Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How Klaviyo is driving growth through thoughtful email marketing campaigns, with Milky Mama Founder Krystal Duhaney

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How Klaviyo is driving growth through thoughtful email marketing campaigns, with Milky Mama Founder Krystal Duhaney · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Crystal Duhaney for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today I'm joined by Crystal Duhaney, the founder of Milky Mama.
• 0:21
  After having her second child and returning to work, Crystal struggled with her milk supply and realized that there were very few resources for breastfeeding moms in the same predicament. Using her knowledge as a registered nurse and her love for baking, Crystal developed a milk-making cookie recipe and fell in love with the results. So in November of 2015, Milky Mama was born.
• 0:44
  Today, Milky Mama is dedicated to educating, supporting, and empowering parents to have the best breastfeeding journey possible. And in 2020, Milky Mama announced the formation of the Milky Mama Foundation, which sponsors Black women who aspire to become certified lactation consultants.
• 1:03
  This is such an inspiring episode. It all started from her kitchen and slowly grew into this huge, wonderful, amazing thing. We talk about those early days and the moment that things really started to change for her, her email marketing strategy with Klaviyo and a super fun viral moment they're having right now.
• 1:26
  And if you haven't seen our new look yet, we are positively glowing. I am so excited to share it with you and I'd love to hear what you think. So feel free to pop me a message on Instagram at Doon Roisin. Let's get stuck into this episode. This is Crystal for Female Startup Club.
• 1:44
  Crystal, hi, hello, and welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I always start the episode by getting you to introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your business is.
• 1:59
  Well, my name is Crystal Duhaimi. I am a registered nurse, international board certified meditation consultant, mom of two with one on the way, and owner and founder of an amazing company called Milky Mama. And we provide breastfeeding support to parents all over the world and give them practical information to have successful breastfeeding or pumping journeys.
• 2:22
  I love it. This is the first time I'm speaking to a founder in this space. So you'll have to bear with me if I don't know all the words and the terms and that kind of thing. But I'm super excited to learn from you today. And I'd love to go back to where the business got started. Where does your entrepreneurial story actually start?
• 2:41
  Yeah, so it actually started about nine years ago. The idea kind of came into my head when I gave birth to my son. Well, he'll be nine in a few days. And I struggled to breastfeed. I was a registered nurse at the time. And I felt like I knew I should have known what to do, where I felt like it would just come naturally. You know, you see people breastfeeding on billboards or magazines, and they're holding the baby, smiling like this is the most perfect and easiest thing ever. Yeah.
• 3:10
  And when that didn't happen for me, I was like panicking. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to turn. I went to my OB pediatrician and they didn't have any resources for me. So I took it upon myself to kind of struggle our way through breastfeeding. You know, I educated myself. And throughout that journey, it was very hard. I experienced a lot of grief, a lot of shame, just a lot of struggling. And I knew that there was an easier balance.
• 3:37
  better way to go about this. I was like, there has to be something different. There has to be a more enjoyable way to breastfeed because I really wanted to give that to my baby. So when I became pregnant with my second child, who is now five, I was determined. I was like, I'm going to have a better journey. And I really just wanted to educate myself for my own selfish reasons to have a better journey for myself.
• 4:00
  And in doing so, I began talking to other parents that had experienced the same struggles. And I realized this isn't just my problem. This is a problem everywhere. So I wanted to create a resource for parents to have education, to have something that I didn't have the support to have successful breastfeeding journeys. And I also wanted to create a line of products that would help them promote and maintain their milk production in addition to that education and support.
• 4:30
  So Milky Momma was born after my second child was born. And it really just started off as a way for me to support my own breastfeeding journey, but really turned into an amazing community of over a million moms where we support their breastfeeding journey. That is so incredible. Wow. Firstly,
• 4:52
  Is that what they call founder market fit? Because it was, you know, you solving your own problem and then that just like turning into this thing. Yeah. You know, I think that's kind of maybe the secret to business is just finding a problem and solving it, you know, and that problem just happened to be my problem too. And I was just so passionate about that because I experienced it as well, which I think made it that much more fulfilling. Yeah.
• 5:19
  So to paint the picture, you've had your second child, you're wanting to develop these products, you're wanting to figure out a solution, you're wanting to build a community. What year is this? Where is this happening? Is it in your kitchen? Is it like, you know, at a kitchen somewhere else? Like what's the scene to be set? Yeah, wow. So this happened, my daughter was born in 2015 in August. So right after she was born, it started in my kitchen.
• 5:47
  Again, this was just, I tried this recipe. I came up with this recipe of this cookie because I loved sweets when I was pregnant with her. I just had this sweet tooth and I was like, what can I do so that when I go back to my nursing job on the floor,
• 6:02
  what can I do to maintain my milk production so that I can pump enough milk to maintain our journey for however long I wanted? So I made this cookie recipe and it was really, really good. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so good. And it really worked. And I shared it with some friends that had given birth remissing time and they loved them too. And they were like, you should probably sell these. And I was like,
• 6:22
  Maybe. So I began offering them to local moms in my area. And this is all out of my kitchen with a newborn and a toddler. And we would get a couple of moms come to our door to buy them. And my husband was like, oh, this is great. My wife has a hospital.
• 6:38
  or something, right? And then a few weeks later, he came home and there was like a line of moms down the street. And he was like, what is going on? The neighbors are gonna wonder what we're selling. What is going on here? And that's when I knew that it was, I was onto something. So,
• 6:53
  I would, you know, work 12 hour night shifts at the hospital and then come home after 12 hour shift of no sleep and work another probably 12 hours at home baking and doing customer service and shipping with my newborn in tow. So definitely was a bit of a struggle in the beginning. Yeah. So you were superwoman. That's what you're saying.
• 7:17
  I sleep deprived. Supermum. So what kind of like, did you need a lot of money to get started for the ingredients for these cookies? Like, were you able to make some nice profit or what was the kind of like economics around the cookies in the beginning?
• 7:33
  Yeah, no, I didn't need a lot of money. I mean, they were just household ingredients that you would get to bake cookies. And so I used just the money that I had in savings. It was probably about $300 just to buy my first round of ingredients. And then I sold those and used that money to buy more ingredients. And as I began to grow, which was very rapidly, I began to add other products to my line. So I added brownies.
• 7:59
  I added a T, you know, I kind of expanded and added much more work to myself than I could handle, but really just kind of testing out the market to see what my customers liked and what they wanted. I just want to go back to like earlier in your life for one second. Did you see yourself being an entrepreneur growing up? Like, did you think, hey, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to start a business or because it just happened organically, you were like, oh, one day I'm a business owner. Yeah.
• 8:26
  Yeah, you know, I think it always had that entrepreneurial kind of bug inside of me. I remember, you know, sitting in the break room with some of my nurse colleagues and there would always be these sales reps that would come and like show a product that a nurse came up with. And it was like a simple product. It was like a bag with a tube in it. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's like so simple. I could have came up with that. So I always thought that, gee, like I could do that one day, but I didn't know in what aspect.
• 8:53
  that I would do that. But my dream was to, or my goal was to work up the nursing ladder and to be a director of the nursing floor that I was on. And a funny story is that before I actually left the hospital to do my business full time, they offered me that director's position three times. And I said, I can't, you know, I just, I feel like my heart's somewhere else right now and I didn't want to take it.
• 9:16
  And then after the third time, I said, OK, I can't take it, but I also quit. So I gave my two weeks notice shortly after that. And it was the best decision ever. How long had it been since you'd started the business until you left your position? I think it was about two years.
• 9:34
  Okay. So you were kind of working on building the business, working on building your customer base. What kind of revenue had you done in those early days while you were still working out of your kitchen? And at what point were you like, yeah, okay, now I feel financially secure to take the leap 100%? Yeah. So working out of my home kitchen probably lasted for about...
• 9:58
  six months. So it lasted when I was on maternity leave and then maybe a few months into going back to work and then I just couldn't. I was like, I'm exhausted. I have to like sleep at some point. So at that point, I enlisted help. I hired a small team and we had moved to
• 10:16
  a commercial kitchen, which is, you know, like a restaurant style kitchen. And we moved there and they would bake while I was, you know, sleeping or things like that. And I would manage the administrative side. So for a while that really, really helped. But revenue wise, you know, we grew very rapidly. The first year we probably made
• 10:35
  About $100,000, which was really without any marketing. We had no idea what we were doing. We're just kind of winging it super small. And then that quickly grew to a million dollars the next year to, you know, $5 million. And it just has been growing extremely rapidly. Wow, that's crazy. So in that second year when you or in the time where you went from, you know, $100,000 to a million dollars in revenue,
• 11:03
  what was the marketing strategy? Like how did you actually get to that million dollars? What do you attribute that first million to be from marketing wise? Yeah. You know, I can almost remember the switch in our marketing before, um,
• 11:18
  because I didn't really understand audiences and, you know, really customers. I just thought, okay, I just had these cookies and these brownies and I want to sell them. So before we would focus a lot on our products. We'd post our products, buy these products. This is what this mom, you know, the results. And it was more result-based and more selling. But I remember one day I took the leap and said, I'm just going to go live. I'm just going to get on Facebook Live and...
• 11:47
  talk to people and answer some questions. And I spent that time answering breastfeeding questions. It was about an hour. And I got such a huge response that moms were asking me to do it again. And I did it again the next week, every Monday. I still do that to this day. We do Q&A Mondays to this day. And when I made that switch from selling to teaching
• 12:10
  And really communicating with my audience and providing them value is when I noticed that they responded much better. So if you actually go to our Instagram page now, you probably won't find one of our products. You'll probably just see education and breastfeeding tips, parping tips, how to feed your baby, things like that. Because we find that it's not just about selling products. It's really about building a community.
• 12:37
  Right. And so essentially when you're on these Facebook lives, you don't even mention the brand or the product. It's just you being there being like, hey, moms, what do you need help with? Like I'm here and I'm ready to answer anything that you need to know. Yeah. At this point, they know who I am. They know I'm the owner of the company. They know I'm an international board certified lactation consultant. So I do have some expertise in the field.
• 13:00
  But it's really just the girl chat, you know, talk and we ask questions and we laugh. And it's just really just me spending an hour of my time, you know, engaging with them, letting them know that there is a human here. And I genuinely care about their well-being and their journey. And that even trickles down even to our email systems and every aspect. We do our best to kind of create a personal touch, not just some automated robotic kind of thing.
• 13:27
  Mm-hmm. I'd love to talk a little bit about your email marketing strategy. You know, what's the approach you take there? Who do you use software-wise? What the impact is on owning that audience? That kind of thing. Yeah. So we use Klaviyo and I absolutely love them. The
• 13:48
  of our audience and really make the relationship really personal is just so valuable for us. So what we do, which I tell a lot of business owners to do, too, because it really, really helps a lot of business owners think that, oh, I don't want to give them information for free.
• 14:04
  But I'm like, why? You know, like we literally tell our customers how to not use our products, how to do it right so that they don't need our products. And that just builds trust, you know, because we really care. So I think that doing that in every aspect is so important. So when our customers come to our website or anyone, they'll get a pop up that says, hey, join our email list.
• 14:25
  tell us about you and your baby. So they'll say, you know, I'm breastfeeding or I'm pumping, breastfeeding, you know, pumping is breastfeeding too, if there's any breastfeeding moms listening. And then how old is your baby? And they'll say, my baby is one month or two months, how old? And then from there, with that information, we'll send them a targeted email every single month with here's how to breastfeed your two month old. Then the next month they'll get a three month old or here's how to pump for a two month old, depending on their journey.
• 14:55
  They'll also get, which is super popular, they'll also get a certificate every month. And congratulations, you've been breastfeeding for two months. You're doing an amazing job. So those little things just really help create that community and that little family feel to where they're not just getting sales emails all the time. They're actually getting useful information, which not only creates customer loyalty, but it also increases our click rates because our customers look forward to that email every single month.
• 15:23
  Hmm. That's a really cool strategy. And I think, well, strategy is such an ick word to link to it, but you know, at the end of the day, it is an email marketing strategy, but it's so great to send those like hyper relevant, hyper targeted and things that aren't spammy and annoying and like clogging up your inbox. Yeah. I can really see why that would work. And I can also imagine it's something that's really shareable. They're able to just forward it on to another mom that they've just met or someone else who's going through that same situation.
• 15:52
  Or they'll share it on Instagram and tag us. And then we'll share it on Instagram. And then moms will be like, how did they get that? And I'm like, oh, join our email list. So it kind of just comes full circle. Right. Totally. Totally.
• 16:05
  When you look back, you know, it's been quite a number of years since you've been going. And you mentioned the first kind of tipping point for you was the Facebook Live videos. When you think about, you know, since then, have there been other key moments of growth or key tipping points where things just really started to snowball and go crazy? You know, I think that that really kind of started the snowball. And then from there, continuing to just
• 16:31
  be a resource. I always say that like when I, when moms think of like breastfeeding, I want them to think of us and not because, oh, they have amazing products, but oh, if you have questions, go to them. That's what I want to create for us. So that's what we try to create. So I think that
• 16:47
  Because we are constantly showing ourselves and constantly providing information and helping parents and answering questions and really doing our best to make sure we provide that support system, that moms associate that with, oh, if you're breastfeeding, follow them. And they tell their new breastfeeding friends or new pregnant friends. And I think that that really creates, helps to continuously build our community.
• 17:10
  And with that, we've gotten lots of like celebrity, you know, interest, you know, celebrities reach out to us saying, hey, I'm having trouble breastfeeding. I heard about you guys. Can you help me? And that has really helped, too. So I think just being really genuine and really just coming from a place of trying to help people as opposed to trying to sell them something all the time is I know it sounds backwards because the goal is to sell things if you own a business.
• 17:36
  But if you really just create that warm and fuzzy feeling, it really serves us so much better. And it makes us feel better about what we're doing. And it makes us feel better about our community as well. So that has really, really worked really well for us. And I feel like that's just our secret to business. You know, we don't spend money on influencers. Our customers are influencers. And we don't pay them for that. And it just helps us so much, though.
• 18:04
  Mm, that's amazing. You are having a bit of a viral moment at the moment. Let's talk about the video.
• 18:15
  Yes, yes, the video. So yeah, if you haven't seen it, my husband and I, we just, I'm pregnant, and I'm probably super emotional right now. And I just, we went to Target, and I was just looking at products. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is just so expensive. And I remembered going back to when we had had our first son. And we were young parents, and I was barely a nurse. And we, you know, we're still trying to figure out how to make ends meet and kind of establish our household. And, you know,
• 18:44
  And I was like, this is like way more than what we paid back then. And it's a pandemic. And I just got all emotional, like, oh, my gosh, like, how can people afford this? And so I was like, we have to do something. So we decided to just stuff money in these common baby products like formula, which, of course, the formula is sealed. Everyone is not going in the powder. It's sealed so that it's not contaminating anything. Diapers, just anything that was just expensive and that you needed for a baby.
• 19:12
  And I shared it on my Instagram stories initially telling moms, hey, if you're in need, we just did this. And if you need help, please go, you know, and it wasn't like supposed to go viral. It was just me saying we're going to try to do this often, do something fun to give back. And it just kind of went crazy and so unexpected and a little overwhelming, to be honest.
• 19:37
  Oh my gosh. I'm getting emotional. It's just so cool and so nice. And just for anyone listening, the video, I think, when did you post it? Like,
• 19:46
  It was a month ago. That was on April 30th. It was a month ago. It's up to 2 million views now on your Instagram. It's got a million comments and thousands of things going on there. It's crazy. It's been going crazy. Another page shared it, and I think it's up to 5 million views on their page. What? It's just going insane. And I hope, you know, that when people see that, that they –
• 20:15
  are inspired to just do something nice for someone. You know, I think that in the world, we're just so focused on ourselves and there's a lot of negativity. And I think that we'll all be happier if you just practice kindness every day, like just find something in the day to just do something kind for someone. It doesn't have to be monetary. It can just be something as simple as like letting
• 20:37
  someone over on the freeway instead of trying to say you're not going to steal my spot I know I've been guilty of that before just being kind and letting them over you know or opening the door for someone or just something kind so that people know that hey you know we're all in this together yeah even a smile I feel trying to smile at people more well we're wearing masks here in California oh yeah we're wearing masks here too what am I talking about you know lol gosh
• 21:07
  When I hear your story, it's easy to get swept up in being like, oh my gosh, it all just sounds so easy. And she went from 100,000 to a million to 5 million to, you know, it must be crazy now. But obviously there are challenges with every business and everyone faces struggles and times where they think like, hey, I can't do this. Are you able to share anything that comes to mind or any struggles that you faced or challenges that were really tough?
• 21:37
  Yeah, you know, I think that is a huge misconception. People think that you just wake up and you're a millionaire or you just wake up and have a successful business. There's been so many blood, literally blood, sweat and tears have gone into this business. And I remember in the beginning, probably about,
• 21:54
  a year and a half ago, two years ago, I had been so stressed out with the business and just trying to make sure everything was working okay, trying to handle everything because that's me. I like to just do it all. And I began to get depressed. I got shingles, which I'm in my 30s and 30 year olds don't get shingles. I got vertigo multiple times. I was in the ER and I'm normally pretty healthy, so I'm.
• 22:21
  I just couldn't figure out what was going on. And my doctor said, are you under like any stress? And it was just like,
• 22:30
  Yeah. And I just started crying and I just didn't know why. And I realized that I had been, you know, every business failure, like if there was a customer that was upset or if one of our manufacturers didn't send something on time or whatever, if an employee, you know, made a mistake or anything, I was holding all of that inside and really...
• 22:52
  just, you know, bottling everything up. And so I was having these physiological symptoms of stress, and it was really impacting my business. I wasn't doing lives anymore. I wasn't showing up. And it was the snowball effect. We talked about the snowball effect upward. This one was just tumbling down.
• 23:09
  And I said, you know, I just have to, I have to do something. So I focused on myself for a bit, took some days just to kind of do some, you know, it sounds hokey, but some meditation and some, just really some self-care and getting my mind in a good place. And I realized that I needed to delegate and that I couldn't do it all. You know, I was a mother, I was a wife, you know, I'm running a business. I can't do everything. And when I delegated,
• 23:37
  and found people that I trusted to delegate to.
• 23:42
  it really changed everything. My mental health is so much better. I mean, I still have bad days, we all do, right? But that was really a big tipping point for me in the business. And I think that was probably my darkest moment. I mean, now that I'm able to say, okay, we're having a little bit of a crisis here, let's figure out what we can do. And I have people to brainstorm with and work together with instead of taking all of that on, figuring it out by myself, I'm able to kind of navigate those struggles much better.
• 24:11
  Hmm. Yeah. Gosh, it can get a bit dark and feels like. Yeah. The overwhelm builds up on you and you don't realize that it's there until something triggers. Yeah. You know, being a business owner, I think people see the pretty and the sparkly on the outside. You know, they see, oh, she's making this or the cars or and I don't post that kind of stuff.
• 24:36
  But, you know, business owners, they post life, that stuff, but they don't post the other stuff, which I think is kind of doing a disservice because it's not always pretty. It's not easy. And it is definitely a learning experience. And to be the sole business owner, I quit my job as a nurse, my guaranteed paychecks every two weeks that all I needed to do was go to work and I got paid.
• 25:04
  Now I have to run this business in order to feed my family. I mean, my husband works, but, you know, provide for my family and provide for my employees and make sure that they can get paid. It's so much pressure and it's a lot of pressure to make sure that you're successful. So, you know, just make sure that you're always focusing on yourself. You can't pour from an empty cup. So make sure that you're always kind of rejuvenating yourself and just taking a moment to take a breath whenever you can.
• 25:33
  Yeah, I really like that. And I think that self-care, even in small moments and small things, is just so important. And obviously with the pandemic, it's like, I think we've all gotten a little bit better at knowing what that small moment of self-care looks like for ourselves and the little luxuries of just having a bath or, you know, putting some nice oil on your skin, whatever it is, taking that extra moment in the small moments. Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:02
  Are you able to share where the business is today? You know, how big the team is, what kind of revenue you're doing, what exciting things are in the works, what's next, all the good stuff. Yeah. So surprisingly, we are a super small team. It's me. I have my operations manager who really handles a lot of the operations and is so helpful, especially now that I'm expecting, you know, I've been under the weather, exhausted, things like that. And she's really, she's amazing. She's really picked up kind of the slack.
• 26:31
  lately. And then I have my customer service team who's also lactation consultants as well. So basically anyone that anytime you go to our website, you speak to a lactation consultant, which is so helpful. You can call our 800 number for free to get breastfeeding support. So it's really, we really wanted to create this amazing resource. And there's only three of them. And then
• 26:54
  Our shipping team, which is in California as well, and they ship all of our packages for us. We have our bakery partners that bake products, but our core team is probably just five of us. Love that. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, we're super tiny. Love that. And where is the business in terms of the growth? And what is the, you know, what's on the card, say, for the next 12 months?
• 27:22
  Yeah. So we've been consistently, fingers crossed, doubling our revenue for the past few years, which is really exciting. This year, we're still like pins and needles to see where we're going to end. But one of the biggest things that we're hoping for and that we're working on right now is the big box store. So getting stocked in stores like Target's and Walmart's. So that's the newest thing that we're hoping on.
• 27:45
  We're also hoping to launch some new courses, some new products, things like that as well. Exciting. We also launched a scholarship program for lactation consultants. So looking for other ways just to give back and to provide, you know, resources is really, really important to the core of our company. Yeah, absolutely. What is the one key learning or piece of advice that you would want female entrepreneurs to know who are earlier on in the journey?
• 28:17
  I would say, and this is something that I struggled with in the beginning, is to, I know it sounds cliche, but believe in yourself. And if not, fake it till you make it. Because no one's going to believe in your business or you until you do. So if you're not confident about what you're doing, no one else is going to be. So...
• 28:39
  You can't like, we tend to make a lot of excuses of, oh, I don't want to start this business because someone else already has a business like that. Or I don't know if it's a good idea. Like we make all of these excuses for why not to do it as opposed to just doing it. Like if you think of bread when you go to the grocery store, there's hundreds of types of bread, right? And all of those breads sell.
• 29:01
  So if you don't start your business because of concern for the market, then you're doing yourself a disservice. So believe in yourself. Make sure that you hire a team when you can and don't work yourself to exhaustion forever because it's not sustainable. And.
• 29:21
  I think that's it. I would say just make sure that you always be focused on your goals. Know that it's not going to be rainbows and sunshines every day, but that one failure doesn't mean that it's the end. Every day is a new day and every day is a new page in your book. Amazing. Thank you so much. Love that.
• 29:40
  We are up to the six quick questions part of the episode. I ask every woman on the show the same question so that I can look back at the data and see if there are any trends that come out of this. And this is super fun. We might have covered a few things already, but we ask them all the same. So question number one is, what's your why? Why do you do what you do?
• 30:01
  I do what I do to not only support breastfeeding parents and to provide better breastfeeding outcomes and better outcomes for new parents all over the world, but also for my family. You know, they're making sure that they're okay is so, so important to me. Making sure that they have a good quality of life is so important to me. So I want to basically show my children that we can do start businesses. I want to show my daughter that women can do this. I want to show people of color that we can start and have successful businesses as well.
• 30:31
  I love that.