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Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will attempt with me to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. 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.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 GuyRaz.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. Alright, let's get to it. My guest today is Tony Lam, the founder of Kona Ice. It's a franchise of shaved ice trucks. It started out not in Hawaii, but in Northern Kentucky.
Tony, welcome to the show. Hey Guy, glad to be here. The shaved ice capital of the world, Northern Kentucky. It's so great to have you back on the show. We had you back on last year and we told the story of about how your kids went to buy popsicles from a CD-looking ice cream truck. And their popsicles are freeze-to-burn and they're gross. And then you start to think, well what if you could kind of redo the ice cream truck and then you kind of had this kind of revelation.
Maybe you wrote a Damascus moment where you realize that shaved ice could be the thing and then you eventually built out a truck and you worked it for a while and then you turned into a franchise model of business where people now buy, can buy a Kona Ice shaved ice truck and run a small business. And you've got how many of these do you have around the United States today? We have 1,850 Kona trucks along with about 700 ancillary pieces of equipment, but about 150 coffee trucks too.
So cool. Right, coffee business too, which is called the Traveling Tom's company. Traveling Tom's, yeah. Named after my dad. Named after your dad. And I just saw Kona Ice truck up in Sonoma County in California the day and I thought of you. A lot of the, and I suspect a lot of people calling in today are going to ask about visibility growing your brand. How do you get people to be aware of what you're doing?
And so much of this sort of revolves around digital media, social media advertising. But really a lot of it is just it sort of, it hasn't really changed in terms of getting a word out. Like you, I remember in your episode you talked about at one point you were, you were driving trucks with advertising and you, you know, you were doing, you know, all kinds of your Obama and McCain and whoever ever pay you to drive the truck with the sign on it.
And now essentially Kona Ice, I mean, that's a moving billboard, right? Or or Traveling Tom is just it's just driving around and you see it. So I mean, when it comes to things like a wear building awareness and advertising, I mean, how do you think about doing that with your businesses?
Well, I mean, I, I'm listening to your advice line and, and I've loved several of the episodes, almost every episode I just have loved. I just think your guests, your returning guests are so caring and gentle and loving. And I don't tend to be that way. So I'm hoping that I can, can, can channel some of that. But, but no, but you think about like Tart makeup.
Yeah. And, and her, yeah, yeah, Marine Kelly and her early stories have just grinding it through. And then the Cliff bar guy. What was his name? Gary Erickson. Yeah. Gary Erickson. Yeah. Yeah. And he was amazing. He's talking about going to the writers and going out and just handing out.
And he actually cut bars and two. Yeah. So he's giving out chunks of stuff. That is that tenacity that, that, you know, everyone now wants to figure out how to go viral and just sit back on their computer and type some things out. And, and yeah, there's a place for that. Don't get me wrong because it's a heck of a lot easier if you can figure out that magic formula.
But, but still don't ever discount that, that grind man that, that out there, you're like you were saying I was out there in a truck driving around my neighborhoods. My friends laughing at me and I'm like, oh God, I'm hope I'm right. I hope I'm right. Tony, what are you doing driving an ice cream truck? You used to drive a nice car. We're in nice suit. I'm like, I swear to God, this is going to work.
Oh, here you go. Almost 2000 trucks later and, and you have the last laugh. Tony, why don't we take a, why don't we take our first collar? Excellent. Okay. Collar, let's bring our first collar and hello. You are online. Hey guy. Hey, Tony. Welcome. Please tell us your name, what you're calling from and just a little bit about your business. Yeah, my name is Dylan Richter. I am the co founder with my wife, Katie of the sweet spot in the small rural town of Hillsboro, Illinois.
We are a good old fashioned brick and mortar candy retail shop. Everything that a sweet tooth would desire. We have ice cream candies, craft sodas, all of the above. Amazing. And what's your question for us today? My question is around expansion. So we are about to have a one year anniversary, but the store has been super successful. It's been super fun and it is a format that I think could work in small towns all over the country.
So we are about to open our second location about 40 minutes away. But my question is, what metrics and milestones should we be looking at to see if this concept is indeed viable across the country? Okay, we'll get your question in a sec. I've got some questions for you Dylan. So Hillsboro is not, it's in Illinois, but it's like it's like an central Illinois. Like you're closer to St. Louis than you are in Chicago, right? Little over an hour away from St. Louis. That's right.
And how big is the town of Hillsboro? About 5,000 people. Wow. Okay. So tell me, so you opened the store last year, right? The candy store? That's right. That's right. Tell me what were you doing before that? How did that happen? Are you in the candy business? Not at all. And this was not part of the plan. So the fun is exciting and happy as a candy store is. The origin story is unfortunately not quite the same. So if I rewind a couple years, my wife and I were living in Chicago.
I have worked since 2014 for DoorDash and had a fantastic time seeing that company grow. My wife is a scientist. She is definitely the brains of the family. But if we get to around COVID, my, unfortunately, we got a phone call. My father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. So as soon as we got that news, we packed up our bags. We moved to Hillsboro to spend time and help out with the caretaking. And to be honest, that was a very difficult couple years.
And going through that experience, this is going to sound cliché. But it was one of those things where you kind of realize how valuable time is. And through that experience kind of came to the conclusion that I want to have more agency over my time. I've always wanted to start something on my own. We thought it would be, frankly, just a lot of fun to start a business in the small town.
Kind of get back to the community that showed us a lot of support. And next thing you know, we decided to open a candy store. Wow. Okay. So you guys open a candy store. It's on the main street. It is. We are literally on main street. It's a small, probably like 40 retail storefronts. And it was one of those experiences where we're coming from a big city. We've only ever lived and quote unquote, big cities. And through moving there after a couple years felt small town USA overlooked underserved.
I did a little research in candy, not the most expensive thing. Kind of a routine habitual type of experience. So if you can invest in a good experience for the people in the town, give back to the community. And it can work in a small town like Hillsboro. I thought that that was bones that could potentially work in many other places. I've driven through many small towns and rural Illinois, but I know that same concept applies elsewhere.
It's interesting is candy is probably a little bit like I mean, it's shelf stable. It doesn't go bad that quickly. It's probably relatively inexpensive and then the margins are probably pretty good, right? Absolutely. That all of that is true. Yeah. So Tony, I mean, we can get we can get to Dylan's question in a second, but I'm assuming you've got some you probably have some questions for him as well. No, I love I love the idea. I mean, it's just nostalgic.
You picture the small town you're going in and it's experiential. Dylan, are you and your wife working this store every day? Is that who's in the store? I'm there 100% of the time. The first six months I was behind the counter just because I've never done this before. It's the best way to learn how to do it. My aunt my wife's aunt is now at the counter all day every day with us. And then my mother-in-law is going to be joining us when she retires from the high school in a couple of months.
And these are these are small town these are OGs from that town. Exactly. Everybody knows everybody pluses and minuses to that. I have learned. But there's definitely a very strong community feel. Tell me a little bit about your customers that walk in. Is these families that walk in? Is it is a I picture a grandpa bringing their granddaughter in? Tell me about that a little bit. What does that look like? It is it is exactly what you picture.
It is grandma grandpa bringing the kids in during the day in the summer when the parents are working. It's kids in the high school coming after school and getting a snack. I had someone in there two weeks ago buying candy to use as potty training for their their kids. I did use that. I did use that. Yep. Right. Did that work totally worked? Breibery. So right now you're expanding. And the question you're sort of asking is what kind of metrics would or what are our KPI's?
What do we need to be thinking about to turn this into something scalable? Before I answer that question, let me ask you this. What do you want to be? I mean you're talking to Tony. He turned Kona ice into a national franchise. What do you think that you'd like to be if you thought about that? Yeah. 100%. Look at the end of the day going through the experience that we went through. I would say I and we we're optimizing for creating as much joy as possible.
And that might sound like a cheesy answer, but it's it's the honest truth. So if I can bottle up this concept and hand it off to someone else to run, I don't think that brings a tremendous amount of happiness and joy to the people in those communities, but also a pretty good job, a pretty enjoyable and rewarding career for a family who wants to invest back in their hometown. All right. So you're open to some kind of franchise model. In my head, that's the way that this works best.
All right. Tony, what are you, Tony, you're looking at this with me. You successfully launched two franchise models with coffee and and chavise. What are your thoughts on that? You know, you're going to ask yourself, Dylan, and listen, let me say this. You're merchandising the idea. I'm looking at your website. Whoever's doing your merchandising and I'm assuming it's you and your scientist wife. But you are it is look, it looks fabulous. It really does look fabulous.
I have to ask myself first. So here was a question I asked myself when I'm driving around the first trucker in the neighborhoods. And I was doing well and I was like, is this all me? Because I'm from Northern Kentucky and I'm, I mean, I've been there 20 years and I'm calling the school teachers and I'm just busting into everywhere. But I thought, how much am I a part of this success and can the success be garnered by someone who's, you know, not from small town Illinois?
So you're going to find out a lot when you open up 40 miles away and I would definitely hire somebody from that small town, probably a school teacher that's beloved and put her in that store. I smell because that's exactly what we're planning to do. Yeah, that's brilliant in that in that respect.
So if you're wanting to franchise, listen, let me back up just a second, Dylan, because you said you were looking for, you know, you just lost your father and law and you're kind of going through this process. And what that showed you about life and it's, it's, it's brevity and how much you wanted to be happy and how much you wanted to enjoy.
And I want to say this as constructively as I can, I say this to my own franchise, these, there is a sweet spot in Kona ice with a couple franchises and maybe an ancillary or two. And you make plenty of money, you can really have a great life. But but everyone kind of gets into this and they're like, Hey, how do I conquer the world?
My, my wife kind of joke, she said, you know, Tony quit his job to do Kona so he could spend more time with his kids and all he did was just make a business big enough so he can employ all this kids and get free labor. No, bring a new challenge. But no, I do want to, I do want to kind of put that into your ethos is like, but it's not always about trying to take over the world in candy stores. Dylan, what do you mind telling us? What is your revenue? More or less?
We'll do about 400 in our first 12 months. That's amazing for a candy store in a small town. Almost did a spit take there. I just drink it a bottle of water and almost. That's this 400,000 for the first year. My projection was 62. So I think that's more of a reflection on my poor modeling skills than anything else.
I mean, I mean, that kind of revenue. We're blown away. Right. It's amazing. So it really you proved out this this concept. And but I think that to do it in a way where you can actually sell a franchise, there has to be a couple of tweaks in the stores that make this totally unique. You know, like, you know, you talk about joy. And I think a lot of joy comes from seeing children come in with a grownup, right?
And candy store is just amazing. Like, when I remember not as a kid, we had a teacher and she had a, she had a paper mache tree on the one of the walls of the room. And she would tape with masking tape, tootsie pops on that tree. And once a day, one kid who was the student of the day could go and grab one of that tree. And I mean, that was magical. It was a lollipop tree, you know. And if you can kind of create an experience even beyond just the candy.
Like, I remember when I was a kid, there was a store called Imaginarium and some shopping malls and they had two doors. They had the big door to go and then they had a small little door. The kids could walk through into the store. And it was so cool that I was want to go to that store walk to that little door.
And so to me, like a couple of cool tweaks like that. And you can really experiment with your second store. That that kind of allows you to build out that proof of concept where you can say, OK, now we've got this model. And now we can maybe go to a third store. Maybe we can talk to somebody else who wants to open that third store. Does that make sense?
Makes perfect sense. I love it. We're heading that direction. We have miniature shopping carts that little kids take around and put way too much candy. And so I think there's a lot more we can and should do in that realm. But that advice is fantastic. I appreciate it.
The store is called the sweet spot Dylan Richter. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. Thank you guys very much. We're going to start with this first door. If it goes well, we want to expand guy. It may take us a little bit of time to get to San Francisco. But Tony Parker's bird West Virginia, and we're talking Florence. I think we can get there. I got first dibs on the San Francisco franchise. Thank you guys very much. Thank you so much. Thanks so much.
Those are crazy numbers. I mean, you're the guy that that figured out you can make money selling shave ice. And the margins on that must be pretty good, right? Because it's ice and syrup and, you know, and there's gasoline and stuff. Obviously, but, but man, candy.
And man, I just hope it's not I had a buddy that opened up a bar and his first three months, he was doing numbers that you couldn't even get your mind around. And I had another friend that said, yeah, those are your honeymoon numbers. Let's let's see if he's got what it takes to keep that going. And low and behold, he didn't.
I mean, because there's a lot of places out there, there's a lot of competition for your dollars when it comes to stuff like that. So, but maybe not in a small town. So maybe that's he's tapped into something there. And there's not competition for your. I know I know we sell a lot of Kona franchise is in small rural America. And my franchise ease have said to me, you know, you go to a small town and you're like Santa Claus coming to town.
Yeah, lose their mind because they don't have all the options. So maybe he's he's really tapping into something there. I'm I'm hopeful. All right, Tony, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, a Wall Street trader trying to popularize needle felting. And if you don't know what needle felting is, that's part of the problem. Stay with us. I'm Guy Roz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
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Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab my guest today taking your calls with me is Tony lamb the founder of Kona ice a franchise of shaved ice trucks. All right, let's bring in another caller. Hello, color are you with us? Hi guy. Hi Tony. It's great to talk with you. Welcome. Please tell us your name and what you're calling from and a little bit about your business.
Yeah, my name is Zach Deets. I'm from Northampton, Massachusetts and my business is called just fives. So we make and sell learn to needle felt kits amazing. Okay, tell us what question you were for us. Of course, yeah. So we're really focusing on online selling. And we just launched recently it were two months into the business. So my question is given that not a lot of people know what needle felting is.
How should we market on social media to sell a product most people are unaware exists. All right, we're going to get your question a sec and I have a lot of questions about needle felting. So you so just a kit you can buy and it gives you a needle and the felt and it teaches you how to needle felt or to sew I guess whatever the term is. Yeah, so these kits make felted creatures out of sheep's wool.
So it's a process that takes about three hours and you create a cute little creature right now we have a penguin and a panda for sale and you know friends come to your apartment and they say, wow, that is that's a really cute thing. I actually made that myself and I needle pointed to myself. How did you get get tell me a little bit about the background. How did you get to the sack. Right. So it all stems from I was working a job and finance so very unrelated.
And I got laid off from that job and decided to take that as an opportunity to to do some traveling so I convinced my girlfriend to quit her job and join me in travel in Asia and we were in Taiwan and we're at a craft fair and I'm not a really crafty guy but when I saw this stand of all these felted creatures and I saw that they actually were selling kits to do it.
I went up to the booth and I bought some kits and I asked do you sell outside of Taiwan they didn't and I was like why have I never seen this in the US so I tried the kits and I actually really enjoyed the experience and I was like I think artsy people in the US might like trying this as well so that was kind of the genesis.
So you are basically betting on this idea that because it's I mean you know it's it's unusual right like you're I think you would admit yourself like you're you were not a guy who be like you know what I really want to get into needle point or whatever like you stumbled on it and then you tried it and you loved it and there was something about the experience of like putting this thing together that turned into a little creature that you just thought was really what satisfying or fun I don't know it must have been something that captured your imagination.
Right exactly I think as we become adults and only 26 years old but I've already found this we kind of lose our creativity and lose the ability to learn a new hobby. Yeah so that's kind of what I'm trying to bottle up in this kit and what what is the sort of like just start of this and so presumably you know trying to figure out how to get the word out so you can sell them but what do you think the market size is and what was something like this.
Yeah so you might think it's it's pretty tiny and what really kind of shape my opinion is this learned to crochet company called the woobles. I don't know their current numbers but I think it's five plus million dollars revenue a year and I was just in Walmart the other day and saw their kits there.
Also part of why I thought this could be a good idea is because I have friends who have done these learned to crochet kits and they say actually it's it's still quite intimidating but with needle felting you literally start with fluffy sheep's wool and you get a needle and you just start poking it.
You just keep poking and it just condenses down into the shape so it's really doesn't it doesn't take much instruction although we do provide you know details step by step instruction but it's it's approachable. Wow Tony any thoughts? I have tons of those.
You took me Zach you took me into a wormhole of needle felting and I have oh my gosh the cat faces that I think I saw online and and some of the some of the things is beautiful and and but listen I mean obviously you know your your hill that you're climbing you not only do you have to get market share but you have to develop the market. So which is probably the one of the most challenging things there is to do out there because it's it's so too fold.
Ironically enough guy I set behind a lady on a cross country flight that was crocheting and she completely did this handbag and I was like that was amazing started talking to her a little bit as she we were getting off off the plane and it's like she goes oh yeah I just look for opportunities to spend three or four hours doing this and I was like I think it looks medicinal in a lot of ways.
And great and but you know Zach is is to start from that did you say it's really big in in Taiwan is that one yeah it's in Asia it's it's big and it's it's oddly enough big in England as well but okay not really in the US. Do you see in inside of you know Asian communities in the United States or Taiwanese communities in the United States do you see it being popular or did it make the journey with that I don't think so.
Okay yeah so like you said it's definitely this like double sided problem that yeah that's part of the reason why I was like so interested in starting a business like this because it seems not. So yeah you know might as well start with something near impossible.
You're going to start a business man let's just let's just absolutely start no I mean listen this journey is long and it starts probably in craft shows it starts very I mean if you go back and you listen to the advice lines you know and you listen to that. Cliff bar and how he is at bike shows and giving out and cutting cliff bars and pieces and handing out little pieces of cliff bar to get people excited I mean that's that's almost that journey that you've got ahead of you is.
Is to be in those craft shows and to be in those communities whether it's chat rooms whether it's Facebook communities or whatever where you're trying to introduce this. This product so you can kind of try to get some traction but but I think it's going to take that real strong visceral organic start and listen sometimes Zach and I want to say this with all due respect sometimes.
Not every hobby that we come up with is is a career and I mean not everyone wants to you know courtesit and I always say that you know land of the new world and set their ships on fire and say you know let's go after it.
Right now this this business is not 100% full time for me I'm still involved in finance and trading but I'm putting in time in this and like to grow it to a point where I could it could be my full time job and my my girlfriend Emma is helping me out with it as well and she's working on it as well. And do you have the ability with your job your day job to like go to a trade show or like probably farmers markets on a weekends but trade choke is that a possibility.
Probably not weekdays type type type type but on the weekend yes and that's something I'm excited to do because it is a very visual product. I mean I can imagine seeing you like a table like poking something and having like a little panda and a penguin and a little puppy and a cat and a pig and you know all these like animals lining these tables you know and then you're just sitting there.
You and somebody else just poking poking poking poking poking poking you're just making them right and because it's one of those things that people have to have to see because I wasn't even I mean it's not like crocheting it literally of now that I understand it yeah it's like compacting the wool into a shape right yeah yeah and another question I have because I think that like in person demonstration really makes sense but another question is if we're trying to really build a social.
Really build a social media following so would you say put a video of someone doing that that exact process on on social media when you say put up the videos you've got to also look for something that's fascinating in the videos and and the connection and so I mean I think if you watch the video of you poking the wall to time lapse it to make it fast
and time again because people would people will give you the you know that's why tiktok is so good I'll give you the 15 seconds they'll give you the 25 seconds so real good time lapse video and listen that doesn't take a whole lot of of expense to do that and you just keep pumping those things out there and keep you know adding them to and and because I would say needle felting you could probably grab that marketplace fairly quickly.
Right it's not a huge marketplace right now so yeah so I mean that's for me honestly that was shave ice and it wasn't like you know everyone was it wasn't a ubiquitous term you know brick and mortar stores anything like that so we were able to kind of own that space
and another thing I think I would do Zach is I would do a lot of peripherals and adjacent so you know hook your videos up to crochet even if you say the new type of crochet or the new type of macrame or the new this or the new that and so you can grab those words those good key words and and so you can get some
relevancies in your search terms and also like I just try a bunch of different things like have them like just just to close up of the penguin and the panda just talking to each other like you know do the voices yeah and just see what how that works that's great I hadn't thought of that one that I think that would be good you know just just mess around because it doesn't sound like right now you've got the the capital
to spend on influencers I mean they're obviously tons of craft influencers I mean I think of brands like cricket you know in these huge craft brands there craft fairs all over the country crafty bastards and all these different kinds of fairs or something like this could really you know be interesting to people but I think as you're starting out on a small scale you're just going to have to experiment with videos in your channels and whether you do it to your own personal
channels or you open it another you know site or set channel called just fuzz or do all three that's really where you have to begin and you just got to do a lot of them yeah we're putting it we have an Instagram and we are yeah putting them out doing a lot of them and but I really appreciate the device yeah it looks it seems like Zach you're not in this massive hurry you're not trying to change the world
you're you're you're going at this because this is a tough one you're going at this in the right pace but but making the right moves and you know I love I just love the spirit man I love the fact that you saw something you you brought it back you're you're making it it's just really it's just really cool I'm
excited for you coming from you the guy who you know launched Hawaii nice and Kentucky that just means so much so thank you very much very maybe one of the most challenging businesses of all time yeah we feature in the show um sacti it's good luck the businesses called just fuzz he was
posted okay thank you guys all right I'm not now I'm I'm I'm thinking about this now I'm thinking about the meditative quality of stuff I think this is really exciting because if you can learn to do this and like you know I my attention span you're do you have a good
attention span are you willing to sit down for hours to learn something at this point in your life probably not now I'm being honest I probably I do like the medicinal I do a lot of stretching and yoga and things like that I do I do like that serenity in your life when your
little chaotic so I think there's there's something there's something really cool here but again developing and introducing an entire concept is really really challenging all right Tony let's go ahead and take another quick break but when we come back is it possible to build a brand of Instagram worthy products without paying big bucks to Instagram influencers that's coming up in just a moment stay with us I'm Guy Ross and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab
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from those whose family lives have taken different shapes to listen to the 82% series followed this is actually happening on the Wondering app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to this is actually happening at free on Wondering Plus welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab and today I'm joined by Kona ice founder Tony lamb and Tony let's let's get to it let's bring in our last collar hello collar I believe it's Jennifer Jennifer you in line yeah hi hi hi Tony
hello Jennifer welcome welcome welcome Jennifer tell us your first and last name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business sure my name is Jennifer Bradwood I'm the founder and owner of Bradenwood design studio we're based in San Diego, California and we're a small product design firm that specializes in modern home decor products for people who want to bring them to their home so think like plant stands plant hangers plant shelves vessels all sorts of stuff like that
nice and you design them all I do I do they're all my own designs cool tell us the the question that you have for us today yeah my question is we do really well with paid ads on Facebook and we've got some great micro influencer campaigns but I'm curious what other strategies could we use to grow our e-commerce sales and our brand awareness without having to spend like tens of thousands of dollars I obviously I'm working in a off a grassroots budget is it even possible to compete in a space
without having those big marketing dollars yeah all right let's we'll get to that in a moment but tell us a little bit about about the business so how did you get into into this this world at all sure so I spent the majority of my professional career in marketing social
media management branding web and graphic design those types of things but ever since I can remember I've always loved making things definitely a designer at heart spend a lot of time doing other side hustles while I was working full time I started like a pillow shop on Etsy I
did a custom artwork service I did interior design projects and about five years ago my husband and I decided to make a huge lifestyle switch we we were both so stressed out at our jobs we were we were miserable and we were in our you know mid 30s and we just decided to make a major
lifestyle switch we sold our home we both quit our jobs we moved into an apartment and I was kind of free to sort of figure out okay what do I want to do what's my next step and I've always been really entrepreneurial so I was like okay I'm going to start my own my own thing see
what I can do and so I originally thought Braden Wood would be an interior design firm but I was creating these DIY home decor planters and they sort of started catching a little bit of traction on social media and I had a couple of retailers reach out to me and say we we love this beautiful
modern plant hanger that you're making can we buy some of those for me we want to sell them and we you know do you do wholesale and I was like yeah I do wholesale let's do wholesale and so I the business was sort of was sort of born and over the last few years you know we've obviously
grown and we have overseas manufacturing partners now and third party logistics fulfillment and all of that and yeah it's been a while five years so that's sort of the story well by your website is absolutely gorgeous it looks incredible it looks thank you and the designs are well the designs
are truly amazing I forwarded this as soon as I saw it I just forwarded it to my wife so I know you've got another customer coming there's no she seems to she seems to have no budget so so did it did it for I'm excited for you thank you send me out send me all the customers please and and like some of these I mean you know I love airplanes because I we've got a couple of them they're super fun and the way that you've designed these plants it's like there you can put them right on the wall
they can they mount to the wall like like framed pictures but they're obviously yeah yeah they're meant to be like they're meant to look like home decor like a beautiful decor accent but then it just has that touch of life that you can add to it it's really different where are your customers
coming from now you're direct to consumer you don't have a storefront right correct we are all e-commerce based and the majority of our our customers are finding us through social media and then of course our paid ad strategy that does pretty well for us so the question is how do
you increase awareness right how do you get the word out about this brand without having a huge budget and I and the first the first thing I wonder Tony you might be able to speak to this is are there ways to think about this beyond just through digital advertising so for example
is there a world where you partner at least at the beginning locally with like event spaces or you know party planners or even home stages where they can use some of your products you know where they can borrow them but you can clearly advertise where they come from have you
ever done anything like that you know I we were we partnered with a small home staging company a few years ago and as people were coming to the open houses and looking at them people could actually buy the products that were in the stage home so it was a it was a really
cool unique concept but I don't think they ever really got it together enough but I love the idea of like partnering with other businesses in San Diego to do brand giveaways or you know raise awareness in that way what's the what's the dream Jennifer I mean you said you
had some relationships with some larger companies the I'm assuming kind of the West Elms of the world so yeah we did have some success early on with some wholesale relationships with West Elm and Magnolia market on common goods but we were very young and I it was almost
too soon okay and our price point was a little bit too high and so we had issues with sell through and we really worked the last two years bringing those costs of goods down finding the right manufacturers to make the product but to answer your question as far as like what's
the big dream is is really to be to be a brand where people who are looking for unique products to decorate and style their homes with that that they think of Bradenwood as as the brand like I want to bring life into my home but I just don't want like the same boring plant stand that's
on Amazon so I think growing a large and and well known direct to consumer home goods brand is the goal so you don't you're not so the goal is not to partner back up with those companies for large distribution I would consider that I would definitely be open to that
that possibility again we've we've learned so much in the last few years that I think we could do it yeah I mean if you're position yourself is I mean your your designs are so unique and they look so good you surprised to hear you say that you know the price point was a little
high I was like I was actually thinking I think you could sell sell it for more because it's just so unique I mean that's I what do I know I'm a 55 year old driving a nice cream truck I don't know what you about but I mean I like that you like it though that's good no it's just I mean I don't see
anything like it so probably trying to establish yourself as the higher end of you know this kind of home decor and then maybe approaching back into the the mass distributors because if the if the big goal is I mean obviously I think easily the big goal is to be self-sustaining you know to
to have all the money that you ever wanted in your life and it to rein money upon you and and bring it yeah I mean I know you said you don't have the massive budget but I want to encourage you to take the big swings I don't know what the what the latest who the latest
person is I'm gonna say Kardashian's but it's probably gonna date me or whatever but who's the big person it's it's obviously the the magnolias down there and and chip and join a gains and I know that's and I don't even know if that's it but it's it's about those big swings sending those
products sitting in some different way having it take a couple swings it doesn't you're gonna strike out a bunch but you're already you're already there man you're already starting over and I and so going for whatever that big win would be I think you got to take some swings for that I really
do I would add to that I mean there's something I noticed on on your site which is you have a blog right and your blog is super cool the thing that I love about your blog is that it's basically content marketing right you're you're writing about things that are very value
ad and it's free it's like here's how to take care of plant airplanes here's how to style like a designer and I feel like you I haven't seen a whole lot of new blog posts so it seems like they kind of tapered off last year and I wonder whether you consider really ramping that up even
if you feel like you're repeating some of the old ideas because over time that's gonna start to hit search engines and you can use some of the blog posts for paid ads like instead of just advertising the you know the plant hangers or the plant shelves yeah you would you basically
pay to promote the blog post which then links back to what you're selling because the cool thing about the blog post is you're giving away information for free I would really lean into that and try and lean into pushing some of those blog posts even spending you know
a couple hundred bucks on some targeted social media ads but using the blog post as a way to bring people under the door yeah I think I think that's a great idea is like kind of piggy backing on what you said a lot of people just don't know how to style you know their homes
or I've got this blank wall in my bedroom I've been looking at forever like what do I even put on it and giving that content and that education in in a blog post I think is really valuable people are hungry for that type of information and so yeah and we have taken a break a bit
on the content writings I didn't really know if it was serving us well but to revisit that I think is really smart and it's hard I mean we're doing a newsletter every week it's a lot of work yeah it is and sometimes I ask myself guys this worth it are people reading it by the way
if you are listening please do send them for a newsletter at guyross.com but you know it is it is critical over time there's an aggregate effect and the people really appreciate it even if it might just be a thousand people or five hundred people those your forced multipliers
those the people who are really going to lean into what you're selling until other people about it it'll just come up you know we're off had to wait oh I just saw this really cool blog post exactly about where to place your plants what was that place called Bradenwood yeah go check that out
yeah that's a really good idea business is called Bradenwood design studio and the founders Jennifer Bradwood Jennifer congrats thanks so much for calling in good luck thank you so much guy and I just wanted to say too I listen to the podcast every day I'm in my warehouse
working and it is so inspiring to hear other founders especially female founders who are out there and doing it and taking the big swings like you said Tony it keeps me going every day so thanks for what you do thank you thank you for saying that thank you so much good luck Jennifer thanks
a lot appreciate it nice meeting you both thank you thanks Tony you you you've touched on this point a couple times today in our in our chaso people and it reminded me of because you were like a top vacuum cleaner salesman like for many years in a row and you were crushing it and you were just
and you know like most most of us you were motivated to make more money because you wanted to have more money to have more freedom to do what to do things but the thing that you I just struck me today is this idea that you seem to be suggesting which is are you happy with where you are now
are you making a good living that sustains your life and if so do you really want the trade off for maybe marginally more income but but like exponentially more problems and I can you expand on that a little bit because I think that's a really important point that you raised.
I'm just watching it happen a lot in life not just in Kona but I mean I've got franchise ease that come in they get a truck they do really well they hate saying no the bookings become more than what their equipment can handle they buy more equipment they get to this
point where they have to they buy one more piece of equipment then they're going to have to hire a manager and then if you and then if you get a couple more after that you're going to have to hire an event coordinator and then before you know it you've got 25 30 35 employees
and it's meetings it's Iraq I'm not getting nothing it's a bad thing but there's a lot of moving parts at that point yeah and there's a law of diminishing returns to some degree I mean it's just and and not just with money but also with with happiness and joy and and so I really want
to preach that because so many of my franchise ease and I mean an overwhelming majority I talk to every single one of them and they'll say something like I'm just tired of the rat race I'm tired of corporate America I'm tired of this I'm tired of that I want to do my own
thing and I'm like sometimes you know sometimes you're not the best boss in the world and people have to understand that not everybody's an entrepreneur and and but there's a lot of people that can be good small business owners and that's what we try to curate is is follow the recipe be a good small business owner make a great living and enjoy your life I'll guy I'll never forget I was talking to a franchisee down in Florida and she was
very much of an introvert and she said something to me and she was a one truck operator she'd been a one truck operator for 10 years and she said Tony I work seven or eight months a year I make a hundred thousand dollars I you know a year I never thought I'd be a small business owner and I'm happier than I've ever been in my life I thought wasn't that the goal isn't that the goal is to be happy and so I was I was just so happy for
her and I really kind of affected me to think everyone's happiness shouldn't always be trying to take over the world. Tony Lamb founder of Konai's thanks so much for coming back on the show. Guy Ross I would be on your show anytime but you would want to be on your show this is such a great opportunity I'd say.
I appreciate your time. And by the way if you guys have not heard the Konai's episode please right now as we speak go back and check it out scroll back in your podcast cure or look for the link in the podcast description on your phone it is one of the funniest and most fun episodes of how I built this we've ever done in eight years it's so fun and there was a lot of laughter I'd love doing that interview with Tony because it was so fun life is funny life is funny it is yeah yeah in the
end and thanks everybody for listening to the show this week if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on the show please send us a one minute message tell us a little bit about your business and the issues or the questions that you
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podcast description. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Rampti Narablui it was edited by John Isabella our audio engineer was John Isabella Fredo our production team at how I built this also includes Alex Chung Carla Estevez Chris Messini Elaine Coats JC Howard Catherine Cipher Kerry Thompson Niva Grant and Sam Paulson I'm Guy Raaz and you've been listening to the
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