From Shark Tank to Viral Success w/ Annie Leal (I Love Chamoy)

0:00This is what's so great about, I think, creator marketing nowadays is like you don't have to be an influencer. It could be absolutely anybody who loves the product, who has more than a thousand followers, and they can make a video, and that video can blow up.

0:17Hey, Annie, welcome to the show. How are you? I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Of course, me too. Today we talk about, you know, very fun stuff, right? On the business side, but also what does it mean to create, like, you know, a brand from scratch and, you know, your appearance on Shark Tank and, you know, getting different cultures together on social media. So very excited about this episode. Before we get started, you know, the way we know more about our guests, it is using the map that is basically the very free section, right? So it's the mission. What do you aim to achieve?

0:48The achievements, anything that you are very, like, you know, proud of, any notable milestone could be in your life, in your career, or both. And the last one is the purpose. So why do you do what you do? Oh, I love that. Okay, for what I want to achieve is to inspire other people. If anybody has an idea they just know could work. I hope that me sharing my story works. Achievements, so many. I think professionally seeing my product in the stores for the first time, I'll never forget that moment. Seeing my dad hold the bottle for the first time. Being on Shark Tank. But from a personal standpoint, my parents seeing their sacrifices pay off for me and my sister being in this country, priceless.

1:26I love that Latinos can take up space anywhere they go. So I, you know, I wanted to take a space in business and in the grocery store aisle and on TikTok and everywhere else. So I think that's part of the purpose. Fantastic. And you already mentioned it right now. So about, you know, the Shark Tank appearance. And, you know, I would like to know a bit more about that because there are like, you know, so many episodes. I watch them, not the more, but like a lot of them. Right. And so all the time you can learn something different. Right. But when you watch it from, you know, like TV, it's 30 minutes.

1:58Right. I know that usually like two or three hours of recording and they kind of a lot of things, there is a lot of pressure. So why don't you tell us a bit more about that experience and also how did it help in terms of publicity after that? Absolutely. So, I mean, like most people, I've been watching Shark Tank my entire life. I was watching you when I lived in Mexico. Like I would watch, you know, the first couple of seasons. And always of the show is always a dream to go. And you're right. Like it's, you know, usually we tend to see 10 minutes of kind of like the interview process and the negotiation.

2:25Usually that's between 40 minutes to an hour. And it's a real business discussion. Like there's, you know, there's a hundred other people on side, but it's only the sharks in you who are talking. Nobody else intervenes. You only have one chance to do your monologue, which is a question that people ask a lot. Like you, you get it right, you get it right. And it's, it was an exciting, it was an amazing experience. I loved it. It was crazy and intense and a real business conversation. but I will say since being on the show, I have not been able to watch another episode because I get so nervous for the entrepreneurs.

2:59Like I feel how I'm like, oh my God, I know where you walked. I know how nervous you were. It's like, it kind of changes the experience a little bit. No, I can't imagine that. You know, once you've been there, you're already like, okay, they're going to ask this. And if he doesn't know this, it's going to go in that direction. It's going to be good and so on. So I can only imagine that. and and so how how did you use that like i mean i'm pretty sure of course and i saw some of your own videos where you commented right uh you know like there's some clips on on tiktok so of course you know we all know right it helps right for publicity but is there anything else that you learn from from that process on being there yeah i mean i think it really teaches you how to give an elevator pitch of your business which is always needed and how to know your numbers like straight or back like i think for me the biggest challenge and the biggest lesson was that I, you know, Chamoy is something that is very close to my culture.

3:52So anybody who's Mexican, a lot of people who are Latino, if you live in California, Texas, you know what Chamoy is. The sharks were all, none of them had Hispanic descent. They were all discovering Chamoy for the first time. So it does teach you how to speak about your product, especially if it's a cultural product to a completely new audience into America. So like right after the episode air, what was really, really amazing and rewarding was we received hundreds of emails per night. And we had like 17 ,000 people on the website at one point at the same time. It was insane. But a lot of those people were saying, hey, this is the first time I'm trying Jamoite.

4:27I've never heard of it. I saw you on Shark Tank and now I love it. Or I can't wait to try it. Or that is kind of like shows you the power of the platform like Shark Tank. And also like, oh, there's like so many potential customers that I haven't even tapped into yet because they're just discovering what this specific product is for the first time. And so for people listening today, what is the product? Like again, what is going to be delivered to a peach that I don't know if it's going to be the same that you use as a shark tank or something different. Maybe, you know, you trade new flavors and sauce, but I'm curious for people that might not know the product.

5:00So chamoy is a Mexican candy sauce. So it's basically Mexican candy liquefied. If you've never had Mexican candy, think of it like a Mexican teriyaki sauce. Sweet, spicy, and tangy. Usually it's packed with sugar and it's delicious. My version is a diabetic-friendly version. So we use monk fruit instead of sugar. We use no artificial vies and it has significantly less jodium. And it's enjoyed over fruits, vegetables, drinks. I mean, it just makes everything taste delicious. And like it's not good for you, but if you use a tomoy, it's fantastic. Amazing. I can imagine that. And so let's go a bit more in detail when it comes to how to promote something.

5:40Because again, Shark Tank, it's a different format, but then you can use clips and so on. But that's done, right? You cannot reshoot it, right? You cannot do too much about it. But what you can do is to create your own content, getting influencers, content creators, talking about the product. You can organize giveaways. You can do whatever you want in that. So let's go a bit more in detail when it comes to your own promotional content. I saw that yourself, you're making videos. I saw yourself a video where you bought your own product. And you were like, it's so cool that I can do it, right? I just like, because it's mine, why not, right?

6:16So let's talk a bit more about all these social commerce aspects. Is that something that you started from day one? Did you start primarily at BTC and did you manage everything online before going to retail? Tell me a bit more about that. Yeah, to me, you know, I had no experience in the food industry. So, but I had some experience in the e-commerce, like, you know, T-shirts, merch, stuff like that. So I kind of treated the food, the food category as if it was like a sneaker drop. So I was like, I'm going to, that's the only thing I knew. So I went DTC direct to consumer. And the strategy behind that was as well, cash flow.

6:49It's, you know, if you, if you work with a big retail partner, they pay you 15, 30, 60 days after you deliver the product. Some, some, some pay you six months after. That's not great for a startup business. That's not great for somebody new. with the DTC is like you get paid before you even deliver the product yes you're delivering in two days but still it's it's it does make a difference so for us that made us a very very healthy business from the start and then to your point like what you know what was the first things I did I did everything that was free because there was no marketing budget so social media we started with zero followers and I just started posting uh why I started the business these weren't professional videos.

7:26Till this day, we don't shoot any professional footage. It's me with a phone, me showing you how our product is made, showing you how people react to it. And I think we're living in an age where people appreciate that authenticity. I always say it's not like the CEO of Coca-Cola can like record himself buying the product or the grocery store, but it's something that small businesses can do. And it really inspires your potential customer base. And I know that he you know it depends by different goals and everything but have you identified the best social media for you is it like is it tiktok is it is it instagram is it is it facebook right like we were finding out that all the time that people think that tiktok is the best but it depends by the personas that you're selling to if you're doing bundles if you do different offers it depends by the location right they're buying from so have you something like do you have anyone that like any any any of those that you prefer are you still testing them out all together at the same time are you like doing different percentage of budgets and time efforts that you put in yeah so if you would have asked me like when we launched i think tiktok had the biggest impact in our business by far by far like the reach is insane the fact that now tiktok shoppix is is huge and i will tell you we've seen a lot of success with instagram specifically with reels in the last and i would say in the last year so instagram grows a bit slower from a follower account but when it comes to views and when it comes to reach it's pretty impressive facebook we dabble a little bit i think facebook is great for like community management for like answering questions stuff like that but for now those are like tiktok and instagram are kind of like our main priority and we tend to do video so just video across the board for us vertical video is is is a killer for us that's great what type of videos are working the best for you is it like when you film yourself going to again you know retail like you know and buy your own product is it when you ask people on the street to maybe test the product or is it like influencer content again is there something that works or or like is there a sort of 80 20 uh you know part of the principle there have you identified something yeah you know it's a it's a mix i will say like i will tell you like the ones that work the least is the trending ones so like you know a lot of people come up to me and be like oh but i i cannot keep up with the trends and i'm like oh those don't even work for me i think to me like like vlog style when I'm like, hey, I'm bringing you with you to like, you know, try this new product that I'm making or help me pick the, you know, the best packaging, a lot of content with my dad.

9:53Like if I go to the grocery store and I'm doing sampling, you know, I like bringing people with me. They really enjoy that. And then sprinkling in there some recipes do well for us. Funny enough, we're not known for our recipes. I think people take our product and like make whatever they want with it. They like the story element more. And then, you know, maybe 5-10 % of the content that does really well is trending video. But I would say to people, like, they just kind of want to know why you're doing it and how you're doing it, for the most part. Totally. No, we discussed this about, you know, another episode where we said the importance these days of, especially for startups, new products, of seeing the behind the scene, right?

10:31They want to see that you have certain values, that you are producing things where, you know, it's grocery free and everything is like, you know, it's made in a certain way, the DNA behind that. There are also the people behind that, right? And your case also, you know, there is a story behind that. People want to see that. And something also, I saw another video where, you know, the label was chosen, right? And designed thanks to TikTok. So can you tell me a bit more also, like how do you use comments and feedback from people to co-create something? Is it easy? Is it something that it takes a lot of iteration?

11:05Because the idea is, oh, of course, I'm going to get the feedback from people. I'm going to do it. But then I'm pretty sure that there is a lot going on there. So do you do it all the time? Do you do it just for some drop, let's say, for specific flavors? Yeah, it's funny that you say that because historically, it's always been fantastic for us when it comes to anticipating a drop. So for the mango flavor, which was the second scoop we ever released, we made it a big deal. We let them choose what flavor we were going to release first. We let them design the label, meaning like, you know, I knew the label, I wanted it to be in the mango colors, but I had four different color palettes that I wanted them to help me pick from.

11:40And I think the thing that could potentially scare small business owners and entrepreneurs the most is like you're asking for opinions, you're going to get opinions. So you kind of, that's the only thing you kind of have to have a thick skin because there's going to be a lot of things that they're going to tell you it's a bad idea. And you're going to receive not every comment that you receive, you have to follow. But it really created an exciting momentum with our audience. And so, you know, the moment that I was like, okay, we picked the label, thank you guys. They were like, okay, but when is it dropping?

12:09Okay, but I want to buy it. And so it gave us a very, very successful drop. And we've been doing it for the majority of the products ever since. Yeah, it's just, it's never been, it's never been a bad idea. So if any small business owners are able to do that, by all means, find a way that you can get the opinion of your customer base. Is your brand ready to amplify its reach while the influencer marketing factory is here for you? We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth. From influencer identification to campaign strategy, handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics, we got you all covered.

12:45We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from Fortune 500 companies to direct-to-consumer brands. And we don't just stop there. With detailed ROI analysis, we help brands like yours measure success, transforming impressions into conversions. You can find us at theinfluencermarketingfactory.com or just searching the Influencer Marketing Factory on Google. And there are other best practices when it comes to Pramatic and, you know, on the DTC. So, like, if there are other entrepreneurs out there today or, like, mini brand marketers that want to launch something by themselves, anything else that you learned that you would like to share with them?

13:22I think marketing is the perfect mix of art and science, right? So, I love the art part. I love like that storytelling. And, you know, it's exciting. Like if I'm if I'm if I'm on social media and I see a video doesn't even have to be a video from a business. It's going to be about anything. Right. And I stop and watch more than five seconds. Then I'm like, why did I watch it? Right. I'm like, what emotions did it like? Did it did it did it ignite in me? And then the rest is look at the data. Right. Like look at when it comes to social media, look at retention rates. Like how long is your customer watching?

13:52Like, for example, I noticed that the videos where for 50 % of the video, 50 % of people watched, those videos do great. Like, they tend to go viral, right? And then you pay attention to the video and you're like, oh, yeah, like, I proposed a problem at the beginning of the video and told them that the solution was going to be at the end. So the majority of them are watching the entire way through. So it is like, I think a lot of, a big issue that a lot of creators or entrepreneurs get into is like, because it's our baby, right? It's our business. We assume that everybody cares about it and everybody's going to listen to everything we say and everybody's going to find it exciting.

14:31And that's just not the truth. Like you kind of have to be like realistic with yourself. be like okay how do I need to phrase this story so like the regular smegular person on social media will feel passionate about it so it's a lot of that and then from from a DTC standpoint like something that was really great for us was that from day one we've been collecting newsletter information emails we have zip codes so like now you know we launched in retail a year later and we had the most profitable zip codes and we were able to give that to our grocery store partners and be like, our audiences are here, right?

15:07And if we launch, you know, we're launching in the East Coast in a couple of weeks, we have all the zip codes. So I can be like, I can send an email blast to those zip codes and be like, yo, you can find us in this grocery store now. So plan now, even if it's super, super small, because in, you know, in a couple months, in a couple of years, what you did at the beginning might be really, really amazing. Absolutely. Better to have more data from the beginning, right? Then going back and trying to retrieve it because that is going to be quite difficult. The more you grow, right? Exactly, exactly.

15:35And so what about when it comes to influencer marketing, right? Content creators, how do we approach it? Because like in the past, I mean, many episodes we talk about it, different type of brands, small, medium, big, and all the time there is different approaches, right? There are brands that are like, you know what? This is the product that you do whatever you want with your own style, tone of voice and whatever. Other brands are more like dictating on specific script to say. Others are a bit in the middle, like use yourself, but these are the guidelines. Where are you in these sort of like, you know, fear?

16:07I'm full liberty. I'm like, say whatever you want to say. Like, there's kind of two different types of creators that we work with. One is like through the affiliate program on TikTok shop has been really incredible for us. So there we don't pick and choose which creators we work with, right? Anybody. And this is what's so great about, I think, creator marketing nowadays is like, you don't have to be an influencer. It could be absolutely anybody who loves the product, who has more than a thousand followers, and they can make a video. And that video can blow up. There's some creators that made$20 ,000 on commission just from posting authentic content with our Chamoy.

16:43I love that. And they can have their liberties. And then there's some creators that we do reach out to. There's a creator that we're going to work with this week who I'm so excited about. She's this mom. She works in the root fields in California. And part of the culture. there's just there's just something about this creator that's just like i'm like that's i love tamoy like that matches so we reach out to them we want to work with you all they have to do is tag the product other than that i'm like i like them having creative liberty because they know how to talk to their audience better than i know how to talk to their audience you know so that that has been pretty pretty successful for us maybe in the future it will change but for for now doing that has been really great and we've also been doing a couple in-person events so like we did um we sponsored a couple latina centered comedy shows in la and new york stuff like that has been really exciting for us as well so you know all this type of content right so the tiktok videos and instagram reels even when you when you go to retail it's all like you know asynchronous right because you post something people can comment right but it doesn't happen in real time what happens in real time is it is like shopping right so we discussed already in other episodes how it's getting bigger as a thing.

17:53It's still a very niche market, like, you know, compared to, let's say, China, right, or Indonesia or other markets, but it's getting there. So I would like to know more, like, first of all, like, if you already experimented and tested live shopping, and if so, have you identified what works and what doesn't? Because, you know, it's difficult, right, to do live shopping in a proper way because it takes, like, a good host, six hours sometimes of live streaming nonstop, a lot of curry a lot of energy so first of all have you done it yourself and and or did you like had another host tell me a bit more about that because i'm quite curious to see how do you approach live shopping absolutely no we we've done live shopping we're currently still uh trying to crack it do what you said it's like it's six hours like you really have to give it give it three to six hours but it's every time we go live it's been successful so right now we're going live three times a week every time we do two to three hours and like we're slowly trying to increase that and yeah we noticed at the moment we hit hour and a half we see more people coming in what we've learned as well and i you know i have i have other friends who have tiktok shop businesses who have met through the industry and they give great advice they have like something that someone told me was like you want to have like one heavily discounted product you know the product that's bringing people in but then you have your shiny product and that is where your your better margin is right so let's say guys like this product that we have maybe excess inventory on or whatever we're doing a 50 % off sale but then but then guys while you're here like this fifth you know this is 15 % off and this is where this is where you kind of get your get your your margins so there's so many strategies and they kind of work differently for different people but I think like the more that you can entertain the more that you can engage with your audience the more more than you can be high energy and the more consistent that you can be so for us you know now we have the schedule we're sticking to that and then slowly but surely if we could eventually build up to go in the night every single day that would be amazing yeah because exactly that was one of the things i wanted to discuss about incentives right because all the time what i say is that why should i be watching a live shopping thing if there are no discounts there are no drop collections at that point i can just go on amazon i can go there a direct website whenever i want instead of like wasting my time, right?

20:08And so you said that, right? So you do sometimes bundle, sometimes you do a big discount. How do you analyze the data after the single event, right? Is it through TikTok, like live shopping? Is it something that you do on the side? How can you understand, in addition to, of course, how much you sold, if it was successful and how do you learn what to test for the next time? TikTok just provide you all the data after the live, right? And you just get to match it so you start seeing spikes where you're like okay this we grew a lot in followers during this part right and it just happens to be the part where you're like telling everybody hey i'm gonna do a giveaway once we get to like a hundred thousand likes so people are going crazy guys share this video once more people join i'm gonna go do a giveaway so like you see a spike so like people will follow if you have them engage people will do what you're asking them to do and then another time other other times is like okay guys we're gonna do a flash sale in 10 minutes during those 10 minutes you see a spike in sales right and the moment those 10 minutes are off it's it's down but you can also be like hey i might do another one you know and in 30 minutes and people will stay i don't know i don't i have no idea how people are like watching like what what they're doing at the same time i'm fascinated i would love to know but there there are correlations that you can find with with the spikes and the best performing moments of your your life and then also the love moments you know like there's there was a time where i was like oh guys i'm gonna i'm gonna call call out like who is shopping right so i'm looking at my computer and not looking at the audience and you start seeing the, you know, people come disengaged, like they want to talk to you.

21:39So when we tend to plan for the next live, it's like, okay, the giveaways work really well. How can I hit all the notes and hopefully have a more successful one than the day before? And what is it about like real-time feedback or questions? Is it about a product? Is it about, you know, again, do they ask you about, let's say like, you know, they get in after 20 minutes, right? There was already a drop or something. Do they ask you like, oh, when is the next one? Like what type of questions do they actually usually ask for a product like this? There's a lot of people that come into the first text.

22:11A lot of people ask like, what is chamoy, right? That we get that a lot. What should I eat it with? You get a lot of comments of people being like, can the next flavor be this? Can the next, you know, people get very excited about that. And then sometimes people want to know about, you know, your personal life. Sometimes people want to know like where you make the product. There's times where I've had a friend on the live and they're asking questions. If I'm talking about the Shark Tank experience, they want to ask about that. But very often it's similar to the same questions we get on our feed.

22:38It's just people, you know, you answer the question and they might ask a follow-up. And people like when you call out their names, but you say like, oh man, you know, I'm answering this person's question, like and stuff like that. People feel engaged. And, you know, I have a last question for you. And then please, of course, you know, add anything else on top. And maybe we didn't, you know, cover a lot to hear from you. What is missing right now in the industry? So not only related to your product, right? But for anyone that has their own product, they want to do live shopping, they want to do more social commerce, they want to use social media, they want to use creators, influencers.

23:12What is missing and what do you like to see happening in the next year? I think there's so many incredible brands being grown through social media and through e-commerce. I think we're seeing a lot of success with TikTok shop brands. We're seeing a lot of growth. And a lot of people are single owners. They self-funded the company like myself. I think it would be great to see an easier way for these brands who have millions of followers, millions of fans and customers around the world, figure out how they can then, if they want to, occupy space in the retail space. Like, how do they, I think there's an opportunity there for somebody to be able to help support these brands, bring them into a bigger market, bring them like outside of the platform while still playing on the platforms so they can become, so they can take up space.

24:00You know, I've seen, you see, I think of, you know, this is an extreme example, but you see Beastables, Mr. Beast's chocolate candy, like, you know, beating Hershey's for the first time. Like, it's, times are changing, right? And it's like, look, he has a whole team, but I think there's a lot of companies that are geared up to do something similar. and I'm just interested to see what's going to happen if they're if they're going to become competitors of the big guys if the big guys are going to acquire like I'm just I think it's an interesting thing absolutely no I do remember many stories of people that started from their own kitchen and they sold for like almost a billion you know the the big guys and some people want to do that and some others is like you know what I don't want to do that because I started this because I wanted to fight you know against the the usual suspects right taking over uh we with maybe, you know, like again, you know, something that is either like, you know, without sugar or trying to fight a bit all the problems that, especially in the US, right, when it comes to sugar consumption.

24:53We also did another episode about that with a similar product. Is there anything else that I didn't ask you today that you want to add? Is there something that you're like closely following, you're excited about, or maybe something about your own product? I mean, if there is anything exciting coming up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited. We just released our first seasoning. Our first I Love Chamoy seasoning. is like a think of it like a powder chamoy so it's like like a sweet tajin so good it's so good it might be my new favorite new favorite product for my old company and then it's that what's exciting is we're going to use that same seasoning for our candy so i'm getting the sanded prototype of our candy which i do i'm excited because i do believe that's going to be a game changer for us i keep telling people you can buy a bottle of chamoy at like the airport you know what i mean like you can buy a bag of candy.

25:40So I think it's going to open our footprint, our retail footprint. And I'm just excited to share that experience. And if anybody wants to help us pick up the packaging, go to our TikTok. I'm going to be talking about it really soon. Amazing. Very excited, you know, to see what happens next. Send you, you know, the good vibes for that. And congratulations on everything that you built. It's quite an exciting journey. So we'll continue following that on your social media. And thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it. Thank you. This was the Influence Factor by the Influencer Marketing Factory and I'll see you next week.