When Data Informs the Gut: Building a Brand Beyond Instinct

Sara, the founder of Gem, shares her journey from the early days of the company. She talks about her previous venture, Plant Water, and her passion for exploring the untapped potential of new age plants. She recalls the moment when she had the idea for Gem and was unsure about its positioning and name. Despite feeling burnt out from her previous company, she wanted to start a profitable company and reached out to Jane and her team, who had previously led a successful crowdfunding campaign. They quickly responded, and together they started working on the idea of Gem.

Sara emphasizes the importance of testing and experimentation in their early stages. They created Facebook ads and tested different positioning and names to see what resonated with people. This three-month journey of testing became a core methodology at Launch Pop. Sara reflects on the challenges of building a team and admits that she initially underestimated the importance of investing in her team and building a strong culture. She shares her struggles with raising money and the setbacks they faced, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal moments, such as a breakup, also affected Sara during the early years of building Gem. She emphasizes the importance of following one's instincts and wishes she had listened to her gut more often, especially when facing difficult decisions. Despite the challenges, Sara is grateful for the support of her team and the lessons she has learned along the way. She discusses her recent practice of documenting her weekly thoughts and decision-making processes, which allows her to reflect on her instincts and make more informed decisions.

Sara's excitement and passion for the company shine through. She looks forward to the future and is grateful for the experiences that have shaped her as a founder.

Learn more about Sara and GEM:
GEM Website
GEM Instagram

Want to learn more about the creators of "The Launch Hour?" Learn more or follow along with the full-stack Launch Pop team.

Email: hello@launchpop.io
https://linktr.ee/launchpop

Transcript

Eva: 0:16

Hi, Sara. Tell me about when GEM was really just a baby. What was going through your mind?

Sara: 0:27

Oh my gosh. It's so fun talking to you because mm-hmm. you were really my og You were there in the very, very early days. And I remember I had formed a company before Gem, and it was a C B D beverage company in 2016 in New York. I was very ahead of the times back then, but always interested. I know, which is so funny to say now. It wasn't that long ago, but I feel ancient because yeah, the company was called Plant Water and we were the first to market. I think it's no more, I don't really know what happened to it, but I've always been passionate about, These new age plants and the untapped potential for them and how we could bring them to market in new ways. And I had my own kind of, health journey that brought me to the idea of this funny looking bite that's now gem. And I had been concocting it in my kitchen and had all these new nutrients in it, but I wasn't sure about the positioning or about really what to call this bite. Was it a multivitamin? Was it something else? How to approach it and I felt a little burned from my last company. It was with all these other co-founders and we were trying to raise money and so I actually, I really wanted to start, which is now laughable because I ended up raising, 16 million worth of venture capital funding. But I wanted to start like a profitable company and I thought we would start by doing a crowdfunding campaign. And then I researched morning recovery. Which was a very successful crowdfunding campaign that you and Jane led, and I was blown away by that story and so impressed with you guys that I think I just cold outreach to you guys if I Yeah, you did. Which is kinda wild,

Eva: 2:11

very ugly website at the

Sara: 2:12

time. Yeah. I love when cold outreaches actually net out to something like that. Because we knew'em all of our life and sometimes they go nowhere. But you guys responded fairly quickly and I had just moved, this was now in what, late 2017. So I just moved from New York to LA and. I feel like the four of us just got into a room and started. I was still prototyping the bite at the time, still forming the advisory board, but it was really with your guys' work on looking and testing, which all these crazy kind of growth ads, like happy stuff, what about this positioning or this name or is it more for the energy market or for the yoga market? And so we like. Made all these Facebook ads tried to see what people clicked on most you know what's

Eva: 2:57

crazy that, it was three months long. That journey I, it's testing wild and that has become a methodology now at Launch Pop. And we do the same testing of ads before. We make a decision on what should the brand be, what should the strategy to go to market be, and create a community. It's become, very core to what we do for founders.

Sara: 3:28

I

Eva: 3:28

love that. Yeah. I still remember when you wanted to call it noosh brands, by the way.

Sara: 3:34

Oh yeah. That's, natural, organic, sustainable, healthy, was. I'm really happy. Everyone like talked me off a ledge there, but there was like a real ledge because I ended up incorporating our L C is NOSH Brand's, L C, and then five months later we ended up becoming a C Corp. And so we are Gem Health Inc now, but we still by the way, have all of these like old platforms, weird things like Typeform or even our Shopify right. Brands. And so I still have team members that joined today, four years later, and they're like, what is NOSH brands? And I'm like, yeah. It's just, it was a placeholder name that will never die now.

Eva: 4:16

Amazing. And also we didn't know, na like snack, but it was like a term coined

Sara: 4:22

in New York. It's like a Jewish kind of like notch. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not Jewish, but I dunno, I always love the word. I thought it was just yeah. No, it's awesome. It's a fun word. Not maybe for a brand. I don't know if it's a, evergreen word that grows with you, we made it to GEM. Yeah.

Eva: 4:42

And you talked about, Formulating your product in your kitchen and just like trialing an error. Do you remember the time I arrived to your place and your face was flushed red?

Sara: 4:56

Yes, I do.

Eva: 4:58

I'm not drunk or anything. I'm just. High

Sara: 5:01

off vitamins 10 in the morning and I had essentially tried every B vitamin cause we were trying to find the right B vitamin supplier. We ended up with this one from organic fermented quinoa actually. And I had taste tested so many that it was like the niacin flush or something. I don't, I have no idea how much B vitamins I took. It must have been the equivalent of a few Red Bulls or something. I was like, bouncing off the wall.

Eva: 5:27

You were definitely

Sara: 5:27

glowing. I was glowing. Everyone's wow, I wanna look like you. And I was like, do you, I dunno. I feel the best. It was a little too much. I still to this day, when people ask me, all of the bites that we have, I can say with confidence that I have had. 20 bites in one setting if every bite Oh my I dunno if it's always it's just prototyping, being in the kitchen, being very hands-on. I always end up trying everything. And doing like the extreme. So when everyone's what happens to me if I have five or 10 bites and I'm like, You're gonna be okay because it turns out I've done all the mega tests. Yes. Everyone, and I'm fine. The worst is just that you either have an niacin flush or that go to the bathroom, which some people that's great. Oh no. You little have like maybe a little too much energy. You won't be able to even focus. You wanna run. Which some people also want. So yeah.

Eva: 6:20

Okay, you've developed this product, did a ton of testing. How many years has it been? Like six,

Sara: 6:26

maybe? So 2017, we got in touch and I was like working on the idea. 2018 was really the year of prototyping and producing. We launched really leanly at the end of 2016, but really I characterize like 2019 as the first full year. So that puts us at four and a half years? Yeah. Yeah. So this 2023 we our fifth year, which is crazy, but for me, closer to, yeah, like six or seven I guess. For sure.

Eva: 6:55

So tell me some of the highs and lows, some of the things that you don't typically share with an investor.

Sara: 7:05

Oh. Actually, I don't know. I'm pretty, pretty much an open book these days. I feel like I would share a lot. Mm-hmm. But, um, A lot of my highs and lows have been. Almost similar. It's all around the people and the team building. I started out as a sole founder and that was and you guys really came in as like my partners for a few months. And then after I launched I got another partner on board. And so I've had like awesome people around me. I think I've underestimated how much you really need to invest in your team and how to do that early on, which is super challenging when you're also raising money. So I look back at like my first two years of gem and I am really sad to say that all I remember doing is raising money. I was, of course, yeah. It's a full-time role things, but it was quite a full-time role. And so I don't know if I really put the TLC in understanding of what it meant to recruit and manage and develop the right team. Probably until two years in. And so I think building a culture and all of those things it, it didn't help. I will say that we had 2020, our second year in business was covid. So I feel like we had, a setback. We were just starting and like we were supposed to raise our series seed in early 2020, and that fell apart because of the pandemic and got pushed back a year. Some ways I feel like we were a year behind than where we should be because of that. We still had a very successful pandemic, obviously very focused on their health. But I just wish that, I wish I had a coach earlier on that sat me down and taught me. It's like I, I spent so much time investing. In how to understand the VC world, how to get investment. Yeah, how to pitch. I feel like early stage founders I talked to, that's the only question I'm ever asked. How do you get that first$500,000 check? The difference between safe and convertible notes and when do you do a price round and how that works. Like all great questions, but I never get asked and I never ask like, how do you hire a rockstar person to join your team? Incentivize them. With not a lot of money, what do those equity structures look like that's a whole sales process in itself. Sure. And I just wish that like someone helped me early on. I had to really organically come around and understand what that took and meant. And I'm still learning a lot, but But yeah, I mean I think that operational side, especially in year three and year four of your company, that's the stuff that really makes or breaks companies for sure. You really gotta get down to the nitty gritty of cost of every unit economic piece, how your whole supply chain works and have really smart people who can be in there and negotiating and and making those optimizations in order to be able to scale. You run a people business, so you know this very, this is what you do

Eva: 9:55

for sure. There's this a book called Who Not How, and essentially it talks about how you as an individual is only capable of holding so much knowledge. And the moment you don't know something or you want to learn about something and you reach out to someone like an expert, suddenly your box expands. And you are more capable to doing more as an individual. And so there's so much power to keep expanding the whos to take on like bigger goals and to do more and think bigger and execute more.

Sara: 10:34

I mean I I have a book called The Who, but it's an interview book, which we do use. I, yeah, I don't know. I think,

Eva: 10:43

oh, I do know that one. Yes. Method.

Sara: 10:45

We use parts of the WHO Method. I actually find it really amazing. I don't know, I think it's like controversial if people like it or not, but sure.

Eva: 10:53

All of these structures are controversial in

Sara: 10:56

some way. Yeah. I don't know how but it's interesting.

Eva: 11:00

Okay. You learned about people and the power of people. Yeah. What were some personal moments in the past four years, five, six years that may have, impacted the way you started building Gem? Oh, God, that's such a good question. Have, were you able to date?

Sara: 11:24

I do right now. He's amazing. Yeah. We've been together for a few years. I, I. As a lot of people dunno this, but I guess I moved to LA to start Jen, but I also moved here with a guy. That breaking my heart and we broke up. So I went through this whole breakup while I was starting a company. Don't recommend that for anyone. That was really challenging. Yeah. But I think that there's a, I, I think a lot about some of my most Trying moments were the moments that I finally felt like I could, put my guard down, which is sad to say, but I and are the moments that I didn't follow my instinct, often and I, you might have this question later in your podcast, but the things that I wish I would've said to myself is, I really think the success of a good founder is around vigilance, being constantly vigilant and Relying on your instincts. Often founders have an amazing instincts and you really gotta act on them. And it might sound cheesy or generic, but it's something where like my most trying moments in life are when I didn't investigate that, it's like when I had a feeling. I decided to act maybe impulsively and go against my feeling. Cause it was just like everyone else is saying this is the way to do it, so I'm just gonna go do it that way. And I wish we would've paused on that. And I can't I wish I could give you specific details, but a lot of it's around like more personal, like comp details, people on the team and things like that. Oh, really? So I can't really reveal, but but there are just moments that I wish I would've. Approach that differently. Yeah. It's

Eva: 12:57

like a mom, right? Yeah. You can't always rationalize it with science or data, but this gut feeling is actually in you because you have experience, you're very close to it, and that's science enough to say you are the best decision maker going for it. But I can see, you were in a very hard place. Battling stakeholders and making the right decisions for your

Sara: 13:26

company. That's what's really challenging. Like you really have to, I. Be pretty methodical about it. So something that I've started to do recently actually have the encouragement of my board, which I absolutely love, is that I do and I've never shared this with anyone, I don't think my team knows I do this, but I actually do like almost like a journal entry of my week. Every Friday, 5:00 PM I sit down and I go through what are the most important things that I did this week? And only my board can view this. Nobody else. It's completely private. But it allows me to really document some of my thought processes, almost become like a diary of some sort. I like document my thought process and there are little nuggets in there where it's fast forward a couple of weeks, I have this instinct. Instead, I can actually go back and I can say, yeah, this instinct's actually rooted in data because here, and here are these things happened. So that's why I'm having this instinct right now. It's not just like a feeling. And when you're able to then, contextualize it or corroborate it in that way, then, you're able to build more of a professional leadership plan. In the early days, you're just like running around with your head cut off, so you don't have time to do that. And you're just like I know that this is probably gonna work and this isn't, can't tell you why right now. Cause I don't have time to investigate it, so let's just go for it. Wow, that's

Eva: 14:39

so interesting because between Jane and I we do that live and we are each other's journals. And it's so interesting to see how you as a solo founder, finding ways to rationalize your thoughts, make sure you are able to reflect on it and have a methodical way of making decisions,

Sara: 15:01

right? Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I'll even write comments in there to my board members. Hey, I'm like, I don't know if I can figure out why my instinct is saying this. Do you guys have any other. Oh wow. Sounding board help me out. Like why do you think towards it? Should I really pause an investigate or just go for it? It just depends on the risk, reward profile of what your decision is. But yeah, we had a really trying moment last summer that was really challenging on the business and it was a normal growing pain, but I had, I felt like I cut my eye off the ball for a second and I should have caught it sooner than I did. And we ended up having, Essentially too much inventory. We overstocked on that and cash constraints and cash flow management issues. And so we were able to get it back under control, but that was a really low moment. There's multiple moments. I think every year of this business, there's been a moment where I'm like, is this you're like, is this what's gonna make it or break it, right? And. It's in the early days, it feels like that, that every single decision like that is a make it or break it. Yes. Ultimately, as you grow and evolve, you start to temper that a bit.

Eva: 16:08

What kept you going? I know in the very beginning when we first met, like you, you wanted to build a company that was good for earth and you saw yourself as. Someone very, like as a human, we're very tiny. I always remember that story like about space and that the whole connection of us being a very tiny speck on earth. Yeah.

Sara: 16:31

What keeps the team space never quite made it into our brand, but I always love that. An astronaut looks back into space and sees the fragile ball of the earth floating and all of the little pettiness that we have kind of dissolves and yes, you realize just how fragile and important our ecosystem is, and it's a global mindset to, to stick with. And that, yeah, is the essence of where GEM was born and that sustainability ethos why I was so obsessed with algae is one, plant system in the early days. Though we've evolved the product a lot, I was very green, yeah. Super like purist, I would feel like in the beginning. And we still have a very clean product. It's not a candy, there's no additives, fillers, all that, but but it tastes a lot better than it did four years ago. Amazing.

Eva: 17:18

Yeah. In order to do good for the earth, you have to also thrive as well. You have to take care of yourself first and then you do good around you. What are some magical moments that have happened in the past few years? What have you seen come out into this world because of gem's existence?

Sara: 17:37

Oh God, I love that. I hope there's many more magical moments to come, but what I've loved is that what's really beautiful is that we've attracted, I think a very Broad swath of the population. A lot of companies start with a very cultish community, CrossFit or yoga or something like that. Athlete focused maybe. And we actually were like for everyone really early on, actually in the very early days we were women focused, but now we're, for everyone and. I think my founder story, of course, that you know very well resonated with a lot of different people. But I was I wasn't some doctor, I didn't have some crazy diet fad that I was following. I was just trying to create something healthy that filled the gaps in the right ways and allowed you to live a balanced life and I had trialed and tested and all kinds of things and ultimately found this thing that worked for me. And then, we started that community beta group and found it worked for others too. And so I think that those like organic moments, right? Like even our Facebook community group, actually we should talk about that, but I know that's become also kind of part of a lot of the launch pop story. But that really was a magical moment where I was like, is anyone else going to like this? So I'm like, we started this group just to be like, Hey, curious, I created this like bizarre looking bite that has a bunch of awesome things in it for you. It's not a candy, it's not swallowing. A handful of pills like, would you want it? What else would you replace? And that was like a really beautiful, magical moment. And then I think as that it's evolved. What's magical to the point of like reaching this customer is we have some of our, biggest evangelist customers are 65 plus. Living all over the United States and we have this vegan, gluten-free product and a lot of them eat burgers and have a gem afterwards and they just live balanced life. And they're not about some keto paleo, like we really. Have reached this sort of I would say someone like me or you who are just to make healthy choices and create good daily health habits and to join like authentic communities. And so I think that there is this authenticity about GEMS community that I really love that spans all kinds of sort of generations and. Different interest groups and that's been really magical to see. And of course I hope that continues to scale, right? Cause we're still quite early, but I saw that in the very early days with our, Facebook community group. And I've seen it in pockets as we've grown.

Eva: 20:07

Isn't it so amazing when like people are asking questions in your group and. They're answering questions for you. The other members are answering for you because they know your brand and product so well.

Sara: 20:22

Exactly. Yeah, I love that. That's the best, like when we have, even our Facebook comments, right? You have an ad and your ad gets a bunch of Facebook comments. Even those, we have customers who find our ads and are responding to someone's question about something, generic. Like how much vitamin D is in this bite or something, right? Or, and I'm like, I love that this random customer found this ad and decided to answer before,

Eva: 20:49

Yeah. Or folks who are skeptics, and they have a lot of questions before they try it. And the community the power of your community, helping them understand the benefit.

Sara: 21:01

That's what's amazing, I think. Totally. Yeah. I think a lot of work to do there too. Really understanding the results around the gen, like building. A lot of it is building a consistent daily health habit. Yeah. That's tough to do with why there are no shortage of self-help books around the daily health habit. But that's what's really important with our product. And we do have our hero product, the Daily Essential ris Ginger. Yeah. This is the one that is, our highest performing, but is the best. And that was another low, I would say that was like a low moment actually, which I thought was gonna be our highest moment, was when we, expanded our product line to include a lot of other functional driven bites, sleep immunity. Mm-hmm. Um, And it turned out that it just, Was like standing up three other companies and it diluted our marketing spend. We weren't able to actually service our core demographic. And that's when we pulled back and just focused on the daily multi. And we still have a few other products, but it's all about really as an existing customer, if you wanna mix and match or try something new or add on a product. Awesome. Otherwise we're really servicing this sort of one a day for sure. Right form. And that was a huge epiphany for us. It was a very magical moment in the end to learn that. And I'm sure I could have, read a bunch of MBA books about the girls of product proliferation and figure it out, but decided to go right through it and learn it the hard way.

Eva: 22:28

That's okay. You got the data and you pivoted, right? Yeah. Okay. What would, now that you've gone through so much, highs and lows, you're a more mature founder now. If you were to talk to Sarah again like six years ago after you left your previous company what would be three things you'd tell

Sara: 22:50

her? The first one would be a wellness tip. So I have been pretty healthy. I would say, I'm just about sleeping and drinking water and exercising, and of course eating my gem and getting a lot of vegetables in my diet. Like I've been always very balanced about those types of things, and I've done that consistently all of my life. But when it comes to like meditation or dealing with my stress, Zero, and I really underestimated the toll that would take on me. And I feel like I listened to so many people, my 20, eight year old self would've been laughing at me. Now here I am, almost my mid thirties saying this, and it's not oh, you need to meditate. I'm not saying like I'm a meditator yet by any stretch, but I think what I didn't realize, and I actually had a sort of a business coach help me like, see, this is how much that stress dampered my creativity. I had become so analytical in those early days, and I let stress put me into these operational modes where I really didn't give myself any kind of creative outlet by the end of it. And when you do that's how you get to burnout a lot faster. And so I really had to pull back and be like, what? How do I actually deal with my stress? And so it's like very little things, by the way. I don't need to have. 10 back to back meetings in a day. I can schedule a 30 minute walk. You know what I mean? It's not rocket science, it's not like you're not working, but like you can have a walking meeting and talking instead of being on Zoom. It's a lot to do with the pandemic and things like that. And how we've operated. But I would tell myself to really think more wisely about stress because the more that I've actually taken care of that the more productive I actually am. And the more creative I am too. Yeah.

Eva: 24:39

You know what's interesting? I have gone through a similar journey, but what I realized for me is it's very hard to identify when I am actually stressed. That first step because Yes. Over the years we've programmed ourselves to silence that radar. Suppress it. And no longer know what stress is. And I just keep thinking I'm very levelheaded, but actually there's like an underlying stress that I'm ignoring.

Sara: 25:09

So that's hard. I don't think I've reached this point of identify. I think it's a really good question, and I think that's the kind of quest you have to go down, right? Like how do you. I wear an aura ring now and

Eva: 25:23

get the data.

Sara: 25:24

Data does tell me that I'm stressed out. At least I'm stressed that everything plummets and I'm like, okay, at least I know that. But I also think there's just like little changes of habits. And it's really hard because in the early days, Like I said, there's this vigilance, right? There's a way that makes you really successful in your first year where you're like, Hey, I gotta respond to things very quickly, everything's on fire. And that's what makes you amazing is that you're just like here and there but ultimately as you grow, that type of mentality is actually what causes you stress. Yeah, you might not need to respond to a slack within 3.5 seconds, like actually taking a B and not, insert a certain to compartmentalize may actually help you A, deliver a better response. But B, yeah, B, less stressed. So I don't know, there's a lot of other things that I would tell myself. I think I. I think the other biggest thing is we've gone, as actually, as you can see behind me, we've gone through an evolution of packaging. Yeah. Over the last four years. We have changed our packaging every year for the last four years. I don't know if I would recommend that upon any business. Part of that was that we launched really leanly and we didn't put, a year of what some people put in. Into the perfect brand, the packaging and all that. The other thing is that we were really cognizant about margins. So we made a lot of decisions about packaging to ensure the best margins and also the most sustainable product. And so we were willing to make those quick compromises to do that. I think it's to be determined. Let's do the podcast in year. Yeah, of course. Part of me like would tell myself like, Baby don't do that. It's really hard and expensive. It might be worth a beat, but I might change my mind on that. I think it shows the resiliency of our community and when you can evolve like that with your community. It's one of our greatest assets at GEM. Yeah. You're not afraid to make big changes on product if it means better product quality. Better efficacy, stronger experience for the customer. We will make those and we will make those decisions quickly. The outcome of that might be a lot of different versions, but

Eva: 27:34

but they're not here for the, the packaging per se. They're here because you created a format that they can snack on. You've built, a very sustainable product with ingredients that actually from a macro standpoint is powerful for them. Yeah. So that's why they're here. And you started the community very early on with the mindset of trial and error. You're here to come on board on this journey with me. So you set the precedent really early on for them to see versions come out over time.

Sara: 28:09

Yeah. Yeah. And I actually think that's a great, that would be my advice for everyone else too. Find those principles or that ethos that really resonates with you, which is exactly what you just said for Gem, this sort of test and learn, this community and the product, getting that the heart and center, that has never gone away and I'm really proud of that. But there's a lot of compromises that you make, and I think it's in compromise and prioritization are two of the hardest things that you have to do every single day as a leader. And I don't know if we have it right yet, but I think thinking about that and being very vigilant around those two, how do you prioritize? What are you compromising to make sure that you're doing the single most important things every day Mm-hmm for you to grow your business is important to keep in mind.

Eva: 28:58

Amazing. Thank you so much for your time, Sarah. I'm so happy for you to see where you are right now in your journey. See the community continue to thrive. Raise new rounds. Yes. Build and grow the teams and know that you guys offer benefits and you really take care of everyone now. So I'm really happy.

Sara: 29:19

Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, it's really fun. Congrats to you as well on all fronts, professional and personal. Thank we'll have to do something in person when Jane feels better.

Eva: 29:31

Let's do it. Yeah. Take our babies out and have a baby take,

Sara: 29:35

can't we? It'd be great.

Eva: 29:37

Yeah. And you know my child's named after our memory together.

Sara: 29:44

Yeah. Oh, I'm in love. It truly is. I actually, I really do love the name Gemma. Not surprising cause of Gemma, but yeah, I'm happy that you named your baby. Cause I think if I named my baby Gemma, it would be like maybe a little too obsessive. It's

Eva: 29:58

like a lot

Sara: 30:00

be one step too

Eva: 30:01

far. Yeah, for sure. Really branded.

Sara: 30:06

Thanks for having me on the show.

Eva: 30:07

Yeah, of course.

Sara: 30:08

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.