Advice Line with Shazi Visram of Happy Family Organics

0:10 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. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show. who 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 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one minute message that tells about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. Alright, let's get to it. This week I'm joined by Shazi Visram. She's the founder of the baby food company Happy Family Organics, and more recently a new baby products company, Healthy Baby. Uh Shazi, it's great to have you back on the show. That's so fun to be here, guy. It's great to see you. And you were first on the show back in January of twenty twenty.

0:59 Uh and as always, to anyone listening, we'll put a link to it uh in the show notes. Uh it's a great episode. You started Happy Family Organics around two thousand three. when you realize 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 fit in the US. And then about a decade after launching the company sold it.

1:22 Uh and right around that time your s your son was diagnosed with progressive autism. Um and and since we last spoke, I know you've started another Company for new parents and their young children's called Healthy Baby. Um Tell us a little bit more about it. Yeah, well um I think along my journey and knowing so much about creating products for babies

1:44 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 uh yeah, Healthy Baby is a brand that creates the healthiest, safest, high performing products for new families. Um

2:10 Our diapers are a 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 there's a lot of momentum behind this. You know, I remember uh when my wife was pregnant with our first child, you know, in two thousand eight. You know, at that time. Now it's so mainstream and

2:50 I mean The the The offerings haven't fulched. the momentum, right? And so I guess that's that's sort of the thinking behind Healthy Baby, which is You know, you could develop

3:02 a line of products that people can just trust. They don't even know to think about it. They it's just they know That All these things are not in there. VOCs and parabens and I know it sounds like

3:16 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 mean And I I love being innovative. It's like a cool way to use design and Um 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.

3:45 Yeah. Um, 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 the barriers to enter are easier in some ways, but the brand building is so much harder because the our tension is just i it's it's being divided, right, by a million different Things.

4:09 Um so what is the Ambition. I mean for me The I've already

4:15 Sold a business? And so the second time a little bit of that Pressure is of. Right. Um at the same token, I think having b 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 Guy, I mean, you've contributed to making entrepreneurship cool.

4:35 Like when I went to business school, doing my best. 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

4:53 I felt like the freak of the business school. And now more of the younger generation are realizing, hey, I'm not gonna live that norm, and if that track isn't gonna 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. Yep.

5:11 Absolutely. Um, Shazi, I think we should um take advantage of your expertise and experience and bring on some callers and see 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 advice line. Tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business. Hey guy, hey Shazzy. My name's Daisy, and I'm calling from the UK. So I'm the daughter of the founder of Freet Barefoot.

5:37 Uh 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 um with a focus on comfort and durability. Awesome. Welcome to the show, Daisy. We've done uh several big shoe brands like On and Hoka on the show and couple 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 How freak barefoot. Let started.

6:07 So it was started by my dad, um, after he'd been suffering with knee pain. Um, this is about 15 years ago, someone introduced him to barefoot shoes and it just kind of completely changed the game for him. Um and it seems 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. um on his knees, and he now often boasts that his knees are better at 60 than they were at 40. So through that, he started his own barefoot shoe brand frit with my mum, and the name literally means freedom for free. So we make a range of products from barefoot hiking boots to barefoot leather sandals.

6:48 Trail running, kids' shoes, gym shoes kind of. Okay. quite a lot of skews now as we've grown as a brand. And primarily you sell through Shops or online now?

7:00 So when we started, we were primarily wholesale, especially, you know, in Europe, there's a really big barefoot shoe market. Um but as we've grown, um, I'd say that our D to C has grown a lot, and that is Uh by pair sold, I think we sell about the same wholesale and D to C, but D to C is the big profit driver um for us now. All right, tell me a little bit about your sales last year, for example. How did you guys do?

7:28 So last year we did two million uh revenue. in dollars and that's across three regions, so that's UK, US, EU. Uh 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. At the moment I've kind of come in as sales and marketing director. 'Cause of my the last ten years, that's what I've done.

7:55 Myself, but the plan is sort of from next year I will take over the business uh full time with my dad still supporting on product side of things. Got it. Okay, before we jump into your question, just a c a question for you, which is How do you guys position your shoes in a way that differentiates you from Yeah. You know, what el w whatever else is out there.

8:15 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've maybe call themselves barefoot, but maybe not truly wide fit um as we are and will always be. I'd say the other thing is really our outdoor background. So Um 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. All right, cool. And um tell us your question that you have for us.

8:52 Yes, um, so Shazi, in your episode you talked about a few of the key pivotal moments um for growth for happy family organics, which was so interesting. Um, as I look to grow our brand in the US and have our own breakthrough moment, there are so many potential leavers, so PR B to B expansion, digital influences, how do you decide what to sort of truly prioritize um in order to scale the business in the States? Alright, Shawzi, I wanna bring you in. Um say hello to Daisy. From Free Barefoot. Um first of all, before you you answer The question. Do you have any questions for Daisy?

9:28 Well um It's such a great market. For children as well. And I'm just wondering, is there any science That's

9:36 that you can leverage to kind of showcase how much proprioception or how many nerves or how much a compressed foot uh develops differently than a free one,'cause I'm assuming that I'm s assuming the foot is really well designed by nature. Yeah. Ex exactly. There are so many muscles in our foot. And obviously when you're wearing especially little kids with little little feet as they're growing, if you're not able to use that full function and all those muscles in the foot, your foot naturally becomes weaker and more reliant on kind of support through more traditional shoes. So definitely there's

10:12 There's plenty of science to back up that. Um our brand and what we stand for. As a parent, whenever Someone tells you that there is a better way.

10:22 that actually supports your baby's developing body, your child's developing body. I feel like it's um it's easier to kinda hook them given how how crowded the space is in running. And I can't help it, I'm a baby person. But I think What I love about baby food or diapers is it's F M C'est fast moving consumer goods. I remember, you know, as soon as my son would find a pair of shoes that If it was the right fit on Zappos.

10:49 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 um I would think that that would be kind of a holy grail. I mean 'Cause I I would want you to have that F M part of the CG.

11:08 Uh I I agree. I think that you know, I'm looking at your website here, Daisy, and uh You know, I don't get the sense that you're leaning into the benefits of this. And there is research. I mean you obviously you want to be careful because you know somebody can always say hey, you know, you promised this and you didn't deliver. But but there is research. And and and so you can

11:30 Position from the get go. This idea maybe like Like the way humans were designed to move, or the way we were supposed to walk. Because I think that that that is That's the key. I mean part of e even though there are other brands out there

11:46 It's still an educational sort of educational led product. You're still educating people around this. A lot of people, even now, to you know decades after this this movement has started, are like, really? Don't you need cushioning? So I I'm curious where Like Have you used any any

12:05 marketing uh channels, you know, at all that have That seemed to be working or worked. You know, there was a return on that?

12:15 Yeah, so I use um meta ads and I use them in the US and I find a really good return on those and I really like um tracking through that. So Um, we obviously do organic social as well, but for me, yeah, the paid ads on Meta have been the best. That's been the best. Okay, what else? Uh we use Google Ads, but again, it's not something that I see huge return on investment. Um we work with a lot of barefoot influences um within the US. So there's um Anja, Anya's Review, she's a really well known, respected um influencer. So we've got a brilliant relationship with her. Has she helped sales as she moves in? Yes, yeah. And we we she has a code, so we know that you know she's brilliant for kind of getting our brand out there. Um, and we go to trade shows in the US and kind of we're trying to

13:04 Just make our presence more well known there. And what about PR? You haven't tried PR yet? So we're just starting PR actually, we've just brought on um 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 You're in Chazis. and point of views on the angles that we should really be focusing on. And so that's brilliant feedback to have. Well I also think um I don't know about you guy

13:30 But Chat is like my best friend in terms of I mean, I just bought a house in Colorado because Chad identified the house and we bought. But if If He can help me find his name's Saul, my chat. But um how how

13:45 Are you findable on chat GPT for the next generation of sort of um search? Because what I've what I've found, especially with healthy baby Um is because we have so much science and I keep going back to it, but the science that is um validated third party with doctors and based with with research, it tends to actually Allow people to find us because chat is

14:09 is identifying not just the product but also the work and the research and the science. So I'm I'm wondering if you have like a chat strategy. Yeah, so um 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 optimised in a way that chatbots like ChatGPT can easily. pick off um 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.

14:47 Um, but yeah, I'm sure there's more that we could be doing. I'm just 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 um but it is I it is the the best new shopping tool, I think, and the place for discovery. When people start asking. big UK national newspaper and voted like the most comfortable barefoot shoe brand. Um, so I think having that backlink and having that has really kind of helped us be recommended within chat and it's it's helped sales overall, of course, um having kind of a regarded publication

15:30 Say that. And the Guardian. Yeah, I mean why isn't that on your front page? The gu named the most comfortable barefoot shoe by Guardi you know, the Guardian Plant. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. We do need to talk about it more. Yeah, I mean I I mean I think that's something you should push. How how is your How how are retention rates I mean or or reorder rates? I mean, w do you have data around that?

15:56 Yeah, and it's 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 um definitely hiking and trail running. And then once they've got one pair of freets, that's it. Like they are now like, Oh, do you do a sandal for my holiday? Do you do a s um like a Gym shoe, you know, once someone's got one pair of freaks, they become quite a loyal fan. There's not normally any going back. Um

16:25 In your case it sounds like you've got Uh strong retention, strong fan base. I mean The the the value of repeat orders in in especially in your case

16:38 is like infinitely higher than right now than the customer acquisition costs. Because customer acquisition costs are high for everybody. It just it just that's just the way it is. They're very high right now. And uh 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.

17:00 You know, have your your bands 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.

17:12 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 our customers and the people that like the brand uh want to have see that authenticity coming through. You know, now that you're investing in pay PR know that if you don't leverage it, it's like did a bear shit in the woods. Because

17:39 Um, 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 um I feel like In my prior life I've gotten such a ton of press and it

17:52 was more meaningful then in a purchasing decision making situation than it can 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. Yeah. You know, it used to be like if every w if everyone's watching the Today Show together, we're all gonna learn about this baby food company. But it's not that way now. So you might be on the Today Show, but you need to leverage the clip.

18:21 All the time. Yeah. So just be ready with your team. To sort of make that a machine. Yeah. That is fantastic advice. Need to leverage it a lot more, I think, than I have been. Well, I think I mean, listen, do you got your marching oars, Daisy, uh so go f go forward. Uh go forth. Uh the brand's called Freak Barefoot. Good luck.

18:40 Uh with that awesome. Congrats. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line 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 Shazi Vistrom, founder of Happy Family Organics and Healthy Baby.

19:22 Shazy, you ready for another call? Yes, let's go. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the show. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm calling from the greater Philadelphia area. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Sprinkle Bites, and we make the world's first protein sprinkles in a single serve packet.

19:43 Wow, okay, welcome to the show, Rachel. I love that. Protein is Protein is King. Protein has exploded, it's protein water, protein gummies, protein so protein sprinkles like sprinkles you put on ice cream. Yeah, like Jimmy's. Like Jimmy's, right. And are is are they the just the chocolate and then the c colored ones, like the candy colored ones?

20:02 Right now we just have chocolate. And blue. Barry. And blueberry. Okay, cool.

20:09 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 co founder and I

20:20 Or 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.

20:33 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 eat thirty million pounds of sprinkles a year. And they eat it on toast. For breakfast. So

20:51 We thought well Why don't we use that as the Trojan horse and sneak in some function and protein and fill them up? If they love eating sprinkles so much. So this 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.

21:06 They they take bread and they spread it with butter and put sprinkles on it. It's called fairy bread. And I guess in the Netherlands they put chocolate sprinkles on bread, and that's breakfast. So that's a thing, right? That's a thing. And that was the uh 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.

21:31 Um One and seven. School age kids don't get enough protein. Um a lot of them are picky eaters. So it's really hard to get my kids to eat meat.

21:41 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. Yeah, 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 for to get five grams?

22:01 Um, one single serve packet. I gotcha. Okay. And and tell me a little bit about the uh about sales right now. You're selling direct to consumer Only, mainly. Yes, we launched our product in August. We are out.

22:15 Of last year. Yeah. We've surpassed a hundred thousand in sales. We have Since then, okay. Since then, yep. We sold on our Shopify site with meta ads, um, 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.

22:36 Got it. Okay. Before we dive in further, uh 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

22:49 Private labeling. To allow a larger retailer or 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. Um, 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.

23:16 Alright, whether enter private labeling. All right, I want to bring you on Shazi, um That's ideas questions for Rachel. Wow, so much. Um, do they taste good? I just I kinda wanna try and see if it works on my daughter. Um Well I think this is I think

23:31 Your question is a A um a solid one. And I would just remind you that anybody who has a private label brand or any retailer, um They're typically you know, a private label is typically um

23:45 a mass manufactured version of something they know that already sells well. And so Yeah. I'm just immediately thinking of like uh Fruit Riot. Have you heard of Fruit Riot? It's like on fire right now. There was a it was a kind of a tick tock trend of these grapes in um like a sour candy shell.

24:05 And actually no, the founder and he he Um they commercialized the idea and it's such a tick tock thing. And I could see this being Similar um But I don't see the owner of a private label brand.

24:20 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. Um and it sounds like you already have traction. So why would you give away the additional margin

24:35 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.

24:50 It's b it's early days, but do you have any information about who's buying? 'Cause you know, oftentimes people start brands and they think, I'm selling this to people like me, right? You're probably thinking, Oh, we're gonna sell to moms and their kids are gonna Із Do you know if that's who's buying the product? Most of them are

25:08 Moms between the ages twenty eight and forty five. With young kids. The other surprise are the bodybuilders and fitness communities. Which we did not think.

25:19 Would 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

25:34 The fitness community loves us and then The GLP one community. You're using I I look your your ingredients, you're using you're using monk fruit and erythritol uh as sweeteners that does not spike insulin. Whole foods sells it. So there I don't think Whole Food sells things with allulose, but they do sell things with erythritol. Um and so it has a l a high sweetness level, tastes good, uh, but it doesn't have the same

25:59 impact on blood sugar. Correct. We want it to come out first with our M V P being sugar free. Diabetes is on the rise. We really wanted kids with diabetes to also enjoy sprinkles. So you're you're sort of trying to figure out whether It makes sense. I have a I have I I

26:15 Agree with Shazy In general, but disagree also because I look the there are obvious pros to to do working with a to doing a private label. You're gonna get immediate volume. Yeah. Right. You a and then I mean it's cash, it's it's money right away, it's predictable. um and it's gonna scale and it's gonna help you negotiate better Uh deals.

26:38 with your co manufacturer. Uh and it gets you more awareness, right? I mean basically people are like, Oh Protein sprinkles. Okay, the downside is You then introduce your brand after people are buying, you know, the Trader Joe's protein sprinkles.

26:55 Right. Um or the you know, the target brand. And uh They're like oh Well th this one's cheaper.

27:02 Right, and what's the difference? So it's it's a huge risk. I mean I think that most American kids eat pr sprinkles on ice cream. They don't eat sprinkles on toast. It's just not a thing here. So That's

27:15 require some education to say, Hey, here's how to use it. Put your sprinkles in yogurt. Put your sprinkles on, you know, your breakfast cereal, whatever it might be, you're adding five grams of protein. Right. That that's a and the thing is no one's doing this, right? I don't think there's any other protein sprinkles brands out there. And so Uh so it it like that's those the cons, which is you don't want somebody else to have a private label and then you come in and people are like, Oh, look at this sprinkle bites just trying to jump on the bandwagon. Right.

27:45 And Yeah, that's it. Game over. Yeah. Well also it's I mean, this I mean, you're you're right, guy, in the one sense that if you were able to find a private label um contractor that wants a certain amo amount from you and you don't ever expect to be on shelf next to them That could be a differentiating strategy. I'm I'm almost thinking, you know, sort of launching it at Safeway, but Selling it.

28:09 At Whole Foods on Amazon, um I could see that it being two separate brands, I could see that sort of working, but s to me it seems like there's so much educating to do. Um what we ended up doing with our business and I think why it became much more successful is that we created

28:26 An easier version. Of organic to consume something organic easier. And it made it more convenient. And it was already something somebody wanted and we weren't trying to change their behavior. So um Yeah, I mean I I do think that That if you have a

28:43 I have someone that can order and create additional Cash flow for you. Um, 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's my idea. I got an idea. So all right.

28:58 How about Instead of thinking about uh private label. Which again it's tempting'cause it's cash in hand. But it can really bite you in the butt.

29:08 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 this in with like Shobani has a protein yogurt.

29:19 I mean it's not easy to work with them'cause they're huge and you guys are tiny, but who knows? I mean they might say, Hey, you know what, this interesting? You get twenty grams of protein at a chobani over, but you get a little packet of of sprinkles and that's another five grams of protein. Just twenty five grams of protein. Bam, that could be interesting. I would I would really see if you can leaning 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 s you could call this a protein and fiber.

29:48 Sprinkles. You could add chicory root powder to it. And instantly You've got fiber. And protein. in your yogurt.

29:56 Yeah. Yep. So we're doing both. We're reformulating. Our vision is to Sneak in the function.

30:04 Have sprinkled be the Trojan horse. So yes, we have. Fiber added into sprinkles. We have superfoods in the sprinkles. We have different functionalities. Spinach powder or whatever, yeah. It's a m our matcha vanilla coming out soon. They're amazing. So We

30:21 Totally agree with you about adding fiber and added Adding other functionality. The other piece, yes, in order to get the education, the brand awareness. The distribution, right? Is To Cobrand. Exactly like you said. Some yogurt brands like Faye won't

30:37 Cobrand. They won't put someone else's logo on their stuff. Fine. By us in bulk as an inclusion. I'm fine with that. Um

30:46 Chabani. Yeah, it would be so cool. They do Co brands. Um, 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.

31:00 And it's 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? Uh so Shazi, any last thoughts before we Send Rachel off with her marching orders. You know, I'm just I'm excited to see you break through and um we'll be looking looking for it at Thrive. Sprinkle bites. Uh Rachel Cain, thanks for calling in. Good luck. Thank you.

31:25 Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more collar. 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 today I'm taking your calls with Shazi Vistrom, founder of Happy Family Organics. and healthy baby. Uh Sashazi, let's get back into it. Uh and take another call.

32:03 Fantastic. Hi there, uh my name is Andrew Graf. I'm calling in today from Laguna Beach, California. Um I have Work on creating a pleasantly scented additive. Um 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.

32:23 Cool. All right. Welcome to the show, Andrew. So so explain these are Uh it's a Additive. Right. It's it comes in a pellet form. Okay. Um, and you apply it to your indoor or outdoor plant.

32:35 You mix it with the soil or you just sprinkle it on top? Just sprinkle it on top. Okay. And when you water it, it breaks down the biopolymer. Which is made out of uh chitazin and sodium alginate. Ocean derived. And releases uh an essential oil.

32:51 Um currently I have a lavender and lemon eucalyptus scent. And this is because indoor plant I'm just trying to f think. I've got a bunch of indoor plants. Are they I don't I can't remember them smelling bad. Do this not bad? Well, it's not about the plant smelling bad, but almost having a natural diffuser.

33:08 in your house instead of having a plug in or uh burning a candle. It's kind of a sensory experience um that you're interacting with the plant. Um That's how I first started it. The 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 hole.

33:28 To see if there was anything like this. And uh I couldn't find anything, so I reached out to chemist to help me develop this idea and you know, I even I even worked on obtaining a patent, which um I I got published and Um, yeah, so I'm I'm in the early stages right now of You know

33:46 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

33:56 The interaction of scent with perception of of the environment really matters. Yeah, so this is why when you walk into like a Williams Sonoma, they sell their scents. You can buy the Williams and S Williams Sonoma scent or the Creighton Barrel scent. It's interesting and you see this in in in a lot of stores. Um you're real estate agent, I love that. And clearly I can s now make the connection'cause you're showing people houses and you're like and and you you know there's all these sensory things in there in the house and They're always staged and but then you get the scent. Right. So okay, before we dive in further, what's your question for us?

34:30 So I'm at this early stage where I've You know, worked on With a 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

34:46 uh proving to to be costly. And I haven't quite I've I have some sales, you know, I bring it to To uh you know, as a host gift and and people end up buying it from me, but it's a very limited amount of sales. And it's so

34:59 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. Shiz, I want to bring you in. Um you've been in this position before where, you know, you've got a new product and you bring investors, what do you do? Uh 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. Um

35:28 If you're like really in this and you believe and it's Your hundred percent thing. Then you have to raise money from investors and you kinda go big or go home. It's my feeling. Um I don't think you start this one on a bootstrappy small way. Um, because ultimately you want like Home Depot.

35:44 And you want You want to be an option at every every store that sells gardening supplies and you want to start in terrain and Um, 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 be able ability to produce it. Um I would f you know, I'd find a way to test and get it to the place where it's a product that you know people are gonna love and want.

36:08 So um I don't know, that that's my perspective is that if you want to go big with it, build a brand around it. Yes. And And really launch it. Yeah, Andrew, how much have you put in so far to this project to this um? I've put about thirty thousand of my own capital into that. And to the product. And I I see on your website you are there. It is for sale now. You can buy it through your website, right? Okay. But you haven't really officially launched, is that the thing or what?

36:35 That's right. I I really wanted to prove it worked. I wanted to test it with my friends and family. I wanted I sent it off to a soil analytic lab just to make sure that it wasn't gonna kill your plant. Um and it's it's helping them. And you know, we're gonna get more concrete scientific data on that soon. But I I I guess I kind of had some imposter syndrome and I didn't want to launch because I'm not I don't come from this background, a biology background, or I'm not a horticulturist. So

37:04 I've been kind of nervous about launching this into the public because um I just wanted more concrete data behind me before um because I don't feel like I have authority right now on on the the matter of soil health. Yeah, no, that's interesting. I mean I think it's worth you know, definitely worth um Having

37:22 somebody who and clearly I knew you worked with a somebody who does have that expertise. Maybe w maybe having somebody uh on the you know when you start to really push this out, talk about how it can actually improve um your plans. I think your story as a real estate agent's interesting because You know what

37:42 Uh great house looks like. You I mean you you're staging houses for your clients. You you know what makes it look good. And you know that part of that is is how it smells. I think you're way too early to raise money. I mean, unless people want to give you money, right? I just think it's too early ha you have to s especially if you want money on your own terms and you want uh and you wanna m you know m maintain as much equity as possible, you've gotta really Launch it with what you can. And you want to track reorder rates. You want

38:11 Uh you want to see customers posting about it. You want to see uh Meaningful. Repeat demand. Um, you want some some unit economics. I think you you want to have some data that you can go

38:23 even if it's six months to a year. that you can go to people and say, Okay, hey, here's this thing. We've patented it. There's you know, we've got a mode around it. I can see this in garden stores across the country. You know, it's a X billion dollar, multi billion dollar industry, indoor house plants, I don't know what it is, it's gotta be huge. And uh candles are this, you know, um you know

38:44 Diffusers are this. And uh and so we see a huge huge opportunity here. But y I think you do need some data before you can actually Get money on your terms. Right, so you think I should go out to

38:56 to retail shops in town, which I've I've started early outreach and they're interested, but again I'm I'm figuring out branding, you know, and and all this cost money while also, you know, doing my day job. Um, so I guess that's why I was interested in fundraising, but I do believe I have enough inventory to at least get it onto some shelves and maybe prove the product first.

39:20 Right. And and you can stand there on a Saturday and give out little packet, sample packets of it and say, Hey, go sprinkle these this on your plant. And just go you know, uh go home and just try it. Right. Um And then you get some data from that store. Oh, after three to six months.

39:37 Right. But it is an opportunity to test and learn your messaging and your You'll improve and develop the brand. If you're Open to testing and learning.

39:46 With the right. Your sort of pilot partner. Mm-hmm. And you know, in general fragrance is a black box. Like you don't have to Um share your ingredients with anyone and I find fragrances to be really the I um I have a reaction. I don't know it's just my neurology, but I have a reaction to most fragrances. And so if I walk into the department store, I get a headache right away, you know. And I think there is a really large

40:13 The f the folks who like love EWG, for instance, in environmental working group, if you had the first EWG verified um Soil additive. That could be like a you know, a unique angle because you're You're also saying, Hey, you don't need to buy the candles but there's no plastic, there's no petroleum, there's no so many other things that go into the production of the plug in or whatever the

40:39 It's really hard. Um I've tried, you know, jasmine and all the things to plant and Sometimes I'm lucky, but

40:50 Um it'd be nice to have a consistently like beautiful fragrant garden. Mm-hmm. You know, my friends have been using this, and whenever I walk into their house, this whiff of the lemon eucalyptus comes through and I just smile. You know, it just and it's not overwhelming because I do know that people have You know, sensitivities. Um, so so it's just kind of a pleasant scent that fills the space while also benefiting your plant as well in the soil health.

41:14 Yeah, it's a it's a really an interesting idea and I think you've got something here, but um You gotta test and learn. Test and learn, Andrew. Test and learn and then call Martha Stewart. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Plantamica uh is the brand. Andrew, good luck. Thanks for calling him in.

41:28 Thank you guys. Yeah, sure. Shazi, looking back I mean, you are now in your second startup and looking back um on your time building happy family. W what do you wish you had known back then? What what do you know now? That

41:42 that you didn't know when you were first starting out that actually is Is helpful. For you. I think there's a um There's a certain sense of

41:51 Earned confidence. Um but I'm not sure that you can know it without earning it. And I also think that every venture is a new venture and it's Scary when someone expects you to put light lightning in a bottle twice.

42:05 I that pressure still there, you know, it's um happy was such a huge, meaningful and like momentous success story. And it's difficult to recreate, but of course I'm I I'm committed, but it's um I think too just being enjoying where you are in the moment without considering every single outcome.

42:26 Um Actually allows you to enjoy the process. I mean, I miss I you know, I'm sure everybody who comes on the show is like, I really miss that time. I miss that time when we were broke. I miss that time when we couldn't play payroll. I miss the feeling of being so like low and then leveraging your own human creativity to find a way out and win is a really fun thing to do. And I think

42:49 It's not earned confidence, but it's like a belief in myself that whatever it is, I'm gonna figure it out. Yeah. If I care, I'll figure it out. That's Shazi Vasrom, founder of Happy Family Organics and Healthy Baby Shazi. Thanks so much. It's so fun to be here. It was great having you. By the way, if you haven't heard Shotzi's original how I built this episode, we will put a link to it in the show notes. You gotta go check it out. It's a really great story.

43:12 And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. We launched with, I mean, must be at least like a thousand demos. Do you would go and demo what would you do? So you have like a table? And you put down as much as you can to make it look nice and warm and fuzzy. And I'm standing there with a happy baby T shirt on and you're trying to get people to sample

43:33 these like yummy foods that I'm thinking, I'm so proud of this. This has taken years to make this, you know? And You're standing there waiting for someone to come. And then Barely anybody comes. And

43:48 On the third time that I Did a demo? I realized that This wasn't gonna work. 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 guyroz.com or on Substack.

44:04 And of course, if you're working on a business and you 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 Paulsen with music composed by Ramteen Arabli. It was edited by John Isabella, and our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thomson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line.

44:57 On how I built this lab.

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