Going Pro as an e-Commerce Founder is Simpler Than You Think

Schedule a Call here to build and Scale your Ecommerce Brand → https://www.ecomcapital.com/demo/schedule

In this exclusive workshop, Sasha and Hamen sit down with three community members — Cindy (a social services professional who designed her own handbag and built it into a growing brand), Nathan and Etienne (two former supermarket store managers who hit $10K within their first 30 days selling pet products). We break down their journeys, expose the real blockers holding each of them back, and go deep on the questions every scaling founder faces: when to expand, when to stay focused, and why complexity kills more businesses than competition ever will.

If you're new to this channel, my name is Sasha Karabut. I went from $137,000 in debt to building two 8-figure eCommerce brands. Through my company Ecom Capital, I've generated over $75 million in client revenue and helped 1000+ brands scale their businesses profitably.

Connect with Sasha
Instagram: https://instagram.com/sasha_karabut
Facebook: https://facebook.com/the.real.sasha.karabut
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/sashakarabut

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro: Three Founders, Three Businesses, One Session
1:30 - Cindy's Background: From Social Services to Handbag Brand
4:00 - How a Ugly Prototype Became a Real Business
6:00 - The Meta Problem That Killed Every Previous Business
8:00 - Scaling to $20K Then Running Out of Inventory
10:00 - The Panic Moment (And the Advice That Saved the Business)
12:00 - Nathan & Etienne: From Supermarket Managers to Pet Brand Founders
15:00 - The Catalyst: Making Someone Else Successful Every Day
17:00 - MJ DeMarco, Happy Staffy, and the No Excuses Mindset
19:00 - Failure as a Feature, Not a Bug
21:00 - Turning Pro: What Athlete-Mode Looks Like for Founders
25:00 - The Two Sisters Case Study: Zero to $4M in 16 Months
27:00 - Why Success Makes You Fat and Lazy
29:00 - The Most Important Skill: Messaging That Converts
31:00 - Nathan & Etienne Hit 10K in 30 Days (Then Lost It)
33:00 - The One Page Change That Tanked Conversions
35:00 - Cost Cap Strategy: What It Is and When to Use It
37:00 - It's Never the Ad Account. It's Always the Creative.
39:00 - Reverse Marketing: The $1M in 60 Days Case Study
42:00 - Cindy's Conversion Rate Problem (And How to Fix It)
45:00 - Using Refunds and Returns as Market Research
48:00 - The Self-Deprecating Hook Strategy
51:00 - Australia First or Go International? The Real Answer
55:00 - Vertical vs Horizontal Growth (Which Game Are You Playing?)
58:00 - The IM8 Example: $14M/Month, Two Products, One Market
1:02:00 - How Tom from Happy Staffy Got to $300K/Month
1:05:00 - The Trapeka Case Study: $40M/Year, Cash Funded, Debt Free
1:08:00 - Why Complexity Kills More Businesses Than Competition
1:10:00 - The Bisous Business: $63K/Month on 4 Hours of Work
1:12:00 - Final Takeaways From All Three Founders

Ready to take your business to the next level?

Follow Sasha below:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sasha_karabut/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/SashaEcomCapital/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfVhWUtWBs_Hm-FrQJot8-Q

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashakarabut/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We've got another episode here with two founders from the community, both in different businesses, selling different products with different problems based on the stage of business. Give me some kind of like context of how it all started. And I'd love to just go some uh zoomed in results over the last like 90 days or something.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Long before I was working in the social services and human behaviour, I wanted to design my own handbag. And let me tell you, it was ugly. And a lot of my colleagues and friends also wanted one. It kind of just took off from there.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

And I remember you scaled like 20k per month, and then you run out of inventory.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, I had a massive panic, listened to the advice of you guys, and then all of a sudden I'm back doing you know$1,500 days, which is great.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Nathan and Etienne, what about you guys? We're both retail supermarket store managers. That's sort of where we where we started and where we both met.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

We're making someone else look successful every single day. Surely we can go and do this for ourselves. They've got to take care within 30 days.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

What do you think has been most difficult for you? Were there any key moments where you were like, oh, this is tough, or like this is pretty challenging? First things first, Cindy, tell us a little bit about uh your uh lead up to starting your business. I know from the notes that I saw, this is not the first business that you've kind of launched or the first side hustle. So break that down a little bit. Give me some kind of like context of how it all started, and then I'd love to just know some uh zoomed-in results over the last like 90 days more specifically.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Sasha, and thanks for having me here. So um, yeah, this is definitely not my first business or first online business. I have been um in several businesses over the years, whether it was with um ex-partners, partners, or um just trying to do it out myself. And um, online was always something that I wanted to do because uh obviously you have the amazing freedom of you know doing your own thing when you want to and just living the life that by design basically. Um so yeah, several over I would say the 10 years of trying and then failing, and usually I would fail because I got to Meta and could not work Meta out, and so the advertising kind of went downhill. Um, and I do have a funny story which I told Nathan yesterday about Meta, um, and I'll tell you that a little bit later. But um, even before I joined eCom Capital, long before I was working in the social services and human behaviour, so I spent a lot of time being a team leader of a drug and alcohol rehab, um, the team leader of uh domestic violence uh services, homeless in specific homeless services. Um so I did a lot of travel and I wanted to design my own handbag. Now, when I came into ecom capital, that actually wasn't my goal, was to do fashion design or working um in fashion at all. My goal was to have a business, and um, so just going back, when I said that I was uh designed my own handbag, I actually designed it for the travel I was doing in corporate. Um and I'd seen a TikTok, right? I saw a TikTok and it showed me how I could just go and design my own handbag and get it shipped out, which is what I did. And um let me tell you, it was it was ugly, it wasn't what I wanted at all, but I used it, and a lot of my colleagues and friends also wanted one, and so I bought them one and um it kind of just took off from there, and that's when I said my my girlfriend sat me down actually and said, Why don't you start a business? And so it took a little while, and I kept seeing you on ad Sasha, and so I, you know, had a phone call um with one of the guys there, and we talked about it and I went for it. But at that stage, designing handbags wasn't something that I thought my business could actually do, and um yeah, so that was that's where I was at.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

And um, and so so so it sounds like you kind of like had a bit of an idea, and then you were doing a little bit of testing, maybe building some product, some people liked it, and then you were like, maybe there's something more to this thing. It kind of sounds like that was the process.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

That is actually the process, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

And what was um, what do you think? I know that the meta conversation that you said there was the most challenging, the most difficult thing it sounds like across the previous businesses. If you were to look across the last, you know, 12 months that you spent inside of the community, um, are there any key skills that you feel like compared to the other businesses that you you know tried, tested, kind of had some time and energy put into versus now? Like, where's the difference been in the in the skill set in the level? Like, where would you say?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah, massive difference. Um, even just your presence online, like the content, understanding, pulling apart what an actual content piece is, like, for example, your books and the body, and even um your ad copy, how to run meta was um which I mean, you know, I'm still learning that, but just understanding Meta is so much, it it creates such a massive difference in your business compared to just, you know, just basic content where you don't understand it. And so um, yeah, that has been those definitely are big key things that's actually changed my trajectory of my business.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

What do you what do you think has been most difficult for you? What was were there any key moments where you were like, oh, this is tough or like this is pretty challenging, or amongst all the things that would have been very challenging, right? But uh were there any key standout things you think for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Oh yes. Yeah, I'm gonna say, yeah, meta. Meta is definitely challenging. It's not something that you could just go in blind, like you need to understand it. That's absolutely something you need to understand it. Um challenging. Yeah, well, like I said, I didn't actually come in the in e-com capital thinking I was gonna be a fashion designer and design handbags and sell handbags, and so validating my first product, which is completely different, um it was a failed kind of situation. And so my first product was aligned with women as well, because that's just my thing. My first product was aligned with um women and midwives and babies, and it just wasn't um it just wasn't working. And so that's when I come back to my handbag and validating that and just seeing the difference between trying to validate a product that isn't gonna work, just trying to validate a product that does work, was really, really massive. And so being able to get that help around how to do that was huge.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yes, and I thought you were gonna say another moment, just here kind of stepping in, because we worked together for a while, and I remember you scaled like to 20k per month, and then you run out of inventory, so you had like this good moment and then run out of inventory, and somehow you increased the price, everything dropped. Oh, yeah. You did not like know what to do exactly. I remember that kind of panic mode. I'm not getting any sales, and I remember you jumping on a 10k call, and the only recommendation was revert back the price. You come, you you came back, I think, the the next week, and you mentioned to me, I'm having the best week ever. So you went from challenge to almost like game changing. I have like a five Rowass.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, let's like let's not pretend that that didn't happen because that definitely happened. And so my the other thing I just believe massively is, and Heyman and Sasha, you say this all the time is um don't act with emotion, act with like, you know, you need to actually just do it's business, separate it from your emotions. And that is a really big one for me because yeah, I had a massive panic and fixed, changed the price, and it just dove into the ground and then listened to the advice of you guys, and then all of a sudden I'm back doing, you know,$1,500 days, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Well is there any um is there any like outside of maybe the meta platform, um Cindy, are there any like perhaps like skills that you feel like you've developed and learned here that you you know that they will just continue to like uh empower you into the future? You know, like you'll always keep using them, you'll always maybe look at particular numbers, you'll always look at like, I don't know, content or creatives, maybe offers or pricing. Are there any things that really stood out that you're like this is that this I feel much more confident with like the future of my business?

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Absolutely. And that would, like you said, the finances, like just getting your your templates and stuff that you you hand out for your KPIs, for your product and inventory pricing, like those are really, really helpful. Um, but one of the biggest things that I found is so helpful is your work on AI and understanding how to do AI because like it it is the future and it is gonna change businesses so significantly. Um, so yeah, really honing in and focusing on that was was really, really helpful. Um and the platforms that you guys um you know talk about, I wouldn't even know they existed without you know the research that you guys have done.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

I love that. What would you say you're most proud of in terms of like is there a particular result, whether it's a revenue result, whether it's a daily sales, maybe it's a I don't know, a customer feedback that you've got from your product? Is there anything that stands out the most to you about like the the the growth that you've had with your business?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Uh yeah, definitely revenue. Um, I love all my customers, I love them, and I do get really good reviews, which is fantastic. And I've even set up a a little community like Facebook page, which is um which is really exciting. That's just started. But most of all, like the most proud I reckon would be was when I sucked it up through that hard time that we were just talking about, Heyman, and um listened, listened to you guys and changed because um if I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have a business by the end of the year. Yeah, so just yeah, suck it up and just and do what the experts say to do because it works.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

That's um that's interesting. I um I'm I'm glad you shared that. And I think it's also it's also challenging sometimes to like when you're the founder, you have the ideas, you have this product idea, you it's like you think you know so many things, and it can be quite challenging to kind of like put all that on the side and be like, okay, like maybe I'm not as good as I think. Maybe I need to, yeah, you know, maybe so it can be quite a challenging thing. And and I just want to give you some credit for doing that because yeah, a lot of people struggle to do that, and then we were saying before the podcast, it's like this friction of like, well, we need to do this with your business, and it's like, no, we need to stay here, and it's like, what are we doing? It makes it very difficult to grow if we're kind of butting heads and going, we're trying to go in the same direction always, and it's like on one side we've seen it uh thousands of times, and on the other side, it's like I know best because it's my business, and it's like, okay, you win. Congratulations, stay right where you are, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, and that's so true. It's really hard to um, you know, suck it up and eat humble pie and be like, actually, someone else knows better. Um, it's quite yeah, I think it's it's a big thing to have, and that growth, that personal development that I've got through um starting a business and working with you guys has been huge.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

And I remember like uh it's just a quick story. This is actually something that Sasha told me after an event he did, which essentially was in that first row, there were these, let's say, eight-figure business owners. And whenever they were like positioned into a scenario, they were so much like excited about giving their take on this, but they will take the feedback, they will sit down, and then they keep going with that same enthusiasm where, well, actually, the person that was mentoring them is telling them they're wrong. So I think that element, if you keep it within you, that's one of the biggest assets. So let's say you work and you did something, it's wrong, you know, it's wrong and it's not working. You need to keep that enthusiasm of I'm gonna work on this, I'm gonna improve it, which is very challenging, which I know this. But when Sasha actually told me this, I was like, Well, I understand why they make an eight-figure plus, it's probably because they keep this level of enthusiasm while literally the person they look up the most is actually telling them they're wrong, and every person in the room is actually laughing at them. I think that's that's like what it takes sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Such an interesting moment. Um, uh there was at the the Mar-a-Lago, um, Donald Trump's like residence there, and then with there's a room of you know 400 people, and then right at the front, there's like one row with like uh some guys doing 250 million, 350 million, um, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. And like every time that you know Patrick Bed David or one of the speakers would ask a question to the audience, um, these individuals in the front row, like the front row, it's almost like the whole front row, would just be like, and their hand would go up and they'd stand up out of their seat, and then the the microphone runner would run over and he'd grab the microphone and he'd be like, Well, I think that you should do this and this and this, and he'd explain it, and Patrick would be like, is this guy crazy or what? Like, what? And then everyone would be laughing, oh my god, and then he'd sit back down again, and then another question, and then the same guy would just be like, boom, up again, microphone, microphone, I got the microphone, and it's like there's zero loss in that enthusiasm, exactly like what Hammond said, and so many times, um, just that kind of dampening of your entrepreneurial fire that has you burning and driving, and you have it kind of like beaten out of you a little bit here, and this happens bad, and that goes wrong, and you get a little bit of an issue with your quality, and then your pricing, and then your marketing efficiency, and then you're like you turn into like a a bit of a slump, you know what I mean? And you lose the drive. And the drive, yeah, the drive, the drive is the main thing that kind of keeps the business alive because it it goes through everything. So it's one of the most one of the most important um aspects. And I think it, I think it's critical to always keep kind of reinventing um the reasoning and the why that you do what you do, and like reminding yourself of like, okay, it's hard right now, but that's that's what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to get to that, you know, and it kind of expands, you open as opposed to just if I can just get through that, if I can just finish that thing, if I can just ship that price, if I can just get that price, you know what I mean? It's like very, very, very small thinking as opposed to up and out. And as entrepreneurs, we need to be focused big, big, big on the future, you know, always. So, Cindy, super grateful uh for you as a client and um amazing story. I uh I love the the detail you put into your experience there, as well as the learnings and also the honesty in terms of some of the things that you had to learn, um humbly learn through the process. So I appreciate that. Um, Nathan and Etienne, what about you guys? Where did where did this idea all start? How's um the the two of you come together that you now own this business together? Talk me through that.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

Um yeah, uh we're both um retail supermarket store managers, that's sort of where we where we started and where we both met. Um and uh Nathan was funnily enough my boss at the time. Um and we sort of grew a friendship. I ended up house sitting for him. Um and yeah, we we sort of bonded on business and and uh learning the stock market and stuff like that. Um and I distinctly remember I was driving from work one uh one night and uh Nathan was uh just talking to me about actually you Sasha and the the e com uh econ business, and he was like, you know, we could we could start our own business. Um we we do have a fair bit of experience through that supermarket store managing um and yeah we we just ended up uh signing up.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

And when Nathan um called you and you had that conversation, you're in the car, what was the immediate response? Like, were you like what dude? Like really? Like was it like that or was it like interesting? Maybe we could like how did you process that? Because I'm I'm just curious which one of you is the the optimist and which one is the realist? You know, I imagine there's one or the other.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

He he basically brought it up and he was thinking, yeah, we we could I he was like let's start a business. Let's start a business. Um and I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, just send me the details, just send me the details. And he was like then started running through his idea of the the niche collabor business, and uh actually brought up Tom from Happy Staffy um as almost like a case study and um yeah, then I did some deep diving into it and then I was almost sold straight away. I think you know when when you're when you are a store manager, you you end up you you you end up realizing that you're running a business already. So you you kind of already have that that blueprint and it it it was almost a no-brainer for both of us.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Um so you kind of came in from what it sounds like, Nathan, you kind of had this product idea in terms of like you were like we could do this, obviously not really sure about the how and what was going to happen and all those things, but it sounds like you had like a product idea before you kind of joined, and that was the we could do this with this product idea, and you're trying to you know bring Eddie and into the game and and and do the thing together, is that right?

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Yeah, essentially. I mean, like so we got a Labrador about six months prior, um, or maybe even longer, and that's when I really just uh started discovering not only some pains in owning a Labrador, but also um uh with that retail experience we had, it's like we're continually solving problems every single day. Uh, we've got 200 X KPIs. We're making someone else look successful every single day. Surely we can go and do this for ourselves. And I think that was the real uh awakening moment. It's like we've got some real world problems right now, but we've actually got these really rough skills in how to do this currently, um, and then heavily inspired by Happy Staffy and what um what they've been able to do there, it's like that's a staffy breed. We've got a Labrador breed, Labradors are actually more widely recognized than what a staff is. So if we find the right roadmap for this, there's no reason why we can't have the same success as what others have proven within this within the pet industry.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

So, in terms of I'm just curious about this because what what uh a lot of people have is the moment that you guys just have there of like, okay, hold on a second. Like, I'm doing this in my job or my career. I could probably do that for myself. Like, does that does that light bulb happens? It happens in a lot of people's minds, but generally what happens after that is about uh one year, two years, three years of like fear and procrastination. And it sounds like for you guys it was pretty quick, and you were like, We could do, let's do. So so so how did you how did you overcome like I don't know, all of the uncertainty and the doubt, and I'm too busy and all this stuff going on. I'm just curious about that because that is a you huge thing that I see a lot of people. They're like, Oh, I was first like three years ago and I had this idea and and I just started now. I'm like, oh god, like that's a long time waste.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

Well, I think going back to um our professional experience, uh we we do work with a lot of team members that provide a lot of excuses as to why something can't get done, and so we essentially need to be ambassadors for well no we can, and this is how we need to do it, and there's no better time than now. So we we would have had that methodology built into us through our professional experience to well, there's no better time than now. Like, why not act? And I was in the process at the time of reading MJ DeMarco unscripted, and that was very motivational for me because it it it's essentially it's like the red pill and the blue pill. It's like, well, I I've been a career person all my life, Eddie's been a career person all his life, and it's actually there is an alternative. Um, we don't need to be doing this. And what's the worst that can happen? What we fail, but with every fail, aren't we just going to learn and get better? And so that was very much the Mandarin stepping over that hump and saying, yeah, let's go and do that now. And you know what? Um, we always push failure to the side. We say that's not gonna happen regardless. Um, but if it was to happen, well, we're just gonna learn and we're gonna come back better.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yes, but just that you're aware, failure is actually part of the success, also time. So if I think about like every decision that I made that was actually a very high ROI, even in ad accounts every day, it's almost all the time based on a failure, right? Like when you see that an ad is not working, and then you double down on the rest, or you start working on creators because you have a bad, let's say, week, whatever it is, every single spark that I've seen that change a business is coming from a failure. So I would actually seek failure if I was to really optimize for gains.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

I could not agree anymore. I I have a such a strong, firm belief that um success makes you fat and lazy. Um, and the the failure or the the challenge, the hardship, and I look at um uh this is without going full blown left, like um woo-woo for a moment, but all of the the kind of like the voids and the deficits or things that you don't have a lot of in your life, um, you will always be taken advantage of and manipulated in that area until you go, you know what? Fuck it. Enough's enough. I'm not handling another relationship like this. I'm sick of not having enough money. I'm never ever ever going to let someone in my life like that again. You know what I mean? A boundaries are set, and now I'm gonna forever be good at that skill, financially, relationally, whatever those things might be. And so it's like nothing great comes out of just like um uh uh excess and uh surplus and uh abundance of choice. And you could do that, but you could do that, but you could also do that, but you could also do that as well. It's like, eh. Whereas when you're down in the dumps and you've just been taken advantage of and you've lost all your money and you're feeling like hopeless, and you're like, I've got to make something work. You know what I mean? Like the resourcefulness that that builds in an entrepreneur, it is world class, you know, and and so like when we were talking earlier about that reinvention, that's sometimes where I feel uh that people uh take a little bit of a load off and start to coast, is because they they get to a certain level and it feels like, oh, now I can, oh, I've made it to a good enough degree. And sometimes you need to find like those new reasons to be like, let's put myself intentionally into a position where I feel like I'm down in that dump again so that I can drive back up and push even harder. So that's just my view. I I've always seen um the greatest learnings, the greatest lessons, the greatest um uh skill sets being developed in very difficult, very challenging, very um like overwhelming times because you you you learn to find new parts of your skill set, you develop new pathways and problem-solving mechanisms. And when things are good, you just go, dude, I'm I'm crushing it. This is wow. Dude, you want to go away for the weekend? Let's go to let's go to Hamilton Island. It's uh it's been great. You're sipping the cocktails, you're like, I tell you what, it's been a massive month. Let's just take it easy. And the next thing you know, you're diving off a cliff, you know. So I think um Jeff Bezos always talks about it uh in all of his books where he's like, I like to keep my teams in a semi-permanent state of terror. Because he's like, that fear breeds this constant, like you're always watching, you're always looking, there's there's something happening. We need to be very resourceful and like conscious of what's happening. So some of the things that you guys will continue to learn and develop over the course of uh of your business career, but very, very exciting. What would you say, um, Nathan and Eddie and um some of the biggest results have been for you guys in terms of maybe lessons and learnings or maybe like financial revenue outcomes, anything that stands out the most to you?

SPEAKER_04 24:04

So look, I mean, there's there's there's been so much that we've actually absorbed over the last six months. Um, probably what resonates most is how important that marketing message is. And and we had no idea of um, I guess, how to create that messaging without the support that we've been able to get through e-commerce. The most resonant factor is those are the emotional motives that drive buying decisions, and that's what's driven the success, uh, the the the short success that we've had so far at this point in time, and it was uh really honed in on how do we message what we're selling to our customers? This is the first time they've seen it. Why do they need this? And uh always look at um the the pains and desires that you talked about in um in one of your calls or the or the learning um uh transcripts and uh understanding actually what drives that customer's motive is how you can flick that switch on turning them into a buyer or having them scroll, keep scrolling.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Very good. And anything for yourself, Etienne, maybe the same, different, any standout for you?

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah, I think personally the messaging that you put on your website and how much that can impact the customer's experience. Um, I think when we first started, you know, you build your website and you think this is fantastic, this is great, and then there's no conversion, you're sitting there just Star Trek, how is this not working? And then you start to go through those calls and really understand the impact of the messaging that's on that website and how that can convert someone. So I think Nathan and I spend a lot of time bouncing back and forth of how can we do this better, how can we do this better, saying the conversions incredible.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

I can see that you guys are getting like some scars right away because what happened is I have some you know background on what you're talking about here. So when they launched, they got to 10k within 30 days. That's like a crazy fast move in term of good ROI. They run out of inventory, which was good. I think we got like 20, 30k within 90 days, which is pretty good. But then when you run out of inventory, you removed the you know message about like we have the product and you mess you put in like pre-orders and you've seen your conversion rate tank or lose 50%. So I'm assuming that's what you're talking about to your rate.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Yeah, and and again, and probably going back to our retail backgrounds, right? Like we always look at things with a critical lens. And just because, and and yes, I I certainly agree with done is better than perfect, um, but when we've got the capacity, when we've got the time, it's just because we've gone and done this once, it doesn't mean that that's the right outcome. And so we're very much aligned to testing new ideas, um, you know, never settling for that's the best. And I guess there's no different to doing a marathon, right? Like if you can go and do it in two hours, it doesn't mean you want to go and you can't go and do it in an hour and 59.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Speaking of which, I'm doing my marathon preparation right now, so that's very exciting. I probably won't be doing a one hour and 59 marathon though. I'm looking to get under four hours. Sorry to disappoint.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

Well, at least you've got a target.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

That's it. That's it. I love it. Um, what would you what would you say to yourself? I'm just curious for this question for both of you guys. Um, if you were to maybe give a piece of advice to yourself if you think back to when you started, maybe like um don't do this or lean more into this or go harder and faster in these areas, anything that comes to mind in terms of like how you might shorten the the process even more and then also increase the results even more. Um, Nathan and Eddie, and you guys first, anything that stands out to you that you might share with yourself when you were first starting?

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Yeah, I think I think onto the the the website point with the the pre-order, I think the biggest impact to us was running out of stock. So Nathan and I have had conversations about it at length, saying, Oh, we would have we never knew that we were going to run out, or you know, how could we expect? And I think we both come back to each other saying, Well, it's still not good enough. And that's probably the the the biggest point is uh it's understanding that how that supplier works. And then if I could tell myself get a little bit more stock, that would that would have been great. But yeah, the biggest point for me.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Uh probably probably um just self-doubt. So there are some points when you are working on this and you think, okay, is this actually gonna work? Um, you know, why uh this this isn't working for me right now, or how can I do this differently? And just having that constant belief in yourself that it's like, well, actually, if I go and do this, if I go and put this effort in, then I will get the outcome. And it might not be the outcome that I want right now, but it's a step in the right direction. So removing that self-doubt from yourself and being like, nah, just just go and kick the ball and eventually you'll get it through the goals.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Very cool. Cindy, how about yourself? What would you tell yourself when you were over there and trying out different businesses, anything that stands out the most? You'd be like, just do that or don't do this.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I do definitely agree with the self, don't have the self-doubt thing that you just said, Nathan. But if if I'm looking at my whole business life as a whole, I would say stop worrying about investing, invest in your coaches because it moves the needle. And by be able, being able to get advice from others. Um, and one of the particular things that I listened to were when I when I first launched, um it my product was for everyone. It was, I wanted everyone to have it. And um, I remember getting on a call with you, Sasha, and you're like, no, it's not good enough, niche it down. Um, and I was just like, oh, okay. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

I remember this exact call ad account. And I was like, you got that ad for that girl, this ad for that, and oh my, like, this is a hot mess. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Hot mess, yeah. And it was like, no, um, niche it down, bring it together, and then and then go again. And yeah, that's what I did.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Love that. Very cool. Hammond, anything from you? I know you've you've worked with um uh both Cindy and also um the gentleman on the other side here. Anything that you've seen over their journey that you might kind of comment on as far as contributing to their success and maybe like uh opportunities for maybe doing things faster, better and and getting better results?

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Absolutely. So I'll start with Cindy because I know that we talked a lot about growth strategies and direction. And I know that you can get to 100k by just focusing on the basis. Because I've noticed that when we were working together, you got to 20k, that was exciting, we lost momentum, and then when you lost momentum, you started kind of doing opposite directions in terms of what you should probably look at. So creating more friction versus less. So, what I would kind of see in your business is you have a good business, you did all the hard work, the numbers are aligned. All you have to do is just refine things and make them better. And if you're seeing that, let's say you have a pre-order and it's not working, let's say just as an example, you probably can improve the page to make it happen. So you should think about it as it's not converting at this level because I'm not good enough in trouble with the page itself. I can improve that, and you can get it to a level where it's actually making money. So, my view on this would be we're in the early stage of this journey. And a lot of business owners, when they launch, they think this is like 10K, 20K, whatever number is. It's like that's the end game. It's not at all. Like we can't hire people with 10K. We can't have like a real operation at scale. You need 100 to 200 to half a million to a million to really see that growth. So I would say we're in the early stage, which is exciting because you're learning things. So the only thing I would tell you is you know the basis, you know the things we optimize. Don't kind of focus on one thing and look at the micro when you know the macro is telling you something else. That's probably what I've seen in your business. It's micro versus macro. Micro in terms of focusing on one thing, thinking that's a problem, while the macro is like, I'm gonna just go and let's say look at the business from that broad perspective. We have a pre-order, we're running out of inventory, people are not gonna be buying in this format, particularly if I was to tell them we have pre-orders. So I would say that that's something I would really highly encourage you to look at all the time. Look at the problem from a macro and a micro perspective, not just micro. Uh, Nathan, obviously, it seems like you have a lot of experience, and I've noticed that even you know, talking to you in the past, you grew your business fast, you were very much like actioning on scale, and and I can see the experience. Definitely that would give you an advantage, right? And you're playing on this more because you know you have that experience. The thing to look at is the thing that you mentioned as well, both of you guys, like there are some things we've seen happen, like one change in the page could just tank the business entirely. So you need to be aware of in the sales format online, one page is actually the most like kind of impact impact, it does have like the highest level of impact. You can't mess around with it, right? So that's the thing you need to be aware of. And to get to the hundred can a million, and I want you want to get to that level, you need to essentially try to avoid all of those things that are messy. So, for example, getting into a scenario where I can see your advantage could turn into a disadvantage when you're like, I'm gonna test everything, I'm gonna do everything. That can actually cause harm. You need to think about well, what is working? How can I double down on it? And how can I make sure that I don't mess up my page or mess up something that's high impact? And if you remember, I have a name for this with the page with a time square, right? That's what matters in terms of optimization. And I would say you have everything to scale, same thing, Cindy. Um, and I do believe you have actually an advantage term of experience because it seems like you have a very good experience on what to do in term of you know, generally speaking, um, products and so on. But I would say that could be also dangerous if you start doing everything and launching new product. And I think Sasha actually seen this many times with we're gonna do something new, we're gonna do this new thing. And I think that's the thing I would avoid.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

I think for both of you, it both of the the founders on the call, you you guys are in um different but somewhat similar situations where um like the the feeling that you've done well and the feeling that you've kind of like had some success um is cool and it's nice, but it also should be like extremely short-lived and it should be replaced very quickly with like, okay, if we've gone, and and and this is this is the way that I always um think about this, and I communicate this a lot. So it's like if I've gone from starting and I had no e-commerce experience, I've never launched a product online, I've never done anything to this level ever before. I've just you know fumbled my way through, worked with these people, you know, listened to some directions, did the opposite of some directions, and things still got to this level. It's like I think about it from this perspective, I'm like, I am the worst version of myself right now compared to what I will be, right? And so it's like the skills, they are the lowest. My uh abilities, they're the lowest. My business and where it's going to be at a scale level perspective is the lowest. Um, my belief in terms of like where I think I can get to based on what I've done, also in theory should be the lowest, right? Because if you start, and when you first start, usually the projections that people have is generally based on um their own bank account or their own financial situation. So they go, well, you know, I like I'm making 100 grand a year. So yeah, that like I it'd be great to like, you know, make 10 grand a month. And so that's where it comes from, right? And so like as that expands and your skill set gets better, you learn through some damaging experiences that blow you up a little bit and have you forced to get better, and then you have people around you that are doing different things. My view is always like, so now in this current environment, after the you know, bits and pieces of success that you guys have had, good, yeah, okay, not bad. But it's also like my view is like if I was able to, in the last three months or six months, or twelve months, whatever it is, in a very small amount of time, go from like nothing and nobody with no idea into doing this, and the skills that I've developed are just like grab together and patchwork together and Frankenstein here and whoa. And my goal that I initially had of 10k or 50, whatever it is, I've done it with like that, right? And so my view is I go, okay, so if if that was true and that was possible with that amount of time in in in this kind of environment with the resources and skills that I had, it's like, holy, like how much bigger and how much faster can I get to the next level? And generally, um, what happens is where businesses stagnate is this. So because when I started, I wanted to go from I wanted to cover my income. Maybe it's 100, maybe it's 200 grand a year. And that that continues to almost like maintain as the belief system of what good looks like. Oh, well, I'm kind of around the same level, or I'm I'm kind of close to you know, 20 grand a month or 30 grand a month. Wow, this feels like a lot. And it's like, well, based on what? Because if you guys have both developed businesses to this level, there is nothing in my mind that has one fraction of a doubt that tells me that with the right execution and consistency, the monthlies that you are generating, 10k, 15k, 20k, can be your dailies this year if you do the right things. But like the the the idea, like I said, that okay, well, I've got from here to here, and this is good. Let's just whether it's like a little bit of that, or whether it's like, okay, so we've if we've done from here to here, like let's seriously turn it up a notch. You know what I'm saying? And so, like both of you, there's a book that I always recommend to all entrepreneurs, and it's one of the best books in this concept, and it's called Turning Pro by Stephen Pressfield. And he talks about it a lot, where he goes, uh, essentially, uh, entrepreneurs, particularly entrepreneurs, because we are kind of always looking for the path of least resistance. How can we make the most money with the least amount of money? How could I make the most money with the least amount of effort? How could I um get leverage? And that's a very helpful thing. But what it generally has you do is kind of get lazy and optimize for an environment that's like um doing a lot of uh not much at all and then trying to get a lot of results. And I've seen it over and over again with so many different founders where you look at the individual as an operator and they're distracted and their environment's a mess, uh, their that their their kind of lifestyle is a mess, um, their reading and what they kind of consume information is a mess, and they still have a business that generates half a million dollars a year. And you're like, good God. And so this idea of turning pro is like if you think like an athlete, an athlete that goes to train for the Olympics, like those people like they train for like six to eight hours rigorously every single day, where it's like full-blown, forced intensity to the point where you have to take a break because you are physically exhausted and you need to take supplements and you need to do cold plunges and saunas and relax so that you are back into a good sound level of operate operation tomorrow, or you will not be able to maintain that level of intensity. And so, what entrepreneurs do is the opposite. It's kind of like some work here, bleeding into the morning here, run into the work environment, work a little bit there, drag it through into the afternoon, eat some crappy food, work all the way into the night, drag that poor level of sleep into the next day. And it's this kind of rinse and repeat situation where you're like the inputs from an energy resource perspective are really quite ordinary, but we're expecting to build a 10 million, eight-figure business. It's like, how is it gonna happen? And so that idea of turning pro, it's like, what would you look like, or what would your life look like? What would you look like as a founder if you were like, I'm gonna go professional at my business? I'm not gonna just like try and see and do a little bit here and do a little bit there. It's like, no, no, no, I'm gonna go full-blown athlete mode. I'm gonna go full blown, like if I've gone from zero to 20 grand a month in the first three months, if that is true then, with no background and no data and no customer list and no idea what even works, well, how about we 10x that multiple and we aim for 300 grand a month by the end of this year? Because Nathan and Etienne, as an example, Tom, we went from zero to 10 grand a month, right? Um, within two or three months of launching. And then by the end of that same same year,$300,000 a month. And then the next year,$600,000 a month. You know what I mean? And so it's like for you guys, you've got two of you from the start. Tom had himself only, and then I don't know, a year and a half later, brought Molly into the game, which helped to build the business. You got two of you guys from day one, right? And you've done amazing in the first short period of time, which gives me huge levels, and it should give you guys a huge level of confidence to go, if I've done this with this level of resources and knowledge, I must push this up to this level. So I think both of you have very similar kind of situations here where some of that initial early stage, wow, this is kind of fun success, may dampen, and you need to be very conscious in terms of where the initial baseline was of I think this is good, and you need to wipe that out completely and immediately and go, it is unreasonable for my business to be making anything less than a hundred grand a month. As of this time frame, it is unreasonable that by the end of the year I'm not making$200,000 a month and I'm able to completely leave my what whatever that situation looks like for you. Like make it a standard, make it something that is um, it must be met. Not like let's see how we go, let's just, you know, keep on at the same level, because that mindset will be the biggest thing that will slow you guys down.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Yes, and I'll say something um just in terms of this particular element, because the Turning Pro, just to give you guys a feel, it's actually something that I have a story on just when you mentioned this. I didn't read the book, but I can understand the structure of that. So, two people that joined the podcast, you can check, we talked about like their business and how they scale to multiple millions in terms of revenue. They actually did that. So, about two years ago, when I met them, their two sisters, uh, and they told me that they, you know, they want to grow their business, they want to grow it fast, and they didn't have money, so it's a very challenging journey. And we, you know, we did this case with them and talked about like all the growth and everything. They took that business from zero to four million a year within 16 months. Right now, they're actually doing 600k a month, profitably scale, all of what you think of. But when I think about what we did was actually that. So, what we stopped doing was doing messy stuff, and I put them into an environment where they mentioned this in the podcast, you can probably listen to that as well. It was home, gym, food, home. This circle made them almost like very dangerous in business. They don't do anything else. And and to this day, that's the structure. Like, I remember like with like they traveled, like one of them traveled recently a little bit, and literally when she came back, she was like, No, that's like messed up my my structure. I don't want to do that. And the thing is, that turning pro, they took it so seriously that they never missed a call with me. They never missed like that we had like some very big challenges, some of inventory, everything you can think of. They kept it going, even when we had the lowest and the highest, the change of actions was the same. We're gonna have the same thing, you're gonna have your food, you're gonna go to the gym, you're gonna come back. Think about them doing this thing for two years almost like nothing else. There's no impact, we're not fluctuating in terms of decision making, they're not happier or sadder because of the numbers we have. That made them extremely competitive in the business to the point where, in my opinion, if if they keep doing this, that it's very difficult to compete with them. They're not gonna have that stage where they're essentially like a little bit tired, or they're gonna be like too much excited, or they kept it going like that. And I've noticed one of them was a little bit like recently kind of saying, Well, I feel like I need that chaos again, I need that like kind of movement again in terms of like previous chaos that we had to get that part going. And I gave her some direction, and immediately she was like, I'm done, I'm gonna scale this up. The goal is actually this, it's not this. And we we kind of reset things. And I think they're playing it pro. And some of the clients that I've seen, like they're at the 10k, they want to get to the 100k. I'm thinking, well, we need to get that pro level uh and even the million to see that growth, you need to turn pro. So I definitely believe that 100%.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

I completely agree. Christian Shell by that. Nailed that when that when we had that discussion on the podcast, and they went from taking it easy, kind of a little bit doing the job still, doing this, doing that, and then they're like, cut everything. I'm going all in, and we're taking this as seriously as we possibly can. And that's not a signal to go and quit your job or anything, but I'm just saying, like the mindset shift where you go from like, let's see if we can do a little bit, let's just do what we can into if this is serious, and the thing is it's giving good signal over the last you know period that you guys have been launched that there is good potential, you know what I mean? The thing that will kill it is the lack of attention and drive and the seriousness you apply yourself to. So very exciting, yeah, very good. Um, Hammond, on your side, are there any strategic things that uh you believe are available for uh Nathan and Etienne and then also Cindy, potentially from what you've seen and observed, outside of what you've already mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yes, I actually have a lot of things. So Cindy and like both of you guys, cost cap. Like I know I keep saying this, but you should start looking at how to implement this. It's a cost strategy, it's really media buying, but you need to do that because that's going to give you some bandwidth in term of you know the targets and things you want to accomplish. Particularly, Cindy, you mentioned difficulty with meta. If I was to tell you that um it's not within the ad account first thing, the solution is you getting better content and having a good page. So it's never really the ad account that you need to really look at. It's most of the time what you're putting in the ad account. So I think about it like that. So that's my recommendation using Costcap because that can technically at scale lower a little bit the risk for you, just in terms of meta not spending while you know, say you don't have good content, is gonna control more of that outcome. So I would say that's something that I think both of you guys should start thinking about as you get into the next level. Uh, another thing would be, as I mentioned, uh I think it was about six years ago I had a call with a very advanced senior media buyer, extremely kind of leader in the market. And and I remember I paid him like five grand for one hour, and I was so much excited. And what he told me was essentially it's not in the ad account. And I was like, what are you talking about? Cost cap is not spending. And he was like, Well, you know what? Your content is not good, the page is not that good, that's why cost capital is not spending. So I will tell you the same thing. Whenever you feel like things are not working, think about if I have a good ad, any setup, CBO, ABO, for Cindy, like anything you can think of would work if you have a good ad. If you have a good page, the same thing. So, how about you get those? You're gonna get success by default. So, this is my recommendation is you guys should really not think about it from I need to find this magical setup. It should be around can I get a good ad. So creative optimization consistently and making sure you have that winning ad because that's gonna be a win by default.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Yeah, I mean, the on the content, on the marketing, on the meta side, everything that Hammond said is just absolutely accurate in terms of there's not too much inside of the ad account. You can have the probably some of the worst ad account setups possibly available and have weapon creative and still crush. You know what I mean? So it's like it's less about that kind of management and the particulars inside of the ad account. It's more about like how do we drive um uh better quality that similar to what some of you also said at the start of the call in terms of the messaging. So it's like how do we create such specific detailed moments um that people resonate with when they have that experience of looking at your product? And I don't know if um I I don't know if the two of you were on the uh Tuesday session, Tuesday evening. I don't know if you were. Were you? I think you were uh you are both of you. I gave that example with the um uh uninspor unemployed and inspired, those guys. It's like they get the messaging so well because when you watch their content, you go, oh, I I get it. And so, like really working on content that does that, I think that's the the most important thing. I think second to that, that's going to enable um obviously more efficiency from a spend perspective. But Cindy, on your side, I think the there's a big, big, big opportunity for conversion rate uh optimization. Like I think that um, and this this starts with the right content because if you push the right people who are in the right um kind of like psychographic of buying stage onto the website, the probability of them purchasing goes up. So it kind of fixes that in and of itself. But I think second to that, that there may be some uh perhaps forgiveness or lack of focus on conversion rate because part of your average order value being you know$350 odd dollars, uh, it's quite high. And so you go, well, I guess we've got a high average order value, so it's okay for my conversion rate to be, you know, one point, what is it, um 0.9 or something. Yeah, 0.9. So it's like under 1%. And so, like, right there, I'm like, that's uh definitely challenging in terms of like uh especially because of the fact that the product is not a repeat product that people will buy over and over again. Generally, people will come in and buy, you know, one, maybe after some time they'll buy a gift or they'll buy a different color or they'll have some reason to buy a second one. But for you, you need to, in terms of being able to scale the business, you really need to be able to maximize the um on-site conversion on that first initial purchase. And so, what that tells me at the moment, like I said, if this was a different product and people would come back the next month and the next month and the next month, all of this would be forgiven and it's fine because you'd make it up in your in your lifetime value. But that's not true, you know, and so we need to capitalize on that as much as possible. And I think there's a huge opportunity for you to focus on your conversion rate on your page, um, getting really specific and detailed, which you've improved a lot in terms of the avatar, really specifically, uh, and doing that like just even better. I think that the the guarantee that you've got placed on there at the moment is quite good, like the one tote guarantee, nice and clean. It's like a lot more simplified than it has been in the past. I do think it is quite good. Um, the the main thing, and I've said this over and over again in terms of is just looking at what those objections are that you're perhaps clients or customers that have bought and then ask for returns or ask for refunds. Or those are the people that you're like, I want to learn from you, right? It's like, why did you ask for a return? Why did you ask for a refund? What was the block? What was the reason? What went wrong? Why didn't you love the product and give me a five-star review? You know what I mean? Like, grab those things and use them to then be like, okay, so if people have purchased and then said that there's an issue, then people on the front end probably have the same concern, but they just aren't going to go and send it to you or tell you. And so it's like, how can we embed those things into your messaging to be overcoming the concerns that people have? It's like um if you want to keep customers forever, answer the question that's in their mind that they don't even know that they have, right? And so in this environment, you have information from the people that have refunded or returned, and that's it's it's fantastic, valuable information. And it's very much the same exact information that the people outside that have yet to purchase even have come to awareness that they have the concern. Do you understand? And so if you can take some of that information that you have from those individuals, returns, refunds, etc., maybe some unhappy people, very valuable. Grab it all, farm it all, put it into a bit of an analysis of like what the patterns are, and then see how you could use that either in your messaging in terms of um what you are not, the the self-deprecating kind of content in terms of this is the worst bag if you want to, one, two, and three, all of the things that are the opposite of what your kind of customers have said, if that makes sense, or this is the worst bag, and then also deposition this is the worst bag, for example, if you um you want to get a bicep workout as you're going to uh the office by carrying all those different bags. Uh it it like make a joke of it so people are like, oh my god, that is me every single time. I'm so sick of doing it. But you want to use these negative things that you've kind of found and captured to overcome the objections. And the interesting thing about the the humor is if you can weave some of it in to, which is why I like that kind of self-deprecation, because it's a number one, it's a pattern interrupt in terms of people go, Wait, what? What why why would these guys one star review? They're ranking themselves one star. That's horrible. Why? Right? Or the worst product or the worst bag or the worst idea to buy for your wife if you want her to. These types of hooks, they're they're they're the opposite of like selling massive, selling massive outcomes, selling massive, oh my god, this is amazing. The best product that's gonna do the best things. Uh, it it creates a more informed customer that comes to the page with higher intent for the right reasons, you know. So I think there's some really good opportunity for you around that. Like I said, the guarantee I think is quite strong on the page, but improvements here need to be had, like I said, data from um those individuals using that to inform the content, using that to inform what happens on and around your uh page as well, in terms of product display page, because of the nature of the product, it being you know a little bit more expensive,$300 plus dollars. Um, I think that you can not be text heavy and go into massive amounts of details uh on the page, but I think you can probably sell a little bit more. Like it's a little bit light in terms of like some of the key elements or some of the like we've got obviously the only tote you'll ever need as an example, that's good. But we want to sell a little bit more and give people a little bit more if they're gonna transact like$375 on the spot after seeing an ad, either the ad needs to do extremely great work in terms of captivate their pain and then transform their whole experience and put them in this emotional situation. But likely what's happening is I imagine the cash conversion cycle, people see it once, they come to it, they check it out, they go, oh yeah, that looks pretty pretty good. They bounce, they see another ad, they come back later, and then they purchase, right? And so you'll you you'll you'll close a lot more of that cash conversion cycle by creating a page that's a little bit stronger in terms of a little bit more selling copy, images that kind of like help to create that experience for people to understand all of the elements. Like the some of the some of the aspects, for example, on the page um are really valuable, and then some not as valuable. I think, for example, um the this aspect here of like design philosophy, I'm like kind of makes sense, but it's like for me, I'm like, what does it mean for me? And why do I need to care about design philosophy? I'm just like, I just want a bag that solves the problem. Um, and then there's a little bit of the mismatching. I love the workdays, uh, commutes and flights, very relevant and very well matched to everything else on the page. The empowered by design, I think that's also quite good. Very busy though. There's a lot of stuff happening in that image. No one's gonna be able to see all of that stuff straight away. I probably would remove the pool um use of the bag. It's confusing. It's like, is it is it is it a pool bag? Well, I thought this was a travel bag for me to go to work. So it's kind of like it's it's it's a different direction, and you're kind of taking people down this one path, and then they see the pool use and they're like, huh? It's kind of it doesn't help, you know.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

I do like the last I'm very scared to touch the page.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

Oh, yeah, of course, of course. Car scars of the past. It's like you see, like right away, like I have scars from the past. I'm just gonna say something actually while I remember this, like what Sasha was saying here in terms of content. Um, I like we have one client, I I've I've been working with him for a while, um, and he's like selling a high-ticket item essentially. He did about a million with 15k nuts, but insane robas, like unbelievable. And what one of the things he did, and probably we should bring him to the podcast, his name is Josh, he's like really a really cool guy. Uh, what what he did was going what with he mentioned reverse marketing. So he would think about, let's say he was offering essentially a high-ticket um financial product, and what he did, and it was an ad that we run for a while, was just essentially don't take funding, you know. It's like it's against technically the product we have, which was again a financial product, a high-ticket one. Um, and don't take funding was like an ad with a person saying no, and then there was a message. I actually have a screenshot of it, unless you really need it, talk to us if you do. That ad actually helped us get to seven figure within 60 days. Think about that. And we were just driving people there, they would just see us and they would just go into the funnel and we would convert them with this higher ticket financial product. And the whole idea when I was talking to him, and he's actually this is one of the clients that when when we worked with him, he was actually already established, like a nine-figure marketer already. So he was very advanced in terms of everything. And what he told me was, I want to be different in the feed, I don't want to be the same, and I want to make sure that when they see it, they actually engage in that way. Like we're different. That reverse marketing is what I want to push. And guess what? He did he he disrupted that market so much that we literally like had a demand issue to just like um we were not able, sorry, not demand, supply technically, uh, issue because we were not able to fulfill this level of growth. And he had a company coming in and actually almost like like he's exited the business essentially to a certain degree. Think about that value of him disrupting the industry that a player is coming in and looking to work with him. Like he's like, you're not like this is abnormal, like this kind of growth. So the thing is you need to think about how can I disrupt people in terms of the feed? And I would say the angle that Sasha mentioned going against the norm, doing things like you should not buy this back. It's not like you should go against that, and that could actually trigger some pushback in the in the feed, and that could generate more interest. So definitely this reverse marketing was kind of like a a light bulb, light bulb moment for me because I was remembering this case study particularly.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

It's very strong, very strong. Yeah, I completely agree. Nathan um and Eddie, in terms of the discussion that you guys said earlier, um, as far as we'll go into, I just have this that I'll share here. So, in terms of um local scale with more products or international scale, was kind of the discussion that we went through a little bit at the start. Something along those lines, I'll explain the random um uh details on the board here. But um you you you were talking about that. So talk me through this really quickly in terms of uh the question is like, do I just double down on Australia and just like go wide in terms of multiple products, or do I go one product that I'm selling at the moment and then scale New Zealand, USA? Is that kind of the question that you have? Yeah, yeah, perfect. Okay, good. So um very similar to this. So this is um the way that I think about this is and the the reason that it's so important, like I was saying earlier on uh in the conversation of like just because you've hit your milestone of 10k, 20k a month, um, and it came relatively easy, um, it doesn't mean that that should remain consistent or you should not double 10x, triple, you know what I mean, your projection of what's possible. So what happens generally um when you start doing anything, and you guys would have seen this uh and you're seeing this right now. It's like you put 10 units of energy in, meaning like you've launched your business, and right now you guys are uh doing a few activities, creating some content, making a few tweaks to the landing pages. And it's like sure it feels hard and there's like hard work that is being done, um, but I certainly wouldn't uh suppose that you guys are like uh this is like like like I'm I'm deploying like my highest level of skill set for long periods of time, like it feels pretty rough, and it feels like it's just like that'll that'll do. That'll do let's just sure go for it. And you're you're driving some work in, and so you're putting energy in, but it's certainly not like really high agency, high thought kind of like power because you're not that good yet, like truthfully, you haven't done it that long yet. And so what happens when you start is this like you get this concept where because of that novelty, that feeling of like um, oh wow, like we're creating some new creatives. Oh wow, that creative worked, or like this happened, and things happen quite quick, right, when you're in that stage of like novelty and learning, and you'll find also this is very much exactly the same in terms of um just direct on-platform returns. On meta, you spend smaller amounts of budgets, and generally you get um favored to get higher returns because the that the algorithm will try and get you a result for whatever you give it, right? And then so you're like, wow, this is this seems quite good. Like, this seems to be consistent. I I've I've put this level of energy in and I'm I'm making like a I don't know, this level of you know, dollar units out. And so you just keep on kind of keeping on, and then most people they get to a point of about here where the returns of like energy in um or the units of energy in, they they they start to diminish. And you go from like all of a sudden seeing these like big leaps and bounds where you're going from like 10 to 20, 20 to 40, 40 to 80, and then you're like, oh, now we went from 80 to 90, but I'm working so much harder. And and and it's exactly at this moment where you guys will have the question that you just asked at the start of this conversation: should I go international? Should I expand into new markets? Right. And so, like, my viewpoint for you would be to find that point there where you initially come into contact with that moment of difficulty, that feeling of friction, that feeling of like, wow, this like we're putting a lot of work into this business, and it doesn't seem like we're growing at the same rate that we previously were. Happens every single time from what I've seen over and over again. There's that moment of like, um now the next level requires a little bit of a different strategy or a different approach or more work to drive through. And all it really, the way that I think about it, as you get better and better and better at a skill set, and this is exactly the same on the Meta account, let's say this is you spending, I don't know, uh$1,000 a day and this is you spending$100,000 a day, right? If you're getting like a 5X here and you spend$100,000 a day, it is Jesus, almost impossible to get a$1 here. Like that would just not be true. You might get like a$1.5 or maybe like somewhere in that range here. Some brands optimize just to break even on the front end because they make it up all in the back end, right? And so it's like the same returns aren't true. Um, and so like what I would suggest for you, I would focus hardcore exclusively on maximizing as rapidly as you can this first stage. And there'll be a double, double, double, double until, or maybe there'll be a triple, triple, triple, or a 10x, 10x, whatever that looks like, until it reaches a certain moment where the complexity it expands greatly because what happens um in your business, this is you starting your business, and in your situation, you have two of you guys, and you're running along and you're selling one product um to you know your particular avatar and and you're making some like you know dollars that are coming out of the business. And then what happens is uh at some point or another, as the business gets bigger, you need to, for example, add a new product, and then you have this product, and then you have the other product, and then uh you maybe you need to hire a person here, and then all of a sudden you have a few different like you know, branches coming off the tree. Naturally, this needs to happen as the business expands, and then you go into this category, and then you go, now we need to go into New Zealand and America, and then we need another person there, and then we need another back-end system, and then we need the email, and then we need that, and we need to have uh this other person over here to do finance and operations and warehousing. And this is where businesses die. This overcomplexity too soon, too early, complicates things, and then the founder's bandwidth and attention deteriorates, and the quality of where they can actually apply their highest degree of agency and thought into the one thing that matters is almost gone down to zero. And so the business naturally goes back to um its baseline state, and businesses are uh it's like a living organism. And if you think about anything in nature, there is no object in nature that leaves excess. Think about it when you um uh observe like those vultures, right? And the vultures in the desert, and there's one of those like, I don't know, animals that have died, and then the vultures all come down onto the body of this dead animal. Now, the vultures will eat everything off of that animal, every scrap, every bit out of the butt, nothing like that will pick everything compl there will be no surplus, right? In the same way as like a tree will extract and suck all of the water out of the ground, and it won't be like there's a tree next to me, so I better just leave a little bit for him. Does that make sense? And a business is the same, so a business will always return to its baseline, which is consume anything and everything left over and be at a baseline break-even equilibrium, which means break-even. That is the natural state for all businesses to be in, which is not a great place for a founder or a group of founders who try to extract money from the business. Right. And so, for you guys, what you want to pay attention to is keep it as lean, which is to Cindy's point of how do we um implement AI, use as much AI as possible to keep things as lean and efficient as possible. And any form of complexity that you can slap down and combat and do the opposite of add, meaning refrain from adding the complexity into the business for as long as physically possible, and you're like holding onto this thing by your fingernails, and your fingernails are peeling out of your hand because you're like, this is getting so intense, dude. Like, I can't believe how much we're doing, but we're making like 45% net margins. This is getting stupid for us to not hire somebody. At that point, maybe start looking at hiring somebody. But people that I see all the time, they run all the way in the other direction, almost like how can I um intentionally add more complex and as I'm saying this, I'm like, I'm talking to myself. Like I'm like, Sasha, like I I I did this, I still do this, but it's so common, and it's the biggest reason that um businesses cease to grow. Or they just start to kind of get in this flatline stagnation because of this aspect here. And so if we look at um where complexity comes from, it comes from new markets with new time frames and new time horizons and new time zones, new demographics, psychographics, buying behaviors, economical conditions, new products. So when you're looking at this question that you're asking, like I generally go right now, we have the, I don't know, this is the Australian market here. Okay, cool. We sell in the Australian market. And right now we sell a tiny little portion here, and we have one customer that we are selling in the Australian market. So there are always two types of ways to grow the business. You go uh vertical or you go horizontal. And in your situation, the question is do we go vertical in the Australian market? Meaning, do I sell uh every single possible product uh to the dog customer that you are currently selling, right? And create this full-blown ecosystem where you can kind of like uh everything possible that that dog owner would need for the Labrador, it is available, it is possible, there you go. You can scale that to a million to$1.5 million a month just in the Australian market. And all the complexity that you can ever dream of will be yours and available to you in the Australian market, and you can still sleep on Australian time zones. The linear direction is we sell to uh we've established this customer in Australia, and then we go into the US market, the New Zealand market, the UK market, um, the Canadian market, and we go on a linear basis selling the one product, and so this then becomes an arbitrage of, and the thing is, both of these will need to happen if the business wants to get to like hyper-scale hundreds of millions of dollars. It will have to happen. But then you also look at the uh product which is um IM8, and so what they've done, uh they do about$14,000,$15 million a month at the moment, and they're doing this. They're going in this direction. They have two products. One is the main sachet, and one's like a complementary sachet. Uh their average order value is about$210, uh, and they're spending about$160,000,$170,000 a day on MetaRads to scale on a lateral basis. And they're not worrying about like getting the t-shirts and the drink bottles and the, I don't know, blood testing kits and all those things. They don't care. They're just like, we want massive market share, bring it in, right? And there's a lot of complexity that comes with that because each country has different regulations, legislation, all that stuff. So if from me in my position, and I said this exact conversation to Tom probably about 18 months ago, maybe two years ago, when he was considering the idea of uh going into the US market initially.$400,000,$500,000 a month in the Australian market, no clear sign uh that things were slowing down. So it's not like there were like ad spend um you know inefficiencies, large diminishing returns. Things were still growing and things were still like continuing to uh boom. Uh and it was like, we want to go in the US. And I'm like, interesting. Uh what's wrong with the Australian money? You don't like it or something? Like it has a bad smell about it or something. Like, what's the deal? Um, right? And he's like, no, like we've got some customers and they come through socials and they ask us, you know, when are you gonna do this, etc., etc., etc. I'm like, right. So you want to go and like take your business that's kind of working quite well here, but there's a lot still to do and fix. It's by no means like a really clean, well-run operation. And then you want to take a complex situation and then duplicate more complexity into the US, um, fragment your resources. You've got two of you guys here. Who's gonna do that? Time zone issues. It's it needs to be run like a separate business. And the best way when you do international expansion is to localize as much as possible, which means boots on the ground, content being shot there, uh, local things in the background of the environment where people see it. So, my view in terms of that consideration is always localize to the nth degree. I look at it with e-com capital and I go, we have every opportunity. We have that service business. We have a serve, we don't have to set up warehouses, we don't have to do that. We are concentrating focus on the Australian market, and we don't plan to until we see some form of diminishing return happen with respect to what we're doing in the Australian market, and then we will continue to expand into international markets, if that makes sense. Because I'm like the the added complexity, the tension, the overnight kind of someone's always on, someone's gonna be over there, things need to change operationally. There's different tax, there's different legislation for the finance, all of that extra stuff just adds more things for your brain to solve for. And like I said, it is not a um, it will never happen and just focus on Australia because if you plan to get your business to 100 million, 200 million, you're gonna reach a point where you start to run out of customers. But it is so far further in the future than most brands realize. I have a good friend of mine, he has a company around the corner here. They do about$120,$130 million a year in the Australian market, um, selling uh motorcycle parts and accessories. That's it. That's all they sell. And they now, after 16 years of being in that business, they can't get any more customers and their growth has started to slow down because there aren't any more customers yet to acquire. And so it's like, okay, we have consumed the Australian market. Now, I that's the only person that I ever know in my entire life that has reached their TAM. Every other founder is a TAM in here. It's a distraction TAM. Oh, yeah, I think we're kind of seeing diminishing returns. We're spending uh$1,100 a day. Maybe there's no more customers left in the market. All of those types of questions that come up. It's it's it's a self-installed belief that actually blocks the founder from getting where they want to go. And it's not a belief that is a market or available customers or ad spend. It's just that you're distracted, um, trying to solve the same boring problem that you should be solving, and you go, let's go and add some new stuff there because it's fun and it's exciting and it's going to be thrilling, and we want to be an international brand, you know. So, my view, like to win, it's like if we think about, I just think about it from the extreme. We go, um, if a business is super simple selling, I look at the Basu company, and the only reason that company can run on over the last month, my wife has genuinely spent four hours in that business, maybe five. Last month, I think it did$62,000,$63,000, the most profitable it's ever been. If that business was in multiple locations, it had tons more products, it had random people doing random stuff on there, she would be in there fighting with people, and the revenue would be the same. Except there'd be less margin, and she'd be pulling her hair out, being like, what are we hang on a second? What was the point of this? And she runs it on like four to ten hours a month. And I said it to Hammond yesterday in the chat. I'm like, this business runs on thin air. Like it's it's some creatives here and there and thin air because of the simplicity. Does that make sense? And so all of you guys, as you build your business, you go into let's add more stuff, let's do more creation, let's do this. And it's very natural to think that in order to grow, I need to add more. 100% statistically, kind of makes sense. But it is the fighting of that kind of natural inclination to do that that actually gets really good quality depth into the market. Another great example is um that Tropeka company, um, Callum, uh, and and and the podcast that I had with uh him, they do uh they do 40 to 50 million dollars um selling this supplement, right? And he built this business from the ground up, self-funded, never ever, ever taking a dollar of debt or anything to fund the business. They're in every major retailer uh around Australia. 23,000 five-star reviews, uh, incredible product, one of the best products of this nature that there is in the Australian market, and then they've gone into the US. Um, he was selling in the US for three and a half years and having his customers um pay$50 to$100 per order to ship it to the US. And he fought the urge to go into the US, to build the warehouse over there, to get the 3PL, because he's just like people are coming back and ordering over and over again. They're prepared to pay for shipping. Um, it's very profitable. Why would I it it it's like it needs to reach a kind of point where it is completely unreasonable for me to do anything else except for now get the US market fully operational? So there's faster shipping times and all those things. But he said in his own words, he's like, Do you know how powerful it has been for me to cash fund the whole business, sleep well every single night because I have tons of cash in the bank, buy all of my equipment for all of my facilities on cash, never get debt for those things, own our office outright, pay our employees above market rate so they never leave and they're super committed to the company, right? It's like all of these things are a product and a byproduct of focus, right? And in his own words, again, he's also like, look, sure, we probably would have um grown faster or we could have been a hundred million dollar company. But he's like the debt that we might have had to incur, um the stress, the breaks of certain things, the quality issues. I was not prepared, especially in a food type business, I was not prepared to make those sacrifices. You know what I mean? And so he had this concept of like get the house in order first, which for him is like Australia running insanely profitable, accumulating a lot of cash, being in a position where it is just absolutely humming. And then from that point, take a sound business model overseas. And that model, I think, works really well as opposed to what I see all the time. Shit's broken in Australia, and uh it's not even working in a stable, profitable position. Time to go international. Let's go, you know, and it's like recipe for disaster. So that that that's my view on the on the on the international expansion from a sequence perspective.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

How I would yes, and I think you guys like it's very clear, right? And and and and what I will tell you on top of this is uh the case study that I shared, this is just for the mastermind, you've seen probably some of it um with a business that grew very fast in terms of five million plus six million the last six months. That business owner, he's very experienced. And one thing that he does all the time, and I probably should have mentioned this from the case study because you guys seen all the back end and all of that. Um, it's actually he does one thing, like one market, one product. That's like most of the time, that's his focus. How can I get this first? And when we get to that limit, to that kind of like level or we can't scale more, that's when he started adding more things. And he would actually look at it the same way. He would never like I was talking to him essentially about the same thing. I was actually the person recommending expansion, right? Uh, and I was like, you know what, we're doing these good numbers. Why wouldn't we launch the same ads? He's European in the European market, but he's selling in the US. That's his main focus. He was like, no, we probably can get to a million a day, but I had without without having to do that, and I don't see why I would create more complexity versus less. We're scaling fast, it's actually very profitable. The team is running with one agency that's doing content, and essentially, in my opinion, he outsourced a very cheap one for content, and the whole team is like three people and the operation for his supplier to ship. Think about that, doing crazy numbers. That's the kind of people you're competing with. And he does not have issues spending 20-30 grand a day and losing even money. Think about that. That that's terrible, right? When you think about it, like I can't even compete with him if he does that. He's not doing it, he's very profitable. But the ability to do that is something, right? And I think you should be aware of that in terms of what to do. You can scale the Australian market to no possible level. The US actually can be where you are, you're kind of like killing your business, essentially.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:13

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's brilliant. And I guess you know that that's essentially what we're thinking. It's like we really want to go and build this brand and within Australia, and so that's why we didn't too much want to necessarily go and do something like that in the way that it's just been explained. It really is. It's a complexity game, and it's like we've already found what works. It's like let's double down and let's really build that brand here. And you know what, three, four, five years' time might actually be more successful then because it's like, hey, guess what, America, or guess what, New Zealand? This is now here. We're just gonna hope no one copies this between now and then.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:46

I mean, the only way you do that is by um delivering an exceptionally good product to a lot of people in rapid pace, which again goes back to how do you do that? Focus on one product, you know what I mean, and do it really damn well and maintain amazing brand integrity. So people are like, oh, I'm gonna buy only this product over and over and over again. So I think that focus game is um is crucial for where you guys are up to. So very, very, very good. I'm curious at the main lessons or standouts um as part of the session today, team, anything that stood out for you on your side, Cindy, that was particularly uh impactful or meaningful?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:20

Um yeah, just really I think honing in on my conversion rate, um, it's really easy to, you know, divert from from where you need to be. But like one problem, one product, one area, just focus on it and stop looking at shiny stuff and different things. It's so easy to it's so easy to be like, oh, you know, I need to do this, I need to do that. But yeah, just pull it back in and stick to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:49

Love that. Very good. How about you guys, Nathan, Etienne?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:52

Uh probably never lose focus and embrace mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:56

Yeah, very good. How about yourself, Etienne?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:00

I'd I'd say very similar. Like I I really resonate with with staying focused. So I I still work full-time, and it's very easy for me to lose concentration or or to focus on that the thing that's most important in scaling a business. And I've been listening to a lot of Alex Homozy and Ed you speak the exact same way, and he speaks about how a lot of entrepreneurs will take on multiple business ideas, and that's usually where their business is going to die. So I think yeah, staying focused, staying true to what your process is, and focus on the scaling.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:35

Very good session today. Um, it's a pleasure to see you guys grow and progress and continue overcoming challenges um in your businesses and also yourself as an entrepreneur because they're very interlinked. You know, you can't grow your business without growing yourself. And I'm seeing that a lot in the both of you as as you continue to grow and and uh and scale and overcome new problems. So looking forward to supporting you um in the future. And um, I appreciate the conversation, appreciate the time spent um going through the session today.

unknown 1:20:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

Thank you.