Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / This Entrepreneur tripled her revenue every year + how to approach your acquisition costs with Copper Cow Coffee Founder Debbie Mullin

Transcript

This Entrepreneur tripled her revenue every year + how to approach your acquisition costs with Copper Cow Coffee Founder Debbie Mullin · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Debbie Mullen for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today I'm joined by Debbie Mullen, the founder of Copper Cow Coffee.
• 0:21
  Equal parts Vietnam and equal parts California, Copper Cow Coffee is the brainchild of Vietnamese-American Debbie Mullen, who blended her love for Vietnamese coffee and culture with her background in sustainability. It brings an authentic yet modernized pour-over barista-quality coffee experience to homes across the nation.
• 0:42
  Dedicated to the environment, Copper Cow Coffee is quality-obsessed, eco-friendly, and proud to be part of the 2% and growing women-owned companies with venture funding. We're covering how to approach your acquisition costs, advice for raising VC dollars and whether you should or not, why your network as a founder is highly important, and something very exciting we're launching to empower our Female Startup Club listeners.
• 1:08
  Okay, so in case you haven't heard me mention this yet, you are going to hear it in this episode. We are launching our private network for female entrepreneurs. We've been listening to what you've been asking for, community and mentorship, and we are bringing it to the table with a twist. Okay.
• 1:23
  So while we iron out all the details, head to femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist to pop your name down for one of our founding member spots and slide into my DMs if you have any questions. Let's dive right in. This is Debbie for Female Startup Club.
• 1:39
  Debbie, hi, hello, and welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here with you this afternoon. I always love to start by getting you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what your business is.
• 1:54
  Yeah, I am the CEO and founder of Copper Cow Coffee. We're a specialty Vietnamese coffee company. We're kind of the first people to be bringing high-end coffee beans from Vietnam to the U.S. Last month was our four-year anniversary from shipping products, so we're still in the early days, but we've been able to grow a lot every year and kind of weather a lot of storms. And yeah, very excited to be here and talk about the story.
• 2:22
  I think I read something online that you tripled your revenue every year since you started, which is awesome. It's awesome. It's painful. It's all the things. Yeah. All the things. So Copper Cow Coffee, where does it start? What's the background to your entrepreneurial kind of aha moment?
• 2:43
  So it's kind of a two-parter. When I think about kind of how the product came to be, it's more a story from even when I was just a kid about when I began, I'm Vietnamese American. I grew up in California, but pretty much only ate Vietnamese food at home, especially with my family. And when I got old enough to realize that other people were unfamiliar with the cuisine that I had, I remember saying like, oh my gosh, what?
• 3:08
  We're sitting on a gold mine. We could be rich if we could just, you know, show everybody this amazing food. More people need to know about this. Exactly. And I think I kind of outgrew that dream for a little while, especially when I went to Vietnam for the first time with my family and when I was about 16 years old.
• 3:26
  and really kind of had a much deeper understanding for the context of why my mom left and the lack of economic opportunity that she had there and just knew that that was something that I wanted to be part of and work on for my career. So I actually first had a more traditional career in international development and sustainability. So I worked at the World Bank and I managed projects that were based on supply chain support.
• 3:51
  helping people connect to economic opportunities to bring them out of poverty. And while it sounded on paper exactly what I wanted to set out to do, being part of a really big organization that was really bureaucratic was just not something that was a good personality fit for me. You know, when you talk about that aha moment, I'd say it was kind of more of a slow boil of just,
• 4:12
  you know, you keep going to the next thing and you think it's going to be solve your problems and you're going to have that authority or that creativity or kind of what you really need for my personality type and just wasn't getting it out of that career track. So when I began to think about what I wanted to do,
• 4:29
  becoming an entrepreneur became really attractive. The idea of being able to work really fast, be super creative, have a lot of authority in what I did was kind of the first step was beginning to think like, that would be something that could be a good fit for my personality. And I had a lot of different bad business ideas. Like what? I remember at one point, cause I was working a lot in like transportation development in Asia. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna create an app.
• 4:56
  where it would tell you how to get from point A to point B, but it would tell you via bicycle, walking, bus, or driving. You know, obviously I was not the best person. Yeah, but Google came out with that like four months later. Like you also have to do something that you're the best fitted for, right? I was like, city mapper is here and it is great.
• 5:18
  No, exactly. I mean, that's the thing is, is that it's just not like kind of realizing like, what's the best thing for you to do? What do you want to do day to day? What do you like? What do you want to do day to day? What are you strategically good at to like what really pulls on what's uniquely you?
• 5:33
  I think is something that was a bit of a journey. And so that's kind of a lot of bumping around with different ideas. But this was one that, you know, how do I make Vietnamese food more accessible to people? And I came out with a few products before coming up with the coffee. And that was when things kind of really took off was when I came up with the coffee concept.
• 5:52
  And so when you started originally with the other Vietnamese, they were condiments or pantry kind of products. I think I read online. Exactly. It was for you to cook Vietnamese food at home. And that was a big lesson for me in market size, you know, because that's the thing is that you have to think about, you know, it can be a great product, can be the product that solves someone's major pain point. But if it's only solving it for a very few number of people, it's really hard to be able to quit your job over. Right. Mm-hmm.
• 6:21
  So it wasn't until I kind of moved out of cooking. So I didn't realize things like only 10% of Americans cook.
• 6:27
  you know, let alone do something as adventurous as trying to learn how to cook Vietnamese food at home. And so just realizing how, like, cause you know, being a child of an immigrant, you know, we Asian Americans cook a lot more than the typical American. So just beginning to realize like, what's a product that's not just for me, it's a product for a potential customer base is something that is a very important exercise to do as you grow and create a business.
• 6:52
  Yeah. And I think especially based on what your goals are, like if your goal is to have, you know, potentially a household name brand or something that is everywhere and it's huge and it's life changing. Well, yeah, you need to be like aware of the market size to make sure there's that demand there. Wow. That's really interesting. Totally. So what was the thing that actually led you to coffee? Like, was it a bunch of research looking at different industries, like within the
• 7:23
  Well, I had always thought of doing something with the Vietnamese coffee concept. I was really excited. I joke that Vietnamese coffee is the gateway coffee, even if you don't like coffee. If you try Vietnamese coffee, the way that it's prepared with condensed milk and how like these really delicious like mocha and nutty undertones. I love those things.
• 7:41
  Yeah, I thought it would be, you know, I'm like, it's going to be such a wonderful thing to elevate and mainstream into America. And so I think that what got really exciting about it was beginning to learn about the actual Vietnamese coffee market. And both in terms of the supply, as well as the demand in the U.S., just realizing how big the coffee market is in the U.S. for specialty coffee, that specialty coffee has become mass. You know, it's over 60 percent of the coffee market is specialty coffee here. Yeah.
• 8:09
  And then additionally, for me to realize that Vietnam is actually the second largest coffee producer in the world. And that was something that I was unaware of. I knew that Vietnam had an incredible coffee culture, but I didn't know that that was because they were exporting the world's coffee. And how... Wow.
• 8:25
  Because of where Vietnam is in its development, you know, it's been one of the fastest growing economies for the last 10 years. You're seeing the maturity of their coffee industry evolve as well. And so realizing that there was all this amazing specialty coffee that was coming to market that was largely left out of the coffee market in the U.S. and just seeing the opportunity to both address a really large market and to really have a strategic timing with the supply and to create those kinds of opportunities for farmers to
• 8:54
  and processors of coffee to have better wages, better coffee, coffee per pound rates for people to support sustainable organic farming. All those things really kind of all came together really naturally with the timing.
• 9:09
  Hmm. But it's also not just about the actual coffee, because the way that you serve the coffee, it looks different as well, right? Like the way that you have this little contraption and you pour it over. Is that like a classic way that it's served in Vietnam? Or is that something that you came up with for this brand? Yeah.
• 9:30
  It's actually something that I introduced for the brand. The technology itself is something that's popular in Japan. And when I was in Vietnam, I was exposed to it for the first time. It wasn't really prevalent in Vietnam at the time. I just knew that, you know, there's a lot of issues with creating what you call a ready to drink, like a shelf stable bottled product. And, you know, it's really heavy. It's filled with water. It's really expensive to ship and distribute, whether it's to a consumer or to a grocery store.
• 9:58
  it's really hard to transport and it's got a pretty big environmental footprint that way. And so what's a way that you can take the liquid out? And so that was kind of the premise of that, especially because then you can keep it completely all natural. You're brewing a fresh cup of coffee, you're adding creamer to it.
• 10:14
  A lot of people ask, like, how do you define Vietnamese coffee? Because, you know, there's cafes in the L.A. neighborhood that will say they serve Vietnamese coffee. And it just means that they're serving it with condensed milk, which is something that's traditionally done with Vietnamese coffee. But we define it more as the bean origin, you know, because I think that there is something really unique to the taste profile, to the varietals of the region, to the soil.
• 10:36
  That gives the region these really dark, nutty mocha undertones that lend itself really well to a dark roast coffee, which, again, paired with condensed milk is absolutely phenomenal as well. But, you know, I drink it black every day. Sounds delicious. Yum. Yum. So what were the key steps to getting the brand started? If you had to kind of drill it down to the blueprint, what did you need to do?
• 11:02
  Very good question. The biggest thing is to come up with how, because this is a CPG company, a consumer packaged goods company. So coming up with a brand, a logo, a company name, and then how is it going to be packaged? And how do you create those prototypes or that first run of it, I think is kind of the first step because that was the way that I approached it. If I don't
• 11:28
  You know, it's just getting that first product made, whether that's something that you make yourself by hand. You know, it's just something that you can begin to get it out into the market to see whether your product has legs. And really packaging is a huge part of that. So being able to have a basic brand standard, just logo logo.
• 11:47
  It's actually like very little for what you need in a way. And then the first prototype of the product. And then, you know, you can just go and start selling it, whether that's online or at a farmer's market to just begin to get consumer feedback, I think, is something that's really, really, really important so that you know that like.
• 12:03
  your packaging is right, that your serving size is correct. You know, there's a lot of these things that you want to do before you start to really invest in like large manufacturing things or trying to sell it into major accounts or really get a lot of customers. You just kind of want to begin to get feedback. So I think that's the first step is like, how do you get something that's just like a minimal viable product where you can sell it to a few customers? You can begin to see what the feedback is from people. Yeah.
• 12:28
  And what was the feedback that you were getting when you were starting to show these early prototypes and early products to customers? Great question. There are actually many things that changed really rapidly in the first few months of the company. So I came up with the prototype, you know, just very bare bones. And I remember on the front of the box, it said, you know, premium Vietnamese coffee. It was like a paragraph of everything that it was like premium Vietnamese coffee, single serves, served with sweetened condensed milk, you know, just that hot water. It just had so many things in the front.
• 12:57
  And what's nice is that I was able to do trade shows and farmers markets and just begin to kind of get people's responses to what if they saw all those things, what were the things that they were going to say back to me? You know, like if they were to say like, oh, so this is what is this or, you know, and to see which things really confuse them versus things that got them excited. So you're able to kind of begin to narrow down in on what you want to have on the package. That was one thing that was really obvious.
• 13:22
  Another thing was that we did a smaller serving of condensed milk at first. And that was because people in LA maybe are a little bit more calorie conscious. So when we were doing kind of like really, really small focus groups, we were like, okay, like, let's just see, we'll serve it with 20 grams versus 30 grams versus 40 grams and just see how people respond. And we kind of leveled it based off of people in LA. Once we started to sell it, people were like, this is not enough sweetened milk. Like the typical American likes lots of milk and sugar.
• 13:50
  And so being able to augment that was really important. And then finally, the last thing was seeing like we used to just be like this. If you look at our packaging, we have holes in the packaging, like we have cutouts. So you can see the packets inside, you can touch them, you can feel them, you can really understand that it's inside the box will be two different types of packets inside.
• 14:08
  There's cutouts used to not be there. And I used to just stand in stores and watch people pick it up and just be so confused. They're like, what's a box of coffee? Like, I don't understand. So being able to have lots of pictures on the box, cutouts, you can see the packets, you know, these things that you can really see someone's understanding within a few seconds of picking it up rather than having so many questions, you know, and so having these iterative customer feedback things on the packaging was really helpful.
• 14:35
  Yeah, that's so interesting. And I was reading you, I think it was actually in relation to your fundraising round. You said that what you would do is go through these pitches and basically figure out what the risks were so that you could redo the pitch and eliminate all of those risks. And essentially what you did was the same, but with your customers, by watching them figuring out where their pain points were and then going back and being like, okay, we need to change this so that the risks are gone and they don't have these questions in their mind.
• 15:04
  Yeah, I think that that's something that really works for me is my style as an entrepreneur is just like, get it out there, whether it's your product, whether you're raising money, you know, just start talking to people and getting feedback. So you can iterate on your plan, iterate on the way that you communicate and iterate on the way that you're proposing something is all really, really important for you to get feedback in real time. I see that happen so many with entrepreneurs is that,
• 15:28
  And I understand it's like a really vulnerable thing to begin to show somebody your business or show someone your product and have someone tell you that it's not for them because 100% chance there's going to be people who tell you that they don't want to invest in your company or they don't want to buy your product, you know. And so being able to get enough responses so you can begin to see a trend line is something that's really important that I just think is like really, really invaluable. Yeah.
• 15:51
  Yeah, totally. I always love to talk about the capital needed in the very beginning to get started, how much you needed to start the brand, how did you finance it, and what your thoughts were in terms of, did you know you were going to bootstrap it until a certain point and then fundraise, or you kind of stumbled across the model of fundraising because you realized, hey, I can't go any further?
• 16:15
  It's more of the latter. And I think that for me, I just was really passionate about making these products. And I understood how a CPG business would evolve in order to become like very profitable one day. But I think I really didn't understand at all how much capital is needed to be able to grow it to the point where my dream is totally to build a household brand.
• 16:39
  And so the amount of capital that's needed to do that in terms of distribution, in terms of even just in the early days, being able to not be a one woman team, you know, to be able to hire quality people to support your business. All these things are much more capital intensive than you think. And so when I first started, I remember just thinking that I would every month sell a little bit more and every month make more and then hire people. And then one day we'd be a household name.
• 17:04
  And that became really clear. And I think that something that's really good is I put some boundaries around to like, I made a business thinking account and would like put tranches of money into it so that I like had a very clear, like, it's really good, I think, to have that idea of how much money have I invested in the business so that it's not going to be mixed in with all of your personal expenses. And so I remember being like in the very beginning saying, okay, I'm just going to put $10,000 towards this and just see what.
• 17:31
  how it feels, you know, and being like, I'm okay with walking away, having lost $10,000 just to like, see how this is. And then things felt pretty good. So I'm like, I'm going to put in another 20,000. And then until basically I was at a point where I'm like, I can see a path where I need actually a lot more capital than just the savings that I have from working at the World Bank. And so
• 17:50
  When I first went out to raise friends and family money, and I think that that was, again, I think I wasn't totally clear that I was going to have to raise venture funding. I think I still thought that this was going to be like the one round of funding. It wasn't until we got kind of past that route that I began to see, oh my gosh, if you really want to become a household name, you need like some serious capital. And that's when I started to really go down the venture route and prepare my company for that. I don't know. Does that answer your question? Yeah.
• 18:18
  Yeah, definitely answers the question. How long in until you realized, hey, I need to raise VC or institutional funding to be able to, I guess it was to fund the inventory like orders or purchase orders to the wholesalers, right? That was like the big kind of orders that you needed to fulfill and you needed to then pay for them up front and all that kind of thing.
• 18:39
  So what happened was it was more that the opportunity for growth was so great that I was like, I need so much more money to take advantage of everything.
• 18:48
  I was having to turn down things. I was having to not work towards really important strategy because of the lack of capital was what happened. So we launched the brand in January, 2017 at the Fancy Food Show. We just, I had 20 units that I was able to showcase. I couldn't let anybody walk away with them. Each time someone was like, oh, I'm going to take this home with me. I was like, you can't take that home with you. Actually, I remember we ended the show with five. People kept stealing them from the booths.
• 19:17
  But it was really just like bare bones. And we got into a thousand stores like that week. What? Oh my God. And I had raised $400,000, which I thought was like tons of money. You know, I thought it was like more money than I could have like dreamt of like dealing with.
• 19:33
  And we were really excited about those thousand stores. So we're saying, okay, let's use this money. We're going to fulfill those thousand stores. But I really was very passionate about how this format was perfect for e-com. You know, so I'm like, this is just kind of, we know we've got a good product. We've got this opportunity for a thousand stores. Let's fulfill the stores. And it's one of these things where like you pay the people to make it, they make it, you send it to the stores and then 60 days later, they pay you.
• 19:58
  So I was like, and then six months from now, once all that happens, we'll launch our e-commerce platform and we have all this cash. What happened was six months later, we got into another thousand stores. So this cash flow, basically, you know, you're operating at like, you know, $100,000 a month with like no money in your checking account. You're just trying to kind of keep things afloat and you're not able to move forward. We're turning down accounts because we don't have enough inventory. I can't launch anything on e-commerce because we can't even afford money.
• 20:25
  like anybody to even manage that. I think it becomes this thing where you feel like there's all this opportunity and you're barely even making it by when you're like, I could actually be growing like two or three times this rate if I had some capital. Yeah.
• 20:40
  And so that was kind of the decision, because I think that if we had just grown slowly and profitably, you know, then that would make sense. But what happened instead was that we were getting all this demand and it was just really hard to not just want to invest that back into the business right away or taken on a new account that's really excited to carry you.
• 20:57
  So it was kind of more that like, if I had more capital, I could grow so much faster and smarter and more strategically and get to know my customer more quickly. All these things. It's really a speed thing that made me realize it was VC money, not friends and family money that I needed.
• 21:13
  Right. Because essentially you would have been able to expand your distribution super, super fast. You would have been able to keep up with demand of people wanting to buy direct from you. And obviously that's more profitable and say yes to anything, whereas you were having to pick and choose and go slower.
• 21:31
  Yeah, I mean, until we were able to get VC funding, we were 90% wholesale and 10% e-com. And that e-com was just purely organic. You know, we had a very bare bones site. And so being able to really advertise, to be able to afford advertising and, you know, you need to hire staff. I can't be one person and be, you know, supporting 2000 stores and running e-commerce. Like it's actually just not possible. And if you don't have any cash to pay people, you know, I mean, I was still doing like six people's jobs. I just couldn't do 10 people's jobs at the time.
• 22:01
  Right. Got it. Something that I'm wondering about when you raise VC money and, you know, I'm asking because we're working on our own e-commerce venture in the future. And it funnily enough happens to be in the food and beverage space as well. When you raise that money, how do you work out what you're willing to spend to acquire that customer? And how long should it take until you're actually recouping that acquisition cost from your lifetime value of the customer?
• 22:27
  I think that has a lot to do with the comfort of you as the leader, the comfort of your investors, because, you know, I've seen lots of different models out there, you know, and I've seen people it work out in different ways. You know, some people are willing to earn back that acquisition cost over years.
• 22:45
  Some people want to make that acquisition cost back on that first purchase. You know, we've always worked from a model of being able to pay for that acquisition on the first purchase. But I think that that's not necessarily the right thing for everybody, especially, you know, as we move more into subscription. We are considering, you know, expanding beyond that, because if you're getting subscribers and they're going to be buying coffee every month, I mean, why not pay more for them? So I think it really depends on and also but that's also because we have.
• 23:13
  venture backing. So we have cash to be able to strategically do that and just know that like six months from now, we'll have made the money back, for instance. You know, I think that if you're talking about like what are VCs, what is their appetite for it, I think is maybe an easier question to answer because I think it's very personal. But what I find is that typically people want to see a three to one LTV to CAC ratio.
• 23:37
  So you define what your LTV is, the lifetime value of your customer, whether that's six months or 12 months. I think the most you really should say is 18 to 24 months. I think a year is pretty standard, though. And then that should be that LTV number should be profit.
• 23:53
  So that should be like not the amount it costs for you to make your product, not the amount that it costs for you to ship the product or get it to leave the warehouse. It should all really be like that profit that you made. And then the advertising cost should be one third of that, if that makes sense. Got it. Yeah, got it. Wow, that's so interesting. Thank you so much for sharing.
• 24:13
  Something I just wanted to quickly go back to that you mentioned, when you were saying you were doing the trade shows, is that kind of what you attribute your, you know, fast expansion and kind of fast growth to? Or is there more things at play there that you kind of attribute your early success and early momentum from?
• 24:33
  I would definitely say trade shows was like the first step function for us was for us to be able to go for a three day show and get a thousand doors. And that's like really high value accounts like Williams-Sonoma.
• 24:45
  Macy's, HEV, grocery stores. It was interesting because it was a lot of different types of accounts too. So I think that that was a great, just like proof of concept for us that there was a desire for this kind of product. But I think that what was really hard was in the early days, like we had a very low velocity, meaning that like we weren't selling that many units per door, right? Because there was no advertising. It was a box of coffee. It was very confusing to know
• 25:12
  what it was. Like, it's really hard when you walk into an aisle, not everyone's sitting there and picking up every new thing that they see. They're going there and buying the thing that they need, buying the thing that they've heard about, you know? And I think that being able to realize that you need to be able to afford advertising for this kind of product that takes so much education. So if you think about like the, I like to talk about the company more in like step functions, like you like do something and it like,
• 25:36
  levels your company up to a certain level and then you find something else and it levels it up again. So the trade show was absolutely the first step. And I think it's really hard when I talk to people who are first starting out because trade shows are not going to be what they used to be. For better or worse, because of COVID, like I don't know post-COVID if people are going to go to them now that they've figured out a way for them to discover and onboard products without them. So I don't know if it's necessarily the best thing for an early brand to do.
• 26:03
  But, you know, e-commerce is just the most powerful thing for once we started spending money on ads, it was like overnight, you know, like being able to have that strategy, you know, I think is something that's, and you get to know so much more about your customer because it was really frustrating at first that, you know, in some stores we were selling really well, some stores we weren't selling at all. And we weren't sure why, you know, like, especially if it was a store that was in Texas and like, we don't live in Texas, we'd have to fly out to Texas and see like, you know,
• 26:32
  Is it a younger person? Is it like, what's the ethnic background of the people who are walking into these stores? It's really hard to know why, as opposed to like when someone buys on your website, I mean, you know everything about them. You're able to really begin to kind of see who wants to buy your product. And is that like just being more technical for a second? Is that because of surveys you set up so that you ask questions about who they are as a buyer and as a customer? Or is that from something else?
• 27:01
  It's from that for sure. I mean, we survey our customers every quarter. It's incredibly useful for us to know, like when you're not drinking Copper Cow, like what are you drinking? You know, or what did you drink before you drink Copper Cow? You know, these questions that you could not really ask at a store level, you know, these things. And it's really easy. We get thousands of people who love to respond. You can have a really engaged customer.
• 27:23
  Yeah, exactly. It's so easy versus like, imagine the manpower you'd have to have to even just get like 30 people to answer all these questions in a store that would be a buyer, right? It'd be so difficult. And so I think that that's something that's really powerful, but also like Google Analytics gives you tons of information demographically about your buyer, or you can even see, you know, where are they scrolling or clicking on your website in terms of their interest too. You know, I think that's another powerful thing of e-commerce.
• 27:50
  Yeah, the heat map thing. Love that. I don't know what it's actually called, but in my mind, that's what it's called. Yeah. All right. Okay. So when you're talking about, you know, leveling up and reaching these certain phases, so one was the trade shows. Would you say the second one was going into e-commerce and building...
• 28:07
  that e-commerce side of the business out? Or is there something else? Yeah, totally. Like being able to have digital ads so that you could educate through really quick gifts or videos what the product was. So that within five seconds,
• 28:22
  The person generally knows what the product is, as opposed to, you know, just how difficult that is to achieve with a box on a shelf. So being able to communicate the brand, being able to get the brand in front of people are two things that only digital could do that the stores were not able to do for us.
• 28:39
  And does that mean you went from, say, a 90% to 10% split to a more even split? Or was that the goal to get to like a 50-50%? Or is it the goal to be like 90% e-commerce and 10% wholesale, but whilst growing overall? Yeah.
• 28:55
  That's a good question. For me, for my type of product, I think everyone has a different, again, like a different answer for what they want to do. I'm a big believer that not everyone's going to want to buy every single one of their CPG products directly. Like you're not going to be like, oh, I love Luna Bar. So I go to lunabar.com and I buy it. You know, not everyone's going to do that. They're going to just buy it at their grocery store, even if they're buying it every week.
• 29:17
  So I'm a really big believer in meeting my customer where they're at. And I think that grocery stores are just absolutely key to that long-term growth. And so for us, I never was like, oh, I want to be all e-com. Like, I don't care about my retailers. Like, retail has grown, multiplied every year. It's just that e-commerce can grow at such a faster rate at this stage of the business.
• 29:38
  And so what happened was that so for the first two years of the company, we were 90% wholesale. As soon as we got the injection of VC capital, that next year we were 50-50. And today we're 70-30. We're primarily e-commerce. Got it. And what are the kinds of things that drive growth for you now with your marketing? Like obviously ads is an obvious one, but are there other things that really work for you at the moment now?
• 30:05
  I think that just trying to get the brand story out there in terms of, you know, we were on Shark Tank a couple of weeks ago, you know, just trying to do whatever we can. Thank you. To be able to get in front of our customer, I think is something that as efficiently as possible financially, right? Because I think that you can spend as much as you want to on Facebook, but you want it to make economic sense for your business. So
• 30:29
  We look at that. We look at PR. We're creating a brand ambassador program today. And I think that honestly, digital ads still are the bread and butter of how you grow your business today for us. Right. And are you exploring other channels aside from Facebook and Instagram in terms of, you know, TikTok, for example, or is it primarily Facebook and Instagram? Yeah.
• 30:52
  We do Facebook and Instagram definitely is a huge chunk of what we do, but we find success definitely in Pinterest, on Google, Google search and affiliate are all areas that we see continued growth. Yeah, right. Basically all the key platforms that you need to be on having that omni-channel approach.
• 31:11
  I know. And it's funny. All we ever do is when I talk to other founders is we're always like, what's a new platform that you found? You know, everybody's waiting to find something new. But yeah, TikTok has not been a good place for us thus far in terms of like converting customers. That's what's unfortunate is I think Facebook and Google just really have it down on like, how do you get somebody to purchase something?
• 31:31
  in their experiences. I mean, Instagram is our biggest channel for sure. But I think that having an omni-channel approach in terms of someone buying in-store and on the website, when we survey our current customers, we ask them, you know, have you purchased Copper Cow in a store? You know, 60% of them say yes. So someone really does have multiple touch points and being able to be cohesively think about that as something that's really important too. Totally.
• 31:58
  Where is the business today in terms of size of the team? If you can share any kind of revenue, ballparks, the future, fun things you've got going on. What's the current vibe? So we are about 15 people today. It's like we're adding somebody new every week right now. It's very exciting, but it's also really crazy because, you know, a lot of these new hires I've never met. Our current investors, we've never met in person. In person, yeah. It's such a different era.
• 32:24
  But also at the same time, like we're really in touch, you know, we can just like, we hop on calls every week. It's very, you're very at each other's fingertips because of the technology that we have embedded in a lot of the management of the company. But it is a very different era than I would have pictured this stage of growth. And we are on track to triple again this year, which we're excited about. But something that we're trying to do is not focus so much on like the top line growth as much as, you know, we're going to be able to do that.
• 32:49
  what are like the real drivers of brand? I think that we've been really fortunate that like our product is speaks so much to people in terms of the format, the quality, but like, how do we really develop the brand works? There's other Vietnamese coffee experiences and expressions that we're planning to launch and like,
• 33:06
  How do we invest more in the brand and the story? And I think that's something that we're really excited to do, especially with our subscription service. I think that's the thing that we're really focused on is how do we make that a much more obvious value and make it such a better holistic brand experience as opposed to just like, oh, you save some money by subscribing. Instead, you're going to get to try a new flavor every month. You're going to get...
• 33:28
  cool swag, you're going to get a cup that's like perfect for brewing, copper cowan, you know, all these really fun things that I think can really add to the experience and participation in the brand, which I know our customers are very hungry to do.
• 33:40
  Sashi from Tea Drops has spoken a lot about her subscription program and the way that, you know, they have different guests coming in and doing talks and all this kind of thing. And it's certainly one that I was like, wow, this sounds really cool as a subscription, you know, service for a tea company. I'm sure you've already looked into it and seen the cool things that she's doing. But I love that kind of stuff. And it just adds so much flavor and personality to a company when you can add those extra surprise and delight things.
• 34:09
  Definitely. Sashi's a marketing genius. She's somebody who I've definitely learned a lot from over the years. She's taught me a ton about sales and marketing. And she's like one of the most creative people in the teadrops community is really, really amazing because of that. Yeah, I really feel that. What is the main piece of advice or learning that you would want women to know who are earlier on in that entrepreneurial journey?
• 34:34
  For me, I think this comes down to kind of my mindset about starting or learning is just press play, you know, just put something out there as painful as it is to hear that you got it wrong. It's so amazing when you hear that you've got something right or wrong.
• 34:50
  Oftentimes, I think it's most important to think about when someone tells you, gives you feedback that's about something that needs to be improved or changed. That's just a huge opportunity. I think that whenever I get really bogged down about like, oh, my gosh, all these things are wrong, whether that's like in the very early stages or today. I mean, there's a list a mile long of all the things that we need to work on.
• 35:10
  It's to just be knowing that like it wouldn't be fun if you didn't have that list of opportunities, really, that that's what you're fundraising for. That's what you're hiring people for. That's what you're doing. So you know that like when you're able to add those things, change those things, you're going to continue to grow and evolve and create a great brand.
• 35:30
  And I think there's also that mindset shift of like, just enjoy the journey, enjoy that stuff as it comes and goes and everything comes in waves or whatever, like there's ups and downs, but just to be sure to enjoy the journey and not constantly look to just the end goals because then you miss out on all the magic that's happening.
• 35:47
  Completely. It's interesting. Something that you said when we were first starting is, when do you get on like a streak? And I'm like, there's no such thing as a streak. It's like, there's always so many things going wrong. You know, even like, hopefully just like the things going right outweigh the things going wrong. And so you can keep going forward is really how it feels, I think. And I think that that's exactly right. And because of that, it's a journey. Like if I was doing this to get to a goalpost, I would have stopped a long time ago, honestly. And
• 36:15
  You know, when I think about my old jobs, I remember just sitting there so impatiently, like one, two years, three years going by in a current role or even if you got promoted and you would just be like so impatient and like kind of like watching the clock, you know, go by, whether that's throughout your day or throughout the year about like, when am I going to get that promotion? When am I going to get that transfer? Yeah.
• 36:34
  versus like, yeah, exactly. And I feel like I looked at my LinkedIn the other day and was like, oh my gosh, I've been doing, including like the way pantry stuff, I've been doing this full time for six years. And just being like, it feels like a blink of an eye, like you're never watching the clock. You're just really having fun, like trying to get the things to work as much as they can, you know? And I think that that's, what's really fun and satisfying about it for someone like me. A hundred percent. I so agree with that.
• 37:02
  At the end of every episode, we ask a series of six quick questions. Some of it we might have already touched on, but I ask them all the same. Question number one is, what's your why? Why do you do what you do? I'd say that it's to be able to do...
• 37:20
  to like have the freedom to do what I want to do for a career, whether that's for me to make sure that I'm living towards the values that I want to live. And also for me to be able to work with the people that I want to work with. I think that those were two things that I really, really always dreamed about when I thought about like, I love to work, I work really hard. And, you know, to being able to work on something that you believe in, and that you get to love the people you work with is a huge reason why I do what I do.
• 37:47
  Yeah, I love that. Question number two is what do you think has been the number one marketing moment that made the business pop? The number one marketing moment.
• 38:02
  I think that our product has a wonderful niche to it and that like, there's just going to be people who love the format and already know about Vietnamese coffee. And, you know, that was something that was kind of a given that we would be able to sell to those people. I remember I was on a podcast called The Pitch really early on when I was doing my first fundraise. And when it aired, we got a lot of sales. And in addition to that, if you look at the cohort of people, it's a really high value engaged customer cohort.
• 38:32
  And I think that that was the first time that there had been a marketing touch point that was beyond just like beautiful coffee, delicious coffee. You know, like you should buy this, which is like a really important thing that you need to be good at to make this company work. But it's kind of surface level. And I think that was the first time that we had a marketing achievement that. Yeah.
• 38:54
  really touched people in a personal way. And I think that that was something that I was like, how do we do more of that as a brand? And it doesn't have to be that somebody's really into, obviously in that case, it's people are kind of like this podcast, they're into entrepreneurial stories, but like, how do you get somebody to really connect to all of the things that we work so hard on with our supply chain and our coffee farmers and, you know, all these things, like, how do we engage that more? And I think that's been something that we've been in pursuit of ever since.
• 39:20
  Hmm. Side note, I read that you have a all women fulfillment center, which I thought was so cool. Not all women, women owned, sorry, women owned. Yeah. And I think that we end up having a lot of women owned partners because it's just, we just get each other. We're like, we're like the hardest working kind of owners out there. I think so. It's something that kind of naturally happens.
• 39:45
  Yeah, I think that's something that when I was reading about your brand and digging into it, there were these so many layers that I was like, oh, that's really cool. Oh, that's really cool. I love that. Resonate with that. So yeah, I can see why people hear your story and then be like, it's just so much cooler than cool packaging and a great tasting product. There's so many layers to it, which is awesome. Right. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to? What groups are you subscribing to that help you get smarter and other people should know about?
• 40:16
  Hmm. That's a good question. Because I think what ends up happening is, is that whenever you find one, you kind of outgrow it pretty quickly is if your company is growing or if you kind of make it past launch. I absolutely love how I built this, the NPR podcast. I've listened to every episode. I think it's just such a wonderful place, especially hearing about these huge brands and their early days and
• 40:42
  Because sometimes you just begin to think about like all the problems you have or, you know, that you're never going to make it and just being able to be reminded that this is part of a journey, I think is something that's really helpful for me in terms of just like more, you know, you need a lot of, I don't know what you call it, emotional support to kind of to persevere in this kind of journey. And I think it's a wonderful tool for that.
• 41:04
  In terms of more tactical support, you know, other founders, I just can't emphasize enough, like how much the mentorship that I have as a founder is so different than when I was part of an actual organization that even had formal mentorship programs and all these things. And like,
• 41:21
  I can't tell you enough how much, like I pretty much would never say no to an entrepreneur starting now who was able to connect with me and ask, can I have 15 minutes of your time? Can I have 30 minutes of your time, even on a regular basis? Like I'm gonna take that call because so many people have done it with me. And I just think that female entrepreneurs in general are the most generous resources that you can have, but you just have to ask for it. And I think that's what's really interesting is like sometimes I'll be on a panel somewhere and women will come up to me and say like, can I have your card and talk to you?
• 41:51
  And the number of people who follow up is so small, if any, you know, and so I think just really encouraging people to just not be afraid, you're not bothering people. It's something that they absolutely want to do if you are respectful of their time. And, you know, I think that it's just something, a resource that you should never be afraid to go after. And those are the kind of people who will do so much for you. So just that I think that's something that I would really recommend.
• 42:15
  Yeah, and I feel like it's often just about getting someone's brain power, literally for that 10 minutes or that 15 minutes to be like, what do you think? And is there something I'm missing here that you see? And what's really interesting is that like you, everyone on the show often says the most important thing is the founders they surround themselves with and their network. And it's something that I also hear from our listeners is that the most thing they want is that network and community and access to mentorship.
• 42:42
  And so what we've been doing with Female Startup Club is figuring out like, hey, how can we actually build this into a, you know, private network for women who are entrepreneurs and who do need a little bit of extra help, but in a modern way that isn't like, hey, you know, I need an hour of your time every week. It's more like quick and ongoing. So I'm really excited to launch that for anyone who's listening. It's coming. It's coming soon. And I'm super excited. That's awesome. Thank you. I'm super excited. I'll have to tell you more. Um.
• 43:11
  Question number four, how do you win the day? What are your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? Those are things that I struggle with constantly. I have periods where I'm really good about it, periods where it's a little lacking. I just had a baby six months ago. So I'd say that I'm just now beginning to exercise regularly again. And it's like just so life changing. I mean, exercise is so important, you know, even if it's just 20 minutes.
• 43:39
  which is kind of like my goal right now is to exercise 20 minutes a few times a week. You know, and I used to be, you know, I was a college athlete. Like it's hard for me to think of that being like a substantial workout, but if that's something that you can get in your day, it's just gonna totally change my mindset. And just having some time
• 43:55
  where it feels like it's something for myself, especially being a new mom. I feel like I spend 100% of my time either with my child or working on the business. And it's really important to like be able to carve out time, even if whether it's 20 minutes working out or going for a walk or doing something, starting the day where I feel like I've done something for myself, I think makes me a much more generous patient person for the rest of the day. So true. Self-care is so important, especially after the pandemic and
• 44:25
  Question number five is if you were given a no strings attached $1,000 grant, where would you spend that in the business? It's a good question.
• 44:36
  And it's really interesting because I immediately want to do something that's like team building related. And that's something that's like really top of mind right now, because all the things that we used to do pre-pandemic, we haven't quite adjusted as a company about, well, what do you do when you can't just all do an offsite for a day? You know, you can't just like all go to happy hour dinner or, you know, so I think that I would do it towards something virtual around something that can kind of like bring the team together for fun would be something that I would do.
• 45:06
  Nice. And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things don't go to plan?
• 45:15
  I think failure is your greatest tool and guiding post. I think that that is something that as much as failure is so painful, failure moments are the times where I've made the best decisions for my business has been following a really big failure, as opposed to just trying to pretend like it didn't happen or get down on myself about it, instead be like, okay, that really didn't work. I mean, I remember with that first product line, with the cooking line,
• 45:44
  you know, I remember the moment where I realized like, oh my gosh, this is like not going to be a business that I can like quit my job over, you know? And it doesn't feel good because we had the opportunity to get into a really big account. But if it didn't sell, we would be financially responsible for it. And I remember being like,
• 46:00
  if I don't believe that it's going to sell, I think I have the wrong product line. Right. And I just remember feeling really, really sad about that and being like, I can't keep moving forward on this. But that was when I was like, okay, well then what is something that I could move forward on? And that was when I was like, I'm going to try the coffee product. I think that's something that could like really, really move, you know? And I think that like, I wouldn't have done that
• 46:22
  if I hadn't like really accepted the failure and looked at why did it fail? Why was it not selling, you know, and that there were some things that were really working about it and to just really take that as a learning opportunity. Wow. That's a really powerful, pivotal moment in the story. That's crazy. Definitely. Yeah. It's a big one. Yeah.
• 46:44
  Oh, Debbie, this was so great. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your learnings and your story and all the cool stuff you're doing with the brand. I'm so excited for you and I can't wait to try it. Likewise.
• 47:00
  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.
• 47:25
  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.
• 47:47
  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.
• 48:04
  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.
• 48:29
  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.
• 48:51
  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.