Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Product Gifting is Broken | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 41

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Product Gifting is Broken | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 41 · Beyond The Trailhead

• speaker-0: All right, well, welcome back to an incredible episode of Beyond the Trailhead. We got a a cool kind of guest here, a little bit of a returning guest, ⁓ but in a different kind of format. And we have Derek Tillotson with Haven Tents, but also with now with First Shake. And ⁓ Derek, thank you so much for being on this week. speaker-1: Thanks for having me on again, Craig. It's great. And I love meeting in person whenever we go to shows and stuff. It's awesome to connect. Perfect. Well speaker-0: Wanted to have you on and we had had a little bit of offline conversations about ⁓ First Shake and I thought it's a great thing that you've kind of created ⁓ for creators and then also for brands. And I think it's a great marriage between the two. ⁓ but I'm not gonna spoil it. I'm gonna let you kind of talk a little bit more about it and stuff like that and kind of explain to everybody, but it's just a a cool kind of platform that you've kind of come out with. So it's not necessarily a product, but it's more of a service that I think it's gonna really help out. ⁓ not just small brands, but large brands as well. So go ahead and list hit us hard with ⁓ right away with what First Shake is and how you came up with how you came up with speaker-1: Thank you so much. So I am the CEO of Haven Tense. I've been building this brand for years. And as part of that, like anybody who runs a brand, ⁓ product gifting was one of the ways that we would try to reach new audiences and make new content was through product gifting. And so generally a creator would contact us, they would ⁓ we would vet the creator, we would figure out kind of an agreement, put it in place of what we expect to get, then we would ship them product and start crossing our fingers. And it was just like, ⁓ let's hope we hear back. And we have this, you know, Excel spreadsheet of or you know, Google Sheet of a bunch of different creators that we've sent things to over the years. And we follow up. There's really no recourse. There's no way to make them create content for us. Or and at the same time, Craig, before starting Haven Tents, I was actually a content creator myself in the family travel space. And so I've been on that side of the aisle on the creator side where you are. reaching out to tens and hundreds of brands and just getting ghosted. And we had a pretty good little audience there. But unless you are a big, big creator, it is very hard to get brands attention. And then so you end up working with the brands you don't really like or you don't, you know, you're not necessarily stoked on whatever weird product they're selling, but they're willing to work with you. Yeah. And so I really tried to create a win-win, a win for brands and a win for creators. And this is how first shake works. Instead of gifting product to creators and crossing your fingers, creators buy the product themselves. They buy the product that they want from the brands that they care about. And then they earn cash back in the form of refunds as they complete creator challenges. So for example, they shoot a reel that gets them 25% cash back. Yeah. They post on social media, that gets them 10% cash back. And after maybe a day of shooting and some editing, they're able to get a refund for all of their purchase. Yeah. Right. So it's kind of putting the cart before the horse. Now, as a brand manager, the reason why we love it is it lets us say yes to everyone. Yeah. Where we have a creator that reaches out and they have 500 followers, but their Instagram shows like a pretty good level of efficiency, or you know, they they can actually create pretty well, then we're gonna say yes to that order. And ⁓ from a creator standpoint, it's awesome because It's kind of that chicken and the egg thing first. Like what comes first? The audience or the gigs? Yeah. Well, to get the gigs, you need the audience. You get the audience, you need the gigs. Like it kind of just so it's a way for brands or for creators to show up for the brand managers. And we've seen that. ⁓ we actually ran this program ourselves kind of as a as a really rough beta for about six months. And this was two years ago. And it worked so well. That we actually stopped running it. We had people buying product, that we had creators making awesome stuff. But we realized, wow, this is actually a pretty good idea, not just for my brand Haven Tense, but for any brand in the e-commerce space. Cause this is something that everybody deals with. Like, how do we work with creators? And, you know, how do we manage better manage that gifting relationship? And so we took ⁓ a quick two years to develop an app, which I thought it would be six months. But yeah, two years of development and then getting approval through the Shopify app store. And so now it is launched and we have some really cool brands so far that have joined us and we're already seeing it create some amazing content. So that's first shake in a nutshell. And Craig, the reason why I wanted to speak to you about it is because you have so much experience in the outdoor industry and you're an amazing creator. Like you have both things going for you. And so anyway, I just love to hear your input and open up a conversation about it. speaker-0: Yeah. No, I I thought it's great because I there's many times where I've shot for different brands. ⁓ either a page shoot or like a trade for product kind of deal. ⁓ or even my my wife with the whole white dad Asian mom videos that she does. I love that stuff by the way. That's thank you. It's it's funny. We got some really cool ideas in the works that I I I sometimes I'm like, I can't believe people were were watching this stuff, but ⁓ But when we when we do it, I always get this like kind of feedback from brands. They go, ⁓ it's so great that I'm actually getting content from you because we've we've worked with other people before and we send them product. ⁓ and they say they're gonna give X, Y, and Z. And then, like you said, you kind of get ghosted from the brand perspective, you kind of get ghosted on that side of things. And then you're having to now start following up with people and say, Hey, where's my where's my content? Where's the reel that you said you're gonna do for me. Are you you said you were going on this trip and and and all this stuff. And I'm like, they're they they're like, ⁓ thank you so much for sending stuff. And that's now talking to so many cottage brands and large brands and kind of hearing that, you know, especially from a small brand, you don't have you can't just keep giving out tons of product, especially when you're giving out like haven tents, right? Like your tents are three, four hundred dollars for a kit. And you, you know, from People just think you're this big brand when in reality you're a smaller company. You can't just be th handing out money and hoping and like you said, you know, fingers crossed that you're gonna get something. So speaker-1: I spoke to when we were kind of formulating the idea, I kind of reached out to a bunch of different brands just to figure out what brands wanted other than what what we wanted, right? And it was super insightful. And I spoke to a a brand that ⁓ they did coolers. So they have like a a weird kind of a cooler thing, but also has like a a ziploc thing as a c as part of it. Anyway, it's it's a it's a it's a really cool product, very small brand though, okay. And I asked them how much they thought they gave away in product a year. And they said $20,000. And it just took it blew me away that this teeny brand is giving away $20,000 in product. And I said, What do you do you feel like that's been a good investment? And it was a heck no. Yeah. And unfortunately, like there are genuine gems of creators out there. And we have them too with Haven Test. I could I can tell you exactly who they are. and the gems were the ones that that show up, they they deliver content. And they're out there enjoying the product. I don't call them creators, I call them brand advocates. Yeah. Because they if they weren't getting paid, if they weren't getting free stuff, they would be doing it anyway. Yeah. And they just start documenting that. And so it's like finding how do you figure out a system to filter and find those brand advocates? And that's what this does. Because it basically says, hey, show up, put a little bit of skin in the game. Now the cool thing is it lets us say yes to everybody. Yeah. Where when we have to vet and be really selective. I mean, and let's say that Haven Tense has a budget of twenty thousand dollars in stuff to give away every year. Okay. We give away half of that or we give away the whole thing by you know June. Yeah. And we're not getting the return. We don't want to double down in that. Yeah. And so we end up just saying no to everybody, where we have genuine great creators that would show up for us. And I I have an example that I wanted to share of somebody who, you know, who showed up, but yeah, that's what this does is it helps us filter for people that are going to show up. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and I think what we're gonna do is I'm gonna put this on awesome ⁓ on the video for YouTube. And if you're listening out there, make sure you hit up the YouTube video so you the YouTube link so you can actually watch this. But I'll put a link to this video possibly in the description of the notes of the podcast as well so that people can kind of watch this video. But go ahead and explain to everybody what we're speaker-1: I'll set the stage a bit. So we also have a fly fishing brand called ⁓ Rare Gear. And Rare Gear is also on the first shake platform. And what we did with Rare Gear is again, we we we put our product on there, we s we set our challenges. This customer bought a fly rod and he'd never been fly fishing before. And he went out and did an unboxing. Now, had he reached out to us through through through traditional channels, had he sent us a DM saying, Hey, I would love to collaborate, blah, blah, blah. Would you work with me? We would have said no a hundred percent because he only has eighteen hundred followers, which is a lot, but it's not like it's it's a lot for like a a human, but it's not a lot for a creator, right? And so I'm not I'm not putting anybody down who doesn't have like a ton of followers. But at the same time, like that's brand looks brands look for reach, and his reach wasn't amazing. And frankly, his content had nothing to do with fishing. He was a he he's not a flight fisherman. And so he's somebody that we would have said no to absolutely. But the video that he sent us back as an unboxing video was off the charts. Good. Alright, full disclosure, I've never fly fished before, but in a week I'm heading to Tamogami for a multi-day trip. And this little thing is coming along with me. This is the Rare Gear First Class Classic Travel Fly Rod. Let's actually see what's in here because I want to show you guys everything that comes with the classic version of the rod. And honestly, I want to figure out what I'm working with before I'm in the middle of nowhere figuring this out for the first time. So this is the rod. Packed down, it's 19 inches, which is And pretty important when you're carrying everything on your back for multiple days. This is it compared to a water bottle. So you can see that it packs down pretty small. And there's a little fly box in here too, so that's one less thing I have to worry about. Alright, let's open this up. So it's got an aluminum reel with a carbon drag, feels very sturdy. And then they have 90 feet of floating line made by Rio. And then everything fits in this small bag right here. And that right there is the classic kit. And when you're doing multi-day backcountry trips, that matters a lot. I have enough stuff to carry. Now here's what really sold me on the rod. So I'm gonna set this up and I want you to watch because it's gonna be fast. So first you let out some line, and apparently the line is already internally threaded, so no need to thread it through the guides. So now you're gonna take out the first piece, and then one by one you just extend each section. And just like that, from pack to fishing, I'm ready to go. And that's perfect because I can take every advantage I can get. From what I understand, most travel rods have to be broken up into sections, tossed into a tube, and get re-threaded every single time that you wanna fish. With this rod, you just close it up, pack it into your bag, the fly and the line stays on, so you're just ready to go. And for my multi-day trip in tomogamy, that's gonna be a lifesaver. Cause I'd rather be fishing than be fumbling around with my gear. I've never fly fished in my entire life, but I'm so excited to hit the water. So if you want to see my full video in tomogamy, make sure to follow because you don't want to miss it. And if you do know what you're doing with a fly rod, make sure to leave a tip in the comments because I will take all the advice I could get. And so what does that do? As a brand manager, it tells me Hat Wanders can create. He does awesome work. And so when we have a new product or When we have a new brand or something else, like he's on the short list of people to contact because I know that he makes amazing stuff. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's that is that is so cool 'cause I feel like you're gonna save one, you're gonna save a bunch of money for for people who have brands, but then also the creators now on the creator side of it, they have so much more like like you said, they have the skin in the game and now it's like, Okay, I'm go I have to go create if I wanna make some money back instead of like, Here's the product, here's a little here's a c little bit of, you know, funny money, and then hopefully you create something good. Now you have that. So I guess my question is like how does it work? And this is just a question from the side of like, let's say I buy a product that's not as much money versus something that's a lot, right? Is it the percentage change or is it is the motivation still there? How does that how does that all work? speaker-1: Yeah. So depending on the average order value, we give coaching to the brands. And so for Haven Tense where the average order value is around four hundred dollars, you know, you're you're gonna see these different percentages for the challenges. I actually have the example. So for Haven Tense, we do 25% cash back for a product demo video. Okay. We do 10% if they post it on social media. We do 20% for a batch of lifestyle photos, 30% for a blog post, and 25% for a long format adventure video. So we're trying to incentivize the right behaviors, like the things that we value most. A blog post to us is super powerful. And so that's what we're we're gonna give 30% cash back for somebody who does that. Now we allow multiple submissions of things and we give up to six months for the creator to do this. So it's not like, ⁓ you have to do it next week. You know, it's ⁓ sweet. Take your time as you're out there using your product, you can do it. The reason why it's set for six months is that is the limit on Stropify for us to issue refunds. I see. ⁓ through their system. And so that's what we do for Haven Tense. Kingora Gear, that's a really, really cool brand. Their average order value is a little bit lower than ours. So I would guess it's around $200. But they're offering 50% cash back for a product review video. And they give an example. So when you click, I just have little screenshots of the what it looks like here. So they click the view challenge button. And what that does is it actually shows everything that the brand is looking for and it gives them an example. as well. So you click on that example video and it's somebody basically doing a YouTube review video, kind of like you would a hundred times of an outdoor product, right? And so they're willing to do 50% cash back for that product. Sorry, for that piece of content. But we have other brands on there that have $20 products and their their requirements are going to be completely different. They'll do 100% cash back for a video or 100% cash back for some photos or something like that. So it definitely is tailored. We want it to be valuable to the creator as well. Like we don't want, ⁓ you do this, you get, you know, two dollars back. It's yeah, you know, not gonna be worth it. speaker-0: No, that's a g that's a great answer because that was my question when I had seen it. I was like, okay, that's great percentage wise, but I'm like, it's great that you're flexible. They have that ability to do that. Because if you didn't, then yeah, you have that like, ⁓ I'm getting two dollars back. Is it worth me creating this content or buying something something different? So that's great. So if if if a company's out there and let's say they is I'm assuming it's only a Shopify and it's a Shopify plugin, is that correct? speaker-1: Definitely not. Yes, it's Shopify app. So we're we're we're live in the Shopify app store. They can go to TriFur Shake and just download. It's really easy to set up. We just ⁓ approved the one click setup. So they set their AOV and then it just automatically gives a recommendation for the challenges. And so they can literally set it up in like two minutes. speaker-0: Awesome. And so I guess just kind of backpedaling just a little bit too when you came up with this idea and you saw you thought, ⁓ six months and ended up taking two years, what were and this is just from my podcast side of it is like I love the idea and everything else, but like what were some of the hiccups that you found that you were like, ⁓ this is is it was it the software side of things or was it like tweaking the numbers side of things or what what did you find that was the hardest part of speaker-1: So I I'm not a developer. Neither I have two partners in the app and neither of and none of us are developers and so or you know coders. And so we we needed to work with an outside, you know, ⁓ resource on that. So it's not like we could be like Mark Zuckerberg and just kind of dial in and yeah and you know whip this thing up in an afternoon. It's something we had to kind of work by committee back and forth. And then we basically had it there, and then Claude came out and one of our partner started vibe coding and just made it made the skin of it so much better. So we improved the UX and then it just became approval from Shopify, which takes a long time. Yeah. And so it was getting their stamp. speaker-0: That's cool. So fr as a brand, right? Like I know you had talked about a couple of brands, but when a brand is is starting to do this, so is it everything's live, right? From what I'm understanding. Everything's live. Yeah. Everything's live. That's cool. So if you're listening right now and you're a small cottage brand or any brand, I think you should definitely go check it out. ⁓ from if you're a content creator and a brand isn't using that, how how could a content creator kind of push a brand to say, Hey, you know? speaker-1: We're actually working on that where you can you can make a recommendation to a brand and then it basically gives us ammunition to go and talk to that brand because that's the idea, is not we want this marketplace to be filled with brands that you would want to work with, you know, the big brands or or brands of the products that you love. We have a game on here called Paddle Smash, which is like ⁓ like Spike Ball. Have you ever played Paddle Smash? It is the funnest backyard game. speaker-0: Il arrive. I have not. speaker-1: You could possibly play. And so I reached out, I did a product trade with Scott, who's the founder of Paddle Smash. Yeah. And I reached out to him and said, Hey, we got to get this game on there. And so, like, there's a couple sides to this. There's like, ⁓ I want to become a professional creator. This is an amazing pathway for you to connect and prove yourself. And in fact, when you submit content to the brands to approve. ⁓ before you get your cash back, we as brands are able to rate the content. So this is a three-star create, this is a five-star creator. Yeah. And then it kind of becomes this marketplace of like Uber drivers or whatever. Where you have a star rating next to your thing, we'll make it so that you have a portfolio that you can then show other brands, much like you would work to create your creator portfolio. Yeah. This is this is our reach. These are the platforms that we're active on. And we'll create something. You'll have a portfolio with different things you'll maybe differ from first first shake. So our goal is yes, to help the brands, but it's also to help the creators. Again, I was a content creator myself for like two or three years before I started building brands. And so I've been on that side of it. I know how that works. And no, we are not trying to get creators to do something for nothing. Like that's that's not the goal. The the objective here is to get them products that they would want anyway. Like paddle smash, Craig for your family, like your kids. Like you guys should play paddle smash for sure. And like it's I think it's about a hundred and fifty dollars or something for this whole whole kit to play. But if you do a video, which you would do anyway, and you send them a video, yeah, then you get 25% cash back or 30% cash back, right? So it's like, ⁓ do you want to save 50% or 100% on a product? Like you would just do it. And so that's also part of it. Like we want good brands to be on here. So yes, if you have a brand, you know, send us a DM, let us know who you want as part of the part the platform. We are happy to reach out. But we and I we talked about this before the podcast. We want this to be a win win. Yeah. A win for the brands and a win for the creators because it gets them in front of the brands that they like. speaker-0: Yeah, I I'm just kind of go back to another person that I'm just thinking of when I had done pictures for them. And they were like so hurt from other creators that they were like, Man, I just I'm never doing that again. And I'm like, But this is the new media. You've you've got to do it that way, or you're like you can't go the traditional route anymore. You've got to to advertise that way. And I think this'll give them a good kind of like, ⁓ I don't have to. Throw a bunch of my money away or throw a bunch of my product away, hoping and praying it's actually going, gonna happen. So another question from the creator side, because my wife and I have been doing so much lately, like collabs with brands and stuff, it blows my mind. But ⁓ when when someone is working with somebody on your platform, do they directly connect with each other, or is it more just a through the software you're not really talking, but you could kind of like contact that person later on and say, Hey, I love this relationship. Let's make it bigger or or whatever. You do you know what I mean? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. So everything you want the app to do, it does. And that every every demo that I've done said, ⁓ I wish it did that. Well, it does that, you know. So from the creator standpoint, here's the flow for a creator. Yeah. And I think this is important information. So you would create your free account at tryforshake.com as a creator. And then you can browse the brands that are listed on the site. And so you would find Pingora, for example, the the backpack brand, right? And you would go there and you would look at their products. And it shows their product pages, it shows the list of everything that they have there, and you add it to your cart, and then you go down and see the challenges and you see what they are expecting. Okay. From the challenges. So you have your product in the cart, you have the challenges. Some brands will have a max cash back. So it keeps people from gaming it. Say they buy, you know, 20 backpacks. Yeah. And now when they do that 50% challenge for the the the review video, now all of a sudden it's a lot. So Pindora has theirs set at $200. So they have it set for $200. You go to the cart and you check out, and that brings you over to Shopify. So the order is there on Shopify. Okay. Now, when you log back into your TriFor Shake account, once you get your product, or you can log in, you know, right away, you'll see that these are the challenges that are available. Again, if I create a product demo, a product review video, I get 50% cash back. I create a social media post that's 20% cash back. As I execute on these things, I just submit content. So I would submit the video for them and What we coach the brands on is expect the same as they currently have on their Instagram. Right. So when they say when a brand sees your order come through, they will accept it or reject it. If they reject it, it just gets refunded automatically. If they accept it, it then ships through Shopify. Okay. But as part of that little vetting process, brands can look and see, yeah, ⁓ what type of stuff does this creator make? And we say don't expect Anvil Adams photography from like an Instagram creator, just expect what they already make. Yeah. You know, and so from from you guys, we would expect it to be a family type video. Like we would expect the same type of content. Yeah. Anyway. And so the brand accepts, or let's say that it's totally out of the box, it's a terrible piece of content, it's way off, or you submitted the wrong thing, the brand can give ⁓ some notes and make and they'll send a message and say we didn't accept it because of XYZ. Can we make these small changes? And again, we are the arbiter. So if there's a dispute from the creator or the brand, we can We ⁓ ultimate decision is on first shake to try to arbitrate and you know make sure everybody's happy because we want it to be a fair a a fair deal for both the brands and the creators. And so once that content is accepted, then the refund is issued in like two to three days, depending on your bank. And that's that's how it works. So you just go through ⁓ and each time you're basically showing the brand what you can create. So for at at Have Intense, you know, ⁓ We make awesome products that people love generally. And you can get it for a hundred percent off, you know, it's ⁓ and you can prove ⁓ prove to us that you are a creator that that we should work with again. speaker-0: Okay, and then going to the brand side of it, from the creator to the brand, is does the brand have the ability to put, let's say Haven Tent's perfect example is okay, I don't want anybody hanging our tents over a cliff because that might make it look like our product is unsafe. So is there people can put little kind of rules in there or or guidance? speaker-1: So you've received creative briefs before, right? Yeah. From from brands. This is what this is what we're looking for, do's and don'ts. Yeah. And each brand, they can do the instance setup, which just takes a couple of minutes. And then they can go in and they can tweak and they can add more examples. They can add the do's and the don'ts. They can get really specific on wording. Hey, this is what we're looking for. Save this. And they can get really clear on that creative brief, which also helps the creator make stuff that the brand will be able to use. speaker-0: Okay, perfect. Yeah, that was my that was a that's a great thing you have in there then. So there is a like a basically a brief that is there for people to kind of follow 'cause I hate it when I create something and then they're like, ⁓ but this is the way we want it I'm like, But you didn't send me a brief, so Yeah, exactly I did my best speaker-1: Yeah. The brief is there. One of our partners in the app runs a marketing agency. Yeah. So he's in that world of creative briefs. I mean, I'm definitely like a just get into action guy, but we have the the whole team is working great together in making this like really, really clean. speaker-0: That's ⁓ cool. That's cool. So ⁓ for I guess for the for future people who are listening right now and they're trying to sign on, I guess they they would go to ⁓ what try first shake. ⁓ and then is there, I guess the last question would be, is there anything in terms of cost, let's say, for the brand or the creator to sign on to this? speaker-1: Try first shake. Yeah, no cost to sign on. And there is a cost for the app for the brand side, right? Okay. And the way that this works, and again, we're we're brand new. We're actually we just launched this. And so it is an a new app, but we at Haven Tense have been running it for the past few months in beta and in in rare gear. Honestly, the coolest thing about this from a brand's perspective is it turns gifting into a profit center. Yeah. Where before it was just a a A total loss leader is very hard to track ROI on those gifted products. Yeah. But for instance, so far with Haven, we have issued about twelve hundred dollars in in refunds for for creators, right? We've issued about twelve hundred dollars in refunds and we've retained about six thousand dollars in sales. ⁓ sweet. And so it's actually a profit center for us because the majority of creators, they will do one or two things and they say, you know what, that's that's good. It's that dosing thing. The same thing that happens, we're on the same percentage. Now, some of the creators have gone through and they've earned 100% cash back power to them. But a lot of creators do one or two things and that's enough. They're they're sat, they're happy with that relationship. Now they get the product and they're out there out there using it. And so again, for us, in our experience, in every brand that is on the program right now, it's turned gifting into a pro into a profit center. You can start off for free and we try to get you 10 orders. And once you get 10 orders, you can pick a growth plan, which is like $80 a month, or you know, there's there's a a few different tiers to the app. But for our AOV at $400, right? So you do 10 orders, that's $4,000 in sales. Like we want this to be the biggest no-brainer from a brand's perspective. To like, why wouldn't I do this? This is just sales. Yeah. And so from the creator standpoint, no, there's no cost at all. We're going to help you, we're going to help connect you with brands that you actually want to work with. And we're going to help you build that portfolio and build a name for yourself with these, you know, five star content reviews. Like it is an awesome springboard for somebody to work with the brands that they love. Yeah. speaker-0: No, I think ⁓ I guess my last qu ⁓ my last question that I have, and this actually I answered it for myself while I was thinking about it, but you know, because I feel like a lot of brands they get ⁓ you know, probably at least ten DMs a day. I've talked to somebody, they get like a hundred DMs or more a day from content creators, right? Wanting it. But ⁓ is there a way that ⁓ I guess from the brand's perspective, how can a brand push that on people in a bulk sense versus like having to, you know, copy paste a DM every time. Is there like a, you know, on let's say on Instagram, I would like I'm I'm a brand and I want to push, push, hey, we have this new initiative. I guess that's the way it would be, right? We have this new initiative. You guys have to catch on. This is great. You know, something like that. speaker-1: Right. But as we get those DMs, I do and I I coach my team on just having a text shortcut. Yep. If somebody contacts us, we do that text shortcut, which is, you know, first shake or whatever, and then it gives that that response. You can also build in some auto responses using AI that'll kind of filter, especially if they're emailing you directly. Yeah. But generally, if you are a creator, you want to work for a brand, you scroll to the bottom of their their footer. Yeah. And you look for the the brand relationship. Yeah. Thing. You know, content creators or whatever. And that's where you go. And so we have it there. And the another cool thing from a brand's perspective is you don't have to stop working with anything that you're currently doing. So your AVA link is still there, your Shopify collab is still there. If you have another program, it's still there. And if if you know Leno Messi contacts you wanting a free tent, like we're not going to be like, hey, hey, buy it first. Yeah. You know, buy it first and then you know you can you can do these six things to get your money back. Be be realistic. If you get contacted by like that dream creator, just work with them directly. But for 95% of those creators that reach out to you, you just send them the first shake and say, Yes, we would love to work with you. This is what we're doing. Yeah. You know, this is a a change to product giving, but it lets us to sit, it lets us say yes to more people. We would like, you know, do you want to work together? Absolutely, yes. And here's how we do it. speaker-0: Yeah. I think it's I think I love this idea so much more than I I'm just a I hate affiliate links, though I know that they work for a lot of people, but I just hate that f that feeling where I feel like this works and it helps people understand stuff more and then you can still do a speaker-1: Your affiliate links as well. So we we we've actually kept Shopify Collab, which is our affiliate program. And that's another thing. Like we would love, love if our creators that we meet through First Shake continue on and they become affiliates with us. You know, like yeah, we're basically just coaching them on how to be better affiliates. They need to make videos, they need to do posts, they need to do a blog post. It's like all the stuff that they should be doing anyway. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, it's a man, being a a content creator is such a people, you know, they think it's this glamorous thing and to some extent it is, right? But you're also you're working just as much as anybody else. You know, and ⁓ I think this is gonna try it. speaker-1: It is so much recording. ⁓ try running a brand and being the content creator, which is what I've been doing for the last six years, is I'm I'm the content creator for Haven Tense. speaker-0: I saw you got a like a YouTube play button, right, for your YouTube speaker-1: Yeah, we got our play button hundred the first hammock with a hundred thousand subscribers right there. Yeah. We've actually become over the past six years, we've become the largest hammock brand on social media on every single one of the platforms. So we have more Instagram followers and more TikTok followers, and then combined. We're like seven hundred and seventy thousand combined followers among across all the accounts. And so we've been really blessed. People love our stuff. Yeah. speaker-0: That's crazy. speaker-1: And so yeah, I've I've been there as a content creator and ⁓ it's funny. I just posted a video on the Tri for Shake Instagram, this this new account, and it got like 200 views. And it was it I felt like I felt like what it was when I first started Avon Tens and like six people see your thing and you're like all stoked, like ⁓ this this one got 10 likes, you know? And so it is fun to kind of be going back. Yeah. ⁓ what's cool. speaker-0: No, cool that you you because you're I think that's why the idea I think is really working is is gonna work is because you were a content creator before and now you have products. Whereas, you know, if it was just somebody who had the idea who's never been in both spaces, then they don't know both heartaches, right? And and they know the way like you know both wins and losses with it. Yeah. So you know, okay, this is Definitely gonna be something that's gonna work instead of just, ⁓ I'm a brand and I think I just don't want to give anything to people. You understand that both both sides of it. And it's funny you say that the views thing, because when I started the podcast, right? Like my wife is like, Hey, I posted a video today and it got five hundred thousand views in six hours, and I'm going, ⁓ I got five hundred views in a week online. And I'm like, I'm like, So ⁓ speaker-1: But you you do such a such a great job, Craig. And your consistency is there. That that's really what it comes down to is consistency. Yeah. You know? And from the creator standpoint, when so we were a a family travel, yeah, you know, kind of channel. And so we were traveling around and I would message hotels about ⁓ can we stay for free or can we get paid to stay? And I just remember like, okay, we're gonna be in Athens. Let's make a list of every hotel in Athens. Yeah. And you're just like email, email, email, email, email, email, email. So many things. And then like nothing. You don't hear anything that's like, okay, I guess we're gonna get an Airbnb. Like, yeah, you know, that one didn't work. And ⁓ and then, you know, it was just like hours and hours and hours spent just cold contacting and ghosting. And we had like a pretty good audience at the time. And so if you weren't like starting out as a creator is one of the hardest things yet. If you pull the younger generation, which like ⁓ I don't know which generation this is alpha or the the Y or whatever, yeah if you ask them, the number one job that they want is content creator. ⁓ that's something that like everybody in that space wants to have and be, but it is so much work to get in front of brands. And so like if there was a marketplace of cool product that you could go and buy to make a name for yourself, like yeah. I wish that I had this for hotels. Like I wish and we're gonna be branching it off and spinning it hopefully into hotels and restaurants and things because like yeah. Anyway, more things on the horizon with first shake. Stay tuned. No. speaker-0: And that's that brings up a good question for you for me. So I know this is an outdoor industry type of podcast and stuff like that, but basically as long as you have a product, right, and you're in Shopify, it can work with any. speaker-1: Anything, yep. Yeah. So like skincare. Yeah. Right? Can you how much product they give away is ludicrous, you know? speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. We got a box of Asian or Korean face masks in the mail and there's like it's like I thought they were gonna they're gonna send like five or so for a video and then they sent a box of like six or seven hundred and I'm going, These are yeah so much money for that speaker-1: Look under the hood at s at some of these ⁓ skincare brands, at the amount of product that they give away, it's like a sizable amount of their of their ⁓ of their PL. Yeah. Is it's like one percent of revenue or something is like your one percent of their their operational costs will be just like gifting or yeah, even you know, ten percent. If you are a newer brand, you're just sending so much stuff out there. And so anyway. speaker-0: Yeah, that's crazy. Well, I mean, Derek, thank you. I mean, it's I I'm glad I was able to listen to what First Shake is. And if anybody has any questions about First Shake, can they just email like ⁓ at on on the first wake first shake website or what how can they kind of contact you? speaker-1: Yeah, just you know, Derek at at ⁓ try first shake or they can f DM us through Instagram or me over at Haven Tense or Tim. Tim is my COO at Haven Tense and he's the C he's the chief technology officer at First Shake. So ⁓ yeah, it's it's a small team. And if you're a brand that wants to get started, like we'll totally help you get launched. And if you're a creator who wants to get started too, like we're here for you as well. I've been on that side of things. And again, like I would just go. Go shopping. If you're a guy with a camera or a gal with a camera or a phone and you love creating content, yeah. Like honestly, that's when I buy stuff. So I I got a pair of umbras sunglasses. They're awesome sunglasses. And I've sent them so much stuff over the years just because I I like I'm making content anyway. Like, yeah, what's it to me to make another like little video real? Like I'm just gonna make them a real of my sunglasses. Yeah. And if you're that person who just loves being like loves shooting content, loves sharing, like. It just go and shop, try for shape, 'cause we have some awesome brands in there. speaker-0: That's cool. Well, thank you so much, Derek, for being on. And ⁓ everybody make sure you check out Try First Shake. ⁓ I'm gonna be telling a bunch of people to try it out. Thank you so much. And I'll be headed to a couple of trade shows too. I'll be make sure I ⁓ swing tell everybody about it. And ⁓ I'm sure I will see you ⁓ again another time with probably another really cool idea that you have. Yeah, wow. ⁓ but thanks so much, Derek. It was great to see you again. speaker-1: Thanks so much, Craig. Make a great day. Thanks.