themselves and are looking for like a minimum guarantee. So you can factor that in if there's, you know,
• 21:20
  want a little more security with a minimum guarantee on their end. So I think it's, it's getting creative and, and ultimately, of course, finding what works for you, but a rev share has, has definitely worked for us and, and been, you know, most partners have been open to that.
• 21:40
  And when it comes to the artists and even the brand partners too, are you going out and actively pitching them or are they coming to you or what's the process of finding the artist and then kind of that approach moment and getting them on board? Definitely both. And in the beginning, it was certainly much more outbound on my side, you know, on the artist side going to fair art fairs and shows and galleries and
• 22:08
  diving into these illustrator communities online and go, yeah, so fun. And still is probably the most fun part of my day-to-day. So yeah, it started with me curating and going out to them and sharing this idea and what we were working on. Since we've launched and been live and certainly big press moments, anything that really kind of puts the brand on the map, we start getting a lot of inbound as well.
• 22:38
  And so we have essentially like an open submission process. And so artists can submit their work, you know, tell us a bit about them. And then when we're making selections, we go through those. I'd say it's pretty 50-50 at this point between partners I find and then our inbound submissions. And then we had done open calls for art and we actually did a,
• 23:07
  community driven selection process where we did an open call for art. We had 500 artists submit their work and then our community, you know, our customers, our puzzlers voted on which ones they wanted to do next. And so six winners were, were ultimately what we made for our next collection. So like fun activations like that. Yeah. I have been,
• 23:33
  have been great. And then on the partnership side, also, I'd say pretty, you know, even, evenly split, but always, you know, looking, connecting with like minded brands and networking with other founders. And a lot of that has led to opportunities as well. Oh, my gosh, I love that.
• 23:53
  I feel like it comes across that you really lean into customer feedback when you're kind of developing new product or developing new ideas. And something that I came across was really that community choice moment that you just spoke of. Are there any other examples of things like that where you really loop in the community for their feedback? Yeah, we've had a few, actually last year we had two product launches, three even.
• 24:20
  that were very community driven. And so first was our frame pairings, because of course we include puzzle glue with each one. And so, you know, the whole concept is these puzzles are pieces of art and you can display them afterwards. So we have been including the puzzle glue and then started getting a lot of, you know, questions around framing, suggestions, and we made the puzzles match standard frame sizes so that it would be easier to source,
• 24:49
  We ended up, you know, asking like, would you want to just get it all in one? Would you want to bundle it? Pick your puzzle, pick your frame, you know, easy, easy gifting, easy bundling. And that was, was definitely very positive feedback. So we developed our jiggy frame pairings. And then we also, you know, started getting a lot of the pieces are a bit too small for my kid and I want to make it a whole family, you know, affair and activity. And
• 25:17
  A lot of the benefits of puzzles really can be for early childhood development. And for adults, it's a lot of improved memory and sleep and just kind of overall brain health and stimulation, reduced stress and even studies using them for PTSD patients and grief communities. And for kids, it's a lot of fine motor skills and like spatial recognition and shape and pattern matching
• 25:47
  And, uh, and even I talked to this pediatric OT occupational therapist and she's saying, even especially now with like social media and, um, you know, YouTube and everything, just like persistence, like with our attention spans, she uses puzzles with her kids to just teach, like sticking with a task and, um, and delayed gratification and, um, and, um,
• 26:10
  And there aren't really in many ways to cut quarters with a puzzle. And so just that skill, that muscle of just persistence, and then get into delayed gratification at the end. So we ended up developing Jiggy Jr., which is our kids' line of puzzles. Same model where each of the designs is by a female artist who we do profit sharing with. But bigger piece sizes.
• 26:35
  Instead of glue, adhesive sheets, a little more kids friendly. So we launched Jiggy Jr. off of that. And then lastly, we are kind of piloting a new model called Jiggy Studio, where the feedback and the conversation we were having with both our communities, our artist community, you know, we just started getting...
• 26:57
  so much interest in so many artists who wanted to turn their artwork into puzzles, but our, our model of releasing six at a time and these very curated collections just didn't allow us to work with that many. And then on the customer side, you know, there, we just started getting, you know, could we, could you do more photography or could you do more watercolor or cartoon or anime or whatever it was? I just wanted more styles because we had a pretty specific,
• 27:27
  kind of aesthetic for what we were curating for the collections. So on the artist side, there were 10 more artists wanting to work together. And then on the customer side, they were looking for more options and kind of different styles, especially when they were thinking of it as art and what they want to hang. And so last, just a few months ago in October, we started experimenting with what we call Jiggy Studio, which is where artists can come on
• 27:55
  create a profile, we still review their art and approve it, but essentially it's more of a marketplace. So it's a platform where they come on, create their profile, upload their work, and then customers can shop. And when an order is placed, we of course, we make the puzzle, it's jiggy quality in our packaging, everything you'd expect from us.
• 28:18
  but it's much more of a, you know, not quite an Etsy or Teespring, but more of a platform marketplace. Yeah. And it's print on demand, right? So no waste. Everyone can kind of get what they want, but without kind of having a million thousand SKUs on your end. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Oh my God. I love that. Yeah. I'm really excited about that one.
• 28:44
  And how's that been going since it launched? So far, so good. We have 40 artists live who we've gone through, you know, just operationally. We've also just been testing how it works, you know, onboarding them, making sure that they're set up, you know, because a lot of them do a lot of their own marketing or have their own site currently where they sell prints and originals and want to plug into their site. So we've had a lot of kind of on our back end of,
• 29:11
  plugging into their existing points of sale, ironing out the whole print on demand. How quickly can we get those orders out? What's the turnaround time? But it's been great. We have 40 artists live. They each have three plus. So we have like 100, 150 designs. So before where we were releasing six at a time, to be able to kind of overnight have 100 new pieces of art
• 29:38
  was really exciting for us to be able to offer that. And for customers, I mean, they, puzzles are addicting, right? And we really do want to lean into this kind of habit and ritual where it's not just a one-time, you know, toy or game, but it's really this practice that you do to disconnect, to get away from screens, to take some time for yourself and be more present and mindful. And so,
• 30:05
  We see very strong repeat rates. And so to have that amount of new designs to offer just really helps when we have our puzzle club, they're puzzling with us every month. So always looking for new designs. So it's been great so far.
• 30:23
  And is that a custom piece of tech that you've built on the side? Or what's the like back end of that? No, scrappy, scrappy small team. We run on Shopify and we've just kind of packed together. There are some apps and plugins we use for different functionality that Shopify didn't offer. But no, essentially, it's just an addition to our site, but set up differently.
• 30:54
  The print on demand is a different production and fulfillment partner. And so the backend ops is different, but the customer facing experience is still, you know, on our jdpuzzles.com and kind of same shopping and checkout that they would expect. Right. Got it. Got it. Got it.
• 31:15
  I'd love to switch gears a little bit and talk about the money piece of your story for the last couple of years. In the beginning, you were bootstrapped. I don't know where you are now. I know you've been on Shark Tank. So I feel like I'd love to sit in this space for a bit and understand how you were approaching working capital to this and then if you've raised or what that approach to fundraising is.
• 31:38
  Yeah, that's been a really interesting part of the journey for me, just, you know, going in kind of blind, didn't have, you know, had friends in VC and stuff, but personally, not, not.
• 31:51
  a ton of experience on running a business on the financial side. And so started out just fully self-funded and actually, you know, three years in have remained that way. So decided there at one point in time decided, you know, should I raise now is this the right time to bring on a partner and, and did go on Shark Tank.
• 32:12
  And ultimately, you know, I think because we are doing, trying to do things differently, and I really wanted to make sure that we could continue growing in an authentic way and make sure that, you know, we do profit sharing with our artists. And, you know, I think a lot of investors would be looking for, you know, ways to see it on the bottom line that wasn't really aligned with what we were trying to do. And so ultimately decided to continue bootstrapping,
• 32:41
  So we run on cashflow. There are definitely pros and cons to that and huge challenges to that, especially when you have some seasonality in your business. So we have a couple other, you know, some of the collabs and some of our more B2B. So, you know, doing custom puzzles for corporate gifting. We'll have, you know, big tech company, you know, doing an employee conference or everyone's working from home. They want to do an employee engagement activity, but everyone's at home.
• 33:12
  We've made custom puzzles for partners like that. So that helps kind of even out some of the seasonality of the year, but yeah, I mean, anyone, I'll tell you when you have most of your revenue coming in Q4 to make those dollars last, you know, for the rest of the year, for three fourths of the year,
• 33:33
  It can definitely be a challenge and just have to be so, so mindful of what costs you're taking on. And so for our third episode, check in. I can keep you posted because I am starting to explore options out of what that looks like. And I do, I'm looking at all options. And that's what I think a lot of people, if I could advise to make sure you know what is out there.
• 33:58
  And to not just assume it has to be VC equity raise, that there are a lot of working capital, whether especially now so many have popped up of these more creative, either going to bank and getting a loan or much more some runoff your purchase order. So if you're a wholesale business and you have to fund your purchase orders,
• 34:27
  But, you know, it's net 60, so you don't get paid for 60 days until after you deliver. There are options to fund that. So kind of inventory funding is one option. And then some, you know, that run directly off, even Shopify offers capital now and they just pull from your sales. So a little less, you know, ultimately you still have to know what you're running into, but a little less.
• 34:53
  kind of risky if it's pulled out of sales. If you're confident, you can cover that. So I'm in that process again, it's kind of what is the next stage of Jiggy's growth look like and what are the resources we need to get there? Because I think they're great things in maintaining the ownership and control and being able to grow mindfully and in your own way when, as we do, you have such a purpose-driven brand.
• 35:21
  But there are limitations and, you know, to not have bigger budgets, to make bigger bets, you know, on, on marketing or on now, you know, the world's opening and, and events and, and some of the really fun and, and the fun branded marketing. Exactly. That, you know, it's just hard to justify when every dollar pulled out is,
• 35:44
  you know, affects the day-to-day running of the business. So yes, I will, you know, we'll see what the right decision is this year, but it's still three, three, almost three and a half years in and self-funding it.
• 36:00
  Wow. I love that for you though. That's so cool. It really fits like the mission of what you're trying to build. I'm excited to see what comes next for you on that front and the part three of this episode. Me too. I'll have to keep posted.
• 36:15
  What's shifting the needle for you now in terms of marketing? You know, 2023, it's a very different landscape to 2020, 2021, even last year, really. So I'm wondering, like, are you, you know, what's working in terms of, is it TikTok? Is it PR? Is it ambassador programs? Is it Amazon? Is it something else? What's kind of your focus at the moment? Yeah, we just launched on Amazon. So, um, we actually.
• 36:45
  So we were selected for Oprah's favorite things list. Um, so. Oh my God. That's so cool. Yeah. Thank you. I love that for you. Big, big moment for us. Um, always, you know, such, um. Do you get to meet Oprah? I have an honor to be included. No, unfortunately not. She doesn't. I think when she still had the show, I think, um, you, you got to meet her and go on the show, but, uh,
• 37:12
  but now she's, yeah, the magazine still has an incredible, um, audience around it. But we, so, so, you know, their, their preferences that you're also live on Amazon. So we kind of spun up quickly to go live on Amazon to participate in the list. And so now that we're there, we're like, all right, let's, you know, let's see, uh, what we can do with this channel. So, um, we're still fresh, but it's starting to grow on Amazon this year.
• 37:38
  And then, yeah, ours, you know, it's still, it still is really heavy on word of mouth, both on customers. So that's, you know, how do you incentivize your customers with ambassadors or kind of a loyalty program, a loyalty program where, you know, they get, you can, you can accumulate points for sharing on social media and leaving reviews. And so programs like that, loyalty and ambassadors can still be really powerful.
• 38:07
  you know, ads, Facebook, Instagram, WeTube, Pinterest, like there's, they're really, at least for us, very hit or miss. So, so can be powerful, can also be very uncorrectable. So, you know, we're, we're experimenting with the creative, but it's kind of a necessary evil, you know, to, to continue to just have a presence there, but not,
• 38:33
  Definitely not something worth putting all our Facebook ad bucket. PR, I would say definitely, if you have a product, if there are solid hooks or if it's prime for gifting, then getting on hiring an agency or even a freelancer to just be pitching commerce editors to be getting on gift guides, product lists, roundups, all of these very commerce-driven products.
• 39:02
  PR can be powerful and also kind of be, you know, it can convert on its own. And then kind of the other halo effect of it is adding a lot of link backs for your brand for SEO purposes. And so that can be helpful to, to just start to rise in the rankings and be more discoverable in search. So we're still continuing with that.
• 39:26
  And then, you know, our artists as well, since they are really the partners in this and they get a percentage of sales and sort of incentivized to drive their own sales. We do, you know, have kind of this built in marketing force of the artists themselves who are doing, you know, have their own audiences and email lists and followers.
• 39:50
  And I would say email, it seems just like table stakes, but if you can be creative and constantly innovating and making sure you have strong flows and a welcome and browse abandoned, cart abandoned, and all of the, make sure you're not leaving anything on the table and that you're really covering bases with email as well.
• 40:15
  Right. Absolutely. Just to circle back to the Oprah thing, how do you get on the radar of being on Oprah's favorite things list? Yeah. So it started two years ago. I went to my first and only actually trade show. So if you're a very wholesale heavy business, then certainly trade shows can be powerful. I did one, we've really focused, especially during COVID on the direct
• 40:45
  But I was at a trade show, you know, with a booth displaying Jiggy and an editor from her magazine came up and had the chance to meet him and show, you know, touch and feel the product and explain what we were all about. So originally got on the radar a couple of years ago. They ended up kind of changing the focus of that list in that year. And so, you know, would just...
• 41:13
  every once a quarter, every three months, follow up, follow up. Um, and then ultimately I kind of tag teamed, I would follow up with him, you know, my PR team would track down any other back channel they could find. Um, and then this year we, we were put up hurt again. Um, it was actually funny. We, you know, okay, you made it through this round. Okay. You made it through this round.
• 41:39
  And the final round was the photo shoot. And so it's not guaranteed. You know, they do the full photo shoot and then they do the layout and make final selection. So it wasn't guaranteed, but like you're really close at that point. And so I got the email on like a Tuesday at 10 a.m. that, okay, we need your product. And the photo shoot is this Thursday, like in 48 hours in Portland, Oregon, across the country from where I was sitting in New York.
• 42:06
  And we need, you know, whatever, four of the puzzles in their packaging. And then we need a completed one framed to show how it looks, completed and framed. And I had none of that with me in New York. So, you know, okay, our fulfillment center can send the ones in the packaging. You know, they can just send the samples. But how am I going to, you know, I can't.
• 42:30
  even if I overnighted it to me, can I speed puzzle this in 24 hours, complete it, frame it and ship it back overnight? So, um, I ended up, you know, taking to our community, which was incredible, but I posted on Instagram, like we have an insane opportunity. Has any customer who bought this puzzle and kept it and framed it like DM me?
• 42:57
  And we had multiple customers who had it framed on their wall and pulled it down off their wall and bubble wrapped it up and sent it to Portland, Oregon for me. So that was how we ended up pulling it off. Yeah. Yeah.
• 43:13
  to make the photo shoot. That is so cool. That means that their puzzle is on Oprah's favorite list of things. And their puzzle is like the trophy. Oh, my God, that's so cool. I love that so much. Power of community. It was a very cool moment. Yeah.
• 43:34
  Total power of community. That is so cool. Before we jump into the six quick questions, my last question for you is, what is just your key piece of advice for female founders in 2023 who want to grow their business? You know, we've talked about community a lot. I would definitely kind of sit down and think about what that means to you and think about it a bit more kind of open-endedly or open-mindedly of what,
• 44:03
  you know, the first thing everyone thinks of is their customers. You know, okay, so you have your customer community, but what does that really mean and what does that look like? Are you engaging with them in all the ways you can, activating them? And then I think what are the other communities for us? You know, our artists and our brand partners and these collaborations, and where is their opportunity to have that work for you a bit more? So I think again on kind of the
• 44:33
  the long-term, if you're not just quick win, you know, sell a product, but really want to go through the exercise of brand building and really creating something with lasting power, then understanding, you know, what differentiates you and who your community is. Definitely be talking to them, surveying, you know, understanding who you're, you know, you're avid, you're 1% kind of hyper-engaged,
• 45:02
  people are and what they're attracted to your brand about and really making sure that you're making the most of that and kind of not leaving opportunity on the table to have more of a community than just customers. I love that. That's a great reminder for everyone, myself included. Yeah.
• 45:29
  Hey, 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.
• 45:53
  And 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.
• 46:16
  As 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.
• 46:32
  Hey, 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.
• 46:56
  And 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.
• 47:19
  As 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.