Advice Line: Growing Beyond Your Niche

0:00Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to How I Built This Early Early and Ad Free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Now a quick break switching topics to one of our favorite sponsors, Vital Proteins. Vital Proteins is the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S. By taking collagen peptides every day, you can help support your hair, skin, nail, bone, and joint health. And now you can try Vital Protein's new collagen and protein shake. It has all the benefits of collagen in a ready-to-drink chocolate protein shake. With 30 grams of protein, it's great for healthy hair, skin, nails, and joints.

0:43And it's perfect. When I'm on the go, I use it at the gym. I use it after a workout. It's delicious. And the chocolate flavor is awesome. I highly recommend it. Go to www.vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy. Get 20 % off your next order by entering promo code BUILT at checkout. listening on audible helps your imagination soar and no matter what you like audible's romance collection has something to make you swoon here's your invitation to have it all find a book boyfriend in the city and another on the hockey field or if nothing on this earth touches your heart you can always find love in another realm here modern rom-coms from authors like lily chu and ali hazelwood the latest romanticy series from sarah j mass and rebecca yaros and regency favorites like Bridgerton and Outlander.

1:35And that's only the beginning. Audible has an incredible selection with over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts, and Audible originals all in one easy app. And you can enjoy Audible anytime while doing other things. Household chores, exercising, on the road, commuting, you name it. Audible makes it easy to drop into your fantasies during your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen. Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial. Visit audible.com slash built. I love traveling with my family. We did an awesome trip this summer, and one of the things that made the trip so special were the Airbnb experiences we did.

2:20Immersive tours, cooking classes, a chance to get coffee with a world-class barista. I had so much fun on those experiences that I decided to host my own Airbnb original experience in San Francisco, designed to help you think about how to unlock your next big move in your career or even in your life. To learn more about my Airbnb original experience, head to airbnb.com slash guy. This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you build smarter digital relationships with your customers, with its unified data and marketing platform featuring email, SMS, reviews, and more. This Black Friday Cyber Monday, make every moment count with Klaviyo.

3:07Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM.

3:22Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. Last week, we released a mashup of never-before-heard conversations with callers from previous episodes of the show. And this week, we have three more of those conversations because some of the advice was so good, we just thought you had to hear it. And of course, if you are building something and you need advice, give us a call. You just might be the next guest on the show.

3:57Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at GuyRoz.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. The first conversation is actually the very first advice line call we ever took. My guest that day was Fawn Weaver, the founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.

4:41And Fawn told me all about how she used a story to build her brand when she first came on the show back in 2021. And when she joined me on the advice line, she used a lot of her own experience to guide our callers in their storytelling. First caller, are you there? Hi, Guy. Hi, Fawn. Hello. Hi. Tell us your name and where you're from and what your business is. So my name is Oney Colston. I am the founder and CEO of Keep It Random Entertainment. Our premier product is WEMO, which stands for What Are My Options? It is a two-in-one game. Think Social Truth or Dare meets Dear Diary. So it's a conversation starter.

5:23We start the conversation and inspire new conversations. Our first edition is the Friends edition, and it's for ages 17 and up. Got it. And where are you based, Oney? I'm in Fort Worth, Texas. In Fort Worth. Okay. Thank you for calling. All right. So it's called What Are My Options? It's a board game and basically designed to, I guess kind of like an icebreaker game or like to get to know people better, right? Yes, it's actually a board and card game. That's what makes it a two-in-one game. So you can play with the board or with cards only. And the idea is getting with your friends, really whoever you want to play with and have engaging conversation, but also compete and just learn something about each other, sharing your experiences, your perspectives and your beliefs.

6:08So what are some of the prompts on the cards, for example? So they range in intensity, play it safe, up a notch, all in and test my luck. We'll play it safe first. Okay. Yeah, let's play it safe. One of the questions is, do you believe that billionaires are stingy if they decide to keep their money? Fawn, what would you say? I wouldn't call it stingy. I think it's just a matter of what your moral compass is. And so for me, everything that I build is for other people. That is just me. It's what drew me to this story is it was so much about other people. But for those who choose not to, that's on them too.

6:49I'm going to say I'm going to reserve judgment and say, you know, everybody's got to make their own decisions. Yes. And so the answers, they vary. And I think when you're playing with other people, you get the opportunity to learn from other people, you know, together versus just being like on your phone or talking about it on social media. Oni, tell us a little bit about how this came about. What were you doing when you decided to create this game? So in 2019, I had my daughter. And so I was spending so much time with her to where all of my attention went to her, which meant that I was neglecting my husband, who I'd known since we were in college at like 19 or 20.

7:32Right. So I started thinking of just a creative way for us to connect. I didn't have a lot of money for us to go out on this fancy dinner. So I just started creating cards on Microsoft Word and we started asking each other questions. And from there, I was like, you know what, I could do this with my friends. And so that's when I decided to turn it into a conversation starter. So cool. And how did you like what was the next step to actually going from Microsoft Word, you know, pages to going and finding somebody who could make this board game and manufacture it for you? Oh my gosh. When I tell you it was a challenge, I will say, I tested the game out with my family and friends and also strangers.

8:18And that told me you do actually have something. It's not just you thinking that this is a good idea. And so then I literally just started drawing it out. I went to Walmart, I got a board and I hand drew it out and I tested that out with my family and my friends. And from there, I literally just started calling around, Googling, and I just started taking the steps. So I have a question for you. Since you've been talking, I've been busy Googling over here and just looking at WAMO. And one of the things I notice is when I go to Google search and I put in WAMO, is that I get 20 different options of WAMO, Urban Dictionary, radio stations, YouTube things.

9:04The Washington Monument, actually, apparently is referred to as WAMO. So I get all of these different things. What I don't get is you and your company and your board game. So have you found that you're able to break through the noise using that particular acronym? So originally, I had like 20 different names on my list for the game. And I just started saying, what are my options? Because in the game, you have options. But what are my options was just too long. And I thought about all the games that I played growing up. Everything's one word. And that's why I came up with WAMO. So I thought it was catchy, but it is, it has been a challenge to break the noise, honestly.

9:54Yeah, there's, there are a bunch of WAMOs. To find it, you type, you got to type in WAMO board game and I see it and it's awesome. And I mean, the site looks good and it's simple. And look, ultimately a name is, it may or may not really matter, right? We've had tons of companies on the show with, I mean, think about one of the most successful brands in recent years with maybe one of the weirdest names, Liquid Death for water, right? We told that story. So names, it all depends, right? And it's also given where you are in the business, you could change it if you wanted to. Let's dive into your question because you have a very specific question for Fawn around how to take this to the next level.

10:36So, Oni, what's your question? So my question to you, Fawn, is how have you been able to stand tall and be confident in an area in which you didn't have any background? Right. I was confident in myself. And so the confidence has to resonate from inside of you. If the confidence is coming from a product, that's a flawed strategy because you might have a product that fails and you might start another product. That product may fail. It may not be until you're on your fourth product, but you have to believe in yourself. You'll hear investors say this a lot, is that they always bet on the jockey. And every now and again, luck would have it that the jockey has a good horse, but they never bet on the horse.

11:23And so that confidence has to come from inside of you, especially as you are, I imagine this is a costly endeavor. And I imagine you are, if you're not already raising money, you'll have to raise money. That confidence, if you don't exude that in every space that you walk into when you're raising money, they will shut it down while you're still talking because they are looking for that level of confidence. But it has to come from you. I think that's such great advice, and I love the horse analogy, especially given that you are in the Kentucky, Tennessee area. It makes a lot of sense. But I wanted to add to that and build on what Fawn said, which is that part of developing confidence is going through a period of time where you're working to get there, especially when you're coming into an arena in an area where you don't know you don't have a whole lot of experience.

12:15It comes with just developing experience, exposing yourself to other people in the area and being transparent about what you don't know. Because what you'll often find, Oni, is that a lot of people will want to help you. They will want to give you advice. Fawn, I remember when you started with the distillery, you went and talked to a lot of people. And sure, some people might have dismissed you, but there were people who really did want to help out, right? Oh, absolutely. In the beginning, there were 20 different historians, archivists, archaeologists, genealogists who all got together and none ever charged me.

12:49So you will find that there are people who genuinely want to simply help you. Guy and I are on here talking to you right now. We simply want to help you. So to Guy's point, if you are transparent about what you don't know, but you can do that and still have a level of confidence in who you are as a leader, that confidence of whatever my hands touches, I can make it succeed. I may have to learn it because I knew nothing about whiskey coming into this and I mean nothing, but you can learn that piece. Oni, tell me what your sort of vision for the next phase is. Like now, okay, you've got a website, you've got this product.

13:31Now, how do you get it in the hands of people? So we've already begun selling. We've been going to markets. And I say we, but it's me. And of course, the help of my husband and also my close friend. But we've been going to markets to sell, of course, using social media. But really, the hardest part is telling the story and getting the story out there. But definitely just pressing every single day to put a piece of content out there, going to all the markets and just sharing the story and the game. Well, I think the story is going to be out there now. Congratulations on launching this. Good luck.

14:10It's such a cool idea. Oni, thanks so much for calling in. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you, Fawn. Thank you, Guy. It was so nice to meet you all, and thank you so much. All right. Bye. Well, Fawn, the story of Uncle Nearest is like a movie. This guy, he was enslaved. He taught Jack Daniels how to make whiskey. Then Jack Daniels becomes Jack Daniels, and Uncle Nearest is basically forgotten. until recent years. And you revive this. I mean, you build a brand around him. So you had a story. But what about brands that don't have a natural story or a clear story? Where do they start? Every brand has a story because every human has a story and every brand is founded by a human.

14:53And so if your brand itself does not have a story, you're doing it for a reason. there's a story behind why you are doing it. So if you look at Uncle Nearest, on any given day, there might be between five and eight press hits around the world, major publications, and they're all telling different stories about the brand. And a lot of those stories are not the story of Nears Green and Jack Daniel, because I've now told the story of my upbringing, the importance of this, not only being black owned, but remaining black owned and passing to the next generation so that we can begin to decrease the wealth gap.

15:31I've talked about how our distillery, now the seventh most visited distillery in the world, thanks in part to you, thank you so much. Thank you, you're welcome. I've told the story of how that distillery, every single weekend, you will find people from every race, religion, background, political affiliation, and you don't expect to find that in America if you're actually watching the news. You know, you might have the guy with the cowboy hat and the belt and the boots on, and we had the roots playing. The roots were there and you had all these people in cowboy boots and they can scoot boogie at the same time somebody else is doing the wobble.

16:06But that is something that is unique to our company, our brand. And I tell that story on a daily basis. So you also have to figure out what are elements of your story that are interesting to people. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we'll hear another advice line called this time with Andrew Abraham, founder of Orgain. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz. And you're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.

16:47If you've been listening to the show these last couple of episodes, you've probably heard me mention the Airbnb original experience that I'm hosting. And I'm so excited to have a chance to connect with listeners in a completely new way. It's called the Reinvention Lab, and it's designed to help you think about how to unlock your next big move in your career or even in your life. I'll help you discover your own story in ways I do on this show with my guests. And attendees will get a chance to take a deeper dive with me on so many lessons I've learned from this show. Lessons that have transformed how I work and think about the future.

17:25All proceeds from the event will go to support the Ronald McDonald houses that helps families stay near their children who are being treated at nearby hospitals. It's going to be really fun, and I can't wait to meet you. So come join me in San Francisco and take your idea to the next level. To grab your spot, visit airbnb.com slash guy. It's going to be great. This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo, the only CRM built for B2C and the key to making Black Friday and Cyber Monday your biggest wins yet. When the holidays hit, your competition only gets louder. That's why the most successful brands use Klaviyo to cut through the noise and build personalized relationships that drive more revenue.

18:11With Klaviyo, you get marketing, service, analytics, and all your customer data together on one AI-powered platform. It's everything you need to build lasting customer relationships. Send exclusive email offers to your VIP customers. Deliver perfectly timed text to high-intent shoppers. Maximize your ad dollars with precision. Join the more than 176 ,000 brands, including Away, Patrick Ta, and Dollar Shave Club, already growing with Klaviyo. Make this holiday season your best yet at klaviyo.com. If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout?

19:02The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Because Shopify doesn't just make amazing buying experiences for customers. They're also the experts in helping small businesses grow big. Stop seeing carts going abandoned and turn those sales into... Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash built. Go to shopify.com slash built. Shopify.com slash built.

19:47Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So Andrew Abraham first came on the show back in 2023 and told the incredible story of how a cancer diagnosis as a teenager eventually led him to starting the company or gain. And earlier this year, Andrew came back onto the advice line to offer some great advice to our callers. Welcome to the show. Tell us your name and the name of your business and what the business does briefly. Absolutely. So I'm Ken Dowschmidt with Tier Restore Inc. What we do is we develop over-the-counter treatments to treat the cause of dry eye syndrome.

20:27Got it. And where are you based? We are based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Awesome. Okay. And what's your question? What question did you bring for us today? So my question to Andrew is what strategies did you do to educate customers at scale? So when you were launching into a broad retailer like Costco, how did you express the benefits that Orgain has? All right. Great question. We're going to get to your question in just a moment. But let me just ask you a couple of questions about the brand. So this is, so Tier Restore helps keep your eyes moist, like for dry eye. Tell me a little bit about dry eye syndrome because I guess I'm lucky I don't get it.

21:06I don't have it. Absolutely. So dry eye syndrome is a very common condition. New studies are showing that almost a third of people actually have symptoms of chronic dry eye syndrome. And the reason for that is because of the extended screen use. So we're staring at screens right now, and the average person stares at a screen for nine hours a day. And it's literally just your eyes getting dry, feeling like rough. Exactly. So the primary cause of dry eye syndrome is the breakdown of the oil glands within the eyelids. And every time you blink, you're squeezing oil out onto that tear film. and if you're staring at a screen, you blink less.

21:43Got it. Okay. And so this is not like Visine, right? Which I think it just makes your eyes not red, right? How is this different from what is it? Because there are products out there, I'm pretty sure that help with this, right? Correct. So the most common treatment is going to be eye drops. But all that's doing is just temporarily relieving the symptoms of dry eyes for a short period of time. What we do is we focus on treating those oil glands within the eyelids by warming them up to the right temperature so that they can express more, or we clean them off to allow them to express more oil onto that tear film.

22:21Wow. So it warms the oil glands in the eyelids and that then helps to like lubricate the surface of the eyeball. Exactly. So the outer surface of your tear film on the front of your eye is an oil layer. And so when you don't have enough oil, then your tears evaporate too quickly. And so what we do is we increase the amount of oil that's in the tears. Got it. Okay. Andrew, medical technology here. First of all, I'm sure you've got some questions for Ken. I do. I mean, first I'd say, Ken, congrats on what you're doing. I'm a huge proponent of eye health. You know, I wear blue light glasses religiously and really feel like we neglect our eye health as a society with how much screen time we have.

23:02So I really appreciate kind of what you're doing here. Just curious, like what has been your biggest challenge to date so far with the business? So our biggest challenge is educating people on a wide scale. We launched going through physician offices and selling our products through there. but now we're on a scale where we've entered some of the large retailers and we need to be able to educate people on a wide scale about dry eye and how they should be treating it. Yeah, it just reminds me a little bit of like brands like Tempur-Pedic, which really began as pillows and they started out at chiropractor's offices, you know, hoping that that's how they would sell a brand.

23:43Viore, the athletic wear brand, they started out at yoga studios and it was challenging. Your challenge is getting people to understand what this product is and why they need it, essentially. Exactly. Yep. And that gets to kind of the core of your question, right, Ken, that you asked a little bit earlier? Yep, absolutely. So I'm wondering how, when you launched into a broad market like Costco, how did they know to choose Orgain and that it was going to benefit them in some way? Yeah, it was certainly a challenge we had. And I think, first, while this is a very medically focused product. In my eyes, I think you have a real opportunity to shift the marketing and narrative into more lifestyle rather than medical.

24:24I mean, Guy was on earlier and he was telling us earlier that he doesn't think he has dry eyes. He feels fine. But I'll tell you, after using products like this, my eyes, even though I didn't think I had an issue, felt significantly better. So same thing with Orgain. If I pitched Orgain as a medical nutrition product to 100 people, I'd maybe get 5 to 10 people to use it. As a lifestyle product for those wanting more protein, better nutrition, it's closer to 100 out of 100. And I think the same thing applies here. We're all on our screens way too long, but we all take care of, say, our oral health by brushing our teeth and flossing daily to maintain our health.

25:04So what you have, I think, in Tier Restore, it should be something as more of a lifestyle. We We need this to maintain our eye health, to lubricate our eyes, and to reduce fatigue from screen time. I think that's a really good point, Andrew, because I'm looking at your website, Ken. And, of course, the website isn't necessarily the first place that people will come into contact with your product. But the website sets the tone for how you talk about the product. And the website feels very medical. It feels like a, you know, after you see FDA right away, it feels very sort of clinical. And I think that's – I understand there are smart reasons behind that.

25:36We see a doctor. But if, in fact, this is a lifestyle product, if, in fact, I were to use this and say, oh, my God, I did have dry eye. Like, this is actually amazing, which it sounds like the product could do. Then I think, to Andrew's point, you want to really focus on on how this is something that everybody needs. And, you know, maybe you show tennis players and somebody jogging and, you know, somebody working out. Just people doing things that they do day to day, driving that this could enhance. Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. I really appreciate the input there. Any other advice for how to frame our company and our products in a way that would push towards that lifestyle?

26:18I have a thought there on that, Ken. And I think it's rather than asking your consumer base if they have dry eyes, because some do and most actually don't know if they do. My marketing or my approach would be, do you use a phone or laptop for more than five hours a day? And based on what you just told me, a vast majority will say yes. And then you explain how tea restores, whether it's the hylo wipe that I saw uses hyaluronic acid and calming plant extracts to restore and soothe your eyes to keep them healthy. It's a different narrative, right? and there's nothing more precious than our vision, what are you doing to take care of it?

26:51What's your daily routine? So I think I would change the messaging into more lifestyle rather than medical and really focus on what we're all doing wrong, and that's screen time. Yeah. I see that you're in Walmart. Are you in Walmart nationally or just in certain regions? 3 ,000 stores, so most of the Walmarts. Okay. And I'm sure you may have done a version of this already. But if not, you need to be giving out those wipes, giving them out at every opportunity you have, whether it's sporting events, if you can set up a booth or a tent, if you can sample them at Walmart. I don't know how easy it is with this product, but every person that passes by gets one of those packets of the Tira store.