Advice Line with Alberto Perlman of Zumba

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/bee33a3fbd1cfd96

Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Roz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. And each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you. And so
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Alright, let's go.
Joining me this week is Alberto Perlman, co-founder and CEO of the global fitness brand Zumba. Alberto, welcome back to the show.
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Um oh it's great to have you. You were one of our actually our earliest guests back in in twenty seventeen to tell us about the origin of Zumba and how you and
And an aerobics trainer at Be Beto Perez took this very simple dance class and con this concept and then you turn it this
global movement that is still thriving. M more than twenty years after the launch. So it's it's just great to have you back.
Yeah, it's been twenty four years.
Amazing. Um for for those of you who haven't listened to Alberta's original episode yet, uh, you gotta listen to it. We'll put a link to the episode in the uh podcast description, and you can also find it just by searching how I built this in Zumba.
Just some amazing stories in that episode. Um
Alberto, before we we you know get to our our founders here today, um
G give me a little bit of an update on on where Zuma stands right now.
Yeah, we we've launched our Zumba app, which is getting incredible reviews. Uh that's our consumer app. We have three different instructor apps. We
keep growing our instructor network and we keep
Mm.
entering more fitness facilities. We're in two hundred thousand fitness facilities right now.
We have
Fifteen million people taking Zumba classes wow every single week.
It's crazy.
We're getting so many people.
Yeah, connecting with it.
And obviously and and one of the things that makes Zumba so accessible is you don't need anything. You don't need any equipment.
Yeah.
Your your body is the best piece of equipment. Yeah.
Um, Alberto, in your f original episode, you had mentioned and again, you guys should go and check it out because it's such a good episode. Um, you guys almost gave up in the in the early days when it felt like no one was interested in this concept.
What what advice do you do you have or do you give to entrepreneurs who are like I I'm just I'm I'm thinking I just want to give up?
Walk away.
Yeah, I I think
I think product market fit.
Із кюніт то но дає про.
Zumba's original
Class.
It had
A ton of demand. It was one instructor.
uh my business partner Beto
teaching one class in
Aventura Florida, but he had lines out the door, so we knew
That people love this.
So as we were struggling in the early days to
Get the word out, we always knew that people loved it. So
If you have
A good sample size.
of customers that love your product.
That's when you know you can't give up. As long as that
Sample size is
Representative.
of a significant
Total addressable market.
Just keep going. And just keep iterating. I
I like to say that business is a little bit like
A blind fly.
Trying to find a hole in a wall.
And so you keep hitting the wall, hitting the wall, hitting the wall, but at one moment you suddenly hit that
Right.
Angle.
That resonates with everyone.
Yeah.
One of the stories and again I I don't want to give away too much of the episode if you guys haven't heard it, but um basically your your
partner Beto. You guys had an opportunity to do a a partnership with a uh
Kellogg's and frosted flakes and he and while you guys were shooting this video, he ended up
putting on the Tony the Tiger costume and
Dancing to it. And it turned out that that partnership was kind of a game changer for you. It was like a really one of the
w you know, one of those pivotal moments that really brought Zumba to a wider audience. Um
when you think about and when you advise founders on partnerships and working with m other more established brands, obviously it's not so easy, but what advice do you give them? I mean, what kinds of partnerships should people be looking for?
Oh, partnerships that provide
Yeah, awareness.
And reach
a brand alignment even though we weren't promoting
Sugary cereal.
We were we're really working with
Special cable. We did a
Kids video.
that had Tony Tiger in it.
And

really resonates with me is that
When you're starting out and even later and in a business
One of the key elements of a good entrepreneur is that
Nothing is beneath you.
Like that they
Beto dressed up as Tony the Tiger and he was
sweating and like no one understood how Dot Tony the Tiger was dancing so well because this is a big costume and heavy costume and we had to give him oxygen in between every song. And we also that same year
had a Zumba event.
And the valet parking guy didn't show up and I was parking cars.
I was parking people's cars because I wanted people to have a good experience, and so
Nothing can be beneath you. But going back to your
Question.
of the partnership I would focus on
companies that can bring awareness to your brand, but you need to really make sure you can add a lot of value to them because
If it doesn't resonate with them from the beginning, it's very hard to navigate bureaucracies of bigger companies. And we got lucky. We got lucky.
D.
At that time the CEO of
Kellogg's his wife.
had bought the Zumba
VHS tapes off television. So she told him
We should do something with Zumba because it's just magical and people are having fun and people are
working on and that's the only way we're gonna get
Two
Talk about fitness in a fun way.
Yeah, and it's so it's just those kind of like
Serendipitous.
things like his wife liked it and then it got to him and then
It eventually had this big impact. And that I think that that's
You know, sometimes uh oftentimes it is that the serendipitous moments, but you had to make those videos and do those infomercials to even reach some people.
Yeah.
Yeah, and also
There it's funny'cause I've seen entrepreneurs
That
s at the beginning they say no to things like that and they're like no that's not
For us, and what and they they
They're not curious. Like we were curious to hear about everything and everyone who wanted to work with us in
anyway and listening is so important and having your
Eyes and ears open all the time, listening to the customer.
But also exploring.
With your eyes looking at everything.
Alright, well, Alberta, we of course called you um to join us on the advice line to help us give advice to
Early stage founders.
Let's let's open the lines. You ready? I hope we can help them.
All right, um let's bring on our first caller. Hello, caller. Welcome to the advice line you're on with uh Alberto Prolman.
Uh, tell us your name, tell us where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi gentlemen, my name's Stephanie Miller. I'm calling out of Detroit, Michigan. I'm the founder of Barletics.
I created a grippy performance skin that
That's used for bar yoga pilates and it competes with the yoga sock.
Got it. Okay. Welcome to the show, Stephanie. Thank you for calling in. Okay, let's dive in here. A gripy
uh skin. This is designed to when you do yoga or Pilates, because these are exercises you do barefoot generally, um you
You wear these to hold your grip so you don't slip.
Exactly. And it's an all over grip. So I always think of it kind of like, you know, all the little grippy dots that are on the bottom of a yoga sock, they sort of form together and then all of a sudden you have a
A full on shoe.
Yeah. So the whole skin is grippy.
Oh cool. It's a cool idea. Tell me how how did you come up with this? What'd this start?
Yeah, so I was obsessive about taking bar class and if you don't know bar is um
combination of yoga, Pilates. Yeah.
I started taking it every day. I think honestly I went three hundred and sixty five days for the first year. Wow
Yeah, and I kept I I would say about six months in, I kept slipping in the yoga sock. I would be in flat back chair pose, I'd be in side plank, and I'm like, This is ridiculous.
Yeah,'cause a bar uh just a bar studio is on a wood floor. It's like a studio for ballet, basically. Exactly. That is exactly what it is.
Yes.
So I you know, I was inside plank
And I kept slipping and the idea literally popped into my head. So I was like
I have to make this. So that night I went home and
Basically design the prototype.
And now okay, so now I'm looking at your website. So basically this is designed, because really in yoga and bar, like you want like your toes, your to really push into the ground. So this is designed to like let your toes do that.
And it fits over the rest of your foot and I guess
Prevents you from slipping and sliding.
Exactly. It also grips you from the sides, I guess, which grippy socks don't, right? When we're talking about side plank.
Right.
That's right. You can it grips from all over. So um and the socks don't do that. If anything, they they work against you when you're trying to do side plank or
You know, anything at the bar. Yep.
Tell me a little bit about about
the business. Like how how did you finance it?
Yes, so I financed it through um
Basically other businesses that I have.
And I also brought on a business partner who has a background in
Injection molding.
So
We sort of work together. He did a lot of um after car market industry parts.
So he was really good with the tooling part of it. Good to be in Michigan for that reason. A lot of people in that business. Yes. It's so true. So it worked out quite well. So it's definitely an interesting pairing the two of us.
And um
So so that's how I did it. He was sort of an investor early on and then I brought money to it and
Now we're
Over a million dollars in.
In investment. In investment. And what's your what's your revenue looking like?
Yeah, so I'm selling a few hundred pair a month. So I'm not where I want to be, but it's all been organic, which is kind of amazing. And I have
A lot of
customers that come back two, three, four times over at this point.
You're selling only direct to consumer.
Only drug to consumer. I have started um a getting
studios to pick me up, but I haven't really approached them
Yet.
Mm-hmm. And what's the cost of a pair?
They're seventy four dollars and they're made in the US. They're made here. Made in the US. Yes. Made in Michigan. Right. They're made for you. Michigan.
All right, and tell me what what your question is for for me now too
Yeah, so the interesting thing is I have been approached by Start Engine. I don't know if you know who they are, but it's a platform that has crowdfunding.
And I'm debating if this is the route I should take.
Or if I should focus on perhaps bringing on
Eh
Partner.
That could help me.
Grow the business.
quickly. So I could be more on a, you know, two to three year plan of getting my product everywhere instead of, you know, a ten year plan.
Growing it organically.
Essentially it sounds like you need
you're looking for more an injection of capital to really spend on marketing and and trying to push this out.
That's exactly it. That's I'm sort of at the crossroads right now and I think that that is
The path that I need to take.
Stephanie, how much money are you looking to raise?
That's a good question. I
If
You know, there's probably uh
different pockets of money. So I feel that if I was gonna go the marketing route and maybe more inventory
It would probably be around two hundred and fifty thousand onwards, up to five hundred thousand, up to a million, and it's and I could break all that down for you.
So, Alberto, I mean this is o obviously this is a a
dilemma that many founders face. You have raised money in the past and and so, you know, depending on the business and where it's at,
It can be uh a bad idea and sometimes it can be a very good idea. We are happen to be in a I think you'd agree with me, Alberto, a challenging environment for consumer brands to raise money.
Isn't selling AI, it's probably hard to raise money. It's challenging.
Um, and I guess my first question to you, Alberto, is is you know, I again I don't know enough about Start Engine or or other f crowdfunding platforms like that one, but
Um I presumably that's not her only option. It's not Stephanie's only option here. It's not, but I actually think there's something interesting about these platforms, and depending on their reach.
I know that
Peloton.
uh when they started they did one of these platforms
And
It also gets you customers.
That's the thing, because if they're emailing
А мільян піпо
asking them if they want to invest in something like this.
There's a million people who are going to learn about your product.
So I think this is interesting from that.
Angle.
I also think that there's ways to bootstrap
uh this business without having to raise money.
And uh there's a book maybe you should read. It's called The Lean Startup.
Okay.
And and it really talks about this
a testing methodology, quick rapid testing for your advertising, or reaching out to bar studio owners or yoga studio owners and especially the ones that are trending. Like there's a studio here in South Florida called Yoga Joint.
That's killing it. It's so packed, and everybody talks about yoga joint. And if you're able to do a deal with them and potentially have
uh your shoes with the yoga joint brand.

Yeah, that's a way to get
the brand out, that's a way to get the concept out.
And it might not cost you much, just inventory.
Yeah, it's I think that's an interesting uh really interesting um idea here and a great point. The other thing is, uh Stephanie, is that you I'm looking at your website here, says your former fashion model
There are photos of you doing some some of these exercises, wearing these shoes. I mean you clearly
have the opportunity and the ability, like Sadie Lincoln with Bar three, to kind of be the face of this brand. And so I I think that there's a lot that
that could be interesting to to investors. The one question I would a I would have for them, obviously, is what does it mean?
Presumably you're
co-founder, co partner, the the guy who was working in in tooling for the automotive industry, he owns a portion of the business. And um and now you're gonna have to give up
a significant chunk, which is of course always a negotiation
Um and you have to figure out what you're comfortable with.
Right.
Alberto, when it comes to things like giving up ownership, I mean this
This stage in the game it's still
So very early. Very early. It's very early. I remember I offered investment in Zumba.
To

Friends of mine.
Mm.
The early days.
And they could have bought
a third of Zumba for three hundred thousand dollars. And I'm glad I didn't do it.
I'm so glad I didn't do it because that equity down the road was worth so much more, like
hundred X more, right? So
I think
That you should be careful.
in like there's there's this whole whole allure of of raising money, but there's other ways to finance.
Uh there is um
Like I said, doing a deal.
uh with the studio as a way to finance and and like instead of us raising money, we ended up financing through Kellogg's.
Or deal with Kellogg's
And the early days of Zumba is what allowed us
to sustain the business.
There's also if if you
Niet to hire people, and you can't afford
Yeah
Big salaries.
You could do near shoring and like we work with an agency called La Team Partners and La Team Partners, L A T E A M Partners, they find people for us in Latin America that are English speaking, that are great at marketing, that are great at software, that are great at the different things that we need, and we're able to augment our team.
Mm. So there's different ways to think about financing a business.
I do like the the idea of of crowdfunding though because of the
getting the word out. More of the marketing side.
And actually the financing side. So
I'm trying to balance those things.
Getting just an investor to put up two fifty, you I think you might have to give up
a a big piece of your business for that.
Okay.
And Alberto's point about partnerships here is really crucial. I mean, Sadie Lincoln is all over LinkedIn. She is a huge supporter of women owned businesses as you know, as a business owner herself. I mean, she's somebody you could r literally cold reach out to.
We're happy to make an intro.
I was gonna say, Alberto, could you make an intro? I I didn't wanna ask, but since you offered it, um I would also try to get some maybe business to business
uh news out there so that other studios can learn about this and say you're open for business to work with
different studios on a wholesale basis. And so I would work with uh people like the
The team over at Athletec News.
After tech news reaches.
hundred thousand different
Yeah.
Fitness
industry executives, a lot of them
In
Yoga
Lottie's and bar. So
Okay.
For sure.

Stephanie Miller, the company is called Barletics. Thanks so much for calling in, best of luck.
Thank you. Thank you, Guy, for having me on. Alberto, thank you for your wonderful advice. Good luck, Stephanie. Bye, guys. Thank you.
Thanks.
Yeah, I mean it's you know, it's actually amazing how many and I'm sure you get this, Alberta, like how many
people just don't realize that you can really
You can just cold email people and and look, they're not always gonna reply. I get a lot of cold emails that I just I do not have the capacity or time to reply to, but
Yeah, now and again if I can, I will I will reply. But it it sometimes oftentimes that is the
Best way.
LinkedIn.
Instagram messaging. There's so many ways to message someone. And if you catch their attention at the right, I've responded.
to called LinkedIns and suddenly it becomes a huge deal for us. Like somebody
called me once in two thousand ten about doing a video game for Zumba.
And it was I think through LinkedIn and if I wouldn't have responded
We wouldn't have had our video game, which then became
a one of the top sellers we sold 14 million Zumba video games. Wow.
All right, 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 Alberto Perlman, he's the co-founder and CEO of the Latin dance craze and fitness program Zumba.
And we're taking your calls and let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the advice line. You're on with Albert DeProllman. Um tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, my name is Jack Shrubb. Thank you so much for having me. I'm calling from New Hampshire, and I'm the founder of Drink Wholesome.
Which makes protein powders for sensitive stomachs. So if you have chronic digestive issues, or if you're just sick and tired of protein powders that upset your stomach or make you bloated.
Drink wholesome is for you.
Awesome. Well thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. I'm a protein powder
drink consumer myself. Um right. And so uh so f first of all, Jack, tell uh tell me a little bit about
What makes a protein powder upset?
Someone's stomach.
What ingredients?
I would say most of them.
We use a short list of simple ingredients. We don't use any food additives whatsoever. We don't use dairy, which is one of the most problematic ingredients.
And the
key differentiator for drink wholesome is that we are one of the only protein powders made from
Whole food protein sources not
protein concentrates and isolates, which are technically ultra processed foods, stripped of everything.
But the protein, including the fiber, the enzymes, the other natural digestive aids that help you break them down. And for some people,
That doesn't make a difference, but for someone with a sensitive stomach, that can be a game changer.
All right, so now I'm looking at your site here, Drink Holes I'm not I mean it's very simple ingredients you're using, uh, which is great. I see there's egg whites, coconut. I mean you use monk fruit, so there's no sugar in these products. By the way
The the branding i is great. It's clear. It reminds me a lot of R X bars. Were you inspired by R X bar?
Absolutely. Um we put the ingredients right on the front of the package and what you see on the front is what
You see on the back.
Um and transparency's very important. People with sensitive stomachs need to know exactly what they're putting in their body.
Cool. Jack, you seem like a pretty young guy, which is awesome. Is this your first business?
This is my first business.
Oh, awesome. Okay. So tell me how you started. Tell me the story about the business.
The idea for drink wholesome came from personal needs. So I was a two sport college athlete training year round. I used protein supplements as a convenient way to fill in gaps my diet, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't find one that didn't upset my stomach. So I made my own. I bought a spice grinder, I went to the local health food store.
And uh I created a recipe that
Although it wasn't the most soluble, um, nor the best tasting, it didn't upset my stomach, and that was a first.
And uh
This was something that I used or made for myself and used myself for a long time before
Considering the idea that other people might benefit from it as well.
All right, so when did you decide to turn that into a business?
So after graduating college, I worked as a boarding school teacher. I taught French. I lived in a dormitory with a whole bunch of kids. Wow. I coached sports and
The great thing about being a born school teacher is you get the summers off. So that first summer
I
Took to developing my product, finding someone who could make it, establishing a business. It took a while.
Um
And then I ran it as a side hustle for almost four years.
That's awesome. And and this is and then and now it's still direct to consumer. You sell this through your website.
Correct, we sell on our website and on Amazon.
Okay, so you launch this
W and and d how much money did you put into it to how to to get it off the ground?
I saved up all the money I had from summer jobs and from teaching, um, which wasn't very much, and it amounted
to around twenty thousand dollars and that allowed me to
buy all I build my own supply chain. So it effectively allowed me to buy the ingredients in the package I needed to make the first batch.
All right, tell me a little bit about where the business stands now. Give me a sense of your revenue of of what you guys are doing.
Uh we crossed the two million dollar threshold this year, which is wow. Amazing.
It is a great accomplishment, but it's been a grind. It's been
um about five years now and so the growth has been incremental.
Um and today
I work with my younger sister.
Um, we're a two man team. We outsource things like warehousing, fulfillment, production, but at the end of the day, it's
Uh Tessa and Jack.
Um behind the behind the brand. That's awesome. So two million in revenue, which means that
obviously you've got your costs and then probably the rest of the money is going right back into the business and in in marketing and things and you're probably not paying yourself a whole lot yet.
Correct I invest as much as I can back into the business.
We don't spend a ton on marketing like other direct to consumer e-commerce brands.
Um
because our main marketing tool is practitioner referrals. Because our target customers, some with a sensive stomach, we work with dietitians and nutritionists, in some cases, MDs to
Spread the word.
And uh before we we dive in deeper, tell us your question, Era, for us.
Sure. So my sister and I were wondering how a brand like Drink Wholesome with a very niche focus
generates broader appeal.
without alienating its core customer. So again
Our core customer is someone with a sensitive stomach.
They're the lifeblood of the business. But because we use a short list of simple ingredients, Drink Wholesome is appropriate for a number of different dietary needs.
and restrictions and we love to include those people in the community. I'm talking about diabetics, people with kidney issues, children, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.
We have lots of these people come to us organically, but we don't go after them. And I would love to because
We could help so many people, but I don't want to do so at the expense of our core customer.
So the question is how do you
appeal to a broader audience, even though your niche is with people who have sensitive stomachs, which is, you know, a g a good niche to have, but to grow, you want to reach more people.
Um, Alberto, before we get to to Jack's question, um, I'm sure you've got some more for for him.
How do you talk to the practitioners? Like how did you build that network and how big is your network of practitioners?
It is a lot of cold outreach, boots on the ground. That network is all about relationship building. I started it a few years ago. My sister heads that effort and we have
Um
Probably about a thousand.
folks with whom we work regularly and we hope to grow that tenfold and if we can.
Do you spend any money on marketing?
We do. We we work with an agency to run some digital ads. We invest in SEO. We spend a little bit here and there. Um, one of our large marketing costs is samples.
So we love to share the product with people.
Um, because especially if they have a sensitive stomach, they're pretty inclined to like it.
Yeah.
Um what about I mean you're in New Hampshire, right? And and New England has an influential
Consumer.
audience, right? A lot of products are launched in New England, particularly
In Whole Foods for example. Is that is that a world that you have thought about exploring or have you tried?
We do a tiny bit of traditional retail.
with some local natural groceries, but
Retail is really expensive.
And
We would
Need help. We'd probably have to build a team in order to manage all those accounts because every new account is like a child. It needs nurturing, and we just don't have the bandwidth right now.
But if a good opportunity came our way, we wouldn't necessarily say no. We would just have to take a very measured approach because
I talked to a lot of founders who got into retail a little too early.
And it's hard.
Yeah, either sent the business in the wrong direction or just burned them out, which is
A real risk. Hm.
Have you thought about getting other
Certifications on your packaging.
Like
Organic.
kosher
Yeah, N S F, certified for sport, good manufacturing practices, all of those
And then gluten free. Is is the product gluten free?
Um so it's not certified gluten free primarily because our facility isn't
I
I am
Certification of verse.
Mm.
having worked in this space for several years now, I think that
All the certifications, the labels that we slap.
On products.
give a misleading impression of what they are, which is
food. I want drink wholesome to just be food. I don't think that
A banana needs a certification. Um
And
Because

I don't want to distract from what makes Drink Wholesome different, which is again that simplicity and that transparency. So
Organic is great.
I would love to become
Organic certified, but
If I were, I wouldn't put it on the bag.
I think I I I just love that response. I think it's a great response and it makes a lot of sense. Alberto, you know, one of the things I keep thinking about is
There are a lot of protein powders on the market. You know, you go to Whole Foods, you go to GNC, I mean they're j the it's just endless. And and this has really happened in the last ten years, you know, just an explosion of different brands. And so it's hard for some people to figure out
you know, what to do we've told the story of Orgain on the show.
Um but it's hard, right, to get especially when you're competing against big brands like Organe.
What I don't see a lot on the shelves are this.
You don't see a lot of brands with very few ingredients.
So
That to me is interesting because I feel like that
That puts
Jack's product.
in a slightly different category.
And it's resonating a lot right now with all the talk
uh going on around microplastics, around uh cancer causing
Yeah, ingredients.
And so it's the right moment to talk about very simple
ingredients. I take a protein shake with only one ingredient, so
Yeah, but I can handle that taste, and most most people can't.
I I guess a question f for you, Jack, and and also I'd love to hear your take, Alberto, is
You know, he's looking to
to appeal to a broader audience, right? But I I I would argue that
You could probably lean more into the sensitive stomach crowd before you do that, because that is a potentially huge audience. It's huge. I just Googled how many people are lactose intolerant in the US, and it's like thirty million people.
Yeah, I mean think about Orgain. Orgain was founded
To serve people in hospital recovering from cancer and other surgeries, to to it was essentially designed to be like insure, but organic.
But eventually bodybuilders and people worked out found this product and and that became its use case. Now that's primarily who uses it.
To me, I think that there's an argument to be made that you really should lean into this niche. I mean, maybe even on the front of the label I'm looking at it to somehow to indicate
for you know, people with sensitive stomachs. I mean on maybe on the back of the bag it says it, but
Um, I think it could be worth really leaning what do you think about that, Jack?
Well that
That suggestion is very in line with my question.
Because
I don't think Drink Holson would have made it this far had it not leaned into the specificity of its value proposition.
However
I don't want to exclude people and make them feel or give them the impression that
This brand is not for them.
Because
Drink wholesome risk be coming off as a medical brand, come risk coming off a little sterile. And
I want it to be inclusive. I want anyone to resonate with the ingredients and understand intuitively that it's good for them, even if they don't have a sensitive stomach. It's so it's a tricky balance.
Yeah.
Have you guys done any trade shows?
Not as of yet.
Maybe one day.
I do think the trade show route for what you're doing is really important. It's gonna cost a lot of money. It's gonna cost, you know
at least ten grand to get a booth and and do you know do what you need to do. But
It's gonna be an investment worth making.
I agree. I mean it's it's just what we've heard on this show over seven hundred episodes, and probably a third of them been have been food food brands.
And you just give me an idea, guy.
Just give me an idea.
What about?
sponsoring
Do you know those physician conferences they have?
Where they have uh
doctors in a certain field all together. Yes. Sponsoring the ones with
Gastroenterologists.
And having a fifteen minute talk.
during one of those conferences and you reach a thousand different gastroductors.
I think that's great advice.
You're gonna need to set aside
If you can.
You know, fifty grand at least.
Maybe a hundred if you can.
in marketing and sponsorships and in things like the trade shows.
It's gonna pay pay you back in spades.
I agree, and then PR is the other thing.
So
Maybe talk to
outlets like Mind Body Green.
and have Mind Body Green write an article, you know, stomach issues, digestive issues, here's a list of products, and then they would name your product and I think you can give them an affiliate commission through Amazon or maybe even advertise with them, but I think they reach like ten million people.
And and you know, you can take small risks here, you know, a few thousand dollars on some of these things where if it doesn't work it'll sting, but it's not gonna tank your business.
Um, Jack, I think that you got a great product. Congrats on on taking it to two million. It's called Drink Wholesome Jack Shrub. Thanks so much for calling in.
Thank you so much for having me for the advice and the opportunity to share. Have a great day.
Good luck, man.
Good luck, Jack.
Yeah, it it when I first saw this, I was like, wow, that looks really that does look like the front of a an R X bar.
Uh which is really and that rebranding on our X bar transformed that company'cause it initially it didn't look like that. It didn't say, you know
Four egg whites, three dates, two cashews.
But once they did that, um and Peter Rahal talked about this on our show years ago.
It just transformed that product. It was and now it's ubiquitous.
transparency with consumers right now is huge. I think people have realized
that they can't trust all companies. Before when we were growing up, if
We assume that the FDA was protecting us and that there were someone some government authority protecting us.
And that we were anything we had from companies was good for us, and then we realized it wasn't
And and now I think transparency is very big. So I agree with you.
Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller. 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 Zumba co-founder and CEO Alberto Prohman.
So, Bertel, you ready for our next call?
Yeah.
Ready.
Hello, welcome to the advice line. You're on with Alberta Prolman. Um please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hi Guy in Alberto. My name is Peter Arlene. I'm calling in from Carbondale, Colorado.
And I'm the founder of Mountain Flow.
We make
Sustainable accessories for the outdoor industry.
Specialising in plant based non petroleum ski wax and bike lube.
ski wax and bike low let's talk about so ski wax like the wax that you put on the back of your skis.
Exactly.
And and you say non petroleum based so is the ski wax that
Goes on the back of my ski a petroleum based product?
Exactly, guy. Just like the majority of candles that people have in their house, wax is a petroleum based product.
The interesting thing about skis is that whatever you put on the bottom of your skis or snowboard.
goes directly into the environment.
Right.'Cause it's just gonna go right it's gonna get melted down and eventually that's water we're gonna drink. What is it made of if it isn't made out of petroleum?
So the interesting thing about plants is that you can extract a wax from nearly all of them.
So when we created the product, we had a catalog of hundreds of different plant based waxes available.
And we're able to kinda isolate the exact characteristics that we were looking for.
So that we could create a product that had the same or better performance.
Is it a lot more expensive?
No, it's right in the middle of the market in terms of pricing. Same price as a
Petroleum based wax.
Almost too good to be true.
Wow.
So so Peter, I'm imagining I imagine that you are a skier. You live in Carbondale, which I'm looking at the map. It's not too far from Aspen
I mean you're in Colorado, so you're near a bunch of cool s great ski resorts.
I'm imagining that this came about because you you you're a skier, you've worked in the industry.
Yes. Yes to both of those. Uh I worked in the outdoor industry for about twenty years.
And for a good chunk of that time I was working as a ski tech.
Which meant that I was in a small room in the back of a ski shop.
Waxing skis all day long.
And at some point I asked myself, you know, like what is wax made from?
Yeah. It's like, Oh well, you know, wax is made from wax, like
Plastic is made from plastic.
And
Yeah, after a little research I learned that
Both of those products, wax and plastic, are made from petroleum.
And then I learned that
Everything you put on your skis goes directly into the environment.
And as a skier
As someone who loves the outdoors, as someone who's a father now.
Uh it just didn't really sit well with me.
So you decided, hey, I'm gonna figure out how to do how to make something that's
A little better for the environment.
Yeah, exactly it. And uh you know, a lot of people ask, Are you a scientist? Uh and I'm not.
Um
And I developed it like a skier would.
Based upon how it felt on snow.
And it was a trial and error process. It took about two years.
But eventually I was able to get the formula to a place where I was really happy with it.
Um, we've now got a couple of patents on the formulation, and we're probably the world's largest manufacturer of sustainable ski wax. Wow. And and most of your sales are through
Ski shops. You're actually selling to the ski shops.
We do, we've got a bunch of distribution channels. Um so we're in a little over a thousand retail doors worldwide.
Um we also sell to ski resorts that are using it on their rental fleets.
And then we sell direct to consumer through our website.
What's the bigger business?
The one that is to the ski resorts or one that's too for the end consumer? Who buys more?
Well, right now our our wholesale channel is about sixty percent of our business and forty percent is direct to consumer.
It's pretty good.
It's pretty good. And and you mentioned this briefly, but you're not just
doing ski wax, wax for skis, you're also doing um
oil for bikes, right?
Yeah, exactly. So we started with Skiwax, and as the business progressed, more and more people were asking us.
for a plant based bike lubricant.
Essentially it's the same exact concept.
Most
Uh chain lubricants come from the automotive industry. They're made from petroleum.
one way or another, that lubricant is ending up in the environment.
And so
We were able to develop a full line of
uh bike maintenance products that's also plant based, biodegradable, non toxic.
All right, um before we dive in deeper, tell us um your question that you brought for us today.
So I'm looking for some advice as to how to evaluate opportunities. You know, when I started the business.
It was just ski wax. And now we've expanded. We've got
Recycled aluminum ski poles.
A handheld infrared waxing device.
The bike products we do
Bioplastic water bottles.
Uh so it looks a lot different than it did a few years ago.
And
Інована й старте
I definitely had the hustle mentality.
And I said yes to everything, and I chased every dollar.
Uh, and to some extent that's that's still around, that hustle mentality.
Although
My hunch now is that it's actually probably doing more harm than good.
And
Saying yes to everything, I think is is bogging us down. So
Learning how and what to say no to so that we can be open to bigger opportunities.
What have you said yes to that you feel might have not been
Yeah, the right opportunity.
So a shop will reach out to us and say, Hey
You make your product in uh
Hundred gram bar.
Could you make it in a kilogram for us?
We'll order
Twenty of them or a hundred of them.
And then in my head I go
Oh well that's
A grand, or that's ten grand.
We should do that.
And then it's a whole process.
You know, we work with a lot of small mom and pop ski shops and bike shops.
And honestly, that's one of my favorite parts of the job.
But
It takes a lot of time and effort to scale a business.
with small POs going into small shops.
Have you heard of the impact versus effort matrix?
No, I have not.
So basically it's very easy. It's just basically you have impact on one axis, effort on the other.
and you just map all the different opportunities you have in front of you.
And the ones you focus on first are
High impact, low effort.
Followed by high impact, high effort.
That
That makes a lot of sense. It seems
Fairly straightforward.
Do you think the ski shops are buying the product
From you because
They care about the environment or
Yeah.
customers care about the environment. Are you having any situations where the customer comes into the ski shop and says, What wax do you use? Do you use plant based wax? Is that a thing?
So when we started
The ski shops that got on board were the ones that believed
In the mission.
And now we've grown because customers are coming in and saying
Hey, do you carry mountain flow? I heard about the brand and that's what I want to put on my skis.
Because I think that's when you really have something special. That happened to us at the beginning is uh people started going into gym saying
Do you have Zumba?
And if the gym would say no, they said, Well, I'm not joining them.
And so the gyms were kind of forced.
to bring in Zumba because people wanted it.
And once you get there, I think it's very powerful. And once you get there, then you can start saying, Hey
Uh
This is my standard deal.
Like this is what we sell wholesale for and
Yeah, you could create a uh online
Shopify B2B site where
These shops can just go in and place their orders and you don't have to be
working
Custom deals for each one.
Yeah, Alberto, I think that's a great point. I mean, the first thing you said about the the push versus pull is huge, and we are starting to see that.
And then I know something that our competitors do is
They say, Hey, this is a minimum order if you want to work with us. You gotta buy at least this much stuff, and you have to carry the whole
line up. You can't just pick and choose.
And
We may be getting to the point where we could start to drive that bargain.
Mm-hmm.
I I
Wonder whether
There's a way to
to lean into um sort of a bigger partnership that doesn't require you to be, you know
Doing whack a mole every every day.
Yeah, that's something that we're really trying to focus on is to get in with those larger conglomerates.
go through their onboarding process, become an approved vendor.
And then you know all of the resorts or all of the ski shops under that umbrella.
are then able to buy. And sometimes there's actually one centralized buyer which places a huge PO for everybody.
And obviously that is probably the easiest route for us to go.
Yeah. Uh Alberto, do you have any thoughts about
The
value proposition here, right? Because a lot of people I think would be attracted to this. Uh are
Right. A lot of people say I you know when I ski I don't want to be polluting the environment.
I I think
There needs to be more attention drawn to that.
Yeah.
publicity stunts that you could do.
on the different mountains like have
You know, people walking around saying, I don't want uh petroleum on my snow or something, whatever. Like you could do certain types of stunts
That would call attention.
to the problem.
Yeah, I think you I don't know if you already do this, but
you could create some beautiful stickers for these ski shops that talk about this problem saying we're using mountain flow instead of
petroleum based products to keep your snow clean keeping your snow clean movement.
Yeah.
I think would be very valuable. Especially the rental shops, right? I just went to uh we just went to Tahoe and um
I mean, those rental shops are just doing incredible business, obviously this time of year.
But yeah, you can imagine on the on on the outside that says, you know, we use mountain flow, um, you know
To keep your snow clean. What is the benefit? We keep your snow clean. Yeah. But people don't even think about that. I had never even thought about
petroleum uh like most people don't even know that their skis are waxed.
Like it's crazy.
You're right. And education is such a huge part of what we do. And Alberto, I liked your suggestion about getting some press because if we can get the word out there and then we've got incoming.
uh attention in people asking for the product.
That's just fulfilling orders. So that's not necessarily using up our bandwidth, but it's still
Growing the business.
There's a point in time where
you switch from
begging and trying to push your product to market to
people asking for it. And when you do that
That changes everything. And then you can have this is our standard order.
And this is this is what you get when you order from us. This is the standard margin and only very, very big
Players can
Okay.
Like
different deals.
But everyone else gets the same deal.
Yeah, I like that. For sure.

The brand is called Mountain Flow Peter Arlene, thanks so much for calling in man. Good luck.
Thanks, guys. Good luck, Peter.
I know you're in Miami.
Uh do you guys ski?
I'm skiing next month. Oh okay. I'm gonna bail and I'm gonna ask for mountain flow.
I'm gonna say if you don't wax my seeds with mountain flow, I don't wanna be on them. There you go. I love it. There you go, yeah.
It's sort of like the one percent thing, like if we can make the world better
one percent every day, imagine
the cumulative effects and even though this is not a huge I mean it's it's just
for ski and for bicycles, but if you can get rid of petroleum
On those two items.
It makes a dent, you know, and one thing at a time and we make the world a better place. And why not? I mean if it does the job just as well. I mean if it's if if your skis are wax, your skis are wax, like why why not use something that's gonna have a minimal impact?
A hundred percent. There's zero reason why not to.
Well, Alberto, um
Before I let you go, I wanna ask you a question that I I ask every guest who who comes on, which is when you look back on your
early days, you know, the first couple of years of starting this thing, your business, which is now Global Brand Zumba.
Um, what do you wish you knew or what do you think you would say or or offer in in terms of advice?
Yeah, I think
This too shall pass.
For an entrepreneur is very important.
Because every time you're dealing with an issue
And I think it what it's what makes a great entrepreneur is that when you have an issue
You stress about it so much that you find a way to fix it.
But it's
It also takes a toll.
Right.
And
Many times
I I thought to myself, this is gonna be the end. It's over. Like
It's not gonna continue from here and
And then it did continue.
Because we had a great product that people really loved. So have faith in your product. And whenever you encounter challenges, just understand that.
Yeah.
And that there's always something on the other side.
That's awesome. That's
Great advice. It's Alberto Prolman, co-founder and CEO.
Uh the simba
Alberto, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Thank you so much, Gi. This was fun.
Um and by the way, if you haven't heard Alberto's original How I Built This Episode, uh you gotta go back and give it a listen.
You can find a link to it in the podcast description. You can just search Zumba and how I built this on Google. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.
We spent the whole fourteen thousand dollars. We had zero in the bank.
We created this beautiful email.
We press send and we're praying, please, please.
And suddenly
four hundred and fifty.
Instructor's joint.
And so that's when we said this is this is gonna be our life, and
And let's make it 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.
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 hid.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 Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by John Isabella, and our audio engineer was Neil Rauch.
Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Kather, Carrie Thomson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Roz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.