 We invested our own money. We were really fortunate. I mean, it's a sad, but a happy story. And some people put this in a way that I thought was so lovely. But it was June of 2017, our grandmother passed away, and she passed some money on top. And so we do this work. This is Started to Store Front, the podcast where we talk to business owners and entrepreneurs about the untold challenges of scaling a business. If you're enjoying this show, don't keep it a secret. Tell a friend about us, and if you haven't already, head over to the podcast app to give us a rating and a review. It really does go a long way in helping us get the word out. We've got great guests every week who offer candid looks at what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur, and hopefully you can take something away from their lessons. Today's guest is Chris Douglas, a co-founder of Rooted Shots, a brand offering plant-based wellness you can drink on the go. And he's got a special discounted offer for all of you. Cold and Flu Season is upon us, and Rooted Shots are a delicious way to keep your body running on all cylinders. Head on over to RootedShots.com to grab some for yourself. Now, back to the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast. We're here with Chris Douglas, co-founder of Rooted Shots. Rooted Shots. What is Rooted Shots? So Rooted Shots, and the idea for Rooted Shots basically sort of came out of a solution to a problem I was already experiencing. I've always listened to and read about entrepreneurs so I came across a problem in their life, right? And they created the solution to that problem. If I were to start a company, that's something that I really wanted to. So then you're passionate about it. Yeah, exactly. So he's like, you're actually fixing something for yourself as opposed to just like, I'm going to make this thing and then try to convince people to sell it. It's like, well, I've already sold myself on this now. Right. Now anybody can, you know, I'm certainly not the only person in the world who has you believe in it. Who has this need, right? Sure. But what happened was I, in college, I would drink, I get really bad colds. Okay. So I would drink one of those emergency packets like if I didn't see... Yeah. Drink in this pack. Every morning. Every single morning. Wow. And I was getting sick, morning had that. I think it was like, it really became like a wellness sort of ritual for me. And do you know a lot of people who are doing the same thing? When I tell this story, I hear from a ton of people like, oh, I'm in an emergency college. I don't know why, but I do hear that. I think it's the cure hangovers. A lot of people, but like, I know my wife does it. Whenever she gets on a plane, we're traveling. Yeah. And I've never done that. It's like, what do you mean? She's like, yeah, I just got to go get some emergency. Yeah. I'm like, for what? She's like, wait, I'm in sea. I'm like, why don't you eat an orange? And so she doesn't, you know, like, I don't know. I don't know anything about it. But anyway, a lot of people have the problem. My girlfriend does the same. She had not anymore, but she used to, you know, when we were traveling, she'd open her backpack and her five emergency packets. And I do think you're probably right. There was, I remember we would always drink emergency. It's like, it's become this like sort of, it became this wellness ritual. And then I was living out here and I've always been a health and wellness and food conscious person. And I started really trying to label from what I was eating, my body and one day I looked at the back of my packet and it's a nine gram packet and six to seven of those grams are sugar. Of emergency. Of emergency. And that's pretty universal around a lot of those like sort of busy. Okay. So three grams of it is the product. One and a half. One and a half. And the rest is just there to make it taste like sugary deliciousness. I mean, it was like, it was one of those like, well, that goes. Yeah. I stopped. I stopped. That's not the point, right? And sugar, sugar does not support the immune system. Like it feeds, it feeds bacteria. So if you're sick, it's actually counterintuitive to what you're trying to do. I was like, I'm not, I'm not doing that anymore. And I live close to a juice shop. And so I started walking over to this juice shop every single day or four to five times a week and buying these ginger lemon cayenne shots. What year was this? Probably 2000, like 16, 17. Okay. Okay. Three years ago. Two, three years ago. Yeah. I started drinking these shots just already. And they're expensive, right? They're not cheap. Four to six bucks. Okay. $5. Okay. And it's two ounces. It's just fresh, these ginger juice with the little lemon juice and cayenne pepper sprinkle on the top. Got it. It's an intense. How much is an emergency? The cost of like an emergency packet. Yeah. Or 50 cents. Okay. Got it. So there is like this wide sort of, there's the $5 expensive, like high luxury good. There's the 49, 50 cents. Sugar bomb. Sugar bomb. And then there's nothing. I didn't know that though. I was, I just, I just had a problem. So I was just like, okay, while I'm not doing this, I'm going to invest my money in this. And I was draining my wallet. It's kind of inconvenient. Not kind of. It's inconvenient. It's out of the way. You have to drive 5, 10, 15 minutes. You have to wait in the line. Yeah. To press it. By the time you get home, it's a 30 to 40 minute experience. And if anyone has a juicer knows, it's a pain, it's a huge pain to clean it and to get it right. And then take it apart. I'm almost lost in a 20 minute experience. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not going to, like the last thing I'm going to do is like, either getting in the car or like walking around your kitchen. Like you're laid up in bed or lay in front of the TV. Right. Sleeping. So my cousin, my co-founder, his name is Will. He was in New York. Shout out to Will. Yeah. Shout out to Will. Lots, lots of shout outs to Will. That was an integral part of his business. So, I'm always talking a lot more about Will. Nice. But he was out visiting and I was like, I also get a huge shot. And it was because I do that now. And as we're driving over, I was complaining about this exact problem. Yeah. Will was the one who said, would anybody done what you're describing? Would anybody made an organic plant-based emergency or has anybody made this dried organic juice shot? Yeah. And it was so obvious. My response was like, you know, I had a thought on that, but like, yeah, I'm sure somebody has. Right. I was just like, that makes so much sense. Like somebody's got it done. And so we got our shots. We went, we went home and we started Googling. Cause we'd always talked about like doing something. I don't know if you're really good at it. Let's see who's doing this. And literally, in that first day, we literally found nobody. And in the year and a half since we've found nobody. But in those like first couple hours, I was like, Will, this is an amazing idea. You should do this. And a good opportunity. There's no competition in the space. Right. Awesome. And there's already like, I wouldn't call them competitors, but there's like complimentary adjacent products. Like, like, coffee, like for dramatic. Okay. There's sort of this like plant wellness, fungus based world. And it's involving this large market, but there's one corner that's not being tended to. And so we literally bought the domain. And it's rooted. So once you did that, what was your first step? Did you guys start, I guess I don't even know how you'd begin to make the product. Right. So I was in, I was in sales for a kombucha company, which is. Well, Burt. Yeah. Well, Burt. Okay. It's a California local company. Another, another job here out there. California. Here in Alassens, there along Whole Foods, grab a can of local kombucha. And I was like, well, I was like, well, I was like, well, it's grab a can of local kombucha. Nice. It's very good. So I already had no health and wellness and connections in that space, but before we, we got to utilizing this connection to make something. And so I can show you a photo of that. I literally, there's a picture of my, my kitchen table and I started ordering freeze dried fruit. I started ordering dry organic ginger. I started ordering dry organic turmeric, everything is organic, organic cayenne pepper, organic black pepper. And I just started like, do you mash it? How do you, how do you get it to? Okay. So it's powdered form. You get it. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Got me and buying the spice, tearing the top off. Yep. I bought a scale off of the Amazon. I actually became my own little. Okay. Let's, let's see what I can figure out. Like two months later, I, I saw a little again and I, I brought all my powders with me. Actually security stopped me in the airport. My bag was just powder and like spices. I was like, what are you doing? I tried to explain to them and they just swapped it all. Like it doesn't, it's not explosive on you though. It was, it was, it made sense. I was like, this was weird. And so we started, we started teaming with these recipes. We started sort of honing it in. And we got to a point where I said a little bit, like I think our product is, is like a B minus. So we're going to be in terms of taste or in terms of, in terms of like taste, like we're pretty honed in on, on I think the amount of ginger, the amount of teamwork we want in some of our shops, you know, is we have always considered an approximate serving of ginger and approximate serving of ginger. Right. And before this is all starting, you're using your own money, you're funding it yourself to get the domain. We spent maybe $250, right? And are you, are you like starting the social media? Are you waiting to get the product? Okay. So you're just R and D phase. You have the domain, but. This was June of 2018. So this was a year and a half ago. Okay. And we didn't have a long team. So we really, at first we were like, let's go. And then we were like, if we're going to do this, let's really, let's really make sure that what we bring to market is, is something we can stand by and bring coming back to my kombucha experience. Something I recognized was the kombucha, I really, I sent me on the start, I'm subjective, but I really think I can say objective. It's some of the best tasting kombucha I've ever had. Yeah. And I noticed in meetings that if I poured it for somebody, like all I had to do was get them to put it in their mouth. As soon as they put it in their mouth, they were sold. Yeah. That's the, I think the hard part. I think people don't realize with beer or anything, right? I think if you can get it to taste good and you have around two to six varieties, whatever it might be, different flavors, then you're good. That's like the hard part because if you can get people to like it based on taste, now your issue moves from, can I make a good product to marketing? Right. And so you're, that's awesome. And that was really important to me. Yeah. There are plenty of products that have succeeded by tasting like crap and just convincing people they're good for them. Correct. Like you said, this can taste good and I can tell that they're good for them or mine. Yeah. And so I was like, we really need to take our time to make sure that what we launched is great. And so a conversation that I started having was, what if we enlisted it for the campus? What if we brought somebody in to take that product from that B, B minus B plus and elevated to an A. So when we walk into a meeting, we're not anxious, nervous about how the flavor of the product is going to be received. We're just, if you like this, which we think you will, like let's go, let's work, let's work through this. Yeah. Did you do that? We did. So we ended up doing, How do you find a food chemist? LinkedIn? It's an hilarious answer. Like Google. Like I literally just started Googling like, Were the LA, was it a firm or was it a person that you had to hire? So we reached out to like four or five different beverage formulation companies. That's actually. That's the term. Okay. Okay. We found, we found this one company. They're basically just like an hour north of LA. We're talking to some. We're talking to all these, all these different places. Ocean blue innovation. And they basically just understood what we were doing. They do a lot more web products. So this was going to be new for them as well. But it's, I just got the sense that like, they just launched a lemon water company. I got reference checks from that guy. I really got the sense that, okay, like, they can, they can elevate this. And we're not far, right? Right. You're close. Like our whole thing is like short ingredients list or organic plants. Like the rules of the world were very much already in place. All we needed them to do is take our measurements from a tenth of a milligram and like, you know, take it to, or not a tenth of a milligram, a tenth of a gram, take it all the way to a milligram. Right. Like like home down that recipe. Because you don't have those instruments at home to get that precision. Those are the nice scales. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a real understanding of like, how, you know, how do these different things, how does, how does a store of a gasset, which can work in orange and citric acid, how do these things all talk to each other? How do they all relate to each other? Yeah. So you take a meeting and is it, is it like a whole team that you meet with there? So honestly it was, it was a phone call. Okay. CEO. It was a reference check. Okay. And I called the other. Thank you. You were so. I mean like, like I, you know, I was just like these, these guys seem to really get it. Yeah. And they did over the course of the next three months. How much does it cost to hire a food chemist? All in, we came out of around like from, that was also another part of it, from beginning to completion. These guys quoted us about $6,000. Okay. So it was like, it was an affordable thing, right? Yeah. Smaller sort of, I would have guessed like 50 grand or something. So that was the other quote we were getting. We were like, that was the other quote we were getting. That's going to be a no. 50. And they were like, well, our goal is bootstrapping. Right. So, so some of those decisions were made simply because of price. Sure. We've been really lucky and that we, we've been connected to people who have given us quotes that in the scheme of things are affordable. And they will really deliver. I mean, you know, you're right. This could have, this could have totally gone south. Yeah. It didn't. That was, that was a huge blessing for us. And how many, are you doing multiple iterations with them? Or is it something like, they have it, they call you and they say, hey, come taste it. We nailed it. So we gave them two flavor concepts. Okay. Which was the orange strawberry, the ginger lemon cayenne. Which we have in front of us. We have in front of us. We have three of the colors in front of us, people listening. They're beautiful. Thank you. We'll try them in a second. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're emblematic of what's in them. So the ginger lemon cayenne is just kind of a little orange strawberry. It's a nice pink because it's strawberry. And then the last, the last ingredient we do, we wanted to incorporate was the scuba. Yeah. This one is bright yellow. Beautiful. But we didn't know, we didn't know how tumor was going to be incorporated. But we had, you know, a lot of the shots when you go out there, the tumor honey, that you can't power honey, honey in hand, but if it heats up, it melts for like, what we won't be able to incorporate honey. Interesting. Like we were sort of running in these roadblocks. The only thing we knew about the tumor was that we needed to incorporate black pepper as well, because I can get into the chemistry of the layer of the tumor and black pepper and the pentagon. They're friends. Yeah. When it comes to your body digesting them. Okay. Interesting. Okay. So I had a meeting with them, an in-person meeting, once we agreed to work with them, I said, you know, these two flavors, ginger lemon and orange strawberry were set on. The other thing we want is a tumor flavor. Yeah. We have to have black pepper in that. Let's see what you guys come up with. And then over the next three months, I was dragging up there probably once every two weeks. I was doing a tasting. I was getting notes. I was offering adjustments. How important is water in this whole thing? So I imagine if you're making this at home, like as you scale. Yep. Does water play a huge factor? Or is it that the ingredients that you're using sort of overpower whatever water source you might have. Like it doesn't really matter. It doesn't offset. Right. So we've already started incorporating our shots into smoothies. Okay. And into teas and like milk lattes and things like that. We did a smoothie series in the summer. We are doing a bold milk latte with our tumor shot this fall. As long as you're consuming the tumor within the vitamin C, vitamin C is water soluble. Turmeric is the tumor of the ginger, the plants there, your just organic plant matters. It doesn't really... Okay. How you consume it is irrelevant. If you put your tumor shot into a glass of tequila, like yeah, that's going to... Make it delicious. Yeah. Make it delicious. It's not going to be the... You're not going to walk out of that feeling. You know, you're also going to be, I don't want to say you're harming your body. When you drink alcohol, like it gets dehydrating, right? Right. It's dehydrating. It can be rough on the stomach. So like, it is not necessarily... It's not like one cancels up together. Sure. So I consume it always with water, but I have started doing hot teas. I've started throwing in smoothies. So yeah. So how long did the entire process take from when? What do you say, like six months? So we started, you mean the process of formulation? Yeah, until you were like, this is it. We have the... I think we signed off by the end of October beginning of November. So we said, like, done. Nailed it. Yeah, there was a bit... Did you bring in friends during the taste testing? Was it mostly you? And then toward the end, you're like, let's do some tastings randomly to friends, family. I would always leave with, like, six samples of each flavor. And I had... This was one of those things right where I kept it, like, within a close tribe. And I kept it within the same tribe. Because if I started going to different people, the notes would become confusing and conflicting. If somebody had tried the first three iterations, they were understanding, like, where the product was going. So they had to venture out of that. But it was usually one sample of each that we shipped to Will in New York. I drove from a tri-one. I roommate at the time with tri-one. A couple other friends who I was needing on to try them. And that was where that was over going from in terms of adjustments. But it was mostly dictated by Will's and my notes and then listening to other people's info. Got it. So once we signed off on formulations, we had already been in a design process with a designer who, again, met through a kombucha connection. Really talented. Again, we went out. We got design quotes. The most expensive quote we got was, $85,000. We're not doing that. Sign me up. Yeah. You know, she came in. I think her final quote was around $9,000. Okay. And for the full thing, packaging, brand, logo, design, basically brand creation. She helped us design our Shopify site. She designed our business cards. I mean, yeah. Basically like our initial sort of design package. Yeah. That's awesome. And she's amazing. I mean, I mean, that's somebody at Hockfest or somebody at Hockfest where you and I met. Yeah. Shout out to Hockfest Meesh. Hockmedia? Hockmedia. Hockfest. Yeah. Better than fire festival. Yeah. More success. I'm just going to... You know, I passed all that information to one or two people that I met there. And she's really, she's really talented. Does she have her own firm or is she like consulting? She's a freelancer. Okay. She does everything herself. That's great. And it's great because, you know, we're still, we still are making adjustments here and there. So we get her up. And she can get the type of business off of her. Yup. That's awesome. So we did design with her, went into production in April. Same firm? It's the same firm that did the formulation different firm. No, so they take it and then they Okay, a co-packer. Yeah, which is somebody who takes likes the Green Bay Packers Where's the co-packing firm Okay 40 miles Yeah, great name for any place the Inland Empire. You're like, oh, where is that Greenland? No Did you did you have many different Manufact like are there a lot of people that are companies that do this? Yeah, okay, so it's the same boat. You're getting proposals schedules if you're consuming like any protein and A lot of like Nut packs I mean RXR like basically any massive product. Yeah, they're not manufacturing Right, they have a third party, which is their co-packer their co-manufacturer But they're having all of their stuff sent to their ingredients. It's being created and packed and then shipped off to a Distribution warehouse somewhere else. Yeah, so you get to the point and we were at the point at this point from the start because The box has this point package 20 sachet or 20 shots sachet To make a sachet also in a like in a clean environment You know the room has to be sterilized has to be like check that there's no allergens all this stuff Yeah, it's a lab. It's a good form Yeah, so we couldn't just be making sachets in my kitchen like that would be against the FDA Sure, so how much how many sachets do you buy or how many do you have to commit to right first run was Boxes, okay, so 25,000 sachets or no you have 20 right 20 so be a hundred thousand sachets Yeah, yeah And do they do they package them with the branding on site or do you literally just get Okay, so they take care of all Happens at the end of it Yeah, which is beautiful 20 sachets per box Yeah, and then that so how much was that investment how much did you have to spend to get these 100,000 sachets the all-in investment on that and I'm gonna give a save number because will Sure, yeah Okay, got it see let's just say you guys are all in roughly 50,000 plus a lot of time Yep between everything branding And at this point are you guys like well if this fails we just have a boatload of wellness for a long time Bunch before Where do you have it all did you have it like all under your bed and some closet at your place Yeah Okay Yeah, does does the Chicago is that it like a Spotify or is it just a film that center you ship up Sure Really about that creation is it takes all of these different facets and integrate them Yeah, so we're running the whole business from our Yeah, I have Events sales marketing Is it similar to FBA where they they charge you Kind of for the space and based on weight on like a monthly basis type of thing Sure And it's it's light right it's a light product Yeah, it's not like a book or anything like that and you're not And you're not shipping water which is saving you a lot of a lot of costs So then at this point is your now your website's live I would imagine so so right when you get all these boxes as you're getting them All you're starting the marketing effort. Yeah, so what happened was it was funny? When our warehouse Wait, so they reached out to you This is crazy If there's a PR from listening, please reach out to me I've tried to get a PR firm and it's they're all just I don't know Right up the rally. They like it. They like the story Sure Yeah Are they showing you terms like dollar amounts or they just pitching you Yeah, it's compelling. I mean it's smart right the emerging brands division of a huge company makes sense It's Right They can get you placements. Yeah The terms but it was favorable it wasn't Yeah You know everything from publications to news features and a lot of that stuff is actually paid for right and What's great is they go out of the pitch and they say guys. This is a small company. They don't have a Massive marketing budget right we've gotten a lot of things Either at a really awesome cost or less for free. Yeah, the serendipity of it's great Yes, it's it's so so so they're really they're really cool hunter PR legends. That's amazing. That's really cool That's a great story. I'm like very happy to hear. Yeah, it's like that exists They're also really available, which is surprising, right? I think he's really big These big companies they're gonna they're working with them. Initially. We said, you know under these terms I can't say how long we initially agreed to is it will be three months sure and it was sort of a testing We just said like hey work. We want to test this out. We need to see if it's actually worth massive costs and I Call one of our four-point people and she picks up, you know, I know somebody They're really Yeah Did they like your design packages that you already had or Part of Totally Yeah, and have they gotten you in some some some major publications yet Because of this you wanted to get everything ready the timing Yeah Okay It worked out exactly That's always the first group the friends and family And Yeah, are you guys advertising or using mostly social media to get the word out? What's what does that look like? Yeah, so we're working with the digital a small digital marketing Basically, it's three people that we're next to their base in Iowa I mean a lot of this is just like sure right just meet somebody you talk to me like let's try it and that's and that's what the first I mean, I think that's what you know Entrepreneurship isn't perpetuity but the first year or two like when you're really sort of strapped and trying to figure it out You just promise to get it and seeing the sticks to the wall. Yeah, and That was an example of something that didn't work out We invested of a couple thousand dollars in this digital marketing firm that focused on Google click ads and what it was all said and done. We had made Five sales and it was expensive like $2,000. Yeah, so you lost some money And boxes for dollars Fundamentally doesn't work out right so we you know Also, it's also just true is like the conversation with that team was not like It was just like hey guys like the data doesn't suggest Sure where we're at and that was that was the that was the learning lesson of August We're like, okay. Well, it's really hard to get somebody even with an ad Who's searching for something like this? It's really hard to get them to come to your website Put in their credit card information put in their shipping information Yep in my experience the only Google ads that work and I think there's a lot of data to suggest This is also the case more people are likely to click on a Google ad and purchase if the Google ad gives them something for free So if it's like a buy one get one buy one get two those ads do very well If you don't have one of those ads then you're and if you think about it makes sense They're staring at a computer screen. They need to recognize what that name is and if it's a new brand It makes it very difficult But also discounting your product is not good either because now you have a buyer who only purchased because of the buy one get one And so it leaves you in like it's a tough spot. Yeah, it's not ideal Yeah Turn over on that Sure Yeah This so now we have something to sort of sustain our costs because we'll and I We invested our own money Really really fortunate. I mean, it's a sad but a happy story. Somebody put this in the way I thought it was so lovely, but we're on June of 2017 our grandmother passed away and she passed some money on us And so we used this where we were sitting with this money and we we use that money to start this business It's like, oh, she's your investor So so we were we were lucky and that we had that to Start it is a beautiful way of putting it. Yeah Yeah, shout out the grandma So we had that to basically Get like product creative, right? We're playing on saving money and then using that money to Start the business. What we now were able to do was save money and Buy ourselves a six month don't have to work another job. Yeah, so you can just focus Yeah, so we we we save, you know money from he was working logistics and beer I was working in sales and boot job and we we both said like right leaving our jobs We're doing this for six months. We're like all we have to do. Why'd you leave your jobs? So we launched July 15. I left my jobs at number one. What was that like? I meant for you For 12 months, right, right, so it wasn't just like we gotta leave Did were you planning on leaving? Let's say maybe earlier and then you delayed it because of the six-week period of when you engaged the PR firm Or was it always September 1 that you're gonna be okay, okay? because in kombucha the hot months are important and I I got you guys Yeah, so I told him actually June one. I was like here's three months. Yeah, like let's find me a replacement and then August I Sort of went to like part-time. Yep. I was still I was still working for that month, but I started planning August-September earlier, so I was putting the month putting money away. So when I did leave the job I wasn't something like no right. You're ready. What do I do now? Sure? I I do what I was gonna do and so in your co-founder same thing Logistics and beer. Yeah, and so September we started seeing you man was on sale for all just really excited and that That afforded us like like something where you know the goal became okay cool Let's get our sales to equal all of our monthly costs. Yeah, like that's that's cool Number one as soon as we achieve that now the goal is to get sales to be able to cover one of us for yeah In six months, you know, it's cool problem. We're almost there now The next goal is gonna be let's get sales to equal, you know covering both of us Even just covering both of us on a part-time salary and then we would get a job Way to say something sure the ability to be at your desk from Yeah What have you what about Amazon has been the hard part is it is it getting people to review is it? Repeat orders. What's the what's kind of the part that it's hard to control it? You get a lot of questions around the product Actually, what's cool about Amazon is there's literally zero bearish purchase, right? Right, so the hardest part about Amazon has been getting your product So when you go into your your seller central just sort of your back end. Yeah, there's all this data Clunky Yeah, if you want to like make like these super niche adjustments you download this a cell You're putting it up and I don't I was on the phone with Amazon when I was doing this Because I'm like this is so I'm an engineer like by training. I'm like, I don't know I'm why am I calling the support to upload a CSV like you guys probably have a gazillion people who want to be on Amazon Right, but this Excel sheet prohibits. I'd probably say 90% of them because it is not easy Spent the whole day Hours Have you run a sale yet? Yeah, yeah, so I'll tell you a story we did this one time and For whatever reason we decided to make the sale 100% we were trying to do buy one get one free We do the whole thing free and so there's this one day where we get in like an email alert because we had sold out Like 10,000 units and we're thinking like payday So we so I log in to our seller central and it's like no it shows you all the revenue But then it shows you how much you get and it's like zero And I'm like what on earth happened. It's on my business partner was the one in charge of the seller central So I'll call him up like Maddie. What uh, what's what's going on with Amazon? He's like D I really fucked up Then I was like well, I guess this is like a lot of good marketing So it proved that it worked we called Amazon I think they gave us some money back like they realized it was an error It wasn't clear if the error was on our end or on their end I think it was on our end obviously because we're just putting it into a computer basically and so it's reading the excel sheet and Yeah, that was that but there's a lot of people out there that we made pretty happy What I was shocked by was how many people purchased the product. It's like How do they know right? There's all of a sudden a machine at work saying this product is on sale and just displaying it Right and the number of purchases was insane. Well, there's something going on There's for sure Free product right to the top The other thing that Amazon is constantly doing is they're trying to They just want all their consumers to be relying on Amazon So it would be I don't know I wouldn't be shocked if Amazon is using money on every single order All in it costs us about nine bucks to fulfill an order on Amazon and that gets us storage Two days to a thing like all that all that stuff might know will this is when we first got product landed on the Amazon We do it's warehouse in New Jersey. You want an order product at 8 a.m. It landed his house Same day You know we've all become so used to that. It's just the way Amazon works now. Yeah As I've done this over the last year and a half and I've been working with other fulfillment companies That's insane. Yeah, an order comes in the computer process of that order It prints that order off a human is given that information They go pull that thing off of the shelf They put it in a box that box is pushed somewhere else Somebody looks at the box and all the things in that box Organizes them packs them into packages boxes that thing up labels them. They get put into a van They drive they're dropped off at his apartment and that happens in 10 hours, which like I you know We've gotten used to it like I watched a YouTube video for 10 hours. It's Unbelievable scale and speed at which they're moving products, but that's why I think they're pushing Your products at the top, right? Just get everybody really rely on the service Right How do you do you know how people find you is it's not like what is what is it that they're searching in the search bar? It's interesting Okay, do you see where we're being advertised is it is there like a wellness center that Amazon has like a tab No, so people so so Often when I when I download an advertising report I'm often seeing what was the search term that they typed in and then Amazon? What was it? Really come one as well a shot. Okay immunity shot And then I get all these skews and I go click the skew, and I just it's like a 50 Yeah Okay started to learn for example, there's a Ginger Job, it's just it looks like an apple juice job of ginger juice Okay 15,000 times you only pay us some clicks on it Thousand clicks not a single sale. Yeah, so we're like, oh that that product is awful for us to Advertise under we went and we just basically Yeah, but then we've learned that there's these small Liquid ginger going on shots that are ginger lemon boxes advertised that we have to a real good chance Right, our two more box is advertised next to that. No zero Sure That company also the two more shot and the same approach Our two more boxes advertised next to it He's And how much is the box on Amazon 40 bucks 20 wellness shots Yeah That's when we talk about at the very beginning There's this 49 50 cent option and there's this $5 option. There's nothing in between and You know I've heard on some of your other episodes We say like we're on the numbers we're on the numbers. Yeah, that was something that will be in logistics and finance Is amazing, so he's he builds out these I had this fantasy initially Which you could totally run your company at that amount, but you wouldn't make any money You'd be homeless Right, right, that's exactly right And so and so and that's what we eventually are it's like this is a perfect check out item It sits at the checkout at Glasses and hopefully wherever, you know, wherever we end up and somebody pulls off two sachets It's a $4 addition to their their check out as opposed to buying the whole box Makes sense That's really smart so the barcodes are on it people can okay, that's smart He's grabbing more ingredients and everything Yeah To that point would you ever consider making half a box so that way it is 20 bucks? I mean is like an intro package, I don't know Right now something that I guess you start to see that right if you get a lot of repeat orders You can say okay, this becomes our market for the scooping people versus this is this could be easily for people who are traveling But also for people who use it every day Sure Yeah You're already invested And so outside of Amazon, how are you driving traffic to your website? Hunter PR coming through the real deal We're written up on I'm sorry America online Yeah, they have a huge my mom she's not listening still uses a well And I'm like, what do you do on there? She's like all my news is all there and the games and I'm like what really It's really so whatever honor, you know, it's a placement. It also let us know what that audience reaches Yeah, and then you might be the AOL of the wellness shot world if you think about it early mover They did well 1617 million today They're doing fine Yesterday we agreed verbally to a strategic brand partnership In their gyms They run a month long sort of Partner Shout out to them. Yeah, that's what's up. Nice job. Thank you. Well, you guys Will it be in this format or were they looking at maybe selling it boxed? Okay That's actually smart even if it doesn't work out with berries, I mean, there's that's a smart play Berries is awesome. They're really like the people I've been working with there Yeah, you know, they So it sounds like the strategy has been not so outside of Amazon, right? So get Amazon to cover your your business costs that makes sense You're covered there directionally everything is looking good and then instead of necessarily spending all of your time on Let's say Instagram Facebook Twitter you're leveraging the PR to help promote and eventually get the brand out there so that people then go through the website that way Exactly and and the other thing Yesterday was we just shipped Nice Yeah Yeah What we're doing we're basically just building brand awareness and we were talking to a guy who Talked to here, but it made sense Unfortunately, a lot of stuff you've built has been known in some way holds their relationship It's like their first two runs you just give them a lot like your first two You don't actually give all of it away sure but like you need to be seeding this product so that you Established fans those fans will eventually manifest in wholesale relationships whether that's with that fan you've created or somebody who encountered your brand You know in that fan space. Yeah, so between group and berries were Remember it's gonna be a really good sort of putting us on the map as a Market here in this concept sure and then do you have any sense of sales? And so in terms of like it's not really a gift it could be but it's not necessarily a gift And so your your peak sales wouldn't necessarily follow the holidays, right? Somebody might buy you a present for Christmas. It's probably gonna be maybe clothing or a book I don't know if you've seen so if I had emergency sales figures in front of me Yeah, and it's just an Excel sheet and it starts at January and it ends in December Would it would it completely go off the charts in December or is it what are you seeing some of the data? Give you in terms of your your let's say your season. Are you a seasonal product? Yeah Okay, so we don't know how it's gonna relate yet to My mother-in-law will for sure get these It's cute like you pull this out of your stock What's cold and fluke one is the cold and now Okay Does Calif does LA have a call that flu season not as much as New England, New York, you know, Chicago Those places are frozen really seeing it and the good thing is like that presses national So go to rooted shots comm by the products because if you're in Chicago, you for sure don't want to go outside Makes sense. I got except California, and then you're just this all the time product that imagine Right, right, right. You're projecting. Yeah Right you could be November You're flying on airplanes What has been the best state so far that you guys are just seeing yeah, it's big markets So cycle equinox another good partners Equinox all those all those places if you're willing to invest that money Yeah Chicago also doing well Your top markets Makes sense I think That's always the fun part when you stop recognizing the orders and you're like this is a complete random how exciting is that I would text That's huge did you guys ship them an extra a special thing or did that one come through Amazon? I mean now a stranger normal Yeah Right You This is what I like about our podcast is we have listeners from states that we've never been to right and it's just so amazing For countries even that we see all the whole data on like the world and we're just like wow We have people in Japan people in Saudi Arabia that hear all your stories, but you're super excited Let's let's take a break and enjoy some of this wonderful Product Our legend is in the room Nick Conrad professional taster Which one do we gonna do you want us to start with okay? We'll go we'll go sweetest fruitiest Sour and spiciest. All right, so the first one is orange strawberry It's meant to be like really mild fruity. This is actually featured on a website called the daily mom They're one of the top back to school products, so it's like just it's really it's really approachable. It's not Yeah, it's got a nice pink color you get that from the strawberry Here you go. Thank you. Tell us what you think Nick. Great smell to it It's got a smell which was actually something we were super super excited about yeah, it's really hard to get That's delicious. I wouldn't have I wouldn't have predicted that yeah I could drink that all day. This is really good. It's really easy. So remind me of what's in this one again It's It doesn't take much We have it in like for this thing and I think it'll last like 10 years And most of those packets are like a tenth stevia and then nine-tenths filler because it's so intense Yeah, we really have like just a little bit and we have a scorbic and citric acid Scorbic acid they're both naturally occurring citrus acids. Scorbic acid is just vitamin C and citric acid It's just another citrus acid that sort of gives citrus it's it's bright, you know And Delicious, yeah, what's the next one? Okay next one is the two more orange ginger black pepper so like I said the two more than orange or the two more than the ginger full spectrum so the The new just the content in each of them. Yeah nutrient content each time is the same cream post-processing It's really good for you In tumor is an active compound called pure human and so we're making sure that that's the same levels pre and post Processing and then black pepper is an active compound called high brain and Without without high brain really did both your body to absorb your human So that's how we're including the black pepper. It does give a little bit more like a bite. I won't say it's Spicy but it is like it has like a kick to it The kick is more in your throat and it is in your This is the one I'm most interested in because if I was out in the store And you know, I bought emergency before and other like powdered drinks and stuff if I had seen turmeric I don't know that I would necessarily Jump right to to get that but the way I've been listening to you describe it all days It's definitely captured my my interest. Yeah, smells good. It looks good. Oh So that's tasty too You know, it's interesting. Oh, you're right about the kicking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but in a very good way Yeah, it's like all right. It's there. It's what something's working there We got our very first I Right Right, you know, what are you saying? Do you say something like bad batch? Do you respond to those sometimes I see like the owner especially I'm like Google reviews or Yelp It's like the owner will come in. We're so sorry that you had a bad experience. We hope we can make it up to you later Do you ever respond to people like that? Yeah, you know, this is Yeah Like I really wasn't trying to like wrong them like it's a bummer. You had a bad experience I also don't agree with you, but I'm not trying to like sure Well, you ever tone down the pepper do you think it's right, I think it's right Yeah, like you said, this just wasn't the product for that person. Yeah, I mean you can't please everyone I think it's I think it's right to I like it. I mean, I think that what this The market we're speaking to so I mean if this is a test for you the next one we're about to try ginger lemon cayenne Which was the initial inspiration for the product. I love ginger lemon cayenne It's just masochistic. Like there's nothing it just hurts like it's sour. It's spicy We ever do a variety pack so that way someone can try all three without committing to 20 We're looking into ways that we can do like a sampling. Yeah get people a sample They can try it all three before they buy them got it and that's what yeah That seems to be the perfect thing for the individual sachets Oh, like we're I don't know if I'm gonna want 20 of this, but let me take one of each Yeah, and I'll be fine. Have you heard from your customers a little bit about how they're using it? Is it mostly a morning product? So it's been I mean, I think it's it's been actually really a mix back So like morning and evening seem to be the two times and I need a lot of photos of people using it on airplanes Like a surprising That's such great PR. Yeah, it's a really cool and and we have it was like a family friend Who's a? That's Caroline flight attendant. Mm-hmm. So ginger lemon cayenne pepper. It's just sour and spicy I like it. I can smell the lemon. Yeah It's meant to be painful What's interesting to me? Oh, that is It's like sour and then like the heat kicks in right away. Do you have any well? I'll say two things. What's interesting to me about this product is Typically when things come in powder form you always get a choppiness even if it's very like a hit or this doesn't have that Which is great. Sure. You're not about carbonating this I've been thinking about that this week like this. You can make a ginger beer. I'm such an alcohol. Yeah Actually If I had more time to smooth this is something I need to test like I this morning as I was getting ready to come over here I was like if I had more time I'd be making Carbonated I just want to try making a carbonate shot. Yeah So what does this taste like in carbonated water because I've had literally the last month like eight people I was in soda stream becomes a easy player, right? It's already in package form totally No, it's a flavor profile. You know really easy addition nice in terms of you know what you're saying about the chalkiness I mean you'll notice is you know some of the bottles that have been sitting for longer. They do settle That would be good one of put in any, you know, like dissolvents or fillers I think if you go to a juice shop and look at a bottle of juice It sells like at the bottom of that. Sure. Yeah Anything natural settles and people don't realize that but just shake it. You're good. Which one's your favorite the last one Honestly, like it was it's one of those that I'm sitting here and just like all right So at first you're just like hit with a bunch of different punches and then you're like Let's keep going. Yeah Same stuff that's in hot sauce, right? Heat of different products they exist like on a Scoville heat level And sure isn't a bunch of those those products because you know here Our kind of pepper and capsaicin comes at what's considered 30,000 units, okay, which exists like somewhere between the serrano and habanero There's a little bit more and serrano serrano spice with a jalapeno for reference a little bit less than But we put it such like so little it's it's pretty palatable capsaicin that's my original point is a natural deep ingestion and natural pain okay, and so It's you know, if you're if you're stuffed up, it's great. You're cold. It also like can be soothing to the throat It's actually another company that I heard of It's through my research that makes cough drops just with kind of pepper Yeah, I like the other two they're all delicious. I can't decide which one I like best though I I tend to like stuff with a lot of spice to it So the the one with the turmeric and black pepper obviously when would you drink them in the morning? Probably because I don't have a coffee drinker. Sure. I can see this totally Let's get up and get going. Let's start your day How many do you drink a day would you say One okay, you can drink like two to two packets I would say a day at a certain point when it comes to vitamin c and this is why we only Have 500 milligrams vitamin c and ours as opposed to a thousand which isn't a lot of the vitamin c packets you have out there Your body can really only Use about two and two milligrams okay after 250 milligrams You're just painting it out right now there are studies that show if you get sick Your body can actually use more vitamin c but it's not looking Like it's 5,000 milligrams or really even a thousand milligrams. So that's why we sell it on 500 on the other thing is if you consume thousand milligrams At 8 a.m. Or 500 milligrams at 8 a.m. If I don't know the 8 p.m. Like you have a better chance of actually absorbing more of that vitamin c at those two different time periods that your body Interest all in once right what's next what's on the horizon for 2020 so we I mean There's a bunch of there's a bunch of goals right now. We have this this various partnership that um Yeah, we're really excited about the group holiday gift card We're really excited about and then it would be you know, I think it would be irresponsible to say anything's happening But we're reaching we're we're talking to a few distributors We're talking to a couple of larger wholesale accounts and that is sort of our next step Are you guys raising money? Are you guys looking for investors or just bootstrapping for now? Our goal is to own the entire company Are you and will split 50 50 down the middle right down the middle and everything I mean it was us from It was both was from day one. It was my problem. It was his idea and what's great about it is you compliment each other Just perfectly in that I had all the conversations yesterday with the the various the various team And then as soon as we agreed on what we were doing, they were like, great. This is how much product we need. This is where we need to shift Will's I've been my phone's been blowing up all I've been doing this interview. Will's been like uploading, you know What we need shift where when all that's what we're filming. Sure. He's handling that side of things and I'm handling I'm handling this side of things. So it's it's uh I love it working people find you Right now you can find us broodshots.com Come come check us out on cyber monday. We are going to actually be writing a Deal on cyber monday. What day is cyber monday 10 28th? No, it is. No, no, it's uh, it's it's 12 to the monday after Monday after next December now 12 to okay If you're looking for a good bunch of stock and stuffers, we're doing 20 off three boxes or more So what your box is usually the 120 bucks that drops down to 55 bucks So you're getting we've never done a discount more than 10 percent So it's a lot of just kind of done We're also on amazon And uh, yeah, if you attend You've done various classes in new york for a life. Keep an eye out for us there Just real quick. Do you have any kind of ballparka as to what you expect to sell on a cyber monday with with this kind of deal? I'm actually really excited to learn. Okay. It's it's it's it's a great question I mean, that's what's fun about this, right? My prediction is you're gonna do three x your best day That's that's what I would say check in with us then. Yeah Let us know We're really curious and then christmas could be even maybe five x your best day christmas. Yeah, interesting Is the day of christmas a big or not the day of but I would say between 12 12 and 12 20 I see what you're saying. Yeah, maybe even up to 12 23 given how quickly amazon can ship things, right? Check us out email us. If you email us, you're getting me a wealth. So All right I love it. Thanks for coming on christ. Appreciate it. Yeah We here at start of the storefront would love to hear feedback from you reach out and let us know what you think about the show Make sure to give us a rating on itunes. Anything over five stars is the only way to go Our music is composed by double touch. You can find us on facebook and instagram at start of the storefront For more information on the products and businesses featured on the show check out the links in the show notes Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time