Disrupting an Entire Industry to Achieve Rapid Growth with Andy Mant: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Success Story Podcast. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active and we'll be breaking down, disrupting an entire industry to achieve rapid growth. To drop these value bombs, I am brought to Andy Mant into EO Fire Studios. Andy is the founder and CEO of Blue Blocks, a company specializing in evidence-based advanced light filtering eyewear.

0:35He started Blue Blocks after becoming dissatisfied with the quality and standards of blue light blocking glasses available and set about to design lenses that match the evidence that is in academic literature. And today on Foundation, we'll talk about optimizing your sleep. We'll talk about not just selling something, educate and empower people. And then don't just ride the trend, put thought and science behind what will actually help people and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Andy and our sponsors. The Hustle Daily Show, hosted by Juliet Bennett-Ryla, Rob Litters, Ben Berkley, and Mark Dent, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

1:16The Hustle Daily Show brings you a healthy dose of irreverent, offbeat, informative takes on business and tech news, like a recent episode on Hackers vs. Casinos, where the hosts talk about MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment and the devastating potential of cyberattacks. Listen to The Hustle Daily wherever you get your podcasts. is now your time. Visit Thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at Thrivetimeshow.com.

1:50Andy, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. incredible question and hey what's up to everyone listening to this thank you so much for uh tuning in and i think one of the big things that a lot of people disagree with and it's very prominent in becoming a very successful person is sleep is the cornerstone to you know an amazing mind and an amazing body and you know with that i think that having exceptional quality sleep at the correct time seasonally is the way to really invigorate the mind and body and prepare yourself for the elevated rapid drive to success.

2:39I'm really passionate about this topic, which is one of the big reasons why I wanted to get you on to chat here. I mean, it's crazy with how we just went through over here in the States, daylight savings. And every time we go through daylight savings, when people lose an hour of sleep, there are 7 % more fatal accidents the next day, which is insane. and then every single time of the year six months later when we gain an hour of sleep there are literally seven percent fewer fatalities than normal like it's insane the power of sleep and i'm just honestly sick and tired of people being like yeah you know what john i go to bed at 10 i wake up at six i get eight hours of sleep every night i'm like no you don't and i know you don't because i've been wearing my aura ring now for years literally and if i go to bed at 10 and wake up at six, I get about six, six and a half hours of sleep.

3:26I was quote unquote in bed for eight hours, but my sleep with my little wake ups in the middle and all these things was six and a half hours. So don't fool yourself, Fire Nation. And this is one thing we're going to be talking about today with the entire concept of disrupting an entire industry to achieve rapid growth, specifically in an area that can help you not just get eight hours, but get eight quality hours, which is going to change everything in your life. So Andy, let's talk about the Blue Blocks origin story. Take it away. Yeah, absolutely. So I was working in a nine to five job, very successful at it.

4:04I was a sales sort of account manager for a recruitment firm. You know, I didn't hate my job, but I hated the restrictions that it put on me and I hated the fact that I was told what to do. And it turned out that this was massively highlighted to me when the company put their managers through these one-to-one sessions to kind of upskill themselves in how to manage people. So we all went to see psychiatrists, actually, which is fairly taboo in Australia and the UK, as you can hear from my accent, I'm British. But it was done for sort of upskilling ourselves mentally. and when I went into this this meeting we had to do a test um sort of a psychometric assessment did it next time I came back and they they just said look we're not going to be feeding this back to your your employer but we don't see this kind of profile very often and you need to start a company and become a CEO it's it's very similar to what we've seen in the past from very successful people and if you want to thrive it isn't in an environment where you're working for someone you You have to be the boss.

5:14You have to be driving the growth and the change. And this really got me thinking, you know, well, what could I do? I'd never really thought about doing this before. And, you know, even though there was this sort of passion inside me that I didn't realize was there. And I basically thought to myself, right, who do I idolize in, you know, business? And one of those people was was a gentleman called James Dyson, who revolutionized an existing product, which was the vacuum cleaner. and made it better and more optimal for the user. And a few months went by and I was really in a big health kick at that stage.

5:54I was trying to get in shape for my wedding. And I was in all these sort of online forums at the time and Facebook and people were talking about nutrition. But there was the odd time and instance that light kept popping up and this thing called blue light blocking glasses. and I started looking into it bought a pair started wearing them and I just thought to myself wow these these are pretty decent in terms of they're improving my sleep and I feel better I've got more energy to work out um and I'm really really interested in going like deep down rabbit holes so I started doing research on on light and and I've got friends in optics labs here in Australia, believe it or not.

6:36And I found that the glasses that I was wearing weren't actually blocking in line with what the literature said I should be blocking to get the most optimal sleep. I was interested in optimal. I wasn't interested in, you know, improving my sleep a little bit. I wanted the best I could get. And that was when it came to the crunch. And I said to the guys in this lab, could you produce some sort of tint for these glasses that can block the exact light the literature saying you should block after sunset to get better sleep and we could put it in some really cool fashionable frames and then we can really disrupt this this market because no other glasses is is blocking in line with the literature we tested about 20 pairs um went back and forward got this prototype ready and uh it was absolutely amazing like literally the first couple of nights i was wearing them my sleep was off the charts i track with aura as well as you john because we're interested in being optimal and it was just staggering the results so what we did was we we made up 20 pairs and we sent them to big influencers around the world mainly actually in the states where you are and basically just said look we're not looking for any endorsement or anything like that we just want you to test them here's the science and rationale behind our product we believe that what you're wearing at the moment isn't optimal and you guys are optimal so you might want to read this and every single one of those people came back to us saying you need to launch this as a brand and if you do we will support you now what exactly do you think it is that you tested 20 pairs and none of them were really doing what you wanted a pair of glasses to do as far as blocking blue light and the other things why is that like why are people making products that aren't really living up to the standard that we kind of assume they are as consumers?

8:28Yeah, fantastic question. I think it comes down to riding a trend. Okay, so blue light has been sort of trending if you look at Google Analytics for, you know, good sort of five years now. And around about that sort of five, six years ago, we started seeing maybe four to six years ago, we started seeing a pop up of a lot of these companies that were pretty tuned into, you know, the data in terms of what the what the customers want, but not tuned into the science and this is where there was a big disconnect you saw a big influx of brands you know that if you saw their product you couldn't distinguish it from probably another 40 brands so what they did was they went to places like like alibaba you know you just type in blue light glasses you can order you know 300 off the shelf choose your frame and and out it goes and they've just had no regard to you know the quantum biology and I guess the biophysics involved in how light kind of reacts with us at a cellular level and when you start combining that with you know the actual technology and the stylish frames that you want to actually you know make this product into you start standing out from the crowd so I think that's probably the main reason it's just a right let's try and capitalize on this rising trend and there's not really been any real thought about the science and can it actually help people?

9:48Fire Nation, there's one thing I keep saying over and over again, because it's just plain and simply the truth. Become the best solution to a real problem in this world and people will beat a path to your door and they will ignore the second best solution to infinity. People want the best solution to a real problem. So if you are willing to find a niche, to find a void in the marketplace, you know, just like Andy did and become the best solution to a real problem, you are going to win. Like, please understand that to your core. Now, Andy, everybody has a different strategy for growing their business.

10:26What's yours? Yeah, it's a really interesting question and one that blows people's mind here in Australia, but it may be, you know, your community are pretty tuned in. So they'll probably be like, okay, well, you know, that's probably part of our strategy as well. The initial phase of our growth was typically unpaid. So we started this company with$1 ,500 and we didn't invest a single cent. We still haven't invested a single cent. We've reinvested our profit. So the big sort of growth phase, initial growth phase came by targeting a very niche population. So we didn't want to just go right let's just get this product out to the masses we wanted to test it so we tested it on a group of people called biohackers and again your audience will know all about these types of people they're trying to optimize their biology and their environment using specific hacks and we knew that these guys and girls were completely optimal they weren't interested in anything else so we thought let's go in here and basically rip the blue light glasses off their faces and give them ours for free.

11:33So we just literally went out to all the top biohackers, gave them our products, gave them affiliate links and just said, look, if you're all tracking asleep on Aura, on Whoop, on these types of devices, tell us if they're improving wearing our glasses. And if they are, you know, ditch your old ones and we'll just send you as much product as you need and just keep promoting it. So that started almost immediately and that saw some really good growth very quickly. And then when we sort of maxed out that area, we were like, well, who who's thinking critically? The masses aren't ready for this product yet.

12:08But who else in in different sort of niches are thinking critically and not open to just sort of general rhetoric? So we went to alternative dieting. We went to carnivore. We went to paleo, vegan, you know, people that are really speaking out against norms and started explaining to them about light and again, gifting them product. And away we went. But the real, real big growth happened about a year into our adventure. And that was when we started to get in, go after paid endorsements via podcasts. So we went to, again, it was very strategic. We went to the alternative dieting, the biohacking type podcast, you know, like the Luke stories, the Jay Shettys of this world, the Melanie Avalon's, etc.

12:53That really were talking about, you know, different staff mindset. They were talking about biohacking. They're talking about health, alternative medicines, things like that. and we were we were shocked by the the cost of this it was very you know it seemed very expensive but the rate of returns was was almost instant and you almost then had your product attached endorsed by thought leaders within various various vertical markets and you know to this day we haven't actually touched Instagram influencers we we just thought that's not our model we need to be able to go to key strategic thought leaders that understand this kind of technology because we need to educate.

13:36Education was the key and still is the key fundamental to our brand. We don't want people, you know, like you see our competitors just pick out the prettiest girl on Instagram, give them a pair of glasses and they're just posting saying, hey, I look really cute in these, go and buy them. We didn't want that. We wanted to stand out and say, listen, this is why you need this specific pair of glasses. This is how light works. And we found that by educating, we built this fantastic community of people that basically wanted to try all of our different products. They understood that we weren't just trying to sell them something.

14:08We wanted to educate and empower people. And I think that that really elevated our brand status and just got people bought into our mission and us as a brand. There's so much value here at Fire Nation. And one word that I want to jump on that Andy just said is educating. He wasn't just looking to toss a pair of shades on some good looking dude or some good looking lady. He wanted to educate the audience and tell them, this is why you need this. This is why this is going to solve a problem that you have. This is why this is the number one solution to this specific problem in this space, in this industry, in this vertical.

14:46You need to understand what he's talking about, Fire Nation, So you can pull the same levers in your businesses and go the same route. Now, and let's be honest, disrupting an industry is no easy feat. I mean, I know that firsthand being the first daily podcast host interviewing entrepreneurs for now 10 years in a row. How did you disrupt the blue light industry? Yeah, fantastic question. And, you know, something you've mentioned, I wanted to interject a couple of times, but I did and I'm going to say it now is the fact that when you educate and when you disrupt a market and you provide something to someone that is really going to solve their problems and you can back that up with some pretty big claims and evidence, you can charge what you want for that product.

15:33And, you know, we charge 50, 60 percent more than our competitors, yet we have much bigger market shares than them. We have, you know, tens of thousands of dollars a day in revenue from this type of product. And people aren't deterred by the price because we can justify that price. We can justify that we're made in Australia. We can justify that we've got the technology behind it that we're made in optical laboratories, not factories. And people want quality. So, you know, never undercut, you know, your competition in price. That should be the last thing you should be going to. And that would be sort of big bit of advice before I segue into.

16:12Well, Andy, and before you segue, here's a quote by Seth Godin that is so relevant here. The problem with the race to the bottom is that you just might win. You need to understand that fire nation. When you're trying to race to the bottom of being the lowest price product, guess what? You might win. And that's not a real victory because that is not a way to make a living, to make a life, to make a dent in this world. So keep on going, Andy. Love it. Yeah, great analogy, that great quote and love Seth and all his writing, that's for sure. So in terms of disrupting the blue light industry, you know, it was, to be fair, it was fairly straightforward in terms of what the message needed to be.

16:53so the message needed to be that well we've tested these glasses all of our competitors without naming names they don't work and here's your solution as to why they work um that was that was what we thought we thought wow this is going to be easy we're just literally going to go out and tell people what they're wearing is crap and and buy ours and you know that worked in the first sort of year because we were going out to the the optimal biohackers and ultimate health um wellness and and um you know alternative dieting crews and they got it because all you got to do is go read this paper see these test results for our glasses see these test results for the glasses you're currently wearing you choose what you want to wear and every time they choose us the the difficulty came with um when we went through probably into our second year of of growth we kind of maxed out became very well known within those you know those niches i've just described but we wanted to then start expanding out and going out to the to the masses a little bit more and that was more difficult because the questions then started to come in through customer service saying well i can buy a 20 pair on amazon why is yours so different and the education then kind of came to you know the front line for us so rather than having the the influencers um podcast educate we actually had to start doing a little bit ourselves so what we decided to do was when we started branching out and we started getting a lot of these questions I started making YouTube videos and we started writing blogs that would address these concerns we started to take that marketing sort of more in-house whereas before we were very reliant on thought leaders putting our message out there which still continued don't get me wrong But we needed almost to, you know, have that sort of second war going on on another front in order to tackle this sort of influx of people not really understanding why our product was more expensive.

18:50So we beefed up the website with more justification. The YouTube videos went out there. So if customer service questions came in, you know, we could send a video out just explaining to them why. We had blogs out there that helped with, you know, they were optimized for SEO. So when people were searching blue light glasses and ours came up, they could read this blog about, you know, why you're wearing the wrong blue light glasses, for instance, started smashing it in Google. And, you know, we just wanted to make sure the message was was absolutely, absolutely everywhere. And, you know, the price thing always came out as well when we tried to hit the masses.

19:24And we had to justify that a lot more. And it just became the more you grow and the more you sort of segment out of your core audience, the more difficult it does actually become. And you just have to make sure that you're putting content out just so much, like literally daily content, putting it out there, flooding the Internet with with all the good quality facts you have about your product. And yes, you're not going to see that sort of turnaround overnight, but sort of three, six, nine, 12 months, the more you go and the more it compounds in terms of shares and the Google algorithms and things like that, the more you're actually going to reach in terms of the demographic you want.

20:07and the more you're going to educate those customers from various sources of content as well. So I think it was keen just to fight the battle on multiple fronts and not just do what we were doing in the early days, which was resting on our laurels saying, you know, we'll give it to Luke's story or someone like that and Jack Cruz and all they'll do is just educate people and we don't need to do anything. We actually had to start pulling our fingers out a little bit more and started to think creatively about, you know, providing the best content for these people on a very, very regular basis and making it really succinct into what we were seeing coming through on that customer service portal.

20:46Fire Nation, I really hope you're understanding and it's coming through exactly how you can disrupt any industry because Andy's talking obviously about his industry right now, but this is going to apply across every vertical, every industry across all time when you want to go in and really be disruptive. Now, we're going to be talking about paid marketing. We're going to be talking about managing inventory. We're going to be talking about some other important things as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. The fourth quarter is here. It's time to hit your revenue targets, finish strong and win the quarter.

21:22But before you can win Q4, you have to close deals. And before you can close deals, you have to fill your pipeline and nurture prospects, which is oftentimes the hardest part. So how can you get a jumpstart on your Q4 sales goals? What you really need is an easy-to-use, all-in-one sales software like HubSpot Sales Hub. It's where sales teams can prospect smarter, grow revenue faster, and mine deeper customer insights. Sales Hub's all-new prospecting workspace gives reps a single, cohesive view of their work so they can focus on building relationships with customers. And with a new deal management tool, reps can easily categorize and prioritize deals so they can identify ways to accelerate revenue growth.

22:03It's smart software for smart sales teams who want to close the year strong. Win the fourth quarter with Sales Hub. Learn more at hubspot.com slash sales. There are several things required to create and run a successful business, and one of those is having the right tools. You tune into Entrepreneurs on Fire to learn from other successful entrepreneurs. This is a great tool to have in your pockets, and I've got another show I highly recommend checking out. It's called The Millionaire University Podcast. Hosts Justin and Tara Williams have put in years of hard work to get to where they are now.

22:37They started their business from scratch and I've personally seen them grow it into what it is today. Justin has not only been a past guest on EO Fire, he was one of the founding members of my first mastermind group back in 2013. Their podcast covers topics like how to start and grow a digital marketing agency, secrets of productivity and how to network. The Millionaire University has lessons to guide you at every step on your journey. So what are you waiting for? This is the easiest way to help your business grow and succeed. Listen to The Millionaire University podcast. Find The Millionaire University on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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23:47Then Clay's team of talented designers, videographers, web developers, workflow mappers, and accounting coaches will help you to implement that proven plan. See over 2 ,000 verified success stories and schedule your free one-on-one 13-point assessment with Mr. Clay Clark himself today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and directed through practical plans of action. Become the next success story. Schedule your free 13-point assessment today at Thrivetimeshow.com. All right, Andy, we are back from the break. And like I mentioned right before the break, paid marketing is a tricky little beast.

24:25Let's be honest. But you were able to scale your business with paid marketing. Pray tell. It is a tricky minefield. It really is. And it's a quick way to lose money if you're not doing it right. So you've got to start small and you've got to sort of test that minimal viable sort of audience with it. and then if you're starting to see results then that's when you need to push forward but you know it's never as as easy as that you know like sort of on the podcast side we'll probably get a 20 percent hit rate in terms of who we want to renew with and even out of those that we renew they're not necessarily going to do well for the long term you can max out audiences so typically the focus that we've sort of looked at and has done really well for us is finding people that don't necessarily have the biggest audiences, but are extremely well respected within their category.

25:25They're almost thought leaders within that category. And people are tuning in to hear them, not their guests. So people want to go and listen to, you know, like the alternative dieting or the biohacking podcast because they want to know the information that the host has got. They follow them because they really admire them. And we found that that converts for us personally, because it's not a one size fits all. We always got to apply context to these things for our product and the disruptive nature of that product and the educational content that was required. We found that those types of people worked well.

25:59So we had to go out and find those types of people. And then typically referrals worked really well. I know it's a you know it's probably very basic for your audience but I think sometimes it's good to go back to basics and not try and reinvent the wheel it's you've been on a podcast you've you know you've advertised with a show it's done well okay well who else do you know who what other podcasts have you been on what um what are your what are your other brands saying that have done really well um and that way we've been led to some really cool podcasts we didn't even know existed um and you know this is this one of the reasons why you and I got introduced um as well I heard about your podcast, but I asked for a referral.

26:38Who do you know that could be good? And I got introduced to yourself. So, you know, I think the power of the network, the power of the referral is such a big thing when it comes to scaling, because you're almost getting someone else's, you know, green light. I'm not going to recommend someone to you, John, if I don't think they're going to do well, well by you. And, you know, the same is true for these podcasts, you know, so that worked so, so well for us. So there's a lot of things you got to realize Fire Nation is that when you are looking to spend a dollar, you're looking to potentially one, get a dollar back, if not more to build a relationship, which can be as valuable as dollars back in your pocket.

27:17Cause that relationship can really add a lot of things down the line. There's a ton, countless examples of how I've done this over the years, how I've spent money, maybe on a coach, a mentor, a masterminds, different things that have returned, you know, thousand X in some scenarios. Like I remember when I paid Lewis house$12 ,000 to teach me how to do live webinars and I've made millions and millions of dollars on live webinars. And yeah, I would have eventually figured it out on my own, but I mean like what I maybe have gotten frustrated and never done it right. Like sometimes you got to be willing fire nation to pay to play, pay for relationships when it works, ask for referrals when it works, you know, pay to get in front of the right ear balls when it works or eyeballs when it works like both when it works.

27:59Now, one thing that I really am curious about as somebody that has a lot of physical products myself, like, I don't know if you know this about me, Andy, but I've been releasing about a journal a year for the past four years. Now I released the freedom journal in 16, the mastery journal in 17, the podcast journal in 18, the 108 gold journal in 19. And then I just actually launched my first book, the common path to uncommon success here in 2021. So like I have a lot of physical products and I have, you know, them on Amazon and other places. and man, inventory can be a tricky beast. Just like paid marketing can be a tricky beast, inventory and managing that inventory can be a tricky beast.

28:36I mean, the storage fees, trying to figure out that platform, optimizing it, you know, Amazon having low limits. I can only, over Christmas, I can only send in like 60 journals at a time and I was selling over 60 a day. Like it was insane. How do you manage inventory? Talk us through this process. Yeah, extremely difficult. And you know, it's one of these things that we haven't sought outside investment. yet in our journey. And when it comes to reinvesting the funds, you get this chicken and egg situation. Do I spend my money on marketing, but then I don't have the product? Or do I spend my money on the product and then have no money to market?

29:09So it's a very difficult minefield to negotiate. But if you have investment, it's typically not too much of a problem. You buy the product and you pay for the marketing and the way you go, and that will serve you well for a period of time until you need more investment and the cycle continues. The way we did it was slightly different because we didn't want that outside funding we wanted to do it ourselves so we just when we started setting up our suppliers we wanted to arrange payment terms so we had to we had to first of all rely on ourselves to be able to sell which we knew we would be able to do this but we didn't want to spend all this money on you know ten thousands of dollars in the start on on product only for it to sit in our you know in our back room in our garages etc So what we did was we negotiated payment terms.

29:59We said we want 30 day payment terms from the end of the month. And we will we will basically go from there. And, you know, we gave them this business plan of like we're going to be, you know, eight figures within three years, which we which we hit. And, you know, it's going to be well worth your while to extend this credit to us. Now, when we they agreed to do that and then we use that to leverage that with our other suppliers. we just said basically but we need these payment terms and every single one of them term and said yeah no problem we can we can do that so what we initially did when we launched blue blocks was we decided to pre-sell so we put up that you know you could buy the product you could buy the glasses but they would take four to five days to um to create um because they were this special product everything had to be like artesian handmade um not mass produced and that was our selling point So we almost had no outlay whatsoever.