Advice Line with Hernan Lopez of Wondery

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25:28Hernan Lopez:Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Hernan Lopez, founder of Wondery, and we're taking your calls. And Hernan, are you ready for another call? Ready. All right, let's bring our next caller. Welcome to The Advice Line. You're on with Hernan Lopez, founder of Wondery. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Hi, Guy. Hello, Hernan. My name is Noel Audi, calling from Detroit, Michigan. I am the founder of Studious Monday, where I built a reliable school uniform-making system for Muslim families and schools.

26:02Hernan Lopez:Awesome. Welcome to the show, Nawal. So tell me about, so these are uniforms, school uniforms that you're selling? So they're modest school uniforms designed for the hijabi tween, you know, the 9 to 17-year-old girl who wears the hijab. There was a gap in the market, you know, experienced by myself as a mom who has a daughter and also sons that go to Muslim schools. And there were no school uniforms for them. It was more about layering and creating and altering. And so I decided to create something for them. That's great. That's cool. Because school uniforms are awesome. I mean, it basically levels the playing field, right?

26:45Hernan Lopez:Because no one is sort of bragging about their streetwear brands and their expensive whatevers. They're all wearing the same thing. Tell me a little bit about the business. How is it – I'm assuming you're selling this mainly locally around Michigan where you are based? Yep, exactly. So we are selling direct to consumer through the schools. So the schools are like, hey, this is the school uniform for the year. You need to buy this. And that's how we get our customers. So I went from one school last year to four schools this upcoming back to school season. And where are you manufacturing the clothing?

27:25Hernan Lopez:Are you designing it, by the way? I am designing it. I manufactured it. It's been quite inspiring for me, you know, as a daughter of immigrants, as well as like my children to reconcile identity and clothing and fashion. and manufacturing in the United States has been super rewarding. Yeah, for sure. Tell me a little bit about your sales. How are you doing? How's the business doing? So yeah, our sales last year was$75 ,000 with one school and now we'll be at four schools. So we're hoping to reach about$250 ,000 this upcoming back to school season. Awesome. And before we get into this further, tell us your question.

28:13So my hesitation has been around preserving the trust that I've built under the name Studious Monday. But many of the families I serve struggle to pronounce it. Many of my families are immigrant families. And I don't know whether to keep growing the name or transition to something simpler or more accessible.

28:37Hernan Lopez:So the question, you're talking about literally the name of your brand. My company name. Yep. Studious Monday. Yeah. Study us. Studious Monday. Study us. Yeah. And so this is sort of what you're grappling with. All right. Aaron, I want to bring you in. First of all, thoughts or questions for Nawal? First of all, congratulations. Starting a business, serving a community that you love and a very clear consumer need is one of the most rewarding parts of being an entrepreneur. And I want to ask you, how did you come up with a name? What does the name mean to you? So I was thinking about the girl. I was thinking about her and the kind of characteristics she would carry.

29:21And ultimately, she is studious and she loves to wake up on Monday mornings and get dressed and go to school. So I put those two words together and I created this name and it became kind of like a verb, like, you know, have a studious Monday kind of thing. Or, you know, there was like a play on it, like between me and my friends, we played around with it and we're like, okay, we're just going to call it this. I would say I thought a lot when I started wondering about the brand name and what it will perceive the name and Wondery was the factory of wonder. And when I told people that's what it was, half said, oh, that makes sense.

30:07And half said, oh, I did not appreciate that that's what it was. But it really was a name that connected the product in a very emotional level with what the consumers were experiencing. I had a number of bright lines for the brand and one of them was I want to know more than four syllables and that's advice that I've heard I don't know from whom the first time but I when you told me Studios Monday the first thing that I heard in the back of my head was maybe that's one syllable too many and any brand name that needs explaining puts another barrier between you and the consumer that you don't necessarily want.

30:57So that's before you got into the fact that some of your families have trouble pronouncing it, some of your clients. Yes. So if you're going to change the brand, I think now is the time to do it. So when the brand is young, and I'll give you a book to read. It's called, Hello, My Name is Awesome. I think Alexandra Watkins is the author. And actually, after reading the book, that was the book that led me to come up with a brand, Wondery. I've given it to so many entrepreneurs. Thank you. That's so helpful. Thank you.

31:34Hernan Lopez:So, Nawal, I'm curious, what is, when you sort of look out five years from now, what is the kind of the vision that you have for this company? My vision is to be in every single Muslim school across the nation. So, and down the road, of course, you're going to have to outsource manufacturing and build a sales team and things like that. You know, in terms of the name, I mean, I have a slightly different – I don't think it's a big deal either way. I think Studius or Studius is kind of cool. But, you know, have you thought about maybe integrating the word somehow like modest – not exactly that word.

32:13Hernan Lopez:but the idea or maybe like, you know, modestly or something like that in the name? There's two areas of contention with me right now. Like, do I play into this trend of like modest fashion right now, you know, and incorporate modest into, you know, the brand name? Or do I just let the clothes speak for themselves, where people see it and know that it's modest without me actually saying it. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, I think it could, my view, and you might have a different view, my view is it's worth sort of building that in to the brand, right? I mean, especially because that's what it is. Sure.

32:58The only limitation, if you feel in the future you would expand so far of that brand that it will be limiting, that would be the only reason not to do it. Right.

33:10Hernan Lopez:I mean, is there a chance you may make immodest clothing one day? Probably not. Probably not. Probably not. So today you do Uniforce only for girls, but I can imagine that the parents have girls and boys. Yeah, no, fair question. So that's what it was. It started off as girls first. And then when I went to the schools, the schools are like, well, you know, I don't want my family going to two different shops. Two different places. Yeah, two different places. So I incorporated boyswear into our collection and made it like a Muslim family thing. That makes sense. But I mean, yeah, those are all definitely things to consider, you know.

33:51Hernan Lopez:I mean, again, it's, you know, we've had brands in the show like Parachute Home. I mean, Parachute Home is a big business, but it has nothing to do with parachutes, right? Yeah. It's done very well. So we've had a lot of brands on the show that aren't necessarily Warby Parker. What does it have to do with glasses? It's a great name, though. Yeah. And so Tom's Shoes, you know, I'm just spitballing. But I think that you could experiment with different names. You know, so who do I test this on? Like, where do I go to get this tested? Like, are there tools? Are there resources? Are there circles or spaces where I could, like you said, play around with a brand name, you know, and then trademarking it?

34:39But like who and where?

34:41Hernan Lopez:I would just talk to the people that you know who are your potential customers. I mean, I don't think you need focus groups. And frankly, I don't always trust focus groups. And I'm sure you went through focus groups on some of your shows where the people hated it and then the show was a hit. So I know that happened with this show. We did not actually. We didn't test. What we did do were internal listening sessions to edit but not focus groups with potential listeners. But the book that I recommended has some resources about how to think about it. And that book was written before LLMs. So definitely as you're ideating, talk to ChatTPT and to Claude.

35:20They will be great at giving you direction into how a consumer would respond. They're actually tools that do something called synthetic research, where you can hire synthetic focus groups. and they act quickly. They pretend to be people and they give you answers. They rate the brands that you give them from one to 10 and they tell you why they respond and not respond to.

35:47Hernan Lopez:Wow. Okay. Wow. That's awesome. Awesome advice. Noelle, thank you so much for calling in. The brand is called, for now, Studious or Study Us Monday. Good luck. Keep us posted. Thank you. Such a pleasure. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's a... I'm conflicted over this idea of names Because we do, you know, we have had major brands that have stupid names. And even the founders admit they have stupid names, but they become multi-billion dollar companies. But they had to do so much more work at the beginning of their journeys to get people to remember what they are and what product to associate it with.

36:28Hernan Lopez:Yeah, well, that's true. But I mean, again, you know, there are all kinds of names that you just you can imagine people would say, I don't know, you know, what does that tell me about this product or this this thing? And, and they do just fine, you know, just fine. Apple, right? Is Apple a logical name for Apple? Apple is a computer company, right? It makes no sense. It's the one of the biggest companies in the world. So there you go. okay next up after the break another caller with another business challenge i'm guy ross and we're answering your business questions right here on the advice line on how i built this lab

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39:38Hernan Lopez:Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Hernan Lopez, founder of Wondery. And let's bring in our next caller. Hello. Hi, folks. My name is Casey O 'Leary. I'm the co-founder and CEO of the Snake River Seed Cooperative, which is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. We are a worker and farmer-owned co-op where we grow a wide variety of garden seeds. We put those into packets and we sell them on our website and in around 80 other stores in the Intermountain West. Nice. Welcome to the show, Casey. So it's a cooperative, so can you kind of explain briefly how it works?

40:15We are a seed company and we are co-owned by a bunch of different farmers and also by the employees that work for the company. So it's a legal cooperative. We have what we call it the seed rodeo. And basically farmers sign up for stewardship of different seed crops. And every time we need to grow them out, one of the farmers grows them out.

40:37Hernan Lopez:And harvest the seeds as well? They harvest the seeds. They clean the seeds and all of that. And then when they come into the co-op, we germination test them. We put them into packets and then we distribute them through our sales. And tell me about where you sell your seeds. Yeah, we sell them. We have a web store and we sell them on our web store. And then we also sell them, we're in about 80 different retailers around the Intermountain West region. So garden centers, hardware stores, natural food grocery stores, stuff like that. And tell me a little bit about your sales. How'd you guys do? How are you doing?

41:14Yeah, we're about$400 ,000 a year in sales.

41:18Hernan Lopez:That's pretty good. And is that$400 ,000 in sales, does that cover all your costs? Does that pay salaries and everything? It does. I mean, seeds are, yeah, it does, barely. All right. Before we dive in further, what is your challenge that you'd like some help with? Yeah. I mean, I think this gets at it. You know, seeds are cheap, generally speaking, right? I mean, this isn't, this is a, we're competing with a multinational industry. Right. You can go into Home Depot and buy a 15 cent or whatever, a dollar. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Right. And these are kind of, I mean, I don't want to say garbage seeds, but they are.

41:56They're not being stewarded with care. They're not. And the people who are growing them are not making a living wage.

42:02Hernan Lopez:Yeah. But, you know, margins are tight. Like you said, I mean, this$400 ,000 is coming from something that's, you know, somewhere between$279 and$479 a packet. Right. So we struggle to cash flow. So my question for you all is, there's a huge, tremendous public benefit to having a regionally adapted seed supply. And we do a good job of telling that story in our bioregion. My question is, how can we leverage that public benefit in creative ways that could increase our revenue? Right. Okay. So I think if I'm reading between the lines, what are the things we can do to generate more cash for the business?

42:46Hernan Lopez:Which is a great question. And I want to bring you in here. What do you think? First of all, congratulations on what you guys do. It's incredible to hear a story of people who are creating a product passionately in the cooperative model that are getting through and competing against industrialized companies that really all they care about is volume and margin. Of the$400 ,000 today, how much is sold directly versus through retailers? It's about 40 % of our sales come from our web store and 60 % are through our wholesale program. Oh, it's so significant already. And I would think that you want to build the sales through your website to the highest level that you can because the retailers, by and large, they're always going to make you compete with other alternatives that they have.

43:43And you want to move your product away from the price sensitivity customers into the storytelling and passion and purpose clients.

43:54Hernan Lopez:Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think another thing that we bring to the table is we have this skill set and this knowledge that people want. And so we've gotten grant money to teach classes about how to grow seeds and how to save seeds and how to grow plants from seeds and things. And so we've done a lot of the educational kinds of stuff, but we've mostly done that through getting grants and then offering that education for free to the public. And so, you know, in some ways, I feel like part of what we might be able to leverage is this, you know, being able to connect people somehow with this skill set that they want to learn about, you know.

44:35Hernan Lopez:I mean, look, grants, as you I'm sure would agree, are not a business model, right? I mean, they're great, but you have to run a sustainable business. And there could be a world here where essentially, Casey, you and your band of experts are essentially also consultants. You are charging per hour to help people figure out where to plan things, how to plan things. Maybe even working with sort of creating a part of your business. And you may not like this idea, but it could be really interesting where you sort of identify high net worth folks in Boise who really want to have awesome things in their garden.

45:16Hernan Lopez:I think that there could be an interesting opportunity with sort of creating classes that cost money or some consulting as well and really going deeper with your best customers. You know, some, I mean, are you guys doing subscriptions or anything? Any, or have you tried experimenting with that? Yeah, we do a seed of the month club. Oh, nice. So people can sign up and they get a seed every month with a little newsletter about that particular variety that comes in the mail. And how many customers do you have on that seed of the month? Almost 200 now. Okay. Okay, so actually the advice guy that I thought you were going to go was in another direction, which is to use the experts as influencers in a way.

46:05I know that's a charge word, but think of them, especially if each of them is tied to one specific seed and it's the expert in that seed. Give them each one series of vertical videos. I'm saying vertical because that's how people now experience entertainment and education on mobile. And I'm talking about videos that are short in nature, no more than three minutes, as short as 30 seconds. And by having a unified look and storytelling narrative and a way in which all of them speak about their association with that specific seed, and you can essentially start to build a community of people who come for the passion of learning how to plant seeds and eventually realize that they're never going to do it on their own.

46:59So they're probably going to end up buying them from you directly on your website. Your retail market is most likely capped. Your direct-to-consumer market will allow you to essentially grow into a direction where all you need to do is find more customers that will be less price sensitive and will develop a relationship with you that is passion-based and not utility-based. It might make sense. I love that. I love that because yes, sometimes it seems like$4.79 for a packet of seeds compared to what you might be able to buy on the shelf at Home Depot. But when you think about what What is inside of that packet of seeds?

47:41I mean, it's so much value in there. And so, yeah, finding the folks who really understand why it's important to have people in a region be skilled up to do this work and do it for the long term and be supported well to do it. I think you're right. Those are our people.

48:01Hernan Lopez:Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's a – and especially because when you're explaining that and your passion is clear – I mean, I'm sold here, but now you've got to get that – the word out. There's a brand of beans, heirloom beans. I believe they're based here in California called Rancho Gordo. And they distribute around the country. There's like a waiting list actually to get on their subscription of the month club or whatever it's called. They sell beans, right? You can go to Safeway and buy pinto beans or lima beans or chickpeas. But they sell these heirloom varieties and they grow them in a way that they claim and they argue that they taste better.

48:42Hernan Lopez:I've had them. They're great. They have done really, really well. And it's an interesting case study to look at. I would really urge you to look at what they're doing at Rancho Gordo and see if you can sort of apply some of those ideas. is. Yeah. Bean Club. I think I know several people who are involved in their Bean Club. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck to you, Casey. The business is called the Snake River Seed Cooperative in Idaho. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much. And congrats. Well, Aaron, it's been awesome to have you on. And I should mention, I mean, you do a lot of this. You're an investor and you work with all kinds of entrepreneurs.

49:23Hernan Lopez:I mean, you are, because of your expertise in media, you, of course, do a lot of consulting with major companies around media, but you also do a lot of this sort of formal and informal advising. I do. I invest primarily through funds. I don't invest in companies directly. The funds are better at doing that than I am. It is really a full-time job, but I always love talking to entrepreneurs about their challenges and their opportunities. And in all of the companies that all the founders that we talked to today, narrative is a big part of how they get the product away from that competitive margin-based, utility-based rut into a place where they can really build enterprise value.

50:12Aaron, before I let you go, question for you.

50:15Hernan Lopez:If there was something that you now know, right, that would have been helpful for you when you were launching Wondery and, you know, when you're thinking about this in 2015, what advice could you have given yourself back then if you go back in time? I wish I had started sooner. Obviously not that idea because Wondery was very timely, but I wish I had started as an entrepreneur sooner. Most people take too long to make the leap. For a number of reasons, it's really difficult to go from zero to one. but the journey is so rewarding and once you've got to the conviction that you want to come up with an idea and turn it into a product it's really difficult to go back to wanting to not be an entrepreneur.

51:05Hernan Lopez:Yeah, for sure. Well, Anand, thank you so much for coming back onto the show. Thank you for having me. It was so great to reconnect. It's great having you on And if you missed Hernan's episode or you haven't heard it yet, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's a really, really good story. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. I remember looking at the P &L statement by the end of that month, and we had maybe$10 ,000 in revenue. And you had a staff of six? We had a staff of six. And$10 ,000 ain't going to cover those costs. Nope. No, they wasn't. But even if we get to 10 times this, 100 times this, it's not going to be a big business of the scale that I thought that it would.

51:54And I remember thinking, oh, my God, what did I do?

51:59Hernan Lopez:Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at GuyRoz.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well.

52:39Hernan Lopez:This episode was produced by Catherine Seifer with music composed by Ramtina Ablui. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer with Kweisi Lee. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Noor Gill, Viva Grant, Casey Herman, Chris Messini, Sam Paulson, Carrie Thompson, and Ramel Wood. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.