Testing and Learning for Growth

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Salt Lake City Branch Terms and more at apppplecard. com Work can be a little weird I've had plenty of those moments early in my career and honestly, even later I remember stretches where I wasn't totally sure what the next step was supposed to be. And that's the thing, work isn't always a straight line And that's where LinkedIn comes in LinkedIn helps you tap into ideas and insights from people who've been where you are Connect with others in your field, grow your network, and access tools that can actually help you find the right next steps Whether you're just getting started, thinking about a change or trying to accelerate where you are LinkedIn is built to support you at every stage Because LinkedIn is the network that works for you. Visit linkedIn dot com slash hit to learn more. Success is a journey, especially when it comes to your finances One of the most common obstacles in our financial journey is dealing with high interest debt It can often leave people feeling trapped. doesn't have to If you're dealing with high interest debt There is a way forward A SoFI personal loan could consolidate all your high interest debt into one low interest monthly payment, helping you craft a roadmap to paying down your debt It even comes with no fees required, getting you a financial win right away pushing on your journey to financial success. You could even get as soon as the same day funding View your rate for a SFI personal loan at sofi d. com slash GIRS Loans originated by SfI Bank NA, member FDIC Terms and conditions apply N M L S six nine, six eight nine one. Fast funds term apply at sofi d. com slash GyROS Hello and welcome to the Avice Line on How I But this Lab. I'm Guy Ross. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show. will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is one eight hundred four three three one two nine eight. Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with Let's get to it This week I'm joined byhaazi Vrom. She's the founder of the baby food company Happy Family Organics and more recently a new baby products company, Healthy Baby. Shaazy,. it's great to have you back on the show. That's so fun to be here, guy. you you. It's great to see you. And you were first on the show back in January of twenty twenty. And as always, to anyone listening, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's a great episode You started Happy Family Organics around two thousand three, when you realized it was really hard for parents to find good tasting organic baby food And you became an advocate for improving nutrition and how children are fed in the U. S. And then about a decade after launching the company, you sold it. And right around that time your son was diagnosed with progressive autism. And since we last spoke, I know you've started another company for new parents and their young childildren called Healthy Baby, Um Tell us a little bit more about it Yeah, well, I think along my journey and knowing so much about creating products for babies, I've learned that with autism and developmental health There's just so much we can do to create a better environment for our growing babies. I think that as we are evolving as a society, we've been putting things into our bodies that weren't originally meant to be there. And so yeah, Healthy Baby is a brand that creates the healthiest, safest, high performing products for new families. Our diapers are kind of world class, really high quality, high performing made with no chemicals of harm which in today's world There are so many that can actually harm your baby's nervous system. Yeah. We pair the product with meaningful developmental content so that parents can feel regulated and calm and ultimately have a more connected, healthier life. Yeah. I mean, what you're talking about, of course, there is a lot of momentum behind this You know, I remember when my wife was pregnant with our first child, you know, in two thousand eight, peopleeople were just starting to talk about BPA, you know at that time. Now it's so mainstream. that the the offerings haven't fully matched the momentum, right? And so I guess that's the sort the thinking behind Healthy Baby, which is You know, you can develop a line of products that people can just trust. They don't even have to think about it. It's just they know All these things are not in their VOCs and parabinens and alates and all those you know. I know it sounds great. crazy but yeah, we have to innovate and we have to create better materials, and we have to make those materials without the use of these chemicals and other things that we've relied on for so many years. I love being innovative. It's like a cool way to use design and new fabrics and new materials and find a better way to make something because you care and also because it needs to work Yeah And you know, that's what makes for a good business. You can't just like care a lot and have a great mission and the product doesn't work. Yeah I mean, you've been through this rodeo once. You've built a company. you know how hard it is to build and the hardest thing is to build a brand. It's even harder now than when you started Happy Baby. It's easy The barriers enter are easier in some ways, but the brand building is so much harder because the Tension is just it's being divided, right byy a million different things. U So what is the Abition I mean, for me, the I've already sold a business And so the second time a little bit of that pressure is of Right. At the same token, I think having starting a business besides having a baby is the most creative thing you can do. And you can literally create a living, breathing work of art. Yeah. And Gay, I mean, you've contributed to making entrepreneurship cool. Like when I run to business school, do my best. Wh Well, I went because I wanted to like have better tools in my toolbox so that one day I could start a business that was big and meaningful. And what was funny is I was like one of the few entrepreneurs And at that time, everyone was an investment banker consultant. and I felt like the freak of the business school and now more of the younger generation are realizing, hey, I'm not going to live that norm And if that track isn't going to work because the world is changing with tech And I'm smart and I'm adaptive and I'm entrepreneurial, I'm gonna find my way. Yeah. And let them find their way Absolutely U Shaazy, I think we should take advantage of your expertise and experience and bring on some callarsers and see if we can help them out. What do you say, you ready? I am I'm always ready. All right, let's bring in our first caller. Welcome to the Avice Line. Tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business Hey guysy, Hey Shazy. My name's Daisy and I'm calling from the UK. So I'm the daughter of the founder of Freet Bearefur So we're a family run barefoot shoe brand with the mission to give people freedom for their feet by making shoes that allow natural movement with a focus on comfort and durability Awesome, welcome to the show, Daisy. We've done several big shoe brands like O and Hoka on the show and cou others and I'm very familiar with barefoot running shoes. I don't use them as much anymore, but I still like them for exercise and working out. So tell me about Barefoot was started So it was started by my dad after he'd been suffering with knee pain, this is about fifteen years ago. someomeone introduced him to barefoot shoes and it just kind of completely changed the game for him. And it seemed so simple, but allowing his feet to move naturally and move all the muscles within the foot meant stronger feet, which in turn meant less pressure on his knees and he now often boasts that his knees are better at sixty than they were at forty. So through that he started his own barefoot shoe Brand Freit with my mum and the name literally means freedom for freit. So we make a range of products from barefoot hiking boots to barefoot leather sandals, trail running, kids shoes, gym shoes kind of got quite lot of SkeUs now as we've grown as a brand. primarily you sell through or online now So when we started, we were primarily wholesale, especially know in Europe, there's a really big barefoot shoe market. But as we've grown, I'd say that our D to C has grown a lot and that is By pairs sold, I think we sell about the same wholesale and D toC, but D toC is the big profit driver for us now All right, tellell me a little bit about your sales last year, for example. How'd you guys do So last year we did two million revenue in dollars and that's across three regions. so that's UK, US EU. But our biggest market currently is the UK, where we're kind of most well known Got it. And are you, Daisy, are you taking over the company from your dad Yeah, so that's the plan. att the moment. I've kind of come in as sales and marketing director of my the last ten years, that's what I've done myself, but the plan is sort of from next year, I will take over the business full time as my dad's still supporting on product side of things Got it. Okay, before we jump into your question, just a question forready, which is How do you guys position your shoes in a way that differentiates you from you know, what whatever else is out there So we're really well known within the industry for the level of comfort that our shoes have. We feel that that differentiates ourselves from other competitors who have maybe call themselves barefoot but maybe not truly wide fit as we are and will always be. I'd say the other thing is really our outdoor background. so My dad's big outdoors man, we're a big outdoors family. So our shoes they're built for the outdoors, they're built to go hiking in and kind of have all of the comfort and the durability that people may not equate to barefoot shoes traditionally Cool, and tell us your question that you have worse Yes. So Shazi in your episode, you talked about a few of the key pivotal moments for growth for Happy Family Organics, which was so interesting. As I look to grow our brand in the US and have our own breakthrough moment, there are so many potential levers, so PR, B to B expansion, digital influencers How do you decide what to sort of truly prioritize in order to scale the business in the states All right, Shazi, I want to bring you in. Say hello to Daisy from Freet Barefoot. First of all, before you answer the question, do you have any questions for Daisy? Well,, it's such a great market for our children as well And I'm just wondering, is there any science that that you can leverage to kind of showcase how much proprioception or how many nerves or how much compressed foot develops differently than a free one because I'm assuming that I'm assuming the foot is really well designed by nature Yeah Exactly, there are so many muscles in our foot And obviously, when you're wearing, especially little kids with little feet as they're growing, if you're not able to use that full function and all those muscles within the foot, your foot naturally becomes weaker and more reliant on kind of support through more traditional shoes So definitely there's plenty of science to back up that our brand and what we stand for. As a parent, whenever someone tells you that there is a better way. that actually supports your baby's developing body, or your child's developing body. I feel like it's easier to kind of hook them given how crowded the spaces and running And I can't help that I'm a baby person. But I think what I love about baby food or diapers is it's FMCG, so fast moving consumer goods rememember, you, as soon as my son would find a pair of shoes if it was the right fit on Zappos It was basically all I would ever do is every five months I would be buying the next half size up. and I could see that with your brand and your business, so you're getting their repeat purchase, I would think that that would be kind of a holy grail. I mean, because I would want you to have that FM part of the CG I agree. I think that, you know, I'm looking at your website here, Daisy and You know, I don't get the sense that you're leaning into the benefits of this. And there is research. I mean, obviously you want to be careful. because you know, somebody can always say, Hey, you know, you promised this and you didn't deliver it. But but there is research and so you can position from the get go, this idea maybe like the way humans were designed to move or the way we were supposed to walk becausecause I think that that is that's the key I mean partart of even though there are other brands out there It's still an educational sort of educational led product. You're still educating people about this. because a lot of people even now you decades after this movement is started are like, really, we don't need cushioning. So I'm curious where like Have you used any any marketing channels, you know, at all that have that seemed to be working or worked or gave you sort of data that suggested that You know, there was a return on that? Yeah, so I use metaads and I use them in the US and I find a really good return on those and I really like tracking through that. So We obviously do organic social as well, but for me yeah, the paid ads on Ma have been the best. That's been the best. Okay, what else We use Google ads, but again, it's not something that I see a huge return on investment We work with a lot of barefoot influencers within the US. So there's Ana, Ana's review. She's a really well known, respected influencer. So we've got a brilliant relationship with her. H she helped sales as she moves in? Yes. ye. And she has a code. so we know that you know she's brilliant for kind of getting our brand out there. and we go to trade shows in the U.S and kind of we're trying to makeake our presence more well known there. And what about PR? you haven't tried PR yet? So we're just starting PR. actuallyually, we've just brought on a small team to help us with that from this month. So I'm really excited to see how that kind of has an impact. but it's brilliant to hear Y and Shazy's point of views on the angles that we should really be focusing on so that's brilliant feedback to have Well I also think I don't know about you gu, but Chat is like my best friend in terms of, I mean, I just bought a house in Colorado because Chat identified the house and we bought. If he can help me find his name's Saul, my chat. But how are you findable on chat GPT for the next generation of sort of search becausecause what I've found, especially with healthy baby is because we have so much science and I keep going back to it. but the science that is validated third party with doctors and based with research tends to actually allow people to find us because chat is is identifying not just the product, but also the work and the research and the science. So I'm wondering if you have like a chat strategy. Yeah, so I went to a brilliant conference in the UK about AI recently and after that I went through our entire website and especially like the about pages and the technology pages and sustainability pages and made sure that they were optimized in a way that chatbots like Chat GBT can easily pick off information. We also we use Shopify and through Shopify, I think there's a function that allows the chatbots to help shop through and kind of find our products through them. But yeah, I'm sure there's more that we could be doing I'm only saying it because there are a billion diaper brands and Healthy Baby shows up in chat as the safest or the cleanest one, if you ask. I don't know if it's just doing it to appease me. But it is the best new shopping tool, I think, and the place for discovery when people start asking We recently last month we were in a big UK national newspaper and voted like the most comfortable barefoot shoe brand. So I think having that backlink and having that has really kind of helped us be recommended within Chat and it's helped sales overall, of course, having kind of a regarded publication say that. so hopefully what was the publication? And the Guardian? Yeah, I mean, why isn't that on your front page? The named the most comfortable barefoot shoe by guard, you know, the Guardian Yeah Yeah like right at the front point. Yeah. ye. we to talk about it more. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think that's something you should push. How is your How are retention rates or reorder rates? I mean, do you have data around that? Yeah, and it's good and we often we have people maybe come in through their kids and then the mother's looking for a good pair of shoes for their kids and then they buy their own pair or we get people who come in through definitely hiking and trail running. And then once they've got one pair of fres, that's it. L they are now like, o, do you do a sandal for my holiday? Do you do us like a gym shoe? you know, Once someone's got one pair of fres, they become quite a loyal fan. There's not normally any going back in your case, it sounds like you've got Oh strong retention, strong fan base. I mean the The value of repeat orders in especially in your case is like infinitely higher than right now than the custom acquisition costs because customer acquisition costs are high for everybody. that's just the way it is. They're very high right now And and you can use your existing customers as force multipliers. I see that you've got some testimonials on the site, but what about seeing if you can create user generated content you know, have your your fans show how they use the product and offer them a twenty percent discount. coupon or twenty five percent if they're willing to post it with a hashtag or something Yeah, yeah, that's really nice. We had we did one piece of UGC recently and then I boosted that and it performed so well for us. We've almost sold out of that product in the US warehouse. So. I think our customers and the people that like the brand want to have see that authenticity coming through. You know, now that you're investing in p PR know that if you don't leverage it, it's like did a bears shit in the woods because That's a really great honor to say the most comfortable shoe And now you're about to start getting all of these PR hits And I feel like In my prior life, I've gotten such a ton of press and it was more meaningful than in a purchasing decision making situation than it is now So when you get the PR now, you have to leverage it for the digital ad to make sure that that it continues to live on because people see it asynchronously Yeah. You know, it used to be like if everyone's watching the Today Sh together, we're all going to learn about this baby food company. But it's not that way now. So you might be on the Today Sh, but you need to leverage the clip all the time. So just be ready with your team to sort of make that a machine That is fantastic advice. need to leverage it a lot more, I think than I have been. Well, I think, I mean, listen, you catch your marching orders, Daisy. So go forward, go forth. bra's called Freak Barefoot. goodood luck with Awesome. cononggrats Thanks so much guys you We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Gy Ros, and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line how I built this lab Before every interview I do, there's a mountain of material. notes, transcripts, research. And the difference between a good conversation and a great one usually comes down to how well I've absorbed all that stuff Lately, I've been using the new Kindle scribe to do some of that work It lets me read and annotate everything in one place, especially PDFs. So if my team and I are going through a founder's memoir I can highlight key passages or jot notes in the margins and then quickly pull those insights back up when I'm preparing for the interview What I like is that it still feels like writing on paper But it's a lot more powerful. You can search your handwritten notes, organize them instantly, even clean them up into readable text. whichich means less time digging through notebooks and more time actually thinking What are you working on I'm working on the new Kindle scribe You may have heard the best voice in show business Morgan Freeman talking about a serious and underdiagnosed heart condition that's often missed ATTR cardiac amyloidsis or ATTRCM. It's a condition that can greatly disrupt your life with symptoms like severe fatigue, shortness of breath, and carpal tunnel If left untreated, ATTRCM may become serious, leading to a shorter lifespan. At Trubbie helps adults with ATTRCM live longer and have fewer hospitalizations due to heart issues, so you can focus more on living for what you love. Tell your doctor if you're pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding and about the medications you take The most common side effects were mild and included diarrhea and abdominal pain If you have ATTR CM, talk to your cardiologist about a Truby and visit atruby d. com slash podcast that's A T T R U BY d. com slash podcast to learn more Time to get busy living. to you by Bridge Bio Support for today's episode comes from Square easy way for business owners to take payments, book appointments, manage staff, and keep everything running in your business without running yourself into the ground In my neighborhood, there's a shop that sells incredible locally made food. fresh breads, prepared meals, sauces, jams, all from producers within an hour's drive And they use square. And as a customer, I love the seamless payment, quick checkout and easy receipts. Square's intuitive software and hardware simplifies everything. You can sell anywhere in store, online or mobile while managing inventory and tracking sales in real time. With Square, you get all the tools to run your business with none of the contracts or complexity And why wait? Right now, you can get up to two hundred dollars off square hardware at square dot com slash go slash built Sq U a R E dot com slash Go slash built Run your business smarter with square. Get started today Welcome back to the Vvice Line on How I Built this Lab. I'm Guy Ros, and my guest today is Shazy Vistrom, founder of Happy Family Organics and Healthy Baby. Shaazy, you ready for another call Yes, let's go. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the show. Tell your name where you're calling from and a little bit of extra business. Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm calling from the Greater Philadelphia area. I'm the co founder and CEO of Sprinkle Bes. and we make the world's first protein sprinkles in a single serve packet Wow, okay, welcome to the show Rachel I love that. protein is Croaching his king. Protein has exploded, it's protein water, protein gummies, protein. So protein sprinkles like sprinkles you put on ice cream. Yep, like Jimm' Like Jimmy's right. And are they the just the chocolate and then the c colored ones like the candy colore on. Right now we just have chocolate and blue berry and blueberry. Okaykay, cool Oh yeah, a lot of questions for you. How did this idea come about? I mean, you can put protein in almost anything, but sprinkles Who knew Well My cofounder and I are both full time working moms. We are very busy and we only get about two hours a day with our children. And we don't want to spend those two hours fighting with them and negotiating with them on what to eat. And we just wanted to be happier with them in the little time that we had. So Nicole came up with this idea around sprinkles because she's Dutch And in the Netherlands, they ate thirty million pounds of sprinkles a year and they eat it on toast So We thought, well Why don't we use that as the Trojan horse and sneak in some function and protein and fill them up they love eating sprinkles so much So is a this is something that I think a lot of people in the United States would find really weird that and it's also in Australia They take bread and they spread it with butter and put sprinkles on. it's called fairy bread. And I guess in the Netherlands it put chocolate sprinkles on bread and that's breakfast. So so that's a thing, right? That's a thing. And that was the that was sort of the inspiration behind this Behind starting this Exactly. If we can make sprinkles mainstream here in the States, it has to have a better for you you know, angle to it. one in seven School aged kids don't get enough protein. A lot of them are picky eaters So it's really hard to get my kids to eat meat. And my middle one has ADHD, so his medication suppresses his appetite. And making food fun helps with getting them eat in general, but also try new things. And what makes food fun sprinkles All right, so five grams of protein so a little bit less than an egg. By the way, how much do you have to eat to get five grams I'm one single serve packet I gotcha. Okay. And tell me a little bit about about sales right now. You're selling direct to consumer only, mainly Yes, we launched our product in August We are O last year. Of last year. Yeah. We've surpassed one hundred thousand in sales Since then, okay? Since then, Yep. We sold on our Shopify site with metaads. and then we launched in Thrive Market In December, we got reorder in thirty days. So we were moving eighty eight pack boxes a week for thirteen weeks straight Got it. Okaykay, Be before we dive in further, what is your question for us? Sure So as you know, in CPG, it's very hard to manage cash flow and to get early traction. So should we consider Private labeling to allow a larger retailer or a larger brand establish our category of functional sprinkles on shelf and educate the consumers for us since that can be costly when you're trying to disrupt something and create a new category. And then sprinkle by its enters as the premium brand on shelf later on. So I'd love to know your thoughts around this approach and what the pros and cons should be All right, whether enter privateink. All right, I want to bring you on Saazy. That's Ia's questions for Rachel Wow, so much. Do they taste good? I kind of want to try it and see if it works on my daughter Well, I think this is I think question is a solid one. And I would just remind you that anybody who has a private label brand or any retailer They're typically, you know, private label is typically u a mass manufactured version of something they know that already sells well And so, you know, I'm just immediately thinking of like a fruit riot. Have you heard of fruit riot? It's like on fire right now There was it was a kind of a TikTok trend of these grapes in like a sour candy shell. And actually now the founder and he commercialized the idea and it's such a TikTok thing. And I could see this being similar, but I don't see the owner of a private labeled brand doing that kind of creative storytelling and marketing to turn it into the thing you want it to be. And I'm not certain that doing that is so expensive anyway And it sounds like you already have traction So why would you give away the additional margin And what product would you create for them that would be less premium You know I feel like that's a lot of work to build someone else's potential business that might or might not care or keep it. Whereas you're really invested in and your sprinkles being the sprinkles It's it's early days, but do you have any information about who's buying Because you know, oftentimes people start brands and they think, I'm selling this to people like me, right? You're probably thinking, o, we're going to sell to moms and their kids are going Is that Do you know if that's who's buying the product Most of them are Moms between the ages twenty eight and forty five withith young kids The other surprise are bodybuilders and fitness communities, which we did not think would a love a packet of five grams of protein. We thought They want more than that, right? But the reality is every little bit counts and they're loving putting them on top of their ninja creamies, their protein ice cream. so like The fitness community loves us and then the GLP one community. You're using, I look at your ingredients. you're using monk frruit and erthral as sweeteners that does not spike insulin, Whole Foods sells it. So I don't think Whole Foods sells things with alulose, but they do sell things with erythritol And so it has a high sweetness level tastes good, but it doesn't have the same impact on blood sugar Correct. We wanted to come out first with our MVP being sugar free Diabetes is on the rise. We really wanted kids with diabetes to also enjoy sprinkles. All right. so you're sort of trying to figure out whether it makes I I agree with Shazi in general, but disagree also look there are obvious pros to working with to doing a private label. You're going to get immediate volume Right. And then, I mean, it's cash, it's money right away. It's predictable U and it's going to scale and it's going to help you negotiate better deals with your co manufacturer. and it gets you more awareness, right? I mean, basically people are like, oh ine sprinkles Okay, the downside is You then introduce your brand after people are buying, you know, the Trader Joe's protein sprinkles Right. or the, you know, the target brand And they're like, oh, well, that this one's cheaper. Right? And what's the difference So it's it's a huge I mean, I think that most American kids eat sprinkles on ice cream. They don't eat sprinkles on toast. It's just not a thing here. So that requires some education to say, hey, here's how to use it putut your sprinkles in yogurt putut your sprinkles on, you know, your breakfast cereal, whatever it might be, you're adding five grams of protein. That's And the thing is no one's doing this, right? I don't think there's any other protein sprinkles brands out there. so U So that's the cls of the cons, which is you don't want somebody else to have a private label and then you come in and people like, oh, look at this sprinkle bites just trying to jump on the bandwagon, right and That's it, it's game over Yeah Well also I mean, this I mean you're right guy in one sense that if you were able to find a private label contractor that wants a certain amount from you and you don't ever expect to be on shelf next to them be a differentiating strategy. I'm almost thinking, you know, sort of launching it at Safeeway, but selling at Whole Foods and Amazon I could see that being two separate brands, I could see that sort of working, but to me, it seems like there's so much educating to do what we ended up doing with our business, and I think why it became much more successful is that we created easier version of organic to consume something organic easier And it made it more convenient and it was already something somebody wanted and you weren't trying to change their behavior. So Yeah, I mean, I do think that if you haveap someone that can order and create additional cash flow for you It's probably worth considering it, but then at the same token, I wouldn't I wouldn't take the gas off of the educating Here Here's my idea. I got an idea. So all right. How about? instead of thinking about U private label whichich again, it's tempting because it's cash in hand But it can really bite you in the butt. you know, in the next year or two or three or five. What about looking at brands that are in protein. that you could mix us in with like Chiobani has a protein yogurt. I mean, it's not easy to work with them because they're huge and you guys are tiny. But who knows? I mean, they might say, Hey, you know what?' interesting. You get twenty grams of protein at Chiobani yogurt but you get a little of sprinkles and that's another five grams of protein. justust twenty five grams of protein That could be interesting. would I would really see if you can leeaning on that and the other thing and this is a totally out there idea, but I don't think it's actually out there too out there. You could you could you could call this a protein and fiber sprinkles you could add chicickory root powder to it Instantly, you've got fiber and protein in your yogurt Yeah. So we're doing both. We're reformulating Our vision is to Sneak in the function. have sprinkled be the Trojan horse So yes, we have fiber added into sprinkles. We have super foods in the sprinkles. We have differentiff functionality. Spinach powder or whatever, yeah. It's amazing.ur matcha vanilla coming out soon. They're amazing So We tootally agree with you about adding fiber and adding other functionality. The other piece, yes, in order to get the education, the brand awareness, the distribution, right is to Cbrand exactly like you said, some yogurt brands like Fayer won't Crand but they won't put someone else's logo on their. fine Buy us in bulk as an inclusion, I'm fine with that. Um Tibani? Yeahah, it would be so cool. They do co brand. And that would give us the credibility and trust as well. which is so important. So that's part of our growth strategy protein pints, there's a protein brand of ice cream out there And it's just starting now. makes perfect sense. It's easy. You can shove a lot of protein in something that's basically cream milk and eggs, right? So Chhaazzi, any last thoughts before we send Rachel off with her marching orders. You know, I'm just I'm excited to see you breakthrough and we'll be looking looking for it at Thrive Sprinkle bites. Rachel Cain, thanks for calling in good luck All right, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ross, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab Every business is now asking the same question How do we make AI work for us? 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They vet their providers and monitor outcomes, and ninety three percent of patients report feeling better and making real progress With Rula, you can find a therapist for your specific needs in as little as five minutes and even book an appointment as soon as the next day So instead of overthinking it actually take the first step If you're ready to stop talking yourself out of finding care and making progress, then head to rula. com. R youLA. com the first step Welcome back to the Viceeline on How I Built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Shaazy Vistr, founder of Happy Family Organics and healthy baby. So Shaazy, let's get back into it h and take another call Fantastic Hi there. My name is Andrew Graff. I'm calling in today from Laguna Beach, California. Um, I have on creating a pleasantly scented soil additive a product that you can add to your soil and when you water it, it releases a pleasant scent while also providing nutrients to your plant All right, welcome to show Andrew. So so explain these are h It's a additive Right. It comes in a pellet form.. and you apply it to your indoor or outdoor plant. You mix it with the soil, you just sprinkle it on top. Just sprinkle it on top. on top of the soil. And when you water it, it breaks down the biopolymer, which is made out of kytosin and sodium algginate, ocean derived and releases an essential oil Currently I have a lavender and lemon eucalyptus scent This is because indoor plants, I'm just trying to think I've got a bunch indoor plants. Are they? I don't I can't remember them smelling bad. Do they smell bad Well, it's not about the plant smelling bad, but almost having a natural diffuser in your house instead of having a plugin or burning a candle It's kind of a sensory experience that you're interacting with the plant That's how I first started it. The idea first came to me while fertilizing my plants and I thought this could definitely smell better And then I just went down, you know the Google Rabbit ho to see if there is anything like this And I couldn't find anything. so I reached out to chemist to help me develop this idea. and you know, I even worked on obtaining a patent, which I got published and U Yeahah, so I'm in the early stages right now of you know, testing it with friends and family and in my own garden, my own outdoor space Um I work in residential real estate And I can tell how You know, The interaction of scent with perception of the environment really matters. Yeah, so this is why when you walk into like a William Sonoma, they sell their scents. You can buy the Williams and William Sonoma scent or the Crayon Barrel scent. It's interesting. and you see this in a lot of stores. Okay, so your real estate ag, I love that. And clearly I can now make the connection because you're showing people houses and you're like and you know there's all these sensory things and there in the house and they're always staged. but then you've got the scent So okay, before we dive in further, what's your question for us So I'm at this early stage where I've you know, worked on with the chemist developing the product, I've worked with a lawyer on obtaining the patent with the manufacturer making my first batch And also soil testing as well All of this is, you know, proving to be costly And I haven't quite Ive I have some sales, you know, I bring it to to you know as a host gift and people end up buying it for me, but it's a very limited amount of sales And's it feels like a new category. So I'm trying to figure out how to If I should work on courting investors, or if I should try to prove traction with retail or direct to consumer Got it. Okay Shy, I want to bring you in. You've been in this position before where you, you've got a new product and you bring investors, what do you do U Thoughts or questions for Andrew before we dive into his question It's fascinating to think of olfactory and plants and creating a deeper connection with nature. So I love that If you're like really in this and you believe and it's your a hundred percent thing thenen you have to raise money from investors and you kind of go biger go home. It's my feeling I don't think you start this one on a bootstrappy, small way because ultimately you want like Home Depot and you want you want to be an option at every store that sells gardening supplies and you want to start in terrain and I can just see, you know, I can see it becoming a craze and a phase and now that you have the patent and the ability to produce it. U I would you know, I would find a way to test and get it to the place where it's a product that you know, people are going to love and want So I don't know. that's my perspective is that if you want to go big with it, build a brand around it. Yes. and really launch it.