How Brightland Became The Olive Oil Brand Beloved by Press and Retailers

20:55Aishwarya Iyer:Part of your sort of rise to cult fame and then mainstream fame as a company is that you had these like really incredible press coverage, quite early on, right? Bon Appetit, food and wine, these like heavy hitters in the food industry that are like really big cosigns to anybody who cares about food. How did that media placement come to be? Was that something that you sought out? Was it happening organically? My career before Brightland was rooted in corporate communications. And so that was something that I just understood innately. I knew that I wanted people beyond ourselves talking about us and vouching for us.

21:34And so early on, we invested in food PR. And that was really beneficial and helpful. Again, that was 2017, 2018, 2019. For somebody listening who wants to start a company and is looking into that and building now, probably the strategy would look different. But at the time, it made so much sense for us.

21:57Aishwarya Iyer:Do you have any advice in terms of how to craft a compelling pitch or be appealing, catch the eye of journalists and editors? Oh my God. I know. It's a big question. It's a little bit of perfect storm. Like there's so much noise out there, but I think if you tell your story authentically, succinctly, and have two to three reasons of why, And everybody wants a story. Everybody wants a story. So I think it really is like, what is the story and why did you start this? And it's not enough to be like, I went to business school and saw a white space opportunity. Nobody really wants to hear that. And so why is it important to you?

22:41You know, I have a friend who has a jewelry company and her parents, their house was caught on fire and their jewelry was robbed. And so then she decided to start this incredible jewelry company because of that. Like, I love hearing about relatable stories. And I would say it's not only for journalists and press. That's what people want to see on social if you decide to build and really showcase your story on social and your brand on social. Like, everybody needs something to be anchored to. Everybody wants to know about the human being behind the brand, right?

23:14Aishwarya Iyer:And it's stickier too, right? Like you remember, you might not remember like the facts and figures or, you know, the benefits that are listed on the side of the bottle, but you'll remember the backstory. Definitely. You know? Definitely. Was there an early press hit that really moved the needle for Brightland? The day that we launched, we were featured in the New York Times style section, a very small blurb. It wasn't anything crazy, but it definitely put us on the map in a really big way. So we're really lucky and happy about that. I mean, how did that feel when that happened? It must have felt transformative.

23:47Definitely transformative, but also like I had to go and pack boxes. You know, I watched the orders come in and the first few orders were from, we like turned our site on, posted about it on Instagram. It all feels very quaint now to talk about it because it was so long ago. And then we sent an email to our email list. And even before we launched, we had built the email list to like a thousand people. And so I saw people who I knew, friends and friends of friends, purchasing. And then when that piece came out, it was strangers. And I was Googling who these people were. And it was like somebody who lived in Brooklyn, somebody who lived in Atlanta.

24:22I was like, who are these people? The work had to keep going. And I was packing every single box and writing handwritten notes. And so that's what I was focused on.

24:32Aishwarya Iyer:We spend so much time these days talking about the power of social as a marketing channel. And obviously, it is incredibly powerful. We don't spend a ton of time talking about the power of the email list. Yeah. Like, how has that factored into your marketing strategy? Incredibly important part of marketing strategy. and I completely agree with you. It's something that I've talked to other founders about where they're talking over indexing on social and with all of the algorithm changes, like that audience can be really fickle. They don't see your content, but email is so incredible. It's so powerful.

25:12You can, I know some brands that tell long, romantic, beautiful stories, other brands who are just educating, educating, educating. We try to do a mix of the two. I send notes talking about whether it's like the change in seasons, whether it's how I'm thinking about what our year is up ahead and our customers respond to that. And it is, you know, just incredibly powerful.

25:37Aishwarya Iyer:You have, you have all the real estate you want. And it's, you know, I've heard people say like, it's the one thing that can't get taken away from you. You know, if a platform goes away, goes down or whatever, right? You potentially lose that entire following, but you'll always have your email list. Email and SMS too. Yeah. Oh yeah. SMS. Yeah. Is that big for Brightland as well? It's a part of it, but we're careful with it because we understand that people are protective. I've been a receiver of some brands where I'm like, oh my God, you're texting me every other day. I can't take it. And so we're very careful about that.

26:12We know that that's where you want to text with your, you know, friends and family and you may not want to see this brand keep popping up over and over again. Be judicious. Yeah.

26:22Aishwarya Iyer:I think for so many founders, the transition or the expansion from D to C to retail can feel like this huge unlock and a major milestone. And it is. It's also like, from what I've learned, a completely alternate universe. Yeah, it's like It's a different business. You made this transition. Looking back on it, what do you wish you knew then that you know now? We were really slow with it. Like we had retailers reaching out to us, big, big retailers. From the get-go, I think the first day that we launched, we had smaller shops reaching out to us. And we said yes to all of those partners. And so we have thousands of small stores that we're in around the country.

27:04And that's amazing. in terms of larger retailers, national footprint, those started reaching out too. And we just kept saying, no, we're not ready yet. Like super graciously. How did you know in that moment

27:19Aishwarya Iyer:that, you know, you're talking about, for instance, like deleting Instagram off your phone for a couple of days. And a lot of founders are like, what if I miss an opportunity, right? There's kind of like a little bit of like a scarcity, like an urgency. I get it, right? How did you have the wherewithal in that moment to say, it's okay, we can say no to this in this moment? operated from a place of abundance, I guess, and like operate like with time is on your side. And when you say no to somebody, we all know this, then they want it even more. I just knew we weren't, I knew that we would regret it.

27:46And I had heard people say yes too early and then they regretted it. And so I just didn't want to fall in, like if you already see that there's a hole, why would you fall into it? And so I didn't want to do that.

28:01Aishwarya Iyer:So then what was your approach to moving into those national retailers. It was when we were ready operationally, when we felt ready from a supply chain standpoint. Like we wanted to make sure that all the screws internally were like tight enough where it wouldn't be super overwhelming. And so we waited. But I would say, you know, even with all of that, a learning that I I kind of came to terms with is retail is just such a different beast with distributors and brokers. And I learned it, but I didn't dive all the way deep. I learned it like enough to be dangerous. But I think that you have to be lethal to really like the founder has to go really deep into something like that.

28:50And so even with my hesitancy or like, you know, just being really conservative, there were still so many mistakes we made. Still so many lessons we learned. Such as? Priced a couple things wrong at the retailer, worked with the wrong, you know, partners in different capacities. It isn't something that you add on and hire somebody really smart and say, okay, just go run with it. You have to dive in and just know it like the back of your hand.

29:18Aishwarya Iyer:Yeah, I've heard you say that it's complex and in many ways antiquated. Very, yeah. And your advice is that founders themselves have to be the ones to really wrap their head and arms around this thing. Have to wrap your head around it. And it sucks because it's especially if you're the kind of founder who like that level of nitty gritty like sucks your soul a little bit. And you feel like you've already been so much in the nitty gritty around fundraising. You've been in the nitty gritty for, you know, every single SOP you've helped create for this company, every single process, all of the D2C side of things.

29:55And you're set, you know, with Shopify, you know it like the back of your hand. And then you have this other thing. It's a little bit like, isn't there somebody out there who knows this better than I do? I can hand this over or learn about it enough. And my advice would be just like, if you really think that that's going to be a key piece of your business, learn it.

30:15Aishwarya Iyer:It's a good piece of advice. It also changes the brand story that you can tell, right? When people are coming to your website, they might be poking around. They're reading about it. They're getting all the info. So now it's like you're trying to capture the attention of somebody who might be spending a few seconds, you know, looking at the bottles on shelf. Did it change your approach to brand story? Not for us because the majority of our business was at the time still direct to consumer. And so we didn't want to lose so much focus that we're changing the brand story before we needed to. So it's just about sequencing again, too.

31:00It's a dance that you're doing.

31:02Aishwarya Iyer:You also had and have these like incredibly beautiful, visually arresting bottles that don't look like other olive oil bottles whatsoever. Yeah. Right. I know that that was like a big part of the process for you, too. Not just making a product that was of high quality in its actual content, but something that people would be happy to have on their countertops. when you were engaging in the design of the bottles, were you also sort of thinking forward to like, oh, if we get into big stores, like this is also going to stand out? Yes. Yeah. From the beginning. Yeah. The way that I did early research was going to grocery stores and going to specialty stores and seeing what was on shelf and saw that nothing, everything looked similar and everything looked the same.

31:53So yeah, it was definitely an early part of, part of it. And I always tell founders too, like you have to get out in the real world. Like don't spend too much time on like design publications or on Pinterest or Instagram looking for design inspo because especially now with AI, there's so much AI slop, like design concepts of whether it's bottles or packaging or whatever that is never going to see the light of day. So if you're living in your online world, you're seeing stuff that isn't actually in the real world. Right. So you just have to go into the real world and look around. Right. And really see, okay, this is what's actually sitting on shelf and moving on shelf.

32:36Where do you go for inspiration? Last week, my head of marketing and I went to Erewhon. We went to Broom Street General in Culver City. Love. And then we love going to stores that have nothing to do with, like, we went to Kin, which is a jewelry store, Margot, a footwear brand. we like going to retail experiences that aren't actually selling anything in our category. And then we get to see and learn and what colors are interesting right now. Yeah. What styles are coming up because everything is interconnected. How is that finding its way into Brightland's evolution today? Oh, in all kinds of ways.

33:13Colors we decide, partners we decide to work with, how our brand shows up. Yeah. Yeah.

33:17Aishwarya Iyer:You've done some really sick and also very particular partnerships, like including Mackenzie Childs, you have one with Sumo Citrus. What is your approach to finding partnerships that actually end up being, and I think this is really essential, mutually beneficial? Joint enthusiasm. Both parties have to be excited. And if you get the sense that the other person thinks that they're almost doing it as a favor or, oh, they're so much bigger than you or they're so much smaller than you that they're almost like thinking you're going to save their company, like there has to be that like spark and fit.

33:51We are doing a partnership with Hill House Home, the fashion brand and the retailer in New York. And they are just an incredible brand. They have the most iconic prints. And the very first call we got on with their team, everybody, the enthusiasm was like, everyone was like, this is a dream. We can't wait. We heard it from their team, our team was saying that like there's collective enthusiasm. So that's just a non negotiable that has to be there. And then after that, I would say you want to anchor your collaborations and partnerships in couple of values and perspectives that you really want to share.

34:30So for us, it's flavor and taste is one. So Sumo Citrus and the partnership with them was anchored in flavor and taste and then artistry and craft. And so Mackenzie Childs and Hill House our artistry and craft. And so being able to bifurcate that way, we're really clear. And so when we have other partners that come to us and we have partners coming to us a lot, we're able to say, does it fit in one of these two? And if it doesn't, does it make sense for us?

35:00Aishwarya Iyer:Beyond just sales, how do you measure if a partnership was successful? I would say like brand lift and brand trust, like a new unlock of a new audience. Even if there's a shared audience, there's still like a segment of a new audience. So we look at that really closely. You recently launched a sub stack. Yeah. About the intersection of business and spirituality. What does that mean to you? We are all inherently, we are spiritual beings just happening to have a human experience in this lifetime, in this moment. And when you start a company, especially you end up on like kind of the mirror gets held up to you and you have to face yourself in some very, no matter what the mirror gets held up to you and anything that you do as a human, as a company, it just like, I think it accelerates it and just shows it faster because the learning curve and everything we've talked about is so hard.

35:58And so you're faced with yourself constantly. And so ultimately, you have nowhere to go but here. And you have nowhere to turn to but yourself. And so it does serve as like an unlock into your, for some people, like into your spirituality. And it certainly has for me. and so I've just learned a lot. I'm constantly learning and so I wanted to share because even the little snippets that I was sharing on my own social, I got so much feedback from other folks saying we want to hear more and so now I get to share some of that and it's very unvarnished. Like a founder DMed me on Instagram and was like, I started my company a couple of years ago but I'm not having fun at all and I'm actually miserable.

36:41I thought it would be so much more rewarding. I thought it would give me this fulfillment. And so I had a really, usually I would send a voice note back when people send me things like that. And so I decided to take that and actually turn it into a sub stack piece of, okay, so where do we go from here?

37:00Aishwarya Iyer:I read that piece. I read all of your pieces. They're beautifully written. But what did you say back to that founder? I said that if you're thinking that a company is going to give you anything, I want to like reframe that and ask you, what do you think you're lacking and missing in the first place? Because if you think that anything is going to give you anything, you're just, or giving you more, you're always going to be looking for more. And if you're waiting for those external validators, like thinking that this is going to be the pinnacle and this is what's going to drive your feelings of satisfaction, you're going to be sorely mistaken because this and press and just all of that is 0.01 % of what actually is required to build day to day.

37:48And so I encourage that person to really do some soul searching around what they're actually motivated by.

37:56Aishwarya Iyer:Yeah. If you think that anything external is going to be the answer, a job, an amount of money, an accolade a relationship whatever there's no there there right like nothing outside of you will be your salvation like you are your own salvation right but that's so hard and even when you get it it's like you're on the horse you fall off the horse you're on the you're on the path you fall off the path you're on there it happens to me all the time where I'm like no no you know this you've learned this come back to it right have you found yourself learning it thinking I'll never forget and then forgetting and having to come back.

38:37Yeah, every day. I think that's just it. I think that's like the glory and the, yeah, the glorious part of being a human. How do you bring yourself back? Do you have specific practices? Yeah, I use the open app very, very diligently. And that brings, helps bring me back. And then And there are a few books that I read again and again, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. And I listen to him. And that helps bring me back. And then sometimes I just let myself be the human being too.

39:12Aishwarya Iyer:Totally. You also became a mom. Yep. What impact did that have on your approach to being a leader and building Brightland? More me, I would say. I think I was trying on different masks and just sort of seeing, okay, who am I? And I think that it just solidified a little bit more of like the meanness of it all. Not meanness, but meanness. Yeah. And then, yeah, unapologetic about time. Time is definitely different now. I will say no to a lot of things. And it's actually better because I'm not chasing or like saying yes to things out of the, oh, well, you know, it feels like there's so much time.

39:54There just isn't. And so it's actually just been very fortifying and like, I think it like tightens you up. So I'm thrilled. It's so, and then, and then I think that as it relates to how I think about my company, like you have to have, you know, an amazing team. You can't try to do it all. You can't martyr yourself. I apply those same practices to being a mom. I'm not at all like, oh, I just have to be end all be all. It's just all on me. I have a partner and we have an incredible support system, whether it's hired or family. You just have to do that. For me, I can't try to be a martyr. It won't work.

40:39Got to ask for help. Yeah.

40:40Aishwarya Iyer:Got to learn to ask for help. It's another tough one. These are a lot of like really important and simple but not easy lessons to enact in your own life. Eight years in to Brightland. What does your inner voice sound like today? I don't know. Something came to mind that was just like, you got it going on. Like, all right. You know, like just sort of like let's have fun with it. Yeah. Yeah. Grounded confidence. I think people take it like so seriously and it doesn't have to be that serious. That's what my inner voice wants to say. It doesn't have to be that serious. It really shouldn't be. Because if, you know, with my sub stack, one finding that I had recently was that if we're trying to compare ourselves, like if we want to understand our scale and the size of the perceivable universe, I was sort of thinking, okay, maybe are we one grain of sand?

41:33and then the universe, the size of the universe is all of the other grains of sand on all of the beaches of the world. That's the way to describe it. And so I asked Claude, AI, and what it actually said was, no, it's if you take one grain of sand and put every single person on this planet on that grain of sand and then zoom out and all the other grains of sand on all the world, that is actually the scale, closer to the scale. So just a reminder of like how insignificant and small is all of this. And if it's just happening, just everybody's lifetime is like this droplets in the grand scheme of things.

42:15And you have the opportunity to laugh and make amazing memories and just have a good time. Why aren't we doing that even in the course of like building a business?

42:25Aishwarya Iyer:I think when some people think about that, the response can be like, well, then like, what's the point? Right? Yeah. Like the nihilistic, like, what's the point? Yeah. But that is the point is to then find the happiness and experience. So for me, what I think about a lot, and I'm sharing this with founders who I'm talking to a lot who are at a crossroads. I have a friend right now. She's trying to decide if she wants to keep going with her business, maybe raise another round, like hammer through or, you know, like grind it out or find a seller, like sell the business and move on. And she's really torn.

43:00And I asked her, you know, and she's like, everyone's been telling me do this or do this. And I was like, neither in my perspective, neither of those answers are the right one. Neither of them are the wrong one. It's really which life experience do you want to be having? It's just a collection of life experiences. Do you want to experience the trials and tribulations that come with grinding it out for another few years and whatever that's going to look like? Do you want to experience the trials and tribulations and the potential joy that come from the process of an acquisition? That's a new skill to acquire, new life experience.

43:37It's just a collection of life experiences. I love that. Ash, you're a delight.

43:43Aishwarya Iyer:Thank you so much for being here today. Oh, it's so much fun. and thanks to all of you for tuning in as always hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new episodes leave us a comment with your favorite olive oil flavor and we'll catch you next time