Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How she sold 750,000+ journals to help women across America, with Silk + Sonder founder Meha Agrawal (Part 1)

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How she sold 750,000+ journals to help women across America, with Silk + Sonder founder Meha Agrawal (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Meha Agrawal for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today, we're chatting to Meha Agrawal, the founder of Silk and Sonder. Silk and Sonder is a guided self-care and mental wellness platform and community generating millions of dollars in recurring revenue and serving tens of thousands of women across the U.S.
• 0:34
  I thought this episode was so cool because Meha is a pro at blending D2C with tech and community. We talk through her start and how she got her first customers, what makes her community sticky, and the lessons she learned from raising millions of dollars in capital. And it's really not what you might think.
• 0:55
  And remember, while I've got you here, you need to join our waitlist at femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist ahead of our upcoming announcement. I'm so excited to tell you more about it in the next few weeks. But for now, let's get into this episode. This is Meha for Female Startup Club.
• 1:14
  Meha, hi, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Super excited to be here. I'm so excited for you to be here, selfishly talking about community. I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot from you today. I'm going to pick up a lot of insights from your business and what you've been up to. For anyone who might not know, do you want to give us a quick introduction to who you are and what your business is?
• 1:38
  Absolutely. So I'm Mayhem, the founder and CEO of a company called Silk & Sonder. We are a guided journaling and personal growth platform and community designed to help reduce anxiety and stress. And what's really unique about our model is that we are part analog and part digital. So our members get excited.
• 1:56
  a guided monthly journal slash planner delivered to their doorstep with evidence-based exercises, things like, you know, things you would see from a life coach or a therapist, coupled with bullet journaling layouts like habit trackers and mood trackers and meal trackers, which allows you to really thrive holistically across all areas of your life and is the space to disconnect in order to reconnect with yourself. And then our app, it's called Silk & Sonder. You can find it on Android and iOS.
• 2:23
  Over there is where we house our very, very special community and social network where there's plenty of peer-to-peer support and accountability, as well as tailored digital programming to strengthen your relationship with yourself and with others, no matter what you're dealing with and what your goals are. So really, really exciting. And before that, I was a software engineer and product manager.
• 2:45
  Gosh, so many things. It sounds so amazing, by the way. And it sounds also kind of complicated. A monthly subscription, physical products, CPG, and then we've also got on the other side tech, notoriously difficult to build, community added into that as well. Also something that's got to be sticky to keep people coming back. I'm excited to dig into all of it.
• 3:06
  I read that you kind of, you'd been working at some startups, you were kind of feeling a bit stressed, feeling a bit burnt out, and that's what was leading you to build this business. So I'd love to kind of talk about that time, what was happening for you, and when did that light bulb moment just turn right on?
• 3:24
  Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, I started out my career as a software engineer, like I mentioned. So after college, I moved to New York, I worked for Goldman Sachs, and pretty quickly realized this wasn't my calling and knew that I wanted to pivot, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. So naturally, you know, being a millennial, just put a bandaid on the issue, I moved on to the muse.
• 3:46
  which at the time, you know, I was their third engineer, eighth employee, and it was an opportunity to work for a female founded business, which was super inspiring. But that was really where things clicked. I think before that, I always thought I wanted to be just a product manager. And while I was at the muse, I had this opportunity to really understand what it takes to build a business from the ground up.
• 4:07
  and what it means to work on problems that you as a founder or an employee can relate to, you know, the end user. And so I dabbled in a couple of side projects. Nothing really took off. And when I moved to San Francisco and worked for a company called Stitch Fix, that's where I really fell in love with this idea of building experiences for a consumer, both online and offline, because at the time...
• 4:30
  marketplaces were taking off. And, you know, there was a ton of things happening in the industry where it's easy to slap technology on as a solution. But Stitch Fix was very unique where they were using data science and technology to really master personalization and, you know, bring about this feeling of confidence for the end user, which in their case was mostly women. And so I really fell in love with that. But at the same time, I happened to be navigating my own kind of battles with really fulfilling what...
• 4:59
  makes me happy in the inside versus, you know, what I had grown up believing. So I grew up, you know, South Asian American, my father's a professor, my mom also worked at the university. And so all I really knew were, were academia,
• 5:13
  becoming a lawyer, becoming an engineer, or, you know, becoming a doctor. And this whole entrepreneurial journey was very new. And so I didn't really know how to break into it. And so I was waking up super under fulfilled, not happy. I was dating a great guy. I was living in a new city. I was at this awesome job.
• 5:31
  But something didn't match. And at the time, therapy felt very intimidating and inaccessible and also just not necessarily the action-oriented piece to my emotional well-being that I was seeking. Coaching was obviously very expensive and I couldn't justify, you know, back when I was in my rut, like how can I justify paying this kind of money when the results may not be guaranteed? And then meditation apps, I found them to be boring. And then I was reading a ton of books on self-help and personal development, but they lacked accountability.
• 6:01
  And so in that moment, I didn't realize I was going to create a business out of it. I just was looking for a solution for myself. And so I started to piece together all the inspiration from self-help leaders and positive psychology research and all these pieces to create a guide in my journal, which I had never touched. And I also was a.
• 6:21
  big skeptic of bringing pen to paper, but of course, the clinical psychologists don't lie. You really do see a magical shift to your emotional health and you boost your immunity, you boost your mood, you increase your memory and your ability to reduce anxiety and stress. And so that proactive piece was something I wanted to bring to everyone really nationwide and globally. And the second key insight that I had was
• 6:46
  A lot of what was working for me, I found myself talking about that with others, right? And that's where I realized, holy crap, there's no science-backed, community-driven approach to your daily mental well-being that is proactive, that is holistic, that combines reflection with action. And then, you know, where is the space to talk about this? I mean, it's such an addicting thing to be able to be on this personal growth journey. But then where do you go to like...
• 7:13
  brag and where do you go to be like, hey, I need a little help. What have you guys tried? Like we're iterating here. And that really is what life is all about. And so that's what led me to start
• 7:23
  Silk and Sonder, but it was a nights and weekends project for quite some time, actually several months. And really what I wanted to do was make sure that A, I would make at least a dollar out of this business and B, there was product market fit before I decided to quit my job. And really I wanted to give myself the opportunity to figure out is, is funding, you know, raising capital, is that my calling or is this going to be a lifestyle business? And so I wanted those key questions answered before I decided to,
• 7:51
  to take the leap. And I think, you know, and then we can go into the details. But, you know, for me, that moment really was when I had about 1000 customers that were paying me. We were basically in every state of the country. And I remember promising these features and, you know, this, this whole bigger dream of Silk and Sonder, and then not having the time to really execute and bring that to fruition. And it made me feel like,
• 8:18
  I'm over-promising and under-delivering as a leader of this company. And so I need to kind of jump and actually make this leap into entrepreneurship full-time. And I think one thing that no one ever told me, which is what I would tell anyone who's thinking about starting a business in any capacity –
• 8:35
  I think, you know, people are going to make a rosy picture about, oh, you have to be all in and you have to like quit your job right away and try it. Otherwise, you'll never know. And yeah, eventually you might have to, but you get to decide at what point you make that leap. Right. And for me.
• 8:51
  The financial risk was far lower than the emotional risk of not trying. And every founder knows this. If you've got that entrepreneurial bug, you know, like you feel it and you've got to cure it. No one else can do that for you. Oh, my gosh. Wow.
• 9:07
  Wow. You told me a lot there. And I feel like so many people will be listening to this resonating with everything that you were personally going through. I mean, I certainly do in that kind of like trying to find something, trying to piece together, trying to understand what works for you and what, you know, ultimately figuring out what doesn't work for you. And I have multiple questions to follow off the back of this.
• 9:28
  there are three that immediately came to mind. The first one was, you mentioned you were proving out the concept. You wanted to do that kind of nights and weekends before you kind of went all in. How specifically were you proving out the concept and what was your like proof for you? Yeah, it's a great question. So, um, I think,
• 9:46
  What people forget is that, especially in consumer businesses, you have access to your customers. They are always going to be your biggest stakeholder. It really doesn't matter what you want to build for yourself. It doesn't matter what your future investors or your future team want.
• 10:03
  really thinks is going to move the needle. What really matters is the customer who's going to pay you at the end of the day. And how do you bring her along in the journey? And so for me, you know, when I started to get these customers that were not my friends, they were friends of friends or just randoms, I think.
• 10:19
  I started to really analyze and understand who are these people. And I started to notice that they're very different than me. They were living in random cities across the United States that I'd never visited. And I got super curious and I started to schedule these user interviews. And that's what really validated the business for me was understanding that this tool that I really created for myself actually was helping with really serious conditions like ADHD or
• 10:49
  that I didn't know that I was solving just by merging together all the evidence-based pieces that had worked for me. And I think that is when things started to click, where we were solving a universal problem because we had integrated science into the product itself and made it really pretty and made it accessible and made it accessible.
• 11:08
  you know, energizing for the end user. So I think on one hand, from a qualitative standpoint, it was having those user interviews. And there's this wonderful product market fit article that Rahul Vora from the company Superhuman has written about. And it's basically this survey that you can ask your customers and all you need to ask them is, you know, what would you do or how would you feel if Silk & Sonder or your company were to discontinue?
• 11:35
  And if over 40% of your users say that they'd be very disappointed, you have product market fit. And if you don't, if it's less than 40%, that's okay. You just have to iterate until you get to product market fit. And what you do is really figure out who your initial market is. And for me, I was very disciplined about that. I think we were lucky that we already were at 40%. But getting super curious, not with the people who were churning or leaving your business, but the people who were diehard fans,
• 12:03
  understanding who they are, what they do. Our customers say Silicon Sonder has not only changed their lives, it's saved their lives. And I think that kind of feedback is really, really important as a founder when you're in the
• 12:18
  you know, you're in the weeds and you're really in the trenches and it's easy to beat yourself up over what's not working, but then remembering that this tool is helping people and you can't just seize business, you know, like you have to keep going. So for me, it was that. And then I would obviously say the numbers, right? Like numbers don't lie when you look and you see the revenue growing or you see customers referring Silk and Sonder. I think then those are also your key points of data to...
• 12:46
  understand that you have a viable business. Absolutely. That kind of anecdotal, someone slipping into your inbox or into your DMs to give you a sweet message that is just like, absolutely the fuel that keeps you going and lights you up. I totally know that feeling.
• 13:03
  I want to talk a little bit more about your journey to a thousand customers before you started thinking about moving into raising capital. Firstly, like how did you get to a thousand customers and how were you funding at this point? Because obviously you were bootstrapping, you were thinking about the money piece, but what was your kind of thought process around that capital piece? Yeah.
• 13:26
  Yeah, so I think we had a very much print-on-demand model, right? So trying to predict how many people you're going to have versus ordering all this excess inventory and then being stuck with it was very important. And in the early days, you have very, very small runs, like 50 customers or whatever it is per month.
• 13:49
  And so there is a bit of a loss. And so really figuring out where is that break even point and how much time do you want to give yourself? And so, you know, I think for everyone, it looks a little bit different. I think for me, it was like, I'm willing to gamble with $5,000 and see what I can do. And if I can't make a profit after this, and obviously I wasn't paying myself a salary. I had no one on my team.
• 14:11
  But I think figuring out what your comfort level is. If you only have $1,000, what can you do with that? If you have $20,000, what can you do with that? So really figuring out what is your comfort level and what do you need to prove out before you go all in? And so for me, I didn't pay myself a salary, so I was able to keep things very lean. I had a full-time job while I was getting these 1,000 customers. I didn't know that 1,000 would be the magic number or anything like that. I didn't have that goal per se, but I was willing to just,
• 14:38
  at least get to break even point with our printing press and be able to make zero dollars or a few cents here and there and then feel like I want to keep this going until I figure it out. And so I think, A, the way, the path to get there in our case, obviously this was very, it was like end of 2017. So times were very different. And I was a hacker. I literally called up my friends who worked at Facebook at the time. I was like, I don't want to spend any money on advertising, but I know that each of you get...
• 15:06
  $250 of credit to play with. If you don't have a business, use my business as your case study and, and let's, let's, you know, use your credits. And they got that every month. Oh my God. I love that.
• 15:18
  Yeah. And so and it was, you know, just like it's just sitting there right in their accounts. And they're supposed to they're supposed to use it to understand the Facebook ads platform. So I had like two, three friends, you know, helping me with that. And that is really where we got, you know, some initial traction and growth because I was taking the customers that had organically found out about Silk and Sonder and started to create these interest audiences based off of that because our volumes were so small for lookalikes or anything like that.
• 15:46
  And so while that was happening, another kind of word of mouth and blogger type organic traction was happening. So one of our early customers, her name is Hitha Palapu, she found out about Silk & Sondra because someone at her shared co-working space happened to have it. She asked about it, then she wrote about it. And then I noticed a lot of people were coming through her blog and...
• 16:08
  So, you know, you see that kind of word of mouth or people of influence being able to share. And so I would say those were the initial sources of our first wave of growth. And yeah, that's so amazing. And I'm so interested to know, when you're talking about the Facebook side of things, were you leading with the physical book? Or were you leading with app and community?
• 16:31
  So there was no app, right? Because app takes investment. So initially, we basically just had the journal and a Facebook group was which was our proof of concept. And then after I raised money is when we created the app. And you know, all of that happened after, you know, there's a really famous strategy, it's come for the tools, stay for the network. And so I think, you know, what ultimately, why do women buy silk and sonder, it's because they're looking at,
• 16:58
  for a guided solution to feel better. And before the app, the only way to do that was to get the journal, and then you would go to the Facebook group and you would chit chat, and then now you can do that through our app.
• 17:09
  Now we have tools in the app. So it's easier to say, come for the tool within the app and stay for this network beyond just that digital programming. And so, yeah, it is very much, initially it was very much like, here's a monthly journal subscription service. It's not blank. It's not, you know, it's not just going to sit on your shelf to rot. It's truly a thoughtful curation that is going to help you feel better and it works. And so that's why people love it.
• 17:36
  Oh my gosh, I love that. That's so cool. And it really resonates with me because we have a private community for founders who are, you know, listening to the show. And something that we find is we have all these resources and we have this amazing content, but the magic is in those weekly calls. It's in the messages, it's in the relationships that are being formed and women helping each other build their businesses. It's just so special. And it's hard to, and the reason why I asked that question was because it's hard to lead with community.
• 18:06
  Because unless you're in it, people don't understand that magic. You've got to see it. It's a show and tell. Yeah, exactly. You can't, you have to see it to experience the value. You don't think you need it until you're in it. Yes. Yes. And then you realize the impact and its power. Absolutely. Totally.
• 18:24
  Okay, and I'm still on my third question from your initial introduction. I want to understand now your turning point for raising investment and how you decided to go down that pathway and where that led you. Yeah.
• 18:40
  So I think I knew very early on that with or without outside investment, Silk and Sonder is going to crush it. Right. Like I had this I had built a business that wasn't about me anymore. It was about my customers and the problems we're solving. And we just have to exist in this world. And so.
• 18:57
  I had that firm belief. And I think when I sat down to think about the type of impact that I wanted to have as a founder and really separate ego from true calling and true purpose and intention, for me, it was very much coming to this realization that I want to build a legacy brand and I want to have
• 19:20
  the global footprint in really solving this emotional health epidemic through a tool in community. And I couldn't do that, A, by myself, right? That's why I needed to hire a team. And B, I needed to really figure out ways to –
• 19:36
  test and experiment and try different things, both in terms of the product and marketing and really expand and all of that, all of that. And so in order to do that at an accelerated rate, you have to have outside capital. If you want to do it kind of at a, you know, slow moving and really be super, super careful, I think that with your money and spend, I think you can do that, but it would just take a lot longer. And so for me, it was, you know, I'm an Aries, so I'm like, I don't have time for that. And, you know, there are people...
• 20:04
  left and right dealing with their emotional health issues. The pandemic has made it even worse. I think ultimately we all crave connection and belonging. I want to build this massive platform. How do I do that? I do that by at least trying to go raise capital. And so that's what I decided and I made that decision in the timeframe after quitting my, I actually had another offer for a product role in New York and my then boyfriend, now husband,
• 20:30
  basically kind of was like, you know, you've been a CEO, like a part-time CEO. What do you have to lose? Like, why don't you just try going full-time and decide if you want to raise? And I think for me, hearing that from him made me realize, what do I have to lose? Literally, I've already built the safety nets.
• 20:48
  and I say this to every founder, you already have your, you've gotten your gold stars. You've already built your safety nets. Go try. And if it doesn't work, take those learnings and come back into the real, you know, corporate world. So for me, I just told myself, this option is always going to exist. Why don't I go,
• 21:04
  full force. And when I did that, I started to really think about my vision and what I wanted to build for women and eventually her family and teams and, you know, relationships and all of that. And for me, that was like, I got to do this in a way where I have the funds to support everything that I want to bring to life. Oh my gosh. And so how did the race go? What was your experience? What did you learn? What did you realize you're never going to do again? What's the vibe? Yeah.
• 21:32
  So I ended up raising $4 million across a precedency that happened pretty quickly together. And so initially when I went out to raise, I took all the feedback. I took all the advice. Everyone was like, oh, it's a numbers game and you just have to talk and you should talk to the less serious or exciting investors first that you can polish your skills and really be great for the next round of investors. Yeah.
• 21:57
  And I don't work that way. So it took me a while to realize like, this sucks. Like, I like, that's not how I approach my dating life. That's not how I approach my social life. So like, why should I abide by these rules? Because that's what everyone is telling me to do. Instead, time is precious. I'm a solo founder, I get a lot of gratitude and joy from building my business. And everyone was telling me, when you fundraise, you can't do anything else, you have to just fundraise. And I'm like, I have to like, I don't want to do that. Like, I want to
• 22:24
  I want to talk to my customers. I want to build more features. And so for me, Sapna Shah, Red Giraffe Advisors, she was our first investor. And she was honestly a skeptic, but she was really interested in the community and kind of this like vertical social network concept that Silk and Sonder had really cracked. And she made me do a ton of work initially. I mean, everyone told all my founder friends who had built companies before, they're like, why are you...
• 22:50
  creating a financial model? Why are you doing cohort retention reports? I mean, you barely have any customers. Why are you making these like fancy decks? And it was because investors were asking that of me. And I remember feeling initially kind of not just something like a bunch of them, right? A lot of my early investors, they were asking that of me. And initially, I was kind of like, Oh, why am I doing all this homework that other founders don't have to do? But then I came to realize, you know what, sometimes when they don't necessarily not your
• 23:19
  target market, right? So they don't necessarily know how big this opportunity can be. It's kind of like you got to show and tell them. And those are all things that are going to be so helpful for you when you actually are operating your business, right? It's not such a bad thing if you do have a financial model and it took you a while to build because now guess what? You actually get to operate against that financial model. And so I had to do a lot of work initially to get those first
• 23:44
  checks. Basically, everything people told me was a total myth. Like getting your first check does not make the rest of the checks magically appear. Every investor is different. Every investor cares about a different part of your business. And so you have to be able to really speak to the power of community if that's what they're interested in, CPG if that's what they're interested in, the virality of...
• 24:05
  of content and things like that in order to really get their buy-in. And so it's important to treat investors like you treat your customers, right? So I actually did a whole little analysis of my early investors, and I was like, wow, what's the pattern here? Most of these people are former investors.
• 24:23
  leaders or founders or, you know, like Tim Kendall, who's the former president of Pinterest, a lot of these people were high up. So they've experienced burnout and stress. And they understand that, you know, while the social networks are trying to solve this problem and connecting people, they really left the world disconnected and isolated. And so
• 24:42
  What are they going to gravitate towards in my business that's really going to help them understand where the dollars are and the opportunity is? And so I just treated it like the way I did my product market fit analysis with my customers. I did that with like an investor product and silk and sonder fit with fundraising. And eventually, I joined 500 startups and was really focused on growth at that time and
• 25:11
  That's when we, you know, like that kind of prepared us for a nice seed investment in the summer of 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. And that round, I ended up closing in less than 30 days. And that was because I had learned from my time doing the pre-seed, you know, six months before. But also, I think.
• 25:29
  going out to raise when you don't necessarily need the funding is the best time to raise. And I was able to really speak from a place of confidence. The numbers were kind of speaking for themselves. And I think that's just running that process authentically and really focusing on what types of investors you want. It's not just about the capital. It's about what else they bring to the table. And I think that that is very, very important and founders should
• 25:54
  Always remember, it's your company and you want investors that are bringing value beyond the dollars. Absolutely. Wow. Gosh, what an experience. It sounds amazing for you. I don't know, just this crazy whirlwind, perfect storm. Oh, man. I guess looking back maybe, but during the time, everything feels hard in the moment. Of course.
• 26:18
  You mentioned that you, you know, you went out to raise and then you were doing a lot of like testing to figure out what was working and what wasn't working in that kind of first, you know, year after you did the raise. So I guess 2020 slash maybe last year a little bit. What was working and shifting the needle in acquiring customers for you? So, of course, 2020, you know, before the whole iOS change and Facebook app awards, um,
• 26:46
  The ads were amazing, right? Like, I just think that I would be lying if I said that we didn't also benefit from that traction because of Facebook ads platform. And a lot of our customers are women in between 30 and 60 who are always on Facebook and Instagram.
• 27:02
  Definitely that was working. I would say, you know, anytime we have some kind of publication or feature on me, also podcasts, I think people really resonate with my story. And I am very much involved in the Silk and Sonder ecosystem, right? There's an editor's note from me, I'm always in the club, in our app. And I think that, you know, what's really unique about Silk and Sonder is since day one, I've been able to do that.
• 27:26
  the product iteration and the reason we have such a sticky product is because our customers are very vocal with what they like, what they don't like. And we give that safe space for us to iterate. And we kind of landed at product market fit, at least with our journal, pretty quickly because of that. And same thing with our app, right? So I think what's really working is kind of that ability to share with your physical communities and your network now in 2022, since things have opened up.
• 27:54
  But prior to that, it was very much any kind of, you know, opportunity where I would get to share my story or customers could share their stories alongside the ads. And now, of course, you know, there's
• 28:07
  There's like different things that we have to do, right? Because like every consumer business, things are working, but not as well as they used to. And I think for me, what's really special about Silk and Sonder is your customers really are your biggest advocates. And so how do you empower them to really spread Silk and Sonder like wildfire? Because this is a tool that you don't just need when you're in a reactive moment of your
• 28:30
  emotional state, right? Like it's not like, oh, only when I have a breakup or only when I have, you know, a loss, can I use something like Silk and Sonder? That is very much a use case, but so is, you know, for all of my founder friends, it's like literally the goal setting framework you need to succeed in your business. And so a lot of our
• 28:49
  hyper ambitious, super productive users are very much loving Silk and Sonder because it's just easy to follow. And it's not, you know, you don't, you're not doing things yourself. There's, there's a whole framework based off of self-help and personal development books that will help you get from point A to point B. And so how do we, how do we make journaling less private and more of like the way we talk about going to the gym or going to a workout class? How do you make Silk and Sonder a little bit more of a multiplayer game within your physical communities? And so that's
• 29:18
  that I'm hoping will take off, but it has already kind of shown potential so that we're not so dependent on ads like other CPG and even app businesses. Absolutely. I was talking about this with someone today that, you know, the world has changed so much from, you know, ads being the go to a couple of years ago to now it really is focused on community and storytelling and just getting out there and being front and center. And it's a big change for a lot of founders because a
• 29:46
  expect to like swallow the magic pill and grow through ads, but that's not the world anymore. And you really have to be kind of out there telling your story as the face of the brand. Totally, totally.
• 30:00
  I know. I did love, I love magic pills though. So if you stumble upon one, let me, let me know. TikTok's the magic pill of today. But yeah, it, it makes it TikTok, TikTok. I know, I know. Yeah. TikTok. Is TikTok working for you? I guess it depends on how you define working, right? Like I think that all, I think ultimately all
• 30:20
  all these things are working, right? So in our case, a lot of our customers actually tell us that they contemplate the decision for Silk and Sonder because even though it's less than a dollar a day to use Silk and Sonder, it's this idea of like, am I worth it? Do I have the time? Can I spend this money on me? So they contemplate this decision and when they get it, it's like no going back. But
• 30:42
  That's why I say like all these organic social platforms and the ads platforms, they all work because they're reminded of Silk and Sonder. But just yesterday, one of our one of our organic TikTok videos had over 100,000 views, which was a big deal for us. And so I guess it is semi working. I think it's just really fun to explore and see.
• 31:03
  you know, what type of content TikTok users resonate with versus Instagram versus Pinterest. And so it's a fun challenge for our social media manager. But I do think it's working. I mean, if anything, I think the TikTok user is perfect for Silk and Sonder because it's like, hey, you just spent hours on TikTok. What if you spent hours on yourself? Like, what a fun. Absolutely. So, so true. When it comes to your, this is just a quick question, are you still doing print on demand model or you've switched to inventory?
• 31:33
  We are still doing the print on demand, but it is what we mean by that is we just try to predict our inventory to try to keep a zero inventory cost. Right. And so some some months we over order, some months we under order and we have to order more. So it really gives us that flexibility. And we have a great partnership with our printing press to be able to do that. I think if we were, you know, made overseas or something like that, then we would have to order far, far, far in advance. So luckily, because we're made in America.
• 32:01
  And Made in California in particular, it's very easy for us to reorder or to scale back or scale forward depending on the month's demand. Very cool. Very interesting. Love those negotiation skills. Oh, yeah.
• 32:15
  Always working on them, but yeah. Always working on them indeed. When you think back about your key lessons that you've learned in this journey, is there anything that you wish you knew when you were starting out that you can share to founders like me or founders like anyone listening who are focused on community and kind of that side of a business? Yeah.
• 32:38
  I think number one, community really can only be sticky and values based if the founder is involved, at least initially, right? Or some kind of.
• 32:52
  person in charge of the community that's representing the brand. And why I say that is because I remember wanting to be very quiet about the fact that we were very small and scrappy and I didn't want to be super vulnerable at first. And then when I broke that barrier and I just
• 33:10
  It's like, hey, I'm the founder. What feedback do you have? You know, we're still iterating. We're still building. We're still small and lean. It's amazing how that feels for your customer because no other brand does it. Every brand tries to project that they are bigger.
• 33:25
  than they actually are, that they're not available, the founder's so busy. And it's like, yes, that is the case. But if you are somebody who cares about your members, which anybody building a community should, it's really important for them to be able to attach a face to the product experience. And I think that's a key lesson that I learned luckily early on. And then I would also say, pay attention. When I started the...
• 33:50
  Facebook group, my intent was very much like a stitch fix model. So I just wanted feedback and I wanted to know who my customer was that I could make the product better. I didn't know we were building a social network. I had a hypothesis that there would be some kind of peer to peer exchange.
• 34:06
  But I had no idea that the values that I created in this Facebook group would lead me to build the next social network. And so I think that to me is immensely rewarding. And that's only really possible when you're in there trying to facilitate conversation, paying attention to what topics people are talking about. So you encourage more of that, that conversation and really making people feel comfortable.
• 34:29
  hard. You know, just small things. Address people by name. Comment or respond to something that's a little bit more thoughtful, even if it takes an extra 10 seconds. And I think you'll be so surprised and pleasantly shocked at how a little bit extra radical thoughtfulness goes such a long way because we're all humans at the end of the day. And we're all lonely and we're all trying to navigate life. And we all have a gift to share and a gift to learn from others. And I think that's
• 34:55
  really powerful when you put customers in that kind of, or, or kind of community members in that kind of seat. It's very validating to know that no matter who you are, where you come from, you've got something to share and, and you've got something to learn. Radical thoughtfulness. I am writing that down on a post-it note. That is so cool. I love that. I love that so much. What does the future look like for you? What do you want to
• 35:25
  Yeah, great question. I think, you know, when I think about what works at Silk and Sonder and what we do well, it's obviously our content programming and community and personalization. And so I really think the future of Silk and Sonder is going deeper on all those things and really, you know, creating a magical experience where anyone at any point comes to Silk and Sonder and whether they're there for their reactive feedback.
• 35:48
  emotional state or their proactive emotional state, Silk and Sonder is almost like your life coach or self-care prescription of sorts for each and every day. And so I think what there is to look forward to is definitely more gamification and
• 36:05
  more relevant community formation in the app side of the house, and then really different types of workshops based off of different areas of your life. So if you're struggling in the relationships department or if you're struggling with financial health, Silicon Sonder is going to be your go-to platform to level up across all areas and to do that quickly, but in a gratifying way, and then foster connections with others as well. So exciting stuff all around. Yeah.
• 36:34
  Oh, so exciting. I love it. My gosh, how cool and how fun. Yeah, it's so fun.
• 36:44
  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.
• 37:08
  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.
• 37:31
  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.
• 37:47
  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.
• 38:11
  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.
• 38:34
  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.