Shopify Happy Hour

Wine, Wellness and Marketing with Nishal Kumar of No Days Wasted

• Dan Cassidy • Season 1 • Episode 15

Share episode

In this episode of Shopify Happy Hour, host Dan sits down with Nishal Kumar, founder and CEO of No Days Wasted, a science-backed recovery brand helping people enjoy life’s moments—without paying the price the next day.

Over a glass of wine (or two), Nishal shares:

  • How a mountain workout routine and social life led to the idea for No Days Wasted
  • The surprising science behind hangovers—and why DHM is key
  • Bootstrapping the brand with a kitchen-made prototype and $30K in Indiegogo pre-orders
  • How early podcast ads on Spittin' Chiclets and Call Her Daddy helped scale DTC sales
  • The shift from single-channel DTC to a full omnichannel strategy including Walmart, Amazon, and TikTok Shop
  • His approach to content, virality, and building a trustworthy brand in a crowded market

If you’ve ever wanted to build a brand that bridges health, science, and social life—or you just want to recover better after a big night out—this episode’s for you.


Brands mentioned:


Chapters

00:00
Introduction to No Days Wasted

08:52
The Science Behind Recovery Supplements

17:56
From Idea to Market: The Journey of No Days Wasted

20:57
Building Trust Through Brand Quality

21:55
From Kickstarter to Brand Growth

24:38
Leveraging Podcast Advertising for E-commerce

27:34
The Omnichannel Approach to Marketing

31:09
Balancing D2C and Retail Strategies

33:51
Harnessing Organic Social Media for Growth

37:07
Advice for Future Entrepreneurs


Dan (00:00)
Welcome to the Shopify happy hour. On this show, you'll hear from Shopify founders, operators, and experts on growth marketing strategies, lessons learned from the trenches, and other nuggets of e-commerce wisdom shared over a different drink each episode. Today, I'd like to welcome Nishal Kumar, founder and CEO of No Days Wasted, which creates scientifically-backed functional supplements that help you maximize life's moments. Nishal, welcome.

Nishal Kumar (00:25)
Dan, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Dan (00:29)
Same here, same here. Well, let's kick off with a proper cheers. So it's funny, lots of the episodes we've been doing are, there's been lots of like NA brands coming out and different snack brands that we've been kind of having on the podcast, but I'm excited to have a proper drink. So what are we, what are you having over there today? What are we gonna do?

Nishal Kumar (00:48)
I love it. Well, I have a little bit of leftover red from last night. So Malbec from Argentina and yeah, excited to raise a glass with you.

Dan (00:57)
Cool, so as Malbec, is that a preferred choice if you're gonna have a drink?

Nishal Kumar (01:02)
Yeah, you know what, like red wine, so I'll go Pinot Noir, Cabsav if I want something little heavier. Malbec's good, it's not too heavy. I think, I find it's really consistent, so you know what you're gonna get if you're trying something new. But yeah, it seems like this Mendoza region of Argentina is a place I need to visit because all their Malbecs coming out of there are generally pretty good.

Dan (01:24)
It's amazing. A close friend of mine is from Argentina. So years ago I went down with him to visit some of his family in Mendoza and I highly recommend it. people are amazing. Food is incredible. You will eat more parts of animals than you ever thought you would because they do these amazing like barbecues. And then while you're at while they're throwing these giant meat fests there's lots of Melbeck that is flowing and the vineyards that you can visit are just beautiful.

Nishal Kumar (01:33)
Okay.

Dan (01:51)
so would highly recommend a trip down there.

Nishal Kumar (01:54)
I love it. I love it. And what what are you drinking? mean, that sounds all right up my alley. Every year I get a half cow split with some friends. Yeah, last year full lamb too. So you know, a good friend of mine was actually became a rancher. And she has her small ranch and we look a source locally and enable you know, we're able to cook everything up, learn about all the different cuts. Also the different ways to cook them also a lot of diversity. You're not just eating the tops of your steaks, you're

you're making smash burgers with the ground beef, you're slow cooking with the tougher cut. So a lot of fun stuff happening by being able to really bring in the local meat.

Dan (02:29)
Meant and wine, I'm glad we connected. think we can, I think we're gonna be buds. So yes, I am drinking. Exactly, so I'm drinking, mentioned Pinot Noir, so I've got a Pinot Noir from Nicholson Ranch out in Sonoma. A little shout out to these guys. So my wife is from Napa Valley area and years back, so during COVID, we actually had a trip planned to Italy to go through the Italian wine region and just dive deep into Italian wine. And we were supposed to go in March 2020.

Nishal Kumar (02:33)
We have a lot in common here.

There we go.

Dan (02:57)
Obviously COVID hit and our trip, we canceled it because everything was shut down. So instead during that time, during the pandemic, we decided just to go down this rabbit hole of learning as much as we could about Italian wine. So every week we were going to our local wine shop and getting more wine than we should and drinking lots of Italian wine, learning as much as we could, digesting lots of books, audio books, reading all about Italian wines. And as we were going through this process of just trying to taste

Nishal Kumar (03:10)
Yeah.

Dan (03:24)
lots of different varietals and regions and vineyards. There was some really good stuff and there was also some stuff where like, yeah, you know, we don't really love it too much. We started to realize that in order to dial in quality over time, we should find vineyards that we really like and then subscribe. So we actually do a subscription to Nicholson Ranch. We can go out there and they have a beautiful vineyard. They'll give you like a really nice experience if you're a member.

So anyway, they do really good stuff and I'm drinking a Pinot from 2020. Pinots I like just because you can drink them with food, you can drink them on their own, they're always tasty. So anyway, enough talk about that, but cheers, good sir. Thanks for reading on here.

Nishal Kumar (04:03)
Cheers.

I'm in my office here, so I'm gonna use the trusty aluminum or steel glass here from WeWork, but there we go.

Dan (04:11)
I love it.

Good deal.

Nishal Kumar (04:13)
There we go. I mean, hey, I'm on the West Coast and it's one o'clock, so you gave me a little reason to start early and wet the pallet a little bit. So having fun here.

Dan (04:13)
That is lovely.

Nice, yeah, it's always good scheduling these because depending on if we're gonna have an alcoholic drink, sometimes we're scheduling this like, all right, 9 a.m. and I'm like, you know what, maybe we push that back to afternoon, but 1 p.m. is, you know, 5 p.m. somewhere, so good stuff. Well, let's get it going. Well, just a couple questions. So you were talking about me, we're talking about wine. Let's talk about drinking in general. So are you typically drinking when you are...

Nishal Kumar (04:36)
Exactly, exactly.

Dan (04:48)
eating, are you going out with friends, are you drinking at home, what's your relationship with alcohol?

Nishal Kumar (04:54)
Yeah, one of the big things is I never drink alone. I can't remember the last time that I have or even wanted to. I'm, you know, really, I love my time and I love being able to be busy all the time. So, you know, drinking for me is usually a social time or it's tied in with cooking and a culinary experience. So I'd say that probably the two times are you're celebrating a moment with some friends catching up.

like we'll had one of my best friend's birthday parties last weekend, we went to, a new restaurant that we haven't tried. And then they had a great selection of natural wines. So we were trying a lot of natural reds. had a natural red from Italy, one from France. It was a lot of fun. And we tried, you know, there was a steak pairing. and, it was, it was perfect. So kind of right up our alley with what we just spoke about. and then also cooking, I love to cook myself. So I find, you know, when you're in that creative environment in your own kitchen,

firing stuff, stuff up, on the, on the grill or on the, on the pan. you know, having that glass of red really gets your senses going. and, know, typically, cooking for more than just myself. So cooking for, you know, with my girlfriend or with some friends and family. So, yeah, it's, very social. I think it brings us together. It's more tied around,

you know, how are we coming together, chatting about our days, our experiences, our goals, our life, our aspirations, and sharing a great meal and having all the senses activated alongside of that.

Dan (06:19)
I love it when you look at longevity studies and some of the blue zones where people live to be there's a high percentage of centenarians people live in 200 years or older social connections community is one of the number one things that kind of ties those communities together and lots of those zones people are drinking wine as part of their everyday life just to

kind of enhance their experience, connect with other people. alcohol is an interesting place because there's, lot of people are talking about drinking overall can be bad for your health, right? But then I think the flip side of it is there's also a little bit of an epidemic where too many people are not being social and too many people are staying at home and too many people are having social anxiety. And so if there can be something that people use as a way to build community or become closer with their friends or family,

Nishal Kumar (06:58)
Yeah.

Dan (07:09)
or enhance an experience. I think imbalance, it can be used as a very good social tool. It's obviously when you overdo it where things don't work out so well. But yeah, I think a good glass of red wine with a nice dinner with friends and family around, it's hard to beat that kind of experience.

Nishal Kumar (07:26)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think the big message should be balance, not binge, right? I think a lot of the education that's happening around alcohol these days is so critical and important. And it's actually been beneficial to our brand too, given that we sell

or I call it in spite of that we sell an alcohol health product or a recovery product, right? Because ultimately, people want to feel their best all the time. They want the social interaction. So they're limiting consumption. They're also being cognizant of what they're consuming. I personally don't find myself consuming spirits as much anymore. More so it would have to be in a premium cocktail. Shout out Mission Cocktails, great brand if you like batched premium cocktails. But

more so it's a red wine and a light beer. love a good Michelob Gold as a refreshing beer to drink while watching a game or something of that sort. really understanding the toxins and really what our upper limits are and how we should do it all in moderation and really not overdo it. That's the big thing, right? So I think that education has been beneficial, but to your point.

the community, the connection of human beings and be able to build friendships or catch up over lost time or even, you know, find a partner as a result of maybe you were at a bar, maybe you had a drink or two that night. That's actually how I met my girlfriend. And it's interesting to say, so, you know, I think the high level of awareness that you have around and having a healthy relationship with anything that you do will lead to

that longevity you talked about.

Dan (08:52)
I wonder how the global population would look if there weren't drinks enhancing people's courage to approach the guy or girl at the bar or at the party to have an opening line and then make the introduction and then see where things go from there. yeah, think, you know, it sounds like we're both aligned with alcohol as a social lubricant or as a tool to connect with people. Enjoy yourself.

enhance food or an event. It's a really good thing, but I think, you know, the challenge is with, some things when you have something in excess, the next day might not be, might not be as fantastic. So I like that you've got this, well, just in general, over the past couple of years, I've been looking at all sorts of tools that can enhance the feelings of, you know, alcohol as a social lubricant, but without.

as much downside. And I was very happy to come across No Days Wasted because you've got a recovery blend that says on the label here, take when you celebrate, wake up fresh. So can you talk a little bit about because, you know, we're having a glass of wine, so I'm to pop these capsules now so that I can hear my early wake up tomorrow is nice and productive. But can you talk about what

Nishal Kumar (09:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dan (10:03)
these are and how they help people recover if they're having someone.

Nishal Kumar (10:09)
Yeah, 100%. And I'll join you on that too. But in essence, what we've learned over time is I think there's a big misconception. For a long time, people thought it was just dehydration.

was what was causing that negative next day, right, the negative feeling the next day. And there's so much more to that. That's probably the most obvious part of it and closer to 20 % of the picture. So people would eat some greasy food and drink some electrolytes and really replenish that way. But also the greasy food is not great because it's also gonna impact you in a negative way, because it's greasy food. So with that being said, that side is taken care of, but the toxicity of alcohol

Is something that we look at and it's not actually the toxicity of alcohol itself. It's the toxicity of Its byproduct so in its natural metabolism. It's broken down in something called acid aldehyde and that is Something that essentially our liver has a hard time breaking down or the enzymes have even harder time breaking down than alcohol And it oftentimes reaches peak levels the next morning when you wake up after a night of sort of celebrating so

The premise is if you can assist your body and boost your natural response while you're out celebrating as it's being formed. So really just improving the effectiveness of your liver enzymes to break that toxin down. Then you can be in a good spot the next day. You would have accelerated that metabolism of that toxin and you'll be feeling good while enjoying the social elements of the drink.

but minimizing the downside on the negativity, sort of the negative aspect and how it could impact your body.

Dan (11:39)
Awesome. So tell us a story about how you started this, where did the idea come from, and how did you get started at the beginning? Talk to us about how you created the product and where the idea came from.

Nishal Kumar (11:51)
Yeah, it

started as a personal science experiment really, a few years after graduating college, I, you know, was working a lot. I would have social events in the evenings. And I was also training one of my best friends to go play pro basketball in Germany. And we were we had morning workouts was the big thing. Three days a week, we're climbing grouse mountain, which is a big, it's a mountain here in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. And it's called the grouse grind is the trail. So it's about

If you're, if you're quick, you do it under 50 minutes and it's about a two and a half, three kilometer vertical scare master. and you know, the hot local hockey team, they do it for, for preseason training. and we were doing that and it really built up our cardio that way, but we were getting there. The only time I had was at 7am because I had work. So we'd have to get there before it was busy, before the work day started.

and then get down for the first gondola down because you have to take a tram down. can't you can't actually can't really walk you're not allowed to walk down and it's too chaotic. So and there was evenings where I was out so I needed to figure out what figure out the solution here wasn't even drinking very much to be honest. It was just a matter of like optimizing my sleep, feeling my best the next day and being able to do it all when you're 25. You want to you want to do it all right. So that's how it came to be.

dove into a lot of the research around what the actual problem was and learned that it was the buildup of acetaldehyde. And that my curiosity ultimately took me down this rabbit hole to figure out that was the problem. You know, how do we create a solution that's proactive rather than being reactive the next day? And that's how we came across, you know, the key active ingredient of DHM as a powerful antioxidant and liver support ingredient as what we call a cofactor for your liver enzyme. So

essentially something that helps your liver enzymes just work better. Call it a support system. And then also L-cysteine, milk, thistle, prickly pear. And that's kind of the main four ingredients in the product that really do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Dan (13:48)
I love it, so the next time I drink a prickly pear margarita, I can say that I'm doing something for my body for the next day.

Nishal Kumar (13:54)
Yeah, I mean, I think the reason they have prickly pear margaritas is more of a marketing tool in terms of, you know, people think health and wellness tied to that. So the sort of the antioxidant effect and supportive effect.

Dan (14:09)
Love it, love it. Okay, so you had this idea, you're in your mid-20s, you're getting these really good endurance workouts in the morning, you're going out at night and being social, and you're trying to figure out how to just enhance your life and not feel bad the next day after going out for a couple drinks. So how do you then go from the idea to doing research to understanding what these kind of ingredients are that would create this product to help people feel better the next day? What were your next steps to then bringing that product to market?

and starting to generate your first, your early sales.

Nishal Kumar (14:42)
Yeah, that's a question. I was.

You know, I just finished up a geophysics opportunity. So was working in engineering at the time I launched my my business making parts for Tesla's and I actually jumped in full time on that. And I had more time on my hands. But I didn't have a lot of money. So the money that I did have, I use it for ordering raw materials, testing and actually encapsulating in my own kitchen, messing around and trying to figure out what the exact formula was going to be.

And also I did a backpacking trip through Europe with one of my best friends. We had done chemistry and biology together for seven years through high school and university. He's now becoming a doctor and, you know, science has been our passion and our foundation, but also something that brought us together as friends. With that being said, I did a lot of, you know, call it very brute force R and D in my own kitchen and paired with the science and the literature that was accessible to me.

you know, I was able to read over 300 scientific papers and, distill down the information that was needed to say, Hey, these are the ingredients. These are the amounts we should take. We should test. and this is what science as well as works. Well, now let's prove it to ourselves. So did that. And after I got back from that trip with him, I realized, you know, I had something pretty good, worked with some local. Copackers and regulatory, individuals who have experienced in the space to figure out what exactly.

We could fit into a capsule and all that. then ultimately launched a crowdfunding campaign. So invested the last couple bucks I had in creating a video to tell the story so we could create some pre-order sales. And we launched on Kickstarter and then they booted us off the platform because they don't like supplements. quickly pivoted and went onto Indiegogo and ended up doing just over $30,000.

pre-order sales in 45 days. And that was enough to fund our first production run.

Dan (16:28)
Amazing. So other than investing in a video to tell your kind of founder brand story, did you do any marketing to let's say build a list for Indiegogo or Kickstarter or did you just launch kind of fresh and allow the algorithm to get your brand in front of potential investors?

Nishal Kumar (16:45)
Yeah, you know, I wish I knew more about list building at the time from an e-commerce standpoint. I had a little bit of a list from, you know, friends, family, network, but not like a true focus group or, you know, call it like people with more than one degree of separation away.

Ultimately, the platform did help us a fair bit because if you're a project that gets some legs, you're able to, you know, they're going to sort of support you a bit and get you in front of more. Additionally, we ran paid ads. So that was a time when Facebook ads were a little bit more lucrative than they are today. And the attribution was a bit stronger. So we knew kind of what we were getting. I did learn the hard way because for a little while I was running some of the budget had a really high

cost of acquisition because I was running it myself. yeah, we figured that out and scrapped it. But yeah, I wish I had more of a list. But the platform did help for sure.

Dan (17:39)
Okay, awesome. you go to Europe, you're developing this sort of formula, you realize you're onto something, you launch the Kickstarter, then you move to Indiegogo, you have a successful raise. You said you raised about 30,000, is that right?

Nishal Kumar (17:45)
Thank

Yeah, just over $30,000 in 45 days. So our first production run was about 40K. So I was able to scrap together a little bit of cash. My brother gave me a couple bucks. And then what we got from that run, or from that Indiegogo, and get the first PO through the door.

Dan (18:15)
Awesome. How do you find a manufacturer?

Nishal Kumar (18:19)
You know, funny enough, a year or two prior, I was working as an engineering as a geophysicist. And I had a friend slash mentor that, you know, knew I was like, always looking for something cool to do and learn and grow. he called me one day, he's like, Hey, look, we're touring this co packer, this manufacturing facility. I know you're not in the space, they make supplements. But you know what, why don't you come along and just join? And I said, 100 %

I'll clear my schedule for the afternoon. Let me know if you can do this time. Let's go jumped in and I was able to meet that team, uh, their account managers and, and even the founder of the facility and learn a lot about the space and ask a lot of questions. So by the time this idea came to be, was like, Oh, great. I already have someone I can reach out to. Um, and they helped provide a little bit insight. They're like, okay, well, what do want to do here? Do you want to make a beverage? Do you want to like, you should sell convenience. That's really important because.

that your delivery is so important. You want to make sure people take the product, right? So ultimately landed on capsules because the ingredients themselves mixed into like a potion or into a liquid don't taste very good. They're very earthy, very herbal. making sure that we're, you know, we're creating something discreet, simple and easy to take. And you take it, you forget about it. And you focus on the glass of wine and the root.

real experience that your palates gonna have with what you're trying to accomplish food, beverage, rather than some magic potion was the ultimate goal. So that's why capsules are the prevailing dosage form.

Dan (19:51)
Fantastic, well I will say that I have been using the product for maybe a month or so and I kicked off the year with kind of a health and fitness program. I drink for the first like 75 days and then had a few fun nights, you where I went out, drank some beers, some wine and I would attribute those nights out to product testing, just, you know, in honor of the podcast. yeah, exactly.

Nishal Kumar (20:13)
I'm doing it to science, right? It's all for science.

Dan (20:16)
is for science and yeah, the next day I definitely felt a lot better than I should have. So the product has definitely been effective when I've used it. So kudos for Product Dev because I definitely noticed a difference from taking it and then the next morning realizing like, wow, I feel better than I should right now. So good job with that.

Nishal Kumar (20:34)
Well,

that makes me really happy to hear. mean, one of the things we focused on on the last, you know, it's been almost call it eight years in the journey now, including R and D before, you know, formed the company and launched the first campaign. But is ingredient quality. You know, not not all DHM is made equal. You have to look at the sources. And now we work with, you know, the best supplier that I found.

across the earth in order to create the best product possible. So just making sure sources, and I think that's the value of brand these days. A brand that's here and stays for a while, you can trust them. You can trust that their quality is there. can trust that they put the time and attention into creating a consistently exceptional, efficacious product time and time again. That's the value of brand, right? It's trust.

So that's something we want to continue doing and also continue with R &D on our migration products and we have a sleep product as well. But a few different things there to make sure we're putting out the best thing possible.

Dan (21:33)
Love it, love it. So, okay, so you launch the Kickstarter, you get your first production run. What happens from there? How do you then start to build brand like you're talking about and continue to generate sales so that you can keep iterating on the product and growing the business? What marketing strategies have you used? And let's talk about e-commerce along with retail as well.

Nishal Kumar (21:55)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think, you know, for us, we ended that campaign on Indiegogo in the summer of 2018. And then we had a little bit of a slow period where we were delivering the pre-orders, waiting for that production, well, waiting for the production to conclude and then delivering pre-orders and then figuring out more of like a go-to-market strategy. It was really just me.

So I was kind of a solo entrepreneur and I was running my other business simultaneously and I had to make a decision about, know, hey, what do we want to do here? Do we want to spread myself thin? So more or less like let's jump into no days wasted full time. We launched around Black Friday in 2018. I had a list. said, Hey guys, we're running a sale. We have a bunch of inventory. Let's go. The first email campaign hit hard and was, was great. And actually around, uh, you know, the same time in the summer when we were receiving all that product,

I had a chance to meet an individual, Paul Bissonnette, who's known as Biz Nasty in the NHL world. And he's one of the faces of the NHL and TNT. And we met through some mutual friends. I gave him some samples. He was just finishing his NHL career and was jumping onto a podcast called Spit and Chicklets. And what's now known as one of the biggest sports podcasts in the world, the biggest hockey podcast in the world. And he was like, Hey man, like

Let's do something. I love the product. I'd love to be involved in support, jump on this podcast and advertise with us. And that's how we got the ball rolling. So we were early in podcast advertising with them. And then we jumped into, you know, first sponsor for color daddy did a lot with barstool sports branched off into a lot of comedians and other channels. And ultimately that drove our e-commerce strategy for customer acquisition.

and we were able to build a customer base and build that list that you spoke about before. and continuously, you know, solve problems for the individuals that we were gaining, you know, bringing into our, into our, into our funnel through, through those channels. So, it's interesting. So, I mean, from there, ultimately, at that point, we actually didn't have much of a brand. It was a single product skew.

I'd say, and it was very sciencey. The messaging wasn't clear at all. It was all over the map, the colors, the, I didn't know anything, right? So ultimately we did a rebrand in COVID times in 2020 to position us for retail, to be a little bit more, you know, clear with our messaging and also be retail ready. And then we've iterated a couple of times since then, and now we're...

We're everywhere, we're the channel, in Walmart in the US, launching in Walmart Canada in two weeks. We're going to hopefully be in about 4,000 stores in the next three or four months. Whereas in 2020, we're in, end of 2020, we're in about 10.

Dan (24:38)
Fantastic, I love the growth. So let's talk about podcast because, well, one, we're on a podcast, but two, using podcast for growing an e-commerce brand or a retail brand is interesting. So when you were doing that, one, I like that you were doing that because you were saying that, you know, for your, let's say DTC site, some of the messaging might've been a little confusing.

Nishal Kumar (25:00)
Yep. Yep.

Dan (25:00)
What's nice about podcasts is you can tell your story, right? And so even if

you're, let's say your website messaging or your branding is not as tight as you'd like it to be, if people listen to the founder and they hear you explaining your story and what the product does, you can kind of cut through a lot of that stuff.

Nishal Kumar (25:14)
Right.

Dan (25:15)
So

I like that you did that. How were you tracking, let's say, attribution for those podcasts? Like, how did you know if one hit or one didn't? Would you know right away? were you just, were you seeing, like, were you tracking with unique, let's say, discount codes or anything? Like, how are you tracking the effectiveness of each of those podcasts?

Nishal Kumar (25:27)
Yep.

Yeah, the attribution was through unique discount codes. So that was really easy to do at the time.

because e-commerce was so strong and Shopify stores were so prevalent as the main channel for people to discover the brand but also purchase from. The nice thing is we were actually doing live ad reads with the hosts. So I wasn't on any of the shows. It was all the hosts just speaking, conversationally with their co-hosts about the product, the use, and then giving a discount code. And the call to action was generally best when it was subtle and, you know,

because the consumer had a lot of trust, the listener had a lot of trust with the host. Now it's a little bit different because there are so many podcasts and there are so many advertisers. And at that time it was all emerging brands that were advertising with podcasts. There were no Chevy's, Verizon's and corporate giants of the world. So now it's more of an awareness play and people skip over podcast ads a lot. But back then from I'd say 2018 until mid 2021 was a sweet spot.

where you could buy an ad read and within three days attribution, you would see anywhere from three to 10 X ROI on your ad spend and you wouldn't have to pay it for 30 days. So it'd be a net 30 cycle and your cash conversion cycle was magnificent. And that's how we were able to scale with no outside funding is that we

Double down triple down on that. I honestly my only regret is that we didn't Double down even more, you know, I mean didn't even go go into even more shows like I would have loved to like we could afford shows that were like three to ten thousand dollars But if we could have could have afforded shows that were ten twenty thirty forty fifty thousand dollars Then you would have seen that explosive growth In a way that he probably couldn't even have managed. You know, you would have sold out before you knew it

Dan (27:34)
Well, hindsight's 2020 and you were still leveraging a medium that lots of e-commerce brands were not using or DTC brands were not using, so good for you for doing that. So since then, what other marketing strategies or channels have you used that you've seen either work incredibly well or did not work as well as you had expected?

Nishal Kumar (27:44)
you

Yeah, I think I think ultimately there's no silver bullet in marketing anymore. That was the closest thing to a silver bullet that I found. In this day and age, you need to have all the right pieces in order to be successful. There's not just one thing. So I probably speak more broad in that, look, you need to be path of least resistance for the consumer. So what does that mean? If they want to buy on Amazon?

be on Amazon. If they want to buy on your website through a subscription and get the best value, have that set up the right way. You have to have good SEO on the backend. You have to have, you know, consistent always on presence with Facebook ads, meta ads. You need to have good Google ads as well. So you're there top of, you know, top of the list for search. And then Omnichannel, right? Being in retail, being in last mile, like we're on GoPuff, we're on DoorDash, we're in Walmart.

We're in natural grocery stores. in all these places. And I see them all as touch points and marketing tools in order to ultimately drive home a sale wherever the consumer wants to purchase at the end of the day. know, back when we running podcast ads, you probably needed five to seven touch points to land a sale. And I think the podcast medium allowed us to jump the first five touch points through establishing the trust through the podcast host. And now

I'd say you probably need 15 to 20 touch points to drive the sale. And it's even harder to get that trust. So you have to be everywhere. I know it's obviously not a super clear answer, but Omnichannel is a sales strategy, but it's also a marketing strategy.

Dan (29:26)
Mace Complete Sense, know, it's one of those when consumers see a brand in Walmart or name your other big box store, it's one, a touch point for awareness where they're reminded that the product exists, but two,

it adds some credibility and trust because when products are sold in store, there is that trust element where, this big box purchaser has invested in this brand and they're carrying it, which means that part of the effort of the consumer, and I think that's so much as humans, we're often just lazy and we kind of want to be told, like, hey, this product is good. We want our work done for us, right? If we're walking down the street and there's 10 restaurants and you're looking to go get dinner.

out and one restaurant is packed.

it's just natural that people will go to that restaurant even though you're gonna wait in line, because it's the crowd theory, right? Other people have shown that they wanna go there, so you can kinda let your defenses down and not have to put in much effort to say, that's a good restaurant, I'm gonna go there, because other people have said that. So I think being in retail is another one of those sort of subconscious and conscious cues where consumers will see a product in a brand that they associate with and trust.

Yeah, it's another sales outlet, but also it's a touch point, even if consumers don't purchase at that point. So speaking about retail.

So I completely get your perspective where you're you want to be wherever the consumer is and you want to make it easy for people to purchase. If they want to purchase on Amazon, great. You want to be there. If they want to purchase in store, you want to be there. If they want to purchase through your DTC site and it subscribes to every month, they're getting no days wasted delivered. You want to be you want to be able to enable that. How do you think in general about

Nishal Kumar (30:47)
you

Dan (31:10)
D2C versus retail and Omni channel overall and for your marketing Are you are you looking to push one channel over another or are you just doing more? Brand building with everything you're doing and then allowing the consumers to purchase wherever they want

Nishal Kumar (31:23)
Mm-hmm

Yeah, brought up a lot of good points. Just one note is like, to your point about, you know, attention gets more attention is like if you walk around in New York City, and you walk through Soho, and you see people lining up, and you see this line, people just line up in New York, right? And the line continuously gets longer and longer. And half the time, they don't even know what they're lining up for. I've been in that situation where I'm like, what, what are you guys lining up for? They're like, well,

We don't really know it looks like there's something going on here. You know what mean? Like it's pretty fascinating to understand that behavioral psychology piece of attention and in like demand. So it's fascinating. yeah, just the next time you're in New York, keep your eyes peeled for that. But in terms of sort of the retail versus e-comm and how we're balancing that alongside marketing, it's interesting because

Attribution has gone out the window in, you know, we were really lucky with how it was and how direct it was up until about call it 2022 or so, right? From there, we had to get you have to be on as many channels as possible and spread the message and make your call to actions be as sort of clear, but as diverse as possible with where you're where you're available. So for us,

We are shifting to more awareness marketing. When we were e-commerce focused, used to just be, podcast, ad, code, redemptions, that's it. Like if, okay, did this podcast hit? How is it in the first week when you get most of your listens? And did it hit the mark? Were we profitable? Okay, great, let's do it again. If not, scrap it. Now it's like, all right, what is the bigger picture here? What are we doing?

comparing to total sales. How are we driving people to our own pages, right? Where we are then, you know, sharing content that's talking about this major retailer that, you know, maybe 50 % of our customers shop at, right? So there is, you know, you want to maintain profitability and profitable growth, but looking at it from a big picture and a holistic

point of view and working in a lot of awareness marketing has been a focus for us. Also being like having all the channels going right like getting content out on Instagram on TikTok, making sure your own email marketing is good, making sure your your assets are updated across the board because those are all touch points right.

Dan (33:52)
What are you doing with organic social and how are you seeing that play into the entire mix, specifically with TikTok, Instagram, and any other platforms that you're seeing good engagement with?

Nishal Kumar (34:03)
Yeah,

definitely. We're a little bit newer to TikTok. And so TikTok Shop is something we're just starting to push a little harder. But the big thing is a consistent flow of compelling content. We have an in-house content creator. he is scheming up all different things to get good hooks going and get people watching our videos. there's the personal brand side of it and sharing a bit of the journey. But then there's also the

product benefits and education on the science piece. then there's, you know, speaking from the experience and relating to the, to the viewer as well. So it's a lot of constant filming for myself, for him being involved in all this content and making sure it's well distributed. I think there's a big part, you know, a couple of things I've seen recently is like how like your success rate in, in terms of achieving viral content and the people that post

a lot of quality content, still they're only seeing a small success rate. They're constantly getting on base, but the truth is the home runs only come one in 100, one in 1,000 kind of thing. So making sure that you're getting those at-bats and you're really going for it and getting your attempts going so you can then increase your likelihood of long-term

success, virality, or increasing view count, or growing your audience, or whatever the goal is to drive that awareness.

Dan (35:31)
That's great. I see a lot of brands who they will focus too much on trying to hit a grand slam for their first post. you know, organic social is becoming more and more important, I think, as creative is.

I think more democratized at this point where years ago was you had to build a following and then once you had that following, you could then create content. And the more followers you had, the more people would see that content, right? Now we're living in a world where you can, you can have one creator or brand that creates a piece of content and posts it with a couple dozen followers and it can go viral. And there could be another brand that has a million followers and they post something and don't know, thousand people see it that's it because it just tanked. So yeah, we're seeing that creative is just

Nishal Kumar (35:54)
Definitely.

Right.

Dan (36:14)
more and more important than probably it ever has been as a differentiator, especially as AI is coming out where it's easy to create all these

image assets for a brand where you can spin these off pretty quickly. So the bar has raised a bit in terms of content. So brands that create content that is high quality and differentiated, they're the ones that are going to win. But in order to do that, you need to put the reps in, right? You need to post consistently. You need to create a lot of

Nishal Kumar (36:38)
Yeah.

Dan (36:42)
and you need to test a lot of different types of content to see what's gonna stick. And yeah, I just speak with too many people who they're like, yeah, I wanna start posting, but I'm not sure what to post. And once I do, I wanna make sure it's the right one. It's like, you might post 500 things before you find the right one. So you just gotta get in the habit of creating the content, making it a habit and making it a priority for your brand. Okay, so if you could go back eight years from now,

and speak to yourself, give yourself some advice over things to watch out for, things to lean into more. What advice would you give yourself eight years ago to have a smoother, more productive, better journey?

Nishal Kumar (37:23)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think the big thing would be, you know, really focusing on the individuals and the experts earlier on. Too much of it was me trying to say, hey, let me figure this all out.

And I think it's important to do that and develop the ability to understand everything and do it all at some point. But you won't be the expert in every realm of your business. For the early years, I really thought I could be. And I could run as a one man show and be the Superman. And for a while at work, but once you hit a certain scale, you realize, okay, I need an expert here. asking, you know, finding the who in the equation a little bit more.

and bringing them in, in a capacity where they could develop the strategy and then figuring out who would then execute it, right? So I think a little bit more of that, like in my next life, when I start my next business, it'd be, hey, how do we have more of the experts in from the ground floor? Because being sort of more of a solo founder, it's...

you you put the weight on the world on your shoulders and you say, Hey, I'm going to figure it all out. And it's good for a while. But I think the important thing is to have more, uh, you know, someone you can, you can bounce ideas off of, right? Someone who's on that level, um, who's done it before that can put you in your place quickly. If you're thinking too crazy, or if you're taking too much risk, or if you're taking not enough risk, right? So I think, um, you know, I've obviously had some mentors and great people along the way, but I think

having the right experts and say, do I have the next time around? Or going back, how do we keep that in mind as we progress through the first year or two? Because that's where your growth is going to come from. How do you amplify your efforts with experts? And people have done it before, really. Yeah.

Dan (39:06)
Excellent advice. All right, so let's move to the speed round. Each answer about

30 seconds or less. So first thing that kind of comes to your mind. What is one of your most recommended books?

Nishal Kumar (39:16)
Yeah, I'd say shoe dog is one of my most recommended books. Also, you know, big basketball guys, so Phil Jackson, 11 Rings, the Soul of Success. It's a good blend between the sports world, business, the teachings and sort of a spiritual component to it. So those are my two favorite books.

Dan (39:40)
What's an under-the-radar product or brand you've used and like, but most people don't know about?

Nishal Kumar (39:45)
That's a great question. You know, I like this brand, the Canadian company Becks bone broth, Becks broth. It's like a I love bone broth and I love coffee and it's actually a blend between the two. it's a it's a mix that you can put in hot water. Exceptional product tastes great, but also has great benefits.

Dan (40:03)
I've not heard of that. So caffeinated and is it like collagen and other stuff that's.

Nishal Kumar (40:08)
Collagen and

bone broth. Yeah, so you're getting your collagen your protein and you're getting your coffee all in one and it tastes like a delicious because I drink my coffee generally is like a Americano just black straight So it's kind of like that not as harsh as what I usually have but a little more gentle and a little more beneficial

Dan (40:26)
Nice, great recommendation. I'm gonna have to check that one out. What is one thing in life you do better than most people just naturally, and how do you do it?

Nishal Kumar (40:36)
I think problem solving and making decisions, they're one and the same, but really just being able to be decisive and make decisions. And I do it by realizing that it's just a lot easier if you make a decision and stick to it. Being indecisive is tough and you ultimately won't be able to get where you want to be if you get stuck making on that part of the equation.

Dan (40:57)
Tell me about your favorite shopping experience online or offline.

Nishal Kumar (41:00)
Crazy thing is I'm not a big shopper, but what I do love, I'm a big basketball guy. So buying shoes from Nike and basketball shoes, like one of my favorite things. I just bought some new running shoes from Nike the other week and going in there and like kind of seeing what they have and the excitement of trying them on and how you feel. You feel springy. You feel alive thinking about how you're going to feel on the court. You're going be able to jump a little higher, going to be able to run a little faster, going to be able to hit a couple more shots. I don't know, but it's a good feeling.

Dan (41:28)
or something about a new pair of kicks when you put them on, you're like, all right, I'm gonna be stronger, faster, better, all of that. That's always nice.

Nishal Kumar (41:34)
Yes,

that make me like Mike feeling, you know, it's really inspiring.

Dan (41:37)
Exactly.

Nice. Who is someone you'd like to see on a future episode of this podcast?

Nishal Kumar (41:44)
Yeah, that's a great question. There's a lot of incredible founders out there. You could chat with, I talked about Bex, Bec from Bex Bone Roth, from Bex Broth. So she'd be fantastic. I am on LinkedIn a lot. I'm sharing something every day, trying to share the journey. So it's just initial Kumar on LinkedIn.

Dan (41:55)
Awesome. Nichelle, where can people connect with you to learn more?

Nishal Kumar (42:06)
also our Instagram page for no days wasted at no days wasted co or on tick tock at no days wasted we're also available you know if you like want to try our products are on amazon.com.ca just search no days wasted and you know you can see what we what we deliver.

Dan (42:21)
Fantastic. Nichelle, thank you so much for bringing No Days Wasted to market as a way to help people enjoy life's moments while making it easier to bounce back the next day, sharing your expertise and insights with our audience, and for joining us on the Shopify happy hour.

Nishal Kumar (42:35)
Thank you, Dan. Here's to you. Appreciate you having me. It's been a blast. yeah, I'd love to see you in person soon and raise a glass in person and share some stakes too. Cheers.

Dan (42:38)
Cheers, cheers.

Fantastic, cheers, cheers.