Advice Line with Mei Xu of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blueme

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/57f93ce449905ca1

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.
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Alright.
Let's get to it.
Joining me today is Mei Shu, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Bloom.
May, welcome back to the show.
Thank you, guys. So good to be back. It's great having you. So you were first on the show way back in twenty seventeen. You told us about how you came from China to the US after being trained as a diplomat, and then you wound up starting a a candle company, Chesapeake.
Handle and and you actually sold that company.
For seventy five million dollars to to uh new brands, which also owns Yankee Candle.
It's an amazing story. If you guys haven't heard it, uh we will put a link to it in the podcast description. Super inspiring story.
Um, since then May you've written a book, you started a boutique that sold products from women founders, um and now your latest
Home Goodventure is another
Candle brand called
Bloom. So tell about it.
Well, actually I want to say it's more wellness brand. Um as you know, I sold the business because I had breast cancer in twenty sixteen.
And
During my uh recovery
I really found
The
gap that is d there in front of me that I never see, which is the way that people use fragrance candles. Yeah. To bring back some of the normalcy. And then of course what happened during Covid is that
uh more and more people work from home.
They really uh on top of each other in my household. We have six of us, uh four kids going on Zoom meetings, and my husband and I try to k find our own niche of a place to work and
Having some fragrances around you, it's almost like a territorial thing. You know, I burn my fragrance, my husband started using candles too. And I started to see that there's a lot of
A demand.
just to be able to practice self care.
During that time with fragrance.
So I launched
Blue.
Really to address that blank.
uh space in my view that connect what we know about sense of smell.
With well being.
Awesome. Uh, May, I know w I remember when you came on the show, uh you we we we talked about how early on, you know, sort of
You know, back before you were designing your own candles, right? When you were still importing them from from China, um, there was a point where the sales really dropped and you you started really hot, but then the demand went away and you were worried. T Tell me how do you how did how did you come back from that, right? What what kind of advice would you give to entrepreneurs
who are trying to recover from a dip in sales.
So when I started the
candle business back in nineteen ninety four. It was a very what I would call novelty.

They have a lot of uh
designs on the outside they are called glow candle.
With Christmas designs, so it went extremely well, like hot cake during holiday time. But after holiday, who wants to buy a Christmas looking candle?
Yeah.
Then I uh really went back to the marketplace and just do my research. I realized I'm one of the few brands that actually focus on non fragrants.

And fragrance is what drives consumption. It makes that connection with consumers so fast, so strongly, that they go back to buy more and more. So that's the discovery, the aha moment, I would say.
I was very good at always
mixing different fragrances that no one's doing. So
That's the beginning of a whole new surge of sales.
That's awesome. Um, you know, May, I know that that uh times obviously have changed since when you know, since when you first founded Chesapeake Bay Candle and and now with your new brand Bloom
you seem to be focusing on direct to consumer. H how do you think about picking a sales channel in twenty twenty five?
That's such an interesting question, guy. I'm sure you have um noticed that
People are not going shopping in person, right? It's um it depends a little bit. In certain places they are, but in other places they're not.
Correct. And
Yet even in certain places we're talking about
in New York where people
Uh
Going there to shop.
Even in New York.
I noticed, Guy, that's not true.
small boutiques are doing much better than department stores. Yeah. And that's why you're seeing the consolidation of on the very high end.
of luxury department stores. I think every brand
Needs to think.
in multiple channel of distribution.
It's the it's the way that businesses are carried now.
Yeah.
Alright, May, are you ready for our first caller?
Yes.
Hearing from them. All right. We're we're excited. All right, let's bring in our first caller. Welcome to the advice line. Um please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line, one brief line about your business, please.
Hi Guy, hi May. Lovely to meet both of you. And May, can I just say your candles are everything. Thank you. Um my name is Sasha Millstein.
I'm originally from Seattle, but I now call Brooklyn home, and I am the founder of Aunt Ethel's Pop Pies. So we make gourmet frozen pot pies with a flaky, buttery quissant like crust that's accompanied with a rich creamy filling
Big chunks of chicken and garden fresh veggies.
Got it. Nice. Well welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. I remember
as a child, I don't even know if they exist anymore, they're must Swanson pot pies. And uh they were. You'd you'd throw it in the microwave or whatever, and you get a soggy
crust and you know, it it or it might take for like an hour in the oven. So basically what you've done is you've separated the pie and the
Pot the stuff in there. And so you heat them separately.
Yeah, so basically all you do is remove it from the freezer, you just pop the crust in the toaster.
pop the filling in the microwave and then marry the two together and they live happily ever after.
I got you. So you toast the p the crust parts, you had a crispy crust, and then you and tell me how the idea came about.
Yeah, so about ten years ago, my aunt, Aunt Ethel, uh, who runs a very successful catering company in New York City, came to me with the existential question that I think a lot of small businesses have, which is, you know, they've been successful year in, year out.
But how do they
How do they exit? How do they retire?
So at the time I really didn't have an answer. So fast forward five years ago
I'm traveling through Vietnam with my family.
And of course I'm listening to
How I built this about a woman's
About a woman who started a chicken salad company.
And I'm listening to it.
Exactly. Remember everyone.
So later on that night, um, over Tamarantini's watching, you know
The sun set on the beaches of Hawaiian, I just looked at my hand and I said, You know, what's one of
You're most crave worthy.
uh product and of course імідні she responded
her chicken pot pie and I thought about it for a second
And realised the chicken pot pie is
America's sweetheart dish. Doesn't matter if you're rich, poor.
Liberal, republican.
Everybody loves a pot pie.
So right there and then I said, Okay, I have an idea.
Водифук спрода.
We commercialalized it, we scaled it, and eventually exited.
And at that point, that's where the idea came along.
Well.
Awesome. Okay. So that was in twenty twenty. Tell me a little bit about how the business is right now. Are you guys have you cracked half a million dollars in sales?
So we technically launched last year, last fall, into over a hundred Wagman's locations. We then won on QVC. We aired and sold out of eight thousand units in six minutes.
And we just hit the quarter of a million dollar mark.
Nice. Congrats. Okay. Awesome. So now uh before we get into the business well, what's your what's your question? What are you trying to to solve?
Yeah, so I'm five years into building this company, and while we've built something with a strong foundation and real traction, being a solopreneur means there are lots of blind spots that you just can't fill on your own. So for me, one of the biggest is production and manufacturing. I know how to build a brand, sell a product, but scaling the operational side, that's where I need help.
So I'd really like to find a co-founder who can balance out those blind spots and take us to the next level. Um, May, I know that you had a business partner who also happened to be your husband. And while I'm not looking to get married just to find a co-founder,
What are some meaningful ways to find the right one?
Great question, May Shu.
I just wanna declare that we got a divorce because of that. So so be careful. Yeah. Yes. So be careful what uh you what you're doing. Yeah.
It is very hard to work with your spouse in a business that is so intense. So I suggest you uh look elsewhere. Uh there are
Ways that I feel there are so many more um smaller communities, particularly
Brooklyn, um
I personally can connect you to Andrew groups that they invest in startups, particularly that that are already proven with concept.
A lot of women's group uh these days are trying to support
minority women, major companies, uh guy like uh Goldman Sachs, they have launch, which is to found companies that will invest in women.
owned businesses.
Sasha, let me ask you a question. Do you um you're in you're in Brooklyn, is that right? Is it where are we based?
Right.
Okay, and have you I mean, Brooklyn is a uh you know, it's a it's a huge incubator of all kinds of of food, products, ideas, businesses
Um, I'm sure there are um, you know, so some of these commissary kitchens and and food groups there. I mean, I know my brother uh is in San Diego. He's in charge of a uh nonprofit for, you know, food businesses and they they meet regularly and have events.
Have you do you go to any of those things?
That is my
Entire social life. That's all I do every day. Yeah. And in those groups, no luck so far?
So I did actually um come across a a co founder with Y Combinator that I'm currently uh
dating or interviewing rather.
Um this person is at Y Combinator now?
They came through the Y Combinator platform. Okay. Yeah, and it's sort of like a uh
It's kind of like a dating platform where you can kind of swipe on other co-founders to see if it's a good fit. Yeah and so one of the things I was looking for was somebody who was more tech focused, just because I feel like the CPG, the consumer package goods space, is changing so rapidly. And in order to get a leg up and compete.
You know, doing that with technology is probably the best strategy.
So um and also just to give you a little bit of background about myself, I was a former angel investor with Thirty Seven Angels, which is a female founded organization.
And uh
And we did invest in in women companies, so I'm
Very supportive of that.
I think the question May isn't so much how to Sasha find a a co founder, but who is that co founder?
What kind of person
Right.
And that's why I'm trying to understand, Sasha. You're not looking to have investors.
We're actually gearing up uh for our first round. As you know, uh the CPG sp business is very capital intensive and while we've bootstrapped and taken out debt, we're finally ready to
start using other people's money.
So so the whole idea as a as a business uh model is you first you want to see
A where's the exit, right? Uh how big do you want to build this business? And then once you built

Uh are you exiting, are you going public, or are you going to be still managing the business while someone else owns the majority? So when you figure out all these paths, um one of the things that many of the investors can do is to bring
the additional talent for you. That's why I'm not sure looking for a partner is exactly the right thing, particularly if if you could consider
Uh hiring your first
Yeah, majority.
uh higher level high, right? Like a brand manager. Right. Like a brand manager or CO. Seems to be a COO that may help because you want someone to
really scale the business that understand where to source, where to finish, um even marketing and manufacturing, you know. So you would be the brand. I mean the the the the possibility I'm thinking about it is endless with vegetarian versions and different uh ethnicity versions. So I think that
Probably could
be easier for you if you're not looking for a partner, you know? I I think that's a really interesting idea. Rather than than looking for a uh sort of a full equity partner, I mean finding
you know, a a brand manager or or you know, a COO or call them whatever you want, w and where they would get some equity. They'd have some skin in the game, an incentive to help you build it. But somebody who is an operator in that sense that you know has the skills that or the
The the sort of the
the desire, the interest to doing the things that are less interesting to you. I mean, one of the things that I I think, you know, I I'm not say saying anything to you that others down the line you're gonna need more products, right? You've got three flavors now. I see chicken and uh cockavan and a mushroom, it's a lentil, I guess, and
Uh I think about three flavors, is that right?
Yep, three flavors.
Uh but down the road, you know, you're gonna wanna see what else you can do in the frozen
ready to eat meal space, right? It's not just gonna be
pot pies, you're gonna be using the technology that you developed
to do other things, you know, maybe there's gonna be uh pasta dishes or rice dishes or other things in there down the road. And so you wanna find somebody
who might have some limited C PG experience but is still
young or new enough where they're not as expensive.
and maybe willing to take a risk on a on a smaller brand and a upstart brand like yours.
Yeah, so you guys are definitely echoing a lot of the thoughts that we've been having over the last few years. We trademarked the company as Ant Ethels because we wanted to establish ourselves as a trustworthy Popeye company, but eventually we do want to scale into a
Frozen Comfort Food brand.
And I like what May had to say about the international aspect. So given the fact that our product is two part, you can really mix and match as far as, you know.
The Popeye is kind of just like a vessel. It's it's one of the most internationally recognized uh products in the sense that, you know, India has a samosa, uh, Asia has dumplings.
Argentina has an empanada. So it's really just the best. Yes.
Yeah. Exactly. So we've thought about taking that two part and putting
Um some type of crunch in the top along with some type of
filling in the bottom like wonton chips with teriyaki chicken.
Or potato stic with a shepherd's pie.
So we're right on the same page as you guys.
Yeah.
And May, in terms of I mean I think that makes a lot of sense. And then in terms of
Finding finding that person, I mean it's really it's it's just a matter of
reaching out, right, to to absolutely everybody you know for ideas. It's like the hit rate on that is gonna be, you know, might be uh one or two
But
The more people you reach out to, the more you sort of widen that net.
And now with Guy, you're gonna have so many people knocking on the doors. That is going to be a problem. I I think the the question, Sasha, I want to actually remind you is you really need to
Do some analysis.
You know, what is what is your strength? What is your weaknesses? What do you want to
uh compliment to you because you don't want uh another person exactly like you. You need to have that
analysis in front of you so that when people come knocking on your doors or you are meeting them, you have a very clear vision.
Who's gonna run what?
It would be very painful sometimes.
I remember people telling me hiring very slowly and spiring very quickly because uh
I would say thinking really hard about what you want is very helpful.
It's a great idea. Yeah. Um I think that's a that's a very sound advice. The brand is called Aunt Ethel's Pot Pies. Sasha Millstein, thanks so much for calling in.
Good luck.
I'll look for it.
Thanks to both you.
Thank you.
Um yeah, it's a cool idea. I mean, you know, it and and again, rightfully so, right? It's like
you can do a bunch of different things and and and thinking about as a frozen foods brand, right? Yes.
Um she's got a cool brand, cool idea and we'll see how she she builds it up.
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 Roz, and my guest today is May Shu, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Bloom, and we are taking your call, so let's bring in our next caller. Hello.
Hello, I'm Tara and I'm calling in from Dubai. I'm the co-founder of Dry Dolly, a company rethinking towel apparel, so it's not just functional but stylish too. Whether you're fresh from the shower, the swim or the gym,
Dry Dolly takes you from wet to dressed in seconds and still looking fabulous. All right, Tara, thanks for calling in Dry Dolly. Just g help me understand what this is.
Apparel that you wear out of the shower.
Mm.
Yes.
So basically I just have a really rubbish towel dress and I always wondered why
There was nothing any better.
than it on the market.
I did lots of research for like ten years I tried to replace this rubbish towel dress.
And I just thought there's got to be something
That's but you can put on an after shower when you're not ready to get
Dressed.
that you can still cool down in, that you can use as a towel, that can look amazing, and that you can answer the door without scaring the EPS man.
And you're good to go.
Uh so that's what we said about doing.
I gotcha. And so the bathrobe does not
Does not fit those criteria? No,'cause it has no um it has no bus support.
It's too hot and heavy when you're blow drying your hair, you often get makeup on the collar and it's just most of the time it just doesn't fit you.
But with uh with a dry dolly, it's got
uh is designed in a way that's got built in support and you can just step into it.
Tie it.
And you're literally good to go.
Got it. Alright, so it's a it's a it's a dress basically made out of towel material. Yes, but a very uh very unique towel material. Um
It took me a long time. I knew exactly what I was looking for, and it took me a long time to source it.
It's very it it's lightweight, but to get the right kind of style.
Gotcha. And you're based in Dubai, you said?
I'm based in Dubai, we have Dry Dolly in the UK as well, as my sister is running that operation from there.
And what and it's sold sold direct to consumer.
Yes, at the moment. So we only had the idea late two thousand um
twenty three.
I'm not from fashion background. I'm not from manufacturing.
but we just thought that the whole towel apparel needed a complete shake up.
So the question is do enough
People.
Uh, I'm assuming right now you're aiming most of this towards women'cause dresses
have this problem where they get out of the shower, they want to put on makeup, but the but a bathrobe or a towel isn't good enough.
Um before we we dive in mo a bit more, what's your question for us?
My question is
Uh because what we realised when we were doing all the testing and we were handing them out that our market is much more than what I initially thought. I initially thought it would just be people like me who
Who after a run are not ready to get dressed after a shower, you need to cool down.
I thought it would be perfect for sports when you're in the when you're in um a gym changing room and you don't want to struggle with the towel.
But when we started giving it out we realised that
Uh my pregnant friends loved it.
Because it's A line and it's toweling and they could breastfeed.
So
My question is, should we lean into like uh the B to B?
Because
Oh.
you know, we'll hunker down on the D to C.
All right. Thank you so much. Go direct to consumer or
go retail or wholesale or other other possibilities.
Uh, May Shu, I wanna bring you in uh on Dry Dolly.

Well, it sounds like one of those innovations that really come out of your own needs, and I see a lot of women designing product and starting business because of that. If you have conviction, if you already see good uh results, I would say go for it. I actually talked to Guy about wholesale versus
D to C I think the landscape has really changed. I don't think you can go one
Without the other. So
My answer would be you you have to go to trade shows uh in in England and you have to tr go to trade shows in uh Arab countries and see
who you can partner with and you can scale, but
Without shutting down your own
D to C operation. Yeah, I'm curious, to uh Tara, are you sort of you're in the UK and in d in in Dubai as well, and so you're still early days, but where are you seeing more traction?
Probably equally in both.
What we didn't uh anticipate is that they're they're very
different markets. So for for the UK it's more for the home and now they're good they think of it as a holiday.
kind of dress that you would take to the beach. So it's a whole re education because it's a it's not a fashion brand. It happens to be nice, but it's a functional dry in brand.
And in Dubai you have the all year round market.
And also we have a more modest range as well.
Потимо
People who want to be covered a little bit extra.
Have you approached any any hotels at all about this?
Yes, so um
I've been going to a lot of networking, doing a lot of hospitality events and been speaking to
Three hotels actually. So
It's an education.
They're like oh
Yes, but hotels are very slow to change. Yes.
You know, to think that there's something new. When you've had the same old towels power, you know, the big giant towels on the head, not lovely light towels, or something that
for them a dry dolly could move from
The hotel room.
right down to the pool.
People would use it.
You could brand it.
So it's something that they would take home with your branding.
It's just much more functional.
Yeah.
Um
May what are your what are you?
I think one of the things that
I didn't ask it's a price point. I would
very much like to know because Terra, you need to protect that design.
And that would be my first advice. No matter what you do, get it
Patent it first if you can. Second.
Yes, so that's good. The second thing is
I feel that
It's one of the first thing come to mind, you know.
the the equivalent of the QVCs in UK because it seems to be a very demonstrable product. Yeah. And they love that kind of product. Have you ever
Go to Q V V C London or Q UK.
No, uh that's something that I've I've never thought. That's br that's brilliant. Thank you.
Think about that because they need product that is not easy to find, right? Novelty product.
People watch them.
You know, at nine PM, usually these people they like to be surprised. They like to look for unique items. It is one of the item also I feel you should um
network with influencers. Again, they have a large following. They're constantly looking for
New ideas.
viral very quickly.
Yeah, well it's something that we have looked at um
We've given it away to like friends who have got
Yeah, everyone seems to know an influenza these days.
But we haven't actually paid
big money that's the you know, there's the other issue of
Where do we spend our marketing?
And we're we're figuring that out at the moment as we go.
wanna consider it and and you're probably doing a version of this which is
to show how people are using it. Cause on the website right now it shows uh it looks like s you know somebody's in their in the bathroom, right, after the shower. But you mention
uh people using it at the beach, which is really interesting, right? Uh that makes a lot of sense. You go to the beach and you're wearing a swimsuit, but then you put that over it
And you can protect yourself from the sun and you get dry and
So that could be an interesting way to kind of market it if you want to t to sort of play around with some social media marketing. Um
Pictures, photographs, um videos of how people are using it.
Yeah,'cause it it's so much easier to remove swimwear under it than one of those giant ponchos or a towel. I mean, you you can remove swimwear in an instant.
So show that. So so go out and so make those videos and show that.
That could be a really interesting way to do it. I I think that you're gonna have to put some dollars in in marketing it for d for for you know D to C, right? Because people uh it aren't gonna be aware of it un unless they're
They get some kind of targeted ads.
Oh revenue share. You can do some revenue share with influencers so you don't pay them up front, but they get a percentage. I I don't think one can try only one channel these days. Um we really are in a in a economy where you need to meet people where they shop.
And people shop everywhere.
They shop on TikTok, they shop on Instagram, they shop in store, they they like what they see in a hotel. So even a startup has to think about these different options. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Tara, thank you for calling in. The brand is called Dry Dolly. Good luck. Thanks so much. Thank you, sir.
Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another 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 Roz, and today I'm taking calls with May Shu, the founder of Chesapeake Bay Candles and Bloom, and we are taking your calls hello, caller, welcome to the show.
Hi, my name is Lindsay Gallus. I'm calling from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I'm a co-founder of Math Medic, where an online high school math curriculum company that provides teachers with instructional resources, including our free lesson plans for every day of the year, and then also we have optional supplemental resources for purchase.
Cool, welcome to the show, Lindsay. Thank you for calling. So you make daily lesson plans for
For high school math teachers, basically.
Correct, yes.
And they're totally free.
Yeah, so all of our lessons are free. Um to support all that free work, we do offer supplemental resources. So there are other things that we offer that are available for purchase and that helps us to be able to
Give all our lessons for free to teachers everywhere.
I got are you a former math teacher yourself or a current math teacher?
Yes, I am former math teacher. I've been doing this now um for four years full time. Um, but we started the company about ten years ago.
Um it's cool. So and and basically any high school math going from algebra to calculus.
Yeah, so we have a lesson plan for every single day for algebra one is generally where most high school math starts and it goes up through A P calculus. So we also have all of the A P math courses.
That's awesome as ha having two high schoolers in in in uh right now and helping them for math is it's super cool. But I wonder, I mean, so you you started this business. When did you start it, by the way?
In twenty fifteen.
Twenty fifteen, okay. And the idea was, I'm assuming when you were a teacher, you know, to have a a resource where you basically get a lesson plan every day. I mean you're
Yep.
You're kinda doing the work for the teachers.
In a sense.
Yeah, so we're supporting the teachers for sure. So, you know, when we first started this, my co founder and I, we're both high school math teachers and uh doing exactly like what you're talking about, we're
Trying to figure out every single day what are we gonna do in class tomorrow? How are we gonna work with our students? And we were looking online and really just cobbling resources together from all over. We were trying to find lessons and practice problems.
But we couldn't find a comprehensive set of lessons that would help us for every single day. We were just sort of making this mismatch. And so
We rather naively thought like
Why don't we make those lessons? So we started a website and just started sharing our lessons out and it was just word of mouth, teacher sharing it with other teachers. And that kind of takes us to today to where now we have lessons for again all the high school math courses. And it's um like a free user
type membership. We currently have about a hundred thousand teachers uh across the US and across the world really who are using our lessons in their class.
So all right, let's talk a little bit about your business model for a moment. You you
Uh and and you mentioned that you have
You offer a a paid version too, but if you're getting all these free lessons
What
What incentive is there to buy anything?
Yeah, so um we are committed to lessons being free for ever. It is
very very important to us that all teachers no matter what access to resources they have have access to high quality materials but then we offer assessment packages so homework quizzes tests um so you know if you teach one of our lessons you can pull a homework assignment um but additionally it's more of a
question bank and a test creator. So in addition to having pre-made assessments, then also teachers can create their own assessments.
And that really just came out of teachers in our community emailing us, the ones who are using the lessons and saying, you know, like these are great, I love it in my classroom, what do I do for homework?
How do I make a test?
Uh and so it was just out of the need from the teacher community. And what what give me a sense of of what what your revenue
Yeah, is what what it was last year, for example.
Last year we did two point one million.
Okay, and how many employees do you have and there are we have seven employees.
That's it. No other
Employees, so your costs are fairly low. We do use contractors a lot. So everyone who works on our content are all either current or former high school math teachers. Got it. Um so that's you know, the other thing is that
What we put out there that is made, developed, used, iterated in the classroom. And and with the two point one million dollars in revenue, are you sus a sustainable business? Are you able to
Tip.
Pay everybody, you know, a decent amount?
Yeah, we've been profitable really um from day one, essentially, I think at the very beginning we put like fifteen hundred dollars in. Uh and then everything has just been funded by our own growth. Um and so
We I it's super scalable. Our business is great in that. Like we make the thing one time.
And then it can scale really easily. So most of our products, you know, we develop one of our products we developed it like three years ago and it's just continuing to bring in revenue. But you you just buy it once, right?
Or Oh no, sorry, that's an it's an annual subscription.
I see, okay.
Yep, so it's a every year cost for the teacher.
All right, before we we dive in, tell me what your question is for us today.
Yeah, so um we think of ourselves as a direct to teacher company. Tum teachers come to our website and they get immediate access to these high quality lessons and resources, but because of that, the majority of our sales are from individual teachers and we know that in order to scale
We need to get whole schools and districts to purchase the materials as their primary curriculum. The reason that's challenging is that funding at that level is traditionally for a textbook. Uh and we are not a textbook. We replace a textbook.
And that makes the funding sort of tricky. So my question is how do we break into a system that was built for textbooks when we're a better digital alternative?
All right. Um tough question answer, and I can give you my own experience with with this, because I've also have a a kid's company. We've we've tried an EdTech product. I'll get to that in a moment. May Shu um
I'd love for you to to jump in here with any questions or thoughts for Lindsay.

I thought the same question as you have, Guy, because it seems to be more of a system question versus a business question, but
I would like to ask you, have you thought about partnering
to those textbook companies um
Managing a a relationship
where you charge them so that
They could be um
Sub contracting you
When they provide textbooks to all the school systems.
Yeah, I it sort of goes against our our philosophy with our business and also as teachers. We
As a teacher myself, I saw many shortcomings with traditional textbooks. The process of purchasing them just in the first place is really lengthy and it's confusing. And often the teachers aren't the ones who are making that final purchase. Someone you know higher up in the school is.
And so what we really wanted to do was to focus on those individual teachers and giving them immediate access. So
The textbooks really
Honestly, I feel like it's one of the last industries that haven't been substantially disrupted by digitalization.
They're not being used anymore.
My students, you know, students bring home a textbook
Maybe but
For the most part, if they have a question, they're not looking it up in a book. They're looking it up online, they're looking up videos and YouTube. And so
I really see long term that the textbook companies are on the way out.
Or at least up
For a substanti.
So a quick quick story, which is I have a a kid's company called Tinkercast and we make podcasts and books and w our one of our podcasts called Wild on the World and
We actually um got funding.
many years ago to produce a an EdTech platform. We got funding from um a bunch of different grants and
Uh the idea was to make
this platform available to teachers and also to to monetize it.
And it's very hard, right? Ed tech platform's really challenging. Teachers don't have a lot of disposable income.
Very hard.
to get into school districts, right? It's there's a lot of bureaucracy, the R F P
system is really challenging. And besides the fact is that schools just don't have
money to spend, you know, they are they are strapped. And so
One of the the things that I think we learned from our experience was we really we did give this away. You know, we gave and now we give a away the product. And so it essentially operates as kind of a nonprofit.
That's my question here. I mean I I I think that I I think it's really admirable
that you're committed to making these lessons lesson plans free for teachers, that it's it's you know part of your sort of fundamental

I mean, even if you were to charge a tiny amount, a micro amount, it it it could create a an a significant revenue stream because
You know, trying to get this into the hands of of districts is ch challenging. I I one path is to try private schools, but then again, one school to the next. Sorry, go ahead, May.
No, I was thinking or maybe some more progressive school uh district uh you know, um that are known
to have uh this type of experiments I know that private schools um
It's easier, but like
Guys said it's one by one. And I was thinking about um when you say all the teachers uh are using it, it just
The sheer amount seems to be interesting enough that can you advertise for other people for product that are targeting
schools children for whatever reason and you generate revenues on your platform
by being able to share that among so many
you know, audiences.
Yeah, so very early on we did talk about
the possibility of advertising, but
Uh maybe to add a little more context to this is
Анісли та Фінанс ар на проблем.
Um or
It's really this this red tape that you're talking about, guy. These RFPs I'm very familiar with. It's the actually getting into the school districts.
Because there are so many
check boxes, like things you have to do and
It's it's just a really interesting uh you're right, it's a it's a systematic
Issue
You know, we're trying to figure out like how do you
How do you meet all these criteria when every district and every state's different?
Yeah, May did you want to add anything?
I agree and I think there are progressive district. Um I'm wondering if you can go to a trade show. You know, I always know there's a lot of trade shows for every educational uh endeavor and uh you know, it's just about talking outside of your comfort level. Um I also want to add
I always wanna go
With the end game.
Um what is it the vision you have, uh you and your uh partner have for this business. Um
the amount of people you want to reach, the amount of impact you need.
Really helps.

What you need.
Yeah, absolutely.
Lindsey Gallis, the company's called Mathematic. Good luck. Congrats. Thanks for calling in.
Thank you so much.
Uh yeah, math was definitely has definitely been an anxiety
inducing um although you know, I have to say I'm just s so impressed my kids are much better mathematicians than I was
Uh, which is cool. I mean they're they just have a much more of an aptitude for it, so
It's but it's it yeah, I mean it's stressful.
Especially, you know.
Um if you if you're like me and is a high school kid and it was just really hard.
Yeah, grinding through it.
Yep.
Um maybe for I let you go, one quick question for you which I've asked every guest who's come on, which is w now that you have all this experience and perspective, if you could go back to when you started.
in in you know the candle making business. So you give yourself some advice with the perspective you now have, what would have been helpful for you to know?
to go out and fundraise. I did not do any fundraising when I was building my first business and I feel it could have given me a very interesting um sort of
Insight.
um into
How to scale?
So that would be something I would be telling.
All the startup.
companies. Don't try to struggle by yourself. There's a community out there
That you could
you could try and lean on.
May, thank you so much for coming back onto the show.
Thank you so much. It's been fun.
It's May Shu, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Bloom. And by the way, if you haven't heard the original Chesapeake Bay Candle episode that May was on, go back and check it out. It's super fun, incredible story. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description, and here is one of my favorite moments from that episode.
We registered for the New York Gift Show, which is the
The holy grail of trade shows.
And we thought that this is gonna be the ticket to our success.
But you were wrong.
It was a complete disaster.
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 guy.com or on Substack.
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This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Rantina and Louie. It was edit by Andrea Bruce, and our audio engineer was Quasey Lee. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Catherine Seifer, Carla Esteves, Sam Paulsen, JC Howard, and Neva Grant.
I'm Guy Roz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line.
How I built this lab.