🌿 AMANDA GOETZ // FOUNDER @ HOUSE OF WISE

0:00Amanda Goetz:I'm Sam Rose, and this is Commerce is Chaos, the podcast for consumer brand founders who know that building a business is messier than the highlight reel shows. Your supplier just missed their deadline, your top product is out of stock, and your competitors somehow just launched the same thing at half the price. Sound familiar? Every week, we dive into the real problems that keep founders up at night, from inventory disasters to supply chain nightmares, because surviving the chaos is what separates brands that fail from brands that scale. Well, let's get right into it. You founded House of Wise, which was a luxury CBD brand, and you built it and sold it.

0:35Amanda Goetz:I should say was. You sold it to a cannabis company. And you've launched really bold products across sleep and sex, stress categories, and you've got kind of like the CPG challenges of cannabis regulations and advertising restrictions. And I'm sure that the list goes very much on. But one of the things that I've been talking to a lot of founders about on this podcast this season is just like kind of being against the grain and helping to champion new categories. So we'd love to pick your brain on all of that. And also we are here to celebrate your new book. Tell us about the book. Yeah. So the book is called Toxic Grit, How to Have It All and Actually Love What You Have.

1:19And it was born really, really out of going back pre-founder days when I led marketing, I led brand marketing at the Knotts, the wedding company. So I had a team of 50 people and I had three kids under the age of four and I had just filed for divorce and was entering a chapter of my life where I think society wanted me to pick a lane. Like, are you either a girl boss or are you a trad wife? And I I was like, well, I am neatly in both. I am a full-time single mom and now. And so it's really a book about the vehicle for which I talk about toxic grit and how to create space for all the things in your life is what I call character theory.

2:07And this idea that you have all of these diverse versions of you inside of yourself. I think as founders, founders can really relate to this. The work version of you very much wants to take over the whole plot and the whole movie, call all the shots. But there's other parts of you that want different things. They have different goals. There's a part of you that wants to just move to Bali and explore the world. Then there's a part of you that wants to be crazy independent. There's a part of you that wants to actually love being in a relationship. There's a part of you that wants to take care of others.

2:48There's a part of you that doesn't want to take care of anybody. We have this kind of diverse, competitive set of internal characters. And when you think about a business, what do we do? We set a North Star, and then we set functional goals so that each function knows what they're doing and how they're creating space to ladder up to the North Star. So this book kind of takes it through, takes a person through the lens of, okay, sure, your North Star may be to live a happy, healthy life, but what does that actually mean when you start to break it down into these kind of different departments that live within you?

3:31Amanda Goetz:I feel like hearing you say all of this, you have like so many of the answers or at least the frameworks that we're all looking for. So give us, yeah, give us a couple of insights. Like how did you, how did you identify this as like a framework for yourself? And then how did you maybe develop it so well that you're like, you know what, this can actually help more people too. Yeah, it came – I can tell you the exact moment that character theory came to light. It was a very kind of typical day in my life of just jumping on the – dropping two kids off at preschool, another one, the baby at home with the nanny, going to – on the subway down, working, running from like lactation room to meeting and to then home by five o 'clock to relieve the nanny and get the kids bathed and in bed.

4:23and there was this moment where I was rocking my son who was just a little baby and I took out my phone and I wrote the phrase, you can have it all in my notes app. And I remember thinking like, where's the friction coming from? Cause it's not all, I have it all. And I realized it was the word you. And I started to understand like the work version of me doesn't want to leave meetings early to go pump or leave work at 4.30, that version of me wants to stay at work until 10 PM and like keep going. The mom version of me doesn't give a fuck what emails are coming through. I just want to be like here with my babies.

5:07And so I started to realize like I was being fed the word alignment from everyone, like just find alignment. And I was like, these different versions of me don't align. And during COVID, when I had a VC-backed startup with three kids at home all the time, I had to realize that now I would embody the work version of me all day. And then I needed to quickly transition into mom mode. And I started talking about the fact that I was building in transition sequences. And so for example, I started doing a commute bath where I would go and take a bath and I would tell my kids, I will be back. I'm going to go become a mommy.

5:54And I would literally go take a bath. And from that point forward for the night or for the next two hours, I would be in mom mode. And I would allow myself the time to transition into that version of me that was softer and more sillier. And I needed that space and that buffer. And when I started to kind of like expand that theory out to these other parts of me, now I was dating again and now fast forward, I'm getting married, but thank you. But this idea that like, I can't go from work mode or mom mode into date mode. I needed time to transition into that version of me that's softer and wanting to flirt.

6:37But like I needed to actually allow and give myself permission for two things, compartmentalization and hierarchy. We can't be multiple things well at once. Wow.

6:53Amanda Goetz:I'm like struggling with all that all the time, but I've sort of taken the opposite approach, which is worth reconsidering, which is like, I don't have those liminal spaces, uh, and where I, or I haven't prioritized them. Um, and I think part of the reason for that is that, well, number one, there's just a lot going on. So, you know, it's like, how do you, how do you fit it all in? And also I work with my husband. So we find a lot of productivity in, in spaces where normally I would be in like, you know, partner mode or in mom mode. And I'm like, but wait, I can actually, I can squeeze this moment for more.

7:34Amanda Goetz:And then, you know, you're like in line at Disneyland taking a phone call is what happens. So character collision is real. Like, and there's space. The whole third section of the book is literally called mastering the multiverse. Like all these characters coexist on their own storylines all the time and they are constantly going to collide. In those moments, let's talk about like, okay, taking a call online at Disney, like in that moment for that 30 minutes that you're on that call, you're actually making the intentional choice to allow work to go above family mode or vacation mode, whatever. And the whole point, like if I could summarize this whole book into two words, it's guilt-free.

8:20Like if you need to create that hierarchy in that 30 minutes so that you can create that space, then it's about removing the guilt from it. You don't want to come out of it and be like, well, I was a shitty partner or a shitty mom because I took the call from Disney. It's like, no, for 30 minutes, the kids went with their dad and they went and did this thing or their mom and did this thing, whatever. And then I took this call. I'm not ashamed about it. There's no guilt about it. And then I'm going to go back in and then be back in mom mode. Right.

8:56Amanda Goetz:So it's really not, it really is about intentionality. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk for a minute about the business that you've built because I, and one of the things that I've long admired about you is just the, what you built and when and how hard a time that was, which you just sort of lightly alluded to. Um, tell me about, yeah, just what inspired you to, uh, to build the business. Um, I know there's a story behind the name as well, which I'd love to share with everybody. Um, and, uh, yeah. Yeah. House of wise. Oh, that was definitely one as a founder. So I had a, I had a tech startup before that was back in 2009.

9:42It was a wedding tech company. And I think when you've been a founder before, you know when you start to get the itch that's like one that you can't not scratch. And that was House of Wives for me where I was going through my divorce and I was struggling to create space for these different parts of myself. So as you can see, there's a through line here. And COVID hit and I was watching women, my friends specifically, drink more alcohol than they were ever drinking. And then also getting put on anxiety medicine. I was like, wait, what if we actually gave ourselves permission for these other things?

10:27Other things meaning like working out and better sleep, but also some originally formulated high quality products that you could trust that were CBD based that were really helping me. But I also, when I was exploring the CBD world as somebody who was like not a cannabis user, I had, I came across a lot of products that made me feel really bad. So I was like, there was no brain. I would walk into places. I was like, nothing has a brand name here. I truly didn't know what to trust. I was like, okay, I can take what I know from building consumer-facing brands and then build a really high-quality product from sources I trust.

11:08It was February 2020, so just a few weeks before the world shut down. I was in India managing our Indian office there. I went on a date just really allowing myself to have some freedom to explore what it would look like if I built this company. And I started researching women who really had a lot of agency and power in their lives, or they took it back. And I came across the story of Brownie Wise, who is literally the woman that turned around Tupperware, which Tupperware was founded by a man. His name is Earl Tupper. Shocking, I know. and they were like nosediving in sales. And this woman, Brownie Wise, identified that like when women come together, they share products.

12:02And so that started the Tupperware party and she is the genius behind it. Then when she went to ask for a board position or like a leadership position, they fired her because the movement had caught on and everybody was doing Tupperware parties and the company was booming. And she went off and like no one ever really heard from her again. And I wanted this company to be, there's so many layers to it, but at the highest level, really like putting our money where our mouth is and that we are supporting women through and through. My whole team was like people who are working like fractional or working moms who are juggling.

12:44But then also because I couldn't do paid advertising, we did what we called like super affiliates. And it was this kind of like taking everything we know from direct sales, stripping out all of the ickiness like pyramids and having to recruit other people to a team, but really understanding that like people who feel invested in a company and they feel like they're part of a company, they're the ones that are going to talk about that. So how do I build that in? And so we created a Slack channel for all of our affiliates. We did monthly basically town hall updates of what we were building. We gave them line of sight into new product testing, like new packaging design, whatever.

13:31And when we launched December 1st, 2020, we had 500 super affiliates that launched with us that day. And it was just like, I didn't have to spend on paid advertising. We just grew a community.

13:49Amanda Goetz:That's incredible. I think one of the things that a lot of founders underestimate is how many products you have to build to build your product. So I'll give you an example based on what I'm going through, but I'm inspired to make this comment from what you're saying. I'm, you know, like early stage SaaS, venture-backed SaaS. This is one of the companies that I'm, you know, really heavily, I'm not heavily involved. It's like completely my day job. It's like a constant obsession. I've been trying to build this for years. And I'm really enthusiastic about it. And the product is rad. Like it's really a great product.

14:30Amanda Goetz:It's big though. And I kind of underestimated how big it was when we were going to build it. We did exactly the wrong thing, which is like, we didn't pick a tiny, tiny little wedge, little product and then like grow it. We're like, no, like let's platform all of operations into one place. So, okay. So we build the product and it's rad and, you know, getting radder every day. And then there's like go to market. And I'm like, wait, now I'm building like a whole other machine. There's the product just to talk about the product. and and I mean I knew that there were a lot of jobs to be done and I had a whole plan but execute writing a plan is so adorable right you know the amount of content that I need to write or the amount of like like you know wires that I need to string up and like just building out a HubSpot account so that we can like have the fairest chance at attribution and you know like all of the funnel stuff.

15:26Amanda Goetz:I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is like, I thought I was building a product, but it turns out I'm building at least two products. And, you know, and this, this business is kind of early stage. Some of the other businesses that I've grown and sold, they have like almost a hundred employees. Then there's a whole other product there. It's the product of like people management and making sure that like, you know, you're treating people with respect and that they've got the resources that they need. And like HR is a product and it's so interesting. And I'm sort of like inflicting this like on myself once again.

15:59Amanda Goetz:I'm like, wait, I once again underestimated that just my thing is not enough. Like you had to build this entire community product. And what you're saying is, and like so much respect, you realized how important that was. So important that you built it before you released the product itself. Yeah. Actually, in a way, the first product. It was for sure because that started in August and we didn't even launch with products until December. So for months, we were just talking to people and bringing them. To me, as a marketer, I think about a couple of things. The first being how many fingerprints of the actual consumers can I get on the product before it even launches?

16:49so that when it launches, they're like, oh, my fingerprints. I see myself on it. I want to talk about it. The second one is my approach to marketing is called mountain range marketing. I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but I think I made it up. But if somebody else made it up somewhere, tell me.

17:09Amanda Goetz:Only because I know you, but keep going. Okay. So I think about marketing as a mountain range. Most people just go and summit the largest peak and then come right down. For me, I am constantly building up towards a bigger mountain and then coming down and then maybe there's another big beat and then you come down maybe a little lower and then you build it back up again. But everything is preparing you to keep going to the next thing. And then there's also a come down period of what are you doing? Let me make this even more tangible. Every single time there's a quote unquote launch, you should have a pre-pre-launch, which is getting those people's fingerprints all over this thing, getting feedback on everything that you're doing.

18:02Then there's the pre-launch, which is How do you get people excited about the thing that's about to drop? Then you launch it and then you've got post-launch moments, which is what the heck are you doing with the testimonials and the content and everything? And within each of those, every time you do something, I tend to say, is it an octopus or a swordfish? Are you getting at least eight diverse channel things from this. So if you're, let's say one of your marketing strategies is we are going to put our founder on podcasts. That's our marketing strategy. Okay, cool. Now that's a swordfish. Let's make it an octopus.

18:52If your founder goes on a podcast, you're going to use the clips for own social. Cool. If it's a bigger podcast, you're going to pitch it out to PR and be like, this founder told so-and-so this thing, right? And try to get it into earned media. You're going to do earned social. You're going to push them to obviously post the clips. Maybe you're going to try to get into earned email and see if you can hijack their email list and say, hey, can the podcast host send an email or post about this in the newsletter? And hopefully you arrange all this before you go on the podcast and not just ask for it afterwards.

19:32And you can just keep going and you try. I'm like, how can we hit eight touch points, right? You may put paid. You may sponsor the next six podcasts because they heard the founder's story. Now that audience is emotionally connected. It makes sense to do paid ads in the podcast for the next couple of episodes because they've got the why in front of them. So it's the mountain range plus the octopus is like how I go through it.

20:02Amanda Goetz:Tell me a little bit more about the come down piece of that. Is that just like the post-launch stuff or what part of it makes it feel like down to you? Or is it just the mountains have? No, well, you could hang glide down or I, it depends on how big the launch is, right? Like if this is for consumer, like if you have a launch, obviously you've got influencer. Well, not obviously, but perhaps you have influencer. Did you, what did you do with the organic posts? Did you white label any of it? Do you reach out and try to double down on a bigger affiliate opportunity with that person because you see that they drove a decent amount of sales and you want to cultivate a bigger relationship.

20:54Did you create a sizzle reel? Did this turn into a brand marketing moment where it re-underlines the brand strategy even more? Did your launch party... I was just looking. I think it was like Ralph Lauren did like a huge thing. And it's like the content coming out of that is so on brand. It's like, okay, this can reinforce brand in a way. So I'm constantly thinking about what other parts of the marketing plan it can support after.

21:31Amanda Goetz:how okay so this is genius also everyone should want to hire you now although i know you're not available let's make it real tell us how the octopus works for toxic grit oh you're putting me so on the spot because i like to tell marketers like the best marketers can't market themselves And I'm like, it's so true. Like everything that I know I'm so not doing for this book because I just, I don't know why. I think it's like a whole new level of like imposter syndrome of like, ah, I'm now an author. Like, okay. Okay. So let's get tactical for a second. So with Toxic Grit, I have thought a lot about Octopus for sure, which is I am writing, let's use newsletters, for example.

22:26Email is a big way to sell books. So I did a couple of things. I know newsletter strategy is like a marketing tactic. Okay. First things first, you can pay to be in people's newsletters. Okay, cool. There are a few paid ads I've actually put money behind. But then I went a step further. So Justin Welsh's newsletter, I reached out to him and I was like, hey, I will pay to get into your newsletter, but can I actually pitch you on what your newsletter should be about that day. And then you could organically weave it in. And he doesn't let anyone guest write his newsletter, but he was like, pitch me.

23:14And if I like one, then maybe. And so I pitched him on four different topics that are threads from the book and he liked one of them. And he was like, great, send me some images and I'll point to the book in it organically. So now I'm like taking over the whole newsletter, but because I pitched him on a topic that was resonant with what he talks about. Now I did that with 10 other newsletters. I picked 10 people that I guest ghost wrote and I'm sending it to them and I'm like, Hey, I wrote this in your voice, but using a thread from toxic grit, we'll see how many people use it. And then there's the third part of it, which is I have a whole list of newsletter friendlies of people who have newsletters that I'm like, hey, mind throwing a blurb in about the book.

24:09So you could just say, I'm going to write a newsletter about this. Or you can then say, how do I do an earned slash paid newsletter strategy? So I'm constantly thinking about how many different angles I can get into with newsletters.

24:24Amanda Goetz:And you can apply that same strategy to - Any channel. Any channel. Yeah. um I feel you on it being hard as a as a marketer it's really hard to market your own stuff I think I also have have a uh you know a sense of I I often just come from a positioning wanting to help people and if the thing that I have to help them is like also a thing that they need to pay me for I get really self-conscious about it it's like weirdly hard for me to sell my own thing especially if it's like a very expensive thing, like anti ERP software, where I'm like, Hey, I'm going to take over$50 ,000 of your annual spend, but guess what?

25:03Amanda Goetz:I'm going to cut it in half. Yeah. That's terrifying for me. Um, so, uh, layering in, layering in lots of different channels to talk about that, um, has provided me with some permission actually from myself to be more overt about it. And then I think there's the other piece of it, which I assume is maybe not as heavy for something. When you write a book, it's like, I mean, it's such a, it's like all of a sudden you have a new lifetime title that no one can ever take away. And, you know, it's like you're asking for folks time and attention, but you're really giving them something. and the value exchange feels really balanced to me.

25:51Once people have read it. So like I would say that I was holding my breath. You spend a lot of time in a vacuum. Now, granted, I was pressure testing a lot of this content in my newsletter, which is what gave me the confidence to write the book. But I remember, so you write the book and you spend kind of time with just your editor and you're writing the whole thing. And then the next group of people you send it to are the people you're asking for a blurb from.

26:20Amanda Goetz:Right. And so those are like your biggest social currency. You're like going through your Rolodex and you're like, who's the most famous people I know? And like literally, and then you send this PDF to them being like, will you read this? Because no one else has. And it's just so, I remember the first person I sent it to was Emily Calandrelli, who is, she was the hundredth woman in space, NASA astronaut, you know, New York times bestselling author, Emmy award winning. Um, uh, she had a show on Netflix. She's incredible. And I sent it to her and I only knew her really surface level through a friend of a friend.

27:05And she's, she said, we'll take a look and we'll respond. And she sent the blurb back and I just broke down in tears. Like it was the first time somebody read it and said that it helped them. And so it was just like, I could breathe after that moment knowing that there was something of substance in there that could help people. And once you understand that, then the mindset shift has to start to become like, I'm doing a disservice by not putting my all into this and getting this out into the world that could help people. And that's the reframe that I have to tell myself at least to get through the imposter syndrome.