Product Startup Podcast Episode 019: Developing Organic Haircare for an Underserved Market

00:00:00 Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, a podcast that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product designers, and other industry professionals. This podcast is run by Mako

00:00:11 Filip Valica: Design + Invent and hosted by Filip Valica. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to putting your product on the shelf. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Now onto the show.

00:00:26 Filip Valica: It's never a such thing as a misstep. It's always a building block because, you'll think you misstepped, but then you have this idea that's just like ingenious and it's like,

00:00:37 Filip Valica: how did I even come up with this? But if it wasn't for your previous quote unquote misstep, you'd have never arrived to this greater next level of your business. So there's no such thing as

00:00:48 Filip Valica: really a failure for us. But there's many times where we realized we had to push the envelope a little bit more.

00:00:55 Filip Valica: The product startup episode 19. Welcome to the product startup podcast, helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step with your host,

00:01:07 Filip Valica: Filip Valica.

00:01:09 Filip Valica: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Product Startup podcast. In the last episode, we talked with Jennifer Harris with Motivo. Jennifer and her design partner, Jeremy, reinvented the Walker for an aging generation. In addition to creating this recently patented product, they're

00:01:23 Filip Valica: also running the business and bringing the very first Motivo tour off of a production line this month. She talks to us about her journey of problem identification, and

00:01:32 Filip Valica: why updating this decades-old, unchanged design was no easy task. So if you haven't heard that, make sure to check out episode 18. Also, before we get started, I wanted to highlight one reviewer

00:01:44 Filip Valica: on iTunes, Quincy Kidd, who wrote in, I've listened to a few podcasts about startups, but I've always felt that they were dominated with content about software and tech. Those are

00:01:55 Filip Valica: great, but for someone that's interested in physical products, I felt there was a big void until now. I've only listened to five or six episodes of this podcast, but I'm hooked. This one brings on

00:02:05 Filip Valica: real people who talk about what they've gone through, lessons learned, et cetera, and it gives you really good practical ideas and advice without the super hype that comes with other podcasts,

00:02:16 Filip Valica: really enjoying it and benefiting from it. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Quincy Kid, for taking your time to leave a review for me and send me a note. I really appreciate seeing what other people think of the show.

00:02:30 Filip Valica: And now on to today's episode. Today I'm joined by Susanna Stewart and Carol Mania of FroButter, a popular line of organic hair care products that promote optimal

00:02:39 Filip Valica: hair health, especially for curly textures. Fro butter is quickly becoming a household name within the natural hair community and we talk about how they differentiate FroButter

00:02:49 Guests: from competitors in such a crowded business category. So let's get started.

00:02:54 Filip Valica: Hi Susanna and Carol. Thank you for coming on the show. It's great to have you here. Hello, thank you for having us. We are so honored to be a part of this great movement that you're doing.

00:03:04 Filip Valica: What I wanted to do was talk a little bit about how you guys got started and you can tell people a little bit about your product. Susanna, maybe if you can start first and Carol, you can kind of chime in with your perspectives.

00:03:16 Filip Valica: This is going to be a little bit interesting because we haven't had two founders kind of start at the same time before.

00:03:22 Guests: And it's always interesting to see how everyone looks at the same story, you know, from a different perspective. So, Susanna, can you kind of start and tell everybody how you started FroButter? Hi, everyone. I'm Susanna, and I have a background in cosmetology.

00:03:36 Guests: We started this product because we saw the great need that a lot of women came into my seat, you know, wanted to get their hair done and all these different issues that they were having.

00:03:48 Guests: And we wanted to find an organic solution. There are a lot of organic products out there right now, but we didn't see anything. any that were affordable and, you know, that the average person can afford. So we saw a niche in the

00:04:03 Guests: market and that's really how we capitalize on it and just started fro butter. It's an organic product that's affordable that fits any budget.

00:04:15 Guests: All right. So hi, everyone. This is Caroline. So my perspective of the business is the other side of the coin. I was one of those clients who sat on her seat. I want to say we started maybe.

00:04:28 Guests: seven or eight years ago. That's when the whole friendship started. I sat on her seat and my hair had a lot of issues. I had a lot of moisture problems, growth. And as she continued to work on my hair,

00:04:43 Guests: we came up with this formula, magic formula that seemed to resonate so well. And over time, we started to wonder if we had hit the jackpot and we tried it with myself,

00:04:56 Guests: our friends and family.

00:04:56 Filip Valica: And eventually we found out, you know what, we have something that we can give out there to the rest of the people and share it. So that's my perspective.

00:05:06 Guests: I started as a client and I'm always on the receiving end as somebody who tests it before it even goes out to everybody. That's really exciting. Yeah, that's fun.

00:05:17 Guests: So did you guys have any reservations about going into business together or did you have anything together before? we had worked before we were co-workers several years ago and that I think cemented our relationship

00:05:31 Filip Valica: we knew we work well and the strengths of everyone and we knew where to balance so that really

00:05:37 Guests: helped when when we decided to launch it into a business there was no hesitation because the work relationship had gone into a personal friendship relationship and we're practically family now So we had no hesitations.

00:05:52 Guests: Susanna, any perspective on that? Did you always feel that things were going to work out with you guys? You know, it's always hard to do business with friends. Yes,

00:06:01 Guests: I definitely would not go into business with just anybody or any of my other friends. But with Carol, it's been a little bit different. She has kind of been more of the big sister mentor even before the business aspect came in.

00:06:16 Filip Valica: So there was never any reservation on my end.

00:06:20 Filip Valica: because she's always been more level-headed than I was. I was more the adventurous type, and she's like, no, let's sit and think about it. And she always kind of kept me leveled.

00:06:30 Guests: So thinking about business and going into business with her was always a win for me. Great. Perfect. So let's talk about the process when you first got started and you started testing all of these natural products.

00:06:43 Guests: First of all, you know, I'm really surprised that you didn't find anything on the market that fit what you were looking for. Are you guys saying that you weren't able to find anything that was all natural that hit a certain price point?

00:06:56 Guests: Yes.

00:06:57 Filip Valica: We weren't able to find affordable organic products. A lot of products say they were organic, but when you started reading the ingredients and seeing what was in it, there was a lot of chemicals.

00:07:08 Guests: So we weren't able to find anything that was 100% organic and was affordable to where, you know, you didn't have to prepare a major investment just to try a new product.

00:07:19 Guests: So did you basically just start by researching to say, okay, this is what would normally be in an organic product and I'm going to buy some of these materials myself and then we'll just try to come up with some recipes and test them out?

00:07:32 Guests: Well, I'm from Jamaica and I have a nature herbal background.

00:07:37 Filip Valica: My grandmother, my family has always used herbs and oils.

00:07:41 Guests: And, you know, so we kind of just pulled from the different remedies, family remedies that we knew that worked for us, you know, in our family. and blended them together to see which one worked well. And then we started researching the CEO,

00:07:55 Guests: what property would that ingredient bring to the table? And is there a need for this ingredient? So we just kind of mixed and match based on our own backgrounds and history and what we know worked. That sounds fun.

00:08:10 Guests: Caroline, how long did that take to perfect?

00:08:13 Guests: Oh, wow.

00:08:14 Filip Valica: Almost two, I want to say two years or, yeah, two years behind the scenes and whatever we came up, we had the first version of frow butter.

00:08:26 Filip Valica: Then once we got into the market for like a year, we rebranded ourselves and we narrowed down to four specific categories. So now the butters that are in the market right now came up

00:08:39 Guests: are the new rebrand version that we got in 2015, 2013.

00:08:47 Guests: So that's really interesting because I think narrowing down your audience is really difficult sometimes because you want to, at first, maybe when you're going into business, you want to hit the broadest part of the market as you

00:08:59 Guests: can because you might feel like you're not going to get other sales if you niche down. What led to you guys realizing that maybe you needed to only create these four recipes and how did you come up with those four specifically?

00:09:10 Guests: Well, we found that everyone kind of fell under a certain category. is either you were thinning and would like more fullness in your hair, so we have a product for that.

00:09:21 Guests: We had our kids that had eczema or sensitive skin, little babies that mommies were having a hard time detangling, so we had a product for that.

00:09:31 Filip Valica: Then we had the super sensitive group that could not take any kind of fragrance, but needed repairs with the scalp and the hair. So we create a product for the super sensitive.

00:09:42 Filip Valica: And lastly, we had those customers that just wanted more growth. Their hair was not growing full enough. It grew to a certain point and then stop. And so we created a product for that.

00:09:53 Guests: So we highlighted the four main concerns that we kept on seeing repetitively from all the clients that sat in my chair. And that's how we kind of narrowed down the market to those four categories.

00:10:06 Guests: That sounds really fun. Sometimes you might get a lot of people that are coming in and they talk over each other or, you know, one customer wants something completely different than another one

00:10:15 Filip Valica: and you end up with this giant group that doesn't have a whole lot in common. Did you have to do any of that weeding out? Did you, was there any noise in some of that data that you were getting back?

00:10:25 Guests: Or was it just really clear that these were the four groups that you had to focus on? It was somewhat clear. But for the clients that had several one of those issues and wanted to, we do mix and match and, you know, you have the opportunity to mix and match.

00:10:39 Guests: So it doesn't hurt to use one product one week and the other one the next week if you have both areas that you're having problems in.

00:10:49 Filip Valica: So, you know, the customer do have the choice. Okay.

00:10:54 Filip Valica: So while you guys were coming up with these formulations, did you think about ways of protecting it at all? Or were you concerned about anyone kind of stealing that idea and running with it?

00:11:03 Filip Valica: Yes, definitely.

00:11:05 Guests: It's always a concern behind the scenes we are working about on. it. But, you know, so far we have it trademarked. And even in Kenya, we have it where it's under the

00:11:18 Guests: bureau that standardized it. It's licensed. So we've done the basic homework, but we keep working behind the scenes to work on the patents and stuff like that. So down the line. Right. I don't

00:11:30 Guests: know. I think it's a little bit different when you're talking about, you know, formulas. I know formulas can be patented as well. Coca-Cola, for example, has decided to go to the other route

00:11:38 Filip Valica: where they're just keeping it a trade secret and, you know, the specific quantities of ingredients that they're putting in are kept to themselves. Have you decided to go one way or the other?

00:11:49 Filip Valica: Not for the, you know, not now, but we are thinking about it. But so far, I think our safety net is that we are a handcrafted business. So it's just me and Susanna who handle the

00:12:03 Filip Valica: secret formula. So for now, we are fine between the two of us. If it leaps out, It's one of us. Right, right.

00:12:11 Filip Valica: So for now, we do have that safety net to go on. But, yes, definitely down the line it is in the works so we can pick a definite route.

00:12:20 Guests: Well, what I really like to see is that you guys didn't let that stop you from hitting the market. A lot of people will come to me and say, gosh, you know, I have this awesome idea. It's going to change the world. But I don't have the $10,000 that takes to patent something. And now I'm not going to start.

00:12:33 Guests: And my response to them is always, hey, you need to go out there and test the market, get pre-orders. do whatever you can. You know, you can file a provisional application if you really want to do that, you know, to get a patent. But don't like get stuck by this, you know, patent application or the

00:12:47 Guests: protection process because you might not even get your idea off the ground or people might not even want to buy it. So kudos to you guys for testing your idea and actually getting people to run

00:12:56 Filip Valica: with it and get pre-orders and, you know, have a business without waiting for that other stuff. Thank you. Yes, I think a big part of it is not only just a patenting part, but there's so many

00:13:07 Filip Valica: other brands out there that are similar in concept to ours. But what makes our company unique is the amount of time we put into brand in it and marketing it. And I think that is irreplaceable.

00:13:21 Filip Valica: Someone could probably come with the same amount of ingredients and still could not make the effect that we have on the market because we have laid so much groundwork in branding and making

00:13:34 Guests: sure that this product stands out. You know, so you can replicate the formula, but you probably cannot replicate the branding and the marketing that goes behind it. Yes, I absolutely agree with that.

00:13:46 Guests: A lot of times people will worry about someone copying them. And I think it's almost given that if you're really successful, other people will just try to copycat off of you. And so you have to have something that's unique, that's yours,

00:14:01 Guests: that you bring to the table. And I come from an engineering background working for larger companies companies constantly stole ideas from each other but at the end of the day the companies that survived are the ones that had like you said better branding

00:14:13 Guests: marketing or customer service or something that kind of helped differentiate them can you guys go into a little bit more detail about how you did the branding and how you came up with the messages

00:14:23 Guests: that you're putting out there so we have tried to identify ourselves with integrity you know from the beginning we have always made sure that

00:14:34 Guests: wherever our name is associated, any kind of sponsorships we do, we align ourselves with other

00:14:42 Guests: entrepreneurs, other brands that reflect our intentions, that reflect our vision. So those are some of the things we've done. We've aligned ourselves. We speak out and our vocal about things

00:14:55 Filip Valica: which we think our customers would be passionate about. And at the end of the day, excellent customer service is something we strive to do day or night. We give ourselves out there for our customers.

00:15:08 Filip Valica: And you will see it when they express themselves in social media. You will hear them say like,

00:15:13 Guests: oh my goodness, I didn't expect for you to react like this when, you know, a transaction happened. I double clicked. I paid two times. And sometimes we'll catch it before you even catch it

00:15:26 Guests: as a customer. And we'll tell you, hey, you know what? You have a double transaction. So small things like those are things that money won't buy you. And that's what the customer is looking

00:15:37 Guests: for. And at the end of the day, you get to win the loyalty, which goes above and beyond just that one transaction you have with them.

00:15:46 Filip Valica: Carolina, I absolutely agree. I think it's so much harder to win new customers than it is to keep existing ones. And it's such a great feeling to have your existing customers recommend your products to their friends and family. Because not, I mean, not only does

00:16:00 Filip Valica: that mean that you've got the confidence behind your market but that you're getting all this quote free advertising and free marketing from referrals yes and especially if you know anything

00:16:10 Filip Valica: about the the market women will always buy something that was recommended by another lady you know

00:16:18 Guests: so it's just how we work you know so just being that they're one of our biggest percentage of our audience and of our customers just having that from them they will be at the daycare and

00:16:30 Guests: And one mom will say, hey, her hair is cute. And the mom will, you know, tell them, hey, go buy this product. And that's how we've grown. That word of mouth has been fantastic for us. Yeah, absolutely. You know,

00:16:42 Guests: other people that have the same problem are key to connect with other people that are looking for solutions. You know, it's just niching down to that one specific thing and connecting to other people. That's

00:16:53 Guests: really amazing. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how you started your marketing and branding campaign. You ended up with a recipe and a formula for something. Did you have at that time a small

00:17:04 Guests: group of people that you were testing this out on? Or did you just scale from one to a hundred

00:17:10 Filip Valica: overnight? No, we didn't scale from zero to a hundred in a day. We had a few people behind

00:17:19 Filip Valica: the scenes who did the testing for us. And that took, it took almost like a whole year because we had to go back in and fix this and we'll be like, okay, this is too strong. So try this again for another

00:17:34 Filip Valica: month. So it is a very gruesome process. Before you see it sitting on a shelf, it has taken almost a year of different people giving us their feedback, coming back even just the whole visual

00:17:48 Guests: of the labels and things like that. Those just don't happen overnight. You have this color. You're like, know when the market this goes into market customers don't perceive this color as friendly so those small

00:18:02 Guests: things we've had to do suzana is a business major in business and marketing so that also helps to bring a lot to the table so tell me a little bit more about working with some of these testers it's

00:18:16 Guests: really hard to get people that will sit down with you and give you that honest feedback you know some people think that you just throw a survey up there on a website and people answer five questions And that's it.

00:18:26 Guests: For me personally, I like having these really deep conversations with maybe a smaller group of people because that's where you can really dive down into the detail. But it's also really hard to

00:18:36 Guests: get that feedback and for them to kind of want to give you that information. Can you talk a little bit about how you incentivize them to do that, to work with you guys when you didn't really have a product yet?

00:18:47 Guests: We pretty much went with our most difficult clients. These are people that I was interacting with on a regular basis because they would come back, sit in my chair the next week or the next two weeks and get their hair done.

00:18:57 Filip Valica: So I would start them on somewhat like a program to where I give them the product, but I also used the product on them as well.

00:19:05 Filip Valica: And these were my most challenging products, you know, clients, the one that was having sensitivity issues, the one that was having balding issues. used. We always went for the difficult ones because we figure if we can find a product that

00:19:19 Filip Valica: blends well with the ones that are challenging, then we can pretty much find a product that umbrellas for everyone else. So that was the key for us, is just going with the ones that were

00:19:29 Guests: having the most challenges and seeing how it was improving for them. And as it improved for them, they end up telling their friends as well because a lot of them just gave up all together on finding a product that worked because everything bothered them. It was.

00:19:43 Guests: was either the smell was too strong or it gave them headaches or, you know, their skin would break out. So we, you know, just from going with those challenges, they were able to recommend

00:19:54 Guests: others. And we were also able to see a progress. And we took pictures as they came back so we can see the progress in their hair. I love that end part where you talked about, you know, keeping accurate notes because sometimes people forget, especially when you have a lot of people

00:20:08 Filip Valica: in your test group, there can be so much data kind of thrown around and it'll be hard to make sense of it all. So did you have to give any incentives or give free product to people? Or were they,

00:20:21 Guests: did they just readily accept your help and say, oh, great, no problem. I'll try it. Or did you have to say, hey, you know what? If we make it big, I'll promise to give you a discount or I'll give you some free product or something like that. Because these were most of my clients, it was already

00:20:34 Guests: a trust there. Okay. So we went with people that we know. We didn't go to strangers. We went with people that already knew me, new carol, and trusted us. And we pretty much gave them unlabel jars.

00:20:46 Guests: So I would give them an unlabel jar and say, try this. And I'll also use it on your hair when you come in my chair and just let's talk back and forth and see how it's going. And I would call them and find out, how is the product working? Did it melt while it was in your bathroom? You know,

00:21:02 Guests: what was a shelf like life, you know, for you? And just different things.

00:21:05 Filip Valica: We'll just have conversations because these were already people that we had established. relationships with prior to coming out with a brand. Very good tips. Do you have maybe any tips for people that don't have that, that don't have a client base, that just need to reach some new people to help

00:21:20 Guests: test their product? I would probably advise them to step out because you'll be surprised even for a business that probably you don't have the capital to, you know, or it's not in your budget for now

00:21:33 Guests: since you're starting up. Just venture out. Right now, social media is a great avenue. you just reach out to the people and you'll be surprised how many people are willing to even do

00:21:45 Guests: it for you just to be a test person. And the relationship you build after that will grow because

00:21:51 Filip Valica: they're going to go back there and say, I tested for this group and this is what I'm experiencing. So they might bring you in somebody who will also test it for you and you won't even have to spend that amount of money. So for somebody who's scared about the money to set up like a really

00:22:05 Filip Valica: formal. So I say just jump out and go do it. Great. Thanks, Caroline. Actually, and you brought up a really good point of funding.

00:22:14 Guests: Did you both bring some money to the table? Or was this something that kind of grew organically and fed itself as you sold products that funded the future business?

00:22:23 Filip Valica: Initially, we did put in a little bit of our own pocket, out of our pocket from our savings. And that was for, you know, the initial licensing and the registrations and things like

00:22:35 Guests: those like the domains and the websites. But after that, it started to grow organically where it now self-sustains itself because we were new in this.

00:22:45 Guests: You know, we didn't have big business tycoons who held our hands and told us this is the way to go. So we've been learning to even the whole financial aspect. So it's been growing and we're excited to see where it will go.

00:22:59 Filip Valica: It sounds really exciting. And I'm really glad that you shared that because the last few guests that we had on the show all said that they basically started for under $5,000. And that's really amazing that you can build a brand at home using people that you've already

00:23:13 Filip Valica: know and launch a business in a couple of years. And are you guys able to make a full-time living yet off of your products? Yes, Susanna is making a full-time living out of it. I am doing it part-time.

00:23:27 Guests: So in the next, we hope, hopefully I'll be jumping into. Yeah,

00:23:33 Guests: transitioning over. That's a really good tip too. people that are maybe working at a job full time now, they could just consider doing something on the side until it reaches a certain point.

00:23:45 Guests: Exactly, exactly. And it also, I think it gives you as the entrepreneurs, it doesn't give you so much pressure. It helps you to grow as the business is

00:23:55 Guests: growing and to stretch because you're not too worried that it's two households that are reliant on this one thing. So it helps you to stay calm as individuals and you're not stretched out or

00:24:08 Guests: overstressed. Very good tips. So we talked about a little bit of the funding and how you guys created your brand. As you've gone through this process, can you kind of mention some things that

00:24:20 Guests: maybe didn't work out quite right the first time that you had to kind of go back and iterate? As an engineer, when we're talking about design, for example, there's a lot of times where we think that we have the design right and we go out there and then it didn't work out quite right and we

00:24:34 Guests: have to redo that and sometimes we have to do it redo it multiple times and then we can kind of take that next step forward oh boy we have many of those stories um i'll just pick the one that

00:24:48 Guests: comes the most recent to mine um when we first started we didn't start off meeting for specific

00:24:53 Filip Valica: needs we started off with four different scents four different smells and we thought well if each one had a different smell, then people would probably choose which smell their light, you know,

00:25:05 Filip Valica: but customers didn't really respond well to that because it was like, well, does that mean it is all the same thing, just smell different? What's the point? You know, so we had to learn that

00:25:16 Filip Valica: it wasn't about how the product smelled. They wanted to know, well, what can they, what can it do for them? They were more interested in what it can do for them versus how it smells. So we had to

00:25:27 Guests: then go back to the drawing board, find out how other big box company that's made it into the industry already and have already established a name for themselves, how are they doing it?

00:25:39 Guests: And we kind of looked at, you know, their business model and we kind of immolate it in our own business model and realized that it wasn't about how the product smelled, but it was about

00:25:50 Guests: the specific function of the product. And once we got a hold on that, then it just kind of took off. So now we have one basic smell across the board,

00:25:59 Guests: but different functions. Each one have a different function. And that was the sweet spot for us because before that, we weren't getting a lot of responses back from our customers saying that they love the product. You know, that's a really interesting point.

00:26:14 Guests: So you cater to the needs, don't cater to maybe the wants?

00:26:19 Guests: Yes. I don't know how you would even reconcile that because it makes sense that you come out with four different sense because everyone has a different. smeller, a different palette. I don't know how you call that. Why were you able to be successful

00:26:31 Guests: with four products that have different functions? And yet, I'm sure people like the smell of one

00:26:37 Filip Valica: product better over another. Do you still find that maybe the scent of a product isn't as important as its function?

00:26:45 Guests: It's still very important because the first thing women do when they get a hair product is they open it and they sniff it. It's the very first thing. Then the next thing is they touch it and they want to know how it feel. So the smell is super important.

00:26:59 Guests: We stuck with the scent that most customers liked. We had four, but we realized that one sold more than the others.

00:27:06 Guests: So when we decided to break off from that idea of having different scents and change to different functions, we still stuck with our most popular sense.

00:27:15 Guests: And now that's all everybody talks about is not only does the product work, but oh, my gosh, it smells so great.

00:27:21 Filip Valica: And you'll see that all over social media. That's one of the first thing the YouTuber reviews and everybody speak about is that the product smells amazing, but also they want to know, well, I have curly hair, which one is best for me?

00:27:35 Filip Valica: Because I don't want something for my scalp, but I want something just for the hair. So they're looking for smell, but they also want to go another step further. And that's what we were missing before. We didn't go another step further.

00:27:48 Guests: We just stayed at the smell. So now we not only meet that basic need of wanting to smell, but also wanting a product that functions very well. Well, so in a way, this really wasn't a misstep.

00:28:02 Guests: It was almost a necessary step to find which products smelled the best, because if you didn't do that up front, maybe your product wouldn't be as successful as it is today.

00:28:11 Guests: And that is my next point is that when in this whole entrepreneur marathon, we say, because it's not a sprint, it's definitely a marathon. gone. It's never a such thing as a misstep. It's always a building block because you'll think

00:28:25 Guests: you misstepped, but then you have this idea that's just like ingenious. And it's like, how did I even come up with this? But if it wasn't for your previous quote unquote misstep, you'd have never

00:28:36 Guests: arrived to this greater, you know, next level of your business. So there's no such thing as really a failure for us. But there's many times where we realized we had to push the envelope a little bit more.

00:28:49 Guests: Very good advice for people. So if you're struggling with something now that just means that you're putting some good effort into it and hopefully something even better will come out

00:28:58 Guests: at the other side. Absolutely. You mentioned giving some product away to some YouTubers. Can you talk a little bit about the marketing aspect and how you were able to scale from maybe working

00:29:12 Filip Valica: with clients face to face to online? So we have a public relationship.

00:29:19 Filip Valica: initiative where we target like all the YouTube people or social media people with a huge presence.

00:29:28 Filip Valica: But one of the key things is they have to reflect our brand or we want to be their brand and our brand aligns.

00:29:36 Filip Valica: So we will usually send them out products and they will test them so they can share with, they can share their experience with their audience, which we find is one of the ways that,

00:29:50 Filip Valica: our customers will come back. They want to know how did so I like to listen to so-and-so give a review.

00:29:58 Guests: When she reviews, she doesn't review because she's getting paid to review the product, but she's actually giving her honest opinion about if she's going to give it a four, it's a four. When I use the product, then it's a four.

00:30:11 Guests: And it helps give the customer a visual before they actually spend their money. They can see, I wanted my hair to. to turn out and look like this. When she used the product, how I see she did it this way.

00:30:24 Guests: So they'll kind of know, instead of getting this specific butter, then I need to tweak and use this one. So it's kind of giving them an experience where they can see the product being used without them using the product per se.

00:30:38 Guests: And when they get ready to purchase, they're making a more informed purchase. Right. And until now, they might have had even a stronger connection to this person on YouTube or this blogger than they had with your brand.

00:30:52 Guests: Exactly. Exactly. So can you talk a little bit about how you identify these people? So, you know, sometimes if you just type in, you know, a certain industry into Google

00:31:04 Guests: and say, blogger or YouTuber, you'll get pages of people that do that, especially now, right? It's become so much more popular in the last 12 months.

00:31:14 Filip Valica: How do you sift through the people that are aligned with your business and your brand?

00:31:19 Filip Valica: and then also that are willing to review products because some of these people are so backed up with product that they've started charging or it's become really expensive to do marketing in that way now.

00:31:32 Guests: If you're in the business and, you know, you will see what you're saying, that some of them are charging and the prices for you as a business that's growing is probably something you're not able.

00:31:45 Guests: So the target and the approach we use is we're not trying to get the YouTube person who's at the top of the top of the top, because that's the one who's going to charge you the most dollars. Right.

00:31:58 Guests: But we're trying to get to that average YouTube person because the consumer has also realized that, hey, she's getting paid. So she's going to say everything that they need her to say because she's getting a check at the end of the month. Sure.

00:32:11 Guests: So in as much as they're getting money, they also need that honest. feedback from a person who says, hey, I stopped by this hair show and they had four trial sizes. And so let me check this out.

00:32:24 Guests: So we try and target that average person because we're looking for that everyday person who's going to walk into a grocery store and make a purchase. Our product price is between $15.

00:32:35 Guests: So that's who we're targeting, that everyday person is going to walk in and make a purchase that's $15, but not that $600, $100, you know. Right.

00:32:44 Guests: So just that kind of separates us and the competition seems, you know, it seems to read out all the expense that we would have spent.

00:32:53 Filip Valica: Understood. And so do you include any giveaway products or anything in that? Have you had any luck giving away product to larger groups? Maybe if they have contests or that type of thing?

00:33:05 Filip Valica: Yes, we have tons of different things that we do, especially on Instagram, where we do giveaways and we find baby ambassadors.

00:33:14 Guests: A lot of these people surprisingly come to us in our inbox and asks, hey, I have a channel and I love your product. Do you guys, can we promote you? Like, can we try it? And, you know, we'll mention in our channel if we like it.

00:33:28 Guests: And so we don't do a lot of searching for these people.

00:33:32 Filip Valica: A lot of times they find us because they saw someone else reviewed it. And now they want to try it and they have an up and coming page. And so they reach out to us. Wow, that sounds amazing. I would love to be in those shoes. Yes,

00:33:46 Guests: it's kind of cool because these people are people that in the beginning we were trying to reach out to that did not give us the time of day. But now from our growth, especially on social media,

00:33:57 Guests: it's almost like a tree you can't stop growing because they come to us and say, hey, I heard that you guys have this amazing product.

00:34:06 Filip Valica: I see it all over Instagram. And I just want to know, is there a way that I can be an ambassador for you guys? We check out their page. We see if they're in alignment with what we stand for as a company. And if they are, then we put them on our mail-out list.

00:34:20 Filip Valica: And, you know, for every people that they refer to us, they have a special code that they can give their reviewers and their audience that's just for them that gives them a discount. And we monitor it. And if they do well, we continue sending them product.

00:34:34 Guests: They continue reviewing us. It's a win-win. Nobody pays. Wow, that's really amazing. Well,

00:34:40 Guests: part of this, though, I think you're selling yourself. a little bit short is all of this is on the back of having a really amazing product. If you had to convince people to push your product, then it would be a uphill battle in a way. But because

00:34:54 Guests: you have such a successful product by itself, it makes it so easy to promote. Wouldn't you agree?

00:35:00 Guests: Yes.

00:35:02 Guests: The product sells itself in so many different ways because women talk and they have product loyalty when it comes to their hair and once they find something they love they pretty

00:35:12 Guests: much go tell everybody about it and they stick with it for life if possible that's amazing is to work on a product that has that type of loyalty but i could understand not wanting to risk anything once

00:35:24 Guests: it's working you know you definitely don't want to change it up um can you guys talk about maybe your most successful one or two channels for marketing you've mentioned instagram is that one of them Yes, we have Instagram. We also have YouTube and Facebook.

00:35:39 Guests: So far, those are the three that really propels for us social media-wise. We do have Twitter and a few others, Pinterest, but they don't really show as much action as Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

00:35:52 Filip Valica: So give me a tip for Instagram because I'm terrible at it. And it might be just because my business isn't product-based. So I feel the businesses that do the best on Instagram have physical.

00:36:04 Filip Valica: products and might be connected to a certain type of lifestyle so you can take a lot of photos of people having fun enjoying the product or living their daily lives and their lives being

00:36:16 Filip Valica: benefited through the product is would would you agree with that or what's your secret sauce to making that work I would give you a tip that I have given many startup entrepreneurs that

00:36:27 Filip Valica: asks me how in the world do you grow at that rate without paying somebody to do it for you And what I do, it's very tireless, but it works. I will stay up in the middle of the night. And I will hashtag,

00:36:42 Filip Valica: let's say we are in the hair industry. So I will hashtag product junkie and search. And Instagram pulls up all the images that comes underneath that category. And then what I'll do, I'll go and like each one of them.

00:36:55 Filip Valica: I don't care who it is, if it's a regular person or a big company.

00:36:58 Guests: But once people see that this person they've never heard of like their pictures, they come to check out our page and end up following us. So I kind of lure them in that way. I go out, I search a hashtag product junkie or, you know, hair, natural hair.

00:37:14 Guests: And once the images come up, I just go down the list and I like, or I even have my nine-year-old daughter just like it for me. I'll pay her a couple bucks to have her go down the list and hit like on all the images that come up.

00:37:28 Guests: And these people end up, it's almost like sending out a business card. right right and they see you like and they go try to find out well who is roboter and they start researching your page and they end up following you and they convert to customers you know and it's

00:37:42 Guests: really great that you brought that up as an example and i didn't realize the importance of even using hashtags as much until and i and i might sound ancient i'm 36 and i just really i got on

00:37:55 Filip Valica: instagram pretty slow and the first time that i finally put maybe 20 hashtags which i thought was crazy excessive onto a post,

00:38:05 Guests: I had the most likes and the most follows from that one post and I didn't realize how important it was to use hashtags. And I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I just thought people would browse through your content and kind of like stuff as

00:38:18 Guests: they went or followed you because of things that you put out. But like you said, people browse hashtags all the time naturally. Yes.

00:38:26 Guests: Can you maybe mention the same kind of tips for Facebook? It's really hard to on Facebook now to get some of that engagement because Facebook has been prioritizing some of their live feeds and video. I know some of the posts that I used to do

00:38:39 Filip Valica: that were even just text-based or maybe just photos that would get some interaction. Don't get as much interaction anymore because I'm not showing up in their feed. Even with a whole bunch of likes on a page and that type of thing, it just seems to just not be prioritized anymore.

00:38:55 Filip Valica: Yeah. So now one of the approaches and we, you know, we started to face the same challenge.

00:39:00 Guests: you're talking about and one of the ways we've seen that's really been helping us is when other people

00:39:08 Guests: share that status, that organic sharing going back to the old way of doing it, then when the Facebook analytic runs the numbers, it kind of tricks it to think, hey, we might have thought

00:39:22 Filip Valica: this is just text, but look, all these six people are sharing this. So it kind of tricks now the system to be like maybe this is nice maybe this is important maybe we need to you know just bring it

00:39:35 Filip Valica: down people's timelines and so that's been one of the avenues we've been saving money every now and then we will do sponsored ads that run just you know maybe a week or so so it's not too strange

00:39:46 Filip Valica: on the budget but just that old school organic sharing where your friends share what you you put on your status and stuff like that has also been very helpful for us so can you give

00:39:59 Guests: Us an indication of maybe what your content looks like, like how much of it is personal, how much is business, is it mostly text, mostly images, that type of thing?

00:40:08 Guests: Our Facebook is, I want to say we are 70% images because we have, you know, the before picture or people want to see the picture over here. And that's just because of the nature of our business. They want to see the picture of the hair.

00:40:23 Guests: So we will have 70% pictures on our Facebook page. Every now and then we will go out and feature somebody else, but we try and keep it just strictly aligned to the frow butter.

00:40:37 Guests: To us, we look at it like it's a platform of our website. Somebody who wouldn't go to our website and they came to our Facebook page, they would have the same experience.

00:40:46 Filip Valica: How much of the content that you put on there is maybe from other brands that are aligned with yours or other people. For example, sometimes I'll post things from Make, which is a magazine for people that, like,

00:40:57 Filip Valica: like to make things and inventors, that's a very practical tips. And I'll just share their post sometimes on my feed because they're aligned with my brand. How much of that do you guys do?

00:41:07 Filip Valica: We probably do on like a 10%. On Instagram, we will be more vocal to promote the others,

00:41:15 Guests: but on Facebook, our approach is to keep it like a website because we notice that the young generation will probably not go and sit out there and look at a company's website. So,

00:41:27 Guests: Facebook is our website. That's how we treat it as. Okay, cool. So do you have, did you use the store features or are people able to buy product directly through Facebook yet? Yes, we do. Awesome. And have

00:41:38 Guests: you implemented the Facebook retargeting pixel to be able to push ads and everything to people?

00:41:45 Filip Valica: Yes, yes. Yeah, that's amazing. That technology is great because as a business owner, it really helps you target people that have been on your website before. So you're not wasting money on an audience that

00:41:56 Filip Valica: hasn't been there or it is not interested in your brand yeah yeah as we go through and we talk about marketing what would you say is probably the best use of someone's time or or money when they're

00:42:07 Filip Valica: trying to get their brand out i say the best use of the time is social media it's something that

00:42:14 Guests: you can do while you're doing other things um even though i do this business full time i still am able to do social media while i'm sitting in the carpool line waiting to pick up my children you know, I'm still able to.

00:42:29 Guests: So I think social media give you the capability to be in multiple places, in multiple people's feed at one time with very little effort. It takes a lot of determination because sometimes you just don't feel like doing it.

00:42:42 Guests: But if you really push yourself and continue to do it even when you don't feel like doing it, it has a huge payoff because those social media numbers and followings and likes do translate to sales.

00:42:56 Filip Valica: Very good advice, especially advice at the end, that it does translate because I think sometimes

00:43:01 Guests: people feel that, you know what, I'm wasting so much time online, it's not productive. It's hard to make that connection sometimes to say, you know, if you spend an hour on Facebook, is that going to translate to sales later on? Very good for you to say that.

00:43:15 Guests: Let's talk about fulfilling the order. So now you've advertised the product and people want to buy it and they click the buy now or the order button. How is that order being fulfilled? Are you guys fulfilling it yourself?

00:43:26 Filip Valica: Yes, we still do everything in home. So we do fulfill all the products ourselves from here.

00:43:34 Filip Valica: Does that mean that you're also the manufacturer or have you outsourced that? No, we are everything right now. We are the manufacturer. We are a distributor. We are the HR. We are the complaints. Nice.

00:43:46 Guests: We are everything in one until we have gotten to the level where we can bring more people on staff and on board. Right now, we are pretty much multifamily. that it didn't handle just about every area organically ourselves. Very good.

00:44:00 Guests: And that helps you kind of keep it flowing well and you have a good handle on the quality and especially customer service. You know, I think people outsource customer service first. Personally, I think that's a mistake because that's your brand. Yeah. So that's really good that you're able to keep it in house.

00:44:15 Guests: I'm sure at some point it's going to become a nightmare.

00:44:18 Guests: Have you decided whether you're going to kind of, like you said, hire more employees and

00:44:22 Filip Valica: keep it in house or maybe use a, I know in the food.

00:44:26 Guests: industry they call it a co-packer or it's basically a manufacturer that specializes in manufacturing that type of product um for some areas for example with amazon we will do the amazon

00:44:38 Guests: fulfillment and that does take a lot of load off with that set of customers in the future as we continue to grow we would be interested in having it manufactured in a warehouse of some sort so that

00:44:53 Guests: everything is not completely handled by us, but in the meantime, you work with what you have, and we've been working it, and it's a lot when you get a 4,000-piece order. Jeez.

00:45:06 Guests: But you do what you have to do to get to where you want to get, so we handle it, but as we

00:45:11 Filip Valica: continue to grow, we do want to spread out and bring more people on staff. So are you guys in a similar location? Do you meet up at all regularly during the week to work on? product?

00:45:24 Filip Valica: Yes, we talk every single day, and we see each other very often.

00:45:32 Guests: If I don't speak to her, I feel like something is off-kilter. I haven't spoken to her all day.

00:45:37 Guests: So yes, it does involve a lot of time if you have a partnership,

00:45:41 Guests: you know, life's cross and we are continually always in contact with each other, you know, trying to make sure that everything is running as smoothly as possible. For sure. I could see how you would have to

00:45:53 Guests: definitely combine forces on something like that. That's a really huge order. As we near the end of the show, can each of you maybe talk about any tools or books or things that you've read that have

00:46:05 Guests: been really helpful for you on this journey? Susanna, maybe we can start with you.

00:46:10 Guests: I do a lot of self-inspiration tapes and YouTube, and I try to listen to them throughout the day as I go about

00:46:17 Filip Valica: my day. Different things, law of attraction and just different things that keeps you in the mindset of

00:46:24 Guests: remembering that you don't just keep this will going, you know, by giving up or getting tired, but it does take a certain level of determination and you have to keep pushing forward.

00:46:37 Guests: So anything that keeps reminding me of that, that this is not a sprint but a marathon, anything that uplifts me and keep me going even when I don't feel like it, I continually listen to that all day long.

00:46:51 Guests: And Caroline, what about yourself?

00:46:54 Guests: Well, my favorite book is Instincts by T.D.

00:46:59 Filip Valica: Jake's. To me, it's just not a spiritual book, but it's one of those books that keep challenging me to jump out of bed and go to work, even though yesterday was rough, you know, keep pushing hard.

00:47:12 Filip Valica: And also, same thing.

00:47:15 Filip Valica: I listen to a lot of business talk and, you know, things on YouTube that are free. And one of my favorite person that I like to follow, which I think has helped me grow a lot, is the budgetista. I don't know if you're familiar with her.

00:47:30 Filip Valica: Tiffany Alicester, she usually have a lot of resources that are, and she'll bring in people who will kind of feed it into the different aspects that you need as an entrepreneur.

00:47:40 Guests: So those two for me have been awesome. So imagine that you're sitting down with your younger self or a younger brother or sister, and they're looking to bring their own product to market.

00:47:50 Filip Valica: and it might be something in the health and beauty space. It might not.

00:47:54 Filip Valica: What is the one piece of

00:47:56 Guests: advice that you would give them to kind of help them keep going?

00:48:01 Guests: My tip would be don't cut corners when it comes to quality.

00:48:06 Filip Valica: Just in as much as you like quality product, try to make sure that the product that you're bringing forth to the table has that much quality for your customers. don't go cheap,

00:48:18 Filip Valica: don't water down your ingredients, don't try to make it stretch, you know, really invest in quality ingredients and try to give your customers as much quality as possible because they can

00:48:30 Guests: tell. And that's what they're looking for. And this person might be spending their last $15 and giving your product a try because they desperately need something to work. So don't cut corners when it comes to quality.

00:48:44 Guests: You can cut corners when it comes to other areas, but when it comes to offering a quality product with quality ingredients, don't skimp, don't go cheap, don't water things down,

00:48:54 Filip Valica: and don't sell something that you're not. Yeah, that's right. Focus on value. What about yourself, Caroline?

00:49:00 Filip Valica: I would say reflect on you as the entrepreneur because it's going to spill over to your business. So from the beginning, learn how to balance.

00:49:13 Filip Valica: balance. Balance time for the business, balance time for yourself because the business feeds from you. So if you're in balance, things are going to start to spill over where you find out, oh,

00:49:25 Filip Valica: this order is late. This hasn't happened. So small things like those, from the beginning set a good foundation of having balance. It's going to roll over to your business.

00:49:35 Filip Valica: no very good advice and i am one of those people that tends to work really late at night and i'm my wife will call me a workaholic but that's only because i really enjoy the work and it won't be

00:49:47 Filip Valica: until i'm already past burnout that i'll realize that i'm burning out that i haven't worked out or i haven't relieved stress in the way i usually do and then it's already too late because that's like i've basically i realize that i i don't have balance when i've made more mistakes than i usually do.

00:50:02 Filip Valica: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

00:50:04 Filip Valica: So I know I definitely need to work on that. So as we're wrapping up, can you guys both tell everybody where we can find Fro Butter and how we can get in touch with you

00:50:14 Guests: in case we have any questions? You can find us on our website, Fro Butter.com. We also sell

00:50:20 Filip Valica: our products on Amazon. So those two avenues, we are on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and all our handles are at ProButter. Perfect. And do you mind?

00:50:31 Filip Valica: if people reach out to you, even if it's not about the Fro Butter product, if they might just have some questions about getting their own thing going? No, definitely they can feel free. Our email is FroButter at gmail.com.

00:50:43 Filip Valica: So we'll be glad to, you know, reach out and pull somebody up because somebody else lifted us up. So we'd be glad to share that with them. Yes, I'd love standing on the shoulders of Giants for sure. Yeah. Thanks again, ladies, for your time, Susanna, Caroline.

00:50:58 Filip Valica: It's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for being. so transparent and inspirational to everybody. I definitely wish you guys a lot of success. As a parting thought, Susanna, are there any products that you guys have that you're coming out with that we should look out for?

00:51:13 Filip Valica: Right now, we are focusing on our latest launch, which was our Royal Breeze, Scalp, Spritzer, and all of our attention has been focusing on getting

00:51:23 Filip Valica: that one out there and have people to learn as much about it as possible as they know about our butters. So that's where all our focus is right now. As for future products, nothing is in

00:51:35 Filip Valica: the making yet, but we keep our Instagram updated constantly, if anything comes. Perfect. And we'll link to that in the show notes, to all the resources that you guys mentioned, all the websites, all your

00:51:46 Filip Valica: social media contacts, and we'll hope to hear from you guys soon. Thanks again for coming on the show, ladies.

00:51:53 Filip Valica: Thank you for having us. And that's all I've got for today. Thanks for listening, everybody. I put all the links that we covered under the show notes posted on the product startup.com.

00:52:03 Filip Valica: Join me next week as I speak with Matt Rodlinger, the founder of the marketing firm Triple R Marketing. He's also a successful serial entrepreneur. For years, Matt gave his clients Jones Carmel's on their birthdays.

00:52:15 Filip Valica: Clients loved the personal touch of receiving Carmel's and they quickly became a part of his business. When he got word that the store was closing, Matt took over as the new owner and we get into

00:52:25 Filip Valica: all the details about taking over an existing business as well as talk about some marketing tips that we can all implement so tune in next week to hear that episode have you brought your

00:52:36 Filip Valica: own physical product to market or do you know someone that has let me know drop me a note by going to the product startup dot com and click on ask philip i'd love to have you as a guest on the show

00:52:47 Filip Valica: i really appreciate your support i read all the comments and questions that you guys send me and I definitely try to incorporate them into future episodes, so please keep the emails coming. See you guys next week.

00:52:59 Filip Valica: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast with your host, Philip Veletsa. For more great content and to stay up today, visit theproductstartup.com,

00:53:11 Filip Valica: your guide to getting there.

00:53:17 Filip Valica: Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Product Startup podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success.

00:53:26 Filip Valica: This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the first firm in North America to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product businesses.

00:53:38 Filip Valica: If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako-design.com, that's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako-Design for design for design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.