How The Woobles Built a Cult Brand: Product, Not Marketing

22:24Because it sounds like you're not really selling fabric or crocheting. So what do you feel like you sell with your business? We call it Fiero. That's a term that, as far as I understand, comes from the video gaming world. It is that feeling that you get when you do something that you once thought was impossible. It's like in Pokemon when you defeat that gym boss. And it's a very hard feeling to get in the real world. So that's really the feeling that we're, I guess, selling or spreading, I would say. I love that. I love that idea that because all of us know what that feels like and how satisfying and fulfilling it is when you've done something that you didn't know if you could do.

23:10And so you're really selling the ability for people to unlock that and to experience that. It's a feeling that you feel a lot when you're younger, because when you're younger, you have school, you have soccer practice, you have piano lessons, like you're exposed to all of these things that are designed to like kind of like give you the sense of accomplishment and confidence. And we find that as you get older, some people at times just like stop getting that feeling of fear. And that's why we think it's really important that we continue to be able to like work on things that can help spread fear.

23:43We think that it's critically needed, especially if it's something that you haven't felt in a long time. I think it's such a good point because people are rational about how they spend their money, but not necessarily in the ways that you would think. Like they're using their money to try and get after things, you know, and this is why if you're, you know, uh, trying to sell, uh, sports cars to men, you're not actually trying to sell them a car. You're trying to sell them an image or a feeling of being younger or, you know, whatever else or a way that, uh, the opposite sex will look at them or whatever.

24:16And so I find this fascinating about the way that we as humans use money is that even in consumer, a lot of the time, what we're selling is not actually the functional thing. There is a functional thing people do with your product, but that's not really what they're after, why they're buying it. And that's not what you're trying to help them unlock. It's beautiful.

24:34Matt Bertulli:Here at Pila, AppLovin is the most incremental in the new channel we tested in 2025. Its self-serve ads manager, Axon, is now open. And they're offering you$5 ,000 in credits when you spend$5 ,000. Every single one of us is looking for that next best place to put our ad dollars. It is just one of the laws of D2C. There are now brands spending six figures a day on AppLovin. That kind of blows my mind, but it is true. And there are brands that are running it as their number two and number three channel after Meta and Google. That is super impressive. You would be foolish to at least not try it out in 2026.

25:07Matt Bertulli:Go to nineoperators.com slash applovin to give it a shot. Oh, you'll also get access to the live Operators Mastermind we ran with over 25 e-commerce heavyweights, plus our step-by-step playbook to channel expansion, nineoperators.com slash applovin. Let's get back to the show. Adrian, can I go back? You made a comment about like, or maybe Justine, it was you talking about how you don't have shareholders. So like the end of the day, you're not trying to like get some kind of return and that you're here to like spread joy and to help people feel this sort of sense of accomplishment. uh early on though there must have been some part of this was like okay we like what you said we need to pay rent how long at the beginning did it take until you went from sort of like scarcity oh my god we got to pay rent to oh hey this works what are we actually optimizing towards like can you give it just for the listeners like this the time gap uh i mean in some ways it's like we're still in the scarcity mindset.

26:20But I would say that the biggest thing, one of the unique things about this was that this is, we're not building like, this doesn't require a huge amount of capital expenditure up front. A lot of this we were able to do ourselves. And so like, that's exactly what we did. We were customer service. We were manufacturing. We made these on Sunday nights with our parents. We were distribution. We shipped that product out of my parents' garage for like a year and a half, just us two and my dad. We literally did everything. I was the media buyer. Justine made the creatives. Justine filmed all the content.

26:57And so in the beginning, we did everything. And so... Great way to save money, but not time. Yeah. You don't want to save money. You're really lowering your expenses when you're doing everything. But if I look back and I'm like, if we were to do it again, that's 100 % the right way to do it, in my opinion. Because then when it came time to go hire people, we knew exactly what we were looking for. We knew exactly like what were the things that actually mattered in different roles and what were the things that we thought success looked like. And so it still took some time. You know, it probably took us, I mean, it frankly took us a year and a half before we were like, okay, let's go hire someone.

27:39Right. Right. And so it took, I think, but that's probably also more of our personality. Like we're, I think we're roll up our sleeves and like, let's do it ourselves type of people. And so that's why it took us so long to hire people. Who were the first hires? Two and a half years. Two and a half. Two and a half years. Yeah. All the, yeah, those are some long days where like you're trying to black about in my memory.

28:07Matt Bertulli:Adrian, you don't know this, but you're actually 85 years old and you've been building the rubles for 60 years. This is the dog years thing. I, I, it's like, uh, Paul Graham has a great essay on this, that, that startups are like time compression machines. And so it's like, sometimes I'm like, I'm only 46, but like, whatever it's been, I guess almost 17 years in entrepreneurship, that's gotta be like the equivalent of like three or four careers worth of like knowledge that's been crammed into my head because it's just like drinking through a fire hose constantly, right? Yeah. And, you know, I think about that comment where I'm like, in the moment, it doesn't always feel that way.

28:45It doesn't always feel like I'm learning so much. Like in our first two years of grinding, like it never felt like, oh, like I'm like learning a time. Yeah, I never had a moment where I was so grateful for this learning opportunity. It was a lot more like, ah, after the computer shift is the manufacturing shift. Yeah, but in retrospect, you're 100 % correct. We did learn so much. We just weren't aware of it at the time.

29:11Matt Bertulli:Yeah, I love listening to people talk about how you learn through failure. They just forget to mention that failure feels like failure in the moment. Hard work just feels like hard work, guys. Doesn't feel like learning on a Tuesday when I've worked 20 hours. this is one of the reasons why startups are so addictive is Fiero. Is that it's like, I'm right at the edge of, is this all going to crash and burn? And then somehow it doesn't. And it feels so great, you know? And so we're insane people that are addicted to Fiero. Who was the first hire, guys? Like, what was the role? I would say, well, the really early hires were, like, people help us ship and pack, like, distribution.

29:53But I'd say the first corporate hire was my cousin. So she now leads, we hired her to lead marketing. She still leads marketing for us. No way.

30:04Matt Bertulli:And as easy as terrible advice for everybody listening. Don't do that. This is a family business in case anyone has any questions. I've done the family business thing. And the way I tell people is it's like a roller coaster. There's a lot of highs and a lot of lows when you do a family business. Yeah. But I mean, it's worked out. She's an integral part of why the Wubles is the Wubles today. Um, and it kind of like, you know, we, we have a hundred percent trust in each other. Um, and we also have that same level of trust with my cousin because obviously I've known her, her pretty much her entire life.

30:40Uh, and so like, it, it makes it so much easier in the beginning that like, we just trust each other that we're making the right decisions with information we have at any time. Um, and that allows you to move so much faster.

30:52Matt Bertulli:How, how old is the business now? We are in terms of like just total years, five and a half. Let's get back to how old we are. Five and a half years? Okay. Five and a half years. What do you guys want to be known for? You're five and a half years in. What we want. I mean, for me, I personally want to be known for someone who gave it my all. That like I tried my best in whatever it was, whatever role that I had, whether it's like founder, mother, wife. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm someone who's like, I don't want to have any regrets. And I want to make sure that I exhausted the options and tried my very best until the end.

31:28Yeah. And for me, like I want to, I actually prefer not to be, I want the brand to shine. I want the brand to be remembered for something that spreads joy and confidence. But I want my role to just be someone who had a, you know, had a fun time, was able to spread joy. But I don't particularly want to be remembered for much aside from being a good husband and being a good father. And those are the things I truly care about. But then from a work standpoint, I want to be known for like helping this brand spread joy. Does work ever pull against that? About being a good like partner, parent, stuff like that?

32:06Do you ever feel that? And if so, how? I think I feel it a lot more. I in general have more feels than Adrian. wow we're all shocked in every marriage you need one thinker and one feeler that's to balance it out right yeah I struggle with that a lot um because we also have two young children two and a half years old and 10 months old and so it's like you know there's just only so many hours in the day but I realize it actually comes down to energy how much energy you have in a day um so I do feel like sometimes it's at odds and And it's like, got to figure out, they're all our children at the end of the day.

32:49Plus we have a dog.

32:50Matt Bertulli:So your first corporate hire is your cousin. And I think, Justine, you said you're a family business, if you haven't, clearly, right? Is there, if somebody's listening to this and they are actually working with somebody in their family, or they're thinking about working with someone in their family, is there like something that you have learned in this journey so far that you think is worthy of sharing for other people that are in a similar situation? I think the kind of what you were alluding to earlier, having really clear lanes, like you don't necessarily want to bring on a family member to do exactly what you do, because then that's where disagreements form, right?

33:31But if it's like, if everyone has something that you're really good at, that's where they're focusing their energy, then that's it's an incredible thing because then because you have 100 % trust you can just trust that like that area is being given the attention that it needs um and there's less conflict because like it gives you it's opening up time for you to again worry about something else on the business so I'd say that the having clear lanes is a really reduces the that like what people fear about like working with family or working with a spouse but I also really think it depends on the relationship Like Adrian's family relationships are very different than my family relationships.

34:11And so it's, you know, we've mentioned trust a few times. It really comes down to how much do you trust them? Are they the type of family that you like 100 % trust or not?

34:22Matt Bertulli:Yeah, I mean, I've definitely got some friends who they're not high trust families. So I can identify with that. You're early on, I think one of the interesting things about, there's so many things about the woobles that i find so fascinating which is why we wanted to have you guys on here other than just the fact that you're both awesome um early on you like the business is not that old which i find so incredible uh early on you actually go on shark tank right and uh you asked for i don't i forget the amount but like you asked for a certain amount of money for a certain percent because that's like the whole shark tank thing and i think Everybody makes you an offer, right, is what I remember from this story.

35:06Matt Bertulli:You all make an offer, and then you land on one of them, but then you walk away from the deal. I don't want to know why you walked away. I would like to know what you think made the Woobles so attractive that they all saw. What did they all see? Yeah. I mean, I think it is that they believe how you do anything is how you do everything. and so when you're on shark tank before you get on stage even they have your product out at the judges tables i remember seeing laurie inspecting the packaging uh and and we constantly get feedback that our packaging is really eye-catching because we do like we did put a lot of thought into that uh the colors the layout the words everything um and so like i think they could tell that we put a lot of care into what we put out into the world and even down to the like little details that we decided like we would skip onto stage because yeah we're a brand about like levity we're not just gonna like stroll in there and then there's the business answer of we also had proven existing revenue like existing demand yeah the uh you mentioned packaging justine i don't i think years ago i forgot about how many years ago you and i got on a call to talk retail I don't even remember how we got introduced.

36:27Matt Bertulli:I forget. And maybe it was David Herman at some point. But we talked retail. And after this, Mike, Justine sends, I get like, I think you, I got a whole box of Woobles stuff. Yes. Including a Barbie dream house. Yeah. Yeah. The Barbie dream house. Right. And I got, I have a now 10 year old daughter. And like, I open up this box of Woobles things. and the first thing my wife, who's a designer, says is, my God, the packaging's good. Yeah. The first thing. And I'm like, this is not a knock on my wife, but like she doesn't compliment much. Her standard for design is very high. I don't think I ever passed that feedback on.

37:11Matt Bertulli:Were you mentioning now? I'm like, oh yeah, that was really good. It's so interesting, Matt. We have this debate all the time inside Simple Modern of how much should you invest in packaging if you're primarily an e-commerce company. Because when you're in physical retail, it's like, well, you definitely need, I mean, it's very important. But with e-commerce, they've already bought it and it's going to go in the trash. But like you're saying, like it really does impact the way that people, the unboxing experience and like kind of the bias people go into the product with. And so we've always leaned on, A good example for us is like we do kids drinkware.

37:51And like if you buy a Lightning McQueen cup, it comes in a like cars themed box, which is beautiful. But it also costs us like 50 cents, you know, and then it goes right in the trash. And so it's like, should we do that or should we save that money? And we've we've always gone back and forth. But I think you're right. Like the wow experience really counts. yeah and to be clear we didn't actually arrive the reason why we have the packaging we have now is because we bluffed our way saying we had retail ready packaging for a big retailer back in the day originally it was totally handmade like we would adrian and his dad especially have hand stamped tens of thousands probably of kits uh and then like pretty early on uh we happened to turn on ads in Canada and the buyer for Loblaws saw the ad.

38:43Loblaws, from my understanding, is like the Walmart of Canada.

38:47Matt Bertulli:It's pretty important here. Yeah. It's big. And so we were like, is this legit? And then when we got confirmation that yes, it is a legit brand, we were like, ah, shoot. Like it's maybe August. They emailed us in September. September. And we were like, they probably want, like they're saying they want a holiday placement. Like how are we going to physically make so many kits by this November, December. This is how new we were to retail. And we like made like, you know, fake mockups of a retail ready packaging because otherwise it would just be like a canvas bag with a hand stamped logo on it. And that's really what like we eventually did get the buy in.

39:26And that's when we were like, all right, we got to figure out this retail ready packaging thing. So it pops on the shelf.

39:32Matt Bertulli:How you mentioned the Barbie Dreamhouse thing, How long into the business before you guys started licensing product? Probably two and a half years in. Yeah. So we've come there. We just, we had, that's something that customers told us that they really wanted. We would, we would get a lot of emails. We're like, hey, like, could we get XYZ license? A lot of peanuts, a bunch of different licenses. And for us at the time, we're like, it just sounds like we don't come from this world. We don't know anything about licensing. And so for us, it was like such a daunting task. We were like, no idea how to get started.

40:12And so it was a bit of a journey to get our first license.

40:16Matt Bertulli:I mean, Mike, I know you have a lot of experience with licensing. I find licensing a fascinating topic for brands. We've talked extensively in our groups about licensing. And I would love, Justine and Adrian, if you could just maybe give us a bit of color on like, how did you get into it? right? How did you even figure out this was an option? Was it hard to secure your first license? That's the question I'm curious about. Yeah, what was the first one? And like, tell us how you got here. Yeah. We knew our customers wanted it. So our customers would write in and they would ask like, do you guys do licensed characters?

40:51Can you guys do XYZ character? And out of the blue, someone from the Very Hungry Caterpillar had emailed us and asked us if we'd be interested and we're like of course we'd be like get on a call immediately um and so we're asking her um you know like how does this work basically and she's like well are you going to licensing expo and we're like what is it okay and then she's like well like it's literally like next week in vegas like that's where like you should really go uh and we had keyword here she also was like it's free oh yeah okay yeah it being free really sealed the deal for us um and so we showed up no idea how we just thought like you know it's this expo and all these brands are there this is perfect we brought the product and like we're gonna we're ready to like go pitch our hearts out to all these brands um and we went out to all the booths and we're like hey can we meet with someone who like can help us with these crochet kits and the immediate question is like uh when's your appointment and we're like we don't have an appointment uh and they're like oh well like yeah we're fully booked and so like nobody would talk to us um and so uh what we did was we basically uh so what we did is i got covid and so then i couldn't attend anymore yeah so so day day two we were only went for two days so day one we did it together didn't talk to anybody day two just didn't get we did talk to many people they just all rejected oh yeah we talked We talked to a bunch of receptionists, but didn't make it past receptionist.

42:22Justine got COVID. And then so second day was just me. I had like, you know, a whole bag of woobles. And I'm like, well, I got nothing to lose. It's like, I'm leaving tomorrow. So I am going to pitch my heart out. And like perfected my pitch. Like, it's like, you get like infinite tries. So you go to booth, try a pitch. It doesn't work. I'm like, how am I going to improve this pitch? and then like towards the end we pitched I went up to the Bandai booth and like really pitched my hard act I'm like at this point like I've already practiced this pitch so many times and told them about our journey and told them about and this is like before our Shark Tank episode aired so like this is like not many people knew about the brand and so like you know really trying to share what we're trying to do and the reception was like you know I normally never do this, but like, let me, let me see if he's free right now.

43:15And then we got to share our story and he took a bet on us. And so Pac-Man ended up being our second license just with the timing, but that was the first licensing deal that we closed. I love that. Those are both great options. And actually one of the things you said that's non-licensing related that I think is worth highlighting. I think e-commerce is amazing for optimizing your message. I think talking to people in real life is still undefeated when it comes to dialing in the general zip code your message should be in. Like the way that you talked about just going conversation to conversation and very rapidly kind of figuring out what your pitch needed to be.

43:57I think to some extent, like the ability to use meta and these big ad algorithms sometimes kind of makes us stupider when it comes to like, how do we actually pitch our product? And then, yeah, you can get all the way dialed in with like these tools. But my biggest, I love hearing licensing stories because my biggest learning about licensing is that it's like a castle and the castle's drawbridge is up and you want in the castle and you want what they have in the castle. You want to offer their licenses. But not only is the castle's drawbridge up, but like they're shooting arrows at you. There's crocodiles in the moat.

44:37they're like, go away. You know, there's heads on spikes outside of the castle. And, and so you're like, man, these people do not want to talk to me. They hate me. And, but then if you get inside the castle, all of a sudden they treat you like the king and that's licensing in a nutshell. They, they don't believe that you're going to help their business. But then if you somehow do get licensed and you start making them money, then they love you. And, uh, it's, it's always getting like that credibility. And it sounds like you guys were able to do it with hungry Caterpillar and Pac-Man, which is also awesome to me because we haven't even used those licenses.

45:07There's so many different front doors that you can use to prove your product and you use two that we haven't even touched yet. Just to clarify, we actually didn't move forward with the Hungry Caterpillar. The Hungry Caterpillar made you want to go and get a license. I got it. We still talk to her. Bebe is the person that reached out to us and she has helped us quite a lot on our journey. What's your best licensed product

45:33Matt Bertulli:you've ever done? Is there a difference between your favorite ones and the ones that perform the best? Yeah, I guess. I mean, there's definitely a difference because Justine really liked... Wait, you think I'm going to say BT21, which yes, I'm a BTS fan, but that is not my favorite. Totally, we're going to guess BT21. Yeah, I constantly joke that I'm like, I want to get BTS floor tickets as part of this license of a relationship. But no, my favorite. We actually give out BTS four tickets with every interview. So that's already coming as part of the package today. Oh my gosh. I need to apply. No, I mean, in terms of licenses for things that we've made, the ones that I think are really awesome is basically anything with a box that turns into some awesome scene, which is like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings.

46:24It's that Barbie Dreamhouse type of experience that we sent Matt. Yeah, those I love the most. And then like packaging design wise, like the Scooby-Doo ones I thought were really clever in the way we did the packaging design on that. It's usually, the magic happens when you, like because our team is so large now, like for any license, there's usually someone in our company who is a huge super fan of that license. And I think Lord of the Rings is a really good example. We have a lot of people on our team who love Lord of the Rings. And so like we bring them into the conversation. We're like, what can we do to make this special?

47:00Like what are the little details that we should really care about? And so how do we make this immersive packaging of like using the Elvis script and like all the different details inside the box and like creating something that like only a real super fan would know what all the little meanings are. And I think that's where the real magic happens for us. And that's the magic of licensing when it's done well. It's not like a money grab. It's like intellectual property that people are really emotionally attached to and want to interact with and giving them cool ways to interact with it. We have a friend, Jonathan Boehm, that has a company, Theory 11, that does playing decks of playing cards that are these amazingly intricately well thought out decks that incorporate these things.

47:45or like he just came out with a Harry Potter coloring book that does the thing where like you flip it one way and the pages are blank and you flip it the other way and they're colored from the movies. But it's, I think that that's the magic. We saw a lot of kids drinkware and it's like when my kids were that age, like it just made their world. These characters made their world. And this is part of what business can be at its best is that when we're able to use our time to not just create products that people want to buy, but that actually bring like some kind of joy to their life. And I love being able to be a part of doing it.

48:19It sounds like you guys are doing it at a pretty exceptional level.

48:22Matt Bertulli:What is the mix on the team of people who work on product versus, you know, supply chain marketing? Like, are you guys still involved heavily in the product? Like, it just feels like it takes so much effort and thoughtfulness to make what you guys make. I would say the two biggest teams are product and marketing because product for us is more than just what people see on the outside. It's not just the crochet pattern. It's not just the packaging. It's also the video tutorials. So it's like a bunch of very, very different skills. And then marketing, just because there's like different marketing channels, is also big.

48:59Our ops team is tiny. For the longest time, basically, it was Adrian and his dad. And so we definitely should be amping that up. Yeah. Yeah, the product team is like the most important core vertical. And so we care a lot about, I mean, ultimately, product is what we care most about. And then for help with the second part of that question was, oh, if we're still really in the world.

49:29Matt Bertulli:Yeah, I guess like how much, I mean, product is so important. That's obvious. So I ask, how much time do you guys spend on product in a week versus other parts of the business? just founder like I'm in the weeds I got to put energy into something I mean for me it's mostly product stuff for you you're like handling everything else yeah I do everything else but but I'll still chime in it doesn't doesn't shine me away from trying to make product decisions but um yeah it's uh it's like it's Justine's it's Justine's like baby basically and so like she she cares a lot about getting all the details right and making sure like we're, we're making something that we can be proud of and that our customers will, will enjoy and, and get joy out of.

50:15But I mean, also we do have, we have an amazing team. So I actually don't have to get that involved in and be gritty all the time now, except for when we're spinning up radically new things and then, and then it starts again.

50:27Matt Bertulli:Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. I mean, it's, I think one of the cool things that we get to do is as entrepreneurs is like choose the kind of work that we get to do every day. You know, like we build teams and as the companies get bigger, there's like people that we hire and we hope that they're better than us at places. But the thing I love the most is I get to go play. Like if I'm interested in something, it's like I can choose to do this because I'm the boss. I'm going to go join the software team this week because I want to go mess around over there. I think that's the best part of the job is just choice and freedom to move around.

51:00Matt Bertulli:um can you i'd love to know like uh so you mentioned product that's like the most important that's the team that like leads with it's sort of like that's the company right that's the it's product based you mentioned marketing me and the other large uh part of the organization i would really like to know and i'm sure people would over the last five and a half years how has marketing the woobull shifted like where did you start how did you like get your first customers. And then today, what does marketing look like? Yeah, that's an excellent question. Early on, marketing is where you experience the biggest roller coaster rides, right?

51:45Especially if you're doing Facebook marketing or meta marketing, performance marketing in general, is just like, that is just, you're signing up for a drastic rollercoaster ride. And, you know, I would say the, how we do marketing is still very much dependent, but in my eyes, the very best type of marketing is just having really great products. If you have an exceptional product, that's something you're proud of, then all your marketing really needs to do is to tell people that this thing exists. And that's sufficient. And so like, that's like the holy grail for me of like, Like, you know, that's the very best type of marketing.

52:23And so like, how are we going to create a product that can last achieve that? It's like what we're striving to do. And so I would say our marketing messaging is generally always centered around just telling people like, this is something that you can do. Like, you're capable of doing this. It looks like, you know, right now it's a pile of yarn, but like, we really believe that you can turn it into a penguin. And we're just here to kind of help you on that journey.

52:49Matt Bertulli:Was there in this in the last five and a half years, was there a stage of growth that was particularly difficult? Yes. Becoming the grand bosses. Becoming grand bosses of the team. I mean, but that's my take, because, again, the whole the whole origin of this is me not appreciating being a manager. And so it's very ironic to have kind of grown to a spot where I kind of am again, but trying not to be. How are you a different manager now? So you went through your career, you got to a point where you're like, I'm having all this anxiety from being a manager. I don't like this. I want to do something else.

53:28And then you're back, obviously in a different context where you're doing something you're passionate about. But I'm curious, how are you approaching it? I'm hoping it doesn't give you anxiety now. How do you approach it differently where you're enjoying this experience more than your previous experience. Yeah, I'm trying to actually play to my strengths and just accept that this is not really something that brings me much joy to be a manager. So like, I feel like, you know, a really big theme and that the Woobles has had for me is it made me realize like I really enjoy making stuff. Like that's the whole reason why I had some struggle with being manager, why I'm saying being a grand boss is difficult because it's like, I don't find fulfillment in like having conversations and hoping somebody implements my feedback, right?

54:14I find more joy and fulfillment from being able to, at the end of the day, point at something and be like, I made that thing. Like even recently, I've been making wireframes for like our website at landing pages. And I'm like, yeah, like in Figma, and I'm like, that's my jam. So I guess the kind of unfortunate thing is that like, I did, I tried my hand up being a better manager. I would like to think that people don't think that I'm a terrible manager, but I also like recognize that the impact that I can have on the business of like becoming better at this versus hiring that out and doing what I'm already really good at like is outsized.

54:54So I should just focus on what I'm good at. It takes a while to get to the point where you have the confidence to say, I'm going to lead out of my strengths and probably my management style is going to look different than people I read about in books or other things and like, I'm kind of comfortable in my own skin. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Like there's no more, there's no better way to make yourself miserable than to try and be the leader that somebody else is and not be the leader that you can be.

55:21Matt Bertulli:It takes an incredible amount of self-awareness to do that too, which in a weird way, Justine, makes you a better leader than most people. I know a lot of leaders who are terrible. They're not self-aware at all. And they're in positions of leadership. And I'm like, I don't know how you do this when you don't know that you're an asshole. It's a basic thing. I will say, I feel like I am good at listening and the difference of being the founder this time is that I have more visibility into everything. So it's like if there is decisions that have to be made, it's like I can get that information I can balance like lots of different things you've been building this business for five and a half years um Adrian you mentioned you've got like a number of employees now I don't know if you guys want to share like how many people you work at the company and I just think it's so cool that you've built up a team right and and that like this thing is turning it's a real business now but you're the thing that strikes me with the two of you is you are not very public about the business, right?

56:24Like you're very

56:26Matt Bertulli:public about the product, but not about like the business part. This seems like an odd question, but like, why don't you flex more? Like what's the, what's the upside of staying kind of like behind the radar, like behind the sort of the curtain? do you think about this much like i'm just curious like having met you guys you're so you come across so humble and so like you know um but what you do is impressive like the product is it's not like it's not an easy product to make and this is not an easy company to build i think part of it is just our nature like we're not the type of people who who want to brag or like and ultimately for us like it's like we we love this for for the doing the making part of of building really great products.

57:12And like, we don't want to distract, like distract from that. We want people to discover the Wobles because they found something that brings them joy. We don't want people to discover the Wobles because it's gotten PR on how it does business or how it does XYZ really well. And so for us, it's just like we want to keep the focus on on our overall mission of just spreading fear and spreading joy and confidences. When you do that. And yeah, like when you ask, what is it you want to be remembered for? I mean, I It's ironic because I think I am kind of, I am the face of the business. There is still a lot of ads and content with me in it.

57:48People will recognize me, right? But I actually don't like that at all. Like, I am a very private person. I actually originally tried to make this business without doing videos because I was like, I don't want to be, I don't want to have to use my voice. I don't want to use my face. And like I said before, like, I just like to make stuff. and I want people to appreciate the product for the product being awesome. It's like, and I'm doing it for the self-fulfillment, not for the pats on the back. Like, you know, being more public about how the business is going. I'm like, I don't really need that.

58:24And also that's like some meeting time and like time to do that.

58:29Matt Bertulli:Yeah, I take it, Mike and I can also explain the downsides of doing this in public if you'd like. But that's not what today's show is about. I have questions where I'm like, what's the upside of doing this? Yeah. I was going to say that as I was asking, I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I alternate between, I want to be out there. I want to be helping people. I want to be talking. I want to be meeting and I want to go live on an Island and not talk to anyone. And I just, depending on the week, I think I violently swing between the two. One of my theories is every founder wants a farm. They're like, I just want to go somewhere that's quiet and nobody bothers me.

59:07Matt Bertulli:Maybe some chickens. There's a version of this story, and I'm sure you've thought of it, that the Woobles is a pandemic success. I'm sure there's a timeline where this is true. You're starting the company at like, I don't know if you timed it this way, but you're starting the company at the beginning of a time when people are at home a lot more than they typically are. And that on the surface, you could easily make the argument that the Woobles is like, you're, it's like, you just hit it timing wise. Why do you think the Woobles is still not just survive? It didn't just survive. Like you've done very well in creating this community and this product that people love.

59:52Matt Bertulli:Like what, what is it that makes this business not that timeline where it was just a pandemic success story? Dude, I think it's Fiero. I think that's the core. Yeah. It's the delivery of that feeling, especially in a time where people are like trapped at home and kind of like every day blurs together. We did get that question a lot early on about like, how do you know this is not just like a pandemic hit and it'll last longer? And I truly do believe that people can sense when something is like really intentionally designed. And I don't know how to like explain it, but I just, I feel like the average consumer can tell when there was like extra thought and care put into the design and the delivery of a product.

1:00:39And I think that's what really helped it grow.

1:00:44Matt Bertulli:Did you nail like the first products that went out? Were they like, were they good enough right out of the gate? or like did the design of the product and how you got people to use it did that take some time to get right i would say it definitely took time i would say it took about two years to get to the iteration that we have now um because before it was like made with off-the-shelf parts and stuff and trying to minimize as i mentioned my time recording things and i didn't want to be on camera um but like there were early things that we discovered for example the yarn itself like regular yarn when people think of yarn is more like a rope at phrase and when you watch people use it it like they mess up because they get stuck um and so then that's when we were like oh we should make yarn that's impossible to mess up in that way so definitely and then same thing with the videos we started off with like making a generic longer video and then realize that people need things to be more step-by-step.

1:01:49And so like we did multiple iterations until he got to where we are now, which is like this super micro-steppy model.

1:01:58Matt Bertulli:I find, I think that the reason I keep hitting on product guys, and Michael, I know we've talked about this. I don't think we talk enough about product development in consumer goods. like the conversation is almost always marketing and we do not spend enough time as operators just talking about like what it takes to make a good product and how much iteration you go through and how much talking to customers you got to go through and i find the best people spend so much time on product like that's the best brands that's the difference it's also interesting to me listening to you talk about product that and this is probably true about many products now that i think about it that it's not just about having a quote unquote great product.

1:02:45It's also about presenting it in a way to customers where they will use it in a way where they have a great experience. And that is actually part of product as well is how the product is kind of communicated and positioned to them and set up for them to use it in a way where they get the great experience. And that part we really don't talk much about, Matt. And I can say that from experience. We had a tumbler where there was a lid where it had this really elegant kind of locking mechanism where you just gently pushed it down and it was like leak proof. Or if you pulled it up, you could drink out of it.

1:03:21And one of our friends, Katie, actually texted me like a week after buying hers and she's like, I can't figure this out. I can't drink out of it. And I'm like, well, you need to pull up on the straw, Katie. But it was like, obviously, I haven't done a good job of positioning, even if the product's great, if it's not obvious to people how to use it or to have an exceptional experience with it. And I think that this is a really fantastic example, especially because you're not even necessarily selling the crocheted thing. You're selling the experience of making the crocheted thing. And so like, how have you thought about making it as accessible as possible for people to have a winning experience when they use your product?

1:04:02Yeah, this is all user experience design. So now I'm like, oh, yes, my background was helpful in creating this. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. It starts from the impression that people have. And that's also part of why we do licensing. If someone's like a Harry Potter fan, their drive to complete a Harry Potter kit is much higher than their drive to complete a Peer the Penguin kit as much as we love Peer the Penguin. So that's one way you start to set people up for success. Like design something that they actually intrinsically are like, I really want that outcome. I don't really care about making a potholder.

1:04:39That's like usually the typical first crochet project. Like you want to make something desirable. And then we do all these little things to like help you get over the hump. There's like this theory called progressive disclosure, which is basically why Starbucks cards, like loyalty cards, come pre-stamped. One out of ten already. It's like if you start something for someone, they're more likely to finish it. But yeah, the endowed progress effect. So that's why we pre-start the kits. It's the hardest part in crochet. It's like, you know, from testing it with my friends back in the day and then being like, oh, my lordy, like, how are we supposed to be able to do anything at all if this is the first thing that happens?

1:05:21Like you want people to have a really good you want people to have wins early on. So it motivates them to keep on doing the harder things. Yeah, this is like the equivalent of getting your first 10 friends on Facebook. Right. They found out that that was the entire flight wheel is that your experience was going to be completely dictated by. did you make those first 10 connections? And then once you did, it became a lot easier to enjoy the product. So how do you make sure that that pulls through in your marketing? What are the intentional steps you take that when you're telling the story, you're advertising, that you make sure that that thoughtfulness and all of the thoughtfulness and how you're going to make them successful, do you make sure that they hear that in the messaging?

1:06:01Yeah, that's really challenging. And that's something that like we might not even really know the answer to. Like we're still trying to figure that out, which is why like. I think we're a little bit unique in that, like we care so much more about product that like maybe we don't need to figure out how to get the marketing exactly right. If we get the product really right, it lowers the pressure on how much marketing needs to succeed for us. And so not to say like we don't try, like, you know, we're still scientific about it. Like we're going to try all sorts of different ways of trying to explain how we sell those features or those features.

1:06:39But we don't have a product, a problem solution type product. So a lot of the traditional marketing is actually quite hard to apply to our product because a lot of the features that we've designed are solving problems that you don't really know you have yet on your crochet journey. Like you really would only understand these problems exist if you've tried crocheting something else. and a lot of our customers have never tried to crochet anything before and so that's what makes the marketing really challenging and so like I'd say that I think that it's the naive answer of like you know maybe like we just need to make the product that much better or the bar is so much higher for the product in that case

1:07:21Matt Bertulli:I so hear where you're coming from like Pila Case is not a problem solution product but our approach there I mean so one we looked at product and we said, like, there's so many things that we can do that are invisible to the person they're never going to care about. They don't even know that this is why they like the product. Yeah. Right. Like the feel of the material for us is a big one. Like we spent a lot of time making sure that the case, the material just feels nice to hold. But the other thing that we do is that we figured out we could show them problems they didn't know that they had. And that's been quite effective.

1:07:57Matt Bertulli:Right. And that the brand was started with like, you didn't know that you didn't even like that this is worse than a straw. Like this is the world's first compostable phone case. And people like, wait, yeah, I totally have that problem. I hate that I throw these things out every year. So I think you can kind of come at it from both sides of, cause I'm with you. Like the number of times I get marketing advice guys. And I'm like, that sounds great. If you're selling Advil, where it's like, you have a headache, I can solve your headache. Like that most marketing advice falls into that problem solution, problem solution.

1:08:31Matt Bertulli:And I think I really like that you're hitting on not every, there's a lot of categories that don't. And that we have to be a lot more creative, probably a lot more product focused than the problem solution people do, where they can just like find the wound and just dig their finger into it in marketing. Like that's kind of what they do. So I think it's great that you're doing that. Can I, on the sort of like marketing product, like, can you share, not numbers, but like, just give us a general sense for like, um, channel mix. Like how much do you guys do in retail versus direct consumer? Like, how do you think about that as you build the company or like what's, what's first, what's second, how do they mix together?

1:09:14Matt Bertulli:Do you put products in certain channels, not others? Like just some of that more tactical stuff. We, we started as a D2C company. So that's kind of like our, how we learned how to market and how to build product and whatnot. And what ended up happening to us was early on iOS 14.6 completely wrecked us. And we realized one day, like the thing that was our channel to kind of tell the world that this thing exists, suddenly just overnight completely stopped working for us. And so that's when we realized that that's something that's business ending for us, where like if we are so reliant on this one channel, that's a huge amount of risk that you're taking.

1:09:56And so that's why early on we realized we need to be able to have other channels of reaching our customers. And so slowly over time, then I think it's like building out our wholesale and retail relationships to be able to distribute our product. And it's a really interesting problem of like we have only so many SKUs and like where do we sell them? Do we sell them on our site? Do we put them in wholesale? And our initial strategy was just to put our core characters out into wholesale. And that if you want the expanded selection, it's much easier to manage inventory from one central location, that being our D2C site, than to try and figure out how we're going to allocate and send all these different wholesalers across a bunch of different SKUs.

1:10:47And then what we quickly found out was that like, um, people, one, people really loved seeing it in stores. It's like, there are some people who just want to see the product before they buy it. Uh, and to the store owners, like we had talked to our store, kind of like how we talked to a lot of customers. We talked to a lot of store owners, um, and they give the feedback of like, you know, people are coming into our stores asking for a specific thing on your site. Uh, and if I have it in stock or not. Um, and it really opened our eyes to like, you know, we, we, I need to be a little bit better on like figuring out what are the different SKUs we should offer.

1:11:19And I think some things, um, it was just like understanding, like, you know, at GameStop, they probably, we should probably have Minecraft, uh, and kind of like understanding the, like what SKUs belong where, um, takes a lot of intentionality and a lot of effort.

1:11:35Matt Bertulli:Your, uh, your iOS 14 is def, that comment's going to make some people, uh, have PTSD. And, uh, I think it's a, it's a wonderful reason to like be like, oh man, we need channel diversity. But how do you reconcile that then with the Joanne Fabrics filing for bankruptcy? Very publicly, the Woobles is listed as like unsecured creditor number one, seven and a half million dollars. Like at that point, was it like iOS 14 sounds pretty awesome right now? Yeah. What did that feel like? How did you even handle that? Like that's, that's not a small amount of money guys. That's, that's real. The most crazy part about it is if you look at that list of the rankings of the unsecured vendors, compared to some of the very large multinational corporations on that list, we are but like a small mom and pop shop running out of a garage.

1:12:38It's ridiculous that we ended up in the number one spot. And a lot of that is actually on us, I think. In that, like, we were new to the wholesale world. Like, we realized, like, this is a channel we want to build. And never crossed our minds that a potential risk would be that the vendor you're doing business with would just declare bankruptcy and just not pay you for anything. But continue to sell your product. And I think it was a double whammy in that not only, you know, are we not paid for the product that they purchased, but they kept everything. and they sold it. And so it's like a, it's a true double.

1:13:17They sold it at a huge discount too. And they would sell it. Yeah, it wreaks havoc on everything. Yeah, it wreaks havoc on everything. Like all that work you put in to like build a quality product. And now you have to compete against yourself on someone who like didn't even pay you for the product. Was quite a wild rollercoaster, right? And an incredible learning opportunity. And now you are.

1:13:41Matt Bertulli:There it is again, right? I learned a lot. It's like, tell me in that moment though. Incredibly painful, incredibly painful. But now we look back and we're like, yeah, we certainly learned a lot. How much have you guys diversified channels over time? So like to go from, oh, I don't like meta, being reliant on meta. Now I'm in retail. Do you then look at digital now, guys? And like, are you everywhere? Are you like meta, Google, app loving, TikTok, freaking, I don't know, John's ad platform, whatever the next thing is. Like, are you trying to kind of like wherever the woobles can be, we got to go because we don't want any one of these people to be like we don't be beholden to one of them.

1:14:27Matt Bertulli:How do you think about sort of like channel mix today? Kind of in our our company's DNA and our product, like what we're really trying to show people is that like there's a we use a term called like we hope confidence is contagious. So like if you can take a ball of yarn and turn it into a penguin, we hope that it's going to build some level of confidence for you to say like, Hey, I, I should actually try this other, I've been wanting to learn how to play the guitar for the longest time. Like, let me, let me try that. And so it's a philosophy for us of like, we, we want to step out of the comfort zone.

1:15:02We want to experiment and do new things. And so when it comes to like channel mix and like different ad platforms, our, our theory is very much like kind of like, you know, just seems like I want to make sure I gave it my all. Like we will try and go and test everything as long as we have the capacity to do so. And so like new things that are like, we're not, we don't want to be shied away from like trying new things and testing different things. And a lot of it is kind of all really goes back to like this user centered design process of like just being willing to like have a hypothesis and test it over and over again.

1:15:38And then take your learnings to hopefully do it better the next time. And so, yeah, the answer to your question is like, yeah, like we will try all of every CTV. Like we'll try everything to see what we can learn from it.

1:15:50Matt Bertulli:I do wonder, though, do you do you feel like that ends up being a superpower in that you because you don't know what you don't know? You can just figure things out in a way that somebody who has the experience probably would never even look at it that way. yes i 100 believe that that's like a very core um belief i feel like in the ux design world about this beginner's mind type of thing that you that you should approach problems even if you do have experience in it as though you're a beginner um because i think you know we didn't invent crochet kits they existed before us it's just that we looked at it and we were like well well, why aren't they just done this way?

1:16:34Because it's like better for the end user this way. And then we just tried to figure it out. And so I definitely think it, I think to this day, like that's the kind of spirit that we want everyone at our company to also have, where it's like, learn what the rules of the game are, and then figure out how to break it. Because we're not played by the rules. Like we can do, like I think going back to like how intentional our design is, It's like we do just that little bit extra so people can tell it's a little bit different.

1:17:07Matt Bertulli:Do you guys have a lot of IP in the product, in the company? Like, how do you think about, like, if we explore new territory, are you trying to protect that intellectual property as you go? The things that we think are really important in Novel, we do try and get patents for. uh and but a lot of i would say more of our ip is like around copyrights and the characters we make um and in the world of like d2c commerce there's a lot of like scam sites out there so like our trademark is probably the most widely enforced one of just trying to get people to stop um creating scam sites uh and steal credit card numbers of different people

1:17:53Matt Bertulli:we uh i just want to be respectful of time we like to end these with this segment called the titan 10 and it's just a series of questions that i'm gonna ask uh they're a little more tactical um you guys are very tactical people so i don't think this is going to be a struggle for you but I would like you to kind of answer as like gut feeling quick as you can. Sure. Okay. So question one is you get to a desert island, I drop you off and all I give you is three numbers. And those three numbers are going to tell you exactly how the Woobles is doing. What are those three numbers? Customer sentiment, customer feedback, in general, like what the customers are thinking about us.

1:18:45Making sure that what our profitability is. No investors, no debt means that like, you know, we have to ensure that to ensure success, we need to be profitable. And what our kit success rate is. Are we still making the, like it's simple and intuitive to enjoy the product.

1:19:07Matt Bertulli:Justine, would you change anything there? Like anything that you would add or take away? No. He's the numbers guy. I trust him. Love it. Okay, so you also get to bring a book, but it can't be about business. What are you going to bring to read? Handmaid's Tale. It's one of my favorite. I love these dystopian books. You are the pessimist. I take that what I said. Adrian, what are you reading? I mean, it's still kind of business related, but I really like Shoe Dog. I write Shoe Dog more for like the personal journey that he went on. That's about the business side. We can cut this out if we want, but I have to tell you guys, like we read it early on in the company and, you know, it just resonated so much with our team that I started telling people that at the end of my career, I was going to write one called Cup Dog.

1:19:59And to this day, if you come to the Simple Modern office, the Wi-Fi password is CupDog2017. That's a good thing. Oh, that is so good. It's amazing. What is your – do you have like a contrarian belief about business that other people think maybe that you're crazy for that or they disagree with you on?

1:20:24Matt Bertulli:Hence why it's contrarian. We're terrible operators, I think. It's ironic that we're on this podcast. I know that cannot be true. we're i think we're really strong at making great products but like we are definitely we're very bad at like being an operator and like so we don't run a tight ship we don't really hold anybody accountable um like we're not i i would say like we're we're bad at extracting we're bad at maximizing efficiency within our team and holding accountability and doing all that um But on the flip side of that, like, you know, I think we're really good at user research and building customer products and creating fun experiences.

1:21:12And so I think the contrarian view is maybe not that contrarian, but like our view is like, it's okay to like, like if you're bad at something, it's okay to like just not even focus on that and focus on like what you are really good at and let that shine. I mean, hopefully just have enough of a team or support to cover what all the other bases that you're not paying attention to. I kind of like that. I would say counterintuitively, that's what you have to do to be a great operator. You guys are saying like, that's why we're not great operators. I think that's what great operators do is that they like, this is my zone of genius and I'm going to like stay in it.

1:21:49And I'm not going to spend a lot of brain damage on all the other stuff. Yeah, that would be an optimistic way of putting it.

1:21:56Matt Bertulli:yeah what uh okay so then that what is the single most important word in leadership no ego yeah no yeah i guess that's two words ego less yeah ego less there you go then what's the most well then what's the most single important word in business i mean iterate for me i'm all about the ux design process iterate

1:22:26persistence would be mine but persistence and iteration i think uh go hand in hand they do yeah i mean you guys are just it's like you're cut you guys are so good together it's

1:22:36Matt Bertulli:kind of annoying i'm just gonna say it now for everybody listening it's like it's your it's just it's awesome uh best meal of the day and why lunch because specifically weekday lunches because it It was the only meal that we have where we don't also have a two and a half year old asking things of us. What do you think the most overrated growth tactic is in consumer right now? I think you mentioned it earlier, but kind of like how much talk goes into marketing. Like there's so much content on like marketing and like focus on marketing that I think people undervalue like how much growth you can get out of a good product.

1:23:20And like that's I think that there's a little bit of a disconnect in the general industry of like how much emphasis we put on marketing. Okay.

1:23:30Matt Bertulli:And then most underrated tactic then. Is it going to be product? Yeah. I feel like you guys I'm sensing a theme here To all the answers I'm sensing the product is important Yeah Yeah Headline Product matters If you could go back In time And you could Tell yourself At the very early days If you could tell yourself One thing Knowing everything you know now What would you say? It's going to be a wild ride And it changes your life In good and bad ways appreciate it all for yeah again going back so you don't appreciate it in the moment but it's definitely like a I think I feel really fortunate that I feel like we're living a lot of once in a lifetime moments yeah uh I also I think I'm causing it kind of trying to answer both questions at the same time which is like I think that I I'm aware of just how much luck plays into all of this.

1:24:33Like we briefly talked about like Shoe Dog. One of the remarkable things that I took out of Shoe Dog and Mark Randolph's book on Netflix was that like, there's so much luck in the beginning of anything you do of meeting the right people on your team. And to me, it's like, I call them misfits. And I think maybe one of the books calls them misfits, which is like, these are people who are like exceptionally good and have tremendous value on your business. but like they never really found an organization to fit in or like they had, they struggled to like in different roles and whatnot. I mean, there's so much luck in meeting people like that where it's like you have a problem that they're so uniquely skilled to solve and you somehow meet each other at the right time.

1:25:18Because in the beginning of this, it's almost impossible to hire. It's really difficult to convince people to come along a journey with you. And so like, just like, like thinking back and like just luck plays such a huge role in all of this. And like you can put yourself in positions to be lucky and try and like get lucky, but like there's still a large amount of element which is luck that happens in this.

1:25:42Matt Bertulli:This has been fun, guys. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to sit down and do this. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. I was going to say like normally we never would do anything like this, but we get, I think one of the really unique things about e-commerce is that people are so willing to help each other. And so like, we're specifically doing this one because I think like, we know a lot of the same people and even like Matt and yeah, Matt, like you've given us like great advice. Like it's a community that like we've taken so much from that. Like we're like, we need to also give back to this community.

1:26:15And so thank you for letting us have this platform to at least try and attempt to do that. Yeah. Thank you guys for sharing. I mean, I think it's just easy to forget that we're all starting out. You know, we all had to start out somewhere And I'm sure that you guys, your story, there are going to be people that listen to this that are at the very beginning of their journey and something you said is going to help them help that unlock that changes the trajectory of their business and their life. And this is ultimately why it's so enjoyable to be a part of the podcast. In many ways, it's the same message as you, is that like that feeling of accomplishment, if this podcast can help people to experience that in their business.

1:26:58man, what a great way to use our time. And you're doing it, you know, with little Snoopy characters and things that people can crochet. And we're doing it by talking about business, but it is pretty rewarding when you can help somebody to feel that sense of accomplishment and the empowerment that comes with it. And we just appreciate you being willing to give your time and share from your experience so that other people could experience that. Thanks for doing this.

1:27:28you