Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Cara Oppenheimer on how she created the chrome extension that supports women & black owned businesses, goodbuy

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Cara Oppenheimer on how she created the chrome extension that supports women & black owned businesses, goodbuy · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Cara Oppenheimer for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, welcome back. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we're chatting to Cara Oppenheimer about her new venture, Goodbye. Goodbye.
• 0:23
  And this episode is a little different to our usual e-com founder stories. I came across a post on LinkedIn by Kara announcing her new brand and realized straight away that we have a lot of synergies in the missions that we have between Goodbye and Female Startup Club.
• 0:39
  We both strive to empower small business owners in e-commerce to create successful businesses, make money and be happy and fulfilled in life. And the way she's doing that is through a ridiculously simple Chrome extension. Yes, I said Chrome extension. It's the easy button for conscious shopping.
• 1:00
  So the way it works is that once you add it to your browser, it automatically intercepts all your online shopping searches from places like Amazon, Target, etc. And diverts you to the same products from over 183,000 small businesses on the Internet.
• 1:16
  The database currently has 19 million products to ensure you get exactly what you need the moment you need it. And it shows you these products from a values aligned small business like AAPI owned, American made, black owned, certified ethical, sustainable, women owned, and so many others. They're all about shopping small, shopping easily, and shopping what matters to you. How cool is that?
• 1:41
  I love this episode so, so much. It's the first time I've spoken to someone who's built a Chrome extension, and it's fascinating to hear about it. We talk through what it actually takes to build something like this in tech as a non-technical co-founder, why it matters, and a few other gems. I hope you enjoy it so much. This is Kara for Female Startup Club. Kara, hi, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
• 2:12
  I'm so excited too. I was saying to you just before we started recording that I'm really looking forward to this conversation because it's a little different from our usual e-commerce founder story, but highly relevant for so many people listening into the show who have small businesses and who are also wanting what you provide in the world, especially me, myself. I want what you have.
• 2:38
  So I'd love to get you to just start by introducing yourself and telling us what your company is. Okay, perfect. So my name's Kara Oppenheimer. I'm the co-founder of Goodbye, and that's B-U-Y, not goodbye like the hand wave. So we created a Chrome browser extension that intercepts all your reflexive online consumption purchases. So
• 3:04
  any mega retailer that you're on, you're on target, you're on Amazon, you're on Walmart, you're on Sephora, all these big name brands, our widget pops up and offers you the same products and oftentimes better from small businesses that align with your values. So all of our, because we have 183,000 businesses so far and, and growing in our database. And that includes about just under 20 million products, which is really exciting. So we have a lot that can pop up and, um,
• 3:33
  And inside of the tool. And then those are all along 15 different value sets. We have business values and then we have owner identities. And those business values are, you know, sustainable businesses, vegan businesses, cruelty free businesses and so forth. I'm not going to go through them all here. You can go to our site to see them all.
• 3:53
  And then our owner identities, which include things like LGBTQIA plus owned, women owned, family owned, black owned, AAPI owned. And one of the things I think we'll hit on it as we chat a little more was, as we started, started pitching this idea, a lot of people were like, you know, why don't you just start in one place? It's simpler. And Carrie and I, my co-founder, we just kept pushing back and saying, no, as a woman,
• 4:21
  who wants to shop more consciously, who wants to, you know, lean into multiple values at a time when possible and when not, at least shop small. There's a intersectionality to all of those values, right? Like we as people in one moment want to make, as long as I'm getting the product I need, you know, I might want to shop sustainably as possible in that moment and women-owned.
• 4:48
  And AAPI owned if possible. And in another given moment, if I can't find that product in all those values, I'd love to shop them in one of them if possible. And so just like you and I were talking about before, for me, when we came up with this idea, it was really about finding the simplest way.
• 5:05
  to intercept those really ingrained behaviors we have, right? Like we don't want to shame anybody for all the Amazon shopping. Like I do it still. There are still diapers I need. I've got two kids at home. There's lots of stuff I need, you know, real time and quickly. But there's many things I shop for intentionally and many things, gifts that I shop for that I would just love to support small. But for a long time, small has meant walking into a store for someone. And it hasn't been brought into the, you know, this century.
• 5:33
  You know, shopping small isn't just about local. Local is wonderful and that's one of our values. But shopping small is about supporting, you know, humans. The humans, as we say, humans behind the URLs. You know, the humans that are like doing a happy dance when you buy a product. So, you know, I can go on and on about this, but...
• 5:50
  It hits home personally for me. I had family with small business. We can get into that in a second. But you just, I really saw firsthand the struggles of the growth of massive e-commerce and the lack of individuality that was stripped from that. Like we go on Wayfair and you're like, I don't know who owns this. I don't know who's providing these materials. And there's just this facade. And so for us, Goodbye, the tools that we create are all about visibility for small businesses.
• 6:19
  And that also align with your values and that, you know, intersecting of all those values and meeting you in the moment of that product need. A lot of these marketplaces that exist, I'm sure you've experienced them, are wonderful. There's Black-owned marketplaces, you know, there are minority-owned marketplaces, there are sustainable marketplaces. But unless you're like an activist who's only wanting sustainable products and,
• 6:44
  they tend to alienate people. And so for me, when we created this, well, I always want to push people to those marketplaces and our tool actually does that. I wanted to create something that took you in the moment of that behavior where you're saying, okay, I just need this thing. I know I want to get this gift. And then we introduce you to the same product. You know, it could be a hydro flask, a simple water bottle you needed. And I'll share my story of that.
• 7:09
  It pops up, but you might also be presented with like a super cool women-owned brand that designs these new age water bottles. And you're like, rad. Now I have something completely different. So anyway, long-winded answer to your question, but really passionate about finding those moments to provide visibility for small businesses everywhere.
• 7:29
  I just love this so much. And I'm sure everyone listening has been like, I want that, or I've needed that, or I've been looking for something like this to exist on the internet. And I'm also baffled that it just hadn't already existed in a great way. And I obviously, to give everyone some context, somehow you popped up on my LinkedIn when you were launching. I was like, this is really cool. I immediately...
• 7:56
  you know, added the Google Chrome thing to my, I don't know what the terminology here is, but like I added the thing to my thing. Yes. Yes. The Chrome extension. And I was looking through it and I was like, it's so easy. Like it looks so great. It's just so like just what we need. And yeah, I'm just like so excited to dig into this. I think you touched on this a little bit in the beginning. Yeah.
• 8:18
  You know, when we talk about your founder startup story and like the background of this, you seem to mention that you have some family who had small businesses and that's why it touches like home for you. But do you want to tell us a little bit about what actually led to this idea coming into the world? Like how you decided to be like, you know what?
• 8:35
  we're going to make a Google Chrome extension. And we're going to solve this through Google Chrome extensions. Okay. Well, I'll walk you through it all. And to do that, I have to give you a little bit of context about my background. So great. Yes, please. I'm going to smush about 15, 17 years of, of my life into like a couple minutes here. Um,
• 8:58
  But I'm Canadian, born and raised. Yay to all the Canadians out there. Yay to the Canadians. I'm born and raised in Canada. Been a creative individual. Like that's my superpower. It's been my superpower my entire life. Redecorated my room every month. My dad was always, you know, super creative with me as well. Very, you know, Willy Wonka themed room and jewelry business when I was nine. And, you know, I'm just, this is, it's inherent in my being.
• 9:25
  to make myself feel good by using my creativity. And so really quickly, I learned that I needed to be doing something as a career that was extremely creative. And so found luckily my way through school and university in a program that was all about visual communications, advertising, design. I happened to create this little niche as experience design. I don't know if you've heard the term.
• 9:49
  but experience design is all about creating live experiences that engage people. And the brand experience industry has existed a long time, but didn't really come into play until kind of I was in university. It was becoming bigger and bigger and moving away from, you know, the sort of Red Bull girl in the side of a car to like really thoughtful campaigns with ROI and engagements and tours and,
• 10:17
  And now we all know them because you see pop-up events and experiences. So I entered that world. I left Canada and decided I needed a job in L.A., went down to L.A., drove around with my mom, with my portfolio to...
• 10:31
  I think 55 agencies, most of which had some experiential work because that was just what I was so passionate about and quickly got a job. That story could be a whole other podcast because it was pretty funny, but I got a job and was sponsored a visa pretty quickly with the company I started with. I was there 10 years. I worked my way up as a creative director. So large scale experiences for Intel, for Samsung, for Hyundai, a lot of automotive stuff in experiential. And then
• 11:01
  I moved into another agency, another round experience agency, where I ran the creative team. They had offices in New York, LA, which is where I was at the time, Atlanta, and San Francisco. So the past six years of my life was just being creative at an agency and working with brands like Porsche and Lego, all sorts of stuff. And my team was incredible. And all we did all day, pretty much, was think about incredible ideas and use creativity as a way to solve complex problems.
• 11:30
  Sounds so fun. It was super fun. It was super fun and stressful. I mean, the event industry is intense. You got one shot to get it right. And the team that still works there, it's like they're incredible humans. Um, and then one day I'm hoping we'll hire them again. So all that to say, I was constantly coming up with ideas and sometimes felt like sitting in these boardrooms with a lot of men to be frank on the brand side.
• 11:56
  who are looking at these ideas that I tend to lean into like solving complex societal dynamics with creativity, which is ultimately what goodbye is. And so I was pitching that and just growing a little bit, like my ideas weren't getting like the light of day that I wanted them to. And so personally, I was feeling a little disconnected.
• 12:17
  um, from my work because I felt like I could do so much more, especially when it was on me and just myself. So even though I was running the creative department, I didn't feel like I had enough control or power to be able to make and affect those changes. And I just felt personally like intuition is everything for me. Like I had a bigger purpose and I was toying with a lot of entrepreneurial ideas with my co-founder, um, Carrie, uh, who's a friend, um,
• 12:43
  And we were going back and forth. And I can get into that story later if you want about how we met, which is fun. But we're moms of two children under four each. We live blocks away from each other. We met when we moved to Boise together. And she's like the most incredible human. And we're very different in a lot of ways and just complement each other. And so we've been toying. She's entrepreneurial as well. And while I was at my job, still talking about things.
• 13:09
  And we both had our babies. And my baby was not even a month old, my second baby. His name's Sydney. And cute. Love, Sydney. Thank you. I was breastfeeding him at 4.15 a.m., I think it was, because we still have the text. And a light bulb just went off.
• 13:29
  And I had had this experience where I had just gotten back from traveling to Canada. Like I said, my parents owned a small business my whole life, a couple of small businesses that did really well, but also had their ups and downs. You know, they shared with me struggles of people coming in and then price matching on Amazon, going back to buy it.
• 13:46
  you know, on bigger retailers. And so I saw a lot of those firsthand struggles, but when I visited them, you know, I saw that they were selling hydro flasks and this sounds like a simple aha moment, but there's a big POP display point of purchase display. And there's, you know, hydro flasks and water bottles that they're selling. And I just like, it hit me
• 14:06
  that there are thousands of retailers selling the same products that I had just bought Hydro Flask on Amazon. And I didn't need it the day after. I didn't. And I just bought it on Amazon and it hit me. I was like, my purpose needs to be
• 14:22
  creating visibility for small businesses because why all these humans want this they want to see these products that small businesses have they would choose to purchase them but they can't see them and so that was literally what was going through my head that night when I woke up breastfeeding Sid and he's sitting there and it's dark and every mom knows what it's like and I'm like is this a fever dream what the hell is going on in my life but it hit me and I text Carrie and
• 14:48
  And I said, oh my gosh. I said, I don't know if this is possible. I'm not a technical person. I said, but we need to create a browser extension like Honey, those of you who use it, that intercepts all of your reflexive consumption purchases
• 15:06
  and offers you the same products or better from small businesses aligned with your values. And that's still the pitch that we use. That was literally like, we have the text going up on a blog post we shared and I sent it to her. Obviously she was not awake then, but the funny part is,
• 15:21
  She also had a baby, woke up like 45 minutes later. And I think the text said, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. It was just like, no one's doing this. She just kept going. She's like, this is the best idea ever. We are doing this when you wake up, call me. And I'm like, I'm getting chills talking about it now. And I'm hoping this business becomes as big as we hope it is to create that visibility for small business, because there's something incredible about the realization that you
• 15:51
  you know, founder while also like accomplishing something really good. And so that's obviously our hope for this business. So anyway, we text each other and that's basically the end of the story. It was February of this year that I texted her that.
• 16:06
  What? February of this year. So we... That's crazy. Yeah. That's fast. It's fast. So speed is the story of me as a human. Everybody hears jokes. I talk a mile a minute and I own it. I own it proudly. I talk a mile a minute and I move really quickly. And so does Carrie. So we've got two children under four. That was obviously a very difficult thing. We were both in a pandemic.
• 16:31
  We're watching our children, but also working full-time jobs. We both had, we're both fortunate to have enough childcare to help us out. But we worked on this proposal evenings and
• 16:42
  And during nap time, so she would come over and our husbands would get together in another house to watch the kids. And she'd come over and her kids would wake up while we were working on this deck and she'd throw candy in the room and close the door. Like, it's hilarious, our founder story. But we worked on the investor deck for about a month and then called a friend of mine, I just mentioned we're not technical co-founders, who started an incredible company called Purpose Lab.
• 17:07
  They build tech for good and other tech. And he just happens to be a good friend of mine. So we were lucky in that way. And I pitched him in our garage. I was hiding from my kids in our garage with our ugly deck that did not look anything like our current brand and said, is this possible? Like, can we do this? And he like, in his stoic way, in his like dry way was like, we can do this.
• 17:34
  It's brilliant. Nobody's done it before. Let me get back to you with a proposal. And so like, I wasn't even asking him to work on it. I was just asking him if it was possible. And so it's important to our journey because we have had a lot of these moments where people are like, how is nobody doing this? You know, how is nobody using this technology in this way? And it's actually a really elegant, simple solve. It doesn't require a lot of tech, which is why we're able to scale so quickly.
• 18:02
  So we kept it really hushed so nobody was able to copy us, you know, until we launched and have taken hopefully the right steps to get us where we are. So we were fully funded, fully funded in words, but not with money in the bank. In July, which is when I quit my job, we didn't actually start working until I believe it was mid-July inside of an office together, Carrie and I.
• 18:28
  We launched the wait list and brand as we began building the tech in October. So we had about two months, I think, before we did that. And then we launched the actual tool and full scale brand this literally two and a half weeks ago.
• 18:43
  So it has been the fastest scaling. We didn't imagine this as wild. That is mind-blowing to me. How much money did you have to raise? Like, what's the cost to build a Chrome extension? And you can be vague. You can give a ballpark. Fine. But like, where are we talking with something like this? So, you know, for Carrie and I, it's tricky because I think the cost to build the Chrome extension is,
• 19:09
  wasn't crazy. You know, we're talking like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands. Um, but like from the, from the ground up, you know, and the way that we're doing it, the way that we're vetting businesses, like all that technology that we built into there, um, was not complex, but decently complicated. So it required some spend the real thoughtfulness, which Carrie and I understand is like, listen, if you're
• 19:36
  creating tech that is, it's not necessarily easy to replicate, but easier to replicate. This isn't like a patented thing that we're doing. We understood that building trust with our consumers is number one for us, being authentic and human and ourselves and,
• 19:53
  And having people understand that like, these are the owner identities we support. This is what we understand about them, that the team we're building encompasses those owner identities, that we are honoring our communities, but also listening and being able to say like, shit, we got it wrong. You know, this is the space we're living in. We understand it. We are human. We are not here to save the world. We're here to try and create something that benefits humanity and especially small businesses. So,
• 20:22
  For us, to answer your question in the most long-winded way possible, we needed more money than that to actually build the brand, to think about engaging people. We hired a social impact strategist. It was one of our first hires. Most brands wouldn't hire that until they're way down the road. But for us, the integrity of what we represent, the communities we represent, the
• 20:45
  the causes we're trying to support, what we're trying to do, it was really important to us to bring in Sienna. So what does that role, what does that actually mean? Like what does she do on a day-to-day basis or what are her kind of like quarterly goals and targets that she's working towards?
• 21:00
  Yeah, so we should have her on at some point or have her on to chat. But low-key, in the beginning, it's really about understanding our retail partners because we're serving this community. And we only know so much. You know, we've owned this small business. I've seen my parents' small business.
• 21:19
  I'm firsthand the one to admit I need to have conversations to understand what small businesses deal with on the daily, how our tool can help them. And so for her right now, it's about building community with our various owner identities, small business owners.
• 21:34
  the complexities they deal with in their everyday lives, and then as well in how they bring their business to life and how we can create visibility for them. So for now it is really about the retailer community. We're currently actually for all your community out there, we are currently building an incredible advisory board for goodbye. That is built of at least one individual who's a small business owner from every single one of our identities. And oftentimes they intersect identities. We have, um,
• 22:02
  about half of the board seats committed. And it doesn't have a huge investment, but we are looking for founders from our owner identities to join that board to help us make this product and evolve this product in the best ways possible for the community. So she's really looking to build that as well. And so she's just started out with us. The other things, you know, so our seed round, we're still obviously utilizing those seed funds.
• 22:28
  is in the just upwards of a million. I'm comfortable saying that. So we are not looking to raise again yet. We're in a comfortable place, but we've hired a couple of key individuals, sort of a data analyst operations, a guy named Terry, who, I mean, our team, our culture is everything to us. I just have to say that. This is not just Terry and I building this while we came up with the idea and accelerated this from the beginning. We have the most incredible humans
• 22:55
  who are just so equally passionate about what we're doing. Our director of marketing who came in from a local Boise company, you know, also identifies with one of our, with one of our owner identity values. And so we have a really, I feel like great, still not as comprehensive as we'd like perspective though, on the communities we're serving. And all of our team is just raring to go and super excited. So we needed that money to build a small enough team to build the brand trust,
• 23:25
  To get the tool up and running and then to continue to evolve things at the pace that we're evolving them now. Develop new tools. We've got so much coming down the pike. So, oh my gosh. Yeah. Gosh, I'm just so into it. This is amazing. How do you monetize something like this? Like, do you make a commission on the sale? Is it through advertising? Is it through marketing?
• 23:45
  partnerships, what's the monetization strategy on a Google Chrome extension? And even if you can share like other examples for other Chrome extensions, like maybe not similar, I guess Honey would be, maybe they would take, anyway, you go. So they all kind of differ, but many are the same as what we're doing. So we are the biggest aha moment that Carrie and I had when we started building. We're like, okay, it's an extension and it pops up and then we're like, okay, well,
• 24:09
  To get an investor, we need to monetize. We literally are working through this in a new way. This is not either of our backgrounds. So we very quickly realized that there are no values-based affiliate networks and databases in existence.
• 24:26
  So there, it's like a wild thought to think about in the era that we live in. You know, we, there are tons of affiliate networks of big business, right? So you've got like, you know, CB2, Critten Barrel, like all these huge furniture companies who are in giant affiliate networks. And, you know.
• 24:44
  you have, you know, beauty brands and giant affiliate networks. And some of them aren't like that. Some of them are just really random affiliate networks, but none of them just centered around values. And so that's truly what we're building is like the world's largest and only values driven affiliate network and database in existence for small business. So it's like all these small businesses have kind of been on their own for so long. Like I'm sure a lot of the, the women founders listening in the, and,
• 25:11
  those that don't identify as women listening, you know, will have that, you know, mentality and understand that like, they have been sort of like, they're individual, and they're cool, and they're awesome, but they're like out there fending for themselves, right? As small businesses. And then there's all these giant corporations with SEO and with giant marketing budgets, when you're going on to search, we're just like getting in the way, like they have no chance to
• 25:36
  you know, before we built Goodbuy. So basically there's a bunch of affiliate networks out there, thousands, thousands of affiliate networks that serve a lot of big business, you know, and you can join current affiliate networks as small business, but they aren't, in my experience, in my conversation with small business, they're not really serving small business owners. And so again, what's an example? Because I'm just trying to like actually understand truly what you mean when you're saying affiliate network. Yeah.
• 26:01
  So let me explain how the affiliate network works. So, or at least how our business works. So when you sign up as a retailer or as a small business for Goodbye and to be a part of the Goodbye network, you are signing up to a community that is served up to consumers that,
• 26:23
  in a multitude of ways. So you take that network of retailers and we serve them up and deploy them in a multitude of ways. Right now, that way happens to be our browser extension. And so when you're searching, you're searching our database, our network of businesses, small businesses align with your values. We can talk about the vetting structure and how we work through all those different values hereafter. But essentially when they pop up,
• 26:51
  and from a business model monetization model that we talked about, this is how it works. They pop up. You've searched for, here, I'll start with an example. You search for heart-shaped sunglasses. You're like, I want heart-shaped sunglasses. And I'm on, I'm on Target. And I type them in there because that's just where I go. And that's fine. And I look at Target and I'm not, I'm not that happy with it. And oh, voila, goodbye pops up. And we've got,
• 27:15
  75, a notification for 75 heart-shaped sunglasses from small businesses. You know, oftentimes you have that many. And you scroll through and you see, you look at them and you're like, okay, that image looks rad. I want to kind of see. And this small business looks like it's women-owned because you can see our little tag. You click on that business. You look at it and you say, that's awesome. Add to cart. Once that's added to cart and you purchase it.
• 27:38
  You'll get a little applause that says, woohoo, you shopped a good buy. Isn't it feel good? And then our business will make that profit that they otherwise would not have made because our tool is creating that visibility for them to override the SEO of big business. And we take an affiliate commission.
• 27:52
  So many, so that's, so it's, that's as simple as it is. We do not make money until our, our retailers and small businesses do money that they otherwise would not have made because that person would not have seen them in a traditional search. So the idea is not to take away any business from anything they're doing already. It's to.
• 28:09
  create more visibility, amplify their visibility so that the more people download our tool, the more consumers have access to that sort of override of SEO, you know, and marketing budget. So I mean, we've all had this experience. You're looking for a couch and you're like, I'm seeing the same freaking five businesses all burn over and not the couch I want, you know, and those businesses are great if that's what you want in that couch. But yeah.
• 28:33
  There are literally like, it's shocking when the tool comes up. I had, we had a, an individual talk about, he went to go on Amazon to buy like a simple armoire and was like, goodbye, like had the most insane, insane experience for me because he went on, he bought a cheaper armoire, found 10 businesses with armoires he liked better, and then felt incredible about his purchase. And that's the moments that we're looking for. So from a monetization standpoint, because I tend to get all over the place and I'm really passionate
• 29:03
  strictly affiliate commission model. Um, a business has to be in our network, you know, to be, to be served and our affiliate network isn't actually up and running it because we're so new. So right now for transparency to everybody, we are non-revenue generating and I'm totally comfortable saying that. So we are literally sending people to small businesses right now for free. Now's the time to sign up. Now's the time to sign up. Yeah. We've got, um,
• 29:30
  We've been live for two weeks and with only 500 customers, we've only had organic growth. We haven't done a lot of media or anything yet. We have over 500 and we're at 550 downloads of the extension, which we're pretty proud of in two weeks.
• 29:46
  I'm one of them. I just sent it to my girlfriends. That'll be one of them too. Thank you. Thank you. And 27,000 searches. So people who have decided to make the change in download are using this at an incredible rate. Really great purchasing rate already. And we've diverted, I think we're now at about $17,000 in two weeks to small businesses that otherwise would not have been seen.
• 30:15
  Literally, that revenue would not be in their accounts if it weren't for this override of the SEO and the marketing budgets of big business. So we're just really excited. Mind-blowing. That is so cool. Yeah, it's a small number right now, but we're super excited about it because when we can get those large numbers of consumers to download, yes, our business will eventually be more profitable from it. We're a business.
• 30:41
  but it's going to affect so much change for small business. And one thing I also want to make clear is I made a point earlier that I didn't close the loop on about small businesses feeling really siloed, you know, and I know that from the conversations we've had that like they build their own little communities and incredible humans are,
• 31:00
  And Nicole, the founder at Kinfield, has created this group of women founders and diverse founders who are sort of like in communication with each other and trying to help each other with their business. But there's never been anything done at a large scale. So while Goodbye is about like this affiliate network and profitability for small business and visibility and all those things, it's also long term about merging the power of all of these small businesses together to be able to compete.
• 31:30
  with these big businesses. And I'm not saying like to take over, we know that's not going to happen, but it's just to even it out, you know? And, and I really truly feel, and Carrie and I truly feel that elevating individuality, this like radical inclusivity, that,
• 31:46
  bringing all these humans together, connecting them, sharing best practices. Like why shouldn't a sustainable business be able to say, we're killing it in biodegradable packaging. Let's share our story with your whole network so that everyone can make the planet better. So for us, it's about like doing, we call it doing gooder.
• 32:06
  you know, and supporting the humans behind the URLs. I love like all these little taglines that we've created, but it's really important to us to erase the facade of like a business being like, you know, this really raw, you know,
• 32:22
  just like facade and bring the humans behind them forward. So I took that question in a whole different amount of ways. So many good storytelling opportunities for you. I'm like, wow, like I can just see you having like a really strong newsletter. I can see you having like a really strong TikTok. I can see you having such strong kind of content opportunities.
• 32:43
  like introducing all of these small brands and telling those small stories, like, and, you know, the impact of what you're doing. Um, I can just see such great like content pieces for this. This is amazing. We're helping. I wanted to ask you, um, I mean, you've just launched your two weeks in, how does one get 183,000 brands on a platform?
• 33:08
  What is going on there? That's incredible. Yeah. Okay. So it's, it is an incredible thing and we are super stoked about it. And like I said to you, all of those businesses that are in our database, we are just sending them customers. So they're oftentimes seeing a new order for $120 and
• 33:27
  having to go back into their backend on Shopify. So I'll explain this in a second on Shopify to see, oh wow, what's goodbye. And then they find us that way. And so right now there are many actual retail partners that we have, some incredible small brands who we reached out to, who have found out about us, who are actively aware that they are part of our network. And the rest of those businesses are just being sent money, free money essentially, and free customers
• 33:56
  bring awareness to our tool and to what we're doing. And so the way that we got to that is a little complicated. I can share some of it. Some of it is a little bit trade secrets. So I'll do my best. If my co-founder was here, she'd be like nudging me because I'm a loose lip talker. So I'll watch myself and make sure that I overshare. Yeah. It's so funny. Yeah. Every time Carrie and I have done an interview, I'm like, she does this thing with her hand and it's like, stop, stop.
• 34:26
  So all of our businesses within our database are Shopify stores. That isn't because we want to alienate anybody on any other site. It is because Shopify provides a really clean opportunity for us to be able on the back end to scrape product inventory and to pull in that information more clearly.
• 34:49
  And with the money that we received for our start, it was enough to handle Shopify. It's also the largest, I think it's something like, I don't have my stats always correct. Again, something Carrie would nudge me for, but I think it's about 90% of small businesses are on Shopify. So it worked out for us that from a tech standpoint, it's the most easy to integrate into what we were building. So essentially...
• 35:16
  we were able to use a mixture of third-party data, a lot of research, and a special tool that we've built to understand the scale of a business. So that is how we identify with a business that's truly small. And we use, right now, for now, we're using the Small Business Administration standards. So that is sort of a proprietary process in how we bring in all those businesses and then be able to sort
• 35:41
  and decide, okay, these cannot be in our database. They are way too big. And then these obviously can be. And so we take any business size at the start and then all the way through to...
• 35:55
  an employee size under 50, but the small business administration standards are really about different categories. So I'm not going to pull open that document because it's really boring, but we ask businesses to self identify and confirm legally that they identify within these categories, represent them as a small business. So, you know, it's generally, you know, 6 million a year, um,
• 36:20
  6 million a year in gross revenue and under. So a lot of people have this notion that small business is like local and mom and pop. And we're really trying to get reeducate people and get them away from that because while it can be, and it is mom and pop, small business is also so much bigger than that. There are so many people who can hear that number of 6 million gross revenue. It's not that much when you spread it over the employees, when you spread it over. So, you know, and that's 6 million, just to be clear.
• 36:49
  is one of the standards. In each vertical, it's different. Jewelry is different. I'm sure you've had experience with this, but small business standards can range wildly. And so we use those financial revenue standards, but we don't use the employee standard because after conversations we've had with many businesses, turnover, part-time employees,
• 37:08
  their standard of 25 employees or under is not really applicable. A lot of businesses are still very small and have more than 25 employees. And so those are the standards we use. We use that kind of tool to bring in those businesses. And then we take that giant list, which is ultimately our 183,000 businesses,
• 37:27
  And we vet those businesses. I can't like fully share exactly how we do it, but we do it very thoughtfully. We worked for months. That was the largest part of our, you know, of our July into December launch was confirming with 99% accuracy that
• 37:44
  the businesses we were identifying as sustainable, as vegan, as cruelty-free, as American made, as women-owned, as family-owned, all had already self-identified in that way. So they've gone through and actually like been like, yeah, okay, I know what goodbye is. I like confirm X, Y, and Z. Like, yes, I approve this kind of thing. That's massive. So they've, no, so just to clarify, they've either done that, yes. So we have hundreds of businesses who have done that.
• 38:13
  But the rest of them have self-identified inside of their own sites, their own Instagram channels. And so we are never making an assumption, ever.
• 38:26
  in our vetting structure. We know how detrimental that can be to various communities, specifically certain communities in LGBTQIA, you know, audience. We have very strict, and if Carrie was on, she would talk a lot about our security policies and the protecting of our communities. We have very strict data privacy embedded in what we're doing. That's a conversation for another day,
• 38:48
  People are self-identifying either within their application to good buy. And long term, that's what it will require as people begin to join our affiliate network, which is going to launch in February. As small businesses begin to actually, you know, download our plug in and become a part of our affiliate network.
• 39:05
  they will go through a legal process in that of self-identifying. So it is all self-designation, but for now, the current businesses in there have self-identified in one or more places that they are actively, you know, inside of their about pages, inside of their, um,
• 39:21
  their Instagram channels. And so a lot of businesses will come on and be like, well, you don't have me tagged as women owned or black owned. And like, I identify with this group. And I'm like, that's because we didn't want to get anything wrong. If you don't identify in that way, currently outwardly publicly, you're not in our database that way. So you'll have to go through our, you know, our system to validate that. So we wanted to be very thoughtful and careful about those. And then as far as our business values go,
• 39:46
  sustainable, we have, you can actually go to our, our Instagram page and our blog that will be up soon, which actually we have a different blog post on each of our values that talk about the criteria that we're currently using to evaluate businesses as sustainable as vegan. And they're pretty strict. Most of these businesses need one or more certification that, that they're 100% of their products, you know, fall into these categories.
• 40:10
  I mean, so cool. That's incredible. I love it. I love it all. I'm conscious of the time. So I have one more question for you, and then we're going to dive into the six quick questions. What is your most important piece of advice for entrepreneurs coming into 2022? It's probably not, you know, as far as based on a year, you know, 2022, whatever year it is. I think when people ask me this question, I'm,
• 40:39
  My personal feeling always relates to my experience coming out of corporate culture, making a really good salary, you know, taking a leap of faith while I had children. And I'm in a fortunate, privileged situation that I could, you know, take a leap of faith. So I wanna honor that and say that out loud. But I think as a woman specifically, and your audience, largely women or women female identifying,
• 41:08
  Honoring your own intuition more than you usually do, I think would be my biggest piece of advice. I personally feel really...
• 41:19
  excited that I made this change that I thought for a long time, you know, when I was coming up with entrepreneurial ideas, it was hard for me to, to leave something that was so comfortable, that provided so much for my family that I loved. Like I liked my old job a lot and I felt rewarded by it, but I always had this nagging feeling to do more. And I thought that I was fulfilled there, you know, and I think,
• 41:47
  it just changed for me. The second I took the sleep of faith, I'm making shit money now, being honest, because I'm putting it into my company and I am not where I, where I was as far as like, you know, I'm scaling this, but the benefit of taking that leap of faith, like I know people say it and I don't know how to get into people's heads, but
• 42:07
  building something your own, if you're that type of person and you feel invigorated by new conversations and new communities and, you know, and helping serve your community while also building a business. Like I feel so fulfilled by the job I'm doing now and the money doesn't even matter anymore. And I know that the challenges are there. And I know that's a privileged thing to say. I am so hyper aware of that, but I'm,
• 42:33
  I just, it's a different level. It's just like they say, when you have kids, you never knew that you could feel that kind of love before and you just don't know it till you know it. I feel that way about this business. And I think that's my biggest piece of advice. Like, obviously just don't leave your job without a plan, you know, and don't, you know, just take a leap of faith without like having some due diligence, you know, in there. But for me, the best thing I ever did was just starting to go in and pitch to people.
• 43:01
  And getting the reception for your own thinking in a way that was like so new was so fulfilling. And I just feel, and that fulfillment has become, I think from Carrie and I both infectious with our team. Like we just, I don't want to lose this culture we have with the eight of us that are here. Like I want to hire everybody that's listening to this podcast that is just as passionate as we are. Like, yeah.
• 43:25
  I think me being so fulfilled has, and Carrie being so fulfilled, has created this like new sense of purpose for all of the people working here. So I think that's my biggest piece of advice is like trusting your intuition. Don't wait. Like, you know, I left my career at 36, you know, and I'm really happy I did it. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing.
• 43:49
  Six quick questions, some of which we might have covered, some of which we might have to tweak because you're early on in this kind of launch phase. Sure, sure, sure. Question number one, though, this is a good one. What's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? I think for me, it's what we talked about at the beginning of this. You know, maybe I'll take it from a different vantage point.
• 44:10
  I love shopping. Like that is, this sounds silly and shallow, but like the core of my being is like I'm on Instagram and I want to buy things and I'm on trips and my best memories on trips are walking into small businesses, whether it's in Southeast Asia or whether it's in San Francisco and the interaction that you have with like a small business owner and feeling like you
• 44:35
  impacted their business and their lives, but then also having like an item that's meaningful with memories and
• 44:42
  that feels more intentional is part of my purpose. Like that feeling I have, I wanted it to be my job. I wanted it to feel like that for everybody. I want every, like our mission at Goodbye is, yes, it's about conscious shopping, but I always say like our mission is to make shopping feel good by making conscious shopping easy. It's not forefront conscious shopping. It's like shopping feels like shit right now. A lot of the time you're either feeling gross because you bought a bunch of items on Instagram from an influencer or
• 45:09
  that you aren't really using and they're sitting in your closet with the tag on, or you're just like, this is not quality, or you're buying it on mega retailers too often and feeling gross about the lack of sustainability or the packages at your door. And so for me, it's just about feeling good. And like, I want to feel good in our work culture. I want more people to feel good about shopping. I want the small businesses to feel good about getting more visibility and purchases. I want them to feel good about like connecting with each other and building more communities. And so,
• 45:37
  it's our mission as a company. It's my mission as a human to feel good. It's my mission for the culture here. And so that is my why. Shopping makes me feel good. Supporting, you know, conscious behaviors makes me feel good. Helping the planet makes me feel good. And I think it does for others. So that's the why. I'm with you. I love that. I'm all about that. That's a great answer. Question number two, I'm going to tweak this one slightly. What?
• 46:00
  Have you had any cool marketing moments so far in the journey? Is there anything that stands out to you that's been like, oh, wow. So we, like I said to you up front, I'm waiting for our like insane marketing moment. Maybe this is it. I'm waiting for an insane marketing moment. We're two weeks in. We didn't know we'd be able to launch so soon during the holiday season, during Konica, during Christmas. Yeah.
• 46:23
  We did not have a lot of time to spend on media, which I know a lot of the other founders by, you know, not two weeks in, but six months in, I've got some good stories there. So we are waiting on those big media hits. We're hoping to engage those media hits, you know, post-holiday to answer the question about currently two answers. We've had insane organic growth just because of people like yourself who, once they actually download this thing are like, whoa,
• 46:52
  Like, this is crazy. Like, this actually comes up. And I am actually buying from businesses. Our conversion rate is really high. So, sorry, I should clarify. Once someone actually downloads the tool and starts shopping, we 11% of the time are diverting that purchase right now. That's crazy. So it's crazy and it's awesome. And we hope that eventually even goes up. But that's a crazy stat. But,
• 47:17
  The conversion to downloads is harder. So that's our biggest challenge is getting people to say, oh, I'm going to put this on my Chrome browser, you know, and it's so easy. And that's the thing I keep having to tell people. So organic growth through people sharing through real people being like, oh, my God, when they have that moment, like reaction shots, you like yourself, sending it to your friends, being like, do you know this existed?
• 47:40
  you know, is really, we've had a lot of growth, like naturally, you know, and organically like that. So I'm really happy about it. And as far as, you know, unique partnerships so far, we had, we were connected early on with this incredible company called Transanta. And if your followers haven't followed them, they should.
• 48:00
  They support trans youth all over the US. Underprivileged trans youth, underrepresented trans youth share their stories. It's heart-wrenching. On their Instagram, they share letters and ask for gifts or monetary donations and TransHanta builds a registry.
• 48:19
  that allows people like us to give to those individuals after we read their stories. It's just an incredible cause. And Kyle, who started Transenta, we got connected with them. And we basically created this partnership and then ultimately got connected with PopSugar.
• 48:39
  And we built, us in conjunction with Transanta, built a list of 10 trans-owned businesses from our tool to support, you know, with your gift giving and ultimately created visibility for Transanta, for ourselves, for the trans businesses, the trans identifying businesses in our database. And it was a really great moment for us so far because it built community. The businesses were so excited.
• 49:03
  to see themselves on pop sugar, you know, and for people to be sharing that and just such a good cause. So that's what our business is all about. So I'm hoping there's a lot more opportunities like that. I love that. That's amazing. Congrats. Question number three, where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to at the moment? Okay. So I have two kids under four.
• 49:24
  So spare time is non-existent. I think I got ready today with me holding them. As far as reading and listening to, I mentioned to you earlier, podcasts are my jam. So I'm like 10 minutes on the way. I live in Boise. It's really easy to get to work. My commute's about four minutes. So I listen in pieces, just to be honest. I listen in pieces a lot to podcasts. So how I built this is a big one. I mentioned to you earlier in a similar podcast to this Second Life,
• 49:52
  Because I come from a corporate background of many, many years, that podcast is about transitioning out of corporate life into founder life. So it was huge for me in moving into this world. I'm now listening, you know, to yours a ton because I have found so much value already. So plugging you here because it's amazing. Thank you. As far as books, books are my escape. I'm not, I'm a big nighttime reader to calm my mind down. So I'm not a big, you know, reading books about business. I read a lot of books about other things.
• 50:22
  But I get, I think the best way to answer this question is community for me. So my husband jokes that I can't be alone. I do not like being alone. And I say it with love because I am empowered, motivated, always learning by the people I'm surrounded by.
• 50:42
  The people we've hired have taught me more than I've, like in the last three months, I've learned so much from them. Our investors are incredible partners to us, learn so much from them. I am a conversationalist. So networking, being around individuals has been great.
• 51:01
  it's my education. So I just call it like conversation is currency. That's kind of what I've always referred to it as. Like for me, it's like payment in the bank. Like that's how I learn. Obviously news and things like that are important to me as well, but non-traditionally, I think I've learned the most in my life from those conversations with unique individuals. And then I would just add for those who are women also in the agency world, this conversation,
• 51:26
  upbringing on the agency side, not on the brand side, exposed me to so many companies and having to learn really quickly about the inner workings of how they function and how they make money and how they talk to consumers. Like I'm talking stuff from all the way from Lego to trucking business, to waste management, to like,
• 51:51
  And I'm sure a lot of people in the sort of advertising world will agree with me is that it makes you able to kind of talk about anything. And it also makes you open to learning about things and giving you context from all these worlds. So one of the best things I got from my previous life is that like education and everything. Honestly, like the deep dives I've done into different aspects of tech. It's just enough to be dangerous. So I don't know enough about all of them. But enough to have that like...
• 52:18
  conversation propulsion, you know, and like food for thought and listening to all sorts of different aspects of, you know, for people from different walks of life. So that's been really big for me. But again, it's all conversation and learning.
• 52:31
  I love that. I love it. Question number four, how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and motivated and successful? I think I win the day when my kid doesn't wake me up before seven, because I would like to have my morning to myself, but normally they're screaming on the monitors and I've got to get them. So that's a joke, but that is when the true wins for me
• 52:55
  And I've talked about our team a lot. But the true wins for me are when we have small moments or big moments of celebration with the team in here. Like when we pop the bottle of champagne, I think Carrie almost hit me in the head with a cork. You know, when we first launched and we're just like crying and hugging each other and just we're very vulnerable people in our business. And so wins for me are people sharing their life experiences, us. Yeah.
• 53:20
  having a lot of laughter and engagement and our team just feeling really good about what we're doing and proud of like small moments and big moments. That's, that's how I'm motivated. Amazing. Question number five is if you were given a thousand dollars of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend it in the business? Not a lot of money, but to show what's the most important spend of a dollar for you.
• 53:45
  Okay. I feel like I can answer this in two ways because the most important spend of a dollar for us right now is probably marketing. You know, customer acquisition is huge for us right now.
• 53:56
  eventually, you know, retailer small business acquisition would be important. So the rational business part of me is like, we would spend that on either, you know, influencer marketing or Facebook ads, you know, something pretty specific there, like targeted ad spend. The other part of me that's human wants to split that and bonus my employees for all the hard work they did over launch. Like we were, we launched on small business Saturday, which was
• 54:19
  very apropos, but it was over American Thanksgiving. So a lot of them were all up working late and hard. So my, my true gut is to split it and bonus the current employees. That's amazing. And last question, how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset when things don't go to plan? Yeah, I think, um,
• 54:40
  If I'm being completely honest and transparent, my initial gut reaction is like a internal, partially external freak out because that's just how I'm wired. But I'm very quick to adapt to problem solving. I can't stand inefficiencies. It's kind of my flaw, but also what keeps me working so quickly is I don't like talking in circles. I'm not a big fan of wallowing in things and talking about those same things over and over when they're negative.
• 55:10
  So I generally have this moment of like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And I'm a little reactive in those moments. And likely the way that I would handle it in a business situation is Carrie and I going into another room and just kind of like saying everything we need to say out loud to each other to sort through it. But usually within 10 minutes, you know, I'm like, okay, okay.
• 55:31
  problem solve, you know, and it's like, how can we work our way, use our superpowers to work through some of those challenges, use our contacts to work through some of those challenges. I do want to say though, like how important those little failures are and those moments of reality checks, you know, where not just in this business, but before, you know, you think something's going to be like incredible. And then you get hit with a client who's just like,
• 55:56
  this doesn't work or these ideas aren't working or show doesn't go off without a hitch or, you know, I'm a perfectionist. So it really hurts, which is why I have those strong reactions to things when they happen initially, but I don't like things sitting in the negative for a long time. And so I think that,
• 56:14
  just bucking up and working through those challenges become the biggest moments of learning. We've already had, in our, in our few short months of, you know, starting this product, we've already had so many of those, those, oh shit moments, you know, our Facebook ads like turned off because our initial credit, like this is ridiculous, but like, we're so new. Our credit cards didn't know all these charges were for like Facebook ads. And so
• 56:39
  we got basically they're like, we're not going to pay you anymore. And so all the ads that started performing were,
• 56:45
  were just like, then they just got pulled down to start over. And so it's like those moments where we're just like, deep breath, you know, carrying rights on here. We all love Ted Lasso. So we have like Believe up in our office. And we've also got like a, you know, deep breath, drink water thing up on our whiteboard, which is just like, this shit happens all the time when you're starting a business. So we've had a lot of those moments where we're like, in, out, not the end of the world. We're going to figure this out. So yeah, those moments become bonding too.
• 57:14
  I need to write those. I need to write deep breath. Deep breath, drink water. Deep breath, drink water. Yeah, we were all like crazy. She wrote it on the board. Yeah, exactly.
• 57:24
  Cara, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today. I love what you're doing. I'm such a fangirl. And I think there are going to be so many people listening who are feeling the same. And I'm excited to see where you take this. Thank you so much, June. This was great. It was great meeting you. And I really love those headphones. I think if I can do like a total shameless plug, because I want to just make sure that people know where to go and what to do. So
• 57:50
  you're a small business and you're listening, go on the site and apply through our small business channel in there. And also just like reach out to us on Instagram. We're really trying to build that advisory board and, you know, connect with the community. But most importantly, right now, if you're a consumer who wants to shop more consciously, just go to trygoodbye.com and it's B-U-Y. And then you just click the install button, be on your computer.
• 58:13
  So that's one thing I want to address. I know I'm never able to close a conversation, so I might as well do this. We obviously right now have a desktop Chrome browser extension. So you've got to open your computer and you have to shop more intentionally on your computer to use Goodbye right now. We will very shortly be coming out with a mobile hack for our search functionality. And then right after that, a mobile browser extension in the new year. So if you want to start engaging with Goodbye, seeing how it works, desktop is the way.
• 58:39
  And then we'll do mobile later because that's a lot of the feedback we get. So I just wanted to address it because I know a lot of people would be like, well, shit, I'm shopping on my phone all the time. So 100%. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming soon. We'll be waiting. Yeah. Thank you so much. Dune, you're awesome.
• 58:58
  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.
• 59:22
  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.
• 59:45
  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.
• 1:00:02
  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.
• 1:00:26
  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.
• 1:00:49
  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.