Advice Line: Tapping AI as a Resource for Your Business

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/f1f9df93ef7336ac

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. And this week, we're bringing you a special mashup episode featuring three returning guests and three new callers.
You'll hear advice in using AI to grow your business and new ways to break through a crowded social media landscape.
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. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.
You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com, and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at gyras.com.
and we'll put all this info in the podcast description.
Alright.
Let's get to it.
Our first guest is Randy Hetrick, he's the founder and the guy who actually invented TRX.
Randy first came on how I built this back in 2017, and he told this wild story about being a Navy SEAL on a remote assignment.
Rigging an old jujitsu belt to a door
And basically creating an entirely new way to work out wherever you are.
It's an awesome episode. We'll put a link to it in the show notes, or just search TRX in our feed.
And as you'll hear, Randy's also exactly the right person to talk about how to get a product in front of more people.
and actually get it noticed.
Uh, Randy, let's bring in our first caller to the advice line. Please tell us your name.
Where you're calling from and just uh one line about your business, please.
Thanks. Hi Guy and Randy. It's so great to be with you today. My name is Shireen and I co-founded Moji Masala with my husband JD.
We are a family owned and operated business based in Philly.
We started Moj Masala to make it super easy for anyone to make authentic, delicious, homemade Indian food from scratch.
It's a very intimidating process often and a little complicated, but with Mojima Sal, you just take one of our 14 pre-measured spice packets, you buy a few produce items.
You use our recipe to make one specific Indian dish that serves three to five people.
And the they are my mom's heirloom recipes that I spent
two years beta testing to actually create the final product.
Nice.
Wow, congrats. Well welcome um Shreen, thanks for calling in. So basically
These are spice packets and you mix them with uh like
oil or clarified butter or and and add them to a meat or or or vegetable. Yeah. It's a simple process, but it's actually you're actually cooking the dish as if you like opened up a recipe in a cookbook and they said gave you like this list of fifteen spices and gave you the like eight steps. Yeah. So the hardest part of Indian food is actually
aggregating the spices, having a recipe for the blends.
and then just like knowing what to do with it.
our product packaging is very informative. It has like a shopping list on the back.
and a QR code that goes to uh the actual recipe and a cooking video. So there's no guesswork, there's no leftover spices. You're literally just using
our product to create like kind of a magical dish and experiences so seamless
That I think it's almost like alarming to people to actually have this experience. By the way, when did you start the business?
So we
really were ready to launch right in late twenty nineteen, right before COVID. And then coming out of Covid the last couple of years is really when we've pushed hard on our
Online but also on retail expansion. And is this your full time job? Is this what both of you guys, you and your husband are working on?
This is my full time job. Um it's it's my
Husband.
half time job I would say and my full time job. Yeah, it's a second career for me. That's awesome. So you launched in twenty nineteen. Tell me a little bit about and um and are you mainly selling online and through Amazon and retailers or break break that down for me.
Yeah, we started online and naively thought we could like get the ground running online. I think it became pretty clear that unless we had like a million dollars that we really had to we really needed a retail strategy.
We got into Citarella about a year ago, which is a seven store chain throughout New York, Connecticut, and the Hamptons. We also got into Fresh Direct.
Yeah, and we are in some uh a we, which is a Asian online retailer. So sure. We've done we on the on the show. Yeah. Yep. And tell us what your question is, what's your pain point that you're looking for help with.
Yeah, so Randy, our instrument demos have been very successful. We have a sell the rate of over ninety percent when someone samples our product and actually gets to try it.
And we're attracting a wide spectrum of customers, busy families, young people wanting to try something new, vegetarians, vegans.
Uh, so Randy, just like you had to teach people not only what your product was, but how to use it. We're trying to figure out how to reach this broad array of potential customers that we can't get with a live demo.
And we'd love your input on that.
W well f first of all, Cereen, your description has me salivating. I I'm I'm realizing that uh
Indian for lunch would be
Exquisite right now. Um how are you guys getting um
your kind of
How are you?
Promoting it early.
Like what's what are you guys doing right now to promote the brand?
So right now the
The single biggest thing we do is because we have retailers that we wanna support. We have a very hub and smoke model for that. We show up regularly at the stores doing the demos, letting people try it.
In terms of spending money, we're on Amazon and then we paid like
you know, highlighter Amazon where uh we pay, we do Google to like high our website is it's not a flat website, it's a very interactive website.
And because you need to access our recipes and our video.
So paying sort sort of lead people to our website is is productive as far as hopefully leading to sales.
So I'm
I pulled up your website as soon as you started talking and it it it's it's friendly and it's inviting and and what I was hoping you were gonna say is got is exactly what you said, which is you're out there sampling. Yeah. Right. And
Because to me
Something like
I mean
You guys are are you guys
profitable at this point.
on a just on a on a monthly operating basis, or are you you know how are you
financing this in other words. Yeah, so the way I the it's self financed, you know, because I had a long career we did have savings. That's not a bottomless sort of bit of savings. So it you know, we have to be smarter about our next steps. But one of the things I was really important to me was that the product
be profitable. Like so when I s when we sell this product, it is profitable. Now of course
There's I don't know how to think about and this is also I'd love your input, like all the other costs associated with that, you know, as far as marketing and you know, maybe you have to go do trade shows which are thousands and thousands of dollars and so forth. It's very easy to be to have sorry. Here's where here's where I wh
Where I was gonna go with this is that
You know, I the reason I asked the question about profitability is because if you don't have
You know, outside investors that are that are for instance your
Ticking clock.
Right, that y that forces you to do things. You're in a great position right now.
If
If you have a really great product and it certainly
Sounds like it and and looks like it.
The question is, how do you get
that trial.
And
I would say to you, given that you don't have
external pressures really on you. What's the rush?
The best way to do this, right, is to is to be out there on the ground.
Letting people try your product. And then and then
You know, showing them that you have a website, because obviously you have to be a little bit careful about going into a to a a retailer's establishment and then trying to drive people to your website. So you gotta be a little bit careful about that.
The I think that the idea of
Figuring out how to scale your sampling program.
Is to me
A better
And much more
Um
sort of long lived.
Way to get
Customers who are gonna fall in love with you'cause
Look, you can spend a lot of money putting your
your foods avatar in front of me.
But if I can't smell it and I can't taste it.
It's lost in the noise. Whereas if you put it in my mouth and I'm like, Oh my gosh
This is delicious.
Now you've got me.
Right. So to me, I would spend less time at the moment, given where you guys are.
uh doing paid media.
And more time.
Actually having people get their get your product in their mouth.
Yes. No, I I love that you have that reaction because I think instinctively we think that and we're two people and I'm
You know.
we had the opportunity, for example, to go national
We deferred that because it's just take takes a lot of money, and we knew.
We can't have success without demos.
And that would mean probably hiring a demo team. So and then I was like, Of course, who's who's going to represent on a demo team the way I can, probably nobody and then it was like, Oh, then we have to train them, so on and so forth. So it's it became
A bigger idea, but then also more murky as to is that the way to do it? Should I be hiring people, should I work with outside people?
should I just go myself and and and do like ten stores hard and do it all like me
Because I'm the one who's
Gonna sell fast.
Well, I don't think you're gonna be able to be the chief the sampler in chief all the time, right? I can tell you, having done that with my straps. It it you know, you you sort of run out of you pretty quickly.
But but you're gonna have

make some choices on where you spend your money.
Right,'cause you don't have a ton of it and I don't think it would be prudent right now to go get a ton of it from someone else.
And
And then you know, I think that a little bit of money
Can
Probably go
a fairly long way in
In a in an organic
Sampling.
Program.
And you'll know at the point at which you really start to have momentum and now you're like, Okay, how do we
Amplify this.
Uh and then you'll have the next decision to make, right? Do you do it through paid media or do you step up your sampling program?
You know, another level.
Yes. I think Randy, you're exactly right. I will just add to that that that you can do some of this concurrently. Like I'm not sure
that you need to do one before you do the next. Like I do think that it's true this is something you wanna sample. If people wanna smell this, it's gonna smell so delicious, right?
But
Here's the thing, and you know this. There is I my kids right now, as we speak, are in my house in the kitchen making steak sandwiches based on a YouTuber, right? Because they follow a youtuber and they told and they went to the store and got all the stuff and they're making sand so so many
People now
are making recipes based on what they're seeing on Instagram and YouTube. I'm talking about micro influencers who might be
You know, maybe maybe it's somebody who's just uh a really interesting food, you know, micro influencer a around food. And you and you work with them and you partner with them and you say, All right, we're gonna put like
twenty thousand bucks into this, which is no you know, no small amount of cash, right? But you say let's
Think really strategically.
Let's really kind of
find out who's out there. And by the way, you can use AI to help you with this to help you find and identify some of these m sort of medium to micro and a micro influencer somebody with like
ten to fifty thousand followers, right? Yes. You you do want people to smell this and try this, but you want people to see it too. And it's hard to scale a say an in an in store demo, right?
The way to do it is through the right
partner and food influencers are enormous. There's it's still a grow it's as far as I understand
It's still a growing sector in a a lot of these social media platforms.
But it's a good point you make, Guy, because we we have worked with influencers, but I hadn't really put the number around it the way you have, and I think
As opposed to three hundred here, five hundred there, let's see what we get. Really sort of saying, Okay
We're gonna have a twenty thousand dollar budget for
Fifteen months and really maybe go deep with two or three people with that. I don't know if that would go. And spend the time really uh following these people and looking at what they're doing.
And seeing how much engagement they're getting. Oftentimes people put their their engagement numbers right there on on their Instagram or TikTok. Um you can see how many views they have. So
I would start
By doing some search searches and looking at so AI and having them help you and having it help you and then
looking at some of these influencers and picking a few and just saying, you know what, we got twenty grand to work with over the next year
And we're gonna start to seed this cash. Yeah, I love that idea. What where I was sort of thinking more that I would shy away from is doing
sort of big paid ad buys. Yeah.
Right. Because I think I think, you know, spending a bunch of money on
you know, f on Facebook platform or any other platform to
to take an ad.
And project it.
isn't really where you need to be right now. I totally agree with Guy that if you can find, you know, some fun, quirky uh
Uh food e
Influencers.
With followings. Yes. And get them to show just how cool and easy and tasty this thing is to use. That would be a great way to do it and you wouldn't spend a bunch of cash. It's great advice.
Shiring cartry, the brand is called Mojimasala, congrats. Good luck. Thank you so much for calling in.
Thanks so much.
All right. Thanks.
This to me is such a
great product because it's not um it's it's not
process. It's just it's a spice blend.
And it and it gives you the step by step instruction. So it's really cool. It's really great.
a fun job on what you're talking about without any influencers. They were trying to create the the persona and they're spending a lot of money um was Hello Fresh, right? Which some of the stuff that they did with meals where you would watch their kind of
their what what looked to be you know organic user
uh content.
But showing just how easy it is to put it together and it really made you wanna made you really made you wanna do it. And so I I love the idea of of of using actually some micro influencers instead of paid media.
Yes.

We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, a jigsaw puzzle brand gets social media advice from the founder of a restaurant chain worth billions of dollars.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to a special mashup episode of Advice Line.
on how I built this lab.

Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz.
So up next is Todd Graves, the founder of Raising Cains, the fried chicken tender chain.
Todd first came on the show back in 2022, and we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes.
And what's always stuck with me about his business is how he built a billion-dollar business without constantly changing the menu or adding a bunch of new options. And as you'll hear, Todd has a lot to say about why staying focused on your core business.
is often the real key to long term success.
Alright, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Todd Graves. Uh tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a line or two about your business.
Hi Guy, hi Todd. I'm Valerie. I'm calling from Boise, Idaho.
I am a co-owner, co-founder of three unique new jigsaw puzzle companies, Lear About Life, Large as Life, and Laugh with Life.
Our company creates conversation starting jigsaw puzzles that spark laughter, curiosity, and connection through play.
Awesome, Valerie, thanks for calling in. All right, large as life, these are jigsaw puzzles.
Yes. Am I am I to assume that they are large as life? They're giant jigsaw puzzles? Yes. So
Uh that was our first line that we came up with in 2024.
They are life size animal.
Jigsaw puzzles, fifty pieces, so they're the large pieces and there is a trivia question about the animal on the back of every piece. Wow.
What what animals do you guys have make puzzles out of? So we just have three
out to start out with we have a red panda we have a king penguin and we have a koala
And right now in production we have a life size bald eagle with a six foot wingspan. That one's a hundred pieces, a hundred trivia questions that should be coming out this year by the end of the year. We're not doing a blue whale yet.
Not yet. Um
Might be a little cost prohibitive. Yeah.
Uh so how tell me how this uh business came about, how'd this idea come about? Yeah, so my sister in law Courtney
She was visiting Yellowstone.
And
She
made note in her mind passing all of these.
don't get so close to the bison signs, which people unfortunately often ignore. And she was just thinking about that and she went into the gift shop and she thought, you know what, I wish there was
Something that I could bring home.
That we could
Undo on our kitchen floor, we could lay down next to it and see the scale of the size.
And we could have a life size bison and then put it all back in a box and put it on a shelf.
And she is uh mom of four and a
teacher as well, and so she's
you know, done lots of puzzles and such. She said, Oh, this is a
The perfect idea life size animal puzzles. And I'm assuming these are sold on your website? Yes. So we started out um
Fulfilling orders through our website, realized that
Since nobody knew who we were.
Um, we weren't getting many sales on our website and once we got started on Amazon, which was about June of twenty twenty four.
We just moved all our sales there for simplicity and
Sales tax remittense ease and things like that.
So right now we have a website and our products link all the all to our Amazon accounts.
Yeah. And tell us a little bit about how the business is doing. G give us a sense of what your sales are right now.
Sure. So twenty twenty four
Since starting on Amazon.
In June.
We made about thirty thousand dollars.
And revenue.
Um and then
This year
were projected to definitely be m more than that. I don't know if it will quite hit double that.
Um, it's kind of hard to tell because some of our additional products just came out right at toward the end of quarter four last year and we're just starting puzzle season, so it's hard to get a
Um
accurate estimate of what we think we might
be projected to do this year, but
All right, before we di dive in a little bit more, uh tell us your question. Yes.
So my question is
Our three puzzle brands all share the same heart.
But they have distinct personalities.
As we create a parent company.

I'm wondering what's more effective for social media strategy.
Is it one unified account under the parent brand?
Or separate accounts that let each brand speak directly to its audience.
And just to be clear, you've got the animals
Yeah. Puzzles and then you mentioned trivia puzzles. Yes. So we have these life size animal trivia puzzles.
Then we have uh
Laug with life line that incorporates jokes as well. And then
Uh learn about life that's just trivia on a variety of topics. And you're promoting all of these separately, separate social media channels to separate audiences?
Currently, yes.
Even though there's a
connecting component that they all have a conversational element integrated in them and they all have the same high quality standards and everything else.
I'm not sure.
Do I just
Stick with each
Focus of each
of those brands or do I put'em all in one where it's easier to find, but maybe it looks a little bit more
Got it. I want to bring Todd Graves in here. You guys have mastered social media. It's amazing with with Keynes.
So thoughts, questions for Valerie?
Yeah, so Valerie when you when you said it's distinct, you know, it's distinct audiences uh between the three brands.
Right. And so if you have three different, you know, social channel. I mean, you know, literally are they separate voices. So I mean, are you having um was to say, for example, if you had some influencers would want would would they be like that? Are you marketing'em very differently? Or are you just showing your product
to the different audiences and it resonates because they're into animals or into laughter or what or I think it's more the latter. I mean I've had some influencers
I've had some home school.
Moms and um home school influencers on the one channel.
And then I've had some people who are
big into maybe speed puzzling or thousand piece puzzle collectors who have
shown our product on some of the other lines.
But
I can't say that overall we've had
any huge push that totally pulls us away from puzzling in general.
Okay. So so I I'll just give you some experiences. I mean look, I think we're pretty good at social media for canes. Um and but that's what I know.
We we feed
the people and and our customer demographics range from
Uh old elderly couples that like to come into the restaurant'cause we're reasonably priced and I like our friendly crew and look, everybody likes fried chicken, right? And and cane sauce. But then that goes down to all the way to kids, right? And so there are social media. I don't do different social media
you know, s handles to where you go to different different type deals. We only have it's three. One is Raising Caine's corporate account, one is mine.
Right, the the founder and one is my dog, Kane Three, right, our mascot. But we collab constantly and we reach
sports fans.
We have people that love, you know, uh actors and actresses that are going around. We have people that like all forms of music, right? We have we have people with so many different interests. What your uniting forces are people that like puzzles and and and like to have fun, right? And like to do things. I think the people that
Would like the you know the trivia based or the fun side would also love to see some beautiful puzzles of uh bison that are life size. I think all that can go together.
And actually creates more content for an interesting content.
your audience versus I'm just watching the one that I'm with the whole homeschool group and this is educational, they're missing out on seeing the bison, they're missing out on on seeing these other ones. And I think the core goes together and I think when you can focus on that, it's kind of more of a win for everybody. And I also think expands your sales because I think they look across your products and say, hey, you know, it would be fun for us to do that tabletop puzzle.
Yeah. And let's buy that. That's just my opinion. Thank you. Yeah, I c I t I totally agree. I mean social media isn't necess isn't necessarily about products.
It's about stories, right? Yeah. Uh people people are looking for like a vibe, you know, or a personality.
But I think what you are selling is an emotional thing. It's an experience. You're selling
Families together.
gathering together. Fa it's family time, right? That's that's what your brand is. That's what your product is. It's not puzzles. It's not even the ten other things you might make. It's the time
that a parent and a child or parents are gonna take
to gather around and and make this stuff and be together.
And that's really what what your brand is, right? That's and that's why you wanna speak about that with one voice. Does that make sense? Yes.
Yes. Yeah, and then you can also you focus your you know, like content, right? You can focus on interesting things that all puzzle people and all all families lie together. Like let's say who's the fastest puzzle builder, right? Takes your thousand piece puzzle and does it in
you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever that puzzle is, it's about that's exciting that someone did it. As a family, let's try to do it quicker, right? Valerie had so and so on and showed us how to do puzzles quick. And you can and and that's that that's unified across all your your audience. And that's also to what people start sharing. So I'd hate you to do that one idea.
on the one thousand puzzle thing that goes to the one audience and then the animal lovers didn't ever ever see that, right? You want it you want that and the engagement goes and you got more people talking about it and more people that will then start following you.
Right. And then when they share it and they engage it and they comment on it, that's when it really the algorithms really kick up.
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I I mean I even noticed you've got different websites for for Laugh With Life and Learn About Life and
I mean
It would just
save you time and money and just uh just you know br brain space by just putting it all under one I I would put everything on on the the main site, the Largest Life.
Or pick one. W whatever one has the most traffic.
And you

You make that your brand.
Yeah.
That makes a lot more sense, um, in terms of ease as well as
More people getting to see what we have to offer.
when I focus on the common elements and common themes of puzzling and togetherness, it
Close.
Yeah.
Yeah, if it flows throughout all of'em, right? And it's like I said, you know, you you you people should know what you stand for, right? We're puzzle people.
And but we're really about family spending time together, doing something very fun that goes through that. That's our core, right? And then your products, and you can keep adding products, right? Other puzzles might hit another group of fan base and things like that, but it's one voice that goes through. And also, too is you know, holiday time's coming up. So I'm already thinking about how do I order your puzzles, right? But if I have one place to go look at it.
I got a nephew that's so into sports, right? But I also have
a daughter that's so into animals. So like a a life size boss bison on the floor, that's gonna be a blast. But if I had to go to different places and look at that, I couldn't order for the five or six people I want to do. And the people that when they all come to the house, they can all open the different puzzles and I got you know people that are into trivia and all that. They can all we can all like do all those together. But we had one spot and I bought six things versus I only knew about the one.
Right. That's a really great point.
Well, currently we can't you know, they're all sold on Amazon.
So that's one one stop shop for them.
but there's nowhere to find them all in one place before you go there. So I completely see what you're saying. That's a perfect um
recommendation. Thank you. Awesome. All right. Large as life, Valerie A uh Abinroth, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Thank you so much. And if I could just mention real quick, I have listened to your show for so many years, guy. It's been
So motivational, inspirational for me. I'm so grateful. I just appreciate so much you sharing your stories and guy you giving the
Platform.
For us to be able to hear these and be inspired by them.
Thank you for letting us know. Really appreciate it. That's why we do it. We do it for that for those reasons. Thank you for calling in. Good luck, Valerie Thank you know, but V Valer doing that, that's a good question, right? Uh in in and doing it. Um I think that was some good advice for her and uh and to bring it all together. I think she'll see some good success.
over that I you know hope for her too is that getting the word out is is is the thing, right? And uh that can be done cheaply through influencers and doing and then she should, you know, hit her local sources to get as much news and press as she can. She's got a great story.
Right. And they're doing doing well. She just she needs she needs say what she needs. She needs more people knowing about it.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, a caller gets some great AI advice that could change how she builds her product.
Stick around, you're listening to a mashup episode of the Advice Line on how I built this lab.
Hey, welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz. So our last returning guest is May Shu. She's the founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle, and May first came on the show back in 2017, and we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes as well.
May's story is incredible. She's a Chinese immigrant who got her start in the candle business.
by experimenting with scents and then pouring wax literally into Campbell's soup cans in her basement, and the company really took off. She eventually sold it for$75 million. And in a moment, you'll hear May bring that same inventive thinking to a new challenge.
She helps brainstorm how AI could help grow a very niche toy and book business.
Alright, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Meishu. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just uh one line about your business, please.
Hi Guy Hi May. I'm Avni Molise Ring from New Jersey.
I am the co founder of Mothi Toys, a brand that helps Indian families in the diaspora stay connected to their roots.
through our plush choice and matching children's books inspired by Hindu culture.
Welcome to the show. Thanks for calling in. Alright, because so you make
plush dolls that are designed for
uh Indians who are
Practicing Hindus?
Correct. Uh it's primarily for um the Hindu community. Of course, not everyone that's Indian identifies themselves as Hindu and vice versa.
We've noticed that those living outside of um India really resonate with our products because they are the ones who have this
deep rooted connection to one to stay connected to um the Indian roots.
Got it. Okay. And these are plush dolls that are uh t tell me a bit more about them.
Yeah, so um these are plush toys um that when you squeeze their belly, they sing five sacred uh ancient Hindu mantras.
And we have a collection of a total of seven, and they come in three sizes, the mini, the medium, and the mega. And they also come with a corresponding uh children's book, which is written in rhyming verses.
So it's really meant to introduce uh the Hindu culture to kids in a really fun, accessible way.
And the plush choice are are w portra are there animals? Tell me w uh describe them a little bit. Yeah, so if you're familiar with Greek mythology, how there's like you know, Zeus the god of war, Venus the goddess of love. Similarly in Hinduism, each god and goddess also represents um some qualities. So Ganesh
um which is the elephant headed god. Um, but Ganesh um is the most
most widely known. Um he is considered to be um the god of good luck, the one that is w who's uh most widely worshipped. We have Hanuman, the god of strength, we have Dirga the goddess of protection
So um, you know, what we have learned is that
Although we design the toys for kids because of what they symbolize.
They really resonate with people of all ages within the Hindu community.
Mm.
I was looking I mean massive addressable market, there's over a billion Hindus on the planet, but it sounds like you're focused on diaspora.
And maybe
And he's living in the West? We definitely have uh the biggest market here in the US. Um and in fact my co-founder who's my brother, he moved back to India with his family really to try to grow the market there in India specifically, because we learn just, you know, through the demands that we were seeing from customers there
that they want our products there as well. So um we know that there is a global market, but you know, um I think in terms of the price point and who the messaging connects with the most.
Is the diaspora.
And how much does it cost?
Um, so our toys range anywhere from sixteen fifty for the mini size.
to uh fifty five dollars the mega size.
And we can call them as bundles.
And you started you launched this in twenty eighteen, you said? Correct, in late twenty eighteen.
And how how m um what what are you guys doing in sales per year? Um so that's kinda what leads me to my question. Um please, yes. Yeah
So uh we did really well um when we first launched. We saw strong year over year growth through organic buzz and just through the community love.
um with little to you know no paid ads between twenty eighteen to twenty twenty one. In fact we hit nearly a million dollars in sales in twenty twenty one.
But over the last three years, sales have declined, uh, despite us launching more SKUs, um, investing in marketing and expanding to India.
So my question is how do we re reignite growth and scale strategically and reach your true potential?
All right, May Shu I wanna bring you in. Um this is it's interesting'cause it's obviously
A doll that is directed towards a specific community, but a huge community, right? I mean in the US alone, I was seeing there's there's three
three and a half million Hindus. So um you know interesting opportunity there.
Um, I'm always curious, do you see um
a competition usually, you know, th there there might be someone that you cultivated over the years.
Um we have definitely inspired copycats in the in the past couple of years, but I don't think they are the reason why our sales have declined. Um, I think the reason why we did so well initially is because we grew uh tremendously on social media. And of course, you know, the algorithms are are
constantly evolving so you can't really control you know how many people you're reaching through social media. But you know in twenty twenty two
onward is when we start seeing the decline. So I think some of it is macroeconomic conditions as well.
but you know it still doesn't address the fact that we've continued introducing new products, which is really important in the toy industry.
So where is the disconnect coming from is what I'm trying to understand.
like resources do you have to work with, like marketing resources? Like do you have
You know
Can you spend um you know?
twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars is a lot. I'm just curious.
Um, we actually do um spend almost that much just on Google and Meta ad. Um I am the marketing team, I am the marketing internet and the marketing CMO. But but yeah, I mean that's the extent of money that we spend currently on marketing. We do email marketing and payouts.
I I uh obviously I wanna be sensitive because I'm not I'm I you know, I I don't know all the nuances of of of every, you know, r religious tradition, but I wonder whether I'm looking at this and I'm thinking
Especially with
AI technology and the ability
To create
Um
animations very quickly and cheaply. Like I see an opportunity to make animated
just little animated shorts like forty five seconds to two minutes.
That are tied to
to the tradition and and the culture.
You know it's like Paw Patrol.
doesn't make money from the cartoons. Yeah, they the movies do, but they make money from their selling lunch boxes and and and stuffed animals and pajamas.
You know, that's really w you you're basically
You know.
I it's a it's a obviously these are sacred
characters but they're characters, right? Like a and so to me it seems like there's an opportunity to really
try and reach especially audiences in in Canada and the United States and the UK where you've got a huge
Hindu uh diaspora
That uh have you ever thought about m g trying animation? Absolutely. So in fact, um the board books that we have to correspond with the plush toys we've
Um they're available on our YouTube channel completely for free. We've turned them into animated videos.
But just off of those those like seven books that we have. Um, but those videos have garnered, you know, hundreds of thousands of views. So we know that there's definitely a demand for that.
But we have not created um independent animated material that
unrelated to the books. But yes, absolutely that's something that we would love to do. But I don't know if it's
as um as easy um even with AI or or even I I can tell you that it's a lot easier than ever before. And and we do some of this with with my kids' company and I've even experimented with it. It's not perfect yet, but there's a lot you can do. And I wonder whether
It's worth kind of exploring that, seeing if you could take a little bit of the cash you have for marketing and seeing seeing if you could build a a few short videos just
m morality tales or cool, you know
Little stories that are revolving around
the you know, these characters but but animated that
tie back to what you're selling.
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's definitely a demand. In fact, I think um I recently heard that
the two or three of the top five YouTube channels in the world currently are kids channels.
So there's definitely a demand and market for that. I don't know and I I don't know how how it works on social media, but can you target Hindus? Can you target
People from India expats?
Um, absolutely. Uh you know, we're we're trying all possible avenues and we try so many. And in fact, um, you know, uh may one of the thing that really excited me when I learned you were gonna be on the show is that, you know, like you, I'm also an immigrant
I have no background in the business that I'm in. Um, I'm also in business with my sibling like you were with your sister.
Um and you know, we're also in the novelty business. Uh and but it doesn't have to be. Can I give you an idea? Maybe you would tell me if it works. It is Guy that inspired me.
What if you make this an interactive
AI driven.
conversational
Uh doll.
Because
Just making a doll at some point, you know.
There if there's no interaction with people
um they get tired of it and you can't really expend on just a doll. But what if you make it
So that
It's interactive. Uh a kid can ask questions about what do you what is this God stand for? And why would why are you important in the history of the culture? And how does that relate to each other? And what would you do if I have this situation? What would you do? So that using AI, it becomes a talking
God.
I want the one of those. Oh I I want one too now.
And you can have a subscription program where
You subscribe to one doll, you get one prize, you subscribe to two dolls, it's a it's a different
prize and each one stands for something
that can help you
Uh giving you different directions in life. Oh fascinating. So I have no idea how the
mechanics would work behind a technology like that. But that sounds really interesting because your right ring right now is somewhat static and that I can only sing these five monthres and that's it.
Um, but yeah, what if it was more interactive in almost like real time?
Yeah, it could be interesting. I mean th there you would probably need to raise some money to to to do the R and D, but you you know, an embedded chip in there that's wifi connected and, you know, essentially you've got a
A plush computer, right? And and that could be more I mean, you'd have to pr pr pr produce guardrails around that. You know, you'd want you want the doll to be focused on pr on primarily what it is, but um but it could be interesting.
Yeah, it would have come in the display. There are a lot of good engineers that's that's in the Hindu um uh culture and that's where you could build it um with with the resources back in your home country like I did, right?
It's not that you are an outsider. You have a very unique advantage that none of us have, which is

Cultural gap but also
having a a resilient workforce.
Yeah, I would also I was just one one last thing. From a just from a business perspective, right? And we talked about the addressable market here, and it's significant. I mean it's not insignificant at all.
I would also just think sort of in the long term as you look out on the horizon
if you're if you're focused on especially on on diaspora communities and on igniting interest in in Hindu culture and Indian culture
You you know, you've got books, you've got um
The the plush dolls, but
Think about
your business in a bigger way than just uh, you know, a business about dolls or books, but
A business about
g getting people to become more knowledgeable about their h history, culture and and and their religion. And so from that
that sort of thought process you build out
other product, other things, other
um offerings that that also feed into that mission.
Absolutely. Um we are definitely looking at building out more digital content um that will be available for purchase as well, but a lot of that came from content that we're putting out on our social media.
And we've noticed um that those posts that are educational in nature tend to um have the most engagement in terms of saves and shares. So and many people have actually asked like I wish this was like available like in a book format so that I could just like easily access it. So that's exactly what we're doing and we're turning
Converting all that into a digital downloadable asset.
Nice.
Uh, May Shu, any last thoughts?
No, I think you're hitting a great um core, I think, with uh with this uh cultural bound.
knowledge based, but uh could be very AI driven and very interactive. I think that's the key words to be a

business model.
The brand is called Modi Toys. Afney, uh thanks so much for calling in.
Thank you so much for having me. Thanks.
Good luck.
Yeah, I mean it's it's a it's interesting because, you know, we we don't often get
products on a show that are are really targeting
a specific group, but I mean when you're talking about a group that is so large, I mean it is it's
It's like it's almost like you know
when your entire marketplace is just the United States, right? You can you can build
a a very robust company just in the US because there's three hundred million people, but if you're trying to build
you know, a massive brand in in like Norway with four million people. It's a little hard a little harder. You got you really have to export that, you know, throughout Europe. So
I know you recently interviewed my friend Larry that started We and I was just gonna say this is what happened, right? Um such a
very uh fringe idea back in twenty s seventeen or twenty fourteen, yeah.
Right, and for people who don't know that story, he sells uh he started out by selling
Asian pro del home delivered products like Asian food products. And now it's, you know, all kinds and different, you know, not just uh uh Chinese but Korean and things from Taiwan and Japan and and and and la um sort of Latino um food products and it so it's really interesting what they built.
Yeah.
Culture bound.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to this special mashup edition of The Advice Line, and special thanks to Randy Hetcherick of TRX, Todd Graves of Raising Canes, and May Shu of Chesapeake Bay Candles for joining me on the show.
And 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 in the show notes.
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 one eight hundred.
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This episode was produced by Ramel Wood with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edit by Andrea Bruce, our engineer was Cena Lafredo. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, JC Howard, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Roz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line right here on how I built this lab.