The Accidental Entrepreneurs
Two different innovators that stumbled on ideas in the veterinary field, built a company, then sold for millions........ without having any idea what they were doing.
Each week, Ira and Stacee will spin the wheel of start-up questions and share the knowledge they wish they had back then.
The Accidental Entrepreneurs
Ep 29: What were some of your most successful customer engagement ideas? (Season Finale)
In our season finale, we dig into some game-changing customer engagement strategies that fueled our startups. Ever thought about how an app or a clever email campaign could transform your business? Or imagine hosting a Willy Wonka-inspired event in Las Vegas complete with golden ticket candy bars and a lovable mascot named Mr. Meowgy. We share behind-the-scenes insights that can inspire your next big idea. It's all about building a community that is both engaged and excited.
As we toast to the end of an amazing season of "The Accidental Entrepreneur," we express our heartfelt gratitude for your support and look forward to more enriching discussions in the future. Cheers!
Hello and welcome. I am Ira Gordon and, along with Stace Santee, the host of the Accidental Entrepreneurs podcast. We each previously founded successful companies Along the way. We became business owners and eventually sold those businesses despite us having no real background in business or ever even planning to become entrepreneurs. In other words, we did this all despite originally having no idea what we were doing or getting ourselves into. In each episode of this podcast, we will share stories and tips from our journey and we'll answer a randomly chosen question about our experience. Let's jump right into the show. Well, hello there, stacey. How are you doing?
Stacee:It's been a little while it's been a little while and it's kind of a weird one. Today it's our last episode of the season. Did you bring your tequila?
Ira:I did, so I am prepared.
Stacee:All right. So I'm curious as to what kind of tequila you brought, and I'm also curious are you going to do it Mexican style or American style?
Ira:I was just planning to, you know, throw it on back, whatever style that is.
Stacee:That's American. I went to Mexico City last fall and I was hanging out with a Mexican veterinarian gentleman there and he ordered us all tequila, and me and Ellis throw it back and he's like "oh, you americans. He's like you only learn this from jose cuervo.
Ira:I'm not planning to swallow the worm, if that's what you're asking. So I brought my bottle of uh Cabo Wabo reposado tequila here, um you know, repped by Sammy Hagar, the red rocker oh yeah, you can't drive 55 that's right guitar solo.
Stacee:I love him. I am drinking. This is my new favorite tequila okay, the 1800 Coconut and it is so delicious it it goes down very easily. You can add it. You know, lemonade, raspberry lemonade, pineapple juice. Like you can't mess it up .
Ira:If memory serves, you are a big fan of one of my favorite tequilas, which is the Kirkland signature tequila.
Stacee:It was between these two. I was going to bring the Kirkland signature tequila. It was between these two. I was going to bring the Kirkland. I've lately been more obsessed with the 1800 Coconut. Now that we aren't going to be seeing you every week, what are you going to be doing with yourself?
Ira:Well, yeah, my copious free time now that I'm not going to be hosting a podcast for a little bit. Now I'm working on a few things. I have a number of volunteer activities I'm involved in. So, for example, tonight I have a board meeting for a charity that I am the CFO of called We Rock Cancer, which does cancer education and screenings at music and other arts events, and so that should be fun.
Ira:And I have been advising and working with a colleague of mine on a startup focused on veterinary oncology drug development that we're open to, you know, get moving off the ground quickly and, if and as it does, I'll be taking a bigger role there. And then I have a startup project, also a not-for-profit startup project with a friend of mine to try to build a veterinary specialty center in an underserved community in the Chicago area to provide access to advanced specialty care to people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it, and also to do much-needed teaching and research for animal health in the veterinary community needed teaching and research for animal health in the veterinary community. So a little bit too ambitious perhaps, but I'm really excited to be trying to work on that and see if we can put together something amazing.
Stacee:Plus, you have like two other jobs. You have your work at your synagogue, you help there, and then you also. What's the other one you're doing? Oh, you're running for president for the American Veterinary Cancer Society, right? Is that what it's called?
Ira:I will be running for president of VCS. You have a lot of jobs.
Stacee:What percentage of these jobs pay?
Ira:Like 2% of them pay me anything, but you can't put a value on doing interesting stuff and having fun with other smart people. It's not like this podcast, Stacee.
Stacee:Yeah, you're not making any money on this job either. I see a theme with you.
Ira:Indeed, so what are you going to be doing?
Stacee:Well, I am going to be working on my golf score, like President Biden and former President Trump. I'll be trying to get that going. I've been playing a couple times a week, so I like that. And I'm working on my book, the Stop Acting Like a Girl. I've got it almost ready. I'm trying to decide if I should self-publish it or go down the harder path of trying to get an agent. I'll probably end up self-publishing it because I don't think I have. I don't think I can wait that long, like a year it takes to get an agent and all that.
Ira:I don't know and I'm not even sure it's worth it.
Stacee:So yeah, and then I'm doing my street dog thing here in Durango, where we are going to the soup kitchen and we go every quarter and we see the pets of the people experiencing homelessness and that's been very rewarding. Like I don't know. If you know this, there's a huge obesity problem in the pets of people that are homeless. I was shocked. I was giving the fat dog talk to almost all of them and I realized what it is is they give the dog all of their food, like from the soup kitchen. And we had all these treats for the dogs for being good, you know, for their shots and their microchips, and all of this, and not one dog would take us up on our dog treat because they're like oh, we eat way better than this.
Stacee:So I was trying to tell everybody, like all right, your pet's overeating, so you don't have to give them all of your food. We see a lot of people and I really like doing that.
Ira:So, yeah, those are the main things it's a testament to just how much people love and care about their pets. Right, you wish they could do that in a healthier way, possibly, but it's sort of in its own way, kind of a beautiful gesture.
Stacee:I had a patient so fat one time and the husband would give him Cheetos nonstop, and so I had to. I made a sign and penned it on the dog's collar Please do not feed me any more Cheetos, I'm getting so fat. The wife just said I can't make them stop. I'm like, well, I guess Cheetos is his love language. That's awesome. Well, let's tackle the final topic. Today. The question is what are some of the most successful customer engagement ideas you had at your company?
Ira:So one of the most fun and engaging things that we did was we at VetPrep. We had a professional collaboration sort of social tool that we built called Viral Vet, and you know people would share images and tough, interesting cases with other people in the community. And we developed a partnership with Merck Animal Health and they had recently launched a new topical ear medication for pets with a variety of ear conditions. And it was around the Halloween season and so we had what we called the scary ear competition, where people would submit the sort of most disgusting, scary looking ear conditions they'd seen in their pets and people would, you know, comment and upvote them and the you know, the scariest ears won a prize at the end and the engagement was unbelievable.
Ira:We got some of the truly the most disgusting things I've ever seen, and if you're not a veterinarian, this doesn't excite you, but if you are a veterinarian, disgusting things, disgusting medical things really gets you excited, and especially things you can fix, and so it was fantastic. We had hundreds and hundreds of submissions coming in of all these different ears and dogs and cats and other things and close-ups of ear mites crawling around inside the ear. It was awesome and everybody loved it and it was one of our only sort of uh revenue generating things that we were able to do uh through viral vet, and so it was. It was great and we were thankful to have, you know, our partners at merck kind of sponsor it and help us with it. And yeah, that was uh quite the quite the how about you?
Stacee:Well, first I have a few follow-up questions for you oh, please. Now, how did your customers know to do this?
Ira:So we promoted it through the app itself as well as through email to the members of that community and also sort of our veterinary student users of our test prep product, and promoted it primarily through those means.
Stacee:And was there a price or was it just come and share?
Ira:No, there were prizes. I think I'm trying to remember what they were, but you know, I think there was like a stethoscope was a prize and probably a textbook, and I think I feel like there was some other like big prize. I can't remember what it was. It might've been, you know, before it was quite as commonplace. I think there was like a thing to take pictures in a microscope, like digital cytology. Before digital cytology was cool, and so I think those were the prizes.
Stacee:And how did people submit their photo or video? Because it's easier nowadays, but it was a little harder, probably back then. Did you just have them go email it to you, or how did you do that?
Ira:We actually had built like a full app for this, and so people would submit it through directly through their smartphones. Yeah, yep.
Stacee:So they could just use the viral vet and upload it there through their smartphone. Exactly, brilliant. So you got people to use the product and you found something. What do you think it was about that that? Is it just because we all can relate to a nasty, disgusting ear infection or ear problem or what? What was the?
Ira:combination of things I think, um, just the curiosity and gross gross out factor, right like you can't look away from something like that. I think the competition element of you know, people submitting things and wanting to win and wanting their friends to look and sort of vote up their submissions and potentially the prizes sort of related to all that as well.
Stacee:Ah yeah, those are all key elements sort of related to all that as well. Ah yeah, those are all key elements. Cool. Well, for me I will say one of the most successful customer engagement programs we did this was kind of a long, lengthy process. We were going to have this big party in Las Vegas for our customers. We decided and our mascot for Vet2Pet was Mr Meowgy, this cat. We had a giant costume built from the people at the Looney Tunes. He was really cute and fun and he was a ninja and he had a sword and all this stuff. So we got this big idea. We wanted to have a party there, but it's too expensive to have a party on the strip where we were.
Stacee:So we ended up finding this mansion offsite with a pool. It was really cool grass lawn, but it was a ways away.
Stacee:So then we had to rent vehicles, and we rented these stretch Humvees to come and pick the people up and it just kept building and building into this big party. So then we're like how are we going to encourage people to come to our party? Because we're asking a lot of them, they're going to be tired from conference. Then we're gonna, you know, whiz them, whisk them away in a vehicle for like a 30 minute drive and then have this party like who will want to do this? So we came up with this other idea where we started planning way in advance and if you did so many tutorial videos with us or lessons with us, you could get a Willy Wonka candy bar delivered to you with your chance to get the golden ticket. So you had to do so many things to get yourself on the list to receive a candy bar. And then we hid five Willy Wonka tickets in there randomly. I think we had like around a thousand people get the candy bars. So you can imagine. We ordered all these plain labeled chocolate bars and just like having them not melt in the mail was a deal. And then we had to hand wrap them all with our labels and print the Willy Wonka tickets. Like it was an ordeal, I tell you.
Stacee:My team was probably ready to punch me in the face, but we were had so much fun and so then we mailed them out and the five lucky winners of the golden ticket got free room and board and free conference pass for the whole Western veterinary Conference. So all they had to do was get there and then they could get to come to the party, claim their prize on the party, which they got, to go up on the stage with Mr Meowgy and get their ninja bandana. It was so fun. I mean, people always ask me what's the ROI? And that is just one of the things you can't measure the ROI on, because we dropped maybe $20,000, if maybe more. But it was so fun and people were following us to see who got the Willy Wonka tickets if they didn't get them, and people wanted to come to the party because it was fun and we were doing things a little different. So, to be honest, that's one of my favorite memories of the whole startup life company thing.
Ira:So cool. And so who was it inside the uh, the mascot uniform?
Stacee:Well, that we had to arm wrestle for, like, if you lost, you had to go in the costume because it was so freaking hot. Where, like, if you lost, you had to go in the costume because it was so freaking hot. But it was Kylee, one of my employees in Rita, one of my former technicians at my vet hospital, and they're both really funny. But that costume is so hot and you have to be really animated and enjoy interacting with people. But they had to switch out because you could only do it for like 30 minutes to an hour at a time and you were dying. But during that party because it's Vegas and it was pretty hot that evening, I went in the back and Kylee had done her hour and she was just like, stretched out, laying on the floor with the fans and the ice. She's like I think I'm dying.
Ira:I'm like, oh, you're fine, you're fine, oh yeah, we, we once tried the mascot uniform as well. We decided it would be cool to have, uh, for vet prep. We had preppy the dog, um sort of test prep mascot, and, um, one of my partners I won't mention their name for a variety of reasons, but yeah, he put on the outfit and, just as you mentioned, like exceedingly hot and um, in his case it, uh, it brought out a weird side of his personality. I I would say sufficiently that we decided we would not have another mascot.
Stacee:Yeah, it's like nobody knows who you are now you can do what you want. I think, when it comes to engaging your customers, I think if you're able to think outside the box, do something fun and creative and a little bit different than everybody else, people will take notice and you might not initially think they are, but they are, and I encourage people to try to be different than everyone else out there. I mean, how many of these booths do we see at the trade show where you can get a free iPad or you know it's all. Come on, you can do bigger, better, more fun things. I think if you can push yourself and maybe not worry so much about offending people or stepping over the HR lines.
Stacee:I mean I say that was like a little quote because, um, I mean there are some things that could have got us into trouble. I, for example, it was this was kind of funny it was a Willy Wonka theme party, right. So I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if there were Oompa Loompas there? Like, let's get some Oompa Loompas. So I found you know this place, we were renting this mansion and I'm like can you get me some? He's like we can get you anything you want in las vegas.
Stacee:So he said I'm sure it's true he sent me the catalog of anything I could possibly want and more. In las vegas he's like usually we have midget wrestling if we're doing this, but we can try to see if we could get the little people to dress up as Oompa Loompas and I'm like I think I'm going to put a we're going to go with the wrestling is what you told them, right.
Stacee:We're going to go with the wrestling. We ended up going with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis because I thought that's a little bit safer bet. But you know, if you want to freak yourself out, ask for the secret PDF of all the things you can order in Vegas if you so desire.
Ira:You're better off looking for scariers. I can guarantee you that.
Stacee:Well, let's share a final tip with our listeners. What is your tip of the week today?
Ira:So I have a couple of people I'm going to mention. Actually, I wouldn't necessarily call them mentors per se, but they're more colleagues and friends.
Ira:One is Drew, and the other is Natalie Marks, and, and what they both have kind of taught me and and do sort of uniquely is they have a way of having just a very clear vision of how something should be and they're very confident in that vision. And I am somebody that is like I'm really a thinker and I love sort of thinking about things and the complexity of things and, um, trying to come up with, you know, solutions and sort of think through that complexity. But the sort of downside of that is sort of a lack of of clarity and focus of like yes, like this is simple, like this, if this, if this happens and this should happen and this should happen, right, and and for a long time I thought like well, that's like an oversimplification, that's not good, because the reality is far more intricate than that, right, but what what they have sort of both taught me is that sort of having that that clarity is really sort of galvanizing, allows people to sort of rally around sort of a more clear and simple idea and vision. And what they have that is unique is, I feel like a lot of the time when people have a clear and simple vision, they can be a bit sort of hardheaded. It's really hard to change their mind because they have a clear and simple vision and you know how could you convince them otherwise? Like this is so straightforward.
Ira:But what Drew and Natalie both have the ability to do is, when presented with, you know, additional new information or a different perspective, like they, they can be flexible in that vision and and then they develop kind of a new clear vision. Right, and that is a skill set that I'm trying to hone a little bit better and I don't think I've got it mastered by any stretch, but it's something that I would sort of encourage people that are, you know, maybe thoughtful introverts like me, and sort of value that ability to, you know, see things in gray rather than sort of black and white, to say, well, actually there is tremendous value in sort of having more clarity and not sort of being in this kind of gray space all the time. But you also, to do that well, you have to have the ability to kind of bank off of that and sort of rethink things when there's you there's new information or perspectives to think about. So I credit the two of them with giving me that insight into sort of the value of that.
Stacee:I love that. So like it kind of reminds me of if you're at a crossways and you're facing three roads and you're wondering what should I do? Sounds like Drew and Natalie, once they're on a road, they are saying ".
Ira:And, they know exactly where that road's taking, they know why they took it and and they know, you know, what's supposed to happen if they take it correctly, right, um, and and that's tremendously valuable as opposed to saying, well, you know, if I take this road, like there's 20 things that could happen or could go wrong, but if I take this road, there's a lot of that, you know. And, yeah, I think I tend to sort of appreciate and love to sort of spend time kind of working through that complexity and sharing my thinking about maybe that complexity as well, and I think sometimes that does me a disservice.
Stacee:I think sometimes that does me a disservice. Well, and one of the worst things I think you can do to yourself is adopt any kind of hypothetical regret where you make a decision and you're going and then you worry and fret over. Did I make the right decision? What if I should have taken that other road, or maybe that even third road? Wonder if I'd be further along, richer, more successful, more you know? Blah, blah, blah. But it's a waste of time to think about it because you have no way of comparing the two.
Ira:Yeah, when I think about bad decisions, we'll call them and probably we've all made bad decisions. I think I have. But when you think about bad decisions, I try not to think about them in the context of, well, this was a bad decision because it didn't work out right, like this was a bad decision because, like I didn't approach the decision-making process correctly, potentially, and that I can learn from. But a bad decision shouldn't be judged strictly by its outcome, because lots of decisions have to be made with limited information and an uncertain outcome, right and um and sure. It's easy to look back and be like, oh well, I thought that everybody was gonna love this idea and it was gonna take off, but it didn't. That doesn't make it a bad decision if, based on the information that you had at the time, like it was still the best decision,
Stacee:Right, , um and you have no idea if the other decision could have been worse correct although this brings me to my tip of the week, which is, uh, something my Ellis husband ellis says with me.
Stacee:of the things he says say, on this, we have this conversation, have had this conversation several times. I said but your other decision could be worse, he's like, or it could be better. I'm like, oh, you're ruining the whole thing because it could be worse and you don't even know. So I want to share something that Ellis says to me kind of regularly. That's some of the best advice I could ever have. Let me set the stage a little for those of you that don't know.
Stacee:My husband Ellis is a cowboy. He doesn't do a lot of talking, he's more of an observer. He's super funny. But he's also pretty quiet in crowds and stuff like this, unless he knows you or he's had several, you know. Uh, Bud Lights in him. But he, he says and does these things sometimes that are just so profound to me. So you always have to perk up when he's around, cause he might drop one of these little nuggets on you. But we have very different personalities. I'm type A. I'm like wound up pretty good, like let's go, let's go.
Stacee:I fret a lot, I worry about what I should be doing or what my purpose is and all these other things. And he says to me, "stacey things tend to have a way of working out. To me, stacy things tend to have a way of working out. And when I'm worried about if I'm going to miss a flight, if I'm going to make a connection, if I'm going to have enough money to pay the payroll, if I'm going to have my company is going to be successful, if quitting my job was a bad choice to start my startup. He always says this to me things tend to have a way of working out. And he's right, they do. And I don't know if it's just because I adopt my new reality and make it work or I don't know, but most of the stuff I panic and fret over just doesn't happen.
Ira:Love it. I think this is potentially something I'm okay at, at least. But I think a lot of people they spend so much time worrying about the bad things that could happen in X, y and Z scenario that actually, like, the worrying about those bad things is way worse than if the bad thing actually just happened and you hadn't spent all that time worrying about it. Right, and most of the time the bad thing doesn't even happen. And so you got all the downside of worrying about the bad thing that might happen and didn't even happen, sort of like.
Ira:Sort of like my kids right, like why don't you try this new thing? It's like, well, there's all these bad things that can happen with this new thing. I might not like it, it might be terrible, right, it's like okay, but you might like it. And then ultimately they'll do it and maybe they like it, maybe they don't like it, but like if they didn't like it, it wasn't that bad and it was certainly not as bad as all the worrying they did about not liking it. Liking it, and if they liked it, then like great, now they've found something else that they like.
Stacee:Yeah, it's a really. It's a simple thing and it sounds really basic, but I find myself saying that a lot to myself when I'm wasting time fretting over something that I can't even control. Well, all right, let's have a final toast to season one of The Accidental Entrepreneurs. Well, let's have a toast to the last episode of the season. Cheers, Ira, you can shoot yours, I'm sipping mine
Ira:You know, to a lot of really fun times chatting with you for this podcast it's been great.
Stacee:You got to get this kind. It's so good. We'll see you next time.
