Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / The blueprint for winning partnership collabs with Parisa Fowles-Pazdro, founder of Maxbone (Part 1)

Transcript

The blueprint for winning partnership collabs with Parisa Fowles-Pazdro, founder of Maxbone (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

0:00
This is Parisa Fowles-Pasdro for Female Startup Club. Hi, welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. On the show today, we're talking with Parisa Fowles-Pasdro, the founder of MaxBone.
0:25
Parisa spent a vibrant childhood growing up in Iran until the war forced her parents to leave for Sweden to start over with absolutely nothing. It was during this time she got the drive to succeed and started her journey to give her parents back everything that they lost.
0:42
First, by working three jobs to save enough money for a condo and using that to climb the property ladder, and then by tapping into her unique design sensibility to start her own business, Max Bone.
0:57
Parisa recognized that the lack of high-quality products and elevated shopping experience were gaps in the pet market that she could fill. She built Max Bone to become a community-driven pet and lifestyle company and continues to grow a successful team to build upon that vision, culminating in a strong market experience that creates a cultured, current, and loved brand.
1:19
This is such an inspiring and open conversation, especially around the topic of raising investment and what it truly means to go down that pathway in the VC world with plenty of advice that you can take for yourself. You're also going to love the part where we break down partnerships and how you can replicate this blueprint in your own business.
1:40
But just quickly, before we jump into this episode, I'm wondering if you've joined our new tool and private community for small business owners called Magic. It's launched just this week, and we're accepting founding members on the founding members rates. You'll be able to meet women like Parisa in intimate workshops, as well as like-minded founders who are building the future of D2C brands.
2:04
Once you sign up, you'll be able to book your one-to-one call with me so I can get up to speed with where you are in the journey. I am so excited and I can't wait to meet you inside Magic and hear about what you're up to. If you've got any questions, just shoot me over an email at female at startupclub.com. Let's get into this episode. This is Parisa for Female Startup Club.
2:29
Parisa, hi. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited. I love your podcast. Thank you so much. I'm excited too. I feel like this has been a year in the making since I probably first reached out to you. So I'm so excited to be finally here and sitting in front of you. I know. I thought it'd be perfect end of the year having this conversation.
2:51
Yes, end of the year. I cannot believe that we are at the end of the year. It's gone by so quickly. How are you feeling about the year now, looking back and going through this reflection that I feel like everyone's posting reflection posts about 2022? My reflection will be disaster, to be honest, because there's so much that has happened. But I have to be honest, I'm absolutely exhausted. It's just been so...
3:15
the most challenging year of my life. And I'm not just talking about business, but personal and everything that's happening in the world. I mean, you have to be insensitive if you don't see what's happening in Ukraine and what's happening in Iran and kind of how that affects you. But I'm a bit emotional about what's happening in Iran because I was born there. So, but I'm happy to see the back end of this year. So yeah, it's been a challenging year.
3:39
Gosh. And on the business side of things, what are the kinds of challenges that you've been going through? It has been a crazy year and I agree. It's so sad to have been watching what's happening in Iran and what's happening in Ukraine and dealing with that personal side of things. And then also having a business, which is lots of ups and lots of downs.
4:03
Yeah, it's a lot of ups and downs. But to be honest, there's a lot of things that's happened this year. I think as well with the economy changing and investors approach changing, Facebook not working as well. So there's been so many challenges from the beginning of this year to now. So I will tell you all about it. Okay, we'll get into it. Let's go back to the beginning then and start at the beginning of your story. Where do you like to start your entrepreneurial journey and kind of this story with Max Bohn?
4:32
So the reason why I started Maxpone was because of my English Bulldog. I never had an experience about the pet world before him. So it was shocking to see, you know, anything from the experience to products. And, you know, he is a family member. I wanted the best products for him. So I got really intrigued about the industry. It's a $260 billion industry. And no one is making products for the new generation masses. You know, products that has quality, good design and experience. So that's kind of where the idea of Maxpone came to place.
5:03
And, you know, it's an emotional customer base and people are adopting more dogs and having kids. So it's been great. And, you know, those three kind of design experience and quality has been our three pillars. And my goal was to kind of humanize the pet world, which I, you know, I started five years ago and no one was using that word humanization. And it's becoming a buzzword where people are using that for everything now in the dog industry.
5:28
Crazy. And at that time, you know, five years ago, had you started a business before? Did you know that you always wanted to be an entrepreneur or did you kind of just have the light bulb moment one day after getting your dog and then you're like, okay, this is it, into this? No, of course. Everything sometimes fall into place. You're failing something else and then something comes in your way. And I actually always loved fashion, which is not a great industry to be in.
5:53
But, you know, it's always good. If you like something, always follow it and you learn from your mistakes. So I love the fashion industry and I got into the fashion industry. This was 10 years ago and we created a brand, a collection, but it's such a saturated market and we were very high end. So it was very difficult to break in. And I decided just to kind of not continue with it because it was a money burning business. And that's for me, learning production, learning business, learning wholesale.
6:23
was another thing that kind of led me to start Max Bone. So I always say you learn from your mistakes and it could lead to something else in the future. You got the kind of quick course in how to build a business a certain way and then you're able to take the good learnings and build Max Bone. Exactly. And I learned the hard way.
6:43
You learned the hard way. Yes. I mean, I feel like it's that classic 10 years to overnight success where people have to go through such a big journey and then they fall into their kind of new chapter, new phase. When you were getting started, what kind of investment did you need to put into the business to get to launch? And what was that launch like in terms of, did you have a lot of SKUs and a lot of products or was it a small capsule collection? What was
7:13
Yeah, it was a small capsule collection because I really didn't know what the kind of market wanted. It was something that I needed. It was a gap in my life. I didn't know that, you know, the market wanted new modern products. So I did a small collection, which was very exciting to see that just that small collection got a really great feedback. We had Disney approaching us six months into the company.
7:34
So that just showed that we had, I know. So it just showed that we created something unique. And again, I use my Mac, you know, the brand that we had previously, the fashion brand. I use my experience from that and the contacts that I had regards to press. And I use that for my phone. So we got a small press straight away in the beginning. And the interesting thing is because we created something that was unique in the market, it was it was funny that we had influencers that was actually dog influencers, which are more fun than human influencers. Yeah.
8:02
they were actually wearing Max phone without charging us, without, you know, and they were doing it with pleasure and they were sharing. So this is how the kind of business grew. But it was a small collection. I didn't go, you know, I wanted to make sure because I was self-funded. I wanted to make sure that there was a demand before continuing growing the business.
8:23
Wow. And if you had to kind of put a general amount on what you needed to put into the business to buy your first inventory, to get a website up and running and get you to launch, what was that kind of ballpark pricing investment, rather? Yeah, I mean, the investment for me was, I think it was $25,000 I started with, creating a small collection. I had to do patterns and I had to do, you know, there were some samples that were not great and there were some samples.
8:51
You, of course, have some mistakes on the way that will cost you. But I was very frugal because it was my own money. And I did it in a very kind of in a smart way. Again, use my contacts and some of them made samples for me for free. And then I went ahead and started my own online Shopify and I did it all by myself. There was no one who kind of did it for me. I didn't I didn't go hire a web designer. And I remember the logo.
9:18
My husband, my husband always like going big and making everything perfect. But I just, you know, I just jump into it. And I think that's very important to do. Even if it's not perfect, it's better to just jump in and let it perfect itself rather than overthinking and creating the most amazing brand or amazing logo. And then just like not doing it and missing the market.
9:40
So, yeah, it was, I did the label, just say it's called Max Phone. Max is my husband's name. And it was just like an overnight. I'm like, oh, there's a lot of dogs called Max. Why don't they call it Max Phone? And everybody thinks it's his business, but it's not. And yeah, so from there, you know, did the logo, did the website myself. So, you know, you can do it in a very small way. You don't have to always go big and pay a huge fortune to web designers.
10:07
And it's, you know, so yeah, started very small and grew it from there. And had the site that I was lucky to have influencers who were sharing it.
10:15
And six months into the business, we had Disney approaching us. And I remember this Disney email. I actually thought it was fake email because I thought, why are they reaching out to me? How did they hear about me? So they kept emailing me. In the end, they actually reached out to me through LinkedIn. And I realized it's not fake. So I went to Disney headquarters and it was so exciting. There was like this whole kind of like conference table. So yeah, so that was like the start of the business, which was, you know, it was very organic and it just grew because there was nothing out there.
10:43
like it. And we had actually celebrities buying my phone, had Kylie wearing my phone a few months into the company. So the company grew in a very organic way, which is always amazing to have as a base. What did Disney want to do? Did they want to do a collaboration, capsule collection, or what was the vision and what happened there? Did it come to life? Yes, it did. Yeah. So Disney wanted to do a collaboration. And the interesting thing is
11:10
Now, for me, brand building was the most important thing. So I always place Max Bone as being this affordable luxury. So we are very different to any other pet brand. We don't see ourselves as any other pet brand. We see ourselves as an aspirational brand. And it was interesting that Disney, six months into the company, said exactly what I always wanted to. So we see Max Bone as a halo brand. And we love what you're doing. We love the pet industry. And we'd love to do a collaboration with you. So yeah.
11:35
We went ahead and made a collection with hoodies with Mickey Mouse on it. We did leashes and colors with like Mickey's head on it. And it was for Mickey's 90th birthday. So, yeah, we went ahead and created this amazing collection. And they were so kind to us. They were sharing it on their Instagram where they have, you know, millions of followers. And for me, that was our first actually collaboration. That has been kind of part of our business structure now because,
12:02
What happens is that you get in front of a whole new audience in a much cheaper way than doing paid media. You're getting this brand recognition and brand placement by doing a collaboration with a very well-known brand. So after that, we actually done a lot of collaborations. And luckily, we've been approached by all of them. So very, very happy.
12:22
That is so cool. Just one final kind of question on the money piece before we move in and dig further into your marketing and the collaborations and partnerships and things like that. At the beginning, were you approaching this business in the mindset of bootstrapping, bootstrapping always, or did you always know you were going to look to raise capital? Or what was your kind of mindset around the money piece?
12:45
So, you know, I saw the business growing quite quickly and I thought, you know, there is this momentum we're having and we want to take market share. And this is the reason why I actually raise money to kind of grow the business a bit quicker. And when you organic growth is amazing. And I'm realizing that now more actually after raising money, I would love to go into more details about raising money and how it is to have investors. But I really wanted to just grow quicker and take market share because I noticed we had something unique.
13:13
And, and when you have something you need, people are going to try to copy you, people are going to try to do what you're doing. So you just need to make sure that you're ahead of it always. So that's the reason why we raise money. And so when you look back now, you know, if you were to do it again, the same way, would you have gone down that pathway to grow quicker and raise money? Or do you think you would have focused on organic growth and growing slower? Yeah.
13:37
So, you know, I have so much to say about this, and I'm going to try to be diplomatic to not insult investors generally as a breed. But you know what it is? It's the stigma. The more money you raise, the more successful you are. And it's not the truth. When you build your business, build for longevity, build for sustainable growth. And I've learned that now the hard way. It's very important to do that because you want to build a heritage brand. You don't want to build a bubble that births.
14:06
Because when you start raising money and if you grow very quickly, you need to grow even quicker next year. And you will be burning money and you will need to constantly raise money. And the day you can't raise that money, you will fail. So when you do it in a very sustainable, organic way, you will not fail. You will always be able to go back and kind of work around things and make it work again. So, you know, finding the right investor was very important to me when I started looking at fundraising. And I was lucky to find Victoria Grace, who's a fantastic investor.
14:35
This was 2019 when we raised money with her. And then when we tried to raise our Series A, this was 2020, March, where everything went on shutdown and everybody was pulling back. Everybody was very scared. So after that, we've had these turbulent years every time we tried to raise money through COVID happening and everything else that has happened now with recession is coming and everybody's being very scared. So we had really bad experience with investors.
15:03
And, you know, and I say you should always be true to your mission because it's very easy to get lost when you speak to different investors because they all have their opinions. And not to be rude, but they think they're smarter than they are. And there's this kind of there is this power trip sometimes as well, unfortunately, that, you know, they want to pull data every time, you know, they need something they want to speak to all the time.
15:26
And, you know, it takes a lot of your time and efforts to do this. And you have to make sure you sniff out the time wasters and the ones that constantly kind of, they, they watching every brand and they kind of, they want to learn about different brands and they're not true investors. And I'll, you know, they just, and they don't have a track record. They never pull the trigger. So you have to really be kind of cautious with those type of investors and make sure that.
15:52
you know, you know, wasting your time because the more your time you put away towards that, you get removed from your business and actually growing the business. So, yeah, that is to me super important to having the kind of right investor. And, you know, we've turned investors down because we just thought that they are too slow. They are too, you know, they are looking at the wrong things that are not important. So I give an example how investors are. It's like two years ago when I was speaking to a guy and he was a senior guy and he told me, um,
16:19
I don't understand why you guys are DTC, wholesale, and you have pop-up stores. You must be very lost as a brand. And I said to him in a very kind way, I said, wholesale is very important for strategic reasons. It's a cheaper way to acquire customers. You get in front of a whole new audience, brand building for us. So we see it in a very different way than the way you're seeing it, sir. And then two years in, now he only invests in wholesale and DTC is dead. Yeah.
16:44
So this is kind of how investors are. It's like a herd mentality. You know, I always say just like one says one thing and then they jump on it. They don't really experience it. They don't even know what really works and doesn't work. And now, you know, people are wanting to invest in wholesale or retail and DTC is not working anymore. So I truly find a true investor is Victoria Grace from Cold Capital. He invested in us because she invested into MaxPone five years ago.
17:09
when no one else was believing in the pet industry. It was kind of boring. It was archaic. It wasn't sexy. And now because, you know, COVID, everybody's adopting dogs, my investors suddenly are like, pet is our, you know, pet is what we invest in. So, you know, find that investor like Victoria Grace, who is very smart, who understands an industry that, you know, that it's, you know,
17:33
There is a good business besides that everybody's talking about it. It's a billion dollar industry. And she knew about it five years ago, like I did. So, you know, finding that kind of investor is the key. Or to be honest, I personally now with my own experience of speaking to so many investors, I would say grow your business organic as much as you can. Own as much as, you know, percentage of the business as you can. And, you know, it just takes so much of your time.
18:01
an effort to constantly speaking to investors that you actually lose yourself a little bit. You lose your mission. You lose what you really started the business for in the beginning. And especially we are a small team. So every time I get pulled, it affects our business. So now I am definitely not raising money anymore. And the only money we would accept is if someone acquires Maxphone and we go under an umbrella. And it's an amazing umbrella that we know Maxphone is going to even kind of, you know, amplify quicker.
18:31
Yeah, that's what we're going to do for Maxon. You know, I'm so glad that you bring this up because we've heard on the show numerous times nightmare stories about, you know, the VC process and what can happen, especially for women going through this. And I think the big problem is in the media, you know, we are seeing glorified, overvalued companies that are, you know, it makes it seem like the raise is...
18:58
is the goal when actually the goal is, you know, profitability or revenue in general or whatever it might be. And so you can get caught up in that cycle of thinking, oh, like I need to raise, you know, however many millions of dollars so I can be on Forbes or whatever it might be. And it's a vicious cycle. But...
19:22
Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up. And actually, my other question for you is, you know, you're talking about how you need to sniff out someone who's not legitimately looking to invest. How do you actually figure out who's truly interested and not? Like, what's the actual blueprint to knowing? It's actually just looking to what investments they've done, if they've done anything recently. And there was one investor actually really wasted my time for a long time. I was looking at the most minutiae, stupid things of like,
19:50
oh, the Google Ads, or like the business is not run by Google Ads. There's so much more that goes into it. So make sure that you look at if they have invested in anything recently or what is their track record? Are they active or are they looking at other brands, pet brands, or do they have another pet brand? Are they just trying to fish for information? You know, so just do your background search, which I didn't do for a while. I was just so excited. You know, when you knew in the beginning, you're just so excited that these big companies want to speak to you. So I'm going to
20:19
I think doing your research is important. Yeah, absolutely. And as you said, as a founder, you constantly get compared with the big guys who raised the 100 million. And then you see them falling as quickly as well while you're still alive because you didn't go that road.
20:35
So, you know, the more money you kind of raise, the harder you fall. And I think as well, it's just, as I said, it's a herd mentality. An investor raises money in something and they're just like, they don't even do research about that brand. Is it really real? Is there really a demand? Or is it just like they pay 20 million for paid ads to get the 20 million revenue that they have?
20:54
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think you're so spot on. You really need to do your due diligence in return before you kind of dive into any, you know, big investor conversations. I'd love to kind of go back to those first, you know, that first 12 months in business, those first few years, the early years of your marketing and getting the word out there. Obviously,
21:17
That Disney collaboration came along and that catapulted you forward. That was a big pivotal moment, I'm sure. What else were you doing to get the word out there in those early years? To be honest, we were self-funded the first two years. So, you know, I was very careful. But we actually did pop-ups, which really, what it did, it kind of, I think the customer, when they see you on a celebrity, when they see, let's say, a billboard or a paid media ad, and then they see you in the pop-up store.
21:45
you get that longevity with that customer because now they trust the brand. They love the brand. They've seen it. They've touched it in many places. So that is the key for actually kind of keeping a customer for a long time. And so, as I said, it was just remarkable to see in the beginning that we got a reaction straight away. Most of the time you have to work very hard until you get the following that we had. So we were lucky to have that because it was something that was different in the market.
22:10
But mostly, to be honest, we were lucky to have celebrities that were wearing it. And then social media was very important to me. So I worked on a very kind of strong social media presence. And then, you know, having this organic growth. And that's really how the company kind of started. And I was very hands on. I was, you know, customer service was very, very important. I responded to everyone. I was, you know, I made sure that, you know, that was,
22:36
100% you know because that is the most important thing your current customers are your most valuable ones not the ones that you constantly can acquire and you need to look after them so that was that was very important to me to make sure you look after your customers especially the ones that already joined not just new ones yeah nurturing your existing customers absolutely key point
22:57
Let's talk about the Christian Cohen partnerships and the expectations of the campaign versus the reality of how popular, wildly popular that collaboration has become. You know, this is kind of, it's so funny that when we started the collaboration, because we've done collaboration with Away Suitcase, we've done collaboration with a lot of different brands and Christian Cohen, I love him as a person. He's a lovely, lovely guy. And he's a great guy.
23:25
I was like, this is very extravagant for Max Fone's Scandinavian kind of design. So I was a little bit forced against it. I'm like, how am I going to think that this kind of fits in? But now it totally fits in because I say our mission is always to make dogs and humans happy. And what this jumper does, it really makes people happy. It really has that effect. Like people wear it and they're like, people stop them on the streets.
23:48
like one of our employees, she's like obsessed with dogs. And she said, Parisa, first, I didn't know about this question, Cove. And I wasn't sure when I didn't, I wasn't working for Max Bond. She said, like, oh my God, I love this jumper. She said, it's such a showstopper. She said, when I put it on my dog, everybody stops. So it has this element of being really great quality. So it's not gimmicky. It has this, you know, humanized feel to it. And it's, you know, it's extravagant. And people just love it because it makes them happy. And, you know, that is, that is kind of one of the key elements. And we love this kind of connection with,
24:18
almost making the bond between humans and dogs even stronger. So you have that element of it. And I always say, I didn't start my fun to dress dogs up. That's one thing, like I always say, I'm like, I'm, you know, making clothes for practical reasons. If they go to Aspen or to New York and it's cold, I want them to kind of be warm. And dogs do actually freeze, chihuahuas and even big dogs, when they're in Aspen, you should put jackets on them. But then we do products and collaborations that actually kind of put a smile on people's face.
24:48
Is this your best selling product? It is actually one of our top best sellers. Oh my gosh, I'm obsessed. That's how I actually became to know who you were because I have a chihuahua and she's extremely small. And I remember seeing this on Instagram being like, oh my God, like I hope, I don't know, I think it's too big actually for my dog, but like I was browsing dog related things, saw this and was like, oh my God, it's amazing.
25:17
Um, and it's, it's one of those hook, you know, collaborations that just, you can just see why it does so well. You can see why it does so well on social media. Yeah, exactly. It has this viral effect. It has the viral effect. Absolutely.
25:35
I'd love to just stay on this collaboration partnerships talk just a little bit longer to understand like the framework for a collaboration. Like how are you, like how does it start? Do you be like, here's a list of our dream retailers. We reach out. What do we say? Are you cold emailing? What's like, how does a partnership actually happen when you have a new idea in your mind?
25:58
So luckily, the ones that we have actually collaborated with, they reached out to us. And then we turned down, of course, a lot of collaborations. But it needs to be a right fit. It needs to either be that we are very kind of the same synergy and we're very, you know, BTC or we have the same aesthetic or it's someone that we feel like this is a fun collaboration. So they have all different elements. One can be for kind of maybe revenue generating. One is for we love their audience.
26:23
Or one is for we kind of love the brand itself. We don't even care. It's a heritage brand. We don't care if it doesn't create a buzz. We just love the brand itself. So we want to kind of be with this heritage brand. And the process is, you know, we don't like putting too much time and effort towards that because we have so much else in the business. The process is we...
26:42
discussed we designed together and it takes almost three months to kind of get to the launch date and and i think people understand the emotional aspect pets have and that's why they want to do collaboration with my phone because they know my phone customer is a very passionate customer so this is why those guys want to do collaboration with us because they want to have our followers so you know it's it's a passionate customer base they are very
27:07
You know, they love their pets. They love kind of spending on their pets and with good quality products. So, yeah, they want that customer base to follow them as well.
27:17
So if a brand is coming to you for a collaboration request, are they investing money as well in terms of product, in terms of marketing spend? Or is that still falling on you as a brand? And like, what's the, how does that side of things work? So we have different type of kind of collaboration. We have, for example, a way they bought our products. They bought it wholesale. We are doing email marketing.
27:44
what is it called marketing list together and they sending to their customers we're sending to our customers. So that is kind of money making for us. It's great. We're getting in front of a new audience. And then we had Disney and Disney of course is kind of royalty. So it's based on we making the products. We are kind of up fronting a lot, but we are seeing Disney as a heritage brand, respecting Disney, and we don't mind doing that. And that always kind of generates to kind of new customers and customers who love Disney come to Max phone.
28:14
And yes, we have to produce the items. We have to make the product. And we are giving Disney a royalty. But that is very unique. We don't do that normally with any other brands. We don't pay royalties. We're against that. Mostly, it's just kind of connecting the brands. And they buy, for example, Kewl. We did a collaboration with Kewl, which I actually really loved as well. And we made the products. They bought some for their website in a wholesale. And they sold it on their website. And we sold it on our website.
28:45
Ah, interesting. Amazing. Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. What are the kinds of initiatives now this year that are shifting the needle for you? You know, as I mentioned before, kind of brand building was a key element for me. And when you create a brand and you create this loyal following and a trust in the brand, you having a customer with a higher lifetime value and higher retention and the customer keeps coming back.
29:11
instead of being an Amazon brand. So that was the first key element for me is to create a brand. And I did that through strategic placements, I said before, and collaborations. And we've done it through pop-up stores where customers, you know, seeing Maxbone in different places and making sure that Maxbone is kind of accessible for everyone and not just online. But what's kind of moving the needle for us right now is actually wholesale. Wholesale is a very important part of our business.
29:38
And we saw that when we did our first trade show, which was in SuperZoo, which the exciting thing is we always stick out when we do something that is amongst other pet brands. And we had this amazing kind of booth, which was, you know, it's very 2022. And then you have the rest of the booth, which is very 1980s. So Max Pohn was really sticking out and everyone was coming past our booth and like taking photos like, oh, my God, who are you guys? Why haven't we never seen you?
30:07
So, you know, that strategy is very important to us now. And that is kind of our focus. And we had...
30:12
you know, target going past our store and love the brand. And, you know, this big major retailers that we actually never approached before, but we think that they are going to be important for our future. So we are very excited about the kind of the demand we're seeing now in terms of our wholesale. Because we always kind of have our wholesale very, as I said, strategic and very small and controlled. You know, we're in Selfridges, we're in Harrods, we're in Neiman Marcus and Saks.
30:37
And, you know, it's been great for our brand building, but now we're seeing the kind of big growth coming from these major retailers that are, we think they're fantastic. I think Target is great. I think I love the Target stores and I think it's very accessible and that's the kind of goal with Max Bond moving forward. And that's what kind of moves the needle for us.
30:56
That's so exciting. So Target's on the hit list. Target's your target. Target's our target. We're actually just in discussion with Target now. And yeah, we think we're going to be in Target for 2023, which is our year. That's your year. Oh my gosh. I'm excited for you. I'm definitely over here cheering for you to get into Target. Love that. I'm going to be waiting for that update.
31:20
At the beginning of this call, you mentioned that, you know, this year has been a bit of a roller coaster. You've had a few different challenges. Things haven't been necessarily like all the highs that everyone's been showing on the highlights reels on LinkedIn. What's been going on for you? What are the kind of challenges that you're facing that people don't see on social media?
31:44
I think to be honest, as I said, my pit beef has been that I wasted a lot of my time on investors and that was very challenging both mentally and you meet all these different personalities with all these different kind of backgrounds.
31:57
never kind of been running a business and you get lost sometimes when you listen to them too much. That was a challenge for me. But besides that as well, a lot of personal challenges. I've gone through IVF and people don't realize that we're humans as well. We have things that we go through which sometimes affect us. And I always say, I think it's easier to have a baby and run a company than actually going through IVF and running a company because
32:22
so challenging both mentally and physically of like what you put your body through to go through that process especially with what if what if you don't you know especially if you want to have a child and so I do recommend ladies that are listening to this podcast that if
32:35
building a business is very important, but if you want to have a child, think about it sooner than later. And we always kind of put our health aside and we think about, you know, business first, let me succeed first, let me do this first. But then when it comes to actually that's what is important, you will regret it. So I think it's important to think about that sooner than later. And then having housing construction while doing it as well. You can probably see my scaffolding in the background. And, you know,
33:05
going through, as I said, economical changes as well, which is affecting everyone's mindset of like recession is coming and, you know, how people are around you. So yeah, there's been just constant, constant battles with investors are like very pulling back. But you know, we are very fast as well. We don't we you know, we had investors that we turned down. So we, you know, just been challenging in many ways. But
33:28
The good thing is, is that we have such a great demand. We have such a great loyal customer base. So all those kind of aspects are great and funny. Every time I feel like I'm here breaking down, which everyone does, no matter how well the business does, I always go back and read our reviews and read customer emails or, you know, think about, you know, a really respected industry, same industry person saying to me that Max Bone is their North Star.
33:54
And those are the things, again, that kind of gives me, fuels me again and gets me back to get the energy of continuing. It's like almost like a Duracell rabbit. You know, remember the advert? Like you put the battery in and it continues. So yeah, it's the same thing. It's like I love reading our reviews and then just makes me kind of go back to why I'm doing this.
34:14
Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I think anyone listening is probably sitting there, especially even myself, thinking like, thank you so much for just being honest and real and vulnerable to share the things that you're going through because everyone's going through something and we're often having to put on a brave face and be like, our business is amazing and everything is amazing. But when you peel back the layers, it's tough out there and it's hard navigating the
34:42
building a business and managing your life and managing your family and managing all the other things that come with the day-to-day of, you know, staying hydrated and all those kinds of things. So I really appreciate the honesty and I'm excited for 2023 for you. I feel like this is going to be your big year. Yeah, exactly. I can't, I actually can't wait for 2022. A lot of exciting things will happen.
35:08
Yeah, time to switch off, take a break, like enjoy some soul care and then dive into 2023. What piece of advice do you want to leave our audience with? I would say be vulnerable and ask questions. There's no such thing as dumb questions. And kind of define your first hires. They're the most important hires. And if they're not the right hire, please fire them.
35:31
fire quicker. Don't be scared of firing. And, you know, set achievable goals. Don't, if you have investors, just be careful so you don't set goals that are not achievable. We just correct you. So setting achievable goals. I love that. Thank you.
35:51
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.
36:16
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.
36:38
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.
36:54
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.
37:18
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.
37:41
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. Thank you.