This Mom Turned a $750 Etsy Side Hustle Into a $50M Wellness Brand | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E6

22:21Hala Taha:Are you a mom? Are you a cheerleader? Are you a mentor, a big sister, right? So I love that. So let's talk about your actual like business and the cost of creating a supplement. So you started with$750. Yes. Which is crazy. I actually just interviewed John Paul DeGioia, who's the founder of Paul Mitchell and Patron. And he started Paul Mitchell with$750. So you both started, he's got a billion dollar company. You've got a$50 million company, but man, like you've had exceptional growth. Thank you. You started manufacturing all the bottles by yourself. Now you have like a huge facility in Austin where you're manufacturing everything in the U.S.

23:02Hala Taha:Talk to us about some of the early like big learning lessons about being in the supplement industry, like in terms of like manufacturing and what you had to figure out and what is the most expensive part of the process? What is the most lucrative? part of selling a supplement? I talked about the first year I was making everything in-house and then my husband, you know, part of my French said, you either have to shit or get off the pot. This is either a company or it's not. It's either a really valid business idea or it's not. And you can't kind of have one foot, you know, there and one foot with us.

23:38And so you're stretched too thin. So we ended up finding a manufacturer in Dallas who made supplements, a very trusted manufacturer. and our initial PO was the smallest that they had ever received. They were taking... How much? It was only 500 bottles over the span of, I think, five products. And how much do you think that cost back then? Oh, gosh. I can't. It was a tiny, tiny, a few thousand dollars maybe. It was a tiny PO. Okay, so you did like a run, 500 bottles,$3 ,000 or something like that. Yes, they were not expecting. I mean, we had been vetted by other manufacturers and tried to talk to them.

24:15They were like, they just closed the door on us. they're like, this is too small. We're not taking the hit on this because there are expenses involved with even running a small PO like that on their line, right? Especially when they had bigger clients than us. And you did all the bottle design marketing. You did it all yourself. Absolutely. We had a fantastic designer who, you know, initially it was my clip art. And then I found a designer who basically took the ideas straight out of my head and put them on paper. She was so talented and she helped create our website and the women that are featured on there as well.

24:46And really just, I think, cemented that you kind of that housewife theme, that very cheeky, you know, look that we have. So we worked with this manufacturer. They really took a chance on us. And now we are their biggest client. We still are with them 10 years later. I'm very much of the, you know, if you take a chance on me, then you have my loyalty kind of for life. And so I appreciated that they're one of the few that didn't slam the door on us. And so that was initial, like first year just creating growth because at that point, you know, it had started to expand beyond the Facebook groups and moms were talking about it in their mom communities and kind of, I mean, word of mouth is so powerful.

25:24Yeah, it is. Especially when it comes to moms, they have so much purchasing power. So, you know, it was still very organic, very bootstrapped, but it was definitely growing. And our social media exposure had also grown quite a bit because I was really focused on the education. So moms were starting to follow us. They were starting to share with their new mom friends. And the interesting thing is I started to notice that when I was out and about, or even now, 10 years later, I might be at a conference where a mom will come up and say, you saved me during my breastfeeding troubles, anything that I was going through, I would go to your page and find some sort of tip or trick that would help me.

25:59And I never used your products, but I had a girlfriend who was going through clogged ducts or mastitis, and I immediately recommended your products. And that is so hard to replicate, Like just the trust that they had in us, I don't take that for granted. And I truly appreciate every interaction I have with these moms because it's just so rewarding. It's, you know, I tell my team, we're not selling a bag of chips here. Like there's very much a tangible connection, emotional connection that we're making with these moms. Sometimes they reach out to us at the lowest point in their postpartum period.

26:30They are ready to quit that moment, that day. And our customer service team has to rally around them and be their cheerleader sometimes because they may not have that support at home. And I take that very seriously.

26:41Hala Taha:And now your company controls like 70 % of the lactate supplement market. So you've like completely dominated this market. And a lot of it has to do with the trust that you've built with your community. You provide trust with educational content. Also through your customer support, which every person has to have 90 hours of training. Yes. And they're breast milk like experts. They are, yes. Yeah, talk to me about it. So there's a lactation training that they take, to your point, just understanding the foundations of breastfeeding. Not every customer service person that we hire is a mom, so they may not understand.

27:17And I always think about breastfeeding as almost like a foreign language where there's so many complexities to it. And if you haven't lived it, you don't really understand, can't put yourself in the shoes of what a mom might be experiencing. So they go through this training so that they are able to effectively troubleshoot with moms who reach out. And initially what happens is if mom reaches out, for example, and just says, hey, I'm having trouble with my milk supply. I'm concerned I'm not giving enough to my baby. Right off the bat, our customer service team has a list of questions that they're asking to help troubleshoot with this mom.

27:48Product isn't even mentioned. It's really just about kind of understanding what's going on behind the scenes with this mom. How can we help just give free advice, free support to them? And then, you know, way down the line after we've kind of gone through this dialogue, that is when we might recommend a product. But we understand that it's just a compliment to what mom is already doing at home, whether it's nursing more, pumping more, working with a lactation consultant. We're going to find what that, it could be multi-pronged, but we're gonna help to provide solutions beyond just our products to them.

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29:37Hala Taha:Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. I really want to dig deep on like the cost and like how to actually create a supplement brand and the cost involved with it. Something that people don't often think about when I'm thinking about how much does a bottle of pills cost, I'm thinking about the product itself, the marketing, the packaging, the shipping. But there's also this like research portion beforehand that I think people don't think about. So how long is the typical research process for you guys? And what are the costs involved in the research process?

30:17That is the huge part for us because we are not trying to launch a million different products a year. we are very pointed in what we launch and our entire product development team consists of women. So we will have very candid roundtable discussions about just our own personal experiences with hormonal challenges and ovarian cysts and vaginal health and perimenopause. And I love those conversations because very rarely do you ever kind of hear that from people because it's so taboo, right?

30:45Hala Taha:So your own team becomes your market research. Absolutely, yes. And I do think that we obsessively follow what our customers are saying too. And I think in the early days, that was a huge part of our success is I was in those Facebook groups listening to what moms really wanted and trying to address those needs. So just, I mean, I think that's a tip for anyone who is creating a brand or a small company right now is be obsessively following what your customers are saying. Because I'm sure there's little pearls and tidbits that you can take from that and maybe have your next product idea come from that.

31:15But yeah, we would have these roundtable discussions, I was definitely very much at the heart of it as well, because I think for any product that we launch, I like to think about it as, you know, in the heart of what was going on in my life where I was having any sort of issues. For example, I have PCOS. Would this product help me in the depths of my issues with hormonal imbalance? And if it wasn't something that would be helpful, we're not going to launch it because I want to be able to feel very proud of what we've launched and be able to stand behind it. I don't remember, I'm aging myself, but the hair club for men founder.

31:48I don't know if you've ever seen those commercials. It was for, I think it was for toupees or the hairspray to cover bald spots. But he said, I'm not only the founder, but I'm also a customer or something like that. I mean, it's so true. Like there isn't anything that we have launched that I wouldn't take for myself or wouldn't give to all of my friends and family and very much do so. So that was super important to me to have a women-only product development team so that we could have these really candid conversations. And then to your point, the research part. So it takes us about a year and a half to actually develop and launch a product.

32:22Wow. So we are typically in our, especially with our women's health products, we're looking for ingredients that have clinical studies behind them. Typically, we're often using branded ingredients because they'll have a plethora of research behind them that we can then use for some of the claims that we might put on the bottles. We're also sharing all those clinical studies on our product pages and our PDP images. The thing that's interesting about supplements is it's kind of like the wild, wild west in the U.S. And I was literally just going to ask you about this. Yeah, it's there's really not.

32:54I mean, I know the FDA says that they somewhat regulate supplements. They don't to the level that I would like them to, to be honest. And it's a little bit scary when I see some of the supplements that have come out. and just the lack of third-party testing and certification. And I mean, a huge chunk of the money that we spend in the time is on that part. The third-party testing, the lab testing, all of the certification. So halal certified, kosher certified, non-GMO, project verified, certified organic. I mean, sometimes I'll look at a bottle of something sold on Amazon and they'll just have the generic organic label on that.

33:30They didn't do any testing to make sure that every part of that was actually organic, all the way down to the capsule. The capsule also has to be certified organic to be able to have the green label. And so I think a lot of supplement companies will cut corners because they don't think consumers understand or maybe care about those things. And I very much care because we are working with a very vulnerable population when it comes to moms and babies. And I remember I was so discerning when I was breastfeeding because anything that I was ingesting, I was so worried about how it would translate and transfer into my breast milk.

34:04Hala Taha:Yeah. So we understand that we have to be at a higher level and elevate our supplement standards. Maybe the rest of the U.S. can do whatever they want, but we understand that we're working with a very vulnerable population. It's really important. Yeah, it's really interesting. It's like you really get what you pay for. You might find a really cheap supplement on Amazon. For sure. But maybe that means they haven't invested in research or certifications or the quality is just generally low. So I feel like people really need to be aware of that. What kind of things should people be looking for with their supplements?

34:37I think if, you know, any of those certifications are important to you, make sure that you are looking for the actual certification. We call it a bug, the actual label on there instead of the generic version. So there should be something that looks like the actual formal label, like non-GMO has its own label. It's like a little like logo type thing. Absolutely. Yeah. It's just kind of the circular little label on the bottle. And you can tell if it's generic because it doesn't look like the formal label that you'd have. And you can go to all of those websites and actually see what the label should look like.

35:11Kosher and Halal are two other ones. They're actually organizations that, you know, for like, for example, for rabbis, they have a kosher certification. So this is a group of rabbis that will go to your facility, to your manufacturing facility, and look at every process of how you manufacture and sterilize and sanitize the line and making sure that it's kosher acceptable. So for someone to just put a generic kosher on there, they didn't do any of the documentation, didn't pay for the multiple rounds of testing that would suffice for the rabbi. So just something to be aware of if that's important to you.

35:48Hala Taha:What would be the most surprising thing people would find out about the price to develop a supplement? Like, is the actual ingredients of the supplement like the cheapest part about everything? I wouldn't say it's necessarily the cheap. I mean, I think that maybe it's a unique situation for us because we're working with a lot of herbs that are a little bit unique and very specific to lactation. So there are certain ones that we source from different countries or certain countries actually that we refuse to work with. So we will not source any ingredients from China. They have a monopoly on a lot of these crops and herbs.

36:23We don't feel great about some of the testing that has come back in terms of heavy metals and whatnot. And we just don't feel good about using those ingredients. it does make it a lot harder to source when you're not using the huge behemoth that is China that's growing everything. So we have to be really mindful of seasonality, ordering herbs ahead of time. So sometimes we have to order a year in advance just to be able to have enough inventory to make the product. So we have a fantastic supply chain team who handles all of that. But I think that is kind of unique probably to us a little bit because we do have very high standards when it comes to the ingredients that we use.

37:01Hala Taha:Well, I'm assuming anybody tuning in that wants to launch any sort of supplement or something that we digest is going to have similar quality standards. So it's just such great insight to be giving us. What are some of the metrics that you guys are following as a business? Like what are some of the key metrics that you guys are looking at? So we are omni-channel, which comes with a wonderful, you know, there's pros and cons, obviously, to being omni-channel. So we sell our products on Shopify, We're on Amazon, of course. Unfortunately, you kind of have to be in this day and age. I'm going to ask you about that.

37:34Hala Taha:We're also in Target stores and Walmart stores. I like to be where moms are, and that's typically where moms are shopping is Target and Walmart. I remember with my baby, that was kind of my escape. I would go and grab a Starbucks, and we would spend an hour just moseying around the aisles, just wiling away some time. It was like my me time. So we're in a little less than 2 ,000 Target stores nationwide. Amazing. Thank you. 4 ,000 Walmart stores nationwide. We're also in some small, I shouldn't even say small because HEB is amazing. Yeah. But it's more of a local grocery chain. It's like our Austin pride.

38:11Hala Taha:Absolutely. Everybody in Austin loves HEB. Who doesn't love HEB? So we're in HEB stores. We're in Meijer, which is kind of a Northwest grocery chain as well. But we've been really mindful about where we go because it doesn't make sense for us to be everywhere, especially because we are a niche market. We're focused very much on postpartum and lactation. So some retailers just don't make sense. And then beyond that, we're also on TikTok Shop, which I have a lot of opinions about TikTok Shop, both good and bad. But yeah, just by virtue of us being omni-channel, sometimes it can be hard to kind of wrap your mind around all of the numbers and the sales and the profits and where you're kind of hemorrhaging money.

38:53TikTok Shop being one of them. if anyone is watching and knows how to be profitable on that channel, please let me know because it's, I find that it's one where we spend a lot of money on influencers and samples and ad spend and there really isn't any profit to be found on that channel. Interesting. So much hype. So much hype. And we do have sales on there by, you know, I shouldn't say that, but the commission rates are so high, the hidden fees associated with that channel. It's very expensive to sell on there. And so what we found is it's, I wouldn't say it's necessarily even a sales channel as opposed to like a marketing channel for us.

39:29It's like more brand awareness. It is. It truly is. And we've seen a halo effect where it's impacting our retail sales and it's also impacting Amazon sales because someone might see a video on TikTok shop about a product and won't initially buy on there, but they might go into Target and buy. I think it's the lack of trust. It is.

39:45Hala Taha:Because you haven't done much with paid ads. So that's almost like being viral, going viral is sort of like a paid ad. For sure. Because people are not necessarily going to follow. Oh, absolutely. But they're going to see the content. And it's almost as if they saw an ad, but then they see you in Target and suddenly you have more credibility because you're not just a TikTok brand. Absolutely. I think there's kind of this inherent thought that if you're in a retail store, that there's been some sort of vetting that's happened behind the scenes and that this is a good brand. Or it's like so popular, right?

40:13Hala Taha:Absolutely. Yes. It validates that. Okay. So let's talk distribution channels. I think this is one of the most interesting parts of your story. So you started on Etsy. Are you still on Etsy? Yes. Yeah. I mean, we're on Etsy, but it's not a big channel for you. Well, starting, I always tell people who are not entrepreneurs yet, I'm like, just start an Etsy store. I feel like it's such a great first place to start. And like being able to channel demand, you knew that moms are on Etsy because they're planning their baby showers. They're planning, like they're already on that website heavily. So you ended up being where they're shopping.

40:49Hala Taha:and then what was the next thing that you started? Was it your Shopify store? Shopify was next. And to your point, I mean, 10 years ago, Etsy looked very different too. And we still have our Etsy shop because we garnered so many reviews. And I think that is another trusted resource, right? I think sometimes now we even have to question reviews because you just don't know where they're coming from or is it more of like kind of that gray market where like people are paying for reviews. And so these were legitimate customers leaving their reviews. We had fantastic, you know, a rate, fantastic rating, fantastic feedback.

41:18so I just wanted moms to see that and say especially in the early days where they didn't know about us or they're learning about us initially to say oh this okay this is legitimate this actually helped a mom to increase her milk supply so then we moved to Shopify and then a few years in we were actually approached by our the target buyer so she had just had a baby and that's how she found us so what typically yeah what typically happens is most of the time mom doesn't hear about us in the conception period, in the pregnancy period. She's in a kind of a whole other realm of thinking about just preparing for baby.

41:52And it's shortly after she gives birth that she finds us. So that was the case with this Target buyer. Because they never know if they're going to have issues or not. Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't want them to expect they're going to have problems. And if they do, of course, they have our community to pull from. They don't always have to use the products.

42:06Hala Taha:So Target was the first retailer that picked you up and it was actually a fan. It was a fan. It was a customer. That's amazing. And she loved the products. And I mean, talk about like building trust already and not really having to have any proof of concept or proof of business because she was a customer. Yeah. And so she was the first to take a chance on us and brought in a few of our SKUs. They did very well in store, I think because of, one is the product packaging. It's just cheeky and it looks a little bit different than everything else on shelves. It's fun. And the other thing is we were kind of behind the scenes.

42:40I was building this huge social media community in a way that other lactation brands weren't really focused on. They were very much focused about kind of shoving product down mom's throat. And I went from a different avenue of I want to just support mom in whatever she's going through. And the products can be kind of a support after the fact. And it worked for us. It was definitely a model that has, you you know, stood the test of time over the last 10 years.

43:06Hala Taha:So you started off on Etsy. You go build a Shopify site and your DTC. Let's pause at that moment. First of all, did you create the Shopify website by yourself? We had, our designer was kind of a triple whammy. She was a graphic designer slash illustrator slash coder for websites. So she kind of built the first website. Was that your main hire initially? She was, yeah, she was one of the first. She's fantastic. I mean, just so talented. And so we had kind of a basic Shopify site that worked for a few years until it gets more complicated and more bugs happen. But it definitely worked for our purposes at that time.

43:43And I think 10 years ago, if you think about DTC, I mean, there was a lot more power in DTC at that point. You could have full control of your customer data and all of that on there. It was very cheap to acquire a customer on Shopify. I would say that over time, that is not one of our main sales channels anymore.

44:04Hala Taha:So DTC has become less important, but it was a good way for you to start. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So for new founders who want to try Shopify, you can go to shopify.com slash profiting. And they're one of our long-term sponsors. Oh, wonderful. And they're amazing, right? Yes. Like they're so good to get your feet wet in the DTC space. I agree. And so you were using Facebook and Instagram to drive people to your Shopify site. And then you went retail. Has retail become your main distribution channel? I would say it's a mix between retail and Amazon. Okay. If I had to put them by it. And were you weary of putting your stuff on Amazon at first?

44:43Yes. Why? You know, I have mixed feelings about Amazon. I understand that a lot of us shop on there. I shop on there as well. And I understand when mom is in panic mode and she needs something right now, it absolutely makes sense. She's not going to wait a week if she has an active clogged duct or mastitis, and I wouldn't expect her to. So I appreciated the expediency of being able to deliver our products to moms when they needed it, you know, right then. What we initially started with was just kind of dipping our toe with Amazon and not putting all of our SKUs on there. We just wanted to understand what was happening.

45:17And to be honest, I was the one who listed our products. And I'm not an Amazon expert by any means. I remember a few years after that, we had an Amazon agency do an audit and they were like, you don't even have product photos on here. You have like one image. And I'm like, yeah, that was me. I was our Amazon expert for a while. Now we have an Amazon team and we have really cleaned up and optimized our listings and all of that. And now, of course, we do have way more SKUs on there than we did before. But there are still some products that we have not put on Amazon because they do well on D2C. I think it's still important for us to have a presence there as well.

45:54We've tested certain things on TikTok Shop just to see kind of what happens in terms of your point about virality. I think that it's a great channel to see kind of what happens and test and learn and then see that halo effect happen with Amazon and retail. So oftentimes what we'll do is for a product launch, we might just start with TikTok Shop and start to get some UGC, some content creation going on, getting a little bit of buzz and virality, and then we'll launch on Amazon.

46:20Hala Taha:Oh, so interesting. And then you still don't put all of your products on Amazon. Is it because you want some sort of like exclusivity for your DTC website? Yes, absolutely. There's a little bit of exclusivity with a certain product that we have. They're called silicone collection cups. They're a pump part that you use with your breast pump. And there are a lot of them out there, But we found a lot of success with just keeping them exclusive to D2C and to TikTok shop. And it's one of our best sellers at this point. Really cool. Maybe because you can't get it everywhere. What's the difference between selling something on Amazon versus selling something on retail?

46:55Hala Taha:Like, is there any cost differences, shipping differences, minimums, even the relationship part of it? The interesting thing about that is 10 years ago, if you had asked me that, I would have said D2C is where the margins are the best. It's so cheap to acquire a customer. Facebook works exactly the way that you want to when it comes to ads. It's actually very different right now. I was talking to our CFO about this. The margins are virtually the same between D2C, retail, and Amazon now. Oh, interesting. And I think that's great for us because we're agnostic, right? Yeah. We're going to go where mom is.

47:29And if it's Amazon for a period of time, it makes sense.

47:31Hala Taha:So you can keep the prices also the same across the board? They are the same across the board. And that's actually really important if you're looking to go into retail is those prices do have to stay the same because you will get dinged on Amazon. You may lose the buy box. I mean, there's all of these kind of rules around, you know, the retailers are looking very closely to make sure that you're not offering a certain discounted price on Amazon or even on TikTok shop versus what it's going to look like in retail. And you might get dinged for that. So we have a fantastic sales team and that's kind of their job is to be responsible for like making sure that there's price matching no matter where you go.

48:03So that's a big thing that your sales team is actually focused on. Oh, absolutely. This is price matching. Yes.

48:08Hala Taha:So you're in so many amazing retailers, Target, Walmart, HEB, Sprouts. This is like every person's dream who's in, you know, the CPG business, right? How did you do it? Like, are you really good at relationships? Were you doing email campaigns? Did you know the titles you were reaching out to? Or did it just like happen? I think I wish I had a secret formula to share with anyone watching. I do think that it came back to like building a brand and building such a strong community of moms. I think that the retailers couldn't help but notice. Did everybody just follow Target? Like Target put it in and then Walmart was like, there's probably people looking at the aisles of the different stores.

48:54There's a lot of kind of drama that happens with the buyers going into each other's aisles. So cool. Yes. So they definitely, you know, and Walmart was something I had to think about because I didn't know if that's necessarily where moms are going to shop. But now it's actually proven to be a place where our products sell really well. And we're in 4 ,000 stores nationwide, which is pretty surreal to think about. But I think it just came very organically and naturally. And it came back to some of the buyers actually being customers of ours. The brand And social media presence was just so strong.

49:30And to your point, we were able to kind of usurp any other competitor because what we were doing couldn't be replicated. Yeah. I remember our salesperson came from a competitor and she said, we used to go onto your social media and we would try to pinpoint what it was that people loved about you. Like, why were you getting so many followers and so much engagement and so many comments and we couldn't understand it? We're trying to kind of, you know, piece apart why it's working. And so I think, you know, once you have that good formula, like the sales and the following will come with it. And you don't have to shove your products down someone's throat to get there.

50:09Hala Taha:Yeah. You have such an amazing founder story. Like what a cool story. Thank you. No investors. Bootstrapped it all. Reinvested all your revenue. Just grew it brick by brick. So much organic. Like, do you ever feel like this is just like fate? Like, it's just, I'm definitely where I need, I should be. And I'm still so passionate about what I do. I mean, every day too, we get constant messages from moms saying, you know, you helped me through such a tough time in my breastfeeding journey. I couldn't have done it without you. So it's your mission. Oh, absolutely. And I think the people that we hire are very mission driven too.

50:44We're primarily women. I mean, which makes sense. Our team really cares about these moms and babies that we're helping. And so we're also passionate about it, which is fun to kind of just hear people's thoughts. You're like, oh, wow, I didn't know you cared so much. But also it just resonates with me because I want to work with other people who care to this deep of a level. And I think it just elevates us. And we started out with a very small skeleton crew. I mean, I think with every founder, you feel like you can do it best. And ultimately you find that you're actually the one stagnating growth because you think that you're the Jill of all trades and that you are the expert.

51:20And actually, there are people who are much smarter than you and much more capable in certain areas. And you should probably focus in on your strengths. Yeah. And I learned that the hard way over time.

51:30Hala Taha:And now we have a fantastic, very capable, very smart team that I learned from every single day. Yeah, you were telling me offline that, you know, you're not really paying attention too much to the finances necessarily. And I'm really the same way. I've been getting more into it with my business. But I get more excited about creating new products, building community, being the visionary of the brand. And I've hired around the places where I'm weak. And every good founder should do that. So at some point, you were super burned out. And you were like, I need a leadership team. Even your husband, I think, works for you.

52:04Hala Taha:I'm curious of what he does for you guys. But like, how have you designed your team? Oh, absolutely. Yes. So my husband is our COO and we also have a very strong CFO. She is a dynamo. She's terrifying in the best ways. She's just so smart, so capable. I mean, when people say we all have the same hours in the day, she doesn't. I don't know how she gets this stuff done. She amazes me every single day. And she's very much looking into the financials and really digging in and trying to understand, because we are omnichannel, just not letting anything get out of control because that can happen very quickly where, you know, we were looking at TikTok shop, for example, the other day and we're like, what are all of these hidden fees?

52:44All of a sudden we're paying 10 % more than we were the previous month. And that can happen very quickly when you're omnichannel because you just, you have to be able to kind of like get full control over what all of the distribution looks like in your sales channels. So I really credit her with helping us to get organized and implementing processes and all of that, which were very much needed. We operated under a skeleton crew for quite a while. And then we started hiring in marketing, accounting, and finance regulatory. So we have an in-house regulatory person who's essentially just looking to make sure that any claims that we make are substantiated, that we have research behind them and all that.

53:22I think that's really important. And I think a lot of brands get in trouble because, again, back to the wild, wild west where there's certain things you just can't say. Again, they're not proven. There's no research behind them. And that's where you kind of get the slap on the wrist from the FDA. So it's super important that you, you know, if you're thinking about working in supplements, that you have a regulatory team behind you, even if you're going to hire someone to do that for you, and you outsource that. It's super important to have that. But primarily our management team are women. Our head of product development is a woman, CFO, head of marketing, head of sales.

53:57And I just... And you have a board now too, right? We do have a board. And I think it was really important for me to see women in manager and director roles because I don't know about you, but I never had a female manager before starting the company. I just never saw that happen. And so I wanted especially young women who were starting with us, maybe this is their first job out of college, to be able to see role models in their bosses and think that I want to be like this person in 10 years. And so I think it's fostered a lot of mutual respect amongst the team. We have clear expectations. I'll get on my soapbox for a second about the one thing that I, is a pet peeve of mine is when small businesses or companies will say we're all a family.

54:41I don't think that my team members are my family. I think it is actually inappropriate to kind of even to relate to that because I have a family. I have two kids and there are certain things that they can say or do that I accept because they're part of, you know, they're my kids. Yeah. So the other day, my, you know, my son said, I really didn't like the ham sandwich you made. It was really dry and terrible. I want dad to make it next time. I have to accept that abuse from my son because he's my kid. But I think that when we were permissive and we say that this is part of your family, well, you don't pay your family to interact with you and hang out with you for eight hours a day.

55:19And you don't fire, terminate, or let go of your family. I think that it sets unrealistic expectations. I think what I'm always expecting for my team is mutual respect, mutual support, clear expectations. And I think that we've really fostered that environment where we are kind to each other. We're able to have constructive discussions and discourse, even if we don't agree on things, because again, we're all very passionate about what we're doing. But ultimately, we are here to help moms and babies. And I think we've done a fantastic job of that.

55:50Hala Taha:So how many people are on your team in total, would you say? There's about 40 of us altogether. In Austin-based? So we do have some remote people because I do think when you start to specialize, so for example, for Amazon, we found a team in California where that was kind of their bread and butter. It wasn't something that we could necessarily find in Austin. So wherever we need to, basically, where it makes the most sense, we're going to outsource. But we do try to keep everyone in the Austin office if we can. Very cool. Okay. I want to do a little segment called Founder Failure File. So I'm going to just read off some questions to you because we all learn best from failure.

56:28Hala Taha:And why not help other people tuning in, not repeat the same mistakes that you necessarily did. So are you cool with this? Sounds good. All right, let's do it. What was your worst product launch? Oh, goodness. There have been a lot. There have been many. Um, we, this was probably, if I went back to why it failed first, it would be because we weren't listening to our customers in the way that we should have, again, obsessively listening to the customer and what they wanted. There were these breast milk bags. So if you are a pumping mom, you, you collect your milk into these milk bags that you then store in the fridge or freezer, and then you can feed it to your baby at a different time.

57:11and we had gotten some feedback from moms saying that their milk smelled off or tasted off after they thawed the milk. And in me doing more research because I had to put the Y hat back on and understand and do the deep dive, we realized that it can be due to light exposure. And so we created a bag that actually was completely opaque and had an oxidation layer inserted inside of it so that it could basically prevent oxidation of the milk. Really cool product. Very neat. And I think kind of ahead of its time. But then we realized, oh, because it was completely opaque, when mom poured her bottle of milk in, she couldn't see any measurement lines of where she actually how much she had pumped.

57:55And that was really important to mom because she's bricking these bags, putting them in the freezer. She needs to know the exact amount for, you know, a month from now when she goes and thaws that milk and feeds it to baby. So, again, great idea. But we weren't like thinking about. You didn't think it through. Absolutely. Yes. whole process. So that was a flub on our part and the product didn't really sell. And the people who did like it, that was their main complaint is I can't see the milk anymore. But unfortunately, the whole solution was it was going to help make your milk taste better and prevent that oxidation.

58:27But obviously... But you learned from it, right?

58:29Hala Taha:Because then you put out another sort of physical product, right? That wasn't a supplement. And did you do it differently this time? Definitely primarily focused on supplements. We've kind of expanded into gear a little bit. We have one product, I'd say it was kind of like a spinoff of that one, which is a honey bear straw cup that has done phenomenally. I don't think any of us expected that it would do as well, but it was another kind of remake of a product that already exists and just trying to make it better. So we, again, looked at the customer feedback, what were moms really wanting, and were able to create a version of that that was better.

59:03And I think the sales have proven that. What was your biggest marketing flop?

59:08Hala Taha:I probably, is it TikTok? There's so many TikTok, certain, you know, influencers and creators that we worked with that were, you know, early on, certain like reality TV stars that, gosh, I remember one was asking for like $20 ,000 to do one post and we did it. And I think we got like two sales from it. You just don't know. And, you know, it's early days and everyone was kind of into this very, like the big, you know, influencers. That's what you were supposed to gravitate towards and you spend your money towards that. So, you know, we lived and learned. It was a good learning lesson. But I do think TikTok shop, I can't even say that it's a bad investment because it has helped from a marketing perspective.

59:48And to your point about brand awareness, but from a purely sales channel, I would never put all my eggs into that basket.

59:54Hala Taha:On the flip side, I know that Facebook, Instagram has worked really well for you. Is there any other marketing channel that you want to highlight that we didn't talk about that you're like, man, we get a ton of sales this way and people might not think about that? I'm trying to think. I mean, Google, for sure, Google Ads is another. Okay. So you are doing a bit of ads. A bit of ads as well, yes. We've definitely started incorporating more on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Google as well. We also have email marketing. We have a pretty robust email marketing channel as well, quite a few subscribers that we've accumulated over the last decade.

1:00:30And I'd say the same premise that we use for social media is what we do for email marketing. So it's very much education first and then product second. And that has worked well for us.

1:00:39Hala Taha:What was your most painful inventory mistake? So this is kind of the inverse of probably what a lot of founders have done is we're pretty conservative when it comes to our purchase orders. Even now, I'm still very conservative because you just never know if something is going to perform well or not. And we do have a warehouse in East Austin, but we have to conserve space because we do have quite a few other SKUs and we have to be mindful and smart about what we order because it needs to be funneling in and out. So a lot of it is like projections of what needs to be ordered. Absolutely. Yes. You have to be forecasting.

1:01:15And, you know, sometimes it's like, this is how you forecast. That sounds good. I'll throw a number at the wall. But I remember we had launched, we were about to launch a drink mix was the first time we'd ever done this. It was called She's Thirsty. And it's a really fun packaging. I love our She's Thirsty packaging. And it's for pregnant and postpartum moms, breastfeeding moms to make sure they stay hydrated. You know, especially during the summer months when you're pregnant, gosh, you're just like chronically thirsty. When you're breastfeeding, you're chronically thirsty. It had a coconut water base to it.

1:01:46So it was a dehydrated coconut. And then we had these really fun flavors. It tastes amazing. And I guess I didn't really expect the demand for it and the excitement for it. And so we had a pretty conservative purchase order and we immediately sold out like within days.

1:02:01Hala Taha:Which sometimes is not a good thing. It isn't. It can be a good and bad thing. I mean, there was definitely, it created a sense of urgency and we had people signing up for the wait list. But also you don't want to be out of stock too long because people forget about it, right? They move on to the next thing or they try to find something that's comparable to whatever that is. And so then we made a bigger purchase order and that sold out. So it just kept happening until we were like, okay, we have to kind of go big with this, probably bigger than we've ever done before and take the chance and take a risk.

1:02:29What's a decision that you made too slowly? A couple of things would be hiring out a very capable and competent team. I think we were too late on it. And I put way too much stress and pressure on myself and experienced very debilitating, like physical and emotional burnout from it. And I was also managing, you know, two children and, you know, my husband and family life and home, you know, just household chores. And there was just so much on my plate. And I wish I didn't think I had to be the end all be all for the entire business because that's a lot of pressure to put on one person. And there are some amazing people that we've hired that I wish I'd hired earlier.

1:03:15And then the other thing is, I think we probably could have tried, especially with Facebook, it was much cheaper to acquire a customer like 10 years ago than it is now. And the algorithm has changed so much, it's much more difficult to even have ad spend on there anymore. And I wish that we had maybe pulled the trigger a little bit earlier when it came to actually doing paid ads because there were several years where we weren't doing that. It was very much word of mouth.

1:03:39Hala Taha:Yeah. And it worked well for us, but I think we probably could have expedited the business a little bit more by doing that. I feel like sometimes when you start a business, your brand is carrying you in the beginning. It is. And at some point, you're going to have to invest in a different way or try something new and kind of get to that next level. And retail was really big for you. Oh, absolutely. In terms of growth spurts. They took us to the next step. They took you to the next level. And I think we talked about, like it garners a certain level of trust and authenticity into the brand when you see something in retail.

1:04:10Because you do think, oh, this has been a vetted brand. There's been some sort of testing to bring this into store or it's just very well loved, right? And you kind of start to think, oh, I wonder if I want to try that now because it's there.

1:04:21Hala Taha:It seemed a bit effortless for you to get into these retail stores, but what was your biggest retail challenge? There are hidden costs and dings that happen when it comes to inventory stockouts, not shipping inventory on time. What does stockouts mean? So let's say they put in a purchase order for 100 units. And at this moment in time, you only have 50 units available to send, you will get dinged for that. And they will heavily charge you. They will charge you for that. If you don't ship the products at a certain date, if it doesn't get there in time, they will fine you. So I mean, just those are all the hidden costs that you don't realize until you're in it.

1:05:00And some retailers are better than others and easier to work with, but they all have certain rules and requirements.

1:05:08Hala Taha:It sounds like your husband has to worry about that. That's, yeah, mostly like supply chain. I would say he does the not fun stuff, but yeah, mostly supply chain. And our CFO is fantastic about making sure we're keeping up on all that inventory as well. Okay. Another game I want to play with you is a slot analysis because I thought it'd be fun. It's a great way, I think, to kind of recap some of the things that we talked about. And this conversation has been incredible. Thank you. I appreciate that. I feel like people have really learned a lot. And I feel like we got a lot of great stories out of you.

1:05:37Hala Taha:Okay. So what would you say Legendary Milk's biggest strength is as a business? I would say the brand loyalty and trust. I think that has carried us for the last decade and I hope it continues to carry us. And what would you say your biggest weakness is as a business right now? There's so much stigma around breastfeeding and what that looks like in the U.S. There's just, I mean, go read our Facebook and TikTok comments. They're outrageous. Like people are still so disgusted by breastfeeding. And so I think there's just a hurdle of providing that education about why breastfeeding is so important and why breastfeeding rates are so low in the U.S.

1:06:19And so kind of getting past that hurdle is something we've been working on for the last 10 years and advocating, you know, for moms to not feel like this is just such an underserved community. It's still something that's very, I think there's still a lot of work to be done. So that has been a huge hurdle because we'll, you know, we'll be randomly posting about a mom breastfeeding and, you know, typically it's an older woman for some reason and she'll just be like, oh, that's gross, cover up. And it takes away from the mom being able to learn and, you know.

1:06:47Hala Taha:Yeah, and just be confident. Absolutely. And I think it's deleterious to her breastfeeding journey to see things like that. Yeah. So I don't know that that's, you know, bad for the business, but I just think at the heart, it's always been about, for me, the support to mom. And I just, I hate to see comments like that because I think it takes away from the progress that we've made. So it's like battling like the culture around it. Absolutely. And like making it okay to look for this, talk about this. I think it's gotten better, but there's just so much work to be done. And I think that other countries have got it right.

1:07:16And it's just a part of life, you know?

1:07:18Hala Taha:Well, maybe you need to go on more podcasts. Maybe. I think that is. How about you being a bootstrap business and not having an investor? And like, I know a lot of, I just talked to a lady who has this company called Rebel Cheese. She's making about 20 million. She's also in retail doing great. And for the first time ever, she's like raising like$5 million or something to help with marketing and paid ads and get her to that next level. Do you feel like it's a weakness or a strength that you bootstrapped? I don't see it as necessarily a weakness. We don't have any debt. We've never had any capital investment, no loans.

1:07:54I think that also we've not had any overnight success. I think you probably have had brands where maybe they're a few years old and maybe they had someone within the celebrity world who posted about them and that was just like overnight success, which is amazing. But we've kind of just been slowly chipping away at it over the last 10 years. It's been consistent and we've been profitable every single year, but we didn't get from zero to 50 million in the first year. And I appreciate that stability and consistency because I don't think a lot of brands think of it that way or operate that way. They want to have that like overnight crazy success.

1:08:29And I don't think that that helps with longevity if that's what you're really thinking about, where if you want to be here in 10 or 20 years, I think probably the better way is to think about it in small increments and just slowly, continuously to grow.

1:08:40Hala Taha:Yeah. So is this more of a lifestyle brand for you that you want to do forever? Or do you guys plan on selling the business? I would like to continue. I mean, I still have a lot of energy and passion for what we're doing. And I think it can also expand beyond just postpartum too. I mean, I think that there are so many chapters of a woman's life that are underserved. I'm now going into perimenopause. And I mean, talk about like people sweeping symptoms and chronic issues under the rug. Like that's a huge aspect of it where there's not enough research done for women. and we're told that all of these hormonal imbalances and issues are just normal.

1:09:16It's just part of being a woman. And I don't accept that. So I think that there's a way for a legendary milk to expand beyond kind of the postpartum period.

1:09:23Hala Taha:And kind of grow with you as you grow. Absolutely, yes. And as your passions change. Definitely. Which is just like really awesome that your customer gets to really grow with you. So let's talk about opportunities. What do you think are the biggest opportunities of your brand, legendary milk? I think there's still opportunities for retail expansion. I mean, there's still various retailers that we're talking to, international expansion. I talked a little bit about, you know, the U.S. being the wild, wild west. And I actually really appreciate that in other countries, there's a whole plethora of documentation that has to happen from like the government levels to even get your products, you know, to be sold there because they just have a lot more scrutiny on them.

1:10:02So, you know, I think that's a goal for us is to start selling in Canada and Australia and parts of the Middle East. And there are breastfeeding moms all over the world. And we would like to be able to cater to them as well. So definitely opportunities for international expansion. And then just expanding the product line as well. I think there's still opportunities for us in conception, fertility, the pregnancy period, and postpartum as well. Last, threats.

1:10:28Hala Taha:What do you think are the biggest threats of your business? I don't see it necessarily as a threat, but I do see competitors pop up all the time, which I appreciate. because, you know, kind of speaking about back to, you know, when I started this 10 years ago, there weren't a lot of options. It was fenugreek and kind of cookies and lactation cookies and brownies. And that was it. And I think that mom should have options. I think it's really important to for her to feel like we all have unique body chemistries and what works for one mom might not work for another. And I don't want her to ever feel like she's run out of options and solutions for her.

1:11:02So I see other brands popping up all the time. And I love that. I think it's great to have healthy competition and it makes us better too.

1:11:08Hala Taha:Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you for that SWAT sprint. I feel like that went really well. I'm going to do that with every founder from now on. So let's talk about if somebody can actually copy this. Now, of course, you own 70 % of the lactation supplement market. So you've got to mow. I don't think anyone's going to try to compete against you. But if they want to launch a different supplement for hair loss or whatever, you know, problem that they're suffering from that they found a solution for, what is an industry secret that you feel like you really got to let them know? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think, again, religiously following your customers' feedback and comments.

1:11:45Take it to heart. Understand what they're telling you. That is a goldmine. I mean, they're giving you free feedback. So you're reading reviews.

1:11:51Hala Taha:We're reading reviews. I'm obsessed with my reviews too, guys. Oh my gosh. Read the reviews. I mean, we will get DMs from moms, just unprovoked, just unsolicited feedback of like, hey, I liked this product, but I wish it had been X, Y, and Z. And we take that to heart. We have a whole spreadsheet where we're following that feedback. I think it's really important to, I mean, this is the jackpot you're hitting when your customers are actually willing to give you feedback. Because think about all of the different products that you use on a daily basis. Do you typically go to these brands and tell them what you did or did not like about it?

1:12:20Probably not. Yeah. So if they're like giving that to you unprompted, that's a goldmine. Yeah. So definitely be reading that, reading the feedback. Go to the places that your customers are at. So I joined the Reddit forums. I look at the Facebook groups. Again, I want to be, I'm not actively breastfeeding, but I want to understand what mom's pain points are and what they're experiencing in this period of time in 2026.

1:12:42Hala Taha:Yeah. Because it looks very different than 2016 when I had my baby. So I think that's really important for any brand is I promise you they are not interested in your product. Find a way to relate to them in a way that you understand their pain point and then relate it to your product. Go back to that Janet Jackson song, what have you done for me lately? And think about that in any time that you make a social media post, you make an email, you do a paid ad. Think about the pain point for that respective customer and what, you know, put yourself in their shoes and what you would want from them. So smart.

1:13:18Hala Taha:If somebody wanted to start a supplement brand, I know you started with$750, but that was 10 years ago. Very different times now. What do you think is like the appropriate budget that they should save up for if they want to bootstrap it? I think it's so different now. I wish I could even quantify like what that would look like now because I know it's a much more saturated market, so competitive. And you have these like million dollar brands who have so much investment behind them already, you know? I think Groon's is one of them, right? Like they had so much backing behind them, celebrity backing.

1:13:51I know the investors already and were able to kind of catapult sales from that. It's a lot harder if you don't have that. But I think you have to understand what your premise is as well. You know, I think they said something about the science wasn't important to them, the clinical research. It was about it just tasting good from a compliance standpoint. And so that's what their laurels are. That's, you know, kind of their mission is to make good tasting supplements that maybe aren't necessarily as effective. And that's fine because I think that there's a lot of consumers who wouldn't, they enjoy the gummies, they want to keep taking them and they'll continue to take them and probably get some benefit from it.

1:14:28And so I think just understanding what you bring to the market, that's unique. Yeah, what makes you different? Absolutely. What are your key differentiators? Because it's a very saturated market and I have seen small brands just burn, burn to the ground because they didn't understand how they were different and how they could differentiate in the market.

1:14:48Hala Taha:Okay, so let's say you're somebody who wants to be a founder, a new founder. You saved up$10 ,000 to launch your product. What would you tell them to do with that$10 ,000? I would say find out what your strengths are and outsource everything else early on because I promise they're experts in the field who are more educated on this, more competent, who can absolutely help you right out the gate. Definitely bringing some sort of awareness or creating some sort of awareness on social media. That's free advertisement for you. Create a presence there. So it's like figure out what your brand is. Absolutely.

1:15:27Like what do you stand for? What's your mission? For sure. Yes, definitely. I think there's something to guerrilla marketing. I think Kendra Scott does this a lot or she did early on where anytime that she was opening up a new store, she very much entrenched herself in community events and really creating a presence in whatever city or town that she was in. So start local. So start local. I think that there's definitely some validity to that. And also is a great way to get kind of a mini focus group of people who can give you feedback on what they like or don't. Yeah, before you invest too much.

1:15:58Absolutely. Or try to get investors. Because there's probably like holes because you're on like tunnel vision, right? You have a certain goal in mind. You think this is going to be the next great product, but there are probably holes that someone could pick through it because they're not so closely attached to it the way that you are.

1:16:11Hala Taha:Would you recommend that? So you were saying start local, but how about Amazon? Do you feel like that's like the second step is like getting your stuff on Amazon or should it be DTC, your own website? I mean, I think that there's benefits to both. I will say Amazon has changed so much over the last 10 years. And probably what I did where we listed, I helped, I launched everything on our Amazon by myself, probably wouldn't cut it these days. I just think it's very competitive on there now and you have to have your optimized listings and your A plus content and your PDP images. And there's a lot of compliance that comes with that with supplements.

1:16:48So that's another thing is that we didn't touch on is just getting insurance is really important. Amazon will require it of you and it's just something good to have in case, God forbid, anything happen. It's really important that you have insurance for the business because supplements are, again, something that you ingest. And, you know, there comes a level of risk when it when it associated with that.

1:17:10Hala Taha:For somebody who's out there tuning in and they really want to start a business and they're similar to you in terms of like they're a little bit more introverted, but they have a great idea. What is your final piece of advice to them? I think I would go back to start small, reinvest in the business and obsessively follow what your consumers or future consumers are saying and what they want. Because there's probably some validity to what you want to launch, but they'll pick at those holes and make it better for you. Luna, thank you so much for joining us on How We Profit on Young and Profiting.

1:17:46Hala Taha:Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it. And that's how Luna and Legendary Milk profit. Every business has a hidden engine. And today we learned that for a consumer wellness brand, the real leverage is trust. Luna built trust with her community before she ever asked for the sale. and that trust became her biggest growth channel. Thanks for listening to How We Profit Wednesdays, the Young and Profiting series where real entrepreneurs share real numbers, real margins and the real story of how their businesses actually work. I'm Hala Taha and I'll see you next time.