She Taught Herself a Paid Facebook Strategy That Grew Her Biz From $1 Million to $70 Million in Yearly Revenue

0:00Hey, welcome back to Female Founder World. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show. And today I'm chatting with Crystal DeGroote, the co-founder of Your Super, which is a superfood wellness company that started back in 2014. So I know that there are heaps of these kind of companies out there now, but they were really pretty early and they're now doing, they think they've hit 200 million in revenue. So that is a lot. And she actually exited the company last year. So she's got some lessons from getting started through to exiting and selling. She went to business school, but she's got some very specific thoughts about why you don't have to.

0:36So if you have a little imposter syndrome because you want to start a business, but you don't have like the credentials, this conversation is your permission to get started anyway. Okay, let's get into the show. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Garnsworthy. Crystal, welcome to Female Founder world. Thank you for having me. I'm super, super excited to be here. For people who don't know what you're building, what is your super? Your super is an amazing, actually started as an e-com business, now really just a business that sells superfood mixes. We're in the business of helping, you know, people improve their health with the power of plants.

1:14And what's the accent? Where are you from? I'm from Holland and my co-founder, he's from Germany. So my accent is just mixed everything. okay but you're based in brooklyn you're like we were just talking about the fact that you're basically down the road from me i walk past where you are your street yeah literally every day yeah no we've been this year kind of all over the place so we're two months now here and uh we just got a little one and we're kind of nomadic this year so every one two months we're going to be somewhere else and trying to figure out where to settle next i love that we're also in the same place from trying to figure out like what our home is going to be now that we have a baby and my husband is fully remote.

1:53I'm obviously working in the business, but mostly remote apart from the events that we're doing, but I can kind of like fly in for that. And we're doing the same thing. Like we're pretty nomadic through the summer through to kind of like the end of the year, just figuring out like where feels right. Yeah. We have no idea either. And everyone is like, where are you going to settle? Where are you going to settle? You know how it goes with a baby, right? Because you have a baby, you have to settle. And we're just kind of like, I don't know. I'm just kind of flowing. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. My deadline is like, okay, well, when they have to go to school, we have to find somewhere but until then why can't you just take the baby is that how it works yeah well you can I figured out uh what you will notice when you're going to travel with the little one is that instead of like two checked luggages you're going to have like six yeah yeah okay I can imagine that it's already like when I leave the house it's like I was packing a whole caravan yeah okay I'm fully I we need to have a separate conversation about this because I need to I need to find out your tips, but let's get back to the topic, which is business and what you're building.

2:53You have been working on your super since 2014, which is nine years, the year I moved to New York. And I want to understand where you were at in your life and what the inspiration was behind the brand. Cause it's a very personal, very interesting story about how you got started. Yeah. So, uh, we started a bit, so I started a business with Michael. Um, we actually met in college and then he got sick, like, like two, four years in our relationship. He was 24 and he got cancer. And that was kind of like such a turning point in both our lives. I watched the movie Forks Over Knives during while he was going for chemo, turned plant-based the next day.

3:32And after his chemo, right, where, you know, yes, you're cancer-free, but not healthy, right? So that's kind of where I stepped in as like this crazy health nut. And I was like, okay, I want to put you on this detoxes. And I had this cabinet full of superfoods. and I was like okay you know like I have this empty jar and I'm gonna just scoop everything in there for you and I gave it to him because he was like what is this this is expensive like how does this work um and you know he's just started taking this green superfoods every single day and he just started to feel so much better and we realized there's so many more Michaels in this world um and that's really where you know the business started from where superfoods are nothing new right it's been used for thousands of years from all over the world if you look at eastern medicine if you look at ayurveda south you know south america they have all these amazing powerful ingredients where you know they use food as medicine um and we just you know combine them together and make it easier for people we have you know like 10 functional superfood mixes they're super clean um you know nothing added to it no stevia nothing everything is organic plant-based and it's just a really easy way of adding more plants to your diet awesome and i just want to give people like some milestones so they can know where you're at like there are a lot of you know superfood brands that are out there you are definitely one of the ones that have made the most impact in the space you've been around I think you were like really early in this um in this movement I read that you had raised 34 million you've got more than 200 million in revenue and you were named the fastest growing food and beverage company in 2021 by Inc magazine what have I missed what are the milestones along the way well this is this is a funny thing like we started also actually in Europe and we were you know we first were in Amsterdam and we started pretty quickly moved to Berlin and then you know had our first office there and then early to 18 we actually launched in the U.S.

5:20and I think also as a European business to like go to the U.S. we were still very small Europe too and everyone was like why would you go to the U.S. this doesn't make any sense and we're like no no we're gonna go we were super naive young and we're just like we're doing this and it was actually one of the best decisions we ever made um so it's it's funny how that goes but it's uh you know it has been amazing to have this impact to reach all these people um and you just help people live a healthier life because we all want to feel better right we're all busy and this is just a really easy product to just get more goodness in you when you were first starting out what kind of things were you doing to kind of get your product out into the world and build that buzz early on um so early on uh we did farms markets which i think is a great way for anyone just starting because it gets you in touch face to face with consumers and you start to understand what kind of questions they're asking which you should note and write down because those are the things you should also write if you sell for example e-com those are the things that need to be on your pdp or on your home page like what are some of their um you know objections of not buying a product, right?

6:29You can actually start to understand those much better. What are they not understanding? And making sure you answer those kinds of things, you know, on a flow online as well. So I think that was super helpful. And from there, this was, I mean, this was 214, 215. So we did a lot of barter deals on Instagram and just sending out a lot of free products. I think especially in early days, right? When you probably don't have a huge marketing budget, I think just giving away products to the right people is just a really easy way of starting out. And not everything is going to be impactful, right? But sometimes only 50 % or even 20%, right?

7:05You know, it can be impactful. So that was something we really focused on. And then we started to dabble. I remember one of our early investors was 500 startups. And we did a one-month e-commerce course with them where we actually learned the world of e-com and how to read all those numbers and everything. but also like how do you run google ads how do you run facebook ads um and we you know we started instead of having agencies doing it i actually learned it myself and i was like okay this is how i run facebook ads i'm going to focus on these and it still was a journey i would say of at least a year to like kind of like make it work right because it's very interesting people are like oh you just upload a picture right and you have copy and then you just run it and it's like no no no it's true advertising right you really like your creative really really matters and um one of the biggest things for me that made a huge difference was instead of trying to sell the products right and focusing on that in your ads just so we have a tendency right as founders to wanting to talk about our product all the time is to actually make that switch and talk about the story right of like Why do we actually do what we do versus what are you doing?

8:19And that made the biggest difference because people don't buy products. People buy from people and they buy, especially women. And women buy most consumer products. We buy what we're feeling. What is the emotions that you create with the ads you're running? And don't just advertise a picture of your product. Really tell a story and your personal story. and just like what are then the second layer would be like what are the problems you're solving for you know for her and going through that I was doing a little bit of research and chatting with your publicist before we lined up this interview and learned that the brand like through this kind of Facebook paid strategy you were able to scale from 1 million to 70 million in annual revenue in three years, which is pretty incredible.

9:10When you say that you should be talking about your story, rather than just like what the product is and what the offering is, can you give an example about how you kind of did that through advertising? And you obviously have an incredible story behind the brand, how you kind of, because you do have a very limited, you know, real estate when you're, when you're running an ad. So like what, how did you actually like execute on that? Yeah. So I think it was, it was a learning process and writing, you know, learning how to write copy I think is a skill and um I think writing copy and this kind of sound maybe a little boohoo but I think this is it has this spiritual side to it as well yeah um it's writing from the heart right not from the head and um when it really you know really practical it's like just keep it short right you don't have to tell everything and someone helped me with that at some point too like for the first three four years we never talked about our story like we didn't even like talk about that Michael had cancer or this like that whole thing was not even part of our business we're just like we're doing what we're doing and to us it all makes sense why we did it but we never talked about that um so like you know I remember um we we had someone on our team and what she did is that she actually and you obviously can do this exercise with yourself as well she interviewed us to just tell us like all those things you know throughout our lives well like what is everything that kind of happened and then from that is to actually pick okay what are the key moments right that are really important and from there really you know shape like the brand story um and you know in a short way right because there is you know if we could talk for five hours about the whole story um and if you then think about a facebook ad i really think it's like if i think about like those videos um back in the days like three four years ago you had this now this videos um and i was really inspired by those right where you had maybe five to ten sentences very short and fill that in for yourself and just like what is it so for us it could just be like you know michael was diagnosed with you know uh with cancer crystal helped him with this and it's like very almost feels like baby language right but someone like scrolling their facebook feed is cannot read a whole book in two seconds right so it's like just to really dumb it down keep it short and i think there also you don't have to tell everything you just need to grab someone's attention and make them interested enough to click right like you have to think about what is the goal of an ad the goal of the ad is actually not to sell the goal of the ad is to make someone interested click and then your website actually has to do the selling we keep hearing this like theme around being able to as a founder being able to tell your story and understand your why like honestly over and over again so yeah you're you're speaking to that as something that's really important from a paid strategy but also folks who have done really well on TikTok say like that's what's working in the organic TikTok strategy.

11:59And then people who have been accepted into like the Target or Sephora Accelerate program say like that's why they got into those programs. Like it seems to be just like this super powerful thing that you as a, as an independent founder can do that just like the bigger corporations, like a Mondelez can't do that. You know what I mean? Like they, they can't tell that personal story. So you need to like really like hone in on that skill. I agree. And I think also as, you know, if you think about the consumers out there and, you know, same as, is I, if I see a brand and there is a personal story attached to it, like, there's just like this true connection to the product.

12:37Right. And I think we all get excited about it too, where it's like, Oh, this sounds so fun. And like, okay, there's like right away this trust as well. Like, okay, I feel like the good intentions, like they're trying to do the right thing. And yeah, you're just not, don't have to be the modelist or with the Pepsi or with, you know, the Coca-Cola's of the world. Something really interested in, um, with your story is that you, in the beginning decided not to get an agency or bring in a freelance. So like you learned this yourself and so you could kind of manage it yourself. And another founder that I spoke with, um, Baba Rivera, she's got a beauty brand called Ceremonia.

13:11They just launched into Sephora. And she said that when she's thinking about how to prioritize her time and like where to focus in the business, she really thinks about about what's new and what's next. And she wants to become like well-versed and like get expertise and like the new thing so that she understands everything that's happening in the business. And I feel like when, what a lot of founders do is kind of the opposite. Like they're, they're sticking to what they know and what they're good at. And then they're kind of like bringing in other experts. Do you think that it is something that was just like a necessity early on that you don't have big budgets to have agencies, so you need to learn it yourself.

13:46Or do you think that that's a really important thing that founders understand all the facets? the business? I mean, I think everyone's going to have their own way. So I don't, I don't know if there's necessarily a right or wrong, right? It's just something that worked for me. I find it also a lot easier now, even if I would, you know, at some point I had, you know, we had a big marketing team. I had like 50 people under me or something, right? So I was managing people, running the accounts and managing people, even, you know, building out the strategies and stuff. but because I had done all those things over the years myself as well I I knew what I was talking about right so it was yeah I felt a lot more confident as well to kind of just manage them and understanding and the conversations we're having and you know like figuring out together what direction we would go um so it's something I really enjoyed but I also think it depends like where are you at in your career right if you're maybe you were in another company you already manage people you feel like hey I feel very comfortable with that for me I was like I was when I started the business and for me that was the path to really like go step by step I did CX when we started I packed packages when I started I mixed mixes together when I started right like I kind of did it everything over time and um it's it's something I also really enjoyed I really truly enjoyed learning and I think if you're someone who really enjoys learning um I think it's great and i think the one other thing i really want to point out is also it's like you don't have to do as a business everything right because if you look at all marketing channels out there right there's so much you should right be doing there's like 500 different things in marketing which you can be doing and in the beginning i think we're also trying to do everything and then suddenly i realized it's like oh you actually don't have to do everything they're just like maybe two three things and do them really really well whether it's like hey it's a podcast or maybe it's paid or maybe it's you know your organic tiktok or like you know whatever like or maybe it's email marketing pick like your maybe max a handful and do those really well and just kind of let go of the rest because sometimes it's just doing this couple of things so good and becoming really experts at them as on even on a business level right as in your business just doing those things so good it's going to have the biggest impact instead of a little bit in everything.

16:05I think there are a lot of people that need to hear that and just like get that permission to let go of the fact that you don't have to be doing everything. Cause it is overwhelming. Like there's SMS, there's events, there's brand, there's PR, there's like, you could do community. You could like, it's just too many things. You could be doing YouTube. Even for me, who's building like an editorial and a community based business. There are a million channels that I could be publishing on, but I'm like, no, we're going to pick these few and that's what we're going to do. You just keep going. Yeah.

16:33Keep going. And that's the same in paid, right? If you go and paid advertising, you can go Facebook, then you can go YouTube, then you can go Pinterest, then you can go Google, then you can go on all like TV, right? Like Hulu and everything else. And the list just, and you can go programmatic. The list just keeps going on, on and on. Oh, let's do some podcast advertising. Let's do this and this. And at some point you're just like, I I mean, this is crazy. I know that early on you were able to get some investors on board. Why, first of all, why did you decide to go the venture route? I think a lot of people in consumer are like more leaning into the bootstrapping now, kind of just because of necessity.

17:10Like there's not that much as much money around. But you decided to go the venture back route and were able to get some really great investors. How did that all come about? And what lessons have you learned? You know, you've raised$34 million. like that is a lot of money and you're a female founder what what lessons do you have for other people who are out there wanting to do this yeah I think um the reason we did it I remember really Mike and me were kind of sitting down with like hey what what you know what do we want to do and um we said hey let's go big or go home basically and we really felt like by getting the money in that we could skill faster reach more people therefore could have a bigger impact so that was kind of the thinking you know behind it um and i think there's you know a beauty of it i think like everything just if you scale faster right you learn your lessons sometimes a little bit faster as well um in the beginning right i mean we have the business already for nine years most of the money we've raised from like you know end 2017 on a little bit before that as well but um we also were bootstrapping the first two for years and trying to kind of figure it out so it was also not like an instant and i think that's also for someone you know like if you're bootstopping in the beginning i think it's great and i think especially nowadays like you know build out your metrics build out your business case um and do as much as you can before raising any money and if you don't have to raise money and you have a profitable business awesome right like don't raise money great or raise money then with your profitable business and therefore can make a jump right and be profitable then right away again um so i think what we've learned um really get to know your investors i think is really really important um i think it's been interesting i had right yes i'm a female founder but i also had a male co-founder um a white male co-founder right so i had like it's an advantage and it's just so true right when you look at the statistics statistics i think even now like this year even lower percentage of uh money goes to females it's crazy um i think it's like five percent or less and um and that includes female founders with a male co-founder which is like just blows my mind and it's it's just having those conversations and i think it's important to know you're going to get a lot of no's right like from let's say if you let's say you talk to hundreds and hundreds of investors right like from every hundred you talk to you're gonna get like 99.9 % is going to be a no uh but from every conversation you learn something again you might get another intro again right and people are like how where do you find them it's just like you just go out there and one conversation is after the other um and they're also it's storytelling like why do you do what you do right it's like it's not just about the product it's really also there lead with your story why do you do what you do because that's really what also they're also looking for.

20:01You've also, um, you've obviously like really learned what you're doing as you've been building this business, you know, like you built something really incredible. You're speaking with such confidence about fundraising and the process because, because you've done it, but I also know that you did go to business school and I'm curious about your, how much, how much you, you put down to what you learned at business school versus actually like getting out there and doing it. Um, I think business school is totally not necessary. um I think uni is great to socialize and I think it's great to have a good time and you know I was a great student I had good grades all of that but I really don't think it's that important like I started a business and I still had no idea even though I studied business and I always like joked about this I was like I had no idea what to do I didn't know how to register a business I didn't know yes I did I just like I had to google everything why is it so like not practical what you learn exactly and then you have a big business and they're you know all these models and everything i'm just like let's just just practical stuff would have been so handy and then if you think about the world now it's so different than even 10 years ago like social media and how you market it's like so outdated everything i learned anyways i think the one advantage i might have is that like yes if i'm in a board meeting and everyone talks about all the financial numbers i did study finance and accounting right so like i understand uh what the numbers but that's like Like, you know, that's like one course you can do through Coursera online.

21:28Like, that's not a big old degree. You don't need five years. Yeah. Exactly. To my point, you don't need business school. But if I learn one thing, that's the one thing I learned. I read that you sold the business last year to the healing company. Is that right? Yeah, we did. Congratulations. Talk me through what that was like. Quite a journey. And it's, I mean, we're still involved in business. I'm still working there. And it's fun working with them together. I think the most important piece for us has really been our admissions alliance. Because actually everything we do is about our mission.

22:07We're on a mission to improve people's health, the power of plans that holds true for your super. But that's also Michael and our personal mission. That's why we actually wrote a cookbook, which is coming out, which is exciting. Amazing. Your super life. and well cookbook plush lifestyle your super way of eating everything is in there and I think that's also what we continue doing and we still feel your super is the business where we're doing that in we're also you know with the book and just like kind of figuring out like what's next as well I had a baby last year so I feel like everything is transitioning and a lot of things happening amazing I would love to know what you what advice you would give to somebody who wants to build a business that they can exit one day and they're in the early days like what foundational things should they be thinking about yeah what if you could go back and talk to yourself in 2014 like what would you be telling that younger version of yourself um I think the biggest thing is to just enjoy every moment.

23:08Because I think what you really realize is, right, we often like even just don't even build to exit. I actually don't think it makes any sense. And I think it's really just about building something you're truly passionate about building something you really just get so much joy about because what's the point of building something and stressing about it for 10 years and then selling it just doesn't make any sense. Totally. So I think it's just this really enjoying the ride because it truly is about the ride. And if you happen to sell one day, yes or no, like it doesn't matter maybe you have an amazing business and you can you know that fits to your lifestyle and it's just something that's with you for a long time or maybe you own it and someone else is operating the day-to-day at some point right there's so many different ways how you know it can switch at some point but you don't need to know step million if you're still at step one and I think that's also if you you know if you're thinking about starting something don't think about all those steps ahead just truly be in the now and just think about the next five things that need to happen and you don't need to know everything um if i i was so naive and i didn't know so many things and i think it was fantastic because if i would have known what i know now i'm like would i have even started in the first place i don't know right so i think it's just like to really embrace the uncertainty i think as a founder is really really important um and to kind of just love that and just you know especially females we can go with the flow that's our superpower, like trust your intuition and just like go with it.

24:35I was talking with, um, Michelle Cordero Grant. She's, she started a business called lively and they sold, I think for like $105 million to like wake all after three years or something just wild. And she's building her second business now, which is a, uh, an energy drink company called Gorgie, which is awesome. And I asked her this question. I'm like, what are you, what are you doing differently in your first business that you didn't do in your second business that you didn't do in your first one? And she had a really similar answer to what you just said about the advice you would have given yourself.

25:04And she was like, I'm just enjoying the ride this time. I feel like I was so, you know, like stressed and really like hustling and worried about that, like that the end destination that I didn't get to like enjoy the journey. But now I'm really focused on just the joy and enjoying the process. And I just think that is really important. And it can sound for someone who's starting out and like, oh, that's really easy to say when you've got a really, you know, you've got the successful business. like you've done it and you're like oh enjoy the ride but it is and I'm someone who has had a business that failed and a business that worked and I just think that like in both cases the failure or the winning is a really small moment in it like the journey is what it's all about it's all about the journey and it's it's you know like some lessons you also have to learn yourself right like I think like I've heard people say it too and I was like I don't think it ever truly really clicked but then yeah it really is about the journey and if it doesn't feel that way yet you're gonna learn it one day and I also feel like since having a baby like this is totally I'm really digressing here but like that that is also taught me it's like about you've got to enjoy the every day because there's no like destination like yeah not you're not arriving amazing that way too they wake up and they're happy right yeah just happy they're in the moment they're great I'm like oh my god like he figured life out totally yeah it's like don't you know all the stuff we need to do today no yeah yeah um crystal the last question that i ask everyone who comes on to the show is for a recommendation so it's a resource it could be a lesson you've learned a book that you've read something that you think other people who want to go where you've been should check out great um so i i didn't know before i was going to say i was like let's see what comes up in the moment and actually two things come up um the one thing that has been really important to me and still is, it's just a morning routine.

26:54And the book I read was Morning Miracles, read that like eight years ago or something and really, you know, kind of installed it in my life. And it's so standard. But I just, if you don't have a morning routine, create it. It doesn't matter what it is, but just like have your own rituals. And I think for anyone who's listening and who is a mom, it's still possible to have a morning routine. I was about to ask you that. But you have to be a little bit more flexible. Yeah. So it might not be always as perfect as it used to be and maybe you do one piece of your morning routine right away in the morning another piece maybe later um so i think one of the things when you're a mom it's just all about like just being flexible in your own mind you cannot be as rigid um and within my morning routine is something i truly enjoy is affirmations i listen to affirmations from louise hay and she also has an amazing book how you know how to heal your life and i think there is such empowering affirmations for your own mindset um but also when it comes to your business like what you know what thoughts do you think and what do you say really you know comes back to us and um I think the more you start to focus on it and more start paying attention to it the more you realize this is actually true because you're like really is this really true is this really true and then you actually do it and you're like this changes everything um I remember just one really quick example uh I did this when we were living in Berlin and I wanted to move to LA but I was like this is not possible because we have a business in Berlin and for three months straight every morning I read out loud my affirmations I'm moving to LA next summer I'm moving to LA next summer and I had no idea how I literally couldn't see it I thought it was so I felt so silly even saying it and it was not the next summer but it was the fall we moved in November actually we moved to LA because the business this and this and somehow things worked out and we were moving to LA right so it's just funny how just like saying things over and over again and keep putting the intention there just trusting the process things just happen to you know work out I I am super woo and really like believe in all of that um but I think that people for people who maybe aren't like you just need to think of it as a way to keep you like really focused on like a very specific goal because it's constantly top of mind if you're doing affirmations I actually set them as my computer passwords every time I turn my computer on in the morning it's like that is the password and I change it as, um, as you know, life evolves and that affirmation needs to change as well.

29:18But it just keeps it like front of mind every morning when I turn on my computer, it's the first thing I think of. So smart. I always want to say my, my password now, but I'm like, can't do it. Don't do that. There are a lot of people listening. Um, Crystal, it has been so great chatting with you. Congratulations on the exit last year. That's massive. Where can people, where will they be able to find your book and where can they shop, your business? Yeah. Do your super life book is basically everywhere. Would you buy a book from books, a million Barnes and Noble, Target, Amazon, wherever you want to get it.

29:49And then your super is on your super.com and on Instagram, it's at your super foods. And you can also find me and Michael at crystal and Michael on Instagram as well. If you wanted to see more of like the baby pictures and stuff. I mean, I'll be there. I'm fully there for that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Quick shout out to all of our business bestie subscribers. If you are loving the show and you are building a consumer CPG or e-commerce business, or you're about to build one, this membership will give you access to the people experiences and the tools that you really need to build your dream business.

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