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Breastfeeding, Black Market Baby Formula, and Bobbie · What's Your Problem?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I just went into the world of motherhood expecting that
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I would breastfeed, expecting it would be easy, and it wasn't.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I found myself feeding my daughter formula and having that
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: visceral feeling, that visceral feeling that I should be giving
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: her something better, the visceral feeling that I should feel
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: less guilty and I should feel better myself as a
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: mother that I'm giving her food and nutrition. But something
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: about me just feels bad about it. That hit me
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: in a way that I knew I had to do
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: something about it.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is what's your problem. My
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: guest today is Laura Mode. Laura is the founder and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: CEO of Bobby. Bobby is a company that makes baby
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: formula and sells it online directly to consumers, directly to parents.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: There are a few ways to formulate Laura's problem. One
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: is a problem about regulation and competition. How do you
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: launch a startup in a highly regulated industry that for
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: decades has been largely dominated by two companies. Another way
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to formulate the problem it's a marketing problem. But marketing
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: in kind of the broadest sense of the word. How
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: do you create a news story around what it means
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to give your baby formula instead of, or in addition
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to breastfeeding.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I wanted to develop a formula that US parents felt
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: truly proud of. I wanted to combat the feeling that
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: we were feeding them something that we weren't proud of,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: that parents felt guilty of. And in many ways, they
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: were turning to an alternative solution, which was the black market.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And what black market formula? What black market formula?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: You're talking about European black market?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Huh? What does that mean?
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Great question?
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: What that means is that there was and there is
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: many sites out there that is selling infant formula to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: US parents that is made and produced and seen as
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: infant formula in Europe, but it's not categorized as infant
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: formula here in the US. And a lot of parents,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I believe. The New York Times reported several years ago
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: that twenty percent of Brooklyn parents were importing from.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn parents are as a Brooklyn parent, let me say, hey,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I was not in that twenty percent, and be weare
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the worst.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: It's so good?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Why why why do people in Brooklyn think European formula
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: is better?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: So it's all over and the one caution I would
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: say is I think it is really important and also
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: really dangerous for us to refer to anything as better
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: or worse.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: How people are doing this. Yeah, but why why why?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Because the ingredients there, and the ingredients chosen to put
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in formula there are often seen as ingredients of choice,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: and the ingredients of the parents would deam is better.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: You start your company, you start making formula, and you
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: run into this fact, this FDA regulation in a very
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: dramatic way. What happened.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I knew it was regulated, but what I hadn't fully
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: consumed was that there was very little wiggle room within
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: those regulations to be creative, disruptive, or to at least
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: take a first step towards changing them.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, the FDA is not into creative and disruptive. It's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: out there thing.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: No, two things that you'd never see come together.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear, this is back in twenty nineteen.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: It's well before the formula shortage. We had a last
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: year that was in the news, but specifically just what happened.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Specifically, what happened was I could not get product made
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: here in the US, so I decided to go to
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Germany and I made my first product in Germany. The
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: challenge was is that because we made it abroad, it
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: didn't match the regulations in the US, meaning the FDA's
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: rags did not see this as an infant formula here
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: in the US. So I said, you know what, let's
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: just put this out as a toddler formula to begin with.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: That puts it into a different category and it would
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: serve it to non infants, and it's a great way
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to start.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And so, just to be clear, the idea is if
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you call it poddler formula instead of baby formula, then
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: it's just like powdered milk or something. Then it's regulated
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: like food and has a much lower regulatory threshold.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Exactly exactly it's food.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: There was one major problem though, is that it actually
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: was infant formula, and it would have been infant formula
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: in Germany.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And you knew that, right. You were just trying to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: sort of do a regulatory arbitrage.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Basically, I was looking at this as a way to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: be able to get high quality formula into the hands
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: of American parents in a way that I felt was
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: categorized differently.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Disruptive, yes, but this.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Was a safe, high quality infant formula that was being
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: fed to millions of babies in another continent, and our
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: continent would not have categorized it as infant formula. And
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: ten days in to a very small pilot where we
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: were only selling it to folks within our city in
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, I want to say there was ninety three customers.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: The FDA called, not just a phone call. They came
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: to visit our warehouse and I received a phone call
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: from our warehouse manager, and that warehouse manager says, the
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: FDA's here. And I in a state of disbelief because
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: in all of our research, the FDA, until you've reached
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: a certain size, and until there truly is a concern,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: they're not showing up, Like.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: How do they even know you exist? Right? You said,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: ninety three customers?
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Ninety three customers. It's a high quality infant forum.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: There was no safety concerns, no issues reported, but there
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: was some press, and that press highlighted that the company
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: was the new infant formula company in the industry. Now
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: for a regulated body who regulates all infant formula, this
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: can also be a shock because where did it come from?
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Who is this company? And at our warehouse they were met.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I was met with very friendly.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Officials in full uniform who very quickly said you can't
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: do this and shut us down.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: And it was heartbreaking.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: It was both heartbreaking and it was the first moment
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: of just very humbly realizing that just because an industry
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: needs to be disrupt did doesn't mean that you can
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: just bulldoze your way through. And there's many ways to
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: approach disruption and change. And it really was I think
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: it was one of those first moments I was like, Okay,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: this is going to be a journey. This is this
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: isn't my previous history coming from tech, this is going
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: to be different, and it was.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, the way the way you talk about it, it
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: sort of reminds me of when Uber was starting out
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: and there were all of these rules in different cities
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: about UH that that limited who could provide taxi service basically, right,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and clearly to me, those rules just benefited taxi services
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: at the expense of customers, right, And I feel like
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that in a way was a model for what you're doing, Like, ah,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: there's this duopoly, it hasn't changed in decades. Come on,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: we're just going to do this and figure it out later.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And the FDA basically said, no, you are not. That
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: is not the way this one.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what happened. Exactly what happened.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know there's I think when you go
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: through these things as well, Like I was looking around,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: and I think for any parent listening to this, you
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: either are or you've heard of someone importing European formula
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: off a black market. And wherever there's a black market,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: there tends to be an opportunity. And that's exactly as
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a parent at the time, importing black market European formula,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: You're almost looking at this going, well, it's happening in
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: many ways, but it's not being done in a way
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that's meeting consumers where they're currently at. And this seemed
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: like a different approach to something that was rampant and
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: already happening all over the country.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: So the FDA's basically shutting you down. You're a brand
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: new company and the FDA is saying you cannot be
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a company in the way that you were planning to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: be a company.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: What do you do?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: So you go through an identity crisis for a hot minute,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: you go, who am I what's this about?
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: How do we tackle it. Why did I do this?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: But also how else would I have done it? Because,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: as we all have come to learn, there was no
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: other options for a new company to be born within
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: the country. That is why it duopoly exists, and that
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: is why this industry is so concentrated. There was no
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Yellow Pages of infant formula manufacturers here in the US.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: If I decided to make baby food, I would have
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: had a choice of two hundred manufacturers to call, But
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I chose a hard regulated product because I believe that
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: truly needed to change. The challenge was that the industry
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: was not set up for a newcomer to enter, which.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Is why there were no newcomers.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It's a high barrier to entry.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: But one of the things that really opened doors was
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: that the national shutdown that we had from the FDA
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: got public attention. And when I say public attention, it
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: got more headlines than us launching the company.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Right, it's great press. It's almost the case been shutting
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: you down?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So did you find that?
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: So?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Wait, so the FDA comes in, they basically shut you down,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly does everybody want to buy your formula
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: that you could no longer sell?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: It was half and half. It was a lot of curiosity.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: A lot of curiosity was coming my way on just
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: hold on, what happened?
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Why did this happen?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And it started peaking people's interest for this, Maybe is
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: an industry to pay attention to.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: And then you're right.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: The other side of it was, oh, my gosh, I
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: want to get your formula. What can we do to help?
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And the peaking interest in the curiosity came from two
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: different groups that helped me figure out what path I
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: was going to go on. The first group was an investor,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: multiple investors, who saw what I was trying to do,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: saw the market opportunity and also how regulated it was,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: and called me and said, I really believe in what
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: you're doing, and I think you have the persistence to
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: keep going.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Can I give you a few million dollars to keep going? Now?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: That was the kind of phone call you want when
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: you're in the middle of an identity crisis, trying to
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: figure out where to.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Go, and when you just got shut down and know
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: that you're not gonna have any revenue coming in the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: door for some time.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, no revenue and yet a lot of
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: capital to get to that next phase. The second phone
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: call was the one that really sealed a deal. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: that phone call was from the only and the one
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: contract manufacturer that outside of the duopoly in the US
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: makes infant formula for the country. And that phone call
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: was a turning point because I tried for two years
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: leading up to it for them to make my formula,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: and I was interesting.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: So this company, it's perrygo Am I saying it the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: right way. Err, I read it, so you're saying, and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: just to be clear, so they are a US manufacturer
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and they make lots of sort of generic formula, right
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: like if you buy formula Costco or whatever, they make
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that formula. And you're saying you had been trying to
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: get them to make your formulney and you were not
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: worth their time. Basically, yes, they weren't really calls. We
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: don't know what they were thinking, but we only know
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that they wouldn't return your calls. Yeah, correct, And then
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: they called you. And then when this news came out,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: they called you.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: There you go, Jacob.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: That's exactly how it went down. And it's so funny
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: when people are like, would you have done it differently?
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like, that phone call wouldn't have come in. But
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: keep in mind they also needed to change their business
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: model as well, because they were used to making formula
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: for store brands, and here I was, I had a
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: unique formula and I wanted someone to make it. So
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: that was also them going, huh, would we approach this
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: differently and also take on a new incomer and do
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: chaking on a new business model as well. So I'll
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: never forget that call. And one of the most important
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: things that hit me during that moment was there was
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of support to be able to get us
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: to the next level, not because they saw it as
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: an opportunity, but because they saw how we handled the shutdown.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And it is something I canntinue to remind the team
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: of too. Turbulence may come very often, but it's how
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: you handle that turbulence. And we handled it with a
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: level of grace and managed our message and hung up
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: our hat and said, yeah, this is how we approach
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the market. And it hasn't landed, so we're going to
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: take a different path. And we weren't defensive, we didn't
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: push back, we weren't defiant, and that landed, and that
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: landed in a way that the respect that came from
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: both investors and future manufacturers.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: It landed tell me, well, tell me how your formula
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: is different than that, you know big formula brands in
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the christ country.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: So we've designed her based on and I refer to
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: as as a her. We've designed her really inspired by
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: European formula. So the first thing we did from a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: recipe standpoint was say, how are recipes designed for European
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: infant formula? And that means you start to look at
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the levels. So we are the only infant formula that
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: mirrors European nutritional standards. And put another way, there's no
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: US infant formula where their recipe would pass the bar
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: set for European infant formos. So that's the first thing
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: the recipe. The second thing that makes us different is
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the choice of ingredients. We've chosen to leave out ingredients
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: like corn syrup, use organic grass fed milk and not
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: conventional milk, leave out palm oil, which is a leading
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: ingredient towards constipation for a baby, So making it easier
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to digest by leaving out things like palm oil and
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: putting in things like coconut oil. So between the choice
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: of our fat blend ingredients and the recipe which mirrors
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: European nutritional standards. That's ultimately the differentiator that we hang
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: our hat on.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So I have two kids and we gave them formula.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: We gave them. I think it was similar, just one
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of the big American brands, Like should I have given
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: them some European style formula? Body didn't exist? But if
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: it should I have done that instead?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. Okay, and this, oh, I love that you're
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: asking this because I always I always have a note
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: by my desk to make sure that this is a
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: reminder of something to repeat, because I don't believe that
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: there is anything any such thing is a bad formula.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: And I truly mean that. And I don't just mean
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: that because I want to make sure that people don't
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: see Bobby as coming across as elite or differentiated that way.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I truly believe that whatever.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Product is both available affordable is the right formula for you,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: and your child will have the same chances as every
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: other child out there, and I do I truly truly
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: mean that.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a relief, thank you.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that your kids will be fabulous and they
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: will have the same chances as everyone else.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan. So, I mean, there's something really interesting
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: here and I've been trying to think of the right
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: way to talk about it. Well, there's a few things.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: One let's just say MABBY is way more expensive than
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: most formulas. Right, It's like a fancy, high end formula.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And you're saying, it's not like gonna make my kids smarter,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: happier or whatever. So so what's the pitch.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a it's a great it's a
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: great point to raise, and I'll like underscore again what
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I said. I believe parents need choices, not just choices
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: when it comes to infra formula. I think across anything
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: that people consume, there needs to be choices because you
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: got preferences. Now, at the end of the day, milk
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: is milk, but some parents, and I would be one
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: of them, I want to make sure that the milk
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: that I'm feeding them is preservative free.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Organa grass fed, conventional dairy is.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Still going to give you the nutrients your baby needs
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: to grow and develop, but on a spectrum they are different.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Now that's just using one example, and you can point
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: to any industry where whether it's a fabric in the
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: retail and clothing industry, or whether it's something within cosmetics
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: where people choose to have something that is slightly richer
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: in collagen than a moisturizer that doesn't at the end
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: of the day, it is moisturizer and it's going to
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: give you what you need.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my kids are now at the age where they're
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: super into skincare, and so I appreciate that point too,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: because you see the different care well, you see the
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: difference in price for sure. Exactly in a minute, we'll
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: talk more about marketing in the biggest sense of the word,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and also about what happened to Bobby during last year's
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: big formula shortage. Now back to the show, So let's
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: talk about Like, marketing is really interesting to me here, right,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about marketing, because you know there's one
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: when I first started thinking about this, I was like, oh,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: maybe it's just marketing. But then like I objected to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that word just right, because I feel like marketing is
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a big deal, right, Like whatever we tell ourselves stories
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: in order to live, you know, Joan didon and just
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: when you will look at look at say Simolac. I
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: think we gave our kids Simolac a can of Simolac,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: one of the big brands, and then a can of Bobby.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Like they're telling such different stories, right, Like Similac came
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: out in what the nineteen fifties, right, this era of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: like better living through chemistry was kind of the you know,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the fremailing belief. And when you look at Simolac, it
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: looks like it looks very much like a medical product.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It actually says number one brand fed in hospitals on
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the can, and there's like these acronym for some thing
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that I don't know what it is. And then you
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: look at the Bobby can, it's like a line drawing
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of a cow, right, And like the biggest letters are organic, right,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: And so it's like one is medicine, science and then
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: other was like nature cows. Am I reading that?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I mean is that part of sort of what you're selling.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I like that you underscored that it's not just yeah.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I really think that, especially because this is formula and breastfeeding.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: It's for which itself. Like when you look at the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: amount of narrative around breastfeeding versus formula versus the amount
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: of science, like it's so much narrative, it's so much marketing.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: The sort of breastfeeding versus formula story, and and that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: story makes people, especially women in my experience, moms feel
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: so bad when they can't breastfeed, right, And I feel
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: like the marketing piece, the storytelling piece of what you're
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: doing fits with that, right.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: It does. Look there's a huge universe out there.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: You're like, ah, whatever, I mean, it's all bs. People
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be guilty about it. But it's hard for that
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: person to really judge if you haven't been in the
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: other person's shoes. Yeah, and there is going to be
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: many people who will hear this, and we've been on
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the journey with them where in their postpartum state and
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: in that state of is this right for my child?
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: How am I feeling? Do I feel guilty?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: You grow up dreaming of breastfeeding and then you realize
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: that you can only put out two ounces. That's heartbreaking.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: This is not like, Oh I chose that granola bar
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: over this one. This is a completely different moment in life.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And again, my job is to make sure that we
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: play such a radically centrist position. Unfortunately, the war of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: breastfeeding versus formula got to a place where it was
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: pretty bad, and I think we all need to start
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: realizing that it's not about what your child is fed,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: that we need to just all accept how they're being
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: fed and just say, your baby's being fed and that's
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: a good thing. And we have to And that's the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: whole goal that I have in our messaging, is that
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you just need to feel good that you are feeding
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: your child something, to be proud of that, whatever it
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: is for you. And by the way, some other parents
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: who doesn't need that message might be totally fine and
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: proud of whatever they've chosen to feed their child. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: there should be no shame, no pointing fingers, and we
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: need to accept that. And I am very, very proud
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: to not look at our branding, our marketing as a
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: sales tool, but rather as a culture changer. And again
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I know that there's going to be and there has
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: been many people go ugh whatever, And yet until you
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: are in someone's shoes who's truly going through that, do
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: you really understand the importance of changing a narrative.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So we got to talk about last year's formula shortage
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: right this moment. Last year, it was big national news
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: when one of the big factories that makes formula in
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: this country shut down, and suddenly there was not enough
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: baby formula in America.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, you couldn't write this story.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And every time I just hear these these moments back
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to back like we're doing today.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, I get PTSD. Oh this all went down.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: So what happened was that it was February seventeenth. I
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: remember so clearly, sitting at my desk and I saw
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: the news that this recall was happening for a large player.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: And because I have spent the last five to six
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: years researching, understanding the industry and seeing what needs to change,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I knew within sixty seconds of reading that that recall
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: went down. I knew that this was going to cause
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a national shortage. And I remember turning to the team
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and I was like, here's what is going to mean.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: It means that for what period of time the rest
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: of the players are going to have to feed America. Yeah,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: and within one week post that shortage, our customer count doubled.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Now for a small players just entered to see your
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: customer count double that quickly.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: On one side, yes, I.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Think as a CEO, you're sitting there going, oh my god,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: this is great.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: We're taking off right.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Well, if you are selling software. It would be your dream,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: right because you can sell as many licenses for the
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: software as you want. You could sell a billion of them.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: You can just get more service space you give it in.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: But you're not selling software, right, You're selling a thing,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and presumably you can't just keep doubling the amount of
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: it that your manufacturer is making for you.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: And we're also not just selling anything.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: We're not selling a piece of furniture where if someone
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: comes and it says we're sold out, they go, ooh, I.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Want that more. It's so cool.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: We're selling an essential good that feeds babies, and that
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: essential good it's not cool to be out of infant formula.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: It's not cool to be out of your baby's food.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And that's where being a mom plays into this as well,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: because what it means to solve for these moments, you
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: get a different level of empathy and relatability to what
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: all American parents are going through. And my head of
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: growth sharene an exceptional woman whose job is to grow
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the business, was the person who sat in front of
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: me and said, Laura, we are growing too fast. And
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: here's the problem. We are depleting inventory faster than our
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: ability to keep up, and if we keep depleting product,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: we won't be able to continue and reliably serve those
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: that have already made a commitment to us. And in hindsight,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: it was not a hard decision. Within twenty four hours
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: of that, we made the decision to stop growing the
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: company and to just give a promise to those who
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: signed up for Bobby that we will continue and reliably
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: be able to serve them.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: So, even though we.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Kept making product, that product was for those who made
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: a commitment to us already, and we were not about
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: to grow too fast in a world that we had
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: no control in and then run out one day.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: So do you like just flip a switch so there's
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: no sign, Like, do you turn off your website? Like,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: what do you actually do?
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Practically? That's exactly what we did.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: We you know, you go to your product page to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: go buy something, and we had a letter on the
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: page that basically said, we have a customer promise that
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: if you sign up for us, we sign up for you.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: And right now we are serving seventy thousand babies across
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: this country and during the shortage we want to continue
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and reliably serve them, and right now we can't accept
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: more customers. At the time, I thought, maybe this will
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: go on for a month.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: You just don't know what it was.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Seems like a long time. It was seven months.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Seven months, we turned our side off seven and it
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: felt like a lifetime.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: So you made it. You made it through that period,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you turned your site back on. You're back to grow
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: in the formula business. Now, what's the next thing you
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: want to do?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I think as we continue to grow, we will be
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: given the permission by our consumers to say, maybe we
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: should start looking at other ways that we can tap
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: into the.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: World of nutrition.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: So while I think we've started with the first one
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: of the hardest, most regulated products, I'm excited for the
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: innovation that's happening right now to say, how else can
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: we look at nutrition, especially in those first thousand days
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: for a child, and also looking at nutrition for a mom.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited to see where Bobby takes our next
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: steps to solve for a broader nutritional set.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the light Now
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: back to the show. Okay, let's do the lightning round.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It's just a bunch of semi random questions that I
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: hope will be fun for you. You used to work
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: at Airbnb. Give me one secret hack for renting a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: place on Airbnb.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: I would filter for SuperHost good will. It will truly be.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: That nine or ten that you're looking for, and you're
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: not rolling the dice.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And to be clear, SuperHost they're identified on Airbnb. There
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: are people who have hosted for a long time, gotten
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: very good reviews.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Correct, they have a badge, they're dedicated, they're fantastic. And
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: if you're not a super host and you're listening, go
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: become a SuperHost.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I read that you used to be a day trader,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and you know, I was an economics reporter for ten years,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and if there's one thing I learned, it's don't be
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a day trader. Yeah, are you're wrong? I also read
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that you did well as a day trader. So were
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: you lucky? Were you good?
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: What? Like?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Give me one thing on day trading?
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: And the one advice I would have is don't day
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: trade if you can't watch the market. And what I
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: mean by that is I worked on Google Finance. I
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: was staring at the I was staring at stocks all day.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I was staring at the ups and downs. I was
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: watching the news that related to the ups and downs,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and essentially I was in it. And when I hear
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: of people just jumping in and day training, but then
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: they're like out of it for a few hours, it's
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: dangerous And yeah I was.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: I was in it.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: You're Irish, gon do a couple of Ireland questions. Besides
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: your family and friends? What do you miss most about Ireland?
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: The banter, Well, the banter, the crack, my right to
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: call it crack? What is crack?
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: What is crack?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: I know? And I hope you never cut this one
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: piece that says Laura misses the crack.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: What I mean by that is that it is banter.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: It's the fun, it's the levity, and it's the hospitality
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: of Irish humans, even if they're strangers, you will always
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: have fun.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Is Guinness overrated or underrated?
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Extremely underrated, stunning, It's nutritional and unfortunately you can't pour
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: a good pint here in the US.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Guinness is like formula for grownups.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Again, you can't quote me on that, but maybe I'm
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: winking you.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: No, I definitely am going to Laura Mody is the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Bobby. Today's show was produced by
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Edith Russolo, edited by Sarah Nix and engineered by Amanda K.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Wong.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at Pushkin dot fm,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: or you can find me on Twitter at Jacob Goldstein.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and we'll be back next week with
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem MHM