Advice Line with Troy Carter of Atom Factory

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/3619c237ad7b929f

Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
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All right.
Let's get to it.
Joining me today is Troy Carter, founder of Atom Factory, which managed stars like Lady Gaga and John Legend. Troy, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you on.
Thank you for having me. Love being here. We love having you. You were um first on the show. Troy was first on the show back in twenty eighteen.
He told us about how he went from West Philadelphia to the heights of the music business in LA. It's an amazing story. In LA, uh he discovered uh and started managing the rapper Eve, uh, but then it all came crashing down. Um she left Troy as a client, his house was foreclosed on his car was repossessed.
And at the lowest point, Troy
You were introduced to a then unknown singer-songwriter called Lady Gaga, and of course you helped build her brand and her career, and it's it's just an amazing story. And if you guys have not
heard that episode with Troy Carter. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description. It is so
Awesome. It's just amazing. Anyway
Um after that, Troy, you became an investor. You got in early on on companies like Uber and and Lyft and and Spotify and and you also had extended Spotify for a while. And now you are um in the music distribution business. So
You are still working with artists and creators. Give me a g give us a quick update on on on what's going on in your life right now.
Yeah, you know, when I when I left Spotify, I decided that there was this opportunity in the independent music space.
to really help out independent music artists with distribution and services and technology. So basically took, you know, my
experience as a manager, my experience of working with artists and technology at Spotify, and now we're distributing independent artists.
That's awesome. And you know, it's interesting because you hear a lot of sort of
conversations around um you know Spotify and how it it compensates people and the the reality is like
If you are an independent artist and you own
the rights and your um recordings and everything like you get all the money.
Right.
But it's the way the money is distributed because if you are
and artists and there's writers and there's composers and there's the you know, m m all kinds of people involved, that you know, that dollar gets split, you know, twenty different fifty different ways.
Yeah, and for us, you know, we we like to work with artists who own all of their music. We encourage them to keep the to hold on to their rights.
And you know, if the music does well, they do incredibly well.
Yeah.
You when you when I remember on the shows.
still s you've been on the show since then a few times, but your first episode, the story of your life
And just I I still think about it sometimes going up and down California on a van, you know, with with
Lady Gaga before she was Lady Gaga.
Um, you guys also at the time used social media, YouTube, to kind of help launch your career. And back then
And even until recently that kind of digital discovery was new, right? And and it's a different world now. I mean social media platforms are
You know, they're saturated, right? Digital ads we're we're hearing from a lot of startup founders that that and and even established companies, digital ads are not performing as well, right? And as they used to.
What are some ways that that you're hearing about how
Entrepreneurs, creators, other people that you work with are are are building their brands and reaching audiences despite those challenges.
Yeah, you know, we're we're having these conversations in in real time. You know, uh I was just talking to my team a few weeks ago about
You know, even with my own habits, when I use search now, which I rarely do, but when I do
I'm basically reading the AI summary and not sort of clicking through or whatever on whatever else. So um discovery is
Definitely shifting now.
The reality is
You just gotta be really, really, really great at what you do.
And have a really great product. You know, because
And music
We've always been like the canary in a coal mine.
So probably a decade ago.
Um when the barriers to entry to music went away because of technology and all of a sudden you ha you have hundreds of thousands of artists releasing music.
You know, we were we we figured out ways to be able to cut through the noise, and but part of it was
You gotta take a really patient long term approach.
And not expect
um things to happen overnight and not fall for the traps that happen and taking shortcuts to sort of accelerate things. So, you know, I I just think continuing to focus on
Product.
Um on exceptional service.
And to me it it's a bit of a longer route, but it works. But the shortcuts and the growth hacks
You know, it's it's gonna be a little bit tougher right now.
Um before we get to our callers, one one last question for you. I mean a lot of people, a lot of founders, startup founders today, and we may get this question today too.
Ask me about working with
uh influencers and celebrities, right? Because
Now you're seeing uh just an explosion of celebrity products. Not all of them work, right? We only hear about the occasional, you know, billion dollar deals of the Hailey Bieber's of the world, but most of the time they they don't really pan out.
What kind of advice do you would you give to entrepreneurs
thinking about whether to work with celebrities or creators
even giving them equity in their product to in the brand to to to
You know, boost it.
You know, making sure that is not transactional. You know, if it if it was me sitting in that seat, I would want somebody who's in love with my product.
Um and mission aligned with the vision of the company.
And if you didn't have to pay them
That they still would
promote your product. Yeah. You know, the and and that's the type of relationship you need to have.
If it's transactional, it usually doesn't work.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. All right, let's bring in our first caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with me and Troy Carter.
Tell us your name and where you're calling from and just a one line about your business, please.
Hello guy, Troy. Thank you so much for having me. It's truly an honor.
My name's Madeline Nossick Ellis. I am in Phoenix, Arizona, and my business is the Nest Prep.
We produce and deliver custom postpartum meals and snacks to new families that have just had a baby and extending into toddlerhood families that just need to feed.
Everybody around them.
Nice. Awesome. Welcome to the show, Madeline. So the so you will make
Uh fresh meals. Are they frozen or fresh?
Yes, they're freezer friendly, so everything that we make is intended to be stored in the freezer so that you can stock up before the baby is born.
That's
the primary um model that we have. So we deliver frozen.
And this is designed you you design this for people who uh postpartum. So a lot of times it I'm I'm sure people listening have had like a meal train sent to you, Oh, our friend had a baby, let's do a meal train. Yes. So something like this is
pr probably perfect, they can just order food and then the food is delivered to their front door and they've got the got it ready to go. Tell me how you how you came up with this idea or wh or wh how did you decide to launch this business?
Exactly, yeah. So I have always just loved feeding people. I mean, since I was a kid I can remember wanting to feed people and cook and
So I worked in food service management really my whole career and I just I love it.
Uh.
Through that career I started having babies of my own and that would kind of be my postpartum gift to my friends, you know, and
Especially ones having their second or third babies, they don't really need a lot more stuff. Stack up meals for them.
Exactly. Put'em bring'em to their door.
Yep.
Yeah, I would make things for them at home, at my home, and then pack it up for them.
bring it and, you know, help them reorganize the freezer a little bit.
Um, ask'em what kind of things that they were into and liked and I just
I loved it and I remember doing it for myself when I was pregnant with my first baby.
And I just had this
daydream about how amazing it would be to do this for
other people as a job.
Um and it took me, you know, having a couple more babies to actually make it happen.
Um, but once I decided it was time, I just designed the website and went all in.
And who is doing all the cooking?

So we have a team of four.
The kitchen team is really
Two or three of us.
And it's we have a beautiful commercial kitchen.
Um
We produce everything in the span of like two or three days, depending on our amount of orders.
Uh which
Just increase every week.
So we have three of us on the team with nutrition and
Culinary backgrounds and then one who's more in like operations management.
Right. So there's a this is a a but it's a labor intensive business right now. Yes for small team. Yes.
Yeah. All right, be before we dig in more, tell tell tell us your question. Yeah, so right now we serve the Phoenix area.
And
Every one of our customers, everyone that we talk to
Expresses what a need this is. You know, the need to feed your family is not exclusive. So my question is when you have a business model like ours that
not only takes pride in but really
focuses on utilizing the resources of like a local community, what's the first step to scaling that into other cities or nationally?
All right, Troy. You know know this well, Troy,'cause you've invested in companies that have started in one place and had to expand all over the country.
Food delivery service designed for postpartum parents.
Uh
looks like a cool business it's in Phoenix right now, but down the road, maybe get it to Tucson and t and to Los Angeles and San Diego and and h how d how does she start thinking about this?
I guess what's the um what's the current distribution?
So weekly we have you know, we have a couple hundred customers right now.
Um, we also have a retail partnership with a local mom and baby sort of
boutique, uh workout class. They're sort of an all encompassing
location where they've agreed to have a fr a branded freezer of ours on site and we actually stock that every week as well.
People can go in and buy it on site.
And with the um
What's the shelf life on on the on the product?
So we say on our uh labels anywhere from three to four months technically, it's really more like six to twelve just because everything is
Designed to be frozen. Once you take it out and prepare it for consumption, obviously the shelf life changes a little bit, but we have that on our labels.
So
You know, you can stock up.
But we have several families that order every week.
So it's become a part of their weekly grocery.
Delivery.
Wh what's the price point?
So
The price range on our website.
The snacks are anywhere from like the fifteen to
eighteen dollar range and then our meals are
thirty to forty five dollars. They usually feed four.
So a typical average order for us is around two hundred dollars.
Got it. So is there a possibility of doing like a pilot program with
A target or somebody along those lines.

I've looked into
uh sprouts that would kind of be that's kind of our local, you know, West Coast
Um health or health grocery store.
They have a pilot program available for
people who are trying to get their products on shelves.
That is sort of a
It's one
route that I see possibly happening, kind of taking that retail route.
Um
But we really
have found that this delivery model is very well received by our customers.
And but so I guess explain how the delivery model works.
Yeah, so we our order cut off is Thursday every week and then we use that Thursday time frame to prepare the meals. Monday is our delivery day.
around Phoenix right now. So we have a team that shows up to the kitchen Monday morning where we produce it all.
grabs the bags with their labels and then they have
A route on their phone. We've got a
delivery driver app where they will take that to
Everyone's home that's ordered for that week. So we do it week after week.
um deliveries every Monday.
Mm-hmm.
I would pilot um a a small market nearby.
And
Just to make sure that
you can replicate what people already love about your brand.
So you know, n don't feel the pressure right away on scaling.
Because I think the the experience
is way more important than scale. And especially since you have a small team at the moment, because
Ончів старт скалин
As the s
Your job changes now. You know, you you you leave the kitchen to manage people.
And so
And and you don't wanna lose the magic of your brand within that transition. So I think being able to, you know, do a s a small pilot nearby.
might be the sort of way to sort of test it out to see
whether or not it's it it changes the experience for the for for your customers.
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean I I think that right now, you know
thinking about ways to scale it, you should
do it very slowly and methodically. I mean there are a couple of things here.
Your price point is higher than you know, than than what some a f a frozen meal would be. Obviously the quality is better and it's you know
prepared by chef, so that makes a lot of sense.
But there are meal delivery services in cities all across the country. So the question is what is what is a thing you're offering, right?
the value prop here, is it the branding? Is it the idea that this is for postpartum
you know, families, et cetera. And that could be a interesting um y you know, way to position it. I think that that that you might want to start
Going to just
literally to to Tucson or or pr I don't know if you're g you reach Prescott, Arizona, but but a smaller
closer place that you can reach in, you know, a couple of hours.
where you don't have to hire too many more people'cause if you're doing it in Tucson and you and then eventually you g you've got a a kitchen in Tucson and you're gonna need a staff there, a team there. But it could be a great model for how to think about expanding out of state. I would really
Try and focus on Arizona first.
and the the you know, the markets there and then see whether it's worth trying and you know going into Las Vegas or you know, but I also the other thing I would do is I would literally just do research
on what cities, what parts of the country
are seeing the you know the highest number of births. I mean literally I would like go and
And and is it Columbus, Ohio?
is it you know in proportion to population. Where are you seeing the highest number of births in proportion to population and
And then also, you know, you want to cross reference that with affluence.
That's that's what I was gonna say.
'Cause it's probably not a direct correlation, you know, but uh you think the high higher birthday.
And um
Higher births usually equals lower education level if if you look at all of the data.
In terms of um
high birth rates and and education level.
And education usually equates directly to income.
Yeah.
Um wha what's the current size of the business?
We're approaching the six figure mark.
I would really focus on
Penetrating
Your own market first.
'Cause you can grow you can grow the business there substantially.
Uh but it gives you the opportunity
to really work out any kinks that you know you may need to work out before
You know, you you you scale.
Yeah.
I agree, you're too small right now to g work with Sprouts or or any kind of national chain.
But you're not too small to work with a local co op. I mean that could be an interesting way to try and test out
you know, how how how this might work in retail.
I I am all for that. I would love to be able to
saturate it here and really work out the kinks, like you said. I mean food service is
High overhead, high labor.
And
The goal is to be able to have the service in other cities, but definitely not.
in some sort of rash decision or, you know, something that's not going to
Sustain itself.
Yeah.
All right, Madelina. The brand is called the Nest Prep. Good luck. Congrats. Thanks for calling in. Congratulations.
Thank you both.
Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Troy Carter, founder of Atom Factory and former manager of Lady Gaga, among others, and we are taking your call, so let's bring in our next caller.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please.
Hi Troy, hi Guy. Uh my name is Tyler Beck. I'm calling from Hood River, Oregon. Uh name of the company is Guzzle H two O and we build um portable water purification equipment.
Cool.
Portable for like R Vs and like that kinda thing.
Yeah, so our flagship uh product is like a box that's got a carbon filter.
uh a UV sterizer, a pump, and a battery. And so it will pump, filter, and purify thirty five gallons of water.
uh on a battery charge and it will fill up like a five gallon jerry can in about seven minutes. So
Well so wow. So you can you can just like park your R V next to a river or like a lake and just

A lot of customers that
With R Vs, uh the van size R Vs are really popular these days. A lot of people just doing uh
you know, car camping and adventure travel, you know, in vehicles where they need to source water and then
You know, all kinds of people with off grade residences and like hunting camps and that kind of thing that would uh use a product like ours.
Uh and then we also have point of use systems that you can install in
an adventure vehicle or an R V that treats the water coming out of your tank
and cleans it as you uh use it,'cause most people with an R V don't want to
drink the water that's coming out of the out of the onboard tank'cause it it either tastes like plastic or you know, they're worried that it's got uh mildew or bacteria in it. So the UV yeah uh ensures that it's safe.
So that's just so you can really literally go up to any body of water. Not not the ocean, obviously, that's a desalination, but pretty much most relatively clean bodies of water and you can get clean drinking water from this product.
Any f any fresh water source, yeah.
That's awesome. Um tell me how you came came to this. Were you are you an engineer? Is this your background? What how'd you start this business? Yeah, so my business partner is actually a professional sailor.
And uh he
You know, put up a Facebook rant.
you know, five or six years ago, um
He was travelling with his sailing team and they would be
you know, it's some international waterfront and
there's water on tap, but to support the team they would go by bottled water. And so
They'd get to the end of the event and the dumpster is full of single use plastic bottles. And so
He was like, Wait a minute, we are, you know, sailing on the ocean, all the plastic trash ends up in the ocean.
You know, we can't keep doing this. Um so
And I I picked up on it and I've known uh Sean for a while, so Sean is a sailor.
Sean Couveraux, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we just started
Like the first project was to f see if we could put a drinking water treatment system in a
case that they could travel around the world with and so
Uh yeah. So all right, so now you guys have this business going. Tell me a little bit about
your sales. Like what what how how did you guys do last year?
Yeah, so we did about eight hundred thousand dollars last year. Yeah.
What's the price point and like how many units is that?
Yeah, so we've got products that range from two hundred dollars up to a thousand dollars is like the flagship system.
Got it.
All right, and before we before we dig in deeper, what's your question for us?
I guess as a small brand trying to grow awareness
Uh how should we think about working with micro influencers particularly?
Like we have a lot of people that um
you know, YouTubers and people on Instagram that are doing like we have people that drive from the north
side of Alaska to the tip of South America. And so they'll bring our equipment.
And so we have great relationships with them, but
We'd like to give these relationships some longevity.
And um we've basically found that, you know, as we call bigger influencers, they don't call us back. So we're sort of, you know, thinking if we had more structure to our program
with working with these people um
you know, we might have a little more success. Not that we're not having success, but it seems like it could
Work a little smoother and with a little more clarity for everybody involved. So
Before I bring in Troy, just really quickly, how of I mean what has it uh what's been the return like on working with micro influencers? Are you actually seeing a significant boost in sales or is it a mixed bag?
It's a mixed bag. And you know, that is another reason I'm asking the question. Um
I would say, you know, it kinda ranges from
You end up with a whole community that adopts your product because you pick the
person that is talking to that community.
And it's super successful and you'll even end up with
you know, we'll end up with deals with uh R V manufacturers to sell OEM equipment to them.
Like that would be the most successful and then sort of the least successful is you just sort of never hear from'em again. So
Yeah.
Troy Carter, I wanna bring you in
This is very unusual'cause this is not like a a simple kind of consumer product. I mean, this is for people who are traveling R Vs
Boats, right, recreational and and that's off grid and that's so there are a lot of people like that.
Yeah, like these these are the kind of categories that I actually like.
Mm and what I mean by that is the types of influencers in this space
carry a lot of weight.
You know, so when you find the right people
They have it the YouTube following or TikTok following or whatever else.
You want to know what type of gear that they're using, you know, you you you're sort of following a story.
You know, and and that and that's what's great about it.
What I would say
From a structure standpoint
Figuring out
Some sort of
Equity pool with advisory shares.
When I look at um
advisory deals that that work really well.
It's somebody who loves loves your product, you know, and that that part you'll you'll hear me repeat a million times because if it if it's not authentic, it's not worth it.
But being able to
Call on that person.
A few times a year.
For
Feedback on product.
Um helping you develop product. You know, hey, this is our next iteration. I want you to give us some feedback on
How you're thinking about it.
And um and then the other piece too
Is
Making sure that
And some of the content.
That you do?
That there's some sort of call to action.
Yeah.
Because I think um that's how you can really test, you know, conversion too, you know, sort of directly. But just making sure that is a is a clear call to action, um as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's th that's interesting. Those are those are great ideas. Um
Typically
we don't even set up an agreement with these people. Like it's you know, we'll have exchange emails and like this is what we'd like to get and
I can see a thinking
the um deliverables through a little bit more and building in some things like product development and
Uh event appearances could be great, yeah.
So Yeah, look, I you know even w with my business
We set aside advisory shares.
You know, so it's it's certain artists I call, some product people I call
And they're just incredibly helpful.
You know, and so and sometimes you may need somebody to do something forward facing
But a lot of times it's just the the behind the scene things that actually move the needle the mo the most.
Hm. Yeah.
Yeah, that's interesting.
You know, we did an episode on Solo Stove a couple years ago on the show and it's worth listening to because the founders of that brand, they they really were they're not I mean, they were campers, but they were not like necessarily, you know, that was their passion. But they were looking for
a category and a product that that that they thought could do really well and they found that campers had a really hard time just, you know, quickly building a f a fire in a safe way.
And that's how they came up with Solo Stove. They really
kinda research the space and they came up with it and it turned out to be an amazing product and a hugely successful brand.
Um and I think that there are some insights in there that might be
helpful for you.
dealing with people who are outdoors
building tents, right? Sa um uh their R Vs, they're traveling and to have a great access to great
Clean

You know, is that simple.
is a bonus. There's also um yeah people that are just interested in preparedness and um
You know, having like we've got a home product as well, so people just want higher quality water in their home. Right.
Right, when the when when the apocalypse happens.
And you know, we've w it we did a we've done a lot of work with um I'm not sure if you're familiar with charity water.
But I've been to Ethiopia quite a few times with them on on trips.
And when I think about the problem you're solving is a
huge market, you know, sort of outside of campers as well. So I think it's a it's a big opportunity.
That sort of extends out of, you know, just y the the core market you focused on too. Sounds like a great great business. It's a cool product. The brand is called Guzzle H two O Tellerbeck. Thanks for calling in. Appreciate it. Yeah, you have a new you have a new customer. I'm getting I'm I'm I'm gonna order one. Yeah, sounds good. Awesome. All right, thanks for calling in.
Bye bye. Um
Yeah, I mean listen.

Judging by what's happening in the world today
And you know, all the changes in politics in our country, who who knows, our mageddon might be close at hand.
I'm a I'm a prepper guy.
A you never know.
Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with Troy Carter.
So let's bring on our next call. Hello, welcome caller.
Hi Guy, hi Troy, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. My name is Gina Davis, and I am calling in from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
And our company is good Thomas. We are an e commerce gift shop for dog lovers.
Best known for matching outfits seen on Shark Tank.
And um playful gifts like the dog father embroidered hat.
All right.
Welcome to the show, Gina. So matching efforts let's dive into this.
You sell matching outfits for humans and dogs. We do, yes. So your dog Oh I love my dog Kiki.
Very much, but she's very little. So she could put basically a dog shirt on Kiki.
And a dog shirt on me and we would be walk down the street and be matching.
That's it. Yep, and kids too.
And you also'd make like dog accessories like
Uh tell me a little bit more about what what else you saw.
Yeah, so we have fun little
Um poop bags that say uh Fresh's Daisy's on'em. We have
Playful hats like the dog father.
De MILF, not for everyone, but certain people love it.
Dog mommy, things like that. So
But we our main bread and butter is definitely the matching outfits and clothing for and you mentioned you were on Shark Tank at one point back in because you start when did you start the company?
We started in twenty fourteen actually. We were in Shark Tank in twenty nineteen. And had a chart shark tank must have been huge, right? It must have boosted sales.
It was. It was amazing. I mean, I was a big fan of the show and my husband and I went on and
Um it
Actually aired.
In November, which is
Christmas, yeah. Yeah, Q four is massive for us. So
It was it was great, and we made an on air deal with Cuban, so
We were very happy. Amazing. Yeah. He he's been on the show, he's awesome. So so now I'm sure you did very well then after that, but how how have sales been since then? Have you sustained those sales or has been been a bit tough?
Um, highs and lows, of course, like most businesses. We um that was great for our business. And then um twenty twenty.
was, you know, following that and
pandemic hit and we actually were lucky one of those businesses that did
good during the pandemic, so we saw continuous growth.
So we decided to spend the year looking at if we really wanted to raise this outside capital through friends and family, et cetera.
And we decided that
the best way for us to scale was through digital advertising. Um we're seeing around ten X return on ad spend. So
It seemed, you know, like the best way to go.
Eighty six percent of millennials said that they would dress their dogs and clothing, so the market potential was huge.
So we raised that outside capital in twenty twenty one, and then in the summer of twenty twenty two.
The Apple Privacy Act happened and our
Digital ad spend or return on ads.
Went from ten X
to eight x to five x and now we are lucky to hit three x wow
Well, how much did you guys spend on ads?
Um, that first year it was around a hundred thousand dollars.
That was the the money you raised?
In twenty twenty two.
We ra raised a hundred and fifty and fifty went to um
Inventory.
Before we dive into this more, what's your what's your question for us?
So our question is just related to that, or my question is um that
You know, ads used to perform really well for us, um, and ever since that change with Apple privacy.
it the return on ad spend has declined and so
How can we scale effectively and authentically as an e commerce brand?
And you know, make
the return back that we need.
All right, so a lot going on here. Tro Troy, we talked about this a little bit, um ad spend, um, digital marketing. I mean
People are getting hammered. I mean I I so many brands on how I built this.
basically built their brands off Facebook ads. You know, they they it was like
It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Right. People literally said that and it's completely changed now.
you know, you spend money on an ad, um on Facebook or on you know, Instagram, wherever, and it just does not convert.
So
Uh let's t let's dive into it.
Tell me a little bit about your your this your social footprint.
And and the in your social strategy.
Yeah, so we
Um, when we launched the brand, Instagram was just starting to take off and that's kind of how we grew the business so organically.
Not everyone wants to take a picture of themselves in a shirt that they love, but almost everyone wants to take a picture of their dog and post it.
In a shirt. And so the word spread, we couldn't get inventory in stock, and so did our social media following. So we have around a hundred thousand followers.
Um, which is great, but also
Instagram has changed meta drastically, you know, in recent years, and now we can hardly even reach our hundred thousand followers.
Through organic posts. So
They almost have to be paid to reach them.
Um, so our business is just
changed completely and we continue to post. Um we work with some influencers, but it's not our main focus anymore and
We're just trying to figure out how to reach, you know.
the massive audience set of people that would love our product.
Yeah.
And with the um
I guess outside of ads
Is there a brand strategy that lives outside of ads?
So we do some local markets, but it's pretty um you know the
the return is pretty small there. And also our audience, I'm in Minneapolis now. I went to school in LA
Um but our
Uh
Customer is not huge here. It's mostly LA, New York, and bigger cities.
Um, we've also done some trade shows to try to focus on wholesale.
But we have found that
The return is best spent on online just because when we've been in retail, you see our products hanging up on
a hanger and it just doesn't do it justice. People don't even know what it is. You really need to see
a photo like on our website of
A dog in there.
you know, human matching. Like, you know, and that's why I was asking about the social footprint.
Because this is a brand
That's
born for social.
You know, for for instagram and tick tock.
And it's almost like a marketer's dream.
In terms of being able to have dog and man. Yes, is like the same outfit. It's like it's a is a mar is is a marketer's dream and that you can have a lot of fun with it and I feel like
You could get a lot of
earnt media versus paid media sort of based off of
Uh
a event based marketing. And what I mean by that, it's like, you know, w fashion shows, pop ups, you know, the you know, things that you can do
that that's gonna get a more word of mouth than anything else because I just feel like you're never gonna get that return back from from ads with it is isn't that
That era's over with.
You know, so so I feel like the storytelling piece of it.
is the way you could sort of get the attention you need around it.
I mean your website is great and you've got great photos on it. You've done a great job with it. Really, really and and the pictures of the of you know people with their dogs are funny. The guy you know
with the cucumbers on his eyes and the bathrobe and the dog with a cucumber on on his eyes. It's very funny. Um and it's good stuff.
And I think that makes sense, Tori. How how do they
Get
sort of these images, uh, you know
out there in a way that as you say is organic.
So it's it's storytelling. So we went through uh we went through a similar problem, right? And
One of the things that
we talked about was we have to make our social profiles valuable
to artists.
Whether they're artists that's with
Venice or whether
They're with somebody else.
and what we started doing was we we started doing case studies
On
artists who broke out. So whether it was Chapel Rone, whether it's Billy Eilish, whether you know whatever these new breakout artists were,
We basically sp
A month.
Studying how they broke.
And then breaking that down and then telling artists these are the steps that this artist took.
And this is how you can do it as an independent artist. And it became incredibly valuable.
And
It started traveling essentially. So a and
So a lot of our customers who have come in
have actually come in through our case studies.
The thing is
You you own
A relationship, you know, like people's relationships with their pets.
are sacred.
And so you finding ways to add value.
To that relationship.
That's that creates stickiness, and that stickiness creates trust, and trust then creates conversion.
So I I just would sort of really focus around
The the the the storytelling and
Probably less on at strategy.
Yeah.
Are you familiar with the brand Mel Bon, the G the Golf Brand?
No, I am not.
They're they're an incredible case study.
They've done incredible work in terms of
Partnerships.
So they basically took a a supreme model.
Where they found okay, what type of partnerships
Кими форм
That keep people coming back.
So whether it's with
A Nike
Or whether it's with
Wu Tang clan or whether it's like they find these really interesting partnerships
And
Their customer?
Keeps coming back buying
A new version of something that they bought already based off of this new type of partnership.
And so
If you can make it a fashion or cultural thing.
that sort of sits outside of just your brand.
Um, is that a way to be able to g get the repeat customers
And sort of the
the the cultural impact around it as well.
You know, so
If it's I'm making it up, if it's
a a Louis Vuitton or something that you partner with, you know, with a a dog in in human outfit, or whether it's a
you know, a a supreme, like whoever it might be. But something that you and you know your customer better than I would ever know your customer. But
Um just thinking about these sort of
partnerships that could keep it interesting.
But Malbourne
You should study that brand. Like they they've taken the golf world by by storm.
It was a boring category. They've taken it by storm.
That's a great idea.
Thank you.
The brand is called Good Thomas Gina Davis. Thanks for calling in.
Thank you for having me. Honestly, it's it's such a pleasure and I do feel like
Being an entrepreneur can be kind of a lonely thing, especially when you don't have other friends that
are in the same game as you and so listening to this podcast has been truly
Life changing, making me feel like I'm not alone and part of a community. So that's why we do it, Gina. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much.
Troy.
Great advice.
Well.
You I mean not wow. I I know, you're a superstar.
Great advice.
Really great advice.'Cause you uh you understand that the it's not
Yeah, there's no quick
Quick switch here, but I mean you understand
How quickly dynamics are changing in the marketplace.
It is, and you know, I I've kind of felt bad, you know, w'cause as we're talking about ads,
It's no nobody has the answer.
But
I feel like entrepreneurs who like who we just spoke
They have stories that that that they can tell.
And so I think being able to g you know, tell the stories I think it builds a a stronger, less transactional connection anyway.
Troy, I I I still remember so visually, and g you guys have to hear the story. It's so good. Troy's story is amazing. You know, you're talking about when you were young and you know, you met like
Uh, the fresh prints and then you were you got involved in like booking shows and it was like cash and you had to like bring paper bags full of cash, right, in like West Philadelphia to pay the venues or to collect the tickets and you had to like be really careful that you wouldn't get robbed.
When you think about you who you were back then and and what you knew and didn't know really,'cause you didn't know
what you know now. If you go back to him now with everything you know and all your perspective, what
What do you think would have been helpful for him to know?
Back then.
Not to panic.
You know, when when things when things hit the fan.
You start feeling uncomfortable.
Um don't panic.
You know, and I and I think the years of experience
I probably would have saved myself a lot of uh strife.
If I knew how to take slower breaths.
and just not react so quickly or so rashly.
You know, uh and but the the other big piece that I think is probably even more important than that is
Showing myself grace.
Mm.
I I think I was really tough on myself a lot of times when things went what didn't go so well, but being able to give myself you know a little bit more grace.
Troy, thanks so much for coming back on the show. It's great having you. Thanks for having me, guy. I missed you.
Yeah, you too. And by the way, if you guys haven't heard the Adam Factory episode, um go back and check it out. It's
Truly, it's so good.
We'll put a link to it in the podcast in the ep in the show notes, uh on your podcast app, so check it out. And here's one of my favorite moments from that episode.
So
What happened to the business?
Uh it w it was over. You know, I didn't have the cash flow.
And
The phone started ringing and it was the
landlord of that building saying, you know what, rent hasn't been paid. You know, all all of my vendors, you know, started calling me.
My house w w was under foreclosure.
And um my wife and my mother in law
ended up pawning their wedding rings to you know to to s to save the house. Wow.
You know, and with me I you know, I never c you know, considered suicide.
But I know why people do.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gyros.com or on Substack.
And of course, if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them.
You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1800-433-1298. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you.
And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well.
This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Remtine Erablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce.
And our audio engineer was Neil Rouge.
Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, and Neva Grant.
I'm Guy Roz, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.