🛋️ HELEN SMITH // ROO & YOU FOUNDER & CEO

0:00I'm Sam Rose, and you're tuning in to 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 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. Helen, thank you so much for joining. I'm excited for this conversation.

0:32And just in the green room, we were chatting about working with our husbands, which is a hot topic. So let's start there for a second. I think we both think we like it, right?

0:42Helen Smith:I love it. For me, I'm like, it's like a trust thing, too. And there's nobody else I would trust to be as honest with me and also just like do something like this with. I feel like I just want somebody that would kind of like look after me as well in this. And so I'm like, who else would I do it with? Who else would you do it with? What is like what what's like a weekly highlight for you two working together? And then maybe like what's the hardest part of every week? I think the hardest part of every week is probably every day is that the shutting off. Yeah. And just like knowing when to stop talking about work and switch to something else.

1:24Helen Smith:it's like literally the most impossible thing it doesn't matter what we're doing we could be watching tv scrolling on something playing a game we find something that we're like oh my god and we start talking about work and i'm like no no no i'm like no stop it and i told him this year i'm like after 9 p.m we are not talking about it okay just don't do it but it doesn't work so it's just like it just keeps coming up and we'll get into a conversation like no no stop brian's buying a little bit more that for me. I'm like, you know, I'll wake up early. And so I'll be like spinning on all sorts of things.

1:57And then he'll wake up and I'm like, I just come right at him. I'm like, did it? I'm like, have you checked? And he's like, yeah, I opened my eyes 30 seconds ago.

2:08Helen Smith:Right. And you and I'm always like trying to stop. And sometimes I'm like, it's all you. He's like, no, it's not. He's like, you bring things up. And then we start talking. Then you're like, hey stop talking about work on it it's hard because your mind's always going and that's just like you have that person right there so you can just get going on ideas and you know when you're not talking about work what are you guys talking about you have kids you're having what are your hobbies probably the kids like we have three of them they're four and a half eight and ten so if it's not work it's kids or one of my shows if he wants to talk about a show he likes I'm like, oh, kind of boring, not into it.

2:47Helen Smith:But I'm like, I love watching my shows with him because he just always has commentary. And I'm like, you make it more entertaining. It's kind of boring watching by myself. So, yeah. Yeah. You got to have someone to you got to have someone to kick it with. Right. OK, let's talk about the business for a second. Ruin You is one of the fastest growing kids brands in North America. Super congrats. That's so exciting. You launched the company from your living room. In 2020. Was it like February 2020 or like? Like July. It was, I would say like maybe the fall is when I kind of really started. And our first pre-order was in November.

3:28Helen Smith:But prior to that, I had a teething shop where I handmade silicone teethers, pass-by-clips, things like that. And I kind of did that, like went to markets and whatever. I started that when my first was one. And that spring before, well, the spring that COVID started, Everybody was posting mask lanyards and things like that. And I was like, you know what? These are not safe. And I used to work for the school board. So I made some. From there, it was like we sold 6 ,000 units of those that summer. And it kind of just like lit that fire under me. And my kids started building forts with my couch that I love.

4:03Helen Smith:And I was like, no, there's got to be something else. And yeah, at that time, it was just there was only one other brand. It was made by people who like they're college students. So I felt like there was things missing from it that parents would really want. So I was like, let's just let's go for it. Why not? So you jump. So you're sort of in you're in business making these things. And and then you kind of use that as a functional stepping stone to like this much bigger idea. Right. Yeah, I feel like I learned a lot from having that just from like, you know, buying my supplies from somebody in Canada.

4:39Helen Smith:who was bringing it over to finding a supplier and doing that. So I kind of had a little bit of that experience anyways. And I was like, I think I could, I think I could do it. I'm going to pull this off. What was the experience like kind of like working inside a supply chain that you basically completely controlled to like doing these much, I mean, a mask lanyard and a pacifier, like also so small. And so you're like leveling up on supply chain and also just leveling up on logistics. like shipping these much bigger things um that was that was really really hard um i have no idea like i had no idea about shipping logistics any of that stuff or any of the things that it would entail like for me i was like okay we'll put up a pre-order sell a couple different from our basement um but we got up to like two containers in that first pre-order i'm like what do we do here with this with the shipping um and it was like you know figuring out where ships from how 3pls work what a 3PL even is and luckily my husband used to work for CN Rail so I would lean on him a lot and I'd be like I don't know what's happening I don't know what's going on and like it was COVID and it's like your ship is stuck here and this one's been pulled over here so it'd be like so many delays I'm like is this normal is this what happens like how are brands getting things over here and like it was uh yeah learning how many things fit into a container and CBMs and very very different from me making it by hand packaging and shipping it than having something like that where you actually need a full team to be able to like ship it and get it over and all that stuff what are like if you were talking to yourself six years ago what would you like what are the three kind of most salient memories or lessons that you were like if i had known i don't know if it's like I have things that are if I had known I think I don't know if we just really lucked out of it was like the fact that I just don't care about I guess not sounding as knowledgeable and just asking questions I think that is probably the thing that stuck out most to me from building everything everywhere we have like been and everything we've dealt with I'm not afraid to ask somebody else about like to explain things to me and get understanding of it and I think that it's really, really important to be able to ask those questions so you could learn.

7:02Helen Smith:But yeah, I think like, honestly, for anything, it's just like, I have to ask the questions and understand it to a degree where it makes sense to me. And sometimes I'd be like, explain it to me as if I'm a 10 year old. I'm like, don't even talk to me in these like acronyms and all these things. I'm like, just tell me if I was a 10 year old, how this works so I can actually like wrap my brain around it. No. And at the end of the day, there's so much of that knowledge is sort of like, like black boxed or, or hidden behind like physical paywalls, like people that gatekeep the knowledge because that's their business model.

7:35And at the end of the day, you're right. If you, none of it's that complicated. If you just get comfortable feeling a little bit silly and like asking questions sort of innocently, like that the answers are there and you will, and you will get there. Um, yeah. So much of it reminds me of, you know, when you become a parent everyone the joke is like there's no manual there's also no manual for some of this stuff insofar as like there's we're all just mostly making it up and then there's like advice and there's like but just there's parenting advice too and like there are you know frameworks that you can use in parenting but there's still there's no manual for just like how to run a good business and how to figure out what the hell cbms are like you literally have to like

8:20Helen Smith:go into it right it took me probably until this year to really accept that i kept going there has to be certain ways how things are done and i i just need to find the people that are willing to share it with me and it's like the more i talk to founders it's like no there isn't you're just figuring it out along the way you have to figure out what works for your business yeah just be okay feeling silly like a lot of our partners i will be like i want to work with you because you're the expert. You can teach me about this because I'm not going to be able to help you with a lot of this. So, you know, there's some stuff that I think you might not have known ahead of time, but really in retrospect looks like a very smart decision or maybe it was.

9:02And I want to tug on the thread of pre-orders for a second because there's such a good way to like de-risk the entire production run, the go-to-market plan and the whole bit. So tell me a little bit about your choice to use pre-orders as a tool and maybe, yeah, just like a couple of lessons you might share with anybody else who's trying to think about how to get started or go to market.

9:25Helen Smith:I am not a risky type of gal. So that was one of the main things. I wanted to make sure we could prove it out first before we did anything else, but also like you need capital to be able to put in these orders. So for me, it was like, okay, we need to make sure we can prove this out before we, well, new set of like knowledge you need to learn to be able to even do that. And for me, I always come at anything for the business as what I would want to see as a consumer. I'm like the world's best shopper. I love everything. I own everything from everybody. If an ad comes up, I'm probably buying from that company.

10:02Helen Smith:It's the worst. For me, it was like, okay, let's try and do this pre-order, see what we get, what the interest is. And we kind of did that built around a community because who's going to buy a$300 play couch for their kids from random mom who comes out of the blue? And I was like, okay, they need to know me. They need to know my family. And I just spent so much time talking to customers and Facebook groups and things like that and putting ourselves out there and then taking everybody and putting them in our group where we shared more and ran the pre-order really through that group. I felt like it was like a safe way to do it the thing that I think I did not think about was the reaction of the people for when they have to wait especially during a time like COVID where there's so many delays and it's like okay well is this a scam what's happening I need my money back you know you're getting like and it's understandable wait for like a month for something I'm like, this is way too long.

11:01Helen Smith:I'm not patient for this. But yeah, I think like it works because for me, it felt like it was a safe thing to do, but being prepared for all the questions you're going to get and if there's delays and how you're going to kind of get around that is really important to understand. Yeah. Such a good point, especially during, I feel like during COVID, And I mean, commerce is chaos. It was wild. Wild, like a perfect storm. Everybody had a lot of money to spend on the internet. Everyone's really bored. Everyone's stressed and angry. And supply, like global supply chain is just unhinged. And I felt for our business and we had COVID related parts of our business too.

11:49We were selling masks. And I mean, one day I was just like, I don't know what else to do for like, if we're not, we're either all going to lose our jobs or we're going to do something wrong. And then joke was on us because like everyone was cooking sour sourdough bread.

12:00Helen Smith:I never did. And like redecorating their homes and like, you know, you sit on the same old sofa for so long and you're like, F this thing. I'm like, I'm redecorating. So it's sort of like a perfect moment in so many ways, but people were so anxious and angry about everything. And I felt like the only tool that really worked was just to be really vulnerable and like over communicate. I can't tell you how many mass emails I sent out that started with, I'm so sorry, right? I'm trying. The amount of like the updates and just like, at some point, like there was people that are like, you're over communicating, maybe like take it back a little bit because maybe they won't react that way.

12:43Helen Smith:And I was like, you know what? I would want to know know what's going on and at the end of the day I was like if I tell them what the problem is they're not gonna maybe feel as angry about it and then you'll have like you're always gonna have people that are gonna like maybe you should have planned better how do you plan for what's going on in COVID literally one of our ships got if they're like we're docking it because there's COVID on the ship and I'm like it's already on the ship just keep going who cares like why are we docking my kid's already on there by the time you get to where you're going everybody's gonna be over the contagious part um but like you know or there was like the the canal thing and a boat went down in the ocean and somebody posts is that the ruin you poem like oh my god guys please i'm like do not put any bad juju into the universe here we have run into every delay imaginable and it was just over communicate i was like that's just what i would want and that's what i'm going to do whether people like it or not at least they know what's going on it's kind of been really big and important part of how we've built the business is just how transparent we are with our customers.

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15:07Helen Smith:So for me, like I was never in any kind of community groups or anything like that ever until COVID started. And I joined and can I be honest, it is not what I thought it would be. It was pretty savage. Really? Wild, wild west out there. People do not care what they're saying on the Internet. and so I wanted to have something that was for the brand but for people to connect as well because at that point it was like everybody just wanted a way to talk to other people and connect and just like have that feeling of still having friends and things like that so I was like okay we can do this with our groups yeah we made like this place where I have one rule you cannot you cannot be mean in our group it's like one strike you're out it's only for fun positivity don't care about anything else going on.

15:57Helen Smith:I think everybody connected so much over that, but then it's kind of still worked and it's still a place where people can connect because I feel like no matter when it is, people are just looking for others to connect to. And like, even as a founder, I'm always like, what can I go to to connect with other founders and like hear from people and do things like that? So yeah, I think COVID was a really good way for us to kind of build that community and connect with them because we had nothing else to do. We just sat there and talked. They spent so much time on lives all the time. And I was like, hey, Matt, get on a scale so people can see how much our phone can hold.

16:35Helen Smith:He's like, stop weighing me on the internet. He's like, why don't you go to him? I'm like, no, thank you. I can't rule about this. The kids would go to bed and at nighttime, we would go on live. We would go on live and talk to like the other parents and like, this is what you could do. And here's the fabric and like, just kind of chat about random stuff as well so it was just like a way for us all to connect what um what tools were you using at the time that you're like i don't need those anymore or the world has changed and then what are the latest tools and like still from the framing of kind of like community engagement and and you know you know creating community or participating in community um has it changed much or do you feel like it's still kind of same same input a lot of people suggest changing what we do and where we're doing it but i'm like i don't like messing with something that's not broken unless somebody can really prove to me that it's gonna make a big difference so our group has always been on facebook i feel like it's where people go to connect with their friends and families anyway so they're gonna be on there and i feel like it does what we need and then Instagram.

17:49Helen Smith:So like we've literally just, that's how we've built our communities through those two places. And Mike, I just don't want to introduce other things into it if it's not going to make a big change for us. And yeah, that's, I've never been about adding tons and tons of tools unless it's going to make a change because you need to be able to manage those things. And we're a small team. I do not have time to manage any more things and neither does anybody else. So for me, it has to be like really, really good output for it to be added. So nothing so far. I mean, and that's such a great anchor, like it that you don't have to over engineer this stuff.

18:25It doesn't have to be complicated. It really just needs to be kind of like, I don't know, my, my, my two, my opinion is it needs to be authentic and consistent. And if it's those two things, then, you know, everything, every bell and whistle that you could add to it, it's like, okay, well, I'm really just giving myself homework,

18:44Helen Smith:you know yeah we tried like a couple of things like in the very beginning um I guess like really because we're new and it's just like I don't know random apps or somebody reaches out like oh look what we can do for you and like oh cool let's try it out and okay well we don't have time to actually like do this use it the way it should be and it's not doing what we thought it would so yeah you can like really fall into that trap as well really easily where the sales people are really good And I am. Yes, that sounds awesome. Let's do it. So, yeah, it's just like trying to really see and understand if it's going to work for you, because it might work for somebody else, might be amazing for somebody else, but not for what you're doing.

19:28Helen Smith:And you have to really know your customer and your business and what works for it, because not everything is going to. Speaking of knowing what works, channel mix is always a really big part of that. Just like knowing where to be selling. You are primarily D2C. Are you fully D2C or you're rolling into? Fully D2C. Are you going to do retail? Considering it, talking about it, going to see, test it out. I feel like retail is like a whole different ballgame. And yeah, going to try it out. Matt's all for it. It's like from the beginning, he's like, let's do retail. I'm like, hmm, but like I like having our own website where we're not giving away margins to somebody else.

20:10I don't know if this would work for your category. We always try to optimize for being channel agnostic by just like making our margins equivalent in every channel. So like the cost of fulfillment for a D2C order was about equivalent to our wholesale margin giveaway. way and then we were like okay well we'll actually sell anywhere because like we make we take home about the same amount of money at the end of the day I don't know if that was a luxury for our teeny tiny product category or not but it seemed it worked well for us it is something that Matt

20:43Helen Smith:really yeah he had to really show it to me in the numbers to kind of I was like no it doesn't make sense we're gonna give it all away he's like no no it doesn't work like that and yeah it's like this is one of the things like part of the like the learning and i just like just talking about it it was like it doesn't make sense i'm like i'm like not not for me and he had to like really be like okay look at this this is what you get this is what you're doing okay maybe yeah and it's like just finding the right places to like partner with that are gonna work for you as well right so it's like you don't want to just go into everywhere and if it doesn't work and doesn't online with you like the beginning we had quite a lot of um retailers reach out but it's like through marketplace and doing a lot of that and like we need to get the business like really into a place where it makes sense and we know what we're doing before we start doing any of that stuff so yeah retail adds so much complexity to it and i think a good a good rule of thumb is like get each channel as an opportunity but it will make the business more complicated so like get your house tidy in the first one.

21:52Like if do you have DTC on lock or you have pre-orders on lock, then move on to like, it's not that you have to do one thing at a time, which I'm the last person to be doing one thing at a time. But it's more like if you get your house really in order in like category one, then or or channel one, then you can move on to category two or channel two without it feeling so chaotic to just be inside that. And, you know, then then the 300 page vendor guide isn't like a you know a bad friday night right like some of these contracts

22:26Helen Smith:i'm like holy it's like a lot of a lot of reading and figuring out and all the little fine print things like that but like for us it was like we were pre-order and then we moved into drops and then actually having things in stock so i feel like it's kind of been like a little progression i do love to like rush into things but then i'm also like okay well we need to maybe make sure this part works before we do the next thing and it's just like plan for it it's slow down a little bit because i'm like i think of something like i want to do it right now so that like i've had to like really learn to kind of sit with my idea and kind of plan the whole thing out as much as i can before going to it, it's really hard because I'm like, I thought of it.

23:12Helen Smith:I want to do it tomorrow. And it's just like, no, no, no. Step it back. Just a few, just a little bit. Break it, break it down. When you plan like that, how does the planning work happen? I'll give you three like ideas. Like, is it in conversations and then with takeaways? Or do you prefer to kind of like sit and maybe write a deck or a memo for yourself where you're like, you know, you can kind of think through the risks on paper and but have something like a written artifact. Or is there another way that you kind of engage with your team to put these plans in place to like figure out whether or not an opportunity is going to like make or break you?

23:55Helen Smith:I want to think of it myself, plan it out. First, I plan it out in my head. Usually in the middle of the night I'll be like laying there I'm like oh okay that could work and just like start typing in notes and then from there I'm like Matt I have this idea I'll like tell him usually in the morning I have this idea and then he starts like I'm like hold on hold on let me just let me write down my thoughts and then we'll bring thoughts together and so I talk I do it myself then I talk about about it and then we'll talk to you about it and it's just like I'm always like I need you guys to be like super honest about what you think of this idea and what are the things that you think maybe I'm missing or you think that we need to do and I want to make everything as collaborative as possible um but yeah it's like kind of like that three steps it's got to be me first I have to get it all out because as soon as I hear other people saying things everything I'm thinking it's just out the window it's like it just like erases everything I'm thinking so I have to get it out and then move on to talking about it with everybody else get some on paper yeah it's yeah get it all get all out most of the stuff is just like running around in my head and I'm like Okay, get it out before you forget about it because my memory these days is not that great.

25:06I walk around with post-it notes.

25:09Helen Smith:I really need to. Everybody's like, how do you not remember? We just talked about this. I'm like, I don't know. I've had like 400 different conversations so far since I talked to you last. So yeah, you got to write everything down. Yeah. I was just chatting with a colleague about this earlier in the week. Like there's something about for me personally and for her, like the physical, the gesture of like writing something down with a pen on paper that makes it so much stickier for me mentally. I have a hard time. I love Asana as a as a like team management tool, as a task management tool, as a project management tool.

25:42But for things that I'm tasking and more like my stuff rather than managing stuff, if I write it down on a piece of paper, I'm like 10 times as likely to get it done.

25:54Helen Smith:It makes our business office manager, it makes her crazy. She has built out Monday for us in such a beautiful way. And she loves it so much. She's like, please, can you go in there and add your ideas? Can you go update? And then I'm like, I would love to, but probably not going to happen. I'm like, but I have a note section on my phone. I can, you know, or like a screenshot, some post-its on my, on my desk or something. I'm like, but that's a story that's going. Cause she's like, I was talking to her about some ideas I had. She's like, oh my God, are these in one? I'm like, no, check why not? Because this is where I put my ideas.

26:32Helen Smith:I'm like, we can put it in there for planning when everybody else gets to it. But yeah, it's hard for me to remember things and get things done when it's like that. But that writing it down and having it in front of you so you can see it all the time, I think is just like it's just easier to remember because it's right there in front of you. Like if it's in a program, I'm not going to open it. Yeah. And I think that there's something to be said, too, for the nature of that work. Like it's one thing to coordinate several people's worth of effort, even if it is creative effort to get, you know, jobs to be done done.