Why Killing Her First Product Saved This CPG Brand with Michelle Razavi

24:29So it's all about timing too, which I don't think many people think about. I think what's quite fascinating about this and makes total sense is I would say usually the first route to market for brands typically is a natural channel. And then you go mass and then it's, are you going to excel in mass, right? Like, will this product actually work for the mass consumer? But what's interesting from what you're saying in terms of the cash flow cycle and also raising, you're actually fundraising to actually make sure that you are successful in the natural channel. Whereas in Costco and mass, even though I'd imagine it's a lot more volume, you actually don't need to raise in your position as much money because in terms of the terms, your customer pays on time and all these little things that really add up that you actually don't to raise money, even though it's mass retail.

25:28Yeah. Yeah. Because think about your direct and when you think about inventory financing, your lenders, you have to make sure that it's de-risked as much as possible. And there's so many horror stories with distributors not paying on time, not paying in full deductions, chargebacks. Everyone in the industry knows it. And so that doesn't happen with Costco. Costco is like the gold standard. And so it's easy for us to get inventory financing from lenders for Costco so that we can profitably scale. And it also showed us as a business and it pressure tested us as a business, can our operations handle this much?

26:05Can we procure this much? It just gave us better purchasing power for ingredients. And so it allowed us to get really, really dialed in our cogs, in our purchasing, in our demand plan, in production. And that's what I think also helped us as a business, which is pressure tested business of can we handle massive scale? And we did. And that's what makes entry points into other channels easier. What learnings or insights do you get within Costco? Obviously, you have your sales data. But apart from that, how do you think about learnings of your customer through Costco or even other retail channels?

26:44What's really unique about Costco is that they are such a demo heavy channel. Not many retailers require demos or have a very big demo program, but that's the culture of Costco is demos. And so I made it a point to do as many demos as I could to get in the field, talk to customers, see how we were merchandised, see the difference of merchandising, understanding the lingo, understanding the culture of Costco. So I embedded myself. I chatted with the staff. I asked them what performs well. I looked at all of our competitors in the competitive set. I looked at what was important for pricing architecture.

27:19If something is priced beyond this threshold, then a consumer might consider it too high. So I ingrained myself with Costco by being in the field. And those insights helped me understand not only that channel, but just on a broader level, how consumers think from a shopper marketing strategy, right? Consumers want to find something that they understand right off the bat. You don't want to have a consumer second guess something. So can your packaging tell your consumer in 0.5 seconds what it is? And we've gone viral on a post on TikTok talking about how we broke the rules of packaging where we didn't have our logo big.

27:54We actually had protein brownie really big and prominent and then a lobby on the bottom. And that focus really then allowed us to understand, okay, the consumer just wants to know what it is. And can we create something that checks the boxes for them, whether it's calling up that it's gluten-free or dairy-free or sweetened with dates. And so that process of being in the field, talking to consumers, talking to the people in the store, talking to our buyers, and then letting that kind of be iterative allowed us to really think about, okay, how do we continue to serve the consumer and create products that they will come back to again and again?

28:30Do you think also, So how do you think about packaging as well? I love that you have that call out from on the packaging protein brownie is the dominant and a lobby is a lot smaller. It seems like since you're building a new category that it's really just the name of the category on the actual product itself. And then it's your logo. How do you think about that in terms of if a company, for example, is building a differentiator product in maybe the same category if the branding should be more prominent. If you have any thoughts in terms of how a brand should think about their brand versus the product that they're actually selling on the packaging.

29:13What I love about CPG is that it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. And you have to go with what you know, what your consumers resonate with. And you only know that by being in the field. And I would literally go stand in the aisles and I would ask consumers, why'd you pick that up? Why'd you put that down? What are you looking for? What are the gaps? I would look at Amazon reviews of our competitors, of our products, and look at what are patterns. And they think for an astute founder, pattern recognition is going to be your best friend of understanding what are the key patterns that you're noticing and continue to listen to that.

29:48So for us, our patterns that we were noticing was consumers were flipping to the back. They want to look at the ingredients that they cared about, the plowaries, the protein count, all that. Then they looked at, you know, what were the ingredients for their, our consumer is the conscious consumer. And also they like to have things simplified for them, right? You see in Costco and other retailers, people go up and scan things on apps to tell them if it's good or bad, right? People just want to be told at the same time what is good or bad or what is healthy. That's why influencers have amassed massive followings by going around into different retailers and saying, this is good.

30:25This is bad. People are so overloaded cognitively, and I think we all are too. And so I think it's also the simplification aspect that that was a big, big insight for me too, just being in the field and just being a consumer myself, that the keep it simple, stupid, the KISS method is also a great guiding light.

30:55Thank you.

31:38Yeah, that's helpful. That's really helpful. How did you think overall in terms of your fundraising strategy? I remember you mentioned in the early on that it was really hard. I mean, it seems like it's always really challenging fundraising when I talk to founders. But how How did you think about when was the right time to fundraise? What were kind of the main reasons did you find getting turned down from the beginning? And where are you at currently regarding what you're thinking about in the future when it comes to fundraising? Yeah. I mean, looking back, look, this is my first time fundraising when you think about the True 3 Reaver company.

32:12I'm a first-time founder. I also am a woman of color. And, you know, this is my first time in this industry. So the odds were stacked against me. I knew that. And I think it's a combination of just having to effectively get metaphorically punched a million times and then just get back up. So you have to kind of build that thick skin because it really does just take one yes. But at the same time, you have to find your right investor at the right time. And I would encourage any entrepreneur to think about fundraising as a proper sales funnel, right? Think about it as like you're a salesperson. So you're qualifying your leads, you're building your CRM, you're reaching out to them, identifying who's a cold lead, who's a warm lead, maybe you can get an intro.

32:58And you want to also get some reps practicing pitching. You don't want to just go to your dream investor when you haven't gone through the motions, anticipated questions that they would push back on. And you have to really just go back and continue refining based on feedback you're getting, but also not internalize any negative or rejections or anything that feels like it's personal, it's really not. And so, you know, for a fundraising strategy, I would say always start early. Start before you need capital. Make sure you get as many reps as you can before you start pitching to, you know, your pool of dream investors.

33:39So pitch to angel investors, pitch to family offices, lower stakes, funds and firms. And then I would also say, try to build a really strong business first. When I was first fundraising, there were ideas just getting funded. And that has completely changed. Now, unless you have a business that has strong economics or a clear plan, established traction, investors don't want to invest in an idea anymore, right? Everything has to be somewhat de-wist. And it depends on the type of investor. But mistakes I made was I would go after investors that were just not investing my category or or they weren't investing at my size or stage, or they were investing in my category, but they were, but no longer are.

34:23And you just have to accept that and just keep getting back up and understanding that markets can change. And so what I wish I did earlier was just understand the market as a whole so that I wouldn't get beat up about an investor saying no. I'm like, well, maybe they just don't have money and it has nothing to do with me. Or maybe their LPs are saying, hey, stop investing in CPG, and that has nothing to do with me. And I wish I was more protective about my time. I would just take any call with anyone. And I wasn't qualifying the investors to find the right investors for me. But the investors that ended up leading our Series A, they reached out to me.

35:00And I think that goes to show that if you build a strong business and you just focus on, of course, sharing your traction. And I also build in public too. And I share a lot on social media. And I think that puts us on radars of investors very easily. then they will come to you. It's a lot like dating. You don't want to chase, you want to attract. And so I, for the first few years, was chasing and I was trying to get an investor. But at the end of the day, if I could go back and do this again, I would just focus more of my time on just building, sharing in public. And eventually people talk, people share.

35:35It's a very close-knit community. You'll organically get noticed and then the investors will reach out to you. how love that advice love that advice how do you think as well around the trajectory i know you're now going to be launching um nationwide and whole foods which is incredible so if you shop at whole foods definitely definitely pick up the protein the protein brownies but how do you think about overall the trajectory of a lobby and as well as um the hamster wheel that it that can be venture capital, right? Where you raise a venture round, raise a series A, then you raise series B, and you kind of keep going.

36:19Now, I know as well as it's looking at the opportunity and the size of the opportunity you have. And if you think that it's a massive opportunity, then it makes a lot of sense to raise a lot of money to be the kind of maybe first to market and to capture the opportunity. But how do you think about the overall trajectory when it comes to fundraising, size of business that a lobby can be. Yeah. I mean, I think the term hamster reel is really funny, but it's what you make of it. And when we were raising, and like I said earlier, we didn't have the luxury to build this growth at all costs business.

36:53So from day one, we were always - Do you think if you did have the luxury to build a growth at all costs business, right? Would you have done it? It's so hard to say because that wasn't my experience. So it's hard to imagine that scenario that wasn't handed to me. In some ways, maybe, because all my peers, there were other brands in our, you know, in our pre-seed round portfolio that did the growth at all costs and they crashed and burnt and they went out of business. So look, blessing in disguise that we didn't have as much access to capital as other brands did in 2021. Because, yeah, how can you not?

37:28Like, you have all this money, so don't you want to spend it? And there's investors that are expecting for 5x growth and they're expecting tech multiples. And it's really hard not to get caught up in that. And I think there's a maturity level of a founder and CEO that I've grown into, into years three, four, five, six, that I didn't have in my first early years to push back on an investor and be like, hey, that's great that you want that. But I'm going to be real with you and honest with you that, like, that's not going to happen. But I will deliver a two and a half, 3x healthy growth that is going to put us on a path to profitability.

37:59I think it's very hard as a founder to be able to push back against your investor and set expectations properly and to not just say, yes, I'll do that, I'll do that, and I'll raise more later. So it's hard to answer that question because it's like that you can always postulate on what would have been. But I always like to say, look, blessing in disguise, everything happens for a reason. And thank goodness because it forces us to be extremely disciplined. Look at every single lie on MRPNL and treat every single dollar with such scrutiny that it forces to be extremely, extremely hands-on and just say no to a lot of things.

38:37And I think this was your podcast. Melissa Pacina from City Capital said this and it landed with me. Pick one retailer to be your vanity account where it looks good, it looks nice, and then every other retailer to be profitable and make sure you're looking at your numbers. And that stuck with me early. That was such great advice. And I love that discipline. And I'm glad that we carried that discipline and kind of round out this whole response of this hamster wheel. I'm going to build it. We're on path to build a profitable company. We're almost a bit of positive. And if you have that discipline in that clear line of sight from day one, you start saying no to things that just sound nice and start just always coming back to that number.

39:25I'm like, what's going to get us to profitability? What's going to get us to profitability? And that discipline is our North Star. I love that advice from Alyssa. What is your vanity retailer? Because it seems like Costco is your vanity retailer, but at the same time, it's also maybe you're both profitable retailer as well, right? I'll share with you offline because I don't want to call them out of where our vanity retailer is. But it's basically a vanity retailer is like, you know, you're not making a ton of money, but it looks good to be in that account. And so you're just going to be in there because you know it builds brand credibility.

40:01You know it like, you know, build off like that authority in the space. And while it might not bring in a ton of money, you know it's good for the brand. So I think of that as our vanity like brand account. and the other accounts. I literally tell my brokers, I'm like, I will run a full P &L analysis on any retailer you bring me. And if it doesn't hit profitability, then I don't want it launching them. And so that discipline is very much in our DNA. Wow, that's awesome. That's really cool. That's really cool. And I'm surprised that it's not Costco. So that makes also - Also is a great, great partner.

40:44I could not recommend them more. They're like such a fantastic retailer, but I like to also caution entrepreneurs and founders that they can help you as much as they can hurt you. And if you're not prepared to handle the volume, the scale, the expectations of a Costco, don't do it or wait because yes, it's very shiny and it's a fantastic partner to work with. They're so dialed, but at the same time, you get one shot and you don't want to mess it up. And so I always like to caution founders of like, I know we make it look easy at a lobby and we've experienced great success, but it's also a lot of behind the scenes that you're not seeing of how hard we're hustling.

41:24Has there ever been a retail launch? You don't have to mention the retailer if not, but any retail launch that actually looking back, you shouldn't have gone inside a retailer or launched at that moment in time? Yes. And I don't want to out them out publicly. But yeah, we pulled ourselves out. And that was during the 2023 ship where we're looking at our P &Ls and we're like, where are we losing money? And we cut ourselves out of retailers and partners that were just bleeding as capital and it looked nice to be on. And we had five vanity retail accounts. And so we had to trim it down to one at a time and it can ship like one year.

42:01It could be this retailer's or vanity account and then you get it to profitability and it's great. And then you like layer on a new vanity retailer account. So, so it kind of also depends, but yeah, there, there's several that, I mean, if a founder wants to DM me privately, I'm happy. I don't want to like have this retailer come after me. What? And, and, and in terms of what went wrong, we're not, we're not good. We're not, we're not good. But in terms of what went wrong, just for learnings, what, what did kind of go wrong? Was it just that it wasn't profitable, that it wasn't kind of the right channel?

42:33Like what actually made it not the right channel? Yeah, it was just too expensive. The price of entry was too expensive. And unfortunately, when you're an early stage brand, you just want to say yes to everything. And you're just so excited to get even a yes that you just say yes and figure it out later. And I commend that. And I totally understand that. But at the end of the day, you have to build a business. And so this particular one retailer, They had really high swatting fees. They had huge marketing expectations. And just the number of stores that they had couldn't justify paying that much to be in.

43:09And so it's really just, it's a simple math equation. You know, what we're doing in CPG, it's not rocket science. I was chatting with my friend, Sandro from Sanso. And you're chatting about something and he's just like, what we're doing is not rocket science, Michelle. Like, it's really just numbers when you drill it down of like just analyzing things. And that really just clicked for me. And I totally resonate with that. So it's like, can you do the disciplined work of removing the excitement and the ego and the emotions of entering into a retailer and do the simple math of like, what does it cost?

43:41How much are they expecting me to pay? How much am I expecting to receive in actual payables? And does this make sense over six months, 12 months? At what point will I make my money back? And if it's longer than a year, then that's a question for you to ask yourself, can you handle that, not making money in an account? And so if you have extra cash in the bank, okay, and you can justify it, great. But if you're struggling to fundraise or you're just trying to be as profitable as possible, then you have to say no and focus on channels that you can get bigger wins in sooner. I know you're right now in two different categories.

44:15Do you want to enter a third category? Is there still innovation to go in a third or is it really focusing on the protein brownies? Right now, we're just scratching the surface with the protein brownies. We currently have three flavors in market. We're launching two more in the next few months. We're launching an exclusive with Whole Foods. And we are exploring new form factors. And so there's so much already to do with the protein brownies that I feel confident for the next two years focusing on that. But look, if there is an innovation opportunity that our consumers are driving, kind of same way with the protein brownies.

44:50They're asking for something and there's a clear market gap and there's data and insights showing me that this hasn't been done before. Absolutely, I'm happy to explore that. But there's also, like I said, there's a beauty in the simplicity. Great example is Chomps, 500 million plus business, and they're focusing on meat sticks and they're able to keep their supply chain super dialed. They're profitable. They're doing such an amazing job building a love brand. So you don't have to keep iterating and innovating a million different product lines because that spreads your team within, that spreads your supply chain wider, that makes it more things for you to keep track of, more category reviews, more channels to think about.

45:28So to answer your question directly, I'm not saying no, but not right now.

45:47Thank you.

46:28So, supply chain wise for your two different product lines, is it the same supply chain or similar or is it completely different when it comes to co-packers and things like that? There is some overlap from ingredients and making sure manufacturing is dialed from like a team standpoint as well. But then there's, of course, like just different differences in packaging, differences in ingredients. Not everything overlaps, but we do source every single ingredient. And that's been important for me from day one. I do not recommend turnkey for brands because at the end of the day, you need to have that direct supplier relationship with all of your ingredients because you're going to be the ones that can better negotiate for your behalf.

47:09You're going to be the ones that can better inspect it for quality, for QA, quality assurance. And you're going to have more visibility into everything. And so we source all of our ingredients. We try to source domestically as much as possible. And we produce in the United States as well. So we have such a – we carry that discipline about channel strategy, about packaging into our operations and supply chain. because that literally is, you know, the core of our business and making sure that we have backups of buyers, making sure that we're consistently investing in team members that can just level up our ops and supply chain procurement demand planning.

47:52And that's what I'm focusing on right now, which is really exciting as a leader to build out that team. So yeah, it's such an exciting area to get into the business. While it's not sexy, it's so critical and, and yeah, it's just constant learnings. So it seems like that's, that's incredible. It seems like proteins everywhere these days in all sorts of different categories. Has that been a massive tailwind for you all? Yeah, of course. I mean, we launched the protein brownies in May of 2024. So the protein increase started to hit 2025. So we're able to ride that beautifully and protein is never going to go away, right?

48:31It's just having this Renaissance and this excitement about it. What I find really interesting is that for the first time, women are now outnumbering men in seeking more protein. And that is something that I am rapidly paying attention to. And then you pair that with the fact that over 80 % purchasing decisions are made by women. And you walk the Costco aisle, you look at the protein bar set, Mike, we are the only one that's women owned. Wow. It's crazy. That's amazing. And so, and so when you think about the consumer, she's seeking protein. She wants a brand that she can trust and to see a brand that is created not only by women, but women fitness trainers who are in their thirties, who understand, you know, what she's going through.

49:17She is busy. Maybe she has kids. Maybe she is like trying to get healthier in her fitness journey. Maybe she's on GLP one, you know, that, that female consumer who's 25, 30 plus, who might be pre perimenopause, who might be going through menopause, who is looking for something that is sweet and indulgent because she has a sweet tooth, but she also wants to get more protein so she can feel full and good about what she's in, what she's consuming. That consumer is so underserved because right now, a lot of the protein bar snack products are targeted towards men, targeted towards more is more. And for our consumer, she's looking for quality protein.

49:57She's looking for, you know, is this naturally sweetened? Is this going to digest properly? Is this going to not make me feel bloated? Our top ad is basically talking about how our protein bunnies don't make you feel bloated. And I think women are so attuned with their bodies and how they feel and more conscious of that versus a guy who probably doesn't know he's bloated, right? Or maybe he doesn't care. But our consumer, she's so hypersensitive. And so if she can find a product that does give her protein and fiber and doesn't upset her stomach and nourishes her and energizes her, energizes her through different stages of life, whether she's breastfeeding or, or, uh, you know, trying to conceive, um, that that's where I get really excited is to create a product with so much integrity and a space that historically is not creating products with integrity is just trying to cheapen and create the, you know, lowest quality product with the highest profit margin.

50:47That's where I feel there's an opportunity for us to really bring innovation and take significant market share. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a ton of sense. And that's just amazing. Just amazing that congratulations. It's just, it's just very, very cool. um with everything you've learned and everything that you've accomplished so far with the lobby what what's one thing you do completely different in the first year if i was to go back what would i do differently oh in my first year i would not

51:34here's what i would do and here's what i wouldn't do i would not waste time chasing investor i would just focus on building, on listening to a consumer, on trying to create the best product for them. I think it gets so tempting to want to take an investor call or go out and fundraise and chat with investors or try to get money, save up money beforehand to give you that luxury to build and to just be so in the build with your product and with your consumers. And I wish I didn't have that distraction in the first year because I thought, let me just build something and then in six months I'll go out.

52:04And that was a distraction. So I think protecting my time was a lesson that took me a while to get to. It took me several years. And if I could go back and tell my younger self, you have to be protective of your time because that is something you don't get back. What I would also do is I would be online more and share more publicly and build in public. I think the first year or two, that was right when TikTok was just coming out. It was so weird to be a brand on TikTok. Everybody was just dancing and lip syncing. And so there wasn't that storytelling and virality, like you see now, I think Allison from Poppy was the first big brand that really jumped on there and made it okay.

52:40But I wish I did more storytelling, more behind the scenes. You're seeing a lot of brands take off now, building on the backs of the Allison's at Poppy because she was the first matriarch of really storytelling. And I wish we did that more. I think we were just so afraid of sharing information. I don't know why we were so paranoid, but there was also this kind of, you don't want to be cringe and you just kind of get over it at a certain point. So I wish we shared more behind the scenes because you have this very sweet time in this first year where you're this underdog and you have all the odds stacked up against you.

53:14That's why Shark Tank is such a successful show is people like to cheer on the newbie, the up and coming brand. And so I wish we leaned more into that. We just posted a lot of photos of people holding the products. And I'm like, that doesn't do anything for people. People have to feel connected. People want to hear a story. So I wish I got on the camera more and just story told and shared a little bit more and built more in public because you're seeing these brands that are just taking off because they are doing that right away. So that's what I would do differently. No, I love that because it's so interesting too, just on the social media side, how many brands that's become a huge part of the strategy and gosh they've done amazing amazing with it thinking about like I had on Katie Wilson from from Belly Welly and what they've done on TikTok and then of course you know midday squares and um and it's just it it's incredible it's incredible yeah at the end of the day people want to be told stories they don't want to be sold to and that landed with me about year two year three and that's when I really started doubling down on our social media strategy.

54:23And it's only been beneficial to us where retailers would reach out to us. Or when they do their diligence on brands, they look at your social media. They look to see how do you drive consumers to their stores? And so that becomes such a big part of the strategy is how do you support your retailers? How do you build the community? How do you stand out? And having a strong social media presence, being able to storytell, being able to connect with your consumers, that ultimately is what sets you apart. That's your IP. That's your brand, right? If you want to get an acquisition down the road, you have to be able to sell the brand, right?

54:58And so I think it's no longer an option. I think it's table stakes to build a social media following and to build a strong social ecosystem. How do you think about founder? I mean, And I think the examples that we're talking about, in many ways, it's, well, mostly it's also founder-led brand, right? Where the founders are the one doing the posting, that you're actually getting to know the founders and behind the scenes through the lens of the founder and what they're thinking. How do you, do you think, do you think predominantly that's kind of the route to success for today? I think it's the faster, cheaper route.

55:43And I'm not saying that you can't build a great best-in-class brand by not being in front of your company, by not being on social, by not being in front of the company. You absolutely can't. There's some great brands that don't do that. But I think it's faster. I think it's more cost-efficient than running a ton of ads. And look, like maybe you can bring in someone else to be the face of your brand. But I think people need to connect to a human nowadays. when you go to a website i don't know about you but i always go to the our story or about us page because i want to be like who is this and who's running this behind the scenes and especially now in this world of ai we're so skeptical of is this even real that people are craving humans more and more like to to validate like is there someone actually here right or is this because you can build you can vibe code so many things now you can build a whole website with ai You can build personas with AI.

56:37And it's kind of crazy when you think about it. So I think in this day and age that we're shifting to, having that real authentic credibility is also going to help you build your brand in this next era that we're going into. Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, on the AI front, how do you leverage AI or use AI? I'd imagine you're not using it for videos per se, But how do you think about AI in terms of utilizing it and kind of leveraging it to make your life easier? I just posted about this and it went viral about how I broke up with ChatGPT and I went to Claude instead. And I'm obsessed with Claude. I am very impressed with its co-work feature.

57:21I'm very impressed with just its analytical properties. I put in sales spreadsheets to look at patterns and help me understand our sales velocities. I have it double check, you know, a pitch deck and kind of test against like what my assumptions are about certain things. I have it be kind of my thought partner or sounding board of like, hey, here's a strategy. I have it help me think through like hiring. I've had it create a full blown, you know, onboarding 30, 60, 90 plan. I've had it almost replace certain functions that would take me so long. I use it as a research partner. if I'm thinking through different ingredients or product formulas or innovation.

58:01I like to pressure test certain things. I use it just to do like basic research on things, but also from a like kind of like this chief of staff almost to kind of be this person. And you can create a project within Claude. And I uploaded essentially my founder brain. It's like my founder operating system. And I put here my brain guidelines. Here's the retailers that we're in. Here's like how I think about the brand. Here's XYZ so that it has all this context already about me. And I'm not just chatting generally, but it could really go deep with me and have so much context around me. So I absolutely love it.

58:37It helps me with content ideas. If I want to think through like a whole content strategy and a calendar of how I want to plan like a Whole Foods launch post, I'm like, what are the different ways that I can plan this? If I want to plan an event, I'm like, what are the different things that I should be thinking about when I'm launching an event to launch XYZ. So it's become such a game changer. And I always joke about, man, think about how much more powerful we would have been if we had Claude and AI, you know, even three years ago. So it's completely changed the landscape. It's allowed me to respond faster to emails, not spend an hour editing things and just be me, but a more efficient me.

59:15Got it. Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. I actually also agree with you on clod um i think that it's uh i think that it's amazing um and yeah i don't really use gbt as much what do you like for it's a good question i haven't used it nearly as um in the level that that you've used it i've talked to though another founder and he manages like his entire business through clod um essentially um and it's a cpg company so So I thought that was, that was, that was Austin, like two months ago, I had that conversation. So they started just kind of fiddling around with quad and working on building on, building on a couple of things on like the VC side of things, like just data, like who's fundraised, what kind of, or kind of doing some organization around that.

1:00:08But, but yeah, I mean, it's all just so, so amazing. The technology that that's available today. Yeah, no, it's, it's great at processing spreadsheets. So for instance, when you get like data from, let's say a week of sales at AGV, and then I want to translate that into a strategy to send to my merchandising team of like, hey, here are the stores that have voids, here are the stores that have had low performance in this labor, and then it can translate over a strategy that I can share with them. So it takes out an hour or two for me to go through spreadsheets and pull out different data and patterns and trends.

1:00:42And it just synthesizes that for me in minutes. Yeah. Thank you.

1:01:39no that yeah no it's that's i i think that was that was very similar to what the other this other entrepreneur was saying about how he how he looks through a lot of his sales data through Claude and it's been the insight that he's been able to find even on the projection side and and on the modeling side it's been really really helpful yeah it can almost like delay having to make these hires so it keeps your op x down so from a profitability standpoint i think it's killer to think about your business like that. Yeah, no, totally. There is, yeah, I'm right on chatting with another company who I think only has like three full-time employees and the amount of revenue that they've been able to do just, and everything else is kind of just by just using AI to fill the responsibilities.

1:02:30And it's incredible how they've been able to grow. So it really is amazing just what you can do with technology on the upside. Yeah, sure. um what is what's one book that's um what's one book that's inspired you personally and one book that's inspired you professionally i love this question a book that is inspiring me personally is the let them theory by mel robbins and if you're familiar with mel robbins she's just such an inspiring person yeah herself just her story of how she you know went through bankruptcy so much debt and then she turned her whole life around at a later age too which i think is inspiring because so much in our narrative and zeitgeist is like 30 under 30 building as an entrepreneur in your 20s and you know i'm in my 30s and i find it really inspiring that people can reinvent themselves and start over in their 40s 50s and beyond um and and that it's never too late uh but specifically about the let them theory as a founder you go through so much rejection You go through so many people downing you and sometimes people patronizing you.

1:03:39Sometimes people, you know, speaking condescending to you and people that will put you down or not understand what you're doing. It could even be family members that mean well, but they might discourage you from starting a business because they view it as unsafe or unstable. And I think the let them theory is such a great concept to easily not attach emotion or a connection to people saying anything or doing anything and to let them think the way they think or do whatever they want to do and control your own world. I think it's so important as an entrepreneur to think about and preserve and protect your mental structure and to make sure that you are in your conviction about what you're building.

1:04:25And so the let them theory is all about like let them say or do whatever and let me focus on me and what I can control and what I do want to do. And so I think that's such a great value and kind of a way to kind of orient your life just to kind of protect yourself against, you know, naysayers or just, yeah, the very expected experience of rejection that's going to happen. And then a professional book that has inspired me is Bobbi Brown's book, Just Bobbi, like her memoir about how she built this billion dollar brand, exited to Estee Lauder. And all the while she raised four kids, which is insane.

1:05:08And life didn't stop for a while. and it's so hard to put all of your life into your business and to not take vacations and to not enjoy yourself and just to grind and grind and grind for a maybe later payout and her book inspired me professionally to try to seek joy and and enjoy myself and enjoy the journey and that life can still happen while I'm building a business and also her crazy story about how she had a 25-year non-compete. And she thought, oh, I'm not going to start a new company in my 60s. And then she ends up doing it, right? So just her story on resilience and pivoting and the fact that she has worked with some of the most famous celebrities, politicians, people that are just iconic.

1:05:56And she has so much humility around her. And she actually posted about her product. She discovered us at a lifetime fitness gym and she posted our products and I posted it on my stories and I'm like, oh my God, I love Bobbi. She's iconic. And I had so many people DM me saying, Bobbi is like the sweetest person. She's so nice. She's so humble. She made me feel so seen. And the fact that this woman who had a billion dollar exit, who has worked with celebrities, who built such an amazing brand, is so nice and so kind that so many people have had similar experiences of her being just such a humble person, that inspired me professionally too.

1:06:32You can be this big person, but still make sure that everyone feels seen from, you know, an associate to a model to whatever. Like every person that you work with and interact with can, we're all equal, right? It doesn't matter if you have a billion dollar exit. So that inspired me as a leader of how to think and be around other people. And that, yeah, things can always change, but it's really how you respond to it and and her story of resilience was just it's very inspiring that's amazing um i'm so happy you shared these two books i don't think we've had anyone in the past share these two books um i definitely need to read them um i i really enjoy listening to mill robbins uh podcast um and yeah bobby as well i mean she's so inspiring um really excited to add it to the list um michelle this is um well has there ever new was there speaking of the let them theory was there ever a period during um during a lobby that the noise maybe got to you too hard that you thought hey you know what or just the just the strain of being an entrepreneur overall doesn't mean you'd be outside noise was there ever a moment that you felt you know what i actually I'm actually going to walk away.

1:07:53I've had some close calls where, where I was sacrificing my health. And this is from someone who health is such a strong pillar. Yes, exactly. And that's, and that's the reason why he started the company to begin with. Right. Right. So just like, this was like such a contradiction that it's like, I'm not eating well, I'm not working out and not moving my body, not getting enough sleep. And here I am trying to sell this product and help people eat healthier. And I'm not living, you know, the brand that I'm, that I'm air quote selling. So yeah, I've had a lot of close calls. It was during like fundraising cycles where, you know, it just, it takes so much out of you because you have to show up online, be the face of the brand, but then also, you know, take a hit behind the scenes and something might be happening with production and you have to put out fires and then you jump on a call and pitch to an investor and then they call your child ugly and, and you just rinse and repeat over and over again.

1:08:38And you, and you don't have, you know, that, that ability to kind of round yourself because it just feels like you're in pulled in a million different directions. um I think some great advice that my my my partner my boyfriend told me is like he's like okay like just go through this nerd like what would happen if you quit and it kind of like forced me to pause for a second and I was just like huh what would happen and and then I would go through the exercise of it of like him kind of like calling me out of like okay like go ahead and quit like what would happen and where I got myself I'm like I would miss it I would I would want to come back in I I would want to like – as difficult and as painful as some of the experiences are part of being an entrepreneur, I love it.

1:09:20I love being able to call the shots. I love being able to move things quickly. I love, you know, the thrill of building. And I love, you know, how every day is different and that I grow more and more as a person and that I've evolved so much and that I can help people and create a product that actually helps people with their health journey. And so that reframe was super helpful because I'm just like at the end of the day, this is what I love. I chose this. I'm excited to do this. This is really fulfilling for me. And so that helped me kind of snap out of it. I'm like, I'm just exhausted. I just need to sleep.

1:09:49I just need to eat. Like I just need to fit my basic needs. And once I do that, then that means, okay, I just needed to like take a breather. I really don't feel that way is the kind of take home message is like that wasn't actually how I was feeling. I was just exhausted and burnt out. And my advice to founders to get ahead of that is, which is crazy to say, and probably no one has given this advice, is to find opportunities to push yourself beyond your limits. Usually that'll be working out. So maybe it's like sprinting or weightlifting or doing hot yoga. Can you train your brain to get to areas where you feel like you're going to give up, but then you push through and then you make it on the other side.

1:10:36Because from a neuroscience perspective, when you're thinking about neuroplasticity, founders, entrepreneurs are literally going against evolutionary biology, right? We're going against what's safe, what's certain, what's secure in pursuit of something dangerous, scary, unknown. And so to practice and continually rewire your brain to optimize for uncertainty, unknown, for pushing past limits, the more experiences you have showing your brain, I can do that and I can overcome it and I survive on the other side, the stronger your mental resilience will be to get ahead of burnout. Because really burnout is where you feel overwhelmed, where you feel like you can't keep going, where you want to just give up, right?

1:11:22And so if you can practice in other moments outside of building your business, whether it's working out or pushing yourself physically, that's where you can rewire your brain and prove to yourself on a psychological level, I can push past hard things. I can do hard things. And you take that with you into your entrepreneur life so that you already know I can do hard things. And so that's some advice that I would give that has really helped me. I love that advice. And yes, I don't think I've actually heard that advice for uh before um and that was awesome that was great um wow that's so so cool um and also i love that advice from your her boyfriend as well saying what if you like okay just put yourself in their shoes what if you actually were not what if you actually did step away and and actually seen what the business would be like without you um which is crazy to think about um Um, yeah, Michelle, this has been so much fun.

1:12:24I really, really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This is great. Thank you.