Advice Line: New Offerings, Bigger Markets

0:06 Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and this is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. And as you know, each week I'm joined by a legendary founder of former guests from the show who will attempt with me to help you. And this week Our episode is a bit of a mashup, three callers and three different former guests, and they're all talking about a similar challenge. How to introduce a novel product or service to bigger markets. By the way, if you're building something and you need advice or just want advice, give us a call. You just might be the next guest on this show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like some help with. Okay, let's get to it. So my first guest today is Che Wang. Che was first on the show in 2021 and he told the story of starting Boxed, an online retailer that delivered bulk sized groceries and household essentials right to your home. If you want to hear the whole story, we'll put a link to that episode in the podcast description.

1:12 Anyway, here on the advice line, Chay and I talked a collar through different approaches to turning her local pottery studios into a national brand. Hi Che, hi Guy, I'm Christina Latravers. I'm calling from Indie Atlantic, Florida. I'm the founder of Seagrass Pottery. We're a professional pottery studio on Florida Space Coast. We design and create the most beautiful handmade pottery, and we also host experiences that bring people together through clay. Awesome. Well thanks for calling in Christina. So you've got a Pottery studio, which and it's you sell pottery and then you also have classes. That's correct. We also we do workshops, classes, we have a community studio and we also host uh domestic and international retreats. Wow. Yeah. That's great. Interest so tell me a little bit about the business. How did how did it start?

1:58 Uh so I was working as an art educator and then I worked as a visual art content specialist for our school district where I s oversaw eighty four visual art programs. I really saw First hand the power of the art. and how they can transform classrooms and communities. Um, I always did pottery on the side and I just found a time and space and took a bold move and signed a lease. And we opened the studio in twenty nineteen, just three months before the pandemic.

2:24 And in twenty twenty two, we opened our second location. And here we are. Well I used you've got two locations all also in um in the in the area along the space coast. Yes. Tell me about your role. Are you making pottery? Are you teaching classes or do you are you sort of overseeing the business? I'm kind of overseeing the business. I do a lot of the design work and a lot of I still keep my hand in creating because that's really what I'm passionate about. And then I also uh develop the curriculum for the classes. And I really think that's what differentiates us from other studios. I think that there's a lot of great artists out there, but they aren't always great teachers. Yeah. And we really take that teaching aspect really seriously. Cause if you come into the studio and you have a bad experience, I could technically

3:02 So that's just something we're really intentional about in our design. And and the business is sustainable? Profitable? Yes. Yeah.

3:11 Yep, so um we're on track to do about four hundred thousand this year. Total lifetime revenue at one point two million. And where are where is your w where do most of your sales come from? The wholesale side? So that's the interesting part and that's part of the reason m for my call. Yeah. We mostly um

3:27 are a B to B wholesale Uh but we do have a small percentage of retail. So you make stuff for like restaurants? Yes, we do restaurants, mostly interior designers, businesses. Wow. Um, we're about thirty percent uh B to B for wholesaling. And then we have thirty eight percent, which is classes and workshops, and then thirty percent is our community studio because we offer like a membership program where you can kind of use the studio space as your own when our classes aren't in session.

3:56 Okay, so let's get to your question. Okay. So we built Sea Grass Pottery as a scalable ecosystem, not a single location studio. How would you approach positioning a brand like ours so it scales beyond location and starts to define an entirely new category? Okay.

4:14 A lot to think about there. Um Chan bring you in here. Um Thoughts or questions for Christina before we tackle her question. Love the fact that you're an educator. And I love the fact that you became an entrepreneur. And I love the aspect if you can get fellow educators there in the summer.

4:33 You talk about user acquisition and scalability. I'm sure they have students that love them. And if they knew Christina was teaching in the summer, they they would come and sign up. It I just I just love it. And when you think about what the zeitgeist is, especially in physical locations like malls that are that been pretty beaten down in recent years. Is that malls, at least successful ones, are transitioning to not just selling things, but selling experiences. And shopping can be experienced. When you go into some stores and they make you kind of do the racetrack walk and you're there's little things everywhere. I'm seeing more and more successful malls have those type of experiences. And so I think you might be uh on target or on trend. And so bringing you into their locations might actually have um some benefits for them, and you might get preferential rates and treatment.

5:28 uh if you talk to some of the larger mall operators that was my initial reaction That's interesting. Yeah, I'm c I'm curious, um, Christina. I mean When you talk about scaling, what what does that mean more physical locations like in a in a in your sort of dream house world, what what would that look like?

5:46 Yeah, in my dream house world, seagras pottery is the name that people think of when they want to create and maybe with have an experience maybe with their family or on a date, um, and they're just kind of doing something more meaningful than just I don't know, going to the movies. And I do think there's this big draw. We even see it in our retreats where people want to come visit us. We put them up in a bed and breakfast in town and they come in and they spend the week with us just immersed in clay. I think it recharges people in a way that a lot of other activities don't, especially when they're constantly on like devices or on screens. Just do the opposite and get totally away from that. There's something that is just Supir pealing and recharging. Yeah. I i it sounds like like that part of the business is really what energizes you, uh, more than anything else, which makes sense. The the only the w what's interesting to me is that You have thirty percent and sounds like it's growing. Thirty percent of your business is wholesale is you are and I'm looking at your website, you m have beautiful

6:43 Pottery that you make. What what's interesting to me about the scalability question is you have something that can scale already, which is this wholesale business that you've created where you you are actually selling to interior designers and restaurants and and beyond you know, n North Florida, let's say or Central Florida, you're you're all over the state and then all over the south east and

7:08 And beyond. uh and the classes in the classroom is sort of a A touch point that Could remain

7:16 in a few distinct locations where it becomes this destination. People know about sea grass because they've hurt they bought they bought a piece in a gift shop in Seattle. And they want to come to one of your five locations in Florida because They know this beautiful pottery. I I don't know, it's just a thought. And it may not be what you want to do. But from a scalability standpoint, that to me

7:42 your bet your sort of clearest path. I think you're like right on track because we do get a lot of people who like my work. And then that's like the segue into the experience part of it. I

7:57 A necessity because I think one builds trust with the customers. And that to me is so valuable. So I don't I don't know that if I see a world one without the other, but I also see your point. So just Something to think about. Yeah, c Christina, I I I you know. It kinda echoing a little bit of what Guy just said.

8:14 I don't like in terms of scaling physical locations sorry if I'm a wet blanket on on uh on this a little bit. I don't Thing I cannot imagine a world where and I'm not saying this is your end result, uh that you want, but I can't imagine Seagrass pottery being a billion dollar business if you don't scale the physical locations via franchising. I I I just I just don't see it like meaning that

8:39 I think Christina yourself, y you are such a kind of force behind this brand that I don't see you flying around the country to 70 locations trying to make sure everything's Going well. Because we all work with twenty four hours in a day. Yeah.

8:56 I think there's a lot of folks that would find your idea compelling. And if you're able to create standard operating procedures around all this. Which is not like a weird art form or a esoteric art form. There's a lot of professionals that help you do that. That might be a way to scale. Now the other thing was that I went to the website. Amazing

9:17 I think you're gonna have to decide who you are. Are you that physical location with wholesale as kind of like a tur a secondary business? Or are you a wholesaler where you can come and touch and and kind of design your own things? Um, and right now when I go to the website, there's so much at the top that I'm like, Christina Time to pick. We're in the adolescence phase. You're doing a few hundred thousand in revenue.

9:40 Let's pick what seagras pottery really is when they grow up. Um it's gonna be hard. But you have to do it because there's almost too much at the at the banner. Yeah, I mean I think that's a great question to ask. Like what what do we wanna be? And you can be a version of all of those things, but but you have to hit the gas on

10:00 probably one of those. Let's say the three things are, you know, uh classes and then the community studio and then the products. And you split that into you've got retail and wholesale. The the store, Seagras Pottery has to be a store, which I think it probably is. And the wholesale side of it, um I I think you have to ask yourself whether your you want to and are prepared to scale that up, which means that

10:24 you have to really build a team to start making those products. I mean I'm looking at your your vases and your espresso cup, they're beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I I I don't know how easy it is to teach people to make those products uh, you know as well as they're made and and probably you could do it. Um But that to me feels like um where the opportunity is. You know, the challenge, I I'll just push back on the franchise challenge, which is

10:50 You know, you've got a vibe going, right? I'm imagine there's a feeling that people have when they go into this space. To to have somebody else take your brand and license it and replicate it, it's really hard. It's very hard to do if you're just selling chicken fingers, right? Um now try to do it when you're Teaching people about how to make pottery in the way that you want.

11:12 People to be taught. So the franchise model is tricky because you know you're not gonna have the same kind of quality control. That being said I think it's worth thinking about maybe just a few more locations. Maybe maybe you've got four stores instead of two, maybe you've got five.

11:31 And each of those stores Does multiple things. It's a space, it's a studio But it's also a place to showcase this beautiful work that you you've created. Uh and and Again, I don't want to pressure you or push you in any direction, but if if you were asking me and you said, Hey, I need you to write me a check to put into this, I would say I'd I'll do it, but

11:52 Here's where I want you to go. Hm I I I also think, Christina, um I I feel like being the entrepr like the entrepreneur, the tech entrepreneur in me. There's two modes. It's either I'm not starting a business or I'm like going like a million miles a minute and we're driving this thing all the way to the moon. But there could be a really good business here without you actually franchising all across the entire country. You know, I look at this this is kind of like painting with a twist or you know, those places where you go and paint your own pottery. And I know there's a lot less entail there because you just take the product and you leave. There's no like waiting for the kiln to fire. Yeah. Um, but they're just and I also would love like a place where you could go, you know, anywhere in the country and have that kind of brand loyalty and know that you're gonna have a good experience.

12:35 You know If you're interested in clay or wanted to create something for yourself, you know? So you know, my immediate thought when I when I went to the website and saw kind of the pottery classes, I'm I I'm I'm dating myself, but uh if you ever get to that level and you do a TV commercial, you have to get Demi Moore to do it. Um you gotta recreate that scene. Um But uh but outside of that, um, what might be interesting is kind of what Guy was saying before on the franchise model, perhaps a red flag and a counterpoint to what I even suggested. Is that some of those locations that you just mentioned where you just paint?

13:08 They might have s trimmed down the experience so much because that is the level in which they can have quality control. And if you're putting people on pottery wheels all across the country It might get pretty gnarly pretty quickly on what the end result is when people go home. Um, and so So yeah, s a a counterpoint even to kind of my original point to to think about.

13:30 Thank you very much. Uh awesome. The company's called Seagrass Pottery, Christina Thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Thanks for me. All right.

13:40 Yeah, I um you know, this E East Fork pottery was really blown up uh into a national brand, Heath here in the Bay Area. Um it's and by the way It's interesting because if you if you buy pottery like where you are in New Jersey or New York City Or San Francisco, Los Angeles. It's

14:00 Very expensive as it should be. These are beautiful handmade things. And I'm looking at her prices and they're about half I was thinking the same thing because I've been you know, when you kind of go into some of these stores, especially the fine furnishing stores, you you you'd look at the bottom of some of these things and you're like Did they switch the price tag? Because this has an extra zero on it. Right. So I can see why that part is compelling, especially if she's making them to order. No one's touching these prices currently available, uh, I I think. So I think she has room uh to go up and there's plenty of margin in this stuff.

14:35 Yes. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, Ernon Lopez, the founder of Wondery, joins me on the Advice Line. Stay with us, you're listening to a special mashup episode of the Advice Line. right here on how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my next return guest is Arnon Lopez, founder of the podcasting network Wondery. Ernon first came on the show back in 2023, and we will put a link to that episode in the show notes. It's an amazing story of how he left his job as a TV executive, inspired by this new thing called podcasting, and built it into a hugely successful network that was acquired by Amazon. Anyway, when Ern joined me on the advice line, we helped a caller who generally sells his stuff through the internet figure out whether it makes sense to sell in retail.

15:37 Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Hi, everyone. I'm uh Jim Kirzley from Boulder, Colorado. I developed and patented a camera carrying system for Professional and aspiring amateurs alike. It's called the Lemur Strap.

15:57 Awesome. Jim, thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. How does it work? It's a okay. It's a strap around your neck, I'm assuming, but what what it makes it Different or special. Yeah. So I've always been an avid photographer. It's not my business. It's more of a hobby. I got my first camera when I was twelve years old from my dad who was a actual movie producer. But I took it very seriously and I loved carrying my camera around until one day I w didn't really love carrying my camera around because it was so big and awkward and heavy and yeah, and you guys have probably carried around large, you know, SLR style cameras at one point in your life.

16:32 So I tried every every camera strap out there on the market. And I thought, you know There's gotta be a better way. So I just started tooling around with um some aluminum parts and pieces and uh

16:46 I realize if I hung the camera from the bottom the lens would point down and the screen on the back of the camera would point up where it was like safe from s you know getting scratched and hit knocking off your belt buckle and the rivets on your jeans. And all of a sudden I'm like, I've got something here because this camera is way more comfortable to carry. It's no longer the unruly camera that's like rotating around your body and bouncing up and down and so

17:13 That was the first thing, uh that I took care of was like the hanging position. Yeah. And then the second thing that I tackled was the ability to remove the camera from the strap. In a nanosecond. Like literally like less than a second. Cheetah.

17:31 And you want to capture the cheetah, you can grab your camera. So it so'cause when you wear a camera, right, it usually it's the lens is pointing outwards, right? And and but this way It slides into this uh this like Wha what do you call it? Well Yeah, so it's a base plate, but it has a little receiver that mounts um

17:52 to your camera via a tripod adapter. So you can just slide it in and quick release it. Yeah, I just use the quick release feature when I wanna you know, go up high. You've s all seen the Purp Walks, right? Where the t you know, the the accused person is, you know, some celebrity is surrounded by all these people carrying their cameras. And they're all holding their cameras above their heads and their straps are hanging in their faces. And so Now you can just press this little button, it releases in it less less than a second. That's cool. And then when you want your hands free, you just click it right back in, you swing the camera around behind your back

18:28 Where it likes to stay. That's why we named it Lemur because Lemur Moms carry their little babies around on their backs. So that they have their their paws free, so they can swing from tree branches. Like I do. Tell me a little bit, so you you launch this I think did you say in twenty twenty five?

18:46 We launched it via Kickstarter in August of twenty twenty four. And um And then after the Kickstarter campaign ended, we went to direct to consumer sales in November of twenty four. And then we've had one full year, twenty twenty five, where we've done direct to consumer sales exclusively. And now we're entering into you know our second full year twenty twenty six.

19:12 And and so you're not in stores at all. So that is kind of uh a great segue to my um question. Oh great, let's hear it. Okay, great. So we have been pretty much direct to consumer Uh we were contacted by B and H, photography and electronics giant out of New York City. I'm sure you guys have heard of B and H. Uh we were pretty honored to have them reach out to us. Famous camera store, yeah. And so um So we're like, okay, that would be ridiculous not to take them up on this offer and start selling through re uh through a retail outlet. Uh but it became abundantly obvious that this cuts way down on our margins, uh, you know, our per strap margin. But we have been experiencing a higher volume of sales and we definitely have more exposure people going on B and H to look for their photography.

20:03 equipment. So in order to attract more investment capital. Would you uh recommend expanding further into retail, uh to increase volume, or should we focus More on our direct to consumer sales where we definitely get a higher margin per strap, but to grow um at a much slower rate, I would say.

20:27 Alright, Aaron, I want to bring you in here. Uh, first of all, thoughts Uh for Jim. Thank you. And it sounds like an amazing product that um I wish I could visualize Um, because my first question would be Do you have a distinctive

20:44 Look. that people would recognize immediately when they're seeing your from the description it sounds like it is, but I'm I'm asking from the point of view of color or branding or logo. I'm thinking about the early beats.

20:59 Headphones, remember that when people start for the first time to see that bee, then they're got Apple to notice them and and and buy the company. Is that part of your branding in any way? If not, could it be? Yeah, so we did put a lot of effort and thought into that. Our logo is looks like a little lemur paw. Great. We have two different base colors. One is black anodized because photographers are a very c kind of conservative crowd. That they don't like change very much. They like things to be black, they like things. You know, look think about how cameras look the same almost as they did, you know, fifty, sixty seventy years ago. But then we also made a bronze colored one and then that one jumps much more like off the base because I thought, yeah, we need a signature color, you know, we we need people to recognize that this is something different attached to your camera.

21:50 But for we sell probably fifty percent bronze and fifty percent black, because the black thing just will not die. Right. That's great. So my bias Always typically goes towards direct to consumer. Build your direct to consumer um uh relationship and outlet as fast as you can because those are the relationships

22:11 that you're going to own over time. The only difference for your case is that Looks like your product is something that they will buy only once. Or is there an a use case for them buying more Or any add ons or any more products down the line. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of potential for that. A lot of people have two cameras.

22:32 And we are developing a um accessory that allows you to use two cameras at one time. This is like the holy grail of uh camera equipment. Uh so but yes, it you know people are gonna be at one, two, and that's about the lifetime, you know, commitment. Right. Yeah, and that's a a a a problem. I mean it's a good good and bad problem because you make a quality product and right, you want to have high quality product. This is the problem that uh like temperpedic mattresses have, right? You buy it once. But um it so it seems like Um accessories here, right?

23:08 uh is it would be an interesting play in in the long term. I mean the the strap Right, interesting. I'm sure photographers love it. But Arnana's right. You've you know, you're gonna buy the strap and the base plate and And now

23:22 You wanna think about okay. what other things can we offer? How can we make other accessories or come up with other solutions? Yeah. For photographers. Yeah, because you know, one everybody always says, you know, one product is not a business make. Um and we we understand that and Hernan's answer, you know, try to build this direct to consumer kind of uh relationship.

23:46 Confidence, whatever. That is really what we've been trying to do over the last year. You know, grow the company organically. make sure that we're we're offering really good customer service, we're getting the orders out on time. You know, we're kind of scaling really, really slowly so that we can

24:04 Get those all important five star reviews. And so I kind of w what I expected to hear was Oh, you you gotta sell as many straps as possible, go retail everywhere, you know, c increase volume, increase it, increase it, increase it. But You do that at your own peril because you you could end up with you know a lot of unhappy customers. Yes, and and also you start to get like if you go through Amazon as well, um

24:30 You know, eventually you're gonna get knock offs. But it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do that. I mean I I think that What's interesting about this product is it's something that photographer I think photographers are are going to love, right? If they see it. And it makes sense that you're gonna go after B and H or specialty stores where photographers already trust the store. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

24:54 To me I think the the The retail play is important, but I agree with Hernan, is is the d direct consumer here is what's What's interesting, but You gotta expand the product line. Right. And what I was going to uh the reason why I asked you the question of if they look distinctive is

25:09 I was going towards a marketing idea, which is how do you get The product. In the hands of photographers who have A strong

25:20 Instagram or YouTube audience As a subject. because B and H is the ideal retailer for you, but there are not many B and H

25:32 uh B and H is around the um around the wall. I mean Best Buy perhaps, but the There isn't a brand where people could Go and discover your product. And without seeing it in action, understanding what he does. Yeah.

25:45 Right. Yeah, and so we've we've really worked the influencer angle. We have uh, you know, national geo um influencers and So But you know, there is that all important, you know, cost of acquisition and um you know, we do have to spend money on Instagram and and with meta ads and And we're ramping sales, you know, they're going up.

26:09 They're not probably going up like the hockey stick curve that you wanna see. But it it may be too early for that, you know, like how do you deal with inventory shortages and things? You know, you can't just sell a hundred thousand straps when you don't have them landed in the United States. So you know, for me and d just to go to to Hermann's thing though about visibility and recognition You know, the more that we get Those the the strap into

26:37 prominent photographers hands that other people notice. It's like, oh look at it there's one of those lemur straps. then obviously that can create like sort of a viral moment. Mm. I I do think it's worth uh and you may have heard this episode be done, Viore That brand uh the story that they told early on was very clear and it's similar here, which is

26:59 uh you know Joe Cuddler uh s surfs and exercises and runs and and also like wants to be around his kids and he wanted one pair of shorts and and he created that. That was the idea. And he went to yoga in the same pair of short, right? He would swim and whatever And he did that. And you your story as a photographer and and as somebody who had this problem will resonate obviously with photographers'cause they all have this problem. And so I feel like you want to tell your story and the craft behind this product. Um I think that that would be

27:33 r would be worth kind of leaning into Um especially on on social media. Literally you saying Tell that story in in fifteen, twenty seconds, just like that. Yeah, that's an interesting addition to like what we have been doing. It what we have been doing

27:49 works and then all of a sudden it doesn't work and then it works again. And so but this is a a nice kind of like arrow to put in the quiver. Just kind of this um the the founder's story and make that a prominent part of our outreach. Yeah, I like that. I would Again, encouraged the the

28:08 Overarching advice is yes, leaning to retail. Don't overdo it. Uh huh. go very strategically into the places where you can find consumers that otherwise would not become aware of you. uh the minute that you overexpose your product

28:26 You invite copycats and you cheapen your brand. Okay. Yes. That's great advice. The brand is called Lemur Strap. Uh Jim Kersley, thanks for calling in. Good luck. Thanks you guys.

28:38 Thank you for relations. We're gonna take another quick break, but when we come back, another caller with another question for a former guest. Stay with us, you're listening to a special mashup episode of the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to the Advice Line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my last return guest today is David Neilemann. He's the founder of not just one, but five different airlines, including JetBlue. David was first on the show back in 2019 to tell that story, and he's been on the show two more times, and we'll put a link to all of those episodes in the show notes. David joined me on the advice line to help a caller who was trying to create a new business model for tool rentals. All right, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with David Nealman.

29:35 Please introduce yourself, tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Yes, hi Guy. Hi David, thank you for having me on the show today. My name is William Carroll and I'm the co founder of Tool Club in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tool Club is a modern delivery first equipment rental service that gives DIYs and pros an easier way to access the equipment they need for their projects. We handle the delivery and pickup so our customers can focus on getting the job done without all the friction that typically comes with it. Cool, welcome to the show, Will. Thanks for calling in. Okay, so Tool Club It's a rental business. You're based in Cincinnati.

30:10 People can uh rent pretty much any tool that any power tool or heavy duty tool that they need to Do a DIY project. Yeah, anything from a power washer all the way up to a dump trailer or skid steer. Um we've got a catalog that spreads wide that hopefully will cover any homeowner or D I Y projects. Awesome. And are you uh this is your full time business? It is, yes. We launched um over the holidays last year. Um and this is my my full time uh operator job here. Awesome. Are you uh I imagine you're uh pretty handy

30:45 guy, I mean, what were you doing before this? Were you a contractor or were you doing this kind of work for people? Uh, to be honest, this is kind of a one eighty for me. Um majority of my career was actually in the golf industry. I was a PGA professional for many years. Wow, and then joined an equipment manufacturer on the sales side for about five years. Um and then, you know, reached reached a certain level in that industry and decided um to move on. And I'm a first time homeowner like my my brother and founder, and we just notice that any time a project comes up, there are some pain points involved, whether you're buying equipment, renting equipment, or hiring someone, um, we're hoping to create a solution that fixes all those pain points. Right. Because most people, um, they something happens in their house and they're gonna call somebody Right, most of the time. Uh, or if they're really handy, they might go and buy a piece of equipment that they might only use once every five years.

31:41 So I guess um your value proposition is hey, you don't need to do that. you can rent this stuff for a fraction of the price. It's high quality and and you don't even have to store it at your house. Exactly. Yeah, that's one of the big pain points when it comes to ownership is high upfront costs and then you have to figure out where you're gonna store it, maintain it, and most of the time it's a tool that you use once or twice and it sits there collecting dust most of the year. And you guys deliver the stuff to to homes? We do. We are a hundred percent delivery based. So that's our our biggest different differentiator between the uh standard rental systems in that we deliver and pick up the products. So eliminating any of those hassles that come into the kind of archaic rental industry that still exists today. Got it. All right. And your question for us?

32:29 Yeah, so tool ownership and traditional rent tools already exist, but tool club is really trying to introduce a new model centered around convenience and that delivery based access to equipment. So the question is, how can we change consumer behavior so that when a project does come up, People instinctively think about accessing tools through Tool Club instead of buying them or hiring someone. All right, David Neeleman, I want to bring you in here. Um I think you're probably pretty handy. I have a feeling you're pretty handy.

33:00 Yeah. Uh you have to be when you have uh You know, nine kids and y and you have um You know, so many projects that come up at home for sure.

33:11 Yeah. All right. So Will's got this I think it's a great um a great business idea, right? He's uh but how do you get people to change their behavior, right? When when uh'cause oftentimes uh you don't there's a project you can plan for, like you wanna retell your bathroom or or or you wanna redo your deck or something, but sometimes things happen and you're just like oh God, this the wall is leaking. I gotta fix this. So how do you start to get people to think instinctively of about like I gotta call the tool club rather than like oh I gotta go to home depot or I gotta go to call up the Yeah, the plumber.

33:43 Yeah, I I'm just sitting here thinking, you know, obviously once somebody does it. Uh they'll do it over and over again. I assume you have a lot of repeat business. Of people coming back. We are still very much in the early startup phase. Um, you know, launching last year over the holidays and unfortunately we had a pretty harsh winter here in Cincinnati. Luckily that is starting to change. So we have a little bit of initial consumer base um in our initial inventory, but

34:10 Because of that kind of harsh weather, um and just getting into the spring, our our revenue is a little bit uh low at the moment. Yeah. So I think I think I don't know, one idea would be Come up with some projects That Um

34:25 There The people charge a lot for And maybe what you would do is create those projects and do them and show the tools that you would use to do it on social media. Have a

34:40 have an Instagram thing and you could become The Mr DIY at home? And let me show you the tools that you need and you can Be it uh tiling a floor or

34:54 Lang cement or what whatever things that uh Somebody would charge a lot of money for it. And you could talk about I bid this out It cost fifteen thousand dollars and I was able to do it for four thousand dollars. And look at this beautiful floor that we were able to do and these are the tools that you would use. I think that's a great idea. I think you could do two you could do two different paths. You can appeal to two different kinds of customers, right? You know, the people who are who are

35:18 capable of retiling their bathroom floor, who know how to do it and who and who, you know who want to save thousands of dollars by doing it themselves. But there's also the other kind of customer who's not necessarily super handy, but could probably power wash their deck. Right. So I don't know, before winter, right? And I think it cost me

35:42 I don't know, five hundred bucks. It was not cheap, right? And and um Uh they did a great job. It's clean. It was clean. Now it's back to, you know We're not back to it. I'm looking at your website, I could have just gotten a power washer for a hundred bucks. And done it myself. And I could do that. I mean, it's not really

35:58 Yeah, if you're experienced you might be a little bit better, but If I could save five hundred bucks. I'd do it myself. Exactly. I would really lean into those use cases and see if

36:09 Both on your website social media. you can basically do videos on it, you know, just fun little videos, um, maybe with some friends and be like Hey. Why you know, I could get my I I somebody calling up, it's five hundred bucks to power wash, I gotta call the tool club

36:25 And then and then you guys show up and you're like, Yeah, for a hundred bucks you could do this all yourself. You know, just something simple like that, um that most people or like yard cleanup, you know, you got leaf blowers. Something like that. You know, c getting somebody to To do all that leaf blowing for you. It costs a few hundred bucks. You're w how much is it to rent a leaf blower? Thirty five bucks?

36:46 We have a couple of different options, but they start as low as thirty dollars. I mean great. Give me the thirty five dollar leaf blower and some trash bags, I'm good to go. Absolutely. That anyone could do. And save a bunch of money and and really make their place look a lot better.

37:04 But being on YouTube and video and and have having people just click through your videos and see all the things they could do in their house using your tools and then you create that repeat business and word of mouth Where You know You may even have some neighbor kids that want to start a power washing business using your equipment and making some money.

37:23 Yeah, I think as you're starting your business too, you wanna make sure to collect email addresses, right? Will so Yeah, we I got uh Uh I got my grill cleaned. Because that's a big pain in the butt. I should have done it myself but it could take me hours and hours. So I called this company and and they didn't like an hour and a half and it it's sparkling clean. It was really expensive.

37:44 They're so smart. twice a year I'm getting an email from them saying, Hey, it's time to clean your grill. And it's usually just at the right time, I mean You could have uh um you know a message that people get. Hey, spring is coming.

37:58 Uh book your power washer now to get ready to spend time outdoors. Um and so you really want to focus on those first time users get their information and you follow up. And you can offer credit. a you know, credit for the next project to get people Motivated.

38:13 Not to be like annoying, but to say, Hey We're we we're here for you. You know, any any time you need us, we're here for you. Yeah, absolutely. Those are great ideas. And we use currently a Shopify stack that does capture all of that data. Um, and we've been doing some regular newsletters and and and anything we can to grow our awareness. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know about I don't know about in Cincinnati or or in Provo, David, but there's a shortage.

38:39 of contractors in the Bay Area. It is really hard to find them. Uh,'cause you know, cost of living's high and contractors. They charge a lot here. Uh so the lot m a lot more people are doing DIY stuff. And that's another area where, you know, some contractors uh uh d they're just they're they don't have the capacity. So it's possible you may wanna go to contractors and say, Hey

39:02 When there's overflow or you don't have capacity, like and you've got DIY clients Um refer us and and maybe we can work with you guys if you know if you guys need equipment on a project. Absolutely. I I think you know, just just thinking, you know, I w on the theme of these children that

39:17 Getting away from screens and video games and all that. Maybe There could be a little business here where Where you could enlist kids in the neighborhood to do m lawn mowing and Leaf cleanup and power washing.

39:32 where you could provide them the equipment to do that. And and then they pay you for it and you do because maybe they wanna do it. They just don't have the know how But you could create little entrepreneur clubs where kids are actually out doing Work using your equipment and you make money, they make money and and the homeowner pays less. Absolutely. We've we've talked about offering the services or being a people connector of some sort. Um, certainly recognize those areas of extra revenue and and then

40:02 the thought that um contractors to your point um are are very behind in their schedules and sometimes they can't accommodate people. So um those are areas that we're looking into absolutely. Awesome. Uh well the brand is called the company's called Tool Club. Will Carroll. Thanks for calling in. Good luck, man. Thank you very much. Congrats. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this special mashup edition of The Advice Line, and special thanks to Chae Wong, Hernan Lopez, and David Neilman for joining me today. Again, if you haven't heard their original episodes or their full episodes of Advice Line, you'll definitely want to check them out. We'll have links to all those episodes in the show notes.

40:39 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 are 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 that you're 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 1800-433-250. One two nine eight. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well.

41:16 This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramteen Arab Lui. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Cina Lafredo. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Carla Estevez, JC Howard, Sam Paulson, Catherine Seifer, Chris Massini, Alex Chung, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line. right here on how I built this lab.

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