Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Best of ‘22 - How to build $100M brands with serial disrupter, WILD, Thinx & Tushy founder Miki Agrawal (Part 1)

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Best of ‘22 - How to build $100M brands with serial disrupter, WILD, Thinx & Tushy founder Miki Agrawal (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hi, it's just me popping in with a quick message to wish you and your loved ones a beautiful break this festive season. I hope you're able to take some time for yourself to recharge and reset and come back full of energy in 2023.
• 0:15
  Over the next few weeks, our team will all be taking a much-needed break, and you'll be hearing the best episodes from 2022. When I look back over this year, there were just so many amazing episodes. It was near impossible to choose just one handful, but we did, and they're amazing, and I'm sure you're going to love them.
• 0:34
  For now, I'm off to spend some quality time with my mom and my family in Queensland after three whole years of not seeing her. Can you believe it? Three years. Oh my gosh. I'm going to be doing all the little things that are good for my soul over this period and dreaming up my goals for 2023, which you're going to hear about when I come back in January. I'm so looking forward to reconnecting with you in the new year and bringing you more of the good stuff with Female Startup Club.
• 1:04
  This is Miki Agrawal for Female Startup Club.
• 1:16
  Welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we have Mickey Agrawal, the founder behind some of the coolest companies you will definitely know. The first being Wild, a gluten-free pizza restaurant concept that she launched 18 years ago.
• 1:36
  Thanks, the period underwear company that totally disrupted how we think about our period care. And Tushy, the modern day bidet. This episode was so damn cool. And I know you're going to get so much out of it just like I did because Mickey is the queen of disruptive marketing.
• 1:55
  We talk through how she takes a product and applies her framework to create intrigue and mystery, which then creates buzz and obviously more eyeballs. We talk through what she did to raise millions and millions of dollars and her specific advice to founders just like you and me.
• 2:13
  And if you hang around to the end, we were lucky enough to meet her beautiful dad. So go check out the YouTube video on our channel. I'm so grateful that you're tuning in today. And I hope you love this episode as much as I did recording it. Let's get straight into it. This is Mickey for Female Startup Club.
• 2:31
  Nikki, hi. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you. I'm super excited to be talking to you today. And I want to just start by sharing a quick story for everyone listening to talk about the power of like...
• 2:46
  good things take time. I already shared this with you, but for everyone listening in 2019, Female Startup Club was just a concept. It was just getting started. It was like, I think it was in October. And I had a list of 10 women who were on my, like, these are the people I'm going to interview on Female Startup Club. And you were one of them. I just finished reading your book. I was living in Bali earlier that year. I'd read it by the pool. And I basically was like, Mickey is going to be on the show. And now,
• 3:15
  A few years later, here we are. I'm so pumped. Oh, my God. What a beautiful... Thank you. How funny is that? Yeah. I've loved that you've done 400 podcasts. Yeah, it's crazy. You're a beast. Yeah, it's been a lot. It's a lot of people. I'm sure you've made...
• 3:32
  True, you made a lot of friends, like met a lot of cool people. You know, that's so fun. Yeah, it's been just the joy of my life. I've had such a great time. But let's not talk about me. I want to talk about you. You are a serial entrepreneur. You've built multiple businesses. You've built two to a hundred million dollars. Where do you like to start your journey and what was driving you towards entrepreneurship and social impact?
• 3:58
  Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is just being born from immigrant parents. My father came to America from India with $5 in his pocket. And I've told the story a few times, but my mom came to America from Japan, barely speaking any English.
• 4:16
  And so, and I grew up in French Montreal and French Canada. And so I think I just grew up with a lot of multicultural influences and just had the opportunity to see multiple perspectives really early on. And I think that really lent itself to looking at things differently and questioning things and being given permission to question everything around me. And I think that permission to question
• 4:44
  beg the question of, wait, can this be done better? Can this be made better? Can I invent something in a different way? Like, do I have the agency power and ability to do something, even if I have no money, no experience in something? The answer is yes. And I think just the soup, the melange of exposure that I received early on and receiving multiple perspectives about certain specific subjects just lent itself to being given the permission to question a lot.
• 5:12
  I love that. That's such a cool upbringing. And I know you're in nature at the moment and you're kind of having this beautiful lifestyle that sounds so cool. And I'm sure that plays a big part in your kind of journey in business as well.
• 5:28
  You've started Wild, I think it was like 16 years ago, I read. You've started... 18 years ago, my God. You've started Thinks, which is an amazing period underwear company. And today we're going to be diving more into the journey of Tushy. And I'd love to kind of go back to that very beginning when you had this light bulb moment. And like, how does Tushy enter the group chat? How does it enter the room? How does it enter the conversation? How does it start? Yeah.
• 5:58
  Well, the first thing is I'm again, half Japanese, half Indian and bidets are ubiquitous in pretty much most Asian countries, specifically in Japan, I think it's got
• 6:07
  80 to 90% penetration in pretty much every household in Japan, including McDonald's and restaurants and fast food chains. And so bidets have been something that I've known about for a really long time. The one thing I've learned about it is that like, wow, it's so expensive. It's thousands of dollars, requires plumbing, electrical, and just super, super expensive. And most people this day and age, millennials and Gen Zers are actually like renting, you know, so not going to like spend all this money, time, energy, installing a bidet on their toilet or replacing their toilet or,
• 6:34
  you know, putting a fixture. And of course those French bidets, like I grew up in French Montreal, so some of the homes had bidets, but there were those weird, you know, like contraptions next to your toilet. It feels a bit scary. It's like you have to shimmy over your poopy butt and like, and then like clean it. It just sounds so busy. Then you have to shimmy back to what it just, the whole thing is just like, what the heck is this? I've never been able to use one because I haven't like understood like what's the process here. So when I see them in Europe, I'm like, but how?
• 7:03
  Right, exactly. It's just a kind of a very light spritz. It's just the whole thing is gross and weird. And then in India, they have these things called the lota, which is basically a bucket of water that you just kind of splash onto your butt. And so I just grew up knowing about the days, but never thinking that it's something that I can have in my own life. But then so cut to 2014.
• 7:23
  I had kind of developed a pretty intense hyperthyroid condition. I was, you know, building my restaurant, starting things. And just, there was just a lot of energy being put out and I was kind of, my body was on overdrive. And so I kind of developed a pretty intense hyperthyroid condition, which one of the side effects beyond like heart palpitations and like
• 7:42
  pretty scary stuff, was pooping a lot. That was one of the side effects and pooping like up to eight times a day. Like I'm talking like big poops. Like I don't even know where it's coming from because I'm this tiny person. And yet it was just like, you know, and I got down to like a hundred pounds. It was like really scary. And so as part of the side effects of pooping a lot during that period of time, luckily I'm totally fine now. I'm a hundred percent back from like, no, like
• 8:10
  Dr. Mark Hyman is one of my best friends and he helped nurse me back to health and really took control of my diet, energy, all the things. But during that period, one of the side effects of pooping a lot was wiping a lot. And I was wiping and wiping and wiping and it just made my butt raw and painful and...
• 8:29
  And I had to eventually start jumping in the shower to wash myself after I went to the bathroom because it was just dry paper. And then finally, my husband got me this pretty crappy bidet thing that he found on like an Asian site and, you know, installed it on my toilet. And I was just like, holy cow, like this.
• 8:52
  changed my life. It changed my experience. And then I started thinking about everyone who had IBS, everyone had GI issues, everyone who had any thyroid issues, one in seven women, like everyone who has any kind of chronic UTIs, hemorrhoids, fissures, itching, like all this stuff down there that wiping is an exacerbation of. Like imagine the analogy I give is imagine if you took dry toilet paper, like you jumped in your shower and just took dry toilet paper
• 9:22
  you know, people will be like, you're not clean. Like, what are you doing? Like, why are you, you know, like, this doesn't make any sense. So like, why are we doing that to the dirtiest part of our body? Like our, our butts, like doesn't make any sense at all. So there was just such a,
• 9:37
  bulb moment for me where it was just like, I am going to bring bidets to America and make them affordable under a hundred dollar product. You can easily clip them onto your toilet in less than 10 minutes. It doesn't pull water from your toilet bowl or your tank. It pulls from the wall, the same one you brush your teeth with. It comes with a little hose and a splitter. Everything's included in the box and it's like going to change your life. And at the same time, you're going to help save 15 million trees from getting flushed down the toilet.
• 10:05
  You're going to help, you know, like, like, you know, social entrepreneurship is super important to me. So like we're going to, we, we incorporated a give back model with some Agra, which funds the build out of clean toilets in India. And so we're going to now fund every purchase. We're going to fund the build out of clean toilets in India. So the global sanitation crisis isn't,
• 10:25
  that's affecting 3 billion people on the planet is gonna be supported by us in some small way. And so it just sort of, kind of that was a spark. And then all this journey, which we'll talk about in a bit, followed that.
• 10:41
  Okay, so there's the spark. You've gone through this experience. Now it's time to actually practically bring it into the world. What are those early steps? What are you doing? Are you going straight out to raise? Are you bootstrapping? Are you talking to people? What's the kind of early framework in getting this product ready in the lead up to a launch?
• 11:03
  Um, great question. Yeah. I mean, I like there's, for me, it was starting by just asking people, like, would you, what do you think about bidet? Like, do you, would you install it? Oh, way too expensive, way too expensive. I'm like, Oh no, but what if it's under a hundred bucks, under a hundred dollar bidet? I've never seen that before. And so then it's just like, but, but if you did find one, would you install it? They're like, well, I would,
• 11:22
  be interested if it makes me cleaner. It's like a precise shower for my butt. Like, why not? And so there was just like a lot of questions first asked around to my friends, family, community. And then from there, like started reaching out to like different bidet manufacturers just to see like what it would take to just make a small run. And I would just design it. I would work with a designer to kind of design the first box and the first iteration of it. And then just
• 11:52
  in it in that way. What's a tiny run for you? Like a hundred, like a hundred units. Oh, okay. Really? Yeah. A couple of a hundred. Yeah. Small, small, small, like a hundred to 500, like first hundred, then maybe 500, but really small. And then yeah. Yeah. Like start talking to potential funders just to say like, Hey, like, would you help kind of build this thing with me? You'd come in at a very low valuation. Yeah.
• 12:14
  And I got very, very lucky for Tushy specifically because for things, I raised $0 in six months and had to do a Kickstarter campaign. And it was a huge struggle to get people to even think about period underwear as a product in the world. Like bleeding your underwear sounds disgusting. And so it was a very weird product. And same thing with Tushy. Like poop water, poopy water will spread everywhere. We're like, no, it's Precise Shower. It pulls it into the bowl. It's very clean.
• 12:43
  You know, oh, is it pulling from the water, from the bowl or the tank? No, it's pulling from the wall. Like people had all these like assumptions around what a bidet does and is. Meanwhile, it's like you're showering every time you go to the bathroom, which is the cleanest thing you could possibly do for yourself. Yeah, there's a huge education piece there for people who have never used one. A hundred percent. So like I feel like...
• 13:05
  what I learned from the experience of things and then previously to that building wild, my restaurants, which was like gluten-free farm-to-table pizza, which was completely new and innovative in its time in 2005. No one was talking about gluten-free organic farm-to-table, let alone in the world of pizza. And so it was a huge educational uphill battle to get people to even think about
• 13:26
  healthy pizza in a way that wasn't like, ew, it probably tastes like cardboard, like gross. I would never eat that. You know, like all the different stigmas associated with that as well. So I learned a lot about how to change culture, both in the restaurant industry and with things. So then when I started Tushy, it was like, okay, like how do we use iconic education? How do we use
• 13:47
  You know, I created kind of a three-pronged thesis around changing culture. The first is, you know, a best-in-class product. The second is, you know, accessible label language across every touchpoint of the brand. So, like, funny copy. And then the third is beautiful, artful design. You know, really gorgeous design. And, like, through that, you can educate people in an iconic way. And from that, people will be, like, more interested in leaning forward, leaning in, to be like, oh, wow.
• 14:12
  You're talking to me like my best friend. Oh, your designs are gorgeous. Like, what is this? Oh, you're talking about periods. Are you talking about poop? Like, but I already leaned in. So I'm already now, I'm not scared. So I'm open to actually learning more. And so, you know, I kind of learned early on how to talk to people and meet them where they are.
• 14:31
  and then kind of like seduce them into the world of, you know, like this new taboo world, but in a way that's really, really beautiful and artful and safe. Yeah, easy and exciting and fun and kind of engaging. Yeah.
• 14:50
  In that early process, you know, to creating the prototypes, the 100 to 500 pieces and this beautiful, iconic website and product design and language and copywriting and things like that. What kind of capital did you need or did you think that you would need to get yourself to like a launch with like a full, a full, like whatever the MOQs are, et cetera? Yeah.
• 15:12
  Right. So my first meeting, I just got very lucky. Like I said, building Tushy, building my restaurants and things was an extremely uphill battle to raise money. But for Tushy specifically, I got very lucky in my first meeting with an investor and gave him a loan evaluation that he wanted.
• 15:28
  invested a pretty sizable check. He put $400,000 into the business right from the first meeting. And that was, I've never experienced that before. And I was very lucky. And ever since then, I barely raised any money because it got really hard, but that was just a very lucky call, which was a sign from the universe for me. That was just like, okay, go, go do this. Even if you're still building things, like, you know, you can go in and set up the business for Tushy and put people in place and then let that slowly, slowly start building the background while you're still
• 15:58
  Got it. Right. So you're across two at the same time. Holy moly. That's a lot. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:06
  I want to talk about like for you, especially that first year of Business and Tushy and how you were kind of approaching your marketing and your creative like out of the box thinking. I know that this is something you do really well and I've seen a few different campaigns that you've kind of rolled out and I was watching this video of you talking on YouTube about this kind of idea of winning with weirdness and I just thought that summed it up so perfectly.
• 16:32
  Could we talk about a few of your kind of initial campaigns to get the word out there and how you were approaching marketing in that first year of business? For Tushy specifically?
• 16:41
  Oh, we can talk about things too, if you want to talk about things. Up to you. I would say, Patricia, specifically, you know, it started off with like just deep education, but like education through comedy. And so we kind of like put out this like really, I mean, I put a brown paper bag on my face and shot this commercial in my bathroom with my two first employees. And we just sort of like the brown paper bag, we put like a little smiley face
• 17:11
  imagine if a bird shit on your face, you know, and then we have like white paint just flew into my face on the, in a paper bag. And it's like, would you take a piece of paper and wipe the poop off your face? And we have sounds going like, Ooh, or would you wash it with water? You know? And so then we like,
• 17:32
  And I kind of like really like kind of leaned off camera, took the paper bag off and replaced it with another paper bag. And it was like clean, you know, and it was just like so lo-fi, but it was just a really funny, just super low budget. Like I shot it in our house video and, um,
• 17:49
  And that was the first moment of people being like, oh yeah. Like why, if a bird pooped on my arm, a bird pooped on my head, like I wouldn't take dry paper and just smear it off and call it clean. Like that doesn't make any sense. I would wash it off with water. Like that makes so much sense. And I think like just that light bulb moment that went off for people then as well was really important. And we were like, okay, like we can just come up with a bunch of creative, funny, weird things.
• 18:16
  content and put it out and just see if people will react. And, you know, eventually we just kept doing like, you know, we sent our first event was held at my other house, my new, my second, my next apartment. And we invited all the press and we just said it was going to be like, it's the year of the asshole. We called it.
• 18:37
  You know, where 20, yeah, 20, I think it was like, yeah, I forget. I think at this point it was like 2017. 2017 was like the year of the asshole. We coined it the Yoda, the year of the asshole. We invited everyone, New York Times, York Post, like economists, like literally every, and everyone said yes because they were like, what is a year of the asshole? Yeah.
• 18:56
  And it was just this bizarre... And then the invitation that we sent was DIY anal beads, which was kind of weird. And so it was just all bizarre, normalizing anything butt-related, like butt play, butt talk, butt conversation. Yeah.
• 19:13
  Who cares? It's like, you know, why is that taboo? Like it's, you know, and then of course gut health. So we had a bunch of different parts of the experience. We walked into my apartment and there's like different little stations of things. You got a butt massage. We had a massage therapist there to get a butt massage.
• 19:30
  Anyways, all the press showed up and they were just like, what is the year of the asshole? You know, this is so strange. And and then, you know, we we then we then. Did they know about TUSHY yet or TUSHY? It hadn't even been kind of like launched at this point. It was still.
• 19:45
  like launching like people were still like what's tushy no one knew what it was we you know like it was still very very very early like people were like what what is tushy and so but we came up with an event that got attention like the year of the asshole like what does that mean but then it was like oh put on by tushy that helps you keep it clean you know and it was just this like weird anything that gets people to thumb stop right or it's like you're reading your emails and you're like subject heading it's the year of the asshole like
• 20:12
  what on earth? And so you want to click on that. And then you, it's all about how do you like create mystery to bring people into your world. And I think most people are just like, come to my event and they send you a press release. And you're just like, no one cares about you. Your company, like, oh, it's just an appliance for your toilet. Like,
• 20:31
  No, like the whole thing is about intrigue, mystery, enrollment, seduction, like in a way that, and not seduction in a sex way, but seduction and just like getting you curious. Like, oh, like this is, I'm interested. I'm leaning in. Like, I want to go to that thing because like you just piqued my interest. Like it's mystery. It's a mystery. It's like the mystery. My mother always said, she's Japanese. It comes from a samurai lineage. And she says the best way to maintain a long-term relationship with your partner is always maintain a little mystery.
• 21:01
  You know, always maintain a little mystery. Yeah. And I believe that's true in business. I believe that's true in building relationships. So yeah, we just want to maintain...
• 21:16
  Like get people to come and learn about something new and get educated about a completely new behavior requires more than just like try a bidet. People are like, ah, you know, that's why, that's why Toto never worked. That's why all these companies that came to America haven't really fully popularized in this country because it's too like,
• 21:36
  get this thing, this contraption, something that's wrong with you versus, oh, like a year of the asshole. Like, how do I keep it clean? Like, oh, you know, just like a different way of thinking about like,
• 21:49
  the problem and like, oh, the solution is affordable. It saves me money long-term. I'm saving thousands of dollars of toilet paper costs that I would have purchased every month over time by just buying a $99 bidet one time. That's a huge... It saves money, saves my health. It saves the planet. We've helped save 15 million trees. We're getting flushed down the toilet from toilet paper. There's just like all the different value props. You're like, oh yeah, this makes so much sense. Yeah.
• 22:16
  But how do you get people to first pique their interest? It's not by saying save trees or whatever. Most people care about themselves. So first is like pique my interest. Interest, make me curious. So first let me pique your interest in something by creating a mysterious experience.
• 22:32
  then let me share with you the value propositions of how to support you first. Save your health. Don't be gross. If you want to go on a date, don't you want to be clean and sexy down there? Don't you want to be – when you're on your period, don't you want to be nice and clean down there? When you have chronic issues, don't you want to be clean down there? Let me give you the value props. Step one is always how do I enroll you into my world? And most people really miss that part. They want to just sell you the product and sell you the product, but they miss the –
• 23:02
  the introduction and that transition period
• 23:07
  And what was the impact of that event? I feel like for you, PR has been a big amplification tool for you and spreading that message. Yeah. Every single press came to the event. All the press showed up because they were like, what is that? New York Times came, everyone went. And whether or not it was good pieces, bad pieces, whatever, people were like, what's the year of the asshole? I got these weird DIY anal beads in the mail. Gross. Like,
• 23:33
  Whatever it was, like, you know, it was just sort of like, cool, they paid attention and they guess what, they came. They wanted to see what happened, right? And so I think it's, everything has to also be sincere and authentic, right? Like, if everything is too perfect and crisp.
• 23:50
  Like my very first video of my brand paper bag and splashing, it was like, oh my God, this is so homemade. Even now, TikTok videos are all UGC videos, user-generated content. It's so much more actually real and actually converts better than a perfectly manicured commercial that feels just now phony almost. So I think we've always been very DIY, having events at my apartment, hosting things at home, doing things like...
• 24:19
  very DIY, like that felt very, very like, you know, personal. And even if it's like not perfect, that's actually like the point. Like we are literally made to be imperfect. Like we are built for imperfection. And that's the beauty about being human is,
• 24:39
  And so let's just not hide that and let's be authentic in our truth. Why is our butt, our nether regions considered something to be taboo? That's the part that creates life. That's the part that makes babies. That's the part that excretes the parts
• 24:55
  of the things in our body that we don't need. That's the part that feels so much pleasure. Why are we making that taboo, the patriarchy, people who said 100 years ago, that's bad to talk about? Why? It's time to shift. That's time to question that. I've gotten a lot of shit for questioning things in my life, but I'm authentically myself. I'm in high integrity, and I'm going to continue to speak about the things that I believe
• 25:23
  don't make sense anymore. Like why, why is this stuff taboo? Like who gives a shit? Like, you know, so, so I think because of that press are always like, Oh, what's, what's like, what's, what is this about? And I think, you know, cut to, we did,
• 25:38
  an event called ButtCon as well, all things butt-related that also got billions of impressions. And it was everything butt-related. We found Kim Kardashian's butt workout person that came and taught us a butt workout. We found the twerking champion of the world who came and taught people how to twerk. We found the cake sitter who dances on top of a cake and then sits on the cake with their butt. And it's like a butt dance on a cake. And we're like...
• 26:02
  Okay. You know, Dr. Mark Hyman came and did a whole thing on, you know, on gut health and how that relates to like poop and how important all gut and butt health are related. You know, we had like, you know, like people have butt acne. Apparently that's a real thing. And so like we had this woman esthetician that came in and did a whole butt acne course.
• 26:21
  thing. We had an anal porn star come and talk about what it's like to be an anal porn star, which is usually you're like, I don't want to know, but you're kind of like, I kind of want to know. I don't want to know, but I kind of actually do want to know. I do want to know because everyone does want to know.
• 26:38
  Like, how do you keep clean? Like, what do you do? Like, if it's a random person, like just all the questions, right? Like we just create a spectacle and have people show up and it's introduced, it's like brought to you by Tushy Bidet. And then people are just like, oh my God, Tushy just does these weird things. You know, like we...
• 26:57
  We tried to once again get on the subways and the subways said, no, you can't put Tushy on the subway because it's a sex product. And we're like, no, it's a bidet. It's like toilet paper. Like, what are you talking about? So they didn't put us on the subways. And so we then put out and we basically went to press and said, like, they're not letting us put these ads on the subway, kind of like we did with Thinks, which worked. And it worked again with Tushy.
• 27:26
  Saturday Night Live, SNL, like the biggest comedy show ever. We didn't know, but they read the dailies. So when our ads get put on the subways, New York Daily News ran a story like MTA flushes down this company's ads down the toilet. And it was talking about Tushy's ads not being allowed to be on the subways.
• 27:50
  So then we come to find out, cut to, all of a sudden we find out that SNL is about to do a three-minute rant about Tushy and bidets. And so we found out that Saturday Night Live goes through all the New York dailies, like New York Post, New York Magazine, New York Times, New York Daily News, to find the most random things to talk about because they do a news segment.
• 28:11
  And Michael Che, the lead writer of SNL, loves bidets, loves Tushy. And basically was like, wait, these ads were not allowed in the MTA. He then does an entire weekend update on SNL, a three-minute rant about why Tushy should be allowed in the subway, so why bidets have changed his life and how much he loves them. And it literally like,
• 28:35
  Overnight, the multiples of our business, we tripled our business. It was an incredibly important moment in our business to learn that the more spectacles we create,
• 28:50
  The more we're top of mind, the more people will learn about us and ultimately come to our shop and buy our product because they learned that's also best for you, best for the planet, best for your butt, best for the planet, all the things. So we just needed to get as many people to learn about us. And the best way to do that is through mystery and intrigue and weirdness and butt cons and you're the assholes.
• 29:17
  You know, like just creating buzz that way. Yeah. Our video, our video called I'm an asshole, the asshole character. Right. Like we, I, I, I went to my costume designer for Burning Man and I was like, can you make me a weird butt costume where the face is in the, in the hole, you know? And so we made this costume and we made this whole, or, you know, one of our writers at, at Tushy wrote this hilarious script about like this asshole character who gets really mad. She becomes an asshole when she's not clean.
• 29:46
  And so, and so whenever she's clean by Toshi, she's much nicer. But when she's like, when she's not clean, she's an asshole, you know, and it's just funny. And so that video got like 25 million views and it's been like returning, like people are buying still from that video, you know? I love that. That's amazing. And I love the video you just did of the fountain. So funny. So great with the composed music. Yes. Yes.
• 30:14
  I want to ask you, like, what's your advice for people who are listening in right now who have a product, they've built a CPG brand, it might not be taboo or controversial or like, you know, they don't have that kind of hook factor that you do have with this product. Yeah.
• 30:29
  What's your advice for those kind of brands who maybe they're in the beauty industry or they're in the beverage industry or something like that? How do they go about creating these moments of weirdness and kind of creating that hook and intrigue and campaigns that are out of the box?
• 30:47
  What's your advice? I mean, you can say that about anything, right? You can say like, oh, a bidet is like a toilet appliance. Like there's nothing sexy or intriguing or taboo about it. We made it intriguing and taboo. Like things was like period underwear that you bleed into like a tampon or a pad. Like how, how, like, why is that like taboo? Like, I mean, it is, I mean, of course they're taboo, but like
• 31:10
  Technically, they're like feminine care products, right? We just made the taboo of it cool. You pulled out that taboo element. We pulled it out because it truly is a taboo. People don't want to talk about the period, people don't want to talk about poop. And so it is, but we used that in a way that supported...
• 31:29
  kind of the clickbait-ness of it. And it supported the intrigue of it that supported like, so like anything, like people have beauty, beauty products are like underwear companies are like, oh, we're going to bring in plus size models and make it not just skinny, wavy models, or we're going to make bras in every shade of color and make it for everyone. And it's just like, yeah, it's a bra company, but they made it interesting by making it interesting because they came up with a creative angle to make it interesting.
• 31:56
  So you can literally take anything and make intrigue out of it based on what you attach it to, the association you decide to bring it to. Like the feedbacks, like this girl started this feedback, right? Like, um, what's her name? Um, Lauren, you know, like this girl who, who married, um, whatchamacallit, um, Ralph Lauren's son, right? Her name is Lauren. I forget her last name, Lauren Bush. And she, she married anyway. So Lauren Bush started this, this company called Feedbacks and it's just sort of like,
• 32:25
  tote, you know, but back then this, but she made it like every tote that I sell will feed one kid in need or something like that. And so all of a sudden, same thing with Tom's shoes. Like it's another, another shoe out of a billion shoe companies, but he made it for every shoe I, you buy, we'll give a shoe to somebody in need.
• 32:44
  All of a sudden, it's like interesting, different story, worthy, unique, separate, right? How do you stand out? And it comes with creativity. And people are like, well, I'm not creative. Everyone's creative. We're all creative. We just don't necessarily spend the time walking in nature and just taking the noise out of our brains and...
• 33:05
  And just giving ourselves the space to think and to magically create and to just be like, oh, let me look at this leaf. And oh, this leaf just made me think about this. Or in that, that made me think about that. And oh, I just can't put my campaign. It's just people are so busy reacting to the world around them that they don't give themselves the space to be creative. Yeah.
• 33:30
  And creativity requires spaciousness, requires time, requires presence, requires slowing it down, requires emptying the brain full of the to-do list. And so everyone's a creative. And I think it's so, so, so important for everyone to give ourselves the time and space to be spacious and to be creative. And I think that's
• 33:54
  That's the key to all of it because we all have these ideas. We just don't give ourselves a space to let them download into us, you know?
• 34:03
  That's the magic. Everyone's weekend to-do list, get outside, go for a long walk, take a hike, start putting that on your weekly to-do list, get into nature, look at the leaves. I love that. Yeah. I would say one beautiful thing besides reading Disrupt Her is to read The Artist's Way. I think The Artist's Way, or Duke will should as well, but The Artist's Way, I would say,
• 34:33
  it helped me or it helps me. I've been journaling for a really long time, but it reminded me the importance of journaling. Like how like,
• 34:40
  Journaling is especially morning pages, like specifically, which is like you wake up and you just throw up on the page. Whatever is in your head, you just like throw up on the page. And what actually happens is when you're getting all the this, that, the to-do list and oh my God, think about that or this or that happened and what this person said or that person did or oh my God, whatever, just the junk that you read or saw on the news or whatever, once you just get it all out.
• 35:08
  you're left with a spaciousness. And when you get all of that, then you can actually spend the time actually in your own space and to be like, okay, what do I want to feel right now? And in this moment, how do I want to set up my day once all this junk is out?
• 35:25
  And I think like doing just three pages of morning pages every day just to get the blah, blah, blah out to that. And then you're left with like, okay, what's true? Like, what's the most impactful thing for me that I can do today that supports me, that supports what my deepest needs are? And by supporting me, I can support those I love, you know, much more effectively. By supporting those I love much more effectively, there's more love in my home, you know? And so it's just sort of like...
• 35:54
  Yeah. Oh, I love that. So powerful. So cool. Thank you so much for sharing that.
• 36:06
  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.
• 36:31
  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.
• 36:53
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 37:09
  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.
• 37:34
  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.
• 37:56
  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.