711: Natasha Quit Her 9-To-5 In June - Her Drink Bottle Brand Now Does $15K/Month

0:00Hey founder fam, before we jump in, I want to take a quick moment to talk about our sponsor OmniSend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending OmniSend to founder students and members of our platform for a while now because it just works. So whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling it to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get results. And did you know, on average, OmniSend customers make$79 for every$1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment. And if you're already on another platform, here's the thing.

0:35In just five days, you could actually be paying 35 % less without doing an absolute thing. OmniSend will move every flow across, list, and template. You just show up when it's done. And finally, because you're part of the founder community, you get 50 % off your first three months with the code FOUNDER50. Just head to OmniSend.com forward slash founder and that's founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump in the show.

1:06Welcome to Little Empires, brought to you by the team at Founder. At Founder, our mission is to support the next generation of e-com founders. So while you may know us for interviewing some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, this series is a little different. Little Empires shines a spotlight on the builders inside our own founder community, the entrepreneurs who are in the trenches, taking action, learning, and building their businesses in real time. These aren't overnight success stories. These are real journeys, real lessons, and real founders creating their own little empires one step at a time.

1:39This podcast is proudly produced by the founder team to give our students a platform to share their experiences, wins, challenges, and honest realities of building a business from the ground up. Now, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome to the Founder Little Empires podcast. I'm your host, Leah Fitch. I'm here with Natasha Berger, the founder of Mode and Opal, dialing in from New Zealand with us today. Natasha, it's so good to have you here on the podcast. Hi, Leah. I'm so excited. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. Excellent. Well, tell us about Modenopal. Tell us about how it all started.

2:18So for me, Modenopal, I launched that late 2025. So I started it when I was on maternity leave. My second son at that time, he cried all the time. He cried until he was five months old. And then I was just thirsty all the time, essentially. So for me, I started Modenopal because I couldn't find a drink bottle that I really loved at that time and the difficult time in my life. And I basically was fed up like the one groom mold that it's a really well known, well known brand. And I couldn't drink from it anymore. I ended up drinking from a glass and that's just not portable with kids around. So essentially, like my founder story is very similar to other founders where they couldn't find a specific product that worked very well for them.

3:04And I remember talking to a friend and she's also working nine to five. She's an accountant. So she's very much in the same life stage as me. She has two little kids. And I said to her, like, just on the passing by, like, hey, I really think I need to find another drink bottle because nothing in the market is working for me at the moment. And I'm so frustrated with it. And I just kind of left that conversation with her. And then I would say, like, three or four weeks later, she came back and she's like, hey, like, that drink bottle thing you mentioned, are you still doing it? And, like, that conversation really stuck with me because, like, she was, like, saying she was using, like, one of those plastic pump bottles that she uses.

3:40and she keeps refilling it because she loves how much water that one gives when she goes to spinning classes, that sort of thing. But she also didn't find a drink bottle that really worked for her. So I guess like that whole saga, like me struggling with a good drink bottle in my specific stage of life and her coming back to me really made me think that I think there's more of us out there. And that's kind of how Mote and Opal started. Okay. All right. And so this is products that grew out of your own experience, which we see a lot in our founder community. I'd love to learn a bit more about your background before this started.

4:15So did you have any experience in e-commerce, marketing, product development? Like, tell us a bit about your background. I've got a little bit of, I like to say, everything experience. So I worked and my family moved from South Africa to New Zealand in 2019. So we've been here for going on eight years now. And so we're citizens. You know, New Zealand is our home. But my experience is really in graphic design. So that's where I started. I'm a graphic designer. I came to New Zealand as a graphic designer, stayed in the company. It's a very big technological company with headquarters in Hamilton.

4:48It's got international markets around the world. So with that, when I worked in graphic design, when COVID hit, a lot of my work went online. And then I needed a team to really keep up with the demand of work that I was dealing with at the time. So I naturally went into a little bit of corporate management. I started managing a graphic design team, worked my way up in the seven years that I worked for them. Then I managed a few interns and then technical staff and customer support staff. So I think my background is more like end to end. I've got the inner workings of like, how does a multimillion dollar company work?

5:28You know, customer support is really important, but so it's product development. But I didn't work in that really. So e-commerce experience, I've got zero, like nothing. So e-commerce is another beast. But I think my background with like graphic design, it's very well-rounded. But e-com was still like a challenge because, yeah, it's just something that you've never done it. it's something that you don't just figure out by yourself. Yeah, of course. And so you've got some of that great creative background and creative flair that you could apply into a whole different market. And I'm keen to learn about all these skills that you've developed since entering e-commerce.

6:06Can you tell us about what pushed you to take the leap and start Modernoble? So I think it was really, it was that conversation with a friend. So because she came back to me and asked me, hey are you really thinking about that business like it's a drink bottle right like everyone uses a drink bottle so it's not something you just sit there and go I really think there's a gap in the market I want to sell a drink bottle that like there's so many out there but I think for us it was because she came back to me and went I can't find anything and she's in Australia I'm in New Zealand and she can't find anything that she really needed you know I think that just made me go, let me find something better.

6:44Like that was a very defining moment in me realizing I need to find a better drink bottle. And so you became clear on who the product is for and new mums and convenience and hydration on the go, being able to stay hydrated. What would you say is particularly unique about your drink bottle? Oh, at the end of the day, you know, I think it's funny because a A drink bottle is a drink bottle. Like you need water and you need to drink from it. But I think what makes it really different is it's so easy to use. So if you're a busy mom, if you're pregnant, if you're breastfeeding, if you're working nine to five, you don't want to faff around with a perfectly fine drink bottle.

7:29If you're going to the gym, you don't want something leaking in your bag. So I think like for me, the bottle is different because it solves a big frustration. And when I did some research on specific designs, like I saw that people were really annoyed with how difficult it is to clean some of the bottles, especially a straw bottle. So I knew, you know, that was a pain point for my audience or it leaked in their bags or, you know, just difficult to carry around. And when you want a one liter bottle, you don't want to be lugging around everywhere. So where my bottle is really different, it's got a lot of ergonomic features.

8:01So even on the side, it's a one liter bottle, but you can hold it really easily because there's indents. Like the handle is ergonomically shaped. And even some of the women that use my bottle, because the spout, I always say I probably should put a warning because the water comes out really fast. It's very, very difficult to explain. But that's like the feedback that I get from people is the mouthpiece is shaped ergonomically to your lips and then the inside has a straw. But you can also remove the straw from the inside and it's just a normal chug bottle. So you can really tailor it to fit into your life.

8:36And then like a lot of women who use the bottle, like this wasn't even something that I thought of in the beginning. You know when you pucker and you drink from a straw, like some people say you get like lines around your mouth, right? So because this is an ergonomic shape, you just use a straw bottle because it's easy to drink in the car, like that sort of thing. There's just a lot like ergonomically that works really well with the bottle. And I think if someone in my target audience, to me, they've tasted a lot of bottles. They've got the ones in the cupboards, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with it.

9:08I can drink from it. But they've tasted a lot and they know what makes a good drink bottle. So they wouldn't come to me going, oh, I want to see what's out there. They already know what works and what doesn't. Okay. This is fascinating, right? Because we're getting into the details of that design, product development piece, how you've changed the design, the function, and ultimately what makes it a super, super easy to use, super ergonomic type product marketed to expectant mothers, new mums, breastfeeding, postpartum. This is typically your target customer, right? Yeah, yeah. Even just nine to five as well.

9:48Because I've lived that life, I've come across a lot of women, I would say, that just needs a good drink bottle in a specific busy time of their lives. Yeah, excellent. And what did you come across in terms of competitors? When you were doing your market research, there's a lot of drink bottles in this space and there's some big players that are really popular, like you mentioned. What did you come across when doing your competitor analysis? So I kind of went on Amazon first and I looked around like what was the number one selling product and I think at that stage it was a wallah and I looked at it and I went oh yep it looks okay maybe it's like a younger audience to what I'm marketing but I liked you know I read through all of the reviews and a lot of the you know it's difficult to wash that sort of thing.

10:34So pain points kept coming up and other bigger brands as well. That's notorious for not being easy to wash. Like that sort of thing. I just looked at the reviews and then I basically, it just validated what I felt. Because again, I've tasted so many bottles in my, you know, whatever, seven years of professional work life, right? So looking at their reviews and making sure that the product that I sourced essentially does tick most of the boxes. You won't, in the end, you won't satisfy every person's need and that's fine. But the thing I wanted to focus on real problems that I solve in my marketing.

11:13So it will be really difficult for me to sell a product that I'm not even convinced would work for me. So because I was obsessed with it as well and the reviews kind of validated my feelings, that I knew that I was onto something with a design that was, you put this lid in the dishwasher and it comes out clean. You know, there's no scrubbing straws or anything. And that was like one of the major red flags that always came up in the reviews. Okay. All right. So and these reviews are the reviews of your product once you've launched, right? So that was the competitors. so when I did market research I read their reviews and I went oh yeah people are really upset when they can't wash their bottle or um even something as simple as replacement seats so replacement seals replacement straws like if someone didn't offer that um then they were really unhappy about it and I get it you pay so much for a drink bottle but you're not able to replace the little small parts and you have to kind of pay for a whole nother bottle so when I like built my offer.

12:13Essentially, I put in replacement seal sets as a free add-on, or you can upgrade your straw to a stainless steel straw if you want to. So I kind of also leveraged that to push up my average order value. I knew the things that people wanted from other brands. So if I buy two bottles and you automatically get a free stainless steel straw, people really are drawn towards that. And that was from the market research I did before I launched this bottle. Yes. Okay. This is very clever. I want to learn more about this, Natasha. So your product phase and that market research, you went onto competitors' websites and you looked at their reviews and you looked at all the things that people complained about or pain points, things that they weren't happy with, things that were missing from competitors, and you've utilized that to increase the average order value and add-ons on your own product and site.

13:06Yeah. So again, a lot of people, when you go on to someone's website, there's a pop-up that says get 10 % off for your first sale. And what I figured out is that 10 % will cost me more than a free add-on, for example. So I was already kind of working on those mechanics of gifting and, you know, sign up and get a free bottle brush that's worth$23.99. And it works out less than 10%. So I was kind of already working with those sort of mechanics. So when I tried to push my average order value up, like the free shipping threshold didn't really do much for my average order value. People weren't really crossing it over.

13:46So I would say, you know, buy two bottles, which pushes my average order up like way much. way higher and then they can get a free stainless steel straw upgrade so the straw itself doesn't cost me a lot of money but to the customer it's very valuable and like a lot of them are already buying two bottles or they come back they buy for their husbands because they realize that this is a good drink bottle for my husband for my kids like they buy um like easily some of my customers buy three to four bottles in one go so giving them that upgrade was just a natural thing and then And I noticed that people were spending more to unlock those free gifts.

14:27Yes. Okay. And so that worked for you. That's fascinating. And so let's get into, before we get into more of those details around AOV, marketing, your growth, I'd love to go back to product sourcing, manufacturing. can you walk us through what did the version version one of your product look like compared to what you sell today so what's really interesting is because I wanted to bottle very fast I didn't want to spend ages on product development so I went on Alibaba I found a product that was really good I basically you know made sure that the colors were the colors that I wanted so I spend a lot of time on the colors that I wanted but I basically took a product from the shelf to be able to launch it really easily and fast because that's how fast I needed a drink bottle.

15:17So there was a little personal frustration for me. I'm not going to spend a lot of time developing something where I can find something that was really good. So that didn't take very long for me to find that one bottle that I really liked. It had good reviews, like the manufacturer had good reviews. I would say the first two samples that I had was already the colors that I have now, So that's part of my core collection. I did spend a lot of time. I think I ordered like three rounds of samples to get the position of the logo right. But looking back, that was such a waste of time because I nearly missed my launch date because I was shipping samples from China just to get the position of the logo right.

15:59And then my supplier, she was so nice. And she was basically telling me very nicely, you're wasting time, you know, sending the sample back and forth from China to New Zealand. And she said, you know what, you've seen our product, you've seen our quality and I can send you photos, right? So we can get it right. So she knew my launch date and then she was like, you're going to miss your launch date if we send you another round of samples. So I did lose a lot of time there and was really stressful when I did launch essentially. So the product I sell now, I would say I'm changing more like the packaging.

16:34I'm doing better packaging. I'm doing, you know, designing my packaging better. And because I started seeing in the beginning when I've sent out some of my parcels to influencers and UGC creators, I didn't love the way that one of the boxes looked like it wasn't like eye catching. So my next round of orders, I changed the bottles packaging because a lot of them were doing those unboxings on Instagram and it just looked way nicer. So that's where I would say that if I think about product development, I would say the whole offer around the bottles have changed way much than the actual bottles themselves.

17:11I will, my next round, get dishwasher safe spray paint. So I'll do dishwasher safe spray paint so they can put the actual bottle in the dishwasher as well to make it even easier to wash. Okay, cool. And that'll be another selling point for you, especially with your target customer avatar and that sense of convenience, making life easier while they've got their hands full. Yes. And so what did that first order look like? Like how many did you order? What was the MOQ? How much did it cost per unit? What were the timelines like? that was insane like I remember thinking back like that manufacturer wanted a thousand bottles and to me that was a really scary number because I think it worked out at around 50 ,000 New Zealand dollars and because it was 13 dollars per bottle and I couldn't really split it in skews I can do two colors but one size and I looked at other bottle designs as well but I didn't I really really wanted this one.

18:14So in the end, you know, I said, I just need to give it a go. I want to, you know, I can take my savings, but I also don't want to take my savings. So I ended up like taking out a loan because I figured that if it didn't work, I could sell off the stock, like just cheaply on marketplace and then pay off the$70 a week loan essentially for a few years. And that's fine. Like no harm, no foul, right? But that thousand units for me as an opening order was so scary and looking back at it like I'm so happy I did it because I've sold more than those many units now and I've ordered from them two three I think I've put in my third order with them already so I think I'm really happy that I made that decision but it was it was much higher than I was wanting to do so after I made that initial order and they sent me the stock my repeat purchases I was able to get them down to 600 units and then I could split it to three colors.

19:15Okay. And so did you go ahead in the first order? Did you go ahead with that thousand bottles? Yes. Very, very scary, but I did. So I ordered them, they came, they were late. It was very stressful. But then when I did my repeat purchases, they agreed that I can do 600 and then 200 per color. So it made it much easier going forward. And now I've got that relationship with them and they really support me where I need, you know, maybe I need to make a later payment or a smaller deposit. So that relationship with my manufacturer has been really important. Okay. And so you've been able to work with them and get that MO2 down and appreciate that with that longer term relationship.

19:57Yes. And so, okay, let's get into, so that first run, just to confirm, you did spend$15 ,000 for the first order. Yes. And then you reduced that MOQ down to 600 per repeat purchase from there. And I was able to do 200 per colour, not 500 per colour. So that made it much easier because the demand was like so big. Everyone wanted, you know, different colours. And there was one colour that I was keeping back. So the pink one, which is, that one runs out of the door even before it comes into New Zealand. So that specific colour has sold out twice. And it's already projected to sell out before Christmas, which is not ideal.

20:38and I don't have enough time to place another order and get more bottles in. So that's my pink bottle that I launched later on. So that was February, I think it was February 2026 this year. So I specifically kept the pink bottle back because I knew it was special and I wanted to just figure a few things out with my two core colors before I went full on with the pink color. so the pink one I ordered very low quantity I think it was about 50 bottles I can't remember the exact number but it was very low and my manufacturer allowed me to do it because I told her I want to test the market I want to test in three different sizes there was a 940 mils 770 and then a 500 mils so I purposefully launched the pink bottle like very you know later in the after the craziness of December and then it sold out I think in a week like it was insane like it just went out and I I did know that people would like it but I was overwhelmed with how quickly it went out so that was around the time that I had the biggest like like tap open on my my orders because I had another marketing like PR agency that ran some marketing for me so it was just like insane time and then I opened pre-orders I made a very quick decision to open pre-orders on the pink told my manufacturer I need more bottles so people were ordering in February and I only got the bottles to them in May so there was like they had to wait three months for the bottles and there was fun they they did like there were 60 people that ordered the pink bottles before I was even able to order them myself which made it possible for me to have more cash to place that order for them.

22:23Okay. So let's go back to the timeline a bit because I want to get this right in my head and get it really clear for our listeners. So that first order of a thousand bottles, do you remember roughly when that was? So I launched in November. So it was three months prior. Okay. So you placed that order three months before you launched? Yes. Okay. And that that lead time's okay? Yes, it's 90 days. Yeah, they take 30 days to produce and then 60 days on the water. And tell us about your launch, because I want to hear about the pre-orders with the pink bottle that bit later on, but tell us about that launch.

23:03Real quick, before we jump in, I want to shout out one of our sponsors, Xero. I've used Xero from day one of Founder, 13 years now, and it's still how we run the business today. It's cloud accounting software built for founders exactly like us, and it automates all the admin that I used to do when I first started Founder. Invoicing, chasing payments, expenses, all the accounting. It really helps me get paid faster and keep an eye on cash flow. So Founder listeners, get a crazy 95 % off for the first six months. Just sign up through our form at founder.com forward slash zero. Terms and conditions apply.

23:40Remember, when you support our sponsors. You are supporting the show. All right, now let's jump back in.

23:48Did you launch on Black Friday weekend or before then? I think by accident I launched Black Friday weekend. I didn't plan it. So I didn't think the launch was very big, but I didn't expect it to be. My motivation was just to launch and start selling because I knew when I started selling, I would get feedback from the customer, you know what works what didn't work so pre-launch I worked I contacted a few UGC creators I air freighted a very small amount of my larger shipment to New Zealand so that I can give that to creators to start posting on social media that was a month prior to me launching that was October 2025 and then when I launched to November my big shipment it was stuck like one kilometer from my house because like the the place that had the bottles the career company it was an unmanned place and hamilton is not small and i was just like so stressed so my husband ended up getting a trailer him and my dad went got the stock and luckily we launched in time but um so yeah that was the launch sold over christmas you know didn't go too bad i think i sold i looked back and i sold like a thousand dollars i think my first month and i was so happy was so validating because i was like I can sell more.

25:04That was just me sending bottles to UGC creators and they'd made$1 ,000 sales just from that, just from organic sharing. Did you have, before the launch, so UGC was your main marketing strategy, posting it to UGC creators. You made$1 ,000 in month one. Did you have a wait list? Did you build a wait list? Yes. So my email I knew from doing some research that, so this was before I started, I joined Founder. So I knew from my research that start your email waitlist from day one. I knew I didn't have it figured out, but I started it from day one. I had a mini chat automation that you can join. When anyone follows me, they get a link to sign up to my email to get that free gift.

25:50That works really well. So a third of my social media following is joining my email list. I'm doing nothing. And then my email list is just growing organically through my Instagram. So I think I had 100 people on my waiting list when I launched, which probably, you know, contributed to the sales. I think it's up to 2 ,200 now. So it's still like picking up and that's like, it's not a year yet. All right. Yeah, so you're, that's right. You're coming up to one year. Yes. So let's learn more about your marketing strategies in those first few months. So you were posting your drink bottles out to UGC creators.

26:31Did you have any targets for yourself of how many people you would send it to? No. So I've gotten way better targets now. I think I looked at my, like how many bottles could fit in one box being air freighted. And I think I sent out that many. I didn't send to influencers at that time. I just wanted to figure the market out a little bit. the thing with drink bottles was that everyone always has it with them so it's very easy for them to pop it on their stories and even now some of the creators I sent out product to way back in the beginning they're still putting content out there because they have their bottles with them always so I'm really lucky in that regard that a lot of bottles I sent out I get so many pieces of content back from them just organically posting because they're using and loving the bottles and then what I decided early on because this bottle I just found it on you know on a website and I started selling it as my own and I knew that I had to really focus on brand because like the product like anyone can copy a product very easily so in the very beginning I decided I would get into get into contact with a PR agency I was recommended someone through through some of my network and she was very, she was lovely.

27:44And basically it cost me like$3 ,900, which was insane because I wasn't even making that much, you know, revenue in my first month, but I was like set on, I'm going to do this PR run. And I met with her and she said, okay, press release, she'll write up a press release and she'll send it to her, you know, list of contacts. So I'm just thinking, you know, I need to protect brand. I need to build brand. Like it's not just product you have to think of both right I think in February that's when she sent the press release out so that's February 2026 so when she sent it out there was a small business Q &A from the staff network and they run that as a usual thing that they um she just interviews people and then it goes into a small piece in the in the paper it was the wikato times the I think um the post and the press but then the story was intriguing enough for her that she ran it as a full page like article in the paper and like that day I just knew that something happened because I started getting you know I think that day I had nothing crazy but it was like 20 sales so I was like something something is happening so I went online and then I saw that the story was posted on those through like very big newspaper like Wicata Times stuff um like the stuff network essentially and then from that one press release so I invested three thousand nine hundred dollars into this press release and I looked back and she gave me some statistics and like the PR value that we got from it was over four hundred thousand dollars like that's how much placements like this one press release got modenopel so we were in you know the kiora magazine which is like the national you know airline magazine from new zealand we were in house of wellness that's distributed at chemist warehouse and like there was i think 22 placements like women's weekly it was just that crazy the amount of I would say I think like she was saying like nine million accumulative views like just from this one press release so I made that investment like back like so so well okay wow that is great exposure and goes to show you really got your return there for that press release and it got you some great exposure as well.

30:10And so you repurposed that into Meta Ad Creative? Yes. So I was very hesitant in the beginning to do Meta because, again, it's a very strange platform when you first log in. And then I decided, you know, I paid for this exposure. I might as well, you know, share it more. So I kind of rode that wave of I can't remember when I started my Meta ads, But essentially, like the first ad I ran was a press focused ad. So, you know, this bottle that New Zealanders can't stop talking about, like that was the angle I ran and then showed all of the logos and everyone like that ad. I think I've got a click through rate of like 10 percent, which compared to all my other ads is massive.