Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Why it’s important to think about your exit strategy with Sacred Serve’s Kailey Donewald

Transcript

Why it’s important to think about your exit strategy with Sacred Serve’s Kailey Donewald · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Kayleigh Dunwald for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. In this episode, we're chatting with Kaylee from Sacred Serve and there's some serious hustle in this story. Her first two years was spent doing hundreds of local events and making the product all by herself. We hear her tactical tips when it comes to labeling and we also chat about why it's important to talk about your exit strategy, especially as women.
• 0:40
  Sacred Serve is a plant-powered line of gelato bringing function into the frozen aisle. Made from a base of certified organic young Thai coconut meat combined with potent superfoods, adaptogenic herbs, medicinal mushrooms, and just a hint of low glycemic coconut sugar, this gelato is rich, creamy, and packed with plant-based nutrition.
• 1:04
  If you get something out of this episode, feel free to pass it on and spread the good word for me. I love it when you do that. This is Kaylee for Female Startup Club. Kaylee, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be chatting with you today and learning about your exciting products in the CPG space. Do you want to give us the elevator pitch for yourself and for Sacred Serve?
• 1:32
  Yeah, absolutely. So I am Kaylee Donowall, the founder and CEO of Sacred Serve. And what we make is this plant-based line of gelato that was designed to bring more function into the frozen indulgent category. So really what that means is we use all ingredients that are chosen first and foremost for their health promoting properties. So what we really bring is this premium level indulgence alongside really powerful plant-based nutrition.
• 1:57
  Oh my God, I'm so excited for this stuff to be on the market and to be, you know, exciting options that don't taste weird. Right. You get some weird ones. Where does your entrepreneurial story start? I know that you launched the brand circa 2016, but going back kind of before then, what was the lead up to you thinking that you were going to start your own business and leading you to this moment?
• 2:23
  Yeah, it was really, the catalyst was a healing journey that I had through food back in 2013. And the story is that really I grew up suffering pretty severe cases of both asthma and allergies and saw every doctor and specialist and they all told me this is how I was born and I would need to rely on medicine for the rest of my life. But then when I was 25 years old, I was actually living in Bali, Indonesia, and I embarked on a two-week journey.
• 2:50
  raw food cleanse, so just fresh fruits and vegetables. And within that short amount of time, my body completely healed itself of both asthma and allergies and really motivated me to quit my job, go back to school for nutrition, and ultimately target the root cause of this issue, which is just the food being offered to consumers.
• 3:12
  Wow. And so what led you to like specifically this versus, you know, I don't know what another option is off the top of my head, but like vegan protein balls or something like that? Yeah. And, you know, it's ice cream. So it's kind of a funny thing to be talking about wellness specifically in this category. So oftentimes people are confused. Well, if you were so into nutrition, why are you making an ice cream product?
• 3:35
  But ultimately, it was while I was living in Bali that I discovered this ingredient that we use as our base for all flavors, which is young coconut meat. And so that's really just coming from the same green coconuts that give you coconut water. And if you scrape the inside of those shells, you get this little coconut pulp.
• 3:52
  And so kind of seeing what what chefs were doing in Bali, they were spiralizing it into noodles and using it as this, you know, meat and dairy substitute really across the board that it got my mind thinking about that. And one of my friends who also lived in Bali is a raw food chef. And so he had started working with some ice cream recipes. And so we ultimately got together and felt like, you know, pairing that with my background of having a dairy sensitivity and these ice cream recipes would be a really good start.
• 4:21
  Yum! Oh my gosh, I love it. That's so cool. What flavors did you launch with? What was the early version one of Sacred Serve? Well, I think like most ice cream companies, we tried to start with a vanilla. And what ended up happening was that is now our salted caramel flavor because we work with coconut sugar, and that's kind of like a brown sugar, if you will. So it's got more of a caramelly type taste to it. And so when we went for this vanilla, it was a very basic flavor profile.
• 4:51
  It ended up coming out tasting like caramel. So we just added a little extra salt and called it salted caramel. And it's now our most popular flavor. Yum. That's my most favorite flavor of ice cream across the board always. So that's really cool. I want to get into kind of the money piece of the puzzle and understanding what it took in the beginning to get this brand, you know, off the ground and what those early steps were to kind of paint the picture of building of building this and bringing it to life.
• 5:20
  Yeah, I love this question. And I will say that I bootstrapped this to a degree that most people wouldn't. But I remember being very naive and I started and I thought, you know, I will invest $5,000 of my hard earned money into this business. And that'll be it. I'll just see how far I can really push this. And I spent $5,000 on a soft serve machine coming in from China. And I was like, this is just going to be it. Yeah.
• 5:45
  And then that machine didn't work. So I had to sell that. And I think ultimately after that, realized I would need to give it a little bit more gas. So I invested $30,000 of my own savings. And then about a year later, my parents put in, they matched that. So between my brother and my parents, they put in another $30,000.
• 6:06
  And then an entire year after that, or maybe almost two years after that, I did a very small friends and family round of 60,000 again. So at this point in time, this is 2019, I launched the business or I started working on the business in 2016. I had gone 2016 to 2019 on about 120,000 in total.
• 6:29
  And what did that get you to in terms of what did it look like at the end of the two year period or three year period with that 120,000? Were you, you know, thriving D2C store? Was it retail expansion or was it, you know, something else?
• 6:45
  Yeah, so it was heavy retail. So being a frozen product, we really haven't built out our D2C channel. So what that was in 2019, so I had been in about 50 kind of independents throughout Chicagoland selling there, but ultimately realized I was kind of a solo founder and didn't have a team. And so that was very challenging to service.
• 7:07
  all these 50 independent stores. And I recognize that it would be more advantageous for me to streamline all of my resources into one larger chain that would be like dealing with one customer at a time. So I kind of pulled out of all those stores, did a rebrand on our packaging and then launched into Whole Foods
• 7:25
  about 20 Whole Foods locations in May of 2019, which was kind of like our real launch into the market. You know, those early years were testing and iterating and a lot of learning. And then, yeah, 2019, with a little bit of capital, we bought a delivery van and launched into Whole Foods and ran those for about a year. Yeah.
• 7:45
  Wow. What do you think interested Whole Foods to your brand and why do you think it was like, what was the magic that got you stocked into Whole Foods?
• 7:56
  Yeah, you know, I've had conversations with the regional buyer and we've been very fortunate. So this past year, we actually won the Whole Foods Supplier of the Year Award, which is nice because they only choose one product just across all categories for the entire region. And with that, I got to have a more intimate conversation with our buyer about what is it about this product that is so special.
• 8:17
  And they really said it was a combination of things. So it's the innovation. It's unlike anything that they've seen yet in the marketplace. Really one of the first to be working with true functional ingredients in this category. It's also our commitment to sustainability. So we're the first kind of at least nationwide, but potentially globally to launch a fully sustainable ice cream carton. So currently...
• 8:39
  No ice cream pints on the market are recyclable. They look like they're just paperboard, but there's a little plastic lining on the inside that renders them trash. Yeah, it's a huge problem and one that I didn't know until I started the company. But we have just kind of solved that. So we have just launched a fully recyclable, compostable and biodegradable carton. So obviously Whole Foods loves that initiative.
• 9:02
  And then the third piece is that they just have seen us really, really support the product on shelf, whether it's through demos, merchandising, temporary price reductions and sales. They just feel like our team commitment is very, very high. And that makes for a really strong brand.
• 9:19
  That's really interesting. And for points one and two, these kind of like unique points of difference or unique selling points that you had, was that a case of you just organically, that's the two points that came about? Or you were strategically trying to find things that weren't on the shelf in Whole Foods already that you could make as your unique selling points?
• 9:42
  Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say I think founders look at it two ways. One person is just looking at the market and trying to find a gap and the other person is starting with this really like mission driven something that they solve for themselves. And I would say I'm the latter where I really was solving something for myself, a problem that I saw in the market. But
• 10:02
  You know, I have a business background, so I think it's also would be hard for me to say that that didn't sway into some of these decisions as well. Just recognizing like, wow, we can really lean in on this. And, you know, if we're the first to launch this, we'll get a lot more, you know, eyes on our brand than if we're second or third. So can we really speed up that timeline and really push on that? Definitely. Yeah. Backers into the decisions as well.
• 10:27
  Hmm. That's really interesting. And I want to talk more about the packaging and the cotton aspect of it, but I jumped a little bit ahead of what I want to start with. I want to go back to the early days of how you started to get momentum and people, you know, being excited about your brand and those kinds of early customers. I imagine for a product like this, it's heavily reliant on sampling and demos, like you said, but can you talk a little bit about that early piece of
• 10:57
  you know, getting the wheels turning and getting people excited about it? Yeah. So I really did everything organically. Again, you see people launch with a million dollars and they hit all the marketing levers. I had none of that. So what I did was I really leaned into events. And so even at stores, we were in, you know, 30, 40 stores.
• 11:17
  early on, so demoing wasn't a huge thing. So for us, I was targeting all the vegan-specific events, and I found that the vegan community really, really embraces new products, especially ones that are good for animals and good for the planet. And so that community became, no question, our real big supporters early on. And so we really did, you know, I personally did over 200 consumer-facing events in those first two and a half years, and got a ton of feedback
• 11:46
  And it was extremely helpful. And I was able to meet a bunch of people. And so even today, we have, you know, customers writing in saying, I remember those early events that you did. I've been with you throughout this whole journey. And I think it really strengthens the brand in that way. But you know, an event is anywhere from $20 to $600 for a table. And so it just kind of depends on how big the event is. But that was something that we could afford to do. And
• 12:12
  you know, do run it ourselves. So we're not paying anyone to do that and just getting a lot of great learnings. How did you actually find, you know, 200 events is a lot to do over, over two years. So that's actually so much when you think about it, gosh, that's incredible. How did you find all of these events and what kind of streamlined that process for you once you got into a bit of a groove?
• 12:36
  Yeah, so there were a couple events here in Chicago that were ongoing. Like every week it was, you know, a market. And so between farmers markets, those vegan, you know, there was like a vegan mania. And I'll forget all the names, but there were seriously so many events. And so many of them were recurring every week that you just kind of had to sign up once. And then you have all of those slots. And then again, you also have customers that know where to find you. They know week after week that you're going to be at this one place.
• 13:04
  Um, so yeah, those were really helpful to get plugged into. And what kind of like learnings did you get from that direct customer feedback? I feel that maybe that led to also you thinking about your packaging choices and things like that when you had these face-to-face interactions, but was there anything you didn't expect or anything that you realized you'd gotten wrong during that time? Um, yeah.
• 13:27
  Yeah, you know, I think pricing is something that we did a lot of testing and certainly markets are a little unique because I think you can charge slightly higher because people are kind of captivated in there. But we definitely were reworking pricing all the time, as well as our pack size and then flavors. So we would really both ask people what their feedback was, but also what new flavors they'd like to see to really understand what people are looking for.
• 13:50
  And then we would just ask random questions like, do you know what this ingredient is? Do you know what this does for your body to really understand how deep of marketing education do we need to be pushing for a product like this? First, how much do consumers understand? And things like, does the vegan community understand certain things more than a more, you know, than a person that shops at Whole Foods or a person that shops at Juul? You know, what are the differences here? And how do we need to be kind of categorizing these different sub segments of customers to be speaking to them properly?
• 14:20
  Yeah, it's so interesting, the customer research piece to be able to drive forward your product innovation and your decisions around, you know, pricing and things like that. When you were going down that pricing route, what was the learning there? Were you priced, you know, correctly or did you have to go back and change? Yeah.
• 14:41
  Thinking back, looking at our pack size, which is a 10 ounce, which is slightly smaller than a pint, we launched at an SRP of $8.99, which is $0.89 an ounce. And the most expensive brand at that time was about $0.75 an ounce. So we were very, very high. And...
• 15:01
  You know, I guess it's a long story, but I ended up getting some cost savings on some of our ingredients. So I was able to drop that price down. But ultimately, we really haven't seen much of a difference between 899 and our new SRP. So I'm starting to just question at this stage in our business, how much price elasticity really is there on a product like this? And, you know, my advice to others is that while I certainly don't want to make the product
• 15:25
  non-accessible. I think early brands have to kind of start with that pricing to really get themselves going and really just rely on those early adopters to then hopefully bring the price down in the future. But I think it's really important to protect those margins early on. And so I guess my overall learning was we could be higher. And I think consumers will really pay for that when they understand and see the quality there.
• 15:47
  Yeah, absolutely. You said that you had bootstrapped it to the point where you had your parents and your brother invest and then you did a small friends and family round. Have you had to raise since then and...
• 16:02
  Why I'm asking is to understand for you when it comes to thinking about pricing and profit margins and things like that, if you were bootstrapping it entirely through the journey, obviously you would need to be very, very clear on your margins to be able to support future growth and things like that.
• 16:19
  Potentially, it would change if you were then switching to getting some institutional funding and focusing on growth without necessarily that profit margin. Which direction are you focused on and what are your insights from that?
• 16:34
  Yeah, so I guess, you know, starting this business, it always has been a goal to sell the company. I think that's something also women don't talk about enough is that I am in this to make a lot of money for myself for working so hard. It is a great product and I want it to go far. I love that.
• 16:52
  But yeah, sometimes I think women feel bad. Like, oh, I just only started this because of the mission. It's like, of course it's for the mission. It's everything that I believe in, but also who works this hard for no reason. So yeah, so I think that has been a goal and I do have a business background and this is my first company. So in the early years,
• 17:11
  I was really trying to understand the landscape and how a company does really scale and how quick that needs to happen. So I really took my time and just made sure that before I took any capital at all, I was aware of what I was doing with that. So I feel very fortunate that I've become very capital efficient. But yeah, so most recently in 2020 and just early this year, I closed a seed round of just under a million dollars.
• 17:36
  And so that's going to really help us. And so our margins are very strong. So we are always focused on profitability and getting to that point, inflection point in our business. But also it's with the growth mindset. And so what I have learned is,
• 17:52
  Food is very, very capital intensive. And on top of that, we have a frozen product, which just makes the supply chain even that much more expensive and it makes the shelf space that much more competitive. So it really does take capital to really get yourself to scale to a level that you wanna be making those revenues to be attractive for an acquisition. So that's ultimately the route that I ended up taking.
• 18:16
  And, you know, it's been a positive experience. It's been the most challenging thing I've ever done is raising that seed round. But we have just a huge group of investors now that that's really supportive. And I think that that feels really nice, especially coming from that solo founder position with a very small team. It feels nice to kind of have that network opened up. Mm hmm. Hundred percent. People to bounce off, people to get, you know, different opinions on different perspectives for sure.
• 18:43
  Something that, I mean, I'm so early on in the journey in comparison to someone like you, but something that I've already started doing is having conversations with people in the M&A space to understand at what stage they look to acquire businesses or at what stage they become sexy in terms of, you know, are you looking to get acquired under 10 million or 10 to 20 million, or do you have to go all the way to 100 million? And you don't want to get to that point, say,
• 19:13
  Did you do any of that kind of research in the beginning? And for your industry, what's the kind of level or phase that a brand like yours would be acquired? Yeah, you know, I really truthfully didn't do this very early on. I think I just thought sky's the limit and just went for that. But I think it is very, very helpful to have a concrete. I mean, I had an advisor tell me.
• 19:35
  you need to have a number in your head that you want to walk away from this business with. And if you don't have that very specific number, you're not going to get there. And so I was like, that is so clarifying. You're right. But yeah, so I see for our business, three different types of exits. It can either, you know, early stage, it can be a co-packer can acquire you. And so we're seeing a lot of that now in the space, which is really interesting. And I think I actually don't know. I'm talking. So this is a total guess. But my understanding is.
• 20:02
  Co-packer could acquire you if you're making anywhere from five to 10 million. And then the next layer up would be a private equity group. And then after that would be a strategic. And so again, I'm not sure what type of revenues a private equity or strategic would be needing, but certainly, you know, starting at 30 million plus. So yeah, you know, a couple different routes. And I think it depends how long you want to run it or how hard you want to push to get those revenues up for sure. But it's nice that there's a couple options and it's not, you know, your only option isn't
• 20:30
  100 million, sell the Unilever. Like that's how it has to be. Totally. I think it's so interesting. I'm learning a lot, even speaking to people who are in more of, I was talking to someone from Distill Ventures, which they are kind of like the halfway point between someone like Diageo purchasing a brand, but speaking to them specifically about the spirits industry. So it's not directly related to me, but understanding like what they look for and at the different levels that you can kind of aim for. And it's,
• 20:58
  It's just one of those things that I hope more people do this because to have that number in your mind, like you're, you know, this is what I'm aiming for, then to have the insights from the industry of what you should be aiming for and what's realistic. And then reverse engineering back from there gives you a goal. It gives you a plan. It gives you like something to stick to if you're going down that route of building, you know, a business for sale or a business to exit. It's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that.
• 21:26
  I want to talk about your marketing kind of more in recent times. Obviously, you had a lot of this customer face-to-face RIL events, sampling, et cetera, in the beginning. But what's driving growth for you now? And where for you is it really important to allocate budget to acquire new customers?
• 21:45
  Yeah, so I think, you know, it's interesting. I know a lot of people that come on here are e-com brands and have that direct-to-consumer channel, and that's such a small piece of our business right now. We've really just had to focus on retail being this frozen product. So the bulk of our budget is going towards trade spend, which is really just temporary price reductions on shelf or off-shelf placement, and then as well as demos in-store. So really anything that's going to be actively at the store catching customers there is
• 22:12
  Although we are exploring things online as well, so building out our social community, we are bringing on ambassadors at this point in time. And ultimately, my goal here in the next couple months is to have this ambassador team that are all certified health coaches and have them be the ones that run all of our demos at the store level, because I think it's just fantastic.
• 22:33
  I guess I'll back up. I was a health coach between quitting my corporate job and starting Sacred Serve. And what I found was that was very powerful work, but it's very challenging to market yourself because for one, health coaching is not necessarily, you know, a profession that a lot of people understand or respect. And secondly, you know, the internet is crazy. So if you're this solo entrepreneur, it's just very hard to cut through the noise. And so what I really wanted to do with Sacred Serve
• 22:59
  was build this large platform to give health coaching more of that awareness. And so if we can do that through demos by allowing these health coaches to be at a store like Whole Foods inside where there's all these customers wanting to be healthier, they can be the ones to talk to our consumers, educate them on the product, but also share about what they do and offer their card for services or anything like that. Because I really think health coaches are this bridge to like, you don't have to spend $1,000 on functional.
• 23:28
  medicine and if Western medicine is failing you, like a coach is the most important piece of that. So that's kind of the marketing angle that we're going to take is really educating and supporting our customers. Oh, I love that. That's a really innovative, different approach to what I've, you know, spoken about usually on the show. And I think that's such a clever way to go about it. Very cool. I love it. It makes me think like,
• 23:54
  I always think about like things that could implement for my own business and for ourselves. And my business partner is a master sommelier, but it makes me think like for demos and samplings, having more sommeliers who work in the hospitality industry, you know, especially if they're just working in restaurants that are kind of like nighttime weekends kind of thing. Imagine what would be possible for them during the week in store and things like that. That'd be so cool. I love that. You've just opened a door for me. Great.
• 24:23
  Um, if you were to start this business again tomorrow, what would you have spent more money on in the beginning? And what would you have saved money? Like it was a waste. You could have put that aside kind of thing.
• 24:38
  Yeah, I would have spent more money on a team. I think that that was definitely an oversight. And I spent too much time and money trying to run our own logistics, which that's a very tough catch 22, because it's very difficult to get in with distribution when you don't have the volume. But I think I probably could have spent more time trying to find a very small local distributor instead of
• 25:04
  you know, running all those, just doing it all myself. It's a very physical job. And so I think I lost a lot of, um,
• 25:12
  motivation is the wrong word, but it just, it wore me down. Right. So physically it was very, I was very worn down, which can affect the brain too. So yeah, I would say I would have, I would have given myself more physical resources early on. When you say you would have hired a team, like when you're talking about your own in-house kind of team, who would have been the first kind of people that you would have hired in hindsight?
• 25:36
  You know, what I did was, so we have manufacturing in-house as well. And so that was the big piece of, you know, I think a lot of times people in food don't realize that they have this big option at the beginning is you can either manufacture the product yourself or you can have a co-packer do it for you. And there's positives and negatives for both sides. We went the route of manufacturing it ourselves, but that ultimately...
• 25:59
  to make things very simple can take twice as long and twice as much money to reach scale than it could if you work with a co-packer. So my first hire was someone to make the product so I could pull myself out of that physical role. But ultimately it would have been nice to have some type of like, it wouldn't be called this at the start, but like COO, someone that was really focused on the logistical piece of that so that I could focus on the sales and marketing piece and really driving the growth.
• 26:25
  Yeah, that's really interesting. Good to know. I love that. Thanks. Now, I flagged this with you before we started recording. So I may have put you too much on the spot. But if we can, I'd love to go through some kind of tactical lesson or piece that only you know now that you've gone through it that other entrepreneurs might not know yet. So something that is really specific to what you're doing, to your industry, and it could seem super basic or easy to you because you're so in it now.
• 26:54
  But someone like me or someone listening just might have no clue about when it comes to labels or testing or how to buy raw ingredients or something quite kind of tactical in those kinds of spaces. Do you have anything that comes to mind? Yeah, absolutely. You know, one that comes to mind is labeling. And so...
• 27:16
  I had worked with designers that weren't CPG specific and that was all fine. But even when we did work with CPG specific designers, we were wanting to make or at least I was wanting to make a lot of claims because we're working with all of these functional ingredients that have all of this history and traditional, you know, Eastern medicine. I wanted to say things like turmeric for anti-inflammatory benefits and things like that. And so when I try to submit that to a place like Whole Foods, I.
• 27:43
  They had their compliance officer flag all of these different claims. And it's so much deeper than just that. So what I learned is packaging design and the labeling of everything that's on a CPG box is very, very specific. And you really need to either work with a lawyer or a packaging agency that is very specific to CPG or you need to look at it.
• 28:06
  all of the guidance yourself, which is ultimately what I ended up doing. And so it's down to the size of your, you know, leading statement. So on the front of the package, your, you know,
• 28:21
  The flavor name can't be any smaller than, you know, like a quarter of the size of the largest text on that front panel. And the, you know, fluid ounce has to be positioned, you know, X degrees away from X. So it's all very, very specific how it has to be laid out. And it's very specific, the claims that you can and can't make. And, you know, early on, people can get away with stuff. But the bigger you get, the more the FDA is going to say you have to change all of this.
• 28:49
  And it could be a disaster if you have a lot of packaging in stock that now you have to change. So that was just a really good lesson I learned because we did all this design work and kind of had to redo it. So it's just important to know that it's very specific how you're putting things on those labels and you need to double check to make sure.
• 29:06
  Where do you find that information? Yeah. How do you know? I mean, like anything else, I'm just over here Googling stuff to figure it out. And I did ultimately get to, whether it was the FDA or something else, their guidance around packaging. And it was, yeah, I mean, it was like reading a scientific textbook.
• 29:26
  You know, it was not things that I wanted to be reading and it was very hard to decipher. But, you know, you can work with a lawyer to do those things. But of course, if you're bootstrapping it, you don't have the funds for that. So, yeah, it was kind of trial and error, sending it back and forth with Whole Foods to see what they would and wouldn't approve. But ultimately, a good learning lesson for me to just understand how specific it really is.
• 29:49
  And so in that scenario, do you think for anyone listening, would you recommend trying to go down that route of getting your labels kind of compliant to, you know, the likes of someone like Whole Foods or someone like Sephora, for example, from day one? Or would you go with, you know, launch your product, launch your labels, just get it out there until the day that you need to think about that?
• 30:12
  Yeah, I would say just get it out there. You know, like anything else, I worry about being in compliance. But as long as the product is food safe, you know, that's the one area I would say don't rush and just get it out there. But if it's food safe and you're doing it all like that, yeah, I would say learn on the fly. And waiting for sure can really slow you down. So, yeah. Yeah.
• 30:32
  And potentially spending more on your like per unit of packaging, but buying less versus buying 10,000 of something or 50,000 of something that potentially you'll have to change after you've sold a few thousand if you were to get lucky and get stuck somewhere straight away. Such a good call. Yeah. You know, whether you started with funding or not, I would say that that is such a good learning upfront is to be mindful and don't overbuy on anything like that because yeah, you make tweaks all the time.
• 31:02
  Good one. Thank you. Gosh, love that for me and for everyone listening. Where is the business today and what can you shout about in terms of what's coming up for you for the future? What exciting partnerships or collabs or new product development? What's what's on the go?
• 31:21
  Yeah, so we just launched our fifth flavor, Cookies and Cream. And it's fun because we always joke it's not made with cream or cookies. So how did we really do that? But yeah, we just launched that. So we're working on getting that into distribution. We have a lot more distribution hitting in early 2022 that we're excited to announce in the next couple months. And then, yeah, we're always working on R&D. So we've got a couple of flavors that we're trialing right now. We might give one to an exclusive.
• 31:47
  for a certain retailer. But yeah, that's the most exciting stuff for us. We're also internally working on a transition to a co-packer. So that has been, you know, just such a big piece of our business is manufacturing it ourselves and really controlling the quality up to this point in time. But now we're kind of really ready to give it gas. And so I think in order to do that, would be really beneficial for us to kind of have that scale available to us.
• 32:13
  Oh, yeah, that's exciting. Any thoughts on how long you plan to kind of, you know, dream situations, stay in the business for? I know you started this in 2016. So it's been, you know, quite a sizable amount of time already. It's coming up five years, I imagine, for you. What's your kind of like...
• 32:33
  your time timeline for you? Yeah. Another three to four years for me is where I see myself with this business. So we certainly have a lot to accomplish, but I'm very excited about it. Yes. That's awesome. Cool. What is your key piece of advice for entrepreneurs who have a big idea, but they're earlier on in the journey than you are? Mm hmm.
• 32:58
  You know, I think just really trust in yourself. That was something that I started with a lot of self-trust and throughout the journey kind of got beaten down and lost a little bit of that. But ultimately, just knowing your own North Star, whether that's a financial target or a certain metric in the business you want to see or just the emotional level of how you've helped people's lives, whatever that needs to be, and just keep returning to that because...
• 33:23
  yeah, you know, it's a very, very challenging business. So it's really important to know why you're doing it and stay really true to that. That's amazing. Thank you. At the end of every episode, we wrap up with a series of six quick questions, some of which we might have covered, some of which we might not have. But question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 33:47
  Yeah, I really started this business to spread this powerful truth that our bodies have an innate ability to heal themselves as long as we nourish them with the right things, even beyond just food. Question number two is what has been the number one marketing moment to date that's made the business pop? Yeah.
• 34:07
  We had recently a segment on the Today Show, and that was huge for us. I saw that. That's so cool. What's the impact of something like that, by the way? Yeah, it's crazy. And again, I talk about how direct consumer is not a huge piece of our business historically, but we did about eight times our 2020 revenue online in just three hours from that Today Show.
• 34:33
  Oh my God, that's amazing. Yeah, it was crazy. So it, you know, just a huge boost in terms of new emails and a lot of new customers, just a ton of eyes on the website. And, you know, we even had, so we saw 250% boost in our retailers, you know, velocities at the store level. But I recently had a broker tell me,
• 34:56
  hey, I've been, you know, I service the Whole Foods down in Florida and we're not in that region right now. And he's like, I've had at least eight different people ask me about your brand as I'm like stocking other brands in the aisles. So you can just tell that it really trickles down to the store level, which is cool to see and understand.
• 35:13
  That's amazing. How did you get the segment, by the way? Yeah, so we, in early 2021, when we were launching this sustainable packaging, PR was never something that I spent money on, and I don't think early brands really should. But we brought on a PR team because we were launching this packaging, and we were the first to do so. And I felt like unless we were having someone writing about this, it would totally get lost and not...
• 35:38
  You know, us doing this is not a big impact because we're a smaller company at this point in time. So if we can get that knowledge out there that this does exist, we can maybe push on the larger brands to move in that direction. So, you know, we have this PR team. They pitched the story to the Today Show. And we ultimately got just very lucky, I think, with any other type of media placement like that. They have to it has to be the right time and place. And the producer has to just love the story. And they did. So I think we were very fortunate that we got that segment.
• 36:07
  Nice. Great hook. You had a great hook there. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to or subscribing to that's worthwhile noting down?
• 36:19
  Yeah, you know, I think I might have a funny answer to this, but what I always think of when I want to get smarter, it's actually just being quiet and it's not even absorbing anything, but more so trying to just tap into what my intuition is saying and whether it's a download from the universe or a message from God, people can call it whatever. But I have found that those have been the most profound turning points for the business because I really feel like to run what we're trying to do
• 36:48
  We do have all of that within us. And our issue is that we're kind of getting disconnected from that and searching for answers when I think we have them. So I would say being in a rare, quiet spot with yourself and just letting your mind think about your own business has been very powerful for me.
• 37:06
  Yeah, I totally agree. I think there's a lot of trying to fill the gaps and, you know, force yourself to meditate, force yourself to do this, force yourself to journal, all this kind of thing, when actually idle time of just sitting and pondering and not even, you know, thinking too deeply necessarily can lead to interesting thoughts. I'm with you.
• 37:30
  Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? Yep. I always start with the morning routine and I usually give myself about two hours between waking up and when I need to start sitting at my computer to do work to really do whatever, like we're saying, you know, just enjoy my time, whether that's reading or going on a walk or playing with our puppy. Yeah.
• 37:56
  You know, I just think that because life can get so busy and our schedules are so long and so hard that if I feel as though I've already kind of enjoyed myself in the day, I feel better about working, you know, a little bit later and all of that. So, yeah, I would say just starting the day off in whatever way makes me happy.
• 38:14
  Yeah, I love that. I'm very of that same, same way. I need to slowly warm up to the day with late calls and things like that. It's just, I really like to enjoy my morning. Yeah. Question number five is if you were given a thousand dollars of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend that in the business? Yeah.
• 38:36
  Ooh, good question. You know, I usually say $1,000, so that's tough, right? It's a small amount of money. I would spend it on samples because I really believe in our product. And, you know, whether that's going to investors or new retailers, I really think people have to taste this product to believe it. And that's how we've gotten the investment and, you know, the retail onboarding that we have so far. So, yep, I would put it towards that and just get it into as many hands as we can.
• 39:04
  Nice. And last question, question number six is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach when things don't go to plan?
• 39:13
  You know, it's taken me a long time to get here. And I used to get frustrated by people. Oh, yeah, failures are just pointing me in the direction of what I need to change. And it's hard as an entrepreneur because this is your whole life. And you've put so much of yourself into this that failures can feel like I'm directly a failure as an individual. But, you know, have finally cultivated just that space that it really is important.
• 39:36
  kind of a win in the sense that it is giving you the clarity around something that isn't working. And so it's just another step in your journey. And yeah, so really kind of assessing and taking the emotion out of it and just looking at it very objectively, like what worked and what didn't and why not has been really helpful. I think taking that emotional piece out of it.
• 39:56
  Yeah, it's a it's a easy to say than to do. But yeah, work in progress for sure to focus on that. Absolutely. Kaylee, this was awesome. Thank you so much for sharing so many cool insights. I know I've learned a lot that I'll be able to take away myself. And I'm sure everyone who's listening will be too. I'm excited for your journey. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
• 40:24
  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.
• 40:48
  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.
• 41:11
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 41:27
  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.
• 41:52
  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.
• 42:14
  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.