Advice Line with Jeff and Curran Dandurand of Jack Black Skin Care

25:29The way that society and news and everybody talked about it. And I felt like failed to actually have the conversations just led me to this broader sense that we are having trouble disagreeing respectfully. So I moved to Park City during COVID and decided to completely change what I was doing. And it was really driven by being able to sit around the table, have difficult conversations, not necessarily agree, but spend the time together and connect as humans. Wow. All right. So you left that world behind and you moved to Park City to start this new business. And is this entirely self-funded? It is.

26:13And since you launched, how have you guys done in sales total? It is slow going. We made about$25 ,000 last year and would obviously love to see that grow substantially. Got it. Okay. So your question is, how can we reach the right people? Yes. And kind of convince them. I want to bring Jeff and Kern in. Before we answer Ashley's questions, do you have any questions for her? Yeah, I do. First of all, your website is beautiful. I love your concept. I was struck by how broad your product line is, and that makes it extremely challenging when you're a startup. Just your inventory costs, the cost of maintaining all those SKUs.

26:53So my question is, do you see the 80-20 rule coming into play in your product line thus far, meaning that 20 % of your products generate 80 % of your sales? Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much, Curran. So I had a consultant who actually suggested that we had to have a relatively large number of products to launch. and yet to your point we are definitely seeing a few products be the ones that resonate with people so i i mean i like this idea of potentially narrowing down for example we have these beautiful hand-blown crystal tumblers that are made in the czech republic and we have three colorways right now and now we're expanding into a couple more colorways so maybe if we find the products that people are gravitating to, we give people more color options of those products, but simplify the number of products that we offer.

27:53I totally agree. And I think you're going to build your community by focusing on your hero products at this stage in your development and making people fall in love with those products. And then you introduce them to the rest of your line as you evolve and as you get stronger. And that's how you build your community. First, they got to fall in love with your product. And it's a bit overwhelming when you look at your site because you have so much there. It's all very beautiful, but you kind of don't know where to start. And I think if you're going to go wholesale, that is way too much for a retailer to bring in.

28:30You know, they're going to focus on the best sellers and your hero product. And what is that entry point product to your brand? And that's where you need to really focus right now, I think. And do you think that that entry point product needs to be a more affordable product or is it okay if it's a more expensive product? I think it depends on how expensive and how you can justify the price point, how easily you can communicate that it's worth the step up. It's always nice to have something that's a little more accessible to bring them into the brand and again, have them fall in love with you. and then you can upgrade them as they become a fan.

29:11So I would be sensitive to that. Okay. One of the things that I thought of was, you know, you're in Park City, you're in an area just filled with affluent people throughout the year. I mean, especially as we speak, you know, people getting ready to go to Sundance. And I wonder how, whether you've tried to or considered working with some of the boutiques in Park City to at least have some of your items in the stores? I haven't, but I think it's a great idea. Yeah, I mean, because, you know, you're you were in the Bay Area for a long time. So I'm sure you're familiar with Heath. Heath Ceramics, right?

29:46Heath Ceramics is a product that people are willing to spend a lot of money for. I have a few Heath serving bowls are very expensive, but they've been around for a long time and they've done things like collaborations with, you know, Alice Waters, one of the most famous chefs in America, where you go to her restaurants and everything is served on Heath plates. Now, that business was really revived in the last sort of decade or so by people who bought it. So to me, there's some interesting things that you could try to get people to say, oh, that's Amatand. I mean, that's a really high-end brand.

30:19But you've got to, going from the website alone to that perception is challenging. Unless you have a celebrity who's behind you and backing this and also promoting it. And I feel like you want to kind of build this out, I would say, starting in Park City because it's such a – I mean, it's one of those places that's small but really influential because of the people who go there. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense. I think it's a great idea. And I like the idea. We've thought about influencers, but that's so – I really want this to be authentic. I want people who really, really love the products.

30:56And when people use them, they do fall in love with them. But the price point is high, so there needs to be some reason to try it. And so maybe that is a local restaurant or some of the local retail shops. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the way to go. Because it's a premium product – and by the way, with Jack Black, I mean, you guys were also making a premium product. I mean, this was not, it wasn't, you know, out of, you know, sort of astronomically expensive for most people, but it was a premium, there was a premium price on it. And that's how you guys also positioned it, right? Right. But to your point, we made sure we did a lot of sampling and we demonstrated in store so people could feel it and touch it and see the textures and go, yeah, this is worth the premium.

31:45And so I like Guy's idea of getting placement in the right retailers so people can see your product, feel it, and see the context that it's marketed in the right stores to establish your price point. I would even consider pinpointing five or six retailers in Park City, Deer Valley, these super high-end ski resort areas, and going to them with, I don't know how much inventory you have right now of certain items, but you could even go to them. and I don't like to sell on consignment. We never did it, but I think you could at least offer that as an option to open up a retail account. Just say, hey, I'm specifically targeting your store.

32:34I think it's beautiful. I think our products are beautiful. And I'd like to have the opportunity to sell my products here for the next 30 days. I'll come back in 30 days. Whatever you've sold, you pay me for. If we don't sell anything, I'll just pick it up and move on. But I need a chance in your store. I love your store. I mean, we used to do that all the time. I love that idea. That's a great idea. And you could do events. You could do events at the store and talk about your concept and talk about your products. Yeah, and you also have the access to some really high-end hotels and resorts, Montage and Waldorf and St.

33:10Regis. There's a bunch of really super fancy hotels out there. I mean, people are paying$2 ,000,$3 ,000 a night to stay in these places and ski. I think there's a world where you try and get into those gift shops. I mean, those kinds of gift shops and those kinds of places, they want high-end local products, especially high-end local products. And do you think that I need to go and sell this personally to each of these places? Yes. And it's easy to do because you're there. Yeah, that's true. Jeff, you led the sales, right? It's hard. You got to go in. How would you suggest she go and do that? Like, what should her pitch be?

33:51I mean, I would just, I would target the top five or six retailers. I'd find out who their buyer was or whoever owned the store. I would show up at their store unannounced. I'd ask for that person. I tell them, hey, I love your store. And I would say that, hey, I've got this product line and I want to find a home for it. I think you'd be a perfect home for this. And would you give me a shot? I can do that. All right. You've got a plan. We've given you a plan, Ashley. I love it. The brand is called Amatand. Thanks so much. Good luck. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for calling in. Yeah. Bye-bye.

34:29Bye. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at our website. It's really, really nice stuff. But to convince, right, to convince people to spend that on this brand, I think they have to know it first a little bit, right? Mm-hmm. To Kern's point, there's a lot of items on that website. Yes. It's everything. They've got to have a lot of their capital tied up in inventory to maintain all those SKUs and the different colors. It just makes it tough when you're just starting out like that to have that kind of carrying cost in your inventory. They have sculptures, games, gifts. Yeah, I'm looking at the sculptures, yeah.

35:06All kinds of things. Yeah, and over time they can move that inventory. But it may make sense to focus on the serveware, the dinnerware, the drinkware, right? And then, you know, because you have stationary and food and gifts, but really nice stuff. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab.

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37:56Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guests today are Jack Black Skin Care co-founders Curran and Jeff Dandorand. Jeff Curran, let's take another call. Yep, let's do it. Yeah, let's go. All right, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to The Advice Line. You're on with Jeff and Curran Dandran, founders of Jack Black Skin Care. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm really excited to be here. My name is Brent, and I'm calling from the beautiful mountain town of Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.

38:29And I'm the founder of Go Sew Cookware. So Go Sew Cookware is a line of premium quality camp cookware, so designed for people who both love to cook and love to camp. Got it. Okay. And tell us a little bit about what makes this, because cookware for camping exists. So what's so special about Goso? Totally. So cookware for camping definitely exists. You have heavy duty cast iron pans, which are great, but they're really bulky, heavy. And heavy. You don't want to backpack with that on? No, you don't. Within there, yeah. Yeah. So then the answer to that is, well, there's also really lightweight backpacking equipment, right?

39:04Backpacking cookware, which is great if you like to boil water. But if you want to do anything else, then there's like nothing really in between. And so I created a frying pan that is a carbon steel frying pan. So carbon steel has all of the great benefits of a cast iron frying pan where there's no toxic. Heats evenly. Totally. Heats evenly. There's no toxic coatings. My pan is made in America out of a 14 gauge American carbon steel. It's great cooking properties that you can season it. So it's almost nonstick. But then we created a custom-made completely removable handle. So it's a handle that can lock onto the pan or you can take it off.

39:43So if you pack up the pan and the handle, they all pack down to a very small footprint. So it packs as like a bowl, basically. Yeah, exactly. It's two pans, an 8-inch and a 10-inch pan that's stacked together. And then the handle nestles in the side. So you have two frying pans in the footprint of like a 10-inch circle. And you get two pans. Okay. How did you start? I'm assuming you're a camper. So tell me the idea behind this. When did this business start? I love to camp. I love to cook. I've been doing it for a long time with my family. And to this day, that's what me and my friends love to do is we get outside and eat good food together, essentially.

40:15I actually started a YouTube channel a couple of years ago, a COVID project around teaching people who ride motorcycles, then go camping off their motorcycles, how to cook better. The idea was that, you know, they're passing past a grocery store at some, like at some point in the day, usually. So like, why not cook something a little bit better than rehydrated food, right? You're out there, you're having this beautiful experience, eat a good meal, you know, like it's fully worth it. um so that was my motivation but then my frustration came in that i didn't have i i bought like the best camp frying pan i could find but it was aluminum it was coated in teflon the handle wasn't that great uh it got banged up scratched and when i tried to cook something at a higher temperature the whole thing warped and burned and i was like man this this it really wasn't meeting what i what i what i needed and wanted so yeah i started on the journey earnestly in around 20 early 2023 did lots of market research through that time and then last year early 24 we started, I started working towards producing a Kickstarter campaign and last summer launched my business through Kickstarter.

41:14I was going to ask, how did you finance this thing? So you did a Kickstarter. How much did you raise? Yeah. It's fun, man. We raised a total of$166 ,000 Canadian dollars. Nice. Yeah. And our project was funded within the first hour of opening and yeah, we're just on the verge of shipping that. So a year later, I've gone from like a prototype idea to we're shipping our product. Yeah. All right. So you got the Kickstarter done. You got the money in. Now you're shipping the product out. Obviously, all those Kickstarter supporters. Yeah. But now the hard part begins because you've got to now reach a much bigger audience and try to get more attention.

41:51So before we dive in a bit more, what's your question for us? Yeah. So my question is around building a culture around a product. So GOSO stands for Get Outside, Stay Outside. And ultimately, that's what I want people to do. It's kind of our motto. We want people to get into the outdoors and connect with each other. And I want to create a culture around our product where people aren't just using the cookware to sustain themselves in the outdoors, but rather they're using it to create meals that are a catalyst for connection. So the question I have is how do I best create a culture around cooking in the outdoors while connecting it to my product, the Everywhere Pan?

42:28Jeff Curran, a lot to consider here. I'm just looking to create community, which makes sense because there's a certain community of passionate people who camp and want to cook. So what do you think? Well, I would start with your website. I think you can create a lot of compelling content on your site. You could have a lot of tips about your favorite trails and your hikes you've done. Right now, it's pretty bare bones. Yeah. I think you really need to fill that out. Just showing what the Michelin Stargazer is all about. You could do user-generated content. I want to thank you. I appreciate you recognizing the Michelin Stargazer.

43:08And that's kind of like the name we have for our community of people. Someone who loves to cook and loves to camp, that's a Michelin Stargazer. There's a lot of potential there. And that's how you can build your community and show what this is all about and bring it to life. I see on your site that you can sign up to get the newsletter, but I would tease it a little bit on your site with some of that content and show what it's all about so you can sample it a little bit and show them what they're going to get. Are you thinking to also sell to retailers or are you going to be DTC? I'd like to be a combo of both.

43:46Our plan is this first year to be direct to consumer. And in the future, we'd like to open up wholesale accounts. So ideally starting next year and focusing on small independent outdoor retailers. So yeah, small shops. This is a higher quality, higher like premium level product. So it's really focused towards not the, you know, the weekend camper, but people that are really passionate about spending time in the outdoors and passionate about cooking. Well, and I think your target market is very defined and very easy to market to, you know, outdoor enthusiasts, campers, you know, long through hikers.

44:22so it's going to be easy to find them on social media and target them and i like the idea of going for the smaller retailer and in every community you've got that mom and pop hiking shop that would be perfect for you dealing with the big box guys will be tough in the early days but i think the smaller retailer will really support you and educate the their customer about your product Right. I appreciate that. Yeah. I also think that, I mean, it's early days for you. You've just really launched it. And as we speak, it's not really hiking weather in British Columbia. It's snowy. But this is the kind of product, I mean, you're in the right place to do this, right?

45:03Because you are in an outdoors hiking part of North America. and um yeah recently i saw this documentary it's it's just an aside because it's not really directly connected but it's a documentary about that guy brian johnson a very strange guy right he's he's trying to live forever he's trying to become younger you've probably seen these videos of him and um he injects himself with all kinds of gene therapy and takes 150 vitamins and pills a day and blood transfusions um what he did was he was basically very lonely and he wanted and he's also building a business. And he just started tweeting out, hey, I'm going for a run in this part of Los Angeles leaving 9 a.m.

45:43And the first time he did it, like five people met him. Second time he did it, like 10 people showed up. Now he's been doing it for a couple of years. He's getting 400 people to these things. There's a world where I can imagine you doing a version of that where you're like, hey, I'm going to this trailhead and I'm going to be grilling up sausages in the morning and pancakes. Come on down for free sausages and pancakes until told samples run out and have boxes of go-so cookware available you might get five people you might get two people the first time but but you know there are probably enough popular hiking trails that um after a certain period of time you're going to start to build momentum in the you know among a certain type of person who talks about these kinds of things yeah yeah my my plan this winter uh was to go to some ski parking lots and like get to like the trailheads of some ski touring areas you know make a sweet breakfast wrap and that sort of thing and i think it'd be great for the content wise, but also creating that like really organic sense of community as well.

46:38You know, once I would imagine once I have one of these carbon steel pans, I really don't need another one in six months. So what other products can you offer? No, that's the downfall of my business model is that they're really durable and they really last a long time. But the idea is to build up more quality cookware products. So right now we have two offerings, an eight inch pan and a 10 inch pan. And then we'd like to build out into a 12 inch pan, a specific griddle pan that works along with it, lids, and then also some accessories to go along with it with scrubbers. We have two other scratch pad and some seasoning paste that go along with it.

47:15But yeah, so really I want to try and like not spread out too much and cover, you know, anything to do with cooking and camping. In the future, I'd love to just like kind of expand so that you can have a full kitchen that packs down into a very compact compact set and then all higher quality stuff and brent are you uh do you have any cash left from the fundraise from the kickstarter fundraise to play around with there's a little bit but not a ton but yeah a lot of it went into product development i'm sure it did yeah i mean it it it might be worthwhile um you know again user-generated content seeing how people are using it recipes on the website I think would help, and that doesn't cost a lot.

47:57But you could try things like making T-shirts, let's say, Michelin Stargazer, right? Yeah. Because it's kind of a cool idea. Michelin, obviously the food, Stargazer, and with your logo on it and sort of hand those out at – especially if you're going to go to a trade show. Do that. But also to kind of connect and find people in your area because I think you're in an area. How far are you from Vancouver, by the way? I'm about eight hours east of Vancouver. Oh, okay. So you are deep in British Columbia. Yeah, it's a small little town, but we're loaded. We're a mecca of outdoor enthusiasts. There's amazing skiing, amazing biking.

48:36So that's your community. I mean, that's really where you have to start. I mean, those are the force multipliers because those are the people who know you. They know that you're local. They want to support you and incentivize them to do that. I mean, if they post, if they – maybe they get a shirt, something like that. I appreciate that. Thank you. And you might think about hiring somebody to help you with social media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. Any tips or any thoughts you think in regards to social media that you would have? Just flood the zone. You've got a YouTube channel. You know what you're doing.

49:13Just keep at it. And I think recipes are really important. When you're offering somebody information or content that is useful to them rather than just trying to sell the product, that's what sticks. You know, if you're like, oh, this guy is making a corned beef hash. Oh, what's his pan? But you're focused on the corned beef hash. So I would really lean into trying to do as much of that as you can. The brand is called Go So Cookware. Brent Fersker, thanks so much for calling. Yeah, thank you so much, Guy. Good luck, Brent. Thank you. Great having you. I don't know about you guys, but when I go on long hikes and long trails, I look for a nice inn or hotel where I can sleep at night rather than pitch a tent.

50:00And a really good restaurant. Exactly. I'm not staying in a tent. No. I'm a glass of wine and a really nice ribeye steak. There you go. Before I let you guys go, and thanks so much for coming on. Tell me if you were now, if you were going back 25 years, you know, to the beginning, because I know it was, I remember it was a struggle, you know, the story you guys told and how stressful it was. But, of course, you managed to make it happen in a big way. If you were able to go back 25 years ago and give you guys advice or some words of encouragement back then, what do you think you might have said, Curran?

50:36oh well i one thing it's it's kind of tactical but i would be more diligent in who i hired and do background checks because when you're in your early days and people don't really want to work for you because you're a startup it's too risky you don't have a lot of money you're not getting the top talent you kind of just you're desperate and you take whoever you can find and I learned the hard way, you need to do background checks on people. And even if it takes a while, because when you do hire the wrong people, it can cost you a lot money and heartache and stress. The other thing I might change would be being more careful and doing more due diligence on retailers, distributors.

51:24like we got burned from distributors that basically just diverted our product and were total frauds and just making sure the retailer's the right fit for your brand and that they're going to support your brand so we made some mistakes in that area um and so just being more careful with that that's sounding like my mistake for some reason no well we're all we were all in it together um you have to just say i can figure this out i've done it before one foot in front of the other um so it's hard when you're in it but you just have to have confidence in yourself that you'll figure it out it's not the end of the world there will be a solution yeah yeah you gotta kind of kind of be your own coach but you guys had each other which also helped it jeff what do you what do you think i mean similar similarly yeah there's a couple things.

52:18In the early days when we didn't have money, I'd walk into our warehouse and I would just see tons of inventory, product everywhere. I knew that's where our cash was tied up. Maybe being a little more careful about controlling new product development and our inventory in general. The second thing as a salesperson, I really regret this more than anything, is I didn't know the product formulations as well as I should have. I knew I was, you know, that you get great results and the products worked well. But as a salesperson, I was focused on opening up new accounts, not the benefits of the products themselves.

52:58And there are significant benefits to the formulations that Kern and Emily developed. And I just didn't, I didn't dive into that science like I wish I would have today. I think I would have spent more time there. Yeah, that's good advice. Jeff and Curran Dandorand, thank you so much for coming back onto the show. So great having you. Thank you. It's an honor to be on. That's Jack Black Skin Care co-founders Jeff and Curran Dandorand. And by the way, if you haven't heard their original How I Built This episode, you've got to go and check it out. A lot of great lessons in that episode. You can find a link to it in the podcast description.

53:35And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. We had this seven foot tall, very beautiful wood floor standing fixture, laser cut logo. We spent a ton of money on it. And our idea was this is the display you're going to use in your golf shop. Okay. But people would look at that display and just like go on. What are you thinking? We don't need. We can't put that in our shop. We would never sell that much product. They just weren't interested. and Jeff's like, this isn't working. We got to pull the plug and we got to go get real jobs. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week.

54:18And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gyros.com or on Substack. And of course, if you're 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 you are 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. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well.

54:55This episode was produced by Iman Ma 'ani with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Sina Lafredo. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Elaine Coates, Chris Messini, Catherine Seifer, Kerry Thompson, Sam Paulson, JC Howard, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.

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