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How Charlotte Cruze Built Alice Mushrooms Into a $20+M Brand in 4 Years | We Mean Business · We Mean Business

0:02
This is We Mean Business, a field guide for builders,
0:05
believers, and gold operators. I'm your host, Monica Richards,
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and together we go beyond the headlines to sit down with the
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leaders behind the businesses, ideas, and movements shaping our
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world. Each conversation uncovers their principles,
0:19
hard-won lessons, and defining moments, bringing you greater
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clarity, confidence, and conviction as you build what's
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next. Pull up a seat as we explore remote founder
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relationships, how to create a viral brand identity, and the
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right funding to scale to 10s of millions in revenue, all while
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quieting imposter syndrome. You are a masterclass in career
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reinvention and rapid business scaling. After a decade in media
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producing for NBC's Today Show and driving ad strategy for
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Refinery 29, you made a radical pivot into wellness. After
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earning your master's in food studies from NYU, you co-founded
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Alice Mushrooms in 2022. In less than four years, you've scaled
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this functional chocolate brand from a side hustle into an
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eight-figure powerhouse, backing it with over $8 million in
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funding from Unilever and celebrity angels like Zac Efron
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and Tiesto. Now you've entered over 2000 retail stores,
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including Air One, and we're laughing at that for a reason.
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And as COO, you're also the visionary behind Alice's viral
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brand identity. Charlotte Cruz, welcome to We Mean Business.
1:35
Thank you for having me. Thanks for that intro. Yeah, so nice.
1:39
I've
1:39
been, I've just been so excited to interview you because one,
1:43
I'm a huge fan of Alice in your product. We've been raving about
1:46
the sleep mushrooms; they really, really do help. So I'm
1:49
really excited that you're here. So on that note, what is Alice,
1:53
and how does it actually differentiate?
1:55
Yeah, so Alice, like the quick elevator pitch, right, is we're
1:57
a functional mushroom chocolate supplement, which is literally
2:01
and figuratively a mouthful, and essentially we take the power of
2:06
functional mushrooms, which for so long had kind of lived in
2:09
this world of powders and pills and tinctures that felt, in a
2:13
lot of ways, very masculine. A lot of ways very reminiscent of
2:17
pharmaceuticals. Always something that felt like
2:19
something you had to endure right to get the benefit of, and
2:22
just not very accessible. And we wanted to take that, make it
2:26
enjoyable, make it mainstream, make it accessible for everyone.
2:29
So we took functional mushrooms, put them in chocolate, and
2:33
formulated them alongside botanicals, nootropics,
2:37
adaptogens. So it's this very holistic supplement that you're
2:40
getting that not only uses functional mushrooms but other
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ingredients that complement them. So a really key defining
2:49
trait of Alice is that we formulate for an instant in the
2:53
moment benefit, but also long term results. So functional
2:57
mushrooms don't work right away, right? Like they they're all
3:00
about the long game, as we like to say. Is if you take a dose of
3:04
Lion's Manor, ratio, cordyceps today, great, nothing's gonna
3:07
happen to you today. You need to be consistent with that, and you
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need to take it daily for at least really 30 days to start
3:15
letting those nutrients compound. But we're all about
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instant gratification. Like my business partner and I are you
3:21
know 30 something women. We don't we don't wait for things,
3:25
so that's why we formulated it alongside botanicals and
3:28
nootropics that will give you more of that immediate
3:31
gratification. For example, our sleep chocolate yes has reishi
3:34
mushroom, but has magnesium, zinc, chamomile, L-theanine-all
3:37
ingredients we're familiar with that will put you to sleep
3:39
tonight. Yeah,
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you go night night right away.
3:41
Yeah, exactly. And the idea is, we're almost like the little
3:45
joke we have is like we're tricking people into taking care
3:47
of their long term health because we're giving them that
3:49
instant like, okay, it worked. Now keep coming back, and it's
3:52
only going to get better. So that's really the thesis behind
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Alice is just make it, put it in chocolate, make it joyful, and
4:01
and make it something that feels accessible because I think for
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so long functional mushrooms have felt inaccessible or
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fringe,
4:08
and they taste so delicious that you want to eat the whole entire
4:12
package.
4:12
Yeah, I can attest. Yes, they are really really good. The I
4:18
often have double the recommended dosing, if not
4:21
triple, I'm hard to put down. So like, I'll take two or three
4:24
nightcap at night, but like, I can only handle one brainstorm
4:28
during the day because that has some natural caffeine in it that
4:31
like I get super locked in after one. And if I were to take two
4:36
or three, I'd be like, whoa.
4:38
So really, you built the brand Alice by taking the product, the
4:43
focus, yeah,
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literally. I mean, it was my my business partner started her
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background's in pharmaceuticals, and she started formulating in
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her kitchen in Venice Beach for the things that she was
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struggling with most, right? And at that point, it was early in
4:55
the pandemic, and it was sleep and focus and energy, which I
4:59
think. We all were focusing with is just like up and down, right?
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And those in those mini days and hours locked in our houses. So
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she started playing around with it then in her kitchen,
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literally buying Trader Joe's chocolate and melting it down.
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And she had a homeopathic doctor, very Venice Beach,
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working beside her and kind of kind of playing mad scientist in
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the kitchen, and then you know, once she figured out there was
5:23
something there, that's when we brought in like professional
5:25
formulators and and PhDs and chocolatiers.
5:30
So when you started off, did you only have how many product lines
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did you have? How many different? Just
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sleep and focus.
5:35
Okay.
5:36
So those are the two we launched with. Then about a year later,
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we launched Happy Ending or Libido Chocolate, and then this
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past fall we launched Party Trick, which is for social mood
5:47
boosting, and Zen X, which is for stress relief.
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And can you mention what's coming out?
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Not yet.
5:54
Okay, there's something good coming. Can also attest to that.
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So let's take it back to when you left turned into wellness
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and food from media. Yeah, what was happening to prompt that
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transformational pivot?
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Yeah, I mean, I've been working in media at that point for
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almost a decade. I was working doing branded content
6:14
partnerships at digital publishers, so I feel like only
6:17
people like 30 plus will remember this heyday of media.
6:20
Yeah, it was always like Lexus and Refinery 29 bring you this
6:24
video on like how to get to work in style, right? And now that
6:27
doesn't exist, and publishers like that are struggling. But I
6:32
had been doing that, and I spent a lot of time actually in men's.
6:35
I worked at a men's publisher for quite some time, and I just
6:39
got to a point where I was like, I can't come up with another
6:42
watch campaign. Like, I can't figure out another way to sell a
6:46
luxury watch to a finance guy. Like, I'm tapped out on my
6:50
ideas, and I need to use my powers for good. And I kind of
6:55
went down this rabbit hole of wellness and kind of finding
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myself and finding how I would feel good, and I got my yoga
7:04
teacher training certification, and I did a bunch of like
7:07
intense physical activities and challenges and whatever, and
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then really landed on okay, what is the most elemental way to
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feel good? And like, yes, there's movement, but food is
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kind of the most oft overlooked part of like our baseline
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functionality, and that's when I kind of really wanted to work in
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consumer, and I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. I'd
7:30
always kind of had that itch, and it's funny; it's really hard
7:34
to break in to early stage consumer because everyone wants
7:37
someone who's done it before. So after enough job rejections at
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early stage companies that I admired. I found the master's in
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food studies at NYU, and I applied and got in, and it was
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like the best kind of way for me to break in through the noise
7:56
through the industry. And so I started doing that part time
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while still working in during the pandemic, I went to Zoom
8:04
grad school, which was crazy, and then kind of found my way
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from there.
8:12
That's so smart to get the qualification, yeah. Though, so
8:15
you
8:15
have that to back you. Totally. I mean, it just legitimized me.
8:18
I think right because everyone's like, "What is this girl doing,
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she like works over here. Why does she want to work over here?
8:23
And then you get the kind of backing of your grad program,
8:27
and then it opens a lot of doors. The bridge,
8:29
yeah, yeah.
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What gave you the courage to make that pivot?
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I don't know if it was courage as much as I was just so fed up
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with the life I was living that I just got sick of it, and I
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think like if I really were to have had courage, I would have
8:45
done it like three or four years prior. You know what I mean? But
8:49
I think everyone just gets to a point where you can I cuss on
8:53
this podcast?
8:54
Go for it. Yeah,
8:54
you just get sick of your own shit.
8:56
Yeah,
8:56
and you get over it, and I hit that point. And I think the
9:00
pandemic was such a turning point for so many people in that
9:02
regard, because you were just with yourself all the time, and
9:06
you kind of couldn't run from things, and you couldn't
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distract yourself in the same way.
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Yeah, you were forced to heal and double down. Yeah, that's so
9:16
interesting. Are you from New York?
9:17
No, I'm from Lexington, Kentucky.
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Okay.
9:19
Yeah,
9:20
Southerner.
9:20
Yeah, I love
9:21
it. All right, so starting at the inception of Alice, you
9:25
really have a unique founder story, as you mentioned prior,
9:28
which may start happening more and more in this age of working
9:31
remotely. So, can you share your founder story and what you
9:34
learned from that experience?
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Yeah, I mean, our my founder story was so unique. I think, as
9:42
you said. But it was, I think, the most unique thing was that I
9:45
met my business partner on the phone across the country, and we
9:49
started working together before we ever met in person. Yeah,
9:51
which I think is something that's probably has been
9:54
happening more and more, and and will continue to happen. I was
9:58
at a conference the other day, and I met some. Co-founders,
10:00
one's in New Zealand and ones in Austin. Oh wow! How does that
10:03
even work? Like you got Austin State. Yeah, yeah. It's like
10:05
what? We're just New York to LA. Yeah.
10:08
How did you meet though in the first place? It
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was literally so. I mean, just the power of just networking and
10:15
just like speaking what you want to anyone who will hear it. So I
10:19
had started. I'd worked at a small consumer food company here
10:25
in the city that did not make it. I worked at a lot of
10:28
consumer food brands that did not make it, and through after
10:32
that went under, started networking. The founder of that
10:35
business had helped me and introduced me to some folks, and
10:39
this guy who worked at Olipop and like kind of knew everyone.
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I got on the phone with him. Was like, I'm looking for something,
10:45
you know, da da da. He then he lived in L.A. Was at a party at
10:50
my business partner's house that she wasn't even hosting. Her
10:54
roommate was hosting it, and she like went into the kitchen to
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get a glass of water, ran into him in the kitchen, and he was
10:58
like, What are you doing? What are you up to? And she's like,
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"Well, if you know anyone, I'm looking for a co-founder, and
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then he put us on a text thread.
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Wow!
11:06
And it was literally like, "Hey, you guys should talk, and then
11:09
that was that.
11:10
From there,
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yeah.
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Oh my god! Literally. So
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it's just like, I think pulling every thread. Yeah. And it's
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just every connection gets 20 more connections, gets 20 more,
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and then your web gets quite big.
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Is there anything that you learned from that experience
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with the remote founder story?
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I mean, I think again, it's just like being very open to what
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might happen. And I think, you know, probably two years before,
11:34
I would have been like, I started a business with someone
11:35
across the country, and then it it actually made no difference
11:39
at that point, because even if that person had been in New
11:42
York, yeah, we wouldn't have been allowed to hang out really
11:45
since COVID. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, okay, let's just go for
11:48
it. I think I think it really is just like being open to
11:51
opportunities thrown your way and just like following your gut
11:54
also, because I think we had met. I always laugh with Lindsay
11:58
because her background was in pharmaceuticals, and so she had
12:01
never really been accustomed to like office or Zoom culture,
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right? Because all of her meetings were in person, and she
12:07
was driving around and da da da. So the first like two months we
12:09
were working together, it was always on the phone, and I was
12:12
like, "What do you look like? Because she was like, "Why would
12:17
I get on a Zoom? Right? Like I don't understand that. I talk on
12:19
the phone and I meet people in person. But it was one of those
12:22
things where I was like, I just followed my gut. I was like, I
12:25
know that she's legit, even if I've never laid eyes on her
12:27
before. Yeah, and we just kind of kept going.
12:32
It's kind of like just saying yes,
12:34
exactly saying
12:34
yes to opportunity. What was that moment like when you first
12:38
met in person? I would have been so nervous, like a blind date.
12:41
Um, it was like I remember we met at one of our investors'
12:45
apartments, and she came to New York, and we just did a
12:48
co-working day. But it was quite seamless. Like I, I when I look
12:52
back at that day, I don't remember the second I met her. I
12:55
remember us just like sitting there and working together, and
12:59
we had a great day. And then we went to pasties that night and
13:01
got martinis, and we were like, "Hell yeah,
13:03
yeah, let's do this, do this. Yeah. So before we dive into the
13:08
massive scaling of Alice, another incredibly interesting
13:12
origin of Alice is that you launched it while working, like
13:14
you said, a head of growth at TBH. Yeah. So, did you sleep?
13:19
Yeah, that was a crazy time because I was part time as a
13:23
head of growth at a scaling celebrity founded like Nutella
13:27
alternative. I was in grad school and was working on the
13:31
pre-launch side of Alice. And for a minute there, I was
13:35
teaching yoga too, which I had to be like, no, one thing has to
13:38
go to the best. Yeah. So that was, I mean, I loved that
13:41
honestly, and that's advice that I give a lot of aspiring
13:44
founders. Is like to me, I didn't have the savings. I
13:48
actually, in fact, had credit card debt. I didn't like. I
13:50
didn't have the luxury of quitting what I was doing, not
13:54
having an income, and like following a dream. And so that
13:59
is what made sense for me to like support myself and actually
14:04
show up and be able to build a business that we wanted to build
14:06
and not rush things and not I think just make nearsighted
14:11
decisions. So I always tell people like make sure that your
14:16
finances are taken care of and you're supporting yourself
14:19
somehow because I think there's so much of that kind of I think
14:24
it's a harmful narrative of like quit your job and follow your
14:27
dream because that's actually not practical and that's not
14:30
safe for a lot of people.
14:33
100%
14:33
yeah.
14:35
Did you have any systems that you put in place for work
14:37
balance?
14:40
You know what I did is I I mean I'm notoriously terrible about
14:44
this. Like I will just work all the time, and it then I burn
14:48
myself out, and it's like this terrible kind of up and down. So
14:53
what I did, I think like right after we launched Alice, was get
14:56
a dog, and that is a great. Forced boundary because you
15:02
literally can't ignore it. You have to go outside two or three
15:06
times a day. You have to be on some kind of schedule. Like my
15:10
dog literally will close my laptop. Like she comes over and
15:13
pauses and is like, "Stop.
15:15
Take me outside. Take me outside. Yeah.
15:17
I really think that's the best way.
15:19
That's for me. That's like the only way
15:20
is to have, like me logging off, or not logging off, negatively
15:25
impact another being, and that's what'll get me to do it.
15:29
Right, and a being that is sad. Yeah, yeah, 100% I'm gonna send
15:34
this clip to like all dog rescues.
15:36
Yeah, get a dog. It's the best thing you can do for your mental
15:38
health.
15:39
That is such a good piece of advice. Thank you. Yeah, how did
15:42
you avoid bootstrapping your business?
15:45
We were very fortunate. So Lindsay has she in LA was around
15:53
a lot of kind of exited founders or folks who had been quite
15:56
successful in their business. There's such an amazing
15:58
community in LA of people in that place, and when she had
16:03
originally had the idea, one of those people kind of called her
16:08
out of the blue and was like, "Hey, I've been thinking about
16:10
your idea. Here's some money to figure it out. Wow. Yeah. And
16:15
she's, you know, like when she tells the story, it's crazy
16:17
because she was just driving and she'd pull over on the side of
16:19
the road and started crying and I was like, "Okay, this is real.
16:22
You know, just you know, someone I really admire and respect just
16:25
put this vote of confidence behind me, and now we're gonna
16:28
do it. And so that's what enabled us early on to get these
16:33
formulators, enabled her to find me, get the branding, pay a
16:39
designer to help with the branding, kind of that ideation,
16:42
and just like you know, get a Google Drive workspace, and get
16:46
a Gmail, and like get an Asana, right? All of those things that
16:49
you just need to do that you know add up and can cost money.
16:54
And then once we we we took that, I mean, quite far. And
17:00
then once we had took the
17:02
initial funding quite far, okay.
17:04
And then once we actually had our first sample product, like
17:08
we went out and visited our manufacturer, decided that would
17:10
be our manufacturer, had them make sample batches. We were
17:15
like, okay, like this is like very real now, and so we went
17:19
out pre-launch and raised a pre-seed.
17:22
Okay. Yeah. So really, walking that back, it's about just
17:26
talking about it.
17:28
Yeah.
17:28
Because Lindsay was going around talking about it.
17:30
Exactly.
17:30
And then this person picked it up and said, "Let me help. Yeah.
17:33
Incredible. Yeah. Okay. So be open and talk about it. Yeah. To
17:36
everyone. So then, when you're you're saying you took those
17:41
funds pretty far. Which pockets did you allocate those funds
17:44
first to build your foundation?
17:45
Yeah, I mean, kind of the like foundational stuff of get brand,
17:50
get a manufacturer, get a formulation, just like product,
17:53
right? But then I think what we did, which was quite different
17:56
and is not necessarily the advice I give everyone, but we
18:01
knew that we wanted to be quite brand forward, yes, and I think
18:06
that shows, right? Yeah, and that was extremely important for
18:11
us too, because of our niche functional mushrooms. Not
18:15
something that people know a lot about, especially about four
18:18
years ago. I mean, it's still a high education product, but four
18:21
years ago it was extremely high education. Yeah, new category,
18:25
new form factor, first time found. You know, we just we knew
18:29
that there were going to be a lot of hurdles. We were going to
18:32
have to jump, and brand could be the thing that would help us a
18:36
lot. So we invested quite a bit in our initial photo shoots in
18:42
building out our website. I would say like probably a lot
18:46
more than I would advise most brands to do when they're
18:49
starting out. But it made it so when we launched and started
18:53
sending out emails and started you know getting attention to
18:56
the brand, people landed on our site and they were like, "Oh,
18:58
this looks like an established brand already. This looks very
19:00
thoughtful. This looks very intentional, and I think that
19:04
served us extremely well. Right, like we got a feature, a profile
19:07
in Forbes two weeks after we launched. So I think like
19:11
there's all of these things that support that, but it also it was
19:14
a bet that we took, for sure.
19:16
Did you have a publicist for the Forbes, or did that naturally
19:19
happen? Okay, so you also invested in publicity? Yes.
19:22
Yeah. We had a PR team early on, and then we had our digital
19:26
agency that kind of built everything. I mean, we started
19:29
doing paid ads the day we launched. We did a big party in
19:33
Venice the day we launched as well. We did a big influencer
19:38
seating push. So like we came out definitely with a bang that
19:44
you can only do if you have funding.
19:46
Did you do another like a seeding round after that initial
19:49
investment?
19:50
We kind of kept the through the mechanics of what we did was
19:53
called a safe note. You can kind of keep it open. So we did kind
19:56
of rolling funding that was you know. Pre-launch and then kind
20:00
of through after we launched, where people were very excited
20:03
after we launched by the early track. Yeah.
20:05
Did you have? Did you hire someone? Did you work with
20:07
someone to do that, or did you do that?
20:09
No, we do that.
20:10
Okay. Yeah. Good for you. It's
20:12
it's a full time job.
20:14
What do you what What is your biggest tip for that? Like to go
20:17
out and ask for funding. Like what do you do first?
20:20
Yeah. I mean, get a product. Get like I think just have your
20:24
vision really dialed because it's really easy to tell when
20:27
someone does or does not have their vision dialed. Your story,
20:31
like why you, why now, why this founder. I think what people
20:34
forget a lot when they're early stage funding is that investors,
20:38
even like up to a Series A and funding, like investors are
20:42
betting on the founders, and this is something that I've
20:45
really only come to learn in the last little bit. And you know,
20:47
I've gone through three or four funding rounds at this point. Is
20:51
like, yes, they have to like the category. Yes, there's a lot of
20:53
fundamentals that have to make sense, but they're betting on
20:56
you. So like, you need to come correct. You need to come with
21:00
with your with your just everything dialed, and so I
21:05
think what we did obviously we had product we had proof of we
21:08
we were in a category that a lot of people continue to be very
21:12
excited about. I mean, one of my hacks was my husband literally
21:17
taught Excel modeling at Columbia Business School, and
21:19
he's like brilliant with Excel and numbers, so he built our
21:23
financial model when we started, which is his sweat equity. But
21:28
literally, we had all these like private equity guys being like,
21:30
"Wow, your model is quite good. I was like, "Yeah, I didn't.
21:36
Basically, yeah, the other half. But I think like a beautiful
21:39
deck, having an idea of what your finances are going to look
21:43
like, having that dialed, I think, like a really clear
21:47
picture of how much money you need, when that's going to run
21:50
out, and it's always going to change. But like, people just
21:52
need to know you're thinking about that stuff,
21:53
like your projections. Yeah, how far into the future do you did
21:56
you go for those projections? We
21:58
did like eight years, which was so silly. Like, no one wants to
22:02
see that. Like literally, some people were like, "Trim that. I
22:06
mean, it makes no sense. You have no idea, right? I think
22:10
ultimately, when you launch, it's good to show what you think
22:12
you can do the next two to three years. What everyone kind of
22:15
knows that, like, it's after six to 12 months, it's a little
22:19
fugazi fugazi. You'll figure it out,
22:22
right?
22:22
Yeah.
22:23
Okay. So going back to you were talking about influencer
22:26
marketing. This has been a huge piece to your marketing
22:29
strategy. So you took a really different kind of personalized
22:33
approach. Can you tell us about that? Because that was at the
22:35
beginning of your launch as well, correct? Yeah. Okay.
22:37
We, you know, to this day we really haven't paid any
22:40
influencers. We've done much more. Yeah. By the way, you
22:43
still
22:43
have a groundswell of press.
22:45
Yeah, which is great. Yeah. I think it's really like we have
22:50
been quite thoughtful about how we gift, how we speak to, how we
22:54
show up. Again, I think it's it's an element of brand as well
22:59
that you know people are excited to get our product, and they're
23:01
excited to post about it. But what we did when we launched,
23:05
which helped us get a lot of buzz right away, was we we found
23:09
like 100 150 influencers that Lindsey and I had worked with at
23:14
previous jobs or friends of friends. You know, we just kind
23:16
of our PR team helped us, yeah, and we got this kind of master
23:19
list of people that we loved, and we literally like packed. I
23:24
mean, there's photos of Lindsay and I at her house in LA, like
23:27
with boxes everywhere. Packed all these boxes. We went and
23:33
rest in peace to this place, Flower Boy, which was my
23:35
favorite flower shop. I remember that. I lived in LA for 13
23:37
years, and I can't believe Flower Boy closed.
23:40
I know.
23:41
I love that place so much. But we went to Flower Boy and got a
23:43
ton of live flowers, and then literally put live flowers in
23:46
each of these like hand packed boxes, and then overnighted
23:49
them. So when they opened it, the flowers would still make
23:52
good, and like everyone had a handwritten note that was
23:54
specific to them, and like merch and chocolate, and you know it's
23:59
our launch day. We're so excited for you to be the first to try
24:03
it. So it was so cool because like the couple of days around
24:05
launch, it was just like posts and posts and posts coming in.
24:08
Yeah. So we got that virality, and I think if you do it right
24:12
and with enough intention, it's like something that you can do
24:16
scrappily.
24:16
Yeah.
24:18
And not have to you know pay a ton of money for. I mean, we did
24:22
pay a lot in like overnighting the ship, fresh flowers. Yeah,
24:25
like yeah.
24:26
But that is such a special. I mean, chocolates and flowers.
24:29
Yeah, so good. Did you have to research everyone before you
24:32
wrote the notes?
24:34
Yeah, like we would go on their pages and be like, "I love your
24:36
dog, peaches, or whatever. You know what I mean? Yes, yes,
24:39
that's so smart. Okay, so fast forward a little bit. We're in
24:44
launch phase still, right? But where one of your early months
24:47
generated 40k in revenue, right? And yeah, that was early launch.
24:51
That was month one. Okay, so how did you? We've talked about the
24:54
influencer strategy, but how did you ensure the launch of Alice
24:57
would actually stick?
25:00
You know, it's funny when you say like insure because who
25:03
knows? We just set everything up and we're like, here we are. But
25:08
fingers crossed. Yeah, like I said, I mean, we did this huge
25:10
event on day one, which we actually did 10k on our first
25:15
day, which was crazy because we
25:18
and but okay, but how much is how much is 129? exactly. So you
25:22
did 10k in one day.
25:23
Yeah. So we, I mean, we had an event and we sold product at
25:28
that event that night, and it was funny. It was like as the
25:30
night went on, I was like, okay, we've made $9,000, and I like
25:33
got on the mic and I was like, who wants to help us? So it was
25:35
like an auctioneering. That's awesome. So like all of us have
25:38
it in
25:39
person.
25:40
Not all of it, but I'd say we probably sold like two or 3k in
25:43
person at that event because everyone was just so excited.
25:46
Yeah, and it was it was a really fun party. And I mean, Lindsay
25:52
and I really just like blasted it to our friends. Yeah, you
25:56
know, like I said, the website was in a really great spot. We'd
25:59
already kind of built out an email list.
26:01
We'd
26:01
you know been on our Instagram for a bit, kind of building a
26:04
mood board that had attracted some followers, and then we
26:08
started running paid ads pretty immediately. So that wasn't like
26:12
a day one thing, but by day two or three, we were running paid
26:14
advertisements on Meta, driving to the site. So we kind of like
26:18
just turned everything on. But what I'll say is like that just
26:23
has so much to do with product market fit. Like when I had been
26:26
at other businesses and you know these businesses that have no
26:29
longer exist, right? I was so excited about them and I wanted
26:32
my friends to try and they were like cool, like you know maybe
26:36
I'll order it or like love the idea, proud of you, but like
26:39
there wasn't like I need that, and then the day that we
26:42
launched Alice, all of my friends ordered it, and I was
26:45
like, okay, there's something here, and like the the product
26:49
market fit was just so clear, right? Like instantly, and so
26:54
that is what I think fueled
26:56
us a lot
26:57
in those early days.
26:58
When you ran those paid meta ads on day two was that what the UGC
27:03
that you that was yielded or was that your photo shoot that you
27:07
yeah our photo shoot okay so it was like follow static yeah okay
27:10
yeah
27:11
okay so that way you knew exactly like what the esthetic
27:14
was going to be yeah yeah okay so one year later you scaled
27:18
Alex to six figures per month can you share meaningful tips on
27:22
how to scale fast but also sustainably? Yeah,
27:27
that's like the question of the hour, right? I think keeping
27:31
your team as lean as you can. Those first bit, it was like
27:35
literally just Lindsay and me for quite some time, and we had
27:40
some great agency partners, but outside of that, you know, we
27:43
tried to keep things super lean. I think you can now, like with
27:47
AI, it's crazy what you can do in terms of keeping things lean
27:51
and moving really fast and moving efficiently. But at that
27:55
time, I mean, I think the biggest thing you can invest in
27:57
early on is your brain and like creative strategy, because I
28:03
think the way that we were able to scale was like our ad
28:05
creative was really good and it was really catchy. And we would
28:08
spend hours every week brainstorming new ad creative
28:11
ideas and hooks and captions and how this should look here. And
28:16
we were really intense and meticulous about it. And Lindsay
28:20
and I have, you know, were slightly less involved in that
28:22
at this point because it's kind of its own huge machine. Yeah.
28:25
But in the early days, like pretty much our sole focus was
28:29
on ad creative, and I think that is again what helped us so much
28:35
because we were kind of in it. And I think, too, like what
28:42
people don't really realize is sometimes your ad creative can
28:45
be, you're like, well, it doesn't have to be on brand
28:47
because it's just performance creative and it's whatever. But
28:49
more people see that than see your organic channel. Yes. And
28:54
so yes, I'm very much like definitely throw performance
28:57
stuff in there. We do that. Obviously, that you know doesn't
28:59
feel like the most Alice thing you've ever seen, yeah. But
29:02
overwhelmingly, when we were early days, all of our
29:05
performance creative was something we would have also put
29:08
on organic, and I think that served us well into just like
29:12
the brand Halo.
29:14
When you were starting out, this question was not on the pre
29:17
questions. I'm sorry, but I have to ask: Did you ever receive any
29:21
feedback on two blonde women co-founding?
29:25
You know what? No. And we were really prepared for that.
29:29
Yeah.
29:29
But no, we never did. I think maybe we got ahead of it. Like
29:35
we were, we're always saying like we're quite aware that we
29:39
are two blonde hair, blue eyed women. Optics. Yeah. Starting a
29:43
business that is using a lot of traditional Chinese medicine
29:48
ingredients, and like we were always kind of the first to say,
29:50
like, hey, we didn't invent this. We the stuff has been
29:54
around for quite some time. We're not, you know, turning
29:58
into some novel ingredient that we're. We found right. It's just
30:01
like we're trying to paying
30:03
homage,
30:03
right? Like we're just trying to package this in a way that makes
30:06
it accessible to the mass consumer.
30:08
Yeah, I'm. I'm. Yeah. So the the tip there is to just get ahead
30:12
of it.
30:12
Yeah,
30:13
and be prepared.
30:14
Yeah, I think with anything, people might criticize you for.
30:16
Yeah,
30:16
get ahead of it.
30:17
Yeah. Can we talk about experiential marketing?
30:20
Yeah,
30:20
you've done okay. So there was this vintage ice cream Coachella
30:24
that you launched, and this was it. Ended up being a really
30:27
viral moment for Alice, but I have a feeling that virality
30:31
wasn't just of luck. There had to be some strategy behind it.
30:35
So, what happened there, and then how did you establish that
30:38
idea in the first place?
30:39
Yeah, it was Lindsey's idea. She's such a creative genius.
30:43
This ice cream truck
30:45
to
30:46
drive around and kind of serve Alice and get it out. And we'd
30:50
had the idea even before launch. Like we knew we wanted to do it
30:53
kind of from day one. Like what a fun thing this was! Right,
30:55
Coachella is the
30:56
perfect place. Yeah.
30:57
Well, it was it was one of those things where Coachella just kind
31:00
of happened. So we got the ice cream truck. It's a vintage 1969
31:05
Chevy ice cream truck. It has no windshield wipers, no rearview
31:09
mirrors, no gas gage. It doesn't actually lock. You could stick
31:13
anything into the ignition and turn it. Oh, doesn't have to be
31:16
the key. Okay, fine. Yeah, like this. This car is like such a
31:20
beater, but we loved it. No power steering, so like if you
31:23
don't have good core strength, yep, you can't turn that's over.
31:27
And we rented it for a month and did I think 30 events. Wow.
31:33
Yeah, because it was I think so often now you can launch a brand
31:37
and do it online, and everyone is like, okay, that seems just
31:40
like another internet brand, and I don't trust it. And I think
31:44
the most important thing that consumers look for now is trust,
31:47
because everything is AI, everything is this. Yeah, like,
31:49
are there people behind this? Is this thoughtful? And like,
31:52
that's what I think comes forward too when you put a lot
31:54
into creative. Is like people can tell it's thoughtful, and
31:57
it's a human, not a robot brain behind it. But so we got this
32:02
truck, and we just wanted to like be out there and bring
32:05
Alice to people, and kind of put faces to the product, and and
32:10
have this experiential moment to take it outside of the Instagram
32:13
squares. So we yeah we took it to farmers markets, coffee
32:17
shops, bars, like I mean, everywhere, and we towed it out
32:23
to Coachella, and we did Camp Poosh, and we did Revolve Fest
32:27
at Coachella, and it was one of those things where I mean, it
32:30
was like lightning in a bottle, where a lot of those things
32:33
would have normally cost a lot of money for us to activate at,
32:36
but we were so new, so everyone knew we were broke, and we were
32:40
doing something that I think was like so interesting and so value
32:43
additive that everyone just was like, "Come on out and do it.
32:48
Wonderful. And we were like, "Great! Yeah. So we we would
32:52
like serve ice cream, but do chocolate shavings on it, or we
32:55
would we ended up doing melting down a lot of our brainstorm
33:00
chocolate and dipping little like bananas. We'd half a banana
33:04
popsicle stick, dip it in and make this like chocolate banana
33:07
popsicle with whipped cream that people loved, and just like
33:10
sweet treats and showing people different ways to enjoy the
33:13
chocolate too. Like you can cook with it. You can do
33:15
yeah
33:16
all these different things.
33:17
And then didn't your TikTok from Coachella receive like 100,000?
33:21
We and
33:21
it went viral.
33:23
Maybe there was a TikTok around that time that went viral. I
33:28
don't know if it was about the truck.
33:29
Okay, but
33:30
like around that time, we just had. I mean, I'm sure the
33:33
truck's some way played into it. But I remember that it was this
33:38
girl being like, "I have the gnarliest ADHD, and like this is
33:41
the first thing that's helped me focus. Oh, that's so great!
33:43
Yeah.
33:43
Okay. So you've really just built this world that's kind of
33:47
like Alice's world. Yeah. You've built a world around your
33:50
product, right? Yeah. It's like yeah, and the experiential
33:52
marketing just helps with that. Yeah. Supports that
33:54
exactly. We I mean we love doing wacky stuff.
33:57
Yeah. So collaboration has been an integral, very effective part
34:03
of your marketing strategy as well. You've partnered with
34:05
Fleur de Mal, with Harry Styles is it skincare brand pleasing
34:09
beauty brand? They
34:09
kind of do everything. Okay,
34:11
his everything brand his everything brand, and HBO's mega
34:15
hit TV series The Last of Us, which is so unique as well, and
34:19
most recently with Joe and the Juice for a pop up. So, how are
34:23
you accessing these A list celebrity and high network
34:26
brands, especially when you were in the infancy stage?
34:29
Yeah, Fleur de Mall. That was just such a perfect
34:34
collaboration. Love and Jennifer, the founder, is so
34:38
generous and just like spirit and attention, and she's so
34:43
brilliant. And we had some mutual friends, and she, we
34:47
talked to her because we were launching this libido chocolate.
34:50
And so right around the time we launched libido chocolate, we
34:53
did a little limited edition lingerie set, which was amazing.
34:57
And I think like the beauty of these collaborations is that. If
35:00
you can make it low lift on either side, it's you know it's
35:03
just attention that can come to every brand that's part of it
35:08
that you know is earned. It'll get pressed because it's
35:11
interesting. So it's like it's great for brand all around. You
35:15
know, with HBO they came to us, and I'll never forget. I'm like
35:20
sitting in my chair. Phone call, the guy. Yeah, it was like I'm
35:23
sitting in my chair and I get this email that's like HBO The
35:25
Last of Us ex Alice and I was like, sorry, what? Fell out of
35:29
my chair. It was the coolest thing. They were like, we would
35:32
love to talk about you know licensing for season two, and
35:36
you know we lost our minds, and they were great to work with
35:39
through that. With were your
35:42
products on the show? What was that collaboration? So
35:44
essentially, they partnered with a few different kind of mushroom
35:48
brands and other brands that were we did it with a guitar
35:51
because Pedro Pascal's character is really the guitar. But we re
35:57
like designed the outside of our brainstorm tin, which has
36:01
cordyceps mushroom in it, which is the mushroom in the show, to
36:04
look like infected, right? And so we did a limited amount of
36:09
these special edition tins, and then we made this like only 100
36:13
of these kind of moss boxes. It looked like they're kind of like
36:15
in the apocalyptic world that had our tins in them. So kind of
36:19
like playing a lot to the fans of the show and giving them
36:22
collectible items, and then Joe and the Juice. We've had a lot
36:27
of really successful kind of cafe and coffee shop
36:31
partnerships because we're so easy to melt down into a mocha
36:37
or incorporate into drinks of any kind. So we were friendly
36:41
with the Joe and the Juice team, and that one just kind of
36:44
naturally came about. I think again, it's like I said earlier,
36:47
it's just about talking and yapping and being out there, and
36:51
things will happen.
36:52
Is that how Pedro Pascal invested through that
36:55
collaboration?
36:56
No, he invested before that actually. Okay, but the
36:58
collaboration, like the HBO team, had no idea. No way. Yeah,
37:02
they just reached out because they were. I know, and we were
37:05
like, "Well, this actually really works out. Yeah,
37:07
absolutely. So speaking of investors, you gain angel
37:11
investors like Efron, Kevin Hart, Tiesto, Pedro Pascal.
37:14
Yeah, how did that happen?
37:17
It just kind of happens again, like through kind of these
37:20
networks of, you know, you meet some people and you know do you
37:24
see more people and you see more people and I think celebrities
37:28
they they do like to put their money to work and take some bets
37:31
and I think if you if you meet the right kind of folks who
37:35
manage their money or manage the investment strategies it can be
37:39
a really aligned fit
37:41
yeah okay. And then for Series A funding, yeah, that was what
37:47
like year three or four.
37:48
Yeah, we closed our Series A little over a year ago. Okay, so
37:53
year two and a half.
37:54
Okay, did you learn anything from that experience? It was
37:57
completely different from seating.
37:59
Totally. Yeah. I mean, a Series A is a much more serious
38:03
endeavor. It's it's all consuming, right? You're raising
38:08
from funds, not individuals. That's a completely different
38:11
type of investor that you're speaking to and learning from. I
38:16
mean, it was it was definitely baptism by fire for sure, but I
38:22
think we grew so much from that experience, and just kind of
38:27
taking us to the next level of you know we started as these
38:30
scrappy founders. I'd say we still are very scrappy founders,
38:33
but the level of professionalism that I think we've gained over
38:35
the last year and a half has been so important, and I think
38:40
fueled by okay, we are at this next level. We are working with
38:44
people who are brilliant and quite professional and quite
38:49
established. And so I think it's a lot of rising to meet the
38:54
occasion. Did they give you any strategy, or did you learn any
38:56
strategy throughout that time that you had to then integrate
38:59
into the brand? Yeah, I mean it's amazing because when you
39:02
are running your own brand, I think you can be, you know,
39:05
you're a n of one. Like you only see your business, and so one of
39:10
the big advantages of working with these investors who see
39:14
everything is they know like what the key markers are of a
39:18
good business. They know okay, you're actually not focusing on
39:20
this thing enough here, or you're actually doing really
39:22
well here. That I we can't benchmark ourselves against
39:26
because we don't know what the rest of the market looks like.
39:29
We don't know what people down the line are going to care
39:31
about. That's what the investors bring, and so we were able to
39:35
learn a lot about our business through raising this capital and
39:40
bringing these people on board, that I think is is invaluable,
39:43
and it helps you narrow your focus on like, okay, you know,
39:47
retention is what matters most. I need to put my thoughts here
39:50
because I need to be at this metric to gain this next unlock
39:53
and unlock profitability this way, and da da da. And I think
39:56
you just become so much smarter about the business in general.
40:00
Did you work with someone?
40:02
No.
40:02
Through so you you did this sovereignly as well.
40:04
Yeah.
40:05
What's your first step if you want to engage in Series A? What
40:09
do you do first?
40:11
Well, I think it's you know knowing your business is at the
40:15
stage that makes sense for that because if you're too early,
40:20
right? I would, I would always encourage people to like go a
40:23
safe note route or to go more of an angel route until it gets to
40:25
a point where, like, okay, you know, it's time to be a big kid,
40:29
revenue, okay, and distribution, and just kind of like you can
40:34
feel it when the business is starting to get like big and
40:36
real. That's like Series A time. First step in raising an A,
40:41
yes.
40:42
It's, I mean, I think it's one of the most important things to
40:45
like stay very networked. I think investors don't want to
40:49
invest in someone they met a week ago, right? Because again,
40:52
like they're investing in people, and so a lot of the
40:56
folks who have we've brought around the table are people that
40:59
we've been talking to for over a year, just getting coffee with
41:02
and keeping up to date on the business and building that
41:05
relationship with. So then when it comes time, like hey, we're
41:08
ready for this next phase, it's much easier because they already
41:11
know they like you. They already know they like the business
41:13
proposition. Then it's more about do the numbers work for
41:16
our thesis and pulling all of that together. But I think you
41:20
know the the real truth of being a founder is you're constantly
41:23
raising. Right, you're it's never off, even if you don't
41:26
have an open round, because you might have an open round in a
41:28
year and a half, and you need to be talking to those people who
41:31
will do that today. Right. So it's just always on. Like I
41:37
would say, like the second you start a business, start talking
41:39
to Series A investors and just warming them up, and you know,
41:43
not in like a nefarious way, but just in like you're building
41:46
that relationship. And I think it's important too for you to
41:48
understand who you want to bring in because you're marrying these
41:52
people, and so that year is not only important for them to get
41:55
to know you, but for you to get to know is this someone that I
41:57
want to work with for the rest of my business? Because it's not
42:01
an employee. You can't fire them. Like you're you're in it
42:04
together. It's a marriage. Yeah, it's a marriage. And I think
42:09
it's again similar to the advice I gave earlier. It's getting
42:12
your deck, getting your model, like getting getting your
42:15
priorities vary in line. And like, what do you want that
42:18
money for? What do you need that money for? What will it unlock?
42:21
Investors really want to see the opportunity. So, like, okay, if
42:24
I'm raising 5 million, that's going to get me to this X next
42:28
tier threshold of revenue and this distribution and whatever,
42:31
because they need underwrite against that for their return.
42:35
So, I think just thinking strategically about like what
42:37
actual opportunity you're presenting is, not just like I
42:40
need cash to keep going, right? And I think, yeah, I mean it's
42:47
just like networking and getting your deck out there and reaching
42:50
out to people and you know raising, particularly a Series A
42:54
is really really hard. So like another thing to prepare is like
42:58
probably start going to therapy, like you know take care of
43:01
yourself. Like, get yourself in a place where you can be very
43:03
confident, where you're not going to take every no as a
43:06
personal affront to you. Correct. Where you can build
43:09
that resiliency because it's really, really hard. And like,
43:14
that's not something that I had done before we did that, and so
43:17
I had to learn the hard way. And I think that the the more you
43:24
can get your house in order internally, like the smoother
43:27
that process will go.
43:29
And I can imagine getting those no's and be hard when you're the
43:34
founder of this brand. The brand's your baby, so it's like
43:36
an assailant, right? You know,
43:38
right? It's really difficult as a founder, and like this,
43:41
something that I work on all the time is like, right now there's
43:45
Alice and my identity, and they're stacked. And how do I
43:48
separate that? Because it can't live like that, or else you'll
43:51
go crazy. And I think a fundraise makes that very, very
43:54
apparent.
43:55
That's really interesting. Yeah. Okay. During fundraising, I'm
43:59
assuming you talked about retail.
44:00
Yeah.
44:01
So, or I should say, Series A funding. You talked about retail
44:05
recently. You had over 2000 retail stores for Atlas, and the
44:08
reason we were giggling in the beginning of this conversation
44:11
about Air One is because Air One is like a miracle to get into
44:14
and then to stay in. So, what is the most essential step we
44:18
should take if we're pursuing retail?
44:20
Yeah, I mean, retail is an amazing channel. I love retail.
44:23
I think it is such an amazing place of discovery and just
44:29
distribution and scale for a business. But I think the
44:32
biggest thing is like you have to go in eyes wide open, and you
44:36
know there there is this point of like do things before you're
44:38
ready, which like yes, but retail I think is more of a no
44:42
on that because we have been able to be quite successful in
44:46
retail, which I think is a testament to our packaging. But
44:49
I think one of the big reasons that we have found such great
44:53
success in retail is that we had spent before we went mass retail
44:58
two to three years building. Online presence for the brand
45:02
and becoming kind of top of mind and buzzy, so that once we hit
45:06
shelves, people were like, "Oh, I saw that on Instagram. I've
45:08
been thinking about trying it. I'm going to get it, because
45:12
then you know we came out of the gate strong. If we had launched
45:16
in retail, you know, right away, that would not have happened.
45:20
And you only get one shot at retail. You know, if you launch
45:24
in you know a big national retailer and you're not selling,
45:28
like they kick you out, and it's so hard to get back in. So I
45:32
think it's you know being confident that your brand is
45:36
resonant enough so that you can stay on shelf because like
45:41
staying on shelf is harder than getting on shelf at the end of
45:43
the day, so we, I mean we love it, but it is a constant
45:52
monitoring of how are our turns doing? Do we need to be doing
45:54
more demos? Do we need to be investing top of funnel here?
45:57
How do we attribute what we're spending on meta ads to what
46:02
we're turning in store, and then you get into a new phase of your
46:06
business where it's like omni-channel, and it's really
46:09
hard to attribute sales to certain things because it's hard
46:13
to tell who saw this ad and then went into Target and bought
46:16
this.
46:17
Right, there isn't any tracking there. Yeah. So, talking about
46:21
your visual ID, right? It's viral. It's beautiful. It's
46:25
incredible. It's one of my favorite brands. If I encourage
46:28
everyone to go on Alice's Instagram, I mean, it's like
46:31
Chef's Kiss, 11 out of 10. So I think that you, and and correct
46:35
me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you treat Alice as more of like
46:38
a high end fashion house, yeah, than like maybe a consumer good.
46:42
So, what is your secret to unlocking that really good
46:45
signature branding, no matter the product?
46:48
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just gut instinct and building out
46:52
what you want to see in the world versus copying what's been
46:57
done. I think that's what Lindsay did so well because by
47:00
the time I met Lindsay, she had this logo and she had the idea
47:02
for the tin, and I think the tin has been such a hallmark of our
47:06
brand because every other supplement brand is in a bottle
47:10
or a pouch, and this is so unique. It's so eye catching.
47:14
You put this on shelf in retail next to a bunch of white pill
47:16
bottles. Yes, this is what catches the eye, and so I think
47:21
you just have to be, like, don't be afraid to reinvent the wheel
47:25
a little bit. And you know, just because everyone else does this
47:30
type of thing, it doesn't have to look like that. And so we
47:33
really built Alice for what we wanted to see, which was a
47:37
brand. I mean, I think we take a lot from beauty too. I think
47:39
beauty does a lot of innovative packaging. They do a lot of that
47:43
kind of aspirational kind of content and branding that we
47:46
like to see. And I think that you know that's not something
47:52
you really see in supplement. Like the the VMS world can feel
47:55
so, for lack of a better word, dead or sterile, where
48:00
everything just feels like white lab,
48:02
yeah.
48:02
But you know, and and we took a totally opposite approach to
48:05
that to bring things to life. Like our our first photo shoot
48:07
has defined really what we've done with the brand since then,
48:11
which is always live botanicals, live grass, live flowers, live
48:15
mushrooms, making people feel like they're in a world that is
48:18
vibrant and in an aisle where most things feel sterile, this
48:25
vibrancy I think really stands out and resonates. And so I
48:27
think it's like finding that thing of yours that makes you
48:31
unique and like leaning in really hard.
48:34
So you mentioned that because this is a new category, your
48:37
product requires a lot of education. Yeah. Yet your
48:39
branding is very whimsical, right? You're creating that
48:42
natural world around it. How do you integrate that education
48:45
piece that's so important to convert customers?
48:48
I think we try to do a lot on our website. So I think it's
48:52
it's something that we kind of do is in our ad creative or on
48:56
Instagram or you know anywhere that you're seeing our creative.
48:59
It's a little bit more, come hither, right? Like, like it's
49:04
engaging in a way that makes you want to click on it because it's
49:07
beautiful, and you're like, you see just like mushroom
49:09
chocolate, and you're like, what is that? That draws people in.
49:12
It kind of stops the scroll, and then when they click through and
49:14
they get to our site, or they start to look at the packaging
49:16
and they look at the back, that's where it's loaded with
49:19
information, and so we we like to give people as much
49:24
information as possible because it it is still a product that
49:28
people don't fully understand, and we've we've come quite a
49:31
long way. But you know, we're always trying to crack that nut.
49:37
Yeah. So you've also been very open about your imposter
49:42
syndrome, and this is, I think, a really key piece to this
49:45
conversation. So, especially with your most recent revenue
49:49
projection standing at eight figures tall, what does imposter
49:52
syndrome look like for you?
49:54
Yeah, great question. That was a
49:56
hard pivot, but we yeah no, I love
49:58
it. I think for. For me, it's funny. Like I did not have
50:02
imposter syndrome when we started because it was still
50:05
like this little thing, and it was kind of low stakes, and it
50:08
was a project, and like, why not me? Right? Like, let's do it.
50:12
Yeah. And I think the bigger it gets, and the more I stand to
50:15
lose, the more scared I get, and like, what am I doing here? And
50:20
they're gonna find me out, and you know it's funny. I just
50:24
read. I finished yesterday *Fame Sick* Lena Dunham's book, and
50:27
she. I don't know if you've read it. I have she. She's amazing,
50:30
but she talks so much about that. Like the bigger that girls
50:34
got, the more she was scared of someone finding out that she
50:37
wasn't supposed to be in the room. Yeah, and I think that is
50:42
something that you know is a constant battle of you know, and
50:45
then you've got people's livelihoods that are relying on
50:47
you. We have a team now of over 10 people, and you know, if I
50:51
mess up, that's a
50:52
family. Yeah, but like that's right,
50:54
exactly. And like, if I mess up and something happens, like
50:58
that's 10 people's livelihoods. So I think just the bigger it
51:02
gets, that pressure can make you be like, what? How did who
51:07
picked me to run this? How'd that happen?
51:09
But how do you set that voice aside so that you can continue
51:12
to scale?
51:13
I think it's you just you just have to, like it's not even a a
51:18
conscious decision of like I'm separating that. You just like
51:21
you live with it, and it sits there, but you can't give it
51:25
air, and you just have to be like, okay, but I've got these
51:28
100 things to do, and I don't have time for that.
51:31
You're kind of in mom mode at that point. Yeah, you know, like
51:33
you don't have a choice. You just get it done, right? Yeah.
51:36
So you think that separating your personal identity from the
51:39
brand identity helped that at all,
51:41
I think. But that's still always an an evolving thing. Yeah. Um.
51:45
I think just in some ways, like the further along we get, you
51:49
just you start to it's almost like exposure therapy. Like you
51:53
know, you just get a little bit more used to it, and you learn
51:55
how to live with it on a daily basis. But like, I go to therapy
51:59
once a week. I get acupuncture. I do all the stuff, you know.
52:02
Take Alice. I take Alice. Yeah. I mean, we literally made that
52:05
stress relief chocolate because Lindsay and I were like, "Ah, we
52:08
need one. Yeah, yeah.
52:10
When you walk into a room for, let's say, your Series A round,
52:15
right? Yeah. You're going into a boardroom of investors. Do do
52:18
you have a thing that you do before you walk in,
52:23
I like to meditate and a lot of like box breathing. I find box
52:28
breathing to be very helpful. A box breath is four counts in,
52:32
hold for four, four counts out, hold for four, and like six of
52:36
those breaths, and you're like a different person. So I think I
52:41
mean that's something I take from my yoga training too is
52:43
just like the power of breath, right? It just like changes
52:47
everything.
52:48
100%
52:49
But I'm also someone who doesn't like to over prepare. Like if I
52:53
get too in my head prior to a meeting and I try to prep all of
52:58
this stuff and I'm gonna freak out. Whereas if I can like, I
53:01
trust myself. I know that I know the answers. I go in. It's a
53:06
much better situation.
53:07
Yeah, that's good counsel. In between all your work, how do
53:11
you keep the joy and magic alive in life? Because you work a lot.
53:16
Yeah. Again, I would have to put back to animals. I also have two
53:20
cats in addition to my dog, so I'm like that freak who lives in
53:24
New York City with three animals. But it's kind of the
53:28
only way. I think animals are the best way at getting you out
53:31
of your head.
53:33
Well, cats purr too, is so healing. Oh yeah, if you put the
53:35
cat in your chest.
53:36
One of my cats sleeps on my pillow with me and just purrs
53:38
all night. It's like
53:39
it's like scientifically backed to help your yeah your anxiety
53:42
and yeah all of that
53:43
yeah so we love that honestly like movement and exercise I
53:49
started running in the middle of our like Series A race so last
53:53
January I started running and I've run a couple half marathons
53:56
since then and I think like having that type of similar to
54:01
like the forcing of a dog to make you go outside is like if
54:06
you're stuck on a training schedule and you're like okay if
54:08
I don't take the hour to go run right now like that my next few
54:11
runs are gonna be terrible you know like almost that like if I
54:15
don't take care of myself there's a punishment yeah yeah
54:17
yeah is is like the way I have to like back myself into
54:21
corners, so running has been amazing, and I just like love
54:26
the feeling of running. And I run with my dog, and yeah, I
54:31
mean, spending time with people, like just like finding time to
54:36
be with your girlfriends. But it's all easier said than done.
54:40
Yeah, I love how you take the wild, which are animals, and
54:43
then nature, and like that's your outlet. Plus, there's a
54:46
reason. Like, if you think about more the morning show or shows
54:49
like that, there's a reason that all of these people are out
54:51
running. Yeah, like the TV shows actually show them running to
54:54
burn off that scene. Like, there's a rhyme and a reason.
54:56
Yeah, behind that. And can it be like somatic too? Like, a lot of
54:59
times in my runs. Literally, start like shaking my arms out,
55:02
and you can like get so much of that. And I probably look crazy
55:05
like running through Prospect Park, shaking my arms. But not
55:07
in New York. Yeah, I know. Like that's the thing in New York is
55:10
like there's guaranteed 10 people crazier on the block
55:12
next. Exactly,
55:13
exactly. So we're gonna get into fast field notes before we
55:16
close. What is your favorite part about being a woman In
55:20
business,
55:22
I think it's a superpower. I really do think that being a
55:26
woman in business, you have so much more power than you think
55:31
that you do, just from intuition and the way that women can read
55:35
people and the way that you likely work harder than everyone
55:40
else. And I think you're consistently underestimated. So
55:44
I think in a lot of ways you can use it to be something really
55:47
quite special.
55:48
Turn it on its head.
55:49
Yeah, exactly.
55:50
What's your go-to AI tool at the same time?
55:54
I'm in a marriage with Claude. Yeah, we talk constantly. Yeah,
56:00
Claude told me I was beautiful the other day, so things are
56:02
getting quite serious. Yeah, next level. Yeah, but no, our
56:06
entire team is like quite native on Claude. Claude, and I also
56:11
love Circle Back records all my meetings, but it doesn't have to
56:14
join the meeting. Like it records from my desktop because
56:17
I always think it's creepy when people's note like it's just
56:19
distracting, and it also
56:20
like dings a doorbell.
56:22
Yeah, yeah, and I don't like it. And so my circle back joins like
56:26
from it like records my desktop, and so then afterwards I like I
56:30
have everything and it feeds into my clog.
56:32
But then with that platform, does it know who is speaking?
56:36
Yes.
56:37
No way.
56:37
Yeah, it's amazing.
56:38
Okay. And if
56:39
it like messes it up, I can go in and be like, speaker one was
56:42
this person. Speaker two was this person.
56:44
And then does it have the chat feature where you can ask it
56:47
questions about what happened in the movie? Yeah, but
56:48
it feeds into my Claude. So then I talk to Claude and I'm like,
56:51
pull my notes, draft emails for me from this like go forward. Da
56:56
da da da.
56:57
Mhm. It's a great tip.
56:58
Yeah.
56:59
Speaking of beauty, thanks, Claude. You are a natural
57:03
beauty, which is very Alice of you. So, one beauty product or
57:07
service you cannot live without.
57:09
Ooh, I, I've recently done RF micro needling.
57:18
Okay, and what I was gonna just say is like, let's take it one
57:21
step further. We'll say like one best beauty tip for looking
57:25
regenerated, and that's exactly where you're going.
57:27
Yeah, I mean, I like yes, I use a retinol, I use moisturizers
57:32
and eye creams. I've now got net cream. You know, I love all of
57:35
that stuff. But like, really, at the end of the day, like it has
57:39
to be stuff you do at your derm, so I've done three sessions of
57:42
RF microneedling this year, which I'm loving.
57:46
So they're drawing blood. No, no, no.
57:48
So radiofrequency microneedling. Oh,
57:50
radiofrequency. Yeah,
57:51
that's PRP that you're thinking of. This is like it's like a
57:54
laser mixed with microneedling, so it like goes deeper. You look
57:58
crazy afterwards for a day or two, and then you get those
58:00
little like dots. The dot fades as it heals, but it makes your
58:04
skin texture feel like so smooth and it's tightening and collagen
58:07
building, the whole thing. And then you
58:09
don't need as much makeup or no makeup at all, and you look
58:11
regenerated. Such a good touch. Okay. Do you have any when you
58:14
go to that?
58:15
My derm. Okay. Tribeca Skin Center.
58:18
Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. So closing. If our community takes
58:23
only one single truth from our conversation here today to mean
58:28
business, what should that truth be?
58:31
Yeah, I think it's trusting your gut and just like knowing that
58:35
no one's really going to know the right answer except for you,
58:38
and there might be things that are you know distractions and
58:40
flying around everywhere, but like, you at the end of the day,
58:43
the most important part of business is trusting yourself
58:47
because people are going to tell you a million different things,
58:50
and only you can make the right decision. Whether that's through
58:53
a business partner, whether that's through where to spend
58:55
your company's finances, whether that's to raise money or not to
58:58
raise money, and I think at the end of the day, you know what's
59:02
right and trust yourself.
59:05
Thank you. That was wonderful. Thanks for being here.
59:08
Thanks for having me.
59:11
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59:13
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59:20
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59:23
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59:37
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