Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How to start a candy brand and unblock self limiting beliefs, with Behave’s Mayssa Chehata

Transcript

How to start a candy brand and unblock self limiting beliefs, with Behave’s Mayssa Chehata · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Mesa Chahada for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. I'm your host, Doon Roshin, and joining me on the show today is Mesa Chahada, founder of the Better For You candy brand, Behave.
• 0:26
  Behave is a modern, low-sugar, low-net-carb candy brand helping you reclaim your cravings with its debut product, Gummy Bears. Bringing a culinary-first approach, Behave is reinventing the candy experience with Better For You, chef-crafted sweets, elevated flavors, and all-natural ingredients. It's rebelling against the notion that candy can't be good for you.
• 0:50
  In this episode, we're covering how Mesa built one of her key partnerships with a celebrity chef through Cold Outreach. The tools she used to unblock her limiting beliefs around money and what that meant when it came time to fundraise. And her key learnings around networking and building your personal community.
• 1:09
  And while I've got you here, this is my official call out to you. If you are listening to the show right now, I would love the opportunity to jump on a call and just have a chat. I'm wanting to learn more about the people who are tuning in and what's going on in your life when it comes to your business. And so if this is reaching your ears, I would be so grateful to chat and get to know you a little better.
• 1:33
  You can slide into my inbox by emailing hello at femalestartupclub.com and we can pop a date in the diary. This episode is so wild and incredibly inspiring and I hope you love it just as much as I did recording it. This is Mesa for Female Startup Club. Mesa, hi, hello and welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited. How are you today?
• 2:03
  I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, the weather has started improving in New York, so I really can't complain. Such a nice time. Nice time of the year with all the spring flowers coming out. Yes, exactly. Love to start by getting you to introduce yourself and what your business is before we jump in.
• 2:24
  Yeah, definitely. So I'm Mesa. I'm the founder of Behave. We're a better for you candy brand. So what that means for us is we make products that are low in sugar, but we don't use any artificial ingredients. So we use all natural low sugar sweeteners to make candy that still tastes amazing, but is better for you from sort of a health perspective.
• 2:48
  I love the branding. I love the vibe. I have a total sugar craving now that I've been browsing. It's so funny when you see like a sour gummy bear, it instantly makes me like have that thing that happens in your mouth. Yes, absolutely. So funny. Where does your entrepreneurial journey start? Or where does this story start rather? Yeah.
• 3:12
  Yeah, so I sort of initially got the bug for candy while I was working at another health food startup called Daily Harvest. And I mean, what I should say is that I have just always loved candy. Like from childhood, I've had such a sweet tooth. I have been, yeah, definitely like, I can acknowledge that I have an addiction to sugar and unhealthy addiction to sugar. If there's candy in front of me, like I'm gonna eat all of it.
• 3:41
  And, yeah, and I think like I joined this company, Daily Harvest, which is this amazing health food startup. And while I was there, I really started revisiting like some of my own eating habits. And I was kind of hitting that point like in my mid 20s where you can't just keep eating like you did as a kid, you know, it starts to affect you and
• 4:00
  You know, you get that like crash after you eat too much sugar, you eat too heavy. And so, yeah, just kind of was like really rethinking my own diet. And, you know, and I use the word diet just to mean what I was eating. Definitely have generally tended to stay away from like really regimented diets and more just try to eat in a way that feels good to me. But the one thing that I really couldn't kick was candy. Yeah.
• 4:23
  And it does kind of go back to that point. Like I've never been someone who's like, okay, I'm cutting sugar out completely. One, just don't have the self-control to do it. And two, like I get so much joy from eating the things that I love and eating things that, you know, taste amazing and that are nostalgic. And so candy was always such a big part of that. And even as I really was able to improve, I would say my eating and really focusing on more cleaner, whole, natural, unprocessed foods and ingredients,
• 4:53
  Uh, you know, even as I really was making that shift, candy was the thing that I just could not find a better option or a better replacement or a better alternative. And, you know, I think initially just as a consumer, I really started like walking down the aisle of Whole Foods or, um, searching the internet, trying to see if there were any brands doing anything better. Uh, you know, I think that's a good thing.
• 5:14
  And basically coming up empty. And I think, you know, then my business hat sort of went on and was like, wow, this really feels like a white space. I mean, you walk down every aisle in Whole Foods and you're finding better alternatives in every category down to even ice cream and, you know, pasta, chips, cookies.
• 5:33
  Basically, every category really felt like it was on this disruption wave. And I just got the sense that candy was behind and had not caught up. And so, you know, that was sort of the initial like wheels started turning. I ended up leaving Daily Harvest. I took another role at a company called SoulCycle. It's a boutique fitness company. But this idea around candy or this thought that there's just something missing in the candy category just stuck with me.
• 5:59
  And I became a bit obsessive, like anywhere I'd go, I'd be like, what's in the candy aisle? You know, what are there any new brands? Like what's happening? And, you know, probably a year or a year and a half passed and still just seeing nothing. And that was where I started to ask myself, OK, is this something maybe that I would want to maybe try to create a product that could address this? What seemed like an untapped need definitely for myself. And I obviously believe that it would be an untapped need for a lot of other people as well.
• 6:27
  And what year are we talking here just to set the scene for, you know, that year and a half that you were kind of pondering? Yeah. So I think probably initially had the thought around this in maybe late 2017 or maybe early 2018, sort of that winter around like 2018 and then sort of ruminated on it over the course of that year. Yeah.
• 6:53
  I did a little bit of research and, you know, came up against a lot of sort of roadblocks to really getting this started, whether it was on the manufacturing front, how to develop the product, how to develop the recipe. And so again, I ended up transitioning into a new role with SoulCycle. But then I would say it was probably around the top of 2019 that I decided, okay, let me start actually outlining what would the steps be if I wanted to get this off the ground.
• 7:19
  And started kind of working towards that on the side for my full-time job. So it was top of 2019 that I ultimately decided, you know, first question was how do we make the product, right? And so I spoke with a number of research and development labs that really are well known for candy specifically. And the vibe that I got from those conversations was very much that these labs are creating formulas and products in Excel.
• 7:46
  So basically, you know, they ask you, OK, what is the nutrition panel that you want when everything is said and done on the back of your package? What are there any ingredients that are an absolute no for you? Are there any ingredients that are you definitely want to have them? And they kind of take all that information and basically in Excel, they start creating ingredients.
• 8:05
  what they think will be a recipe that will meet those qualifications. And they will sort of deliver you that formula without ever even making it or tasting it in a lot of cases. Obviously, at some point you would try it and you would taste it. But a lot of that initial development is really done like in a hypothetical, almost like using an algorithm, very mathematical, very food science driven. And I just sort of had this inkling that maybe this is why a lot of health food products don't taste very good.
• 8:33
  because you're trying to create the formula. You're trying to back into the nutrition panel that you want instead of just getting in the kitchen, right? Which is how most amazing food is made. As you get in the kitchen, you taste things, you increase quantities, you decrease quantities until you land on something amazing. So realize I kind of didn't feel aligned with that approach to creating a health food product or a better for you product. And ultimately I connected with a woman named Elizabeth Faulkner, who's a celebrity chef. I reached out to her. I sort of had this idea that...
• 9:03
  If we want to create healthier candy, it has to taste amazing, right? We're not making protein bars. We're not making, you know, something that's a dietary supplement where maybe even if it doesn't taste super good, like people will, you know, they'll eat it like they take their spinach.
• 9:18
  This is candy. So it has to taste really, really good if people are going to give up their traditional sugar candy that they've eaten since they were kids. And frankly, that our bodies are addicted to, right? Like our bodies are addicted to that sugar. If we're going to present something different, it's going to have to taste amazing. So kind of have this...
• 9:35
  maybe epiphany that if I could find an amazing chef who could make this, then we could take this like culinary first approach where we're actually in the kitchen, like touching the ingredients with our hands and really working our way into the formula that is going to be the best tasting better for you candy in the market. So I connected with Elizabeth. So it's a very long winded, like way. No, I love it. Keep with the long winded for sure.
• 10:01
  And, um, her and I met, yeah, early 2019. I want to say, yeah, if I have the timeline correct, we basically worked on developing the product over the course of winter, spring, and summer of 2019. By the fall, we had really gotten the formula to a place where we felt so excited. We felt that it tasted amazing. We put that prototype version one formula on the shelf at a store and, um,
• 10:26
  And we sold out in three days. And that was basically the validation that I needed to leave my job and say, this is really going to work and have that conviction in the idea to ultimately leave my job. And then basically, I went in full time on the new business.
• 10:44
  And I fundraised some money from investors and then sort of was able to focus full time on working to get us from that initial prototype into obviously a fully developed product that we could launch into the market. And so, you know, I thought that that would be about a six month process and that we would launch in the spring of 2020. Obviously, 2020 had different plans for almost all of us.
• 11:08
  And so, you know, our production and our manufacturing was delayed. And ultimately, we launched at the end of the summer of 2020. And then we've just been building ever since then.
• 11:18
  full steam ahead. I saw you also sold out at some point, which is a, it's a bittersweet thing. I'm sure. I want to just go back a little bit to, I'm going to unpack a few different things here. When you met Elizabeth, how did you meet her? Is this like a cold outreach? Like, what did you say to get her interested in being involved in your project?
• 11:38
  Yeah, absolutely. Oh, wow. That actually makes me really want to go back to my first email to Elizabeth because now we're so close. We've spent so much time together and I'm actually so curious, what did I say in that first email? But it was 100% a cold outreach. So again, I had had a bunch of meetings with these R&D firms and then I had this bad gut feeling about taking that approach. And I had this thought of...
• 12:04
  I want to find an incredible chef to work with. So literally Google top female pastry chefs. I knew that someone who's worked in pastry will understand sweets and sugar and the taste palette around candy, probably better than like a traditional, you know, a chef that's doing more savory cooking.
• 12:22
  and so I knew I wanted pastry. I knew I wanted to work with a female chef, and yeah, I probably just emailed, like, the top 20 people that showed up in those Google results, cold email, whatever the email on their website was, or, you know, DMing them on Instagram, whatever it might be. I probably connected with, like, five or six people just through that cold outreach, but I connected with Elizabeth very quickly after emailing her. We had a phone call soon after, and then I think, like, a day, like, this was all, I think it was...
• 12:52
  Emailed her, heard back a day later, got on the phone a day later, got coffee like one or two days later. And it was just one of those things where it clicked immediately. Like, I don't remember exactly what the initial email said, but it probably said something along the lines of like, I want to make better, healthier candy. And I think that you would be the person to really help bring this vision to life.
• 13:13
  And, you know, again, like I spoke with several people and I spoke with several chefs, but Elizabeth and I connection was so instant because she really is bought into the mission, right? For her, it's not just about, you know, there were people that I connected with who said, okay, talk to my agent and here's the fee that I would charge. And, you know,
• 13:32
  here's a PDF of how these things are structured and how many Instagram posts I would do and whatever. With Elizabeth, it was so much more first about her wanting to know, like, why do I want to create this product? Why do I want to start this company? And then really realizing that we were so aligned on a lot of different things just related to reducing, you know, sugar in a product and a category that is, you know, traditionally fed to kids. And that is
• 14:02
  And, you know, just thinking a lot about how can we, yeah, really just impact and drive some disruption in a category that has been so stagnant for so long. I think she was really excited by that. And I think the other piece that was such a cool, like, just aspect of Elizabeth that really came out and still comes out every day is that...
• 14:23
  Elizabeth is, you know, we just have such a great relationship. She's so like easygoing. She's such a kind person. I think we really connect on an energetic level in that regard too, which is why it clicked so quickly after just a phone call and a coffee.
• 14:38
  but she's also highly competitive, which I also relate to. I try to be really relaxed and centered and grounded, but then we have this competitive edge. Elizabeth has done every cooking competition you can think of on the Food Network, Top Chef, Iron Chef, all these food competitions. Wow. Okay. She's also been the judge for them. So
• 15:00
  I think also when I told her like, hey, I want to make candy that tastes as good as the sugar candy, but with almost no sugar. I think there was also something that clicked in her mind that was like, this is going to be hard, but I'm going to do it and I'm going to make the best one.
• 15:15
  I think like that competitive edge within her comes out to sometimes that when we're in like, you know, the kitchen and doing R&D and working together and obviously testing other products that are on the market or testing other sugar candies and realizing like, wow, our candy compares. And we even have received feedback. And we obviously believe that our candy tastes even better in a lot of cases than candy dyes full of sugar.
• 15:39
  So I think that competitive spirit in her kind of came out as well. And we really, yeah, it just made for such a great match for us to work together and really start to get the ball rolling. Oh, I love that. That's so cool. And I love how you had that instant flow. And like you said, you met on an energetic level. You were there. She was able to kind of like come to the table and be like, yeah, I'm so down for this challenge. Totally.
• 16:01
  I'm interested to know about how the actual, you know, the partnership evolved. Was it kind of like a conversation being like, hey, I'm going to bring you on as a business partner, we're going to do this together? Or is it going to be, you know, you're a consultant, I'm going to pay you for your time? How does that kind of thing actually look?
• 16:17
  Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, obviously when I came to Elizabeth, I hadn't fundraised for the business. All I had was an idea. And, you know, I was still working full time in my job and I was really using just the money from my salary to fund anything that was required for the business at the time.
• 16:35
  So, you know, I, I think like the way that we sort of set things up early was basically, you know, a small consulting fee just to, you know, show that I'm invested. Like at the time, I think what I paid her out of my own pocket was probably like a massive percentage of like the money that I had. But it was really important, you know, that I.
• 16:57
  that I sort of showed and communicated that I was really serious about this. And then with a plan to pay her like the rest of what would be a reasonable rate for this kind of work upon fundraising and upon bringing in some investment.
• 17:12
  And there was an equity component as well. So, you know, Elizabeth is not necessarily involved in the day-to-day of the business. But when we have a research, anything R&D related, any new flavor development, any new recipe development, you know, she steps in and she gets really heavily involved. Her title in the company is she's our head of candy. We sometimes refer to her as like our own new age, new era Willy Wonka, which is totally her vibe too. When we're in the kitchen, like testing things, she's so in it.
• 17:42
  And, yeah. And so, yeah, she she has an equity stake in the business as well. And of course, we want her to feel really motivated behind the success of the business and really align that as the company does well. She is tapped into that as well. Absolutely. That like really future incentive to to keep at it and keep going.
• 18:04
  What made you decide to go down the route of fundraising right away? And what was the kind of things that you needed to consider to take VC capital versus, you know, bootstrapping or a loan or financing through other means? Yeah, absolutely. So I really, like I said, I was sort of bootstrapping on the side of my role. I had a salary coming in. I was kind of flipping that.
• 18:26
  putting it into whatever we needed from, you know, in the R&D process, incorporating, you know, some of those early legal fees. And so, you know, I really felt that I had gotten us like kind of as far as I could on my own capital, or just like the money that I had access to on my own. And so, you know, I knew that I would need to raise some amount of money, what ultimately, you know, and the people take it at different approaches, you can do friends and family,
• 18:53
  What I ultimately did was more of an angel round than necessarily a venture round. So we had some VCs that did invest, but on a much smaller scale. It wasn't like a, you know, one VC that put in, you know, a half a million or a million dollars. It was more like some smaller checks because we actually were very intentional that we wanted this to be an angel round. So those VC checks we did take were sort of an exception to the rule.
• 19:19
  And yeah, we just wanted to surround ourselves with the right strategic investors that were going to help bring our business to the next stage and that we're just going to be really big supporters and cheerleaders of, you know, me at the time and just our whole team and our whole business. So that's something that's actually really important to me in fundraising is.
• 19:37
  finding values aligned investors and finding investors that are really bought into the entire mission. Again, like very similar to sort of why I think I connected with Elizabeth. I think about that a lot with just kind of everyone that I surround myself and surround the business with. And obviously your investors and who is on your cap table can play a huge role in the direction that your company ultimately takes and the experience that you're going to have as a founder, right? If your investors are
• 20:04
  constantly questioning you or they don't believe in you or that's going to be a much different experience than when you have investors that are so bought into what you're doing and so excited about what you're building. So the other aspect that really played into that decision was that gummy candy has very high minimum order quantities.
• 20:22
  So that was one of the early things that I realized in the time when I was sort of still in my full time role, working on this on the side and basically trying to get this to the point where I could leave and go full time on this. I was having conversations with manufacturers and with co-packers. And what I learned is that you don't realize it, but to make gummy candy, most factories can run online.
• 20:44
  a million, if not millions of gummies in a matter of hours, because that's how massive the machinery is. So as a small business, it's very hard to convince, even find a factory that is willing to turn on their machine for you for less than those sort of millions of gummies, which, you know, can come out to a couple hundred thousand bags as a first order. Right. And when you're a startup, you're still testing and learning. You want to get, you know, in an ideal world, you want to
• 21:14
  test it out in the market, see how people respond to it, and then place larger and larger orders as your business grows. We sort of didn't have that luxury. And so I also knew that we would need enough capital to finance our first couple of orders. And that because of those larger minimum orders that there was going to be a certain amount of capital required to be able to do that. So that also definitely fueled the decision to go out and raise immediately and
• 21:39
  And then also, obviously, on a more personal level, like I said, you know, I also wanted to be able to leave my job and then take a salary and not have to like work on the side or take consulting work on the side, because I knew that once I went into this full time, I wanted to be 100% dedicated to it. And so obviously that part of that can come with fundraising as well.
• 22:00
  Totally. Having that direct focus on what you're doing and being able to give it your all. Overall, do you think it was harder than you thought it would be or easier or what you expected? Starting the business or fundraising specifically? Fundraising specifically. Well, both. Let's go both. Yeah. So I think it was...
• 22:22
  This is such an interesting question. I'm just trying to think of how to answer this without sounding as kooky as I really am. So essentially, like, I think it was easier than I expected. One, because I think I had a lot of privileges and I have a certain amount of access to capital that I really want to acknowledge and like speak to. And I'll speak to that in a second. But two, I actually did a lot of like,
• 22:46
  energetic work in partnership with a therapist also like a lot of my own reading and a lot of my own research and journaling and thinking to unblock certain limiting beliefs that I had around money and that I had around my ability to fundraise so
• 23:03
  I think just to get the first part out of the way. So prior to joining Daily Harvest, that health food startup where I really like sort of started thinking about this idea, I worked at Uber. And obviously Uber was an amazing experience for me. And I met a lot of incredible people and mentors while I was there who ultimately Uber went on to be an extremely successful company. A lot of people made a lot of money just for being early employees at Uber. So I had a lot of friends and a lot of
• 23:29
  mentors and former colleagues who, when I sort of went out and said, Hey, friends, I'm going to start a company, you know, people that were really excited to, you know, put some money behind me. And, you know, that really gets the ball rolling with the fundraise. And so I'm
• 23:44
  I'm just really grateful to, you know, a lot of those friends and mentors from that stage of my life. And, you know, but I really acknowledge that fundraising is a very different experience. If you don't have access to some of these groups of people, I also had an ex who was in the venture world. So that also opened a lot of doors for me. And so, yeah, I just do want to say, like, I think it was a quote unquote, easy. The fundraise went very quickly, but I know that there's sort of a lot of privilege that,
• 24:12
  it kind of has to be in place for that to happen. That's just not the case for everybody. The second piece is really this like,
• 24:20
  it's sort of like, I guess it's sort of goes hand in hand with manifesting. But essentially, you know, we all have, I think everybody has hang ups around money. And we all have these like learned. We have things that we've learned about money or that we've taken in as children from our family structures from society. I think for me, I had a lot of like limiting beliefs. And I had a lot of
• 24:44
  sort of deeply ingrained beliefs around money that, you know, money is dirty, that money, you know, if I have money, it means that I'm greedy. You know, money is this thing that is, I never want to be someone who like is hoarding money in the context of like society and the greater good. And so I'm,
• 25:02
  you know, with these beliefs in place, how would it be possible for me to go out in the world and actually bring in money from investors, right? Because on some subconscious level, I would actually probably sabotage myself because I don't believe that I, you know, deserve to be in charge of this amount of money, right? Or that I will be responsible with it. Or I have this belief that if I
• 25:26
  get access to all this money from collected from investors that I'm greedy in some way or that I'm, you know, this bad person. So actually really working through therapy to understand that, like, well, money actually is a tool, right? I'm not trying to get this money so I can go buy a yacht. I'm trying to get this money so we can further the mission of our company and build something that is going to hopefully really bring a lot of joy and bring something exciting and hopefully, you know,
• 25:54
  that can just be a better option for people within this candy category. And so, yeah, I think I really had to work through some of that stuff on my own. And I actually, I remember my therapist sort of saying, look, I think you have some of these limiting beliefs. We should work through them. And we did, we actually did some like pretty...
• 26:12
  spiritual kind of like energetic work that I was maybe rolling my eyes a little bit at the time when we did it. And literally we did those exercises over the course of maybe three weeks. And then I left my job and then I went out and I fundraised pretty much within two weeks. And I, you know, I can't obviously say it's like, I know that it's not just the exercise that led to the fundraise being easy, but I know that it's all tied together. So, you know, I've definitely
• 26:42
  I think a lot of people see these things as maybe more spiritual, but I actually think that they're very psychological. And I think there's a lot of neuroscience to back why you have to kind of dig down into your inner child and your subconscious and what you believe in your subconscious. You have to unblock the limiting beliefs that exist there that we develop again through our entire lives. I think especially as women, there's a lot of stuff that gets really deeply ingrained
• 27:09
  And I come from an immigrant family. I think you get a lot of stuff ingrained from that as well. Probably where a lot of my money stuff came from.
• 27:17
  So yeah, really digging deep, unblocking that stuff really will make a difference in the type of kind of energy that you can bring into whether it's fundraising or starting the company or recruiting a new teammate, right? If you're coming into these conversations from a place of like lack, then you're going to give off an energy that you're desperate for the money or you need the money. Where I was able to shift was to say, actually, I'm bringing an amazing investment opportunity to these investors and actually.
• 27:45
  I need to decide if they are aligned with my business and with me and if I'm going to allow this person or this fund on the journey with me. So I think just that mindset shift can go a really long way.
• 27:59
  That is so fascinating. And I love how, you know, open you've shared that experience because I imagine so many of us suffer from those same, maybe not the same limiting beliefs, but limiting beliefs in general. I'm just wondering, is there any resources off the top of your head that you have that are useful reading or useful places to go on the internet to learn more and to understand this about yourself?
• 28:24
  Yeah. So I'm trying to think at the time there are, yes, there's so many things. I mean, one that I, it's a little bit maybe cheesy, but it really was such a game changer for me was this book called You Are a Badass.
• 28:40
  I feel like everyone has seen it. It's this yellow book cover. They like have it at Urban Outfitters in the checkout aisle. I would say that's the book that I read that was really the kickoff of like wanting to learn more about, you know, shifting your mindset and how manifestation can really...
• 28:56
  Just how to start practicing that and how to start thinking about it and integrating it into my own life. The same author has a book called You Are a Badass at Making Money. I would definitely recommend both. I think another piece of it is finding people that kind of look like you or have like a similar background to you in some way who are doing the thing that you want to do. Right. So I was listening to a lot of podcasts, interviews with female founders or, you know, founders of color and just hearing their stories and hearing how they had done it.
• 29:26
  And also, even on a more personal level, like just reaching out to and connecting with other founders, especially in the food and beverage space specifically, hearing their stories and also like particularly finding some founder friends who are going again, like I said, the same thing with investors who are going to be your cheerleaders.
• 29:44
  So I basically in those, like I said, those nine months where I was really working on this on the side for my full time job, something else I was spending a lot of time in that period doing was asking everyone I knew to connect me to anybody who had started a food or beverage company. And then basically just.
• 30:01
  taking them out for coffee and just hearing step by step, how did you do it? And then specifically around the fundraising piece, like, how did you do it? And what I found is obviously, you know, there you'll meet some people and you'll meet them once. And, you know, always grateful for anyone who's willing to share their time and their learnings.
• 30:18
  But maybe, you know, it's not like a deep connection, but there are a very good handful of founders that I met just during that time when I was just networking and meeting so many people that we had such a strong connection. And the people that I was the most drawn to were the ones that said, you can do this basically. Right. I was just sitting across the table from them with an idea.
• 30:39
  And there are founders who I think it's just different personality types. There are founders who will say, look, this is going to be hard. This is really hard. It's hard to raise money. There's a lot of depression in founding a company. Like it's very lonely and really focus on those things. And those things are true. And I so appreciate the people that,
• 30:56
  make are really transparent about that. But I really gravitated towards a group of founders who are now still some of my closest friends and kind of like partners in this whole journey. And some of whom have invested in my company or become advisors to the company. When I met them, they literally said, look, you have a good idea. Better for you candy is unequivocally a good idea and a big market. Yeah.
• 31:17
  you can do this. You can raise the money, go out there, do it. We'll support you. We'll, you know, we're here to answer any questions you have. You can get the product made. You can find a factory, like you can do this. So I think a big, yeah, I guess it's not really like a book or a resource, but definitely surrounding yourself with people with whatever the motivational energy is for you, right? Some people get motivated by having someone who says you can't do it, right? So maybe you do need to find that like,
• 31:44
  frenemy who kind of like puts that spark under you. For me, I need the cheerleading. And so I was, I guess I didn't really know what I was doing at the time, but in hindsight, like my subconscious, I think was intentionally just drawing me towards relationships and building relationships with people that really brought that energy just into my journey and into this path.
• 32:06
  Oh, I love it. I love it. That is such great advice. And I feel like you've actually really inspired me because I'm in this phase at the moment, you know, growing the podcast, growing this company where I'm also looking for more of, you know, coaching is not necessarily the right word, but that mentorship, that coaching kind of element from people who are further along in that journey from what I'm trying to do and who I'm looking to. So love that.
• 32:32
  And something I say a lot to people, whether it's like, you know, young women early in their careers or founders is I think like we're sold this story very early on, whether it's in university or when we're doing internships. That's like maybe it's less nowadays, but at least when I was growing up, it was like you need to network with the CEO of the company. Right. So like if you're an intern, how do you convince the CEO to like get coffee with you or just start networking?
• 32:58
  start LinkedIn messaging like these super senior level executives at the companies that you're most inspired by and see if they can, if you can meet them in some way. And actually what I have found is the most valuable relationships that I have built. And so many of which have actually turned into like lifelong friendships is when I network with people that are either at the same stage as me. So just peer to peer or to your point, slightly ahead of you. So like
• 33:23
  Most of those founders that I was really networking with that I got a lot out of were six months ahead of me. Right. Like because for one, they remember where you are. I think that also gives them a lot of empathy for like the position you're at. The company or the founder that is five years in and is doing like one hundred million dollars a year doesn't remember. They probably half the time they don't even remember like the problems that you're dealing with at that stage. And.
• 33:48
  You don't really have anything to offer them as well. So I really find like connecting with people at a more similar stage or just slightly ahead just to be so much more of like a value exchange because you're probably working through some things that maybe they're still working through or that maybe they did it, but they want to redo it in a different way and you're approaching it differently so they can learn from your approach. And yeah, that's been really huge for me. And then the peer networking too, because, you know, I...
• 34:14
  When I was pretty early on in my career, I remember like I was a marketing manager at Uber and a friend of mine started hosting these women's dinners and we would all be sort of in that marketing manager, marketing coordinator level. And, you know, at the time it was really more social, like we just had a really good time together. We all sort of became friends. And then as I progressed through my career and all the rest of us did, next thing you know, we are directors and VPs at our companies. And now we're creating these partnerships.
• 34:41
  across each other's companies, helping each other get jobs, helping each other, you know, get PR or whatever it is, because now we're in the position to do that. And I think it was so much more valuable to really find that crew of women and supporters when we were all kind of in the same boat versus being that marketing manager who's trying to get the attention of like a VP of marketing at a big company who, you know, probably doesn't have
• 35:11
  Totally. Yeah. I really love that. That's great. Such a pearl of wisdom there.
• 35:18
  I want to switch topics now and talk about the marketing side of things. I'm conscious of the time, so I'm going to try and speed through it so we can still do the six quick questions at the end. But I'd love to hear, you know, how you went about acquiring customers in the beginning and kind of finding the tribe of people who would go on to become, you know, your loyal fans and those true customers and lovers of what you're doing and how your marketing has evolved in the last 12 months.
• 35:45
  Yeah, definitely. So we, I would say from the first step in the whole like idea of marketing for us was building the brand. So we put a lot of time and investment into creating a really incredible brand. We worked with like a best in class agency that have just had so many successes in the food and beverage world called Gander.
• 36:07
  They're a Brooklyn-based agency. I cannot speak highly enough of their team and their work. And so we really started from ground zero saying, okay, what are we trying to say? What is our message? And actually, what we really spent a lot of time doing was painting this picture of
• 36:23
  yes, we are a health food brand, but we don't want to be a diet brand. And we don't, again, like behave is all about eating more candy. It's not about eating less sugar. It's not about eating less or, you know, like I said, like diet has never really resonated with me super strongly, like diet culture. And we didn't want to become yet another brand that's feeding into that, that's telling people how to eat. So,
• 36:47
  We did a lot of work to kind of lay again, lay that foundation where we're about more, we're about excess, we're about fun, nostalgia for like eating candy when you were a kid. And we really wanted to hone in on that. And I think that really parlayed into what type of community we were going to build around the brand and the type of people that would be attracted to the brand.
• 37:08
  And, you know, that's not to say that we don't speak to dieters at all. I think our product is a keto friendly product. Keto is a huge community at this point. And we love the fact that we are an option and we can serve that community. We can serve someone who's diabetic, who hasn't been able to eat candy in a long time. So, you know, we love that we can fit into a lot of different diets. But a lot of our customers are really just coming to us and saying, yeah, like I stopped eating candy. I always felt guilty and kind of icky and a little bit sick after I had it.
• 37:38
  And, you know, now I can just indulge and eat two bags, you know, straight to the bottom and and still feel great and just go about my day, not fixate on it all night, not feel like I need to go get a workout in now because I did that. So, yeah, we really first and foremost, I think, had to hone in on this message and this story and make sure that we conveyed that really strongly to our customer. And actually, a big part of that is it's kind of an interesting story is the name Behave.
• 38:06
  kind of came up in just a little like brainstorm off the cuff over coffee with a girlfriend years ago, like back when I first had the idea, we were just throwing names around. And it was always meant to be like tongue in cheek, you know, behave, but don't be like behave kind of in the Austin Powers sense of like, don't behave.
• 38:27
  But obviously with the name like behave, we did have a worry that it could come off as, you know, us telling people to behave or us feeding into a diet culture, telling people like you need to behave yourself or you need to behave a certain way around candy. So we made this bold decision to actually cross the word behave out in our word mark.
• 38:48
  So really honing in on that idea that you don't have to behave yourself around candy. We are over that. We are done with like feeling that we have to control ourselves or our diets or our appetites around candy. And so, yeah, again, a lot of kind of thought went into that.
• 39:04
  how we are framing our messaging and our brand voice. And then ultimately, when we launched, we had a really big press push, which we're just very lucky for. We, you know, there was a lot of interest, I think, from press and what we were doing. And again, like Candy has really been undisrupted in so long. So I think it was a great press story that a lot of outlets kind of picked up on. And that brought a lot of the early kind of traction to the site and a lot of the early followers and adopters. And then we also did a really big influencer push.
• 39:33
  So we connected with a lot of like-minded influencers. So again, not just like diet influencers or fitness influencers, we painted a really broad picture of all different types of influencers. Anybody, again, who's just kind of like living their best life, very authentic,
• 39:50
  you know, really speaks to their audience in an authentic and genuine way. And we did a big push where we gifted them product. And that was definitely another really big driver when we launched of just reaching a lot of new people and a way that a lot of people were able to find out about us right off the bat. And how has that evolved in terms of like, what's really driving that growth for you now, now that you're further on down the track?
• 40:15
  Yeah, you know, we've been really lucky in that we are still, for the most part, seeing most of our traffic and our growth still coming organically. We've started doing some Facebook advertising, but we haven't yet really like put the pedal to the metal on that just because we are still growing and we are still seeing incredible traction.
• 40:34
  Just with the organic traffic that's coming through continued influencer marketing, we do continue to always gift people. We get a lot of influencers who actually reach out to us and ask to try the product and that, you know, they'd love to share and support. And, you know, still some PR as well. And definitely like word of mouth and just repeat purchase from people who have tried the product and are coming back. So we've been really lucky on that front. Like you said, we've also sold out.
• 41:03
  real like firepower we can put into marketing just yet. We keep outpacing our projections. We keep ordering like bigger orders thinking it's going to outlast it. And then we kind of outperform and outdo ourselves every time. So I think we are finally getting that under control in the next month or so. But
• 41:22
  Yeah, that has also been, I think, one thing that we've had to keep a close eye on in terms of how much firepower can we really put into marketing until we know that we're not going to sell out again. And we, you know, we always want to make sure that we're in stock and that we're available for, you know, our returning customers, our subscribers, and just people that are coming to the site really looking for a product like ours. Yeah, definitely a bittersweet problem to have. That's for sure. Yeah, definitely.
• 41:50
  What advice do you have for women who have a big idea and want to start their own business? I think if I had to give one piece of advice, it is definitely to...
• 42:03
  break down what you need to do to get your business off the ground into as small of pieces as possible. And I, you know, I do want to acknowledge that again, I'm only speaking from my own experience and I'm only speaking from what works for me. I know that there are people out there where like writing the 15 page business plan, really outlining everything super clear and organized is what is going to get them motivated and get them over sort of, you know, to feel comfortable to get to the next step.
• 42:29
  What I have found in my experience is that every time I tried to sit down and get a really long plan, you know, of every single variable that could go into starting, you know, any business, I've had other business ideas in the past, the more I sort of like sat and tried to get so...
• 42:45
  academic about the idea, the more I just like one, I lost steam and kind of lost some of the excitement. And two, like you get paralyzed because now it feels so big, right? When you need to know the market size and you need to have all the research and you need to have the product plan and the five year product roadmap and your org structure and your hiring plan for the next five years, right? It's kind of what they teach you like in a business school setting that you need to do
• 43:11
  in order to start a business, for me at least, would lead to paralysis. And what happened when I actually did start to get the ball rolling and get this business off the ground was when I started to break it down into small pieces. So instead of saying I need to know everything today, I said I need to make a gummy bear that is low sugar and all natural. How am I going to do this? I'm going to contact chefs.
• 43:34
  Reach out to the chefs. Next step. Next. And just move that one thing forward. Right. OK, I want to start a business. I need to incorporate. So, you know, I don't need to have a full legal team. I don't need to have, you know, every single type of insurance and every single type of legal protection from day one. At least those things come with time. I just need to incorporate. Yeah.
• 43:55
  And I found an online service that I use and I did the incorporation. And when I had a little more money, I had a lawyer double check it and make sure everything was OK. And so but, you know, it would have been very easy to say, oh, I need to get a lawyer to incorporate. It's going to cost so much. I can't afford a lawyer right now. And then you get paralyzed.
• 44:13
  So yeah, just breaking things down into smaller pieces and really just like I always say this, it sounds so obvious, but it's like you just need to put one foot in front of the next. You don't need to leapfrog five steps ahead. You don't need to know what retail your product is going to go into. You don't need to know exactly what factor you're going to be working with from day one. Just figure out what you need to do tomorrow. And usually it's like one or two things and just keep moving those things forward and then
• 44:40
  bring on new tasks and new projects as you reach them. Absolutely. One foot in front of the other. Okay. So we are up to the six quick questions. I'm going to be super speedy. Question number one is what's your why? Why do you do what you do?
• 44:57
  My why for the business is definitely delighting customers. Like when we get a customer email that is, you know, we get so many, whether it's, you know, my kid has diabetes and they haven't been able to eat candy and now they can, or just this tastes amazing and now I can kick my, you know.
• 45:14
  my sour candy addiction and switch over to this, or I guess continue my sour candy addiction, but in a way that feels better. That is so much my why in terms of building the business. And then I think my personal why is really just autonomy. I think what I love about running a business is that I wake up every day and make the decision of what am I going to do today and
• 45:37
  what am I going to focus on? What are we focusing on this week, this year as a business? And then on a personal level as well. And that is something that I've just found so rewarding in just founding a company and kind of switching from employee into business owner. Totally. I love that too. Question number two is what do you think has been the biggest or the number one marketing moment that's made the business pop?
• 46:02
  Oh, man. I have to say the launch. I think we just were so blown away by the amount of press that we saw at launch and also the number of influencers who posted. I think with influencer marketing, a lot of times you send product out into the ether and you don't know what's going to happen. It's a bit of a black box. But what we have really found is that influencers love candy. Everyone loves candy pretty much. So
• 46:27
  You know, it's not like when an influencer receives like some weird gadget or like something that doesn't fit into their lifestyle and they kind of just like put it in a dusty closet. You know, when they receive Behave, they really are excited and, you know, for the most part, get excited to tell their audiences about it. So that launch moment, I think, between the influencer promotion that we saw and the engagement on that front, as well as the press was a really big one. Love that for you.
• 46:54
  Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to right now?
• 47:01
  Yeah, I don't know. I'm like still kind of in a bit of this like more spiritual space. So I would say I'm reading a lot of maybe like pseudo philosophical spiritual things right now. I just finished The Four Agreements and I'm reading that author's second book, The Fifth Agreement now. And so I'm kind of in that headspace, I would say a bit. And...
• 47:27
  What do I read or look to to get smarter? Honestly, my team. Like, I think that that is something, you know, now I was working on this alone for so long. Now we're a team of three. And just, you know, looking to them for inspiration and looking to them to solve problems and answer the questions that come up on the day to day. I feel like I learned so much. Love that. Yeah.
• 47:51
  Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
• 47:59
  I definitely start my day with actually breakfast, which is new for me. I never used to eat breakfast for years. And I think now it's actually like such an important part of kickstarting the day and actually being in a good state for the remainder of the day. Also journaling every single morning. I do a gratitude journal in the morning and the evening as well. So just like really focusing on positive, good things that have happened in the day, things that you're grateful for.
• 48:26
  you know, also setting priorities. So, you know, every day, just what are the priority, the work priorities for, I set them at the top of the week and then also at the top of each day. And I try to really focus on getting through those things that have to get done today. Again, it kind of comes back to that, like breaking things down into pieces.
• 48:43
  And then getting a good night's sleep, I think is so key. I can so clearly see when I'm getting, you know, six to seven hours of sleep, what my performance and my mood and my ability to be a good leader look like relative to when I'm getting my eight, eight and a half hours. So that's something I'm just trying to become a little bit more consistent with for sure. Absolutely. Question number five is if you only had a thousand dollars left in the business bank account, where would you spend it?
• 49:13
  If I had $1,000 left, I would spend it on inventory because I feel like I will find a way to sell it.
• 49:23
  Love that. Nice. And last question, question number six is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset and approach to it? I think with failure or just, you know, if you don't want to call it failure, just like the challenges that I face every day, every week, you know, with things that come up, I think I'm getting better at, especially the more that things go wrong and then we come out the other side of it. I'm getting better at when I'm in like the quote unquote failure, I'm in the challenge.
• 49:51
  being able to sort of like future trip or almost like put myself in my future shoes and understand that I'm going to be so much better off because of this thing that I'm in now. You know, we recently went through something that was very challenging. And I remember at the time, you know, feeling really down about it, you know, just on a personal level, psychological level, obviously, you know, had to correct it as quickly as possible for the
• 50:17
  And I remember in that moment, just, you know, being down, probably crying in therapy, but actually being able to say, you know what, I know we're going to get through this and it's going to be over soon. And actually every future problem is going to feel so small compared to this one. And so, you know, being able to actually like look forward and know that every mistake or every challenge, every failure happens.
• 50:42
  really is a, I know it's so cliche, but like it really is a learning. And if I can put myself in the shoes of my future self that now has that learning, it kind of makes me feel better about it in the moment. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing so openly about your experience and your journey so far. I've just loved chatting with you. I feel like I could chat to you for such a long time. Thank you so much. Totally. Of course. Thanks for having me.
• 51:11
  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.
• 51:36
  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.
• 51:58
  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.
• 52:15
  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.
• 52:39
  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.
• 53:02
  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.