Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Fave Hits: Making tinned fish sexy, here’s how Becca Millstein is disrupting the industry with Fishwife (Part 1)

Transcript

Fave Hits: Making tinned fish sexy, here’s how Becca Millstein is disrupting the industry with Fishwife (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey there, I'm recording this quick message to let you know that for the next few episodes, we'll be playing some of our favorite hits from the past year while we knuckle down on some very new exciting things we have in the works. If you missed these the first time around, they are so good and packed with so many learnings. And if you love them, remember to share with us on social media because we love it when you do that. Enjoy. This is Becca Milstein for Female Startup Club.
• 0:37
  Hey everyone, it's Dune here. Today's episode is brought to you by Klaviyo and I'm chatting with Becca Milstein, the founder of Fishwife. Fishwife is a new female founded and led food company aiming to make ethically sourced, premium and delicious tinned seafood a staple in every cupboard. They work with small boat fisher folks, sustainable aquaculture farms and micro canneries to bring the vibrance of European conservist culture to the North American table.
• 1:05
  I started following Becca's journey with Fish Wife when it first launched last year and have been absolutely drooling over it ever since as a big tinned fish eater myself. So I'm really excited to share this episode with you guys. We're chatting about creating a distinguishable brand, what that actually costs and how to find the right folks to do it.
• 1:25
  what it actually means to create a sustainable tinned fish company, how to start small and build within your means, and building a brand that's truly authentic and unique.
• 1:36
  I also just want to drop in here to say that this is 150 episodes and I am totally shook. It actually blows my mind that we've reached this point and we have so many incredible things in the works that I cannot wait to share with you very, very soon. And if you missed my call out in recent eps, I'm looking to speak with anyone who is tuning into these stories to get some feedback directly from you.
• 1:57
  Please reach out to me at hello at female startup club.com to connect and we can pop a time in the diary. I would be ever so grateful to meet you and have a chat. As always, if you know someone who would benefit from hearing this inspiring story, please do pass it on and empower the women in your life to dream big and think bigger. This is Becca for Female Startup Club.
• 2:21
  Becca, hi, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you, Dune. It is my pleasure to be here.
• 2:29
  I am so excited to hear about your story. I was just saying this to you before we started recording, but I started following along. I think when you launched, I read about you in Lean Lux. And since then, you've obviously just popped up all over the place. So I'd been waiting to reach out to get this set up. And I'm obviously a really big Tinned Fish fan. And so I've just been drooling reading all about you.
• 2:55
  But for those who don't know, can you introduce who you are and what your business is?
• 3:00
  Yeah. So my name is Becca. I'm the co-founder. My co-founder's name is Caroline Goldfarb, co-founder and CEO of a new tinfish company called Fish Wife. And Fish Wife is, we launched in December. We're a new ethically sourced tinfish company. Right now, our sourcing thesis is just going to the places where they have the best ideas.
• 3:25
  and the most sustainable seafood. And we just try to bring it to people in a way that they have not been presented with with Tin Fish for the past 50 years. I feel that I really feel that. And I'm definitely going to dig into your branding and your language and tone and all that kind of thing. But I want to start like really with the name. I'm super intrigued. I love Fish Wife. It sounds like the coolest thing ever. Tell me about Fish Wife.
• 3:53
  What's the meaning there? Totally. So Fish Wipe, first of all, I have to give full credit to my dear friend, Greer Stockman, who is also an amazing woman entrepreneur. She and her sisters run a company called Block Shop. I encourage everyone to check it out. Great. Will do. Shout out to her. Shout out to her. But we came up with the idea for the company and I sort of...
• 4:15
  we're calling all of our fellow entrepreneur friends in like all fields, not just food CPG. And Greer, I think just in Googling, found the term fishwife, which was just so unbelievably perfect for what we were trying to achieve with the project. The etymology is...
• 4:33
  It used to be a term that was used for the wives and daughters of fishermen who would sell their husbands' wares at the market. And because, you know, it's fish, it's highly perishable. They gained a reputation for being really bossy and like swearing and being like, buy my goddamn fish. Yeah.
• 4:53
  Fish wife, which was a neutral term, came to take on this sort of this like sort of gendered insult for a loud, bossy woman. And then it has like this dual meaning of like these fish wives gained sort of like professional rights earlier than maybe some of their contemporaries because they had this power to control these businesses. So it has this like dual toned entrepreneurial approach as well.
• 5:22
  Love it. I love it. That's the coolest story ever. What a great name. It was like there was nothing else after we after we found that one. Totally coined it. Let's start from the beginning. Where does your entrepreneurial story start with the fish? With the fish. The fish in particular. So Caroline and I
• 5:49
  my co-founder, were quarantining together, like from the beginning. So March, started quarantining together at the end of March last year. And we were living in sort of a remote desert, which not a lot of fish around. But we were on a hike and we were literally bouncing back and forth business ideas. Because when you're on a hike, you just talk about whatever, got plenty of time to gab. And we had been, we'd been cooking, cooking,
• 6:17
  this like gorgeous trout a lot. For whatever reason, we've become obsessed with this trout. And then we were just eating a lot of tin fish because it was just like such a perfect quarantine food. I think like all of us were pretty overwhelmed with
• 6:31
  how much time and energy it took to make like healthy, delicious food during quarantine. Cause it wasn't like, at least for us, it wasn't like you're, you're like ordering a sweet green or like, you're going to get a burrito somewhere. You're like in your house needing to make food for yourself.
• 6:48
  So we were naturally just eating a lot of sardines and tuna and mussels and all these things. And then like as a background to that, I had lived in Spain in college for a short time. Caroline had somewhat recently traveled to Portugal and Spain. And like in those European exploits, we'd both been exposed to the like elegance and sexiness and like casual allure of conservas and Tennessee food, which it's just like you have that culture.
• 7:17
  like going to a Spanish wine bar and like getting a tin of like beautifully decorated sardines. And then you have like going to an American grocery store and looking at the shelves and it's just like totally clinical, like absolutely devoid of any sexiness.
• 7:33
  And it was just like, why? Yeah. It's all John West. Yeah, exactly. Although I love John West, but it's all John West. We have chicken of the sea, which like if a grosser term exists, please educate me. So bad.
• 7:51
  So anyway, we like came, we were on this hike and then we were like, we have to do this. And we asked a couple of friends that were in the food world, lucky enough to have some like food entrepreneur friends and food journalist friends. And they were just, everyone validated the idea. And then like, we just started fully working on it like the next day.
• 8:11
  Oh, my God. Genius. So it was born overnight on a hike from a love of fish, which we're all experiencing in quarantine. I feel like one of my favorite meals just in general is literally tinned fish with rice and like capers and some fresh tomatoes or whatever, like chopped on the side. So I'm there with you.
• 8:32
  But, you know, back to the story, I want to cover all different corners here. And obviously we need to start with the branding. You have an extremely distinguishable brand. It's so cool. It actually brings me a lot of joy looking at your Instagram and reading about it. Who worked on the brand with you and what was the kind of inspo behind the look and feel? Yeah.
• 8:54
  Yeah, so we thought, I mean, we put a ton of thought and energy into this, as you might imagine. And the way that we sort of did it, I come from, I worked in music before this and did like sort of creative direction and marketing for artists. And the process there would always be to go on Instagram. Instagram is...
• 9:14
  So it is very helpful for all of its laws. It's an amazing database of information. Find different artists, illustrators, graphic designers, and like parse through who would best be able to communicate the conceptual, just the concept behind a project. So we sort of just started digging into finding illustrators and artists that we thought would be a good fit for this. So we kind of had...
• 9:41
  European can serve us. Um, and like the, the bold graphics and the vibrant colors and sort of like the simple, uh, some symbolism, um, was, was like the founding concept for the, for the visuals and the branding. Um, and then like a couple other brands are really inspiring to us, like cafe Bustelo, Topo Chico, just sort of these like utilitarian, but also really vibrant brands. Um, and that just had like sort of a classic feeling, um,
• 10:07
  So those were like the mood boards that we created. And then we found like 20 illustrators that we loved. And we like pulled a bunch of friends about who they liked the best. And the person who we just kept coming back to was one of the only referrals that I got.
• 10:23
  He's a local illustrator in LA. Guy, Danny, Danny Miller goes by Danbo. And he's done a ton of work with like hand-drawn topography, patterning, pattern work, and then like a bunch of cartoon stuff. Like if you go to his Instagram, which everyone should, he put out his first comic book this summer. And it's just so...
• 10:42
  beautiful and he communicates so much in such a simple way and I mean I can't like explain how amazing a partner he's been throughout all this he just does such a great job and so lucky to have him in my life gosh that is so cool
• 11:00
  Are you able to share like how much it costs to actually work with someone like that and how much it costs to kind of bring a brand to life when it comes to like a website and a logo and you guys have a lot of supporting elements and the packaging and there's a lot going on there. I'd love to know. Yeah, no, it's a really, really good question. And I think I understand why people would be mystified by this because I'm,
• 11:29
  There are, I think, a lot of startups work with branding agencies. And, like, branding agencies are great if, like, you have a budget and don't necessarily know exactly what you are trying to create in terms of a visual or a brand. Or maybe you have an idea, but you really could use the help of a team to formulate it. We, like, really knew what we wanted for the visuals. And so with someone like Danny, he had never done CPG. He had never done packaging before.
• 11:59
  CPG is Consumer Packaged Goods. I don't know if everyone knows this acronym. But he... So he was sort of... We asked him his fees. His fees were... And this is so nitty-gritty, but...
• 12:11
  Please love the nitty gritty. Yeah. I mean, I think like his fees were that of like, uh, an indie illustrator designer and they were, and for us who had no budget, I mean, we bootstrapped the company up until a couple of months ago when we raised a relatively modest pre-seed. Um, yeah, they were, they were like affordable for us. And I just would like encourage people to.
• 12:37
  to work with, you know, independent illustrators and designers. Like I think you can use the branding agency, but I had so many people tell me, you know, we had spent probably $5,000 on, you know,
• 12:51
  on his graphic work. And then Natalie Berger, who is, who is doing a lot of our recipe development and photography, who's also absolutely fantastic. Also totally new to food photography and recipe development. I think up until maybe February, we'd spend about five grand on all those assets. And that's a rough estimate, but I think it's pretty, pretty close. Um,
• 13:13
  And I just had people telling me that the visuals that we put out was a quarter million to half a million dollar job. Which like. Wow. That's a very big discrepancy. So yeah, I mean, I just think like it's best of all worlds if you can find independent artists. Because A, like they need.
• 13:37
  support and they like it's helpful for them to get their work out there in this capacity um and then they can grow with you like Danny you know as we grow and get more funding we can like bring him on to do more and more projects because like we had to hack certain ways that we could be able to use his work like he would create these beautiful stickers for us that we could use for a bunch of different things because we just didn't you know we were paying out of our
• 14:01
  out of our own bank accounts. So that's what I would say. If people are like trying to come up with sort of their visual language, like there are so many artists out there that are not being paid for their work. And like, this is a great channel for them to also like see their work, at least as far as I can tell, to see their work come to life in a really exciting and non-traditional way for them.
• 14:26
  Totally. Gosh. And I actually really love your photography. I didn't mention that in the beginning, but yeah, I also love that kind of element of what you guys are doing.
• 14:36
  When it comes to the other piece of the puzzle, so obviously you need to invest in actually the fish and tinning the fish. And I imagine there are MOQs, minimum order quantities that are through the roof for someone just getting started. What kind of investment or personal cash did you need to put into the brand to get that kind of initial order? And what was that piece like finding the manufacturer and that kind of thing?
• 15:06
  Yeah. I mean, so on to your latter question about just finding our partners are in building our supply chain. It is really I mean, I guess the material story was we started by trying to find a cannery partner in Portugal and Spain, which is obviously where the idea sort of germinated. And we did find one. We had to go through a bunch to get to find someone that would hit an MOQ that we felt comfortable with. Yeah.
• 15:35
  The folks that we talked to, it ranged between 50,000 units to 25,000 units mostly. And that was just like not a good business idea to get 50,000 cans of sardines before we launched the brand. It's a lot. It's a lot of fish. It's a lot. And we ended up finding a partner in Galicia that would do 10,000 cans, which now we're about to launch that product. And that seems like nothing, which is great. But...
• 16:03
  once we started building supply chain in the U S there were like no MOQs. We were working with all of these like micro canneries, which is a double edged sword because it means we're working with these really like pretty modest, like relatively mom and pop canneries that aren't, you know, pushing out hundreds of thousands of cans a day. Like maybe some of our more industrial canneries and in Spain and Portugal where this has, yeah. So,
• 16:32
  that's what I'll say. We, we ended up finding partners that really didn't have MOQs. Um, but yeah, I think it's, that also presents certain questions of maybe their things of scalability that, you know, will prove to be challenging as we, as we continue to grow. Totally. That's so interesting. I'm wondering like how you actually found those really small
• 16:57
  canneries. I've never even heard of that word before. Yeah. I mean, it's so, it was all like cold calling. Just like, I mean, when you start a company, you just have to talk to, I mean, this is, I hear this from entrepreneurs all the time, but like, you just have to talk to so many people. Like you have to talk to everyone. And that was the first like three months of the company was really just amazing.
• 17:22
  And at that point, it wasn't really a company. It was just like a thing that we were trying to make happen. But just talking to everyone.
• 17:29
  That's sort of our supply chain, I think, and how we've built it has been a story of a mixture of cold calling and finding partners through just research online and hitting people up and going through references. And like, especially as we started to really hone in on like what sustainable seafood sourcing means, like we really have to go to experts that can dig through the bullshit and find us really great and direct us towards really great partners.
• 18:00
  I actually really wanted to ask you about this, the sustainable side of things, because, I mean, obviously, sea spiracy is on everyone's mind at the moment. I haven't personally watched it yet, but I plan to. Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:13
  And I've been listening to some different podcasts, like Planet Money has been talking about what does sustainable fishing mean? And like, what does it mean for people who do like to eat tinned fish and buy this kind of thing? So what does it mean to you guys? And what do you kind of, what defines a truly sustainable tinned fish company? Yeah. I think the thing that is confusing to people, and I gave, I mentioned this in an interview recently, but the reason why...
• 18:43
  seafood sustainability like probably so many other kinds of sustainability is so confusing is because it is just a very multi-layered um question so it's not like sardines are sustainable or i mean there are a couple species and we'll go into that like mussels and oysters bivalves are like are truly an unbelievably sustainable seafood um kelp as well great to know
• 19:07
  At least at this point. Yeah, I know you can feel great about eating them. Um, but, but by and large, like just saying the species, um, just saying the region, like that's not enough to determine whether it's sustainable. Um,
• 19:22
  So you kind of have to look at all these things in context. So it's like the region that the seafood is being sourced from, the way it's being caught. So like Seaspiracy, when you watch it, you'll see like a huge problem that they broach is bycatch. And there are ways, there are like methods of fishing that greatly decrease bycatch. So like obviously we hear a lot about hook and line, which is by and large the most sustainable way to catch seafood because you're catching one fish.
• 19:50
  piece of, you're catching one fish at a time. Whereas with like these big trawl nets, you're like catching a bunch of stuff and potentially, um, bringing stuff into the fold that you are not intended to catch and you're not going to sell and just terrible waste. Um, so yeah,
• 20:08
  You just have to look at all these things in context. So just to sum it up very quickly, it's the species, the region that you're fishing it from, and how you're fishing it. And that's for like wild, that's catching wild fish. So something that we have been very excited about and very passionate about and digging into much more because...
• 20:33
  The most recent product we launched, Rainbow Trout, is a product of sustainable aquaculture, is just the whole industry of aquaculture. Which, I mean, you'll watch the conspiracy and come up with your own thoughts. But I think by and large, the conversation has been, yes, this documentary has brought up some really important points that we need to be thinking about and need to acknowledge and harsh realities we have to face. But, yeah.
• 20:58
  but also presented a totally binary perspective on seafood consumption. And the only path forward that was presented was not eating seafood at all, which, um,
• 21:10
  as we all, or I guess not as we all know, but as we should know, is just not a viable option for feeding our growing population. And there are just so many economies and people that depend on, um, depend on seafood as their primary protein source. It's just not a viable option. Um,
• 21:29
  So what we need to do is support and figure out ways that we can continue to eat seafood in a way that is sustainable. So, for example, our rainbow trout, which we launched last weekend, is delicious. So I would encourage folks to bite if they can. It's very tasty. It's a product of land-based aquaculture, which the film doesn't mention at all, which like...
• 21:57
  If this documentary is cutting out whole swaths of an industry, of a means of production, like you have to, your alarm bells should be going off.
• 22:06
  Right. I've heard it's really like a sensationalist kind of perspective. Yeah, which like it's a film, you know, I'm trying to get people to watch it. But like they don't talk about they don't talk about sustainable alcohol story. They don't talk about, you know, the incredible sustainable fishing, hook and line fishing that people are doing in the U.S. They don't talk about.
• 22:27
  the potential for mussels and oysters to serve as an incredible source of protein and iron and all of these things that people need to live. So, yes, you should. Your spidey sense should be tingling. But so anyway, like our the farm that we work with, we work with a farm in Idaho on our on our rainbow trout.
• 22:51
  And potentially other products in the future. We shall see. But the fish is 100% traceable from the egg to the tin that we send to you. They harvest all of their eggs themselves. And they harvest this gorgeous steelhead and rainbow trout.
• 23:12
  And there's no, like, for example, they talk about escapes in this film, like ocean escapes where, you know, you'll have salmon that are, you know, modified in such a way or they carry disease and then they escape and then they infect other populations, etc. Like, these are all things that, you know...
• 23:29
  are incredibly important to think about and in systems that do need to be improved um but like land-based aquaculture for example it's totally it is totally disconnected from the ocean environment so like all of those problems that are broached in the in the documentary um are eliminated so got it got it so good to know gosh that's crazy um
• 23:55
  And it's one of those things like, you know, I've been speaking about it a lot. Obviously, it's a hot topic, but I haven't watched it yet because I'm like, shit, like, does this mean you have to go vegan? Like, I love seafood. It totally doesn't. It's a tough one. Makes you feel really guilty.
• 24:12
  I mean, it means you can be thinking much more critically about when you order seafood and when you buy it and ask questions, ask your waiter, where did this come from? And check out really amazing resources like the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch List, which looks, which examines the sustainability of seafood in that sort of matrix of what I was talking about earlier. Yeah.
• 24:37
  and make informed decisions, but you do not need to be vegan. And it's not a viable option for a lot of people to be vegan. And also that sort of diet presents many problems of its own. So, um, well, lucky we've got some good options out there. I'm excited to try the fish. I'm excited to try the trout.
• 24:59
  Okay. I want to move on to talk about the launch strategy. Obviously you're in your first year of business. Things are going very, very well. Um, you've launched with some incredible press. You've had, you know, mentions all over the internet. What was the approach to launching and how did you, you know, get all of this buzz happening around the brand?
• 25:22
  Yeah. I mean, it's a couple things. So much of it, I mean, like, we all have to acknowledge our various privileges. And like, we were so lucky. My co-founder has a really strong following across various social media accounts, which I think, and we kind of knew this from the beginning. It was like, if we knew that the idea, we knew it was a good idea. Like, we knew that people were super excited about, we knew people were super excited about TNC. We would like, we just...
• 25:52
  I think in our social circles and like just going around to different wine bars and, you know, Alison Roman had been such a great advocate for spreading the gospel of anchovies and sardines, all these things. Like the excitement was there and we knew that if we could get the brand right and the story right, like we already had a great platform to jump off of.
• 26:12
  Because Caroline had, you know, just so many followers and just people that were already paying attention. She runs the official Sean Penn Instagram. Is that right? Mm-hmm.
• 26:25
  Yeah, it's like... So many lols on there. So many lols. Not a lot of overlap with fish necessarily until now. Until now. Until now. But I think that definitely accelerated. It just accelerated things because our awareness from day one was greater than it would have been if we just, if, you know, neither of us had a platform to jump off of. Right. And so when it comes to things like the press that you got specifically...
• 26:55
  You know, you were featured everywhere. You were mentioned in Lean Lux, Vogue, Condé Nast, Traveller, all this amazing press that some brands would dream of getting, you know, potentially just in their first year at some point. How did you go about, did you work with a freelancer or did you work with an agency? What was the kind of strategy for the press piece of the puzzle?
• 27:14
  Yeah, I mean, the first couple of pieces, we got two pieces in December from Vogue and Refinery29. We've been very blessed, like fully, fully blessed. Those were inbound. They came to us about writing pieces. And then...
• 27:30
  We've just done our own press. So like I, you know, I had some familiarity with like putting together press releases and all that stuff from working in the music industry and then had amazing journalist friends that were willing to like look over my press release and make sure it was all good. But I think it was, I mean- Calling on those contacts. Yeah, I know. Got you. Just reach out to everyone always. But yeah, I mean, I do think it was like,
• 27:58
  I think the timing was also just right. Like people just want to write about, they wanted to write about Tin Fish. They wanted to write about women founders. But like the branding is really exciting to people. It's, you know, I think the revitalization of the pantry staples, that's very top of mind right now, especially during quarantine. So I think all of the elements combined to,
• 28:23
  just making it an interesting press story. There's like, there's a lot to be sort of unpacked in it. So yeah, I think that, I mean, I guess just as another bid, like I think when you're starting a thing, like definitely just try to do everything yourself for as long as you can, because you'll learn how to do it. So when you do eventually hire someone, you'll like, you'll have a really strong understanding of it.
• 28:52
  So yeah, we haven't hired anyone to do press for us yet. I imagine we'll hire an agency for launches in the future once our attentions have to be really firmly planted elsewhere. And I think, you know, if we had an agency, maybe we would have gotten more press on different various things. But it's expensive and we're like...
• 29:14
  We are, as they say... Saving those dollars. Yeah, I know. We're like trying to be scrappy, trying to be some scrappy ladies. I love that for you guys, though. What do you think is driving your growth now? Like, is it word of mouth or is it these, you know, really interesting press pieces or what is it? Or is it paid advertising? Yeah.
• 29:41
  Yeah, so we haven't done any paid advertising yet. I think it's word of mouth. It's working with the right partners. We're just starting to expand into retail, and we are just being very thoughtful about who we partner with on that. We've gotten a ton of amazing inbound requests from retailers, but it's like, first of all, our bandwidth is...
• 30:05
  I'm right now it's just me as the full-time employee and Carolina's has an insane job as like a very successful TV writer writing on Mindy Kaling's new show. So it's just like, we have to be extremely thoughtful about how we use our energy and resources because like,
• 30:26
  you know, we're finite. Like we can't just do everything all the time. So, um, so yes, I, I'm sorry. I wasn't answering that question very specifically, but it's like picking the right partners. Like we launched with this amazing store in LA called wine and eggs. It was also just like really buzzy and it just opened up. People were super excited about it. And like the, you know,
• 30:51
  our shit has just been flying off the shelves there because people are like so excited about this place. They're like running to it in droves. And then they like hear about our company and they're like, Oh my God, like two female run businesses. And it's just like those sort of partnerships that just feel so right. Just pop off and get people super excited. And it just feels really authentic because it fully, fully is. Um, yeah,
• 31:15
  So it's that, I mean, we're going to be doing a ton of really fun partnerships like that. And then I think it's, yeah, it's just like these factors combining. The reality is, and I felt this so much working in music and feel it so much doing this business is like...
• 31:33
  it has to be authentic or like the more authentic that it is, the more people are going to be excited about it. And I look at other amazing women founders that were in a similar situation to us where it's just like, they loved this. They love this product or like, this is part of their heritage or like what, like I think about Jane who runs fly by Jane who like wanted to tell this incredible story and just created this absolutely delicious product that tells that story so authentically. And that's,
• 32:02
  you know, tied to where she's from and all these things I think about like Melanie Mazarin who runs Gia, who same story, it's like totally a part of her heritage and is like so aligned with her personal style. And when it's like that and it's just like so true and there's nothing between the founder and the audience, it just really resonates. And then I guess the last thing I
• 32:27
  it really does help when you are your incepting founding audience. So like me and Caroline, we're two women who live in like a city and the big city in the U S and like, we like care about trends. We like care about sustainability and like all these things. And that's sort of more between the ages like 22 and 35. And that's like sort of our target demo for, or at least we're starting to build our audience. And yeah,
• 32:52
  Yeah, it really helps when you're not like when you're so close to it, because, you know, it would be really exciting to you as a consumer. And then you can just create that. Yeah, I totally get that. Yeah, for sure. And I see I feel that with those with those brands that you mentioned and those female founders that you've just mentioned.
• 33:13
  I had Melanie on the show recently and I just love her story and, you know, spending her summers with her grandma, drinking, you know, those homemade recipes, like bringing that storytelling to life and in such a bold visual way. I mean, it's just it's a no brainer of why it does so well. And of course, I'm sure the product haven't tried it, but I'm sure the product is like absolutely amazing. And and then it's the perfect recipe, literally.
• 33:38
  Yeah. It's so, yeah. If you're able to hit all of those things, it's like, what is stopping you? Exactly. I want to talk about the flip side of business. We've focused on all the great stuff that's going on for you guys and this, you know, perfect storm that's been whipping up, but what are the biggest challenges that you've faced or what is one of the biggest challenges that you're coming across now, you know, a few months in?
• 34:06
  Yeah, I mean, there are definitely a few. I think it's just...
• 34:11
  Like we were so lucky. I think, yeah, it's kind of the flip side of the coin that we're talking about. We were so lucky to be, to get so much interest really early on. But like we straight up were doing everything. We were, we were like doing product development. We were fundraising and we were launching all at the same time. So it wasn't, I mean, there are definitely a lot of brands that spend a year or two in like incubation product development.
• 34:38
  all of these things, and then launch with everything sort of ready to go. And that's not our story. And I think you can do it either way. There are definitely pros and cons to both. I think we just felt the timing was so good that we just moved really quickly. But that's definitely like...
• 34:57
  I mean, it's put like certain strains on things. Like it's just making sure like, obviously we've sold out a couple of times, which is great, but it's also a product of, you know, like,
• 35:09
  getting it's growing pains. It's like getting your supply chain up and running and being like, okay, we need like this much product all the time. Um, which is, which is fine. And people have been like patient and understand that, you know, we are an undercapitalized business and couldn't go out and buy 50,000 tens right from the outset because who's paying for it. Um,
• 35:32
  But, you know, would I have liked us to be in stock, like, for the past four months? Yeah, that would have been great. I would have loved that. I would have loved to just be getting as many people to try as possible. So I think that. And then it's just...
• 35:47
  I think it's all of these questions about sustainability and making sure that we, you know, are fulfilling that and are making really responsible sourcing choices. And like we've been learning. That's the thing. You just learn so much so fast when you're starting a company.
• 36:04
  So we've been really lucky to have amazing advisors and people helping us out and directing us towards making responsible choices. But again, it's like these situations where so many entrepreneurs do not come. And like food entrepreneurs, I think definitely, especially, they come from non-traditional backgrounds. And so it's not like I've been working for years in the seafood industry. So I fully recognize I have so much to learn and have been lucky to have really smart people help out. But they're still like...
• 36:35
  There's a lot, a lot to learn. It's a journey ahead of you. An exciting one. Yeah. Oh gosh. I love it. I love it. So cool. What is your biggest piece of advice for women who have a big idea and want to start their own business? I think the piece of advice that we were given, um, and fully led to us moving so quickly is,
• 36:59
  And I think you kind of have to take this with a grain of salt because I think this has led to a lot of issues in the startup world, like Silicon Valley world, which there's definitely an ethos of the move fast and break things philosophy where you just like go, you get your MVP, your minimum viable product out there as soon as possible so you can test it, get consumer feedback, and keep iterating off of that. And that piece...
• 37:27
  Asking your consumers, asking your customers what they think about your products at every churn is like definitely, that is like the only piece of advice that's like 100% always do that. Like if you're not talking to your customers, why? This is like the most helpful resource that you have available. But we like, yeah, I mean, we did launch. We launched like this little beta box really early on that was basically samples that we had gotten from customers.
• 37:54
  from like different canneries that we were talking to and like immediately started getting consumer feedback from that, which was really helpful and definitely just accelerated things really quickly. Cause as people got really excited about the company, it was like, we just got to move really fast to develop your first official products. So what am I saying?
• 38:14
  I think get customer feedback as soon as you can by launching the brand. And you hear this all the time. I think Nick Sharma, who seems to be a very hot brand guru, I'm sure you've heard about, would create fake websites or something to just test a brand and get feedback on it.
• 38:37
  And if you just like got to think of those hacks and a way to get your brand in front of people to see if they're or your brand or your product in front of people to see if they would want to buy it.
• 38:48
  So yeah, I would say like talk to your customers. Do try to test something with customers as quickly as possible. Always be asking people their opinion. And then just like generally, I mean, you just have to talk to so many people to do this. And you should because it will lead you in incredible directions that will allow you to build your business. Follow the breadcrumbs, as they say. Follow them. They will take you where you want to go.
• 39:20
  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.
• 39:45
  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.
• 40:08
  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.
• 40:23
  Hey, it's Dune 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.
• 41:10
  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.