let's get up close with the entrepreneurial spirit that pulses through the veins of our guests. Karen takes us through her poignant career pivot from nursing to baby product design, inspired by the quest for the perfect swaddle, while Jeff shares his leap from the tech giant Qualtrics to a life where passion meets business acumen. They lay bare the thrills and spills of transforming a side hustle into a flourishing brand, reminding us all that with a bit of courage and a lot of love, you can indeed turn your dreams into reality. So, buckle up and join us for a heartfelt ride through the worlds of entrepreneurship, parenting, and the wild, wonderful life in between.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
let's get up close with the entrepreneurial spirit that pulses through the veins of our guests. Karen takes us through her poignant career pivot from nursing to baby product design, inspired by the quest for the perfect swaddle, while Jeff shares his leap from the tech giant Qualtrics to a life where passion meets business acumen. They lay bare the thrills and spills of transforming a side hustle into a flourishing brand, reminding us all that with a bit of courage and a lot of love, you can indeed turn your dreams into reality. So, buckle up and join us for a heartfelt ride through the worlds of entrepreneurship, parenting, and the wild, wonderful life in between.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. With me, as always, is Mark Goldhart. Mark, how are you, sir Good?
Speaker 2:Doing good Good, no complaints, no complaints.
Speaker 1:No, everything's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I re-seasoned some cast iron yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did call me yesterday and said I think we're going to go all cast iron.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are.
Speaker 1:I felt that was really nice. This is most of the camping, though I got some like camping stuff.
Speaker 2:I needed to re-season it. It was a little, a little battered, but I'm excited.
Speaker 1:I'm excited You're somebody who, when you get an idea, you go all in with that idea.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately.
Speaker 1:And it becomes your almost entire personality and I really really like that about you.
Speaker 2:Mark just recently got a.
Speaker 1:I got a camper trailer, a camper trailer.
Speaker 2:We're going to do that. Nomadic life no, not literally, but yeah, and now he is. We're going to make some adventures this year we have a plan to visit like five national parks, hit some deep fishing rivers back in the woods, teach my boys some knots, you know, make them chase some lizards.
Speaker 1:Just create the own boy, your own boy scouts, within your family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we'll have like an initiatory ritual. You have to like bite the head off of a cricket or something.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll figure it out as we go.
Speaker 1:I think it's good for young men. Yeah, just a little wild children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want my boys to just be like these little dirty gremlins that come like crawling out of the woods.
Speaker 1:So Well, I'm excited for today's podcast. This one has been a long time coming. Let's introduce these guests.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:I'll do it. You can do it. I always do it. Yeah, you do. We should have you do it, should be, though I'll do it. Yeah, I want to welcome Jeff and Karen. They're the founders of Lulu and Company, which is a. They make the softest baby products I say known to man that are best for babies and make mom's life easier. Yeah, how'd.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Got it Ish.
Speaker 2:Like 80% there. That was good. Yeah, a little long winded, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not going to put that on a mad. I got to cut that down a little bit, but how are you guys?
Speaker 3:We're good. Well, we're having us.
Speaker 4:We love your podcast, so we got a full night's sleep last night to prepare for today, which is a rare thing for us.
Speaker 1:They were just prepping, you know, asking each other questions.
Speaker 2:Did some mock interviews. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. Well, listen, I'm excited. The reason why I said this is a long time coming, so this I actually have, like there is a soft, there's a piece of my heart with you guys and you guys like. So I started creating content in like 2020 and I've never like, I've never looked at myself and still, to this day, don't ever look at myself as a like an like influential or anything. I just like I create content and you.
Speaker 2:I was on an influencer. But I would never say that, right and I was on an airplane Almost refused to say the word influence, exactly.
Speaker 1:I was on an airplane to LA and Jeff and Karen were sitting either next to me or right behind me.
Speaker 3:I think we were across the aisle, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I was like shoot now. I got to work because there's a guy here I want to think that I want to think. He thinks that I'm cool and now I got to look like I'm working hard on the plane, but he was like he was like hey, dude, I know who you are.
Speaker 1:You're Trevor and I was. That was a first. That was the first time that anyone ever did has ever come up to me like hey.
Speaker 4:I recognize you.
Speaker 1:So he'd recognized me and I was like, oh my gosh, and it was funny, like I texted my wife, I'm like somebody, just record.
Speaker 4:Oh what Somebody just record.
Speaker 1:That was like my first influencer in the wild and it doesn't happen a lot at all, Still probably one of the first you know, first and last.
Speaker 4:How I knew who you were, because I think it must have been from your content.
Speaker 1:I think it was because you had told me, I think I followed on Instagram.
Speaker 4:But I don't remember how I found you on Instagram, but anyway, I saw you there and ever since then I've loved your content. I've thought it was awesome.
Speaker 3:And so I saw you on the plane and I was like told me and explained, and isn't it funny, Just the power of a hello, you know why don't? We just say hi we recognize people all the time and like, why don't we just say, hey, how are you? I watch you on Instagram and I see you do this and it just makes someone stay. That's cool that you've thought about that.
Speaker 4:You've grown a lot. Karen is a very shy person by nature and just, we were on a plane last or two weeks ago and there was someone sitting behind us and she's like hey, are you the owner of? Was it skin boss? Yeah, and I was looking at Karen like Whoa, wow.
Speaker 3:But then I realized like when someone says hi to me, it makes me feel good, so why don't I do it? And it's like that's so funny, that stuck with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you guys haven't got this yet, Karen and Jeff are spouses by the way.
Speaker 4:We are married, yeah, husband and wife 13 years 13 years.
Speaker 3:Long time.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm 14. I got 14.
Speaker 4:14 years.
Speaker 1:I guess I have more kids than me. We have a lot of babies.
Speaker 4:When people ask how old I am, I just tell them when people ask how old I am, I just say I'm five kids old.
Speaker 1:I'm five kids old. Five, that is the number that most accurately represents how old is the youngest. Or you say how old I am, she's two. I have an 11 year old. Yeah, that's how old I am.
Speaker 4:Our oldest is 10. Our youngest is two.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're having a great time.
Speaker 2:So you're two years apart and then kind of the two year gap, yeah, approximately.
Speaker 3:Our first two were kind of fast and then we had a three year gap, which is not big a three year gap, and then we had two littles after that, wow, but our first three were quick yeah.
Speaker 2:So they've all gone through some Lulu and company.
Speaker 3:Oh, they're all Lulu babies.
Speaker 2:They're the reason.
Speaker 3:They're the reason but they also have been like little warehouse babies, shipper babies.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 3:Try on all the sizes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we have models for every photo shoot.
Speaker 3:They come to almost everyone except our baby. She gets kicked out of them. Now she's kind of wild.
Speaker 2:I'm going to report you for child labor.
Speaker 1:I hope they're paying the 14,000 dollars getting the tax credit that they get. You know, smart people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the baby has a model.
Speaker 1:What is that baby? It's a model.
Speaker 2:You could do. They're working yeah.
Speaker 4:I think our kids are very cute. No one has told me that they're not. But I do worry sometimes Because you know every person thinks their own kid is like the cutest kid on the planet and they should.
Speaker 2:They should Because you have to love them through a lot. Yes, you do.
Speaker 3:You have to be obsessed with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every parent should think their kid is cute and they should unabashedly claim it.
Speaker 4:Can I just say I'm so grateful so often that we sell baby products. Right, we get to show pictures. All of our content is something that we're like literally genetically.
Speaker 3:like like oh, it makes everyone smile. We're predisposed to like babies, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it just makes us happy, right Of all the products we could sell, right Like we could be showing like men's bare feet or something right. We're just really lucky that we sell what we do.
Speaker 1:Well, not only that, but like we would find when you know, mark and I have worked in the baby industry as well, and it will bet more so in the motherhood industry, you know right, and when we would, anytime we would add babies to our imagery and ads. It would like 2X any sort of click through rates or decrease your costs significantly, make everyone happy.
Speaker 3:I was just toss a baby in there, baby, so I was just going through graphics yesterday with our employee and we're going through like all the stories and email and text campaigns and all that and she just stopped for a minute and I love her. She has so much energy and she's just like this is the best. Look at how cute our graphics are. Look how cute these babies are. Every photo shoot is like a dream to get back because it's so much fun. So many good babies, so many cute moms loving what they do. We just get to photograph them loving their babies so.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:It's pretty much a dream.
Speaker 2:Well, let's yeah, and that newborn phase too.
Speaker 3:Oh, newborn phase.
Speaker 2:It's the honeymoon of having a kid.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:It's the mom's dad's lot of confidence.
Speaker 3:You're like.
Speaker 1:I am good at this.
Speaker 4:And then they sort of wake up a little more and oh yeah, like when they start thinking for themselves and my middle child is that my oldest is sweet, he's tender.
Speaker 2:You know it's tender is like a boy can get, I guess, but like he's sweet. Our middle one is he's rough. He's three right now and he like he just goes straight for the heart when he's mad. Straight, rage like straight. I hate you, I'm away. I was like my oldest still hasn't told me he's almost seven. Yeah, my three year old tells me, like every other day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I bet you they'll probably like I mean they might grow out of it, but our kids personalities have pretty much stayed true since. Little kids Really. Yeah, like our little boy is so tender and sweet and tells me, loves me, doesn't want to do anything bad. He's so cute and sweet, looks out for others. I have a couple of spicy ones that like they're still kind of spicy.
Speaker 2:I'm just funny. I just like how they are, they really are. They just like pop out and they're, they're who they are.
Speaker 4:I guess I know that a lot of the attributes that make our kids difficult when they're children are the very attributes I want them to have when they're adults.
Speaker 1:Totally Right.
Speaker 3:And so I'm like, how do I like kind of direct you?
Speaker 4:here, but also like don't lose it, because like that, like strong willed or like stubbornness or like self assurance is, I want you to keep that absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's so true, yeah, but also, like you know, don't run over people. It's the weakness, but, like in 10 years, it'll be their biggest strength for sure.
Speaker 2:On the flip side, it's also like your worst qualities coming out in them.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, right, Totally. It's the most humbling thing I've ever done.
Speaker 2:Like don't you have the harder time with the one that resembles you the most in your personality?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so fun, it's so humbling. I'm like, yeah, all of just did that. It was exactly like me. Yeah, in like the worst way you know totally. You know where they get their strengths and their weaknesses from. Genetics are crazy that way it really is. It's so cool though you know, but it's, it is cool.
Speaker 2:Like my wife has to deal with because the middle one's like me, so she deals with him, and then I have to deal with the other one, so and then we have a little girl that's only like nine months, so zone defense, we'll see what she's like. She's pretty, pretty sweet so far.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's been the easiest by like a long shot. Yeah, nine months is so fun. They can sit up, they can take good naps, but they're like still a baby and cuddle you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love you. Yeah. Yeah, she's spider crawls now Like it's her favorite thing to do, like all, like the butt up and like nice yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love babies. It got. Families are awesome. I love families, like it's so cool when you have a family, just like parties 24, seven coming home it's just the best.
Speaker 4:It's amazing, like you know, and we have some hard days running this business where you come home and it's like we just know when we walk in the door a whole crowd of people is going to come and be.
Speaker 2:so excited, it's instant love, excited to see you.
Speaker 3:It's like instant love and acceptance, no matter what you've been through for the day, you know, and they're just like love you unconditionally. It's the sweetest thing ever.
Speaker 1:It's so cool so cool, well, real quick.
Speaker 2:So how did you guys start? You started, obviously you had kids. You've had a few since.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So how did you come up with the idea for starting a business around Baby clothes and baby swaddles? Yeah, because it's not necessarily a product that wasn't around, but certain types of it weren't around, I bet, when you were looking for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally so. First of all I feel like I never started. I never had the idea of starting a business ever. I never thought in a million years I would ever own a business, I would ever be a boss to someone like. I never had that plan. But I do love babies a lot so I from a young age always was asking my mom like in church Will you please ask that mom if we can hold the baby?
Speaker 4:Anytime a baby cried.
Speaker 3:I wanted to hold them and comfort them. I baby sat a lot For families. I got to nanny in college, which was really fun for me While I was going to stay in nanny, where you moved somewhere.
Speaker 3:No, I wasn't. I just got to drive down the street, luckily to a really nice family. I did multiple families, but like one for four years. That was like my favorite. They were amazing, nice, so got to be around kids a lot and then I actually loved the medical field so I became a nurse. So I was in nursing school and I knew I wanted to be a baby nurse and like a mother baby nurse and so got to work in mother baby for like three to four years helping moms in that like precious, like 24 to 72 hour time of them becoming a new mom, helping them to did you do the night shift?
Speaker 2:I did do night shift and a shift both. How long did you do the night shift?
Speaker 3:the night shift I did for maybe Eight months in the beginning, when I was like a tech there, you know, assisting nurses. That was rough and really hard. And then, once I became a nurse, I was on what was called variable shifts. So you do both days and nights together. It's crazy that was.
Speaker 4:That was a period when we were married where you were still a NICU nurse and Karen we'd basically see each other, just like in the transition. So I'd you'd come home at 6 30 in the morning and we'd sort of say hi and you'd get in bed and I'd get out of bed and go to work and then I I'd come home at like 5 30 just as you were walking out the door.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, night shifts are crazy, but luckily I got on today's very quickly, like by I don't know why, but very blessed to be mostly a day shift nurse, which was awesome, I think.
Speaker 2:All the nurses out there, yeah, I know, I remember going into that like where they caught the baby and Measure their temperature, and like way in the middle of the night after, like, they've just been born.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like why, how could you guys be here? I?
Speaker 3:think three in the morning.
Speaker 2:And they're like oh, we actually kind of like it yeah oh, it's the coolest job ever.
Speaker 3:I keep up my license so hopefully I can go back. But awesome, the best job ever is because you're like caring for someone that is totally helpless, that is sick, and you have the knowledge to help them and it's like it's the coolest job ever. The hours go by very quickly.
Speaker 1:My mom was a Nicky nurse really yeah, she was a Nicky at primaries for. No, crazy like six or seven years Wow.
Speaker 3:I interviewed there and then I went to Utah Valley.
Speaker 1:So awesome.
Speaker 4:I was a baby people, just like you were saying how we recognize you. Karen has those moments For Lulun company now, but she still has them with the parents of the Nicky babies and they'll come up and say you probably don't remember me, but you were like an angel that saved us.
Speaker 1:We I mean I remember especially with our last, like I remember our nurse so vividly, like we got so lucky with our last there was no other babies being born. Oh crazy for like six Hours and we literally had this nurse with us. She was like a doula essentially the entire time. She was there the entire time and it was such a cool.
Speaker 3:I think nurses can make it right experience yeah, sure was awesome. They can make it as beautiful and as comforting as possible. And then you can have some that are not as good, which is always sad to hear when someone gets a bad experience.
Speaker 4:But I never made that connection of how much you probably learned about customer experience as a nurse, especially with, like parents who are in their tenderest moment. Right, they're most like vulnerable and you probably learned so much to like comfort and help there, which is a skill that has helped us in the business so much.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, for women is like, so it's very vulnerable obviously for, like, the obvious reasons, right, and it's like. Then you just expose your hormones and then they're like you got things poking into you.
Speaker 3:It's absolutely terrifying to go have a baby. You're like I don't know what's gonna happen to me. I have zero control. Really like it's so vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So anyways, I was a nurse for seven years and I loved it and Then I got pregnant and was my first baby girl dream. I was so excited to be a mom. That's what I wanted to do. My entire life was be a stay-at-home mom and care for my baby. So when I had olive, I Stopped being a nurse and I got to stay home with her all day long.
Speaker 3:And then, at like about four months, when she got strong and was wiggling out of swaddles, I had all the soft little muslin swaddles but they don't stretch, and so she was wiggling out of her swaddles and she would wake up all the time, throughout the night, throughout the day, and I was like I know you need sleep and it's making me crazy, it's making you crazy. So I flew down to LA my sister lives there, about 30 minutes from the garment district, and there was no thin, stretchy swaddle blanket on the market 10 years ago. There wasn't Gap and old maybe, had like kind of thick 100 caught in with like a little bit of stretch, but it was like a napkin size and it didn't really work. So I went down to LA and I made a bunch for myself and they worked and I loved them.
Speaker 3:I had sisters who were having babies too and they were using them, um, so I was making her bows and swaddles but never really intended to Like sell them or make a business, but other moms wanted them, so friends and family wanted them. We had some friends from high school who started bejeu market and so we did a fall market and me and my sisters put together kind of a hodgepodge like booth. They were artists and we did. I did my baby blankets and headbands, we did home decor pillows, we did glitter candles. We did all the crazy things.
Speaker 4:This is hilarious, actually, I have to interject. So they did so many different products and you were doing this. It was just like you'd set up a booth and then you'd leave it for the weekend and then come back and see what you sold. But, uh, we would like. I remember carrying our dining room table like eight blocks over to this Market and then setting it up and she'd tell me, like okay, the glitter candles, you can't actually touch those. I'm like how do I move it? Because the glitter would come off. Sure.
Speaker 3:There's just so many products down there and anyways, it was super fun. You go for like 72 hours, then you clean it up at the end and so. But over and over every market, my swaddles would sell and my boats would sell, and so we started kind of like curating it and I would make more and more every single time and we did it like twice a year. It was just fun. It was like I was a stay-at-home mom, something fun to do, um, but it gained popularity pretty quickly to the point where at the end of market or during markets and we would call hate there's five people at checkout and you're out of your swaddles. Are you gonna make more? So, baby on my hip I just lived like three blocks away I had olive and I was literally cutting and sewing fabric on my kitchen table, um, and surging them and tying them up with a bow, tagging them and walking them down, dropping them off on the table, and did that on repeat. So we didn't have a website yet, we didn't have etsy, we didn't have anything fancy.
Speaker 2:And what year was this?
Speaker 3:This was 2013 end of 2013. Okay, awesome so.
Speaker 2:And Jeff, what were you doing at this time?
Speaker 4:Nothing. No, I was. I I was at qualtrics, actually, which is a tech company, and I had started there in 2010. They I think there was like 30 employees when I started, and so I was there doing sales, yeah, and it actually was going great. Um, I was really lucky to be at a company that was growing so fast, so it was an awesome company, yeah, and I loved it, and I it was.
Speaker 4:we'll get to this later but it was a hard decision to leave because I did. I really enjoy, sure, yeah, yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 3:So, anyways, then slowly and surely made an instagram account, got on Shopify and it became like more and more serious every time we would do drops that would sell out in minutes and I was like all right, like maybe there's something here. I feel like the sales were convincing me every single time of like I, I don't know, I'm kind of shy and I don't think I wouldn't say I don't think highly of myself, but I'm not like I'm all that. And so when people like when sales proved like there was something there, it just like the momentum built and it was fun and, um, yeah, business kind of fell into my lap. I wouldn't say I pursued it or I was like trying to start a business, but it was a need that moms needed and if it solved a problem for them, it made their lives easier and it made babies really happy.
Speaker 1:I love. I love stories like this be especially in the motherhood space is because oftentimes, like in business, most successful businesses have product market fit right, like that's, people need it and what's so cool about these, these mother Started businesses? It's always a problem that a mom had and if one mom has it, every mom has it. You know, like the pains of raising children and when I say pains I'm not meaning that children are a pain to raise, but they're just heart, they're hard things, right, like they're kind of getting, yeah, like getting a kid to sleep is a pain in the butt, right. And and if, like they can't, you know, if they can't stay swaddled, it's gonna Impact how they sleep and then impact how you're going to sleep and then impact how you two are going to act to each other.
Speaker 3:And and rather than endure the one year of the no sleep like, let's find solutions. Let's help each other out. We're all in the same boat.
Speaker 1:So it's almost like instantaneous product market fit. Yeah, because it was for you. We tried a lot to mention.
Speaker 2:That's like the biggest pain of a new parent.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, sleep 100%, I know it makes you.
Speaker 4:I should just read the statistic the other day and it said that Moms lose at least a third of sleep in that first year, which is the equivalent of going 133 days without sleep and I think if you have a colky baby, I think if you have a colky baby or baby, that doesn't sleep.
Speaker 3:It's probably longer. I really think moms survive on so little sleep in the beginning. And sometimes dads like I think dads now are so helpful I wouldn't say it's like trendy to be an, like a I don't know a helpful dad, but like dads are awesome now, like I think that there's so many hands-on parents that I almost feel guilty now saying like I made this product just for moms because it's really for parents.
Speaker 3:You know, I think dads do a lot and help a lot, and so it's really cool to Include both now. I used to talk specifically to moms, but I think in the last 10 years a lot has changed.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 4:Yeah that was so nice.
Speaker 1:Look it. We all think you've really improved over the last 10 years, jeff. We've really evolved. We've really evolved. Well, my father-in-law the other day was telling me he's like I never, once, ever, changed a diaper, like I never changed one diaper.
Speaker 4:I think that's a water generational stuff like that you tell how good a dad is about how many wipes they have to use, because first baby I'm like 10, 20 wipes every diaper change. Now I'm like you could fold it again.
Speaker 2:How many folds can you get?
Speaker 1:How economical can you be with those wipes? You're just trying to protect the environment.
Speaker 4:Yeah that's true. Getting back to product market, are you to the?
Speaker 2:dad mode. Now you have five kids, 10 to 2. Are you to the dad mode where you're like I know my kids aren't going to finish their mcdonald's, so I'm just going to order them what they get and then I'll just finish what they don't.
Speaker 4:You know, not me.
Speaker 2:Half of a hamburger, because I have a seven-year-old.
Speaker 4:I have like a medical condition where I I don't know over order food. I don't know why I can't say it's, it's chronic.
Speaker 3:I think it's like a childhood thing where, like, I don't know if you were deprived or if you didn't get choices.
Speaker 4:But now we don't have much.
Speaker 3:When I grew up, food is like he takes that very seriously, so he always orders for himself, but does finish kids.
Speaker 2:Well, you just make sure you finish, then yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so going back to the product market fit like I think that's an important thing, and it Because I want to point out Karen tried a lot of other things, uh, that she was selling and it was still. The point for her was just to create and have fun and she'd bring home, you know, 500 bucks from a weekend market right before the swaddle started going, and that was great, she was having fun. We made this chandelier. Wait, do you remember this? This is a funny story. So All these different things that she was trying, there was this chandelier that she made and I she was- we made.
Speaker 4:Probably 20 hours to make one chandelier by hand. And then we saw we made two and we sold one of them for $40 Anytime you moved, it completely fell apart and you had to like.
Speaker 3:My first booth was not just like baby product. You know it was like a bunch of fun stuff, but I think where I was most passionate was baby product and that's what sold and it fixed the problem and so kind of.
Speaker 4:But it the success of that product is what pulled Karen into being a business owner. And and that's something I think a lot about is, like you know, for people that are thinking about, hey, I have this idea, I want to quit my job to go do this. I'm like, well, can you? What testing can you do to find out? Like, do you have product pole? Like, are your customers pulling you into this? Because, you don't want to start. You know Something that I don't know. How can you test it before you start?
Speaker 3:That's the question, and that's a man I didn't know ended up having done really well.
Speaker 4:It's finding where there was demand, and then that was the business.
Speaker 3:I also think like having passion behind it, like I have the same passion. I've been doing it for ten years. I'm just as excited as I was ten years ago about the product like.
Speaker 3:Ideas are flowing through me all the time of like how we need to be better as a company, how we need to help moms more. How can we we reach out? What products do we need to make? Like I would say I'm just as fired up now as I Was ten years ago, which is why I think Lulu is what it is and why we're still here running it.
Speaker 1:I want to. I want to. Let's break that down a little bit, because this is a hard thing for a lot of business owners who have owned businesses for ten years or five plus years is, yeah, like what? What is it that's kept that same excitement for you, because I'm sure you've had massively Challenging moments within those ten years. Oh yeah, meaning that we change our product? Do we? Is this the right audience? Do I need to go into something more?
Speaker 2:You know, like there's all these things and different ages, right, different countries may, yeah, so what?
Speaker 1:what's kept you guys like for you? Like I'm serious about this. Yeah, I've never heard somebody say this words. You just said about owning a business for ten years.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say I'm like as fired up as the bit about the business part. The business part is really hard for me.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:That's not my strength as far as like the, like the personnel and like hiring and firing and those kind of changes. I don't like that's the stretch from every time getting on an Instagram live showing my face doing photo shoots that's a little bit harder for me, but the core of the product and our mission I'm all in, like I'm way passionate about so. There has been lots of highs and lots of lows throughout the ten years when I'm like why am I doing this? This is so hard yeah, like so hard stuff that I would have never.
Speaker 3:I think if I would have Known, I probably wouldn't have started, if I would have known I was gonna have to go through the things that we have.
Speaker 2:Have you seen that meme from Elon Musk about entrepreneurship?
Speaker 3:Have you seen it? Oh, what is it?
Speaker 2:It's a flag and it's like we don't do this because it's easy. We do this because we thought it would be easy.
Speaker 3:That's so true, right, and I think just bringing up memes.
Speaker 1:You always have a meme for, like every podcast episode.
Speaker 2:That one made me laugh so hard. How hard could it be? But then you're just like in too deep. Yeah, you're like. Well, I guess I can't quit now.
Speaker 4:I can't remember what CEO it was of this big tech company and he said if I knew how hard it was gonna be, I never would have started. Like, despite all the success he's like I would have said it wasn't worth it. He's like, but because we're already in it, we keep going and now it's like it's here, so we're gonna, you know we're, we're gonna keep going with it and I feel like, but I just to clarify Maybe what you're saying, tell me if I'm getting this right. I think that, as hard as it's been, your passion for helping mothers and helping babies was always Outweight. It.
Speaker 4:Yeah and that's what kept you going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just be brave for a moment. Karen. Do the live I mean I do Instagram lives every week and I have? For what? Eight years?
Speaker 3:six, seven years seven years, which is crazy. But I talk to the moms every single week, yeah, and it's about 40 minutes long, like it's a long time, and we sit and talk about product and it is really fun. But the first time I did it, the camera literally stood in front of me for 30 plus minutes, maybe for the first six months of doing life. So every step of the business process has been scary for me getting new warehouses, pushing, go on a huge PO, switching, manufacturing, hiring people like every part of it has been out of my comfort zone for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah but it's like it's also really fun and rewarding to do stuff out of your comfort zone and when you're doing something so cool and you see moms come to you and be like, this changed my life as a mom. I love your stuff. You know, I send it for every baby gift. All my grand babies have your stuff. Like all of those like I don't know touch points with moms, I'm like all right, this is working and it's helping people, so let's keep going.
Speaker 1:I want to call that out really quickly because the there's been a trend actually in the last. Now, the last three podcast Well, I can't say the last three podcasts because I can't remember which ones have come out and which ones haven't come out yet, but we interviewed the founder of Lola blankets, have you?
Speaker 3:guys heard of Lola blankets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have heard of them and the bet, like the success around his was his. His brand is very purpose led Right. He built this brand for his mother who had breast cancer and this blanket company meant a lot like blankets meant a lot for people who are going through chemo. So he had this like. This is like, very like such a solid purpose to this right. And then we just had actually, I think, the podcast that launched today.
Speaker 1:I'm saying that today as us talking about it as people listen to this two or three or whatever many weeks later, a few weeks ago, jojo's chocolates. Do you guys have your Jojo's chocolates? Yeah, so he built that company because his mom was also breast cancer patient who was getting sugar cravings and sugar is terrible cancer cancer feeds on sugar and so they had to create an alternative sweet and and so he's he's got this like and he talked about some crazy lows that they experienced, you know, and it was really cool, but he's so passionate about it, so I love like is. As you know, sometimes it might sound a little cheesy and and and like cheesy and like kind of like duh. You just have to have a bigger motive behind the dollars In order for you to keep going through the hard total.
Speaker 3:I think every time we have a hard like and we have lots of hard, but every time we have a hard, I think we say why are we doing this? Yeah, and I think, if we circle back to our why, it resets us every time. We just went in on a Saturday, our kids were playing in the office, we had just had a really hard week. This was just two weeks ago and we just got out a whiteboard and just started writing our why. Right, what was the top thing that I wrote on, like the sentence.
Speaker 3:I was like what's our mission? And I wrote out our mission moms and babies and then we talked about each of the teams and we got reinvigorated about our why and then all the hard melted away or at least made it worth going through. Sure, so it's still there and there's still a lot of hard, but it at least made us have clear vision of why we're doing the hard every day. Because if you're just doing the hard every day and there's no reason, that's called like stupidity, right, like that's just dumb. Find a new passion.
Speaker 4:But if you guys read the book or heard of it relentless, by Tim Grover.
Speaker 1:I've heard of it.
Speaker 4:I have that he was the personal trainer, michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, but he said you don't have to love the hard work, you just have to crave the end result. Badly enough that the hard work is irrelevant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cool, I love that.
Speaker 2:I also like to think of it as a when there's a purpose behind the hard work or the suffering, that's just a sacrifice. I like that. But if there is no purpose, it's just suffering. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you have a reason to go through the hard thing, then it's still hard, but there's actually something that you're dedicating it for. I loved it. Yeah, which helps you get through the hard.
Speaker 3:And that's got to be like majority of business owners.
Speaker 2:Right, there's so many highs and so many lows that you have to have a clear why, for a clear purpose.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like even Elon Musk, right, he just wants to go to Mars. So bad that's humanity. Save us from the AI bots. Exactly, exactly.
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Speaker 3:So that's a great question so that started in the Redbrook house when you were like it's going upstairs.
Speaker 4:So yeah, this is funny Our first house that we bought was it's a 130 years old house in the downtown Provo and it's a triplex. It's been split up into three units.
Speaker 3:Super cool house.
Speaker 4:And we were running the business out of the house. I was still working full time, but Karen was doing it and I was kind of helping in nights and weekends and the inventory was growing so much that literally in our bedroom we had racks of inventory.
Speaker 3:Racks and bins around our beds in our living room.
Speaker 4:You can only get off, like in the corner, and then we have employees. Karen, be like shipping out of launch. It's like one 30 in the morning. I'm like I have a meeting in six hours and I need to go to bed, but there's employees in my bedroom right now. And so then we decided I'm like Karen, when the tenants move out upstairs in the apartments, let's put the business up there.
Speaker 3:I think that was like I was like that'd be so irresponsible. We're getting $800. A friend right there Like Lulu does it it can always just like bum off of us basically, but Jeff, like putting his foot down and be like no, we need a space, and I think it legitimized it a little bit for me right there. I'm like this is not just your hobby in your bedroom.
Speaker 4:This is actually what year this is 2015,. I think so two years after the market.
Speaker 3:And it's when I stopped making all the things. And it's when I started stop making all things and we got our first manufacturer, so we were getting manufacturing dumps that were literally filling our whole living room, like it's not sustainable.
Speaker 4:Any pictures of our house during this time. There's like no one sitting on the couches because it's full of inventory, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Olives climbing up piles of slings and blankets. That was probably babies are on the kitchen counter and there's just mittens and bows around them.
Speaker 4:That was probably like the first step, I would say. The big question became when I was going to quit my job full time. And then we're going to make this.
Speaker 3:We wrote it probably two years too far. One Jeff should have quit, but we were very conservative. So Jeff had a really great job. It was providing for us. It had great benefits. He was killing it there. It was a good company, so like he was happy.
Speaker 4:So we felt like we'd already won the lottery with that, where I was like I'm so lucky to have been an early employee, the company's done so well and I felt like there was still so much opportunity that I wasn't taking advantage of because I couldn't give it the time and effort, because we also had this business in our house, sure, and I would say the first blanket launch, when it sold out in minutes and we worked all night.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, tell that story.
Speaker 4:So this is a funny story. One night we stayed up literally all night doing this. We were launching like 22 new colors one morning and I think we finished editing and getting the photos and inventory on the website at like 857 am, 9 o'clock. At launch. We sold all of it in like the next 40 minutes, which was like $22,000 of revenue, and for us that was the first time. We were just looking at each other, just shocked.
Speaker 3:I think that was one of the moments that I was like, okay, this is legit. Yeah, these numbers are bigger than I could have imagined. I know it was only 22 grand, so that's like tiny right now, but back then I think that was like whoa. I never thought ever I would be able to do that you know what I mean that's a half a year of working as a nurse or whatever it was. I was just like quantifying it all.
Speaker 1:Half a year. It's 40 minutes. It's crazy, it's true In 40 minutes.
Speaker 3:I was just like what is this thing Like? It was like this wild game that I was like crazy, and so I think that was one turning point moving up to having it be out of our house and in its own space.
Speaker 4:It's another turning point. We got to the point, though, where I felt like we were being pulled, because it's like I either need to and this really was the discussion either I need to go full time and really put like all my effort into my current job, which there's still a lot of upside, and we should just stop, but you were full time but it was like you were still like kind of cutting the corners right.
Speaker 4:I would say I was giving a full effort there, but then it was like staying up until 4 am the next morning, like there was no work at home, work from home.
Speaker 3:So Jeff literally was gone nine to five every single day. So he gave his all at Qualtrics. I feel like we didn't cut corners, but he did help me at nighttime.
Speaker 2:But you were just exhausted and it was like we were tired.
Speaker 4:And I felt like I would put in more hours in the office if it wasn't for this, but like because of babysitters, I mean, I would come home at six and the babysitters been there from 12 to six. Karen's already at work and then Karen would come home at midnight one am.
Speaker 4:It just we just felt like we're stuck between these two opportunities and we're not maximizing. Either we need to go all in on one or the other. So really, the decision was either you just shut Lulu down, and I'll do this, or I'm going to quit and let's go all in on Lulu.
Speaker 3:I grew up in a very conservative home, so my parents, like we kind of like, talked to him a little bit about it and like they're just like that would be insane.
Speaker 1:Absolutely the worst idea. Yeah, you got help, you got you could ask our options, yeah and I value their advice.
Speaker 3:And it did seem crazy to me. You know, like this was a hobby, but now it's like more than taking care of us, so like it seemed irresponsible. Yet the idea when Jeff, every time he posts it to me, like what if you quit? And I go in, all in and just continue my nine to five job I struggled with that. That was hard for me to be like give this up, like what do I do? Get on and tell all the moms like sorry, I'm not going to do it anymore, which is totally fine if someone decides to do that. But it just didn't sit well with either of us to like totally shut down Lulu too. And so Jeff got very brave and he made the final decision of like I'm going to quit my job, we're going to do this.
Speaker 2:What about your family? Are they entrepreneurial?
Speaker 4:Are you risk averse? I'm not risk averse. I value independence way more than security. So to me, like we didn't even think, what if we quit? And then this thing got huge, we were thinking let's quit and try our very best to not break it. So, that it was making sort of just enough that it would support our family and we're like and that would be awesome. That was sort of the end of our sort of hopes or what we were expecting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And then when I quit and we really went all in, I say that's when I really ruined her hobby. I made it a job. Sure, it became a business was when I quit. It became more serious bigger numbers, bigger POs, and at that point we decided the biggest thing was that we just couldn't keep inventory in stock. Everything that we'd launched on the site was gone within one day, so it was like we only had inventory one day a week, right, and literally one day a week, for hours of that day. And that was it.
Speaker 3:And then we sold out, and then we would just wait for that week and to come and then we would sell again and we would just keep selling out. So supply chain was really hard.
Speaker 4:That was what we felt like I could. The biggest contribution I could make to the business was in supply chain and just putting a person on that.
Speaker 3:So basically the first year you quit, you didn't think the moms wanted to see him on live.
Speaker 2:No Showcase in the swales.
Speaker 4:I'm the best supporting actor you know, kind of.
Speaker 3:That first year after he quit we literally spent all of our money putting it back into supply chain and inventory. We got down to one mortgage payment.
Speaker 4:Income 90% when I left my job to go do this and we, when we started, we had a year's salary or like a year's expenses saved up, and so we felt like we're super safe. There's a lot of things we could do if we did get in trouble. And then we just we said let's buy as much as an inventory as we can and we spent all of our money on inventory and we literally got down. I remember we had like three grand in the bank and I'm like we just had our third kid who just had built a house.
Speaker 4:What did I just do? I literally thought like I had just ruined her family.
Speaker 3:Jeff never stresses. He's probably the chillest person I've ever met Never stresses, never worries.
Speaker 4:Very optimistic Very optimistic.
Speaker 3:Nothing's ever going to go wrong. We got this and one day so it was in the basement of our house, and for a while. So not the red brick house, but we moved up to Midway, built a house and it was took the whole unfinished basement. We finished it for Lulu and I. Go upstairs and he's in the shower and he's face down on the tile floor, face down. I didn't know if he was dead. I didn't know. I opened the shower door. He was fully passed out. I was like what is he being? I've never had a panic attack. No, he passed out. He passed out.
Speaker 2:He literally passed out in the shower Like a panic attack.
Speaker 4:So I remember, just sitting, I just had this moment. It just been building and I've never I'm not like I'm blessed, I don't have anxiety or anything like that, but I just had this moment of like I just I left this dream job. Yeah, we can't afford our life, we're out of money.
Speaker 1:Literally in three weeks. I know right, it was not all my that Qualtrics sold and they cashed out all the employees.
Speaker 4:I didn't get any of that because I left.
Speaker 2:Oh man, and none of it you didn't get any of it.
Speaker 4:You have to be there when it happens.
Speaker 2:It was the way their stock was set.
Speaker 4:Because I had gone and I knew that, I knew we're probably within the next year Qualtrics will sell and I realized I'm walking away from that to try this thing.
Speaker 1:And just to like give you guys some insights on what Qualtrics sold for the first time.
Speaker 4:It was what 8 billion and I was, I was like first 30 employees, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2:That's a kick in the stomach at the time, and it was just this moment of like feeling like a father.
Speaker 4:Like I just ruined our family and it just, and I woke up on the shower floor with a massive goose egg on my head.
Speaker 3:Luckily no chips, but I was like oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:But then and so, but then, right after that, all the money that we'd spent on inventory, the inventory showed up and in the next 12 months we seven extra revenue, and it just well. I was about to say.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you knew that, like everything you were investing, it was because you were going to grow.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just that lag effect between getting the inventory and paying for the inventory getting them and selling it and like being vulnerable.
Speaker 4:And you were just kind of sitting at that like valley of misery, exactly.
Speaker 3:And also so much vulnerability. Right here Like I hope people buy this like they have in the past. But like now I'm like 10 Xing my my product.
Speaker 1:Is it going to come true? Yeah, yeah. Is that total addressable market, as big as it is? We live in it.
Speaker 4:I always thought it was like a machine that I can put a dollar into and four months later it'll give me $2 back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So I'm putting all my money into it, hoping the machine doesn't break before it gives me the money back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we lived in just a very normal neighborhood and we were getting semi truckloads on our driveway pallet, jacking it up, putting it in our basement, I think our neighbors were like what is going on down there? Like we were yeah, we were in the basement for two years, a year and a half.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And when all that inventory started rolling in, I think we were wild. Yeah, people were like crazy.
Speaker 4:So the lesson, like for advice, because now I have friends that'll call sometimes hey, I'm thinking about leaving my job to do my full time, you know, to go full time on this opportunity, and I'm always like, look, I, 100% I'm for that kind of thing. But, like, what testing can you do before then? Sure, how much can you get done in the night hours before you quit your full time job? Because that full time job is the safety net that allowed us, like to do what we did. Yep, right, it allowed us to take a leap, knowing that we had built up savings and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And I think and even still, you got to a point where you were like, oh my gosh Right.
Speaker 4:I don't know that you could have been. We were probably over prepared, we thought and then we are still under prepared. So you know, I'd like the phrase. I think people have a lot more opportunities than they realize because they're not prepared to take advantage of them, so it doesn't look like an opportunity. Sure, and so that's something that I like to tell people is what can you move from the unknown category into the knowns before you jump yeah and then jump all in?
Speaker 2:Is it pulling you.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, because when I, when I quit my job full time, I literally closed on a mortgage a month before I quit.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like I was kind of playing that game where I'm like I kind of just closed on this mortgage really quick.
Speaker 4:While I still have income. I've got the W2 income.
Speaker 2:And then I had that moment like two months later. I'm like I don't know, is that crazy? But I don't have a ton of risk aversion so I never. I never got to a point where I was like, oh no, I've made a big mistake, because I was always like I don't know, like if we're just goes to worse, I'll just go work, yeah, carrying a sign at a construction site. Those guys make like 40 an hour.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll try out for that one.
Speaker 2:I'll go figure something out, get ready. So how's it been? We've only we get to the Instagram boom.
Speaker 1:We can get to the Instagram boom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had we called the Instagram boom. It's like the gold rush of Instagram.
Speaker 4:So 2016 we didn't even know it was happening, and it was happening for sure 2016 like 2019, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:What, what lessons did you learn then? And then I want to hear how much it's changed since then, it's a great question, so it is changed.
Speaker 3:It's true, we didn't know what we had back then, like right if I posted. Everyone saw it, who followed me? It was the most beautiful thing in the whole world, you post and you make money the post and watch sales.
Speaker 4:Okay, good, good, let's do another post. You remember what Jim Remember, jim shark.
Speaker 1:I think Jim shark. Yeah that's how they Like. It's just like a timing thing. Yeah, they just would post like 40 times a day, yeah, and just crazy when insane yeah, crazy, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we just didn't know what we had. But I also will say Lulu never got like a huge break During those years of like oh man, all of a sudden the next day we got a hundred thousand followers or twenty thousand followers, right, we did have a few big influencers that posted for us that really helped cells and validate us. Rachel Parcell was one of those. She was incredibly kind to me. I don't know why she took me in. She just loved the product and so did a couple product drops at her house and let her pick, you know, and pack her hospital bag. So she was incredibly influential to us. But we didn't grow 20, 50, 100k in those three years. We just were slow and steady all the time. We were consistent with our posting and consistent with, you know, our audience. But it worked because people saw what we were putting out, it was beautiful and they clicked and bought.
Speaker 4:I also think that, to give you some credit here, you were being innovative on that platform, like when Instagram lives came out. That was something that other people are sort of hesitant, and she dove all in and did one every week when did you start that?
Speaker 1:so it's in the Midway basement, so I think 2016, 2017, yeah yeah, I actually came across when I was at fond design, like I came across you doing those lives and you were actually Like one of the inspirations that I was trying to get our team yeah to not a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 3:I remember that because I've seen you Get on and then I can't remember she.
Speaker 1:She probably started doing this because you did it. But Solly baby, oh, yeah, I also doing, yeah, she would do rap tutorials for people.
Speaker 3:So she would get on like once a week and do rap tutorials L but not a lot of people like especially like the founders, or no one really got on and showed face, especially on Instagram lives, and so I think it was a unique way where I captivated our audience and said like hey, I'm here with you, I am a mom. It was usually eight o'clock at night. We just put our babies down, we talked about our day for a second and then we talked about the product dropping. So Instagram was very influential that way to allow me to like reach my audience and actually talk to them like face-to-camera, but yeah, I laugh now a lot during that time and it's way different now.
Speaker 4:It's a lot harder now. We I laughed because I look back now, given that how the climate's changed, right, and I laugh because we just thought, man, we are good at this.
Speaker 3:Everything we do just works. We Wishing us so much right and so yeah, it's.
Speaker 4:It was one of those things we weren't necessarily aware of the effect that it was having, but it definitely was, and we're lucky with that timing, totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. I mean it's like it's funny to laugh about, but the the skill set Was the fact that you did it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we were there. We show exactly where there was a lot of people who weren't doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, showing up and taking advantage of the what we now deem as easy. Yeah way it was to make money Right, but back then you would have never deemed that as easy right, it felt pretty vulnerable. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so now, yeah, things have changed. I think post COVID. Really hard talking to a lot of founders that say this reach is hard.
Speaker 2:Well, turn to pay, to play, turn on ad spend? Yeah, I mean that is changing. I feel like it's totally harder to get the organic reach and you have to pay.
Speaker 4:I think part of it is because of you have all the big box stores that were really caught unprepared for COVID and all they're in order, shutting yeah so they didn't have the digital strategy down there. They've shown up in a big way, they've figured it out. So think of the billions of dollars now.
Speaker 2:Did you hear how much 10 TAMU yeah, TAMU spent last year.
Speaker 4:I love you. I just heard that commercial five times, we don't know how to say, five Super Bowl commercials.
Speaker 2:You're like at around seven to ten million, which is a drop in the bucket, like that doesn't even matter to them. No, they spend I. I saw the figure was like 1.5 or three billion.
Speaker 4:Wow on meta ads last year see sometimes like it a little mad at Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 3:I spent a lot of money with you and you still won't even like talk to me, we're like breadcrumbs, yeah, yeah, like we don't we're, especially when you talk about yeah, we got ten of spilling.
Speaker 2:Spending a billion dollars in one year? Yeah, and then why?
Speaker 1:and then this year they're gonna spend 10 billion in political ads.
Speaker 4:So it's just gotten so much more competitive and I think it's there's a lot more demand to get in front of customers. So now we're kind of back to what can we do now and we're I'm actually excited we're in a really creative process again. You know we're talking about adversity is the mother of creation, right? So it's like we're in that stage where we're really starting to think okay, what are some ways, what can we do? Innovative and that's so fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard, but we're in a really interesting who on your team like rises to that and who's like oh man, I had to do hard things. I was riding a roller coaster for a while and it was working and it was fun, and now we're going uphill and we have to kind of push for a second and get innovative again. But it's nothing new that we've done in the past ten years. You know, like I feel like there's highs and lows those past ten years, Like we've always been doing something hard and new.
Speaker 3:There's always been something you know, and so this is a new new. This is a new heart. This is a new like we've got to figure it out again, but I don't think it's gonna break us and I don't think it's gonna. I think we just have to figure out how to get gritty again and be smart with our dollars in time.
Speaker 1:You know, what I love about this is in 2014, 2015, 2016, as, as your guys, business is getting going. You didn't have capital, you didn't have money, and so the way you you had to be super creative with how you won right, so it's like okay.
Speaker 1:I'm not seeing anybody do these IG lives. I'm gonna start doing, I'm gonna start connecting, and then, all of a sudden, you're growing and then you guys start to make money and You're this, this hobby is now a career and a brand, and you guys are, you know, feeling like good, hey, we're living, we can, we can. You know, we can go out to dinner again and we can we go on vacations. And yeah, exactly, I'm getting a soda rather than water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and it's funny, I've recognized that a lot of people stop being creative because they feel like money can start to solve their what they thought were creative problems. Oh yeah, but I feel like in 2023, in 2024, that creativity piece needs to happen. It doesn't matter how much money you have. Money doesn't equal Success the way it did in the pay-to-play era.
Speaker 1:You know, and so I actually love like, I think, a lot of your tap, like a lot of brands tactics from 2016, where you guys were in your Basement shipping things. You know they're all coming calling customers. You know, I think those are the creative things that, like, you guys are gonna have to start to. I think ever I don't mean you guys, I mean brands anyone listening to this we are gonna have to start to operate as if you're poor again. Oh, oh, yeah, I get creative and I love that. That's what 2024 is gonna bring. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3:You have to be hungry and gritty, and it's been interesting who on our team is okay with that and who's like I can't do that.
Speaker 1:I guess you know it's been interesting and just us.
Speaker 3:We've asked each other multiple times, like, do we have it in us to get gritty again? Because this is a gritty year, I think, for us to Dig in and to figure out, you know, to be lean and to be smart, but also to connect. How do we connect with our customers? How? Because it's a really good product and most brands right now have a really good product, like all my friends that I just talked to, like they have an amazing product. But the game is gonna be how to let people see that product. You know, and that's been a different game than before and so, yeah, I'm excited to see what we do this year. I'm excited to see what other brands do. I were so collaborative. Right now, I feel like every brand is asking you know, what are you guys doing?
Speaker 4:What's working, you know, and I'm like yeah, I'll shout out Caxi with their new product launch. I thought that was so fun to watch what.
Speaker 3:I love them cool.
Speaker 4:That was really fun to see and I think they're a. They're a small, up-and-coming brand that have so much energy and fire right now and I'm like I'm looking at smaller brands, thinking like yeah, I want to learn from you, like it's really cool to see that I also think focusing on customer experience. You know, that's that's what I did at Qualtrics, right? We were focused on customer experience and I think anything you can do to to make the customer feel spoiled, feel like this is better than I expected it was.
Speaker 3:Do you feel like in the past year? I'm like every order that comes in I'm incredibly grateful for not that I wasn't grateful before, but I know what the economy is in the past year and I know what dollars mean to people, and so when they give me a dollar for a product in exchange for a product, it means I know it means a lot more this past year and so Creating that customer experience and making sure it's a hundred, that's like our goal.
Speaker 4:So a lot of it is we have the creative side, but also we're focused more on operational excellence right now. So it's like how do I cut down shipping times? How do I? It makes sure that our customer service policies are really like clear and reward the customer. How do I do all these things so that the customer is getting that better than expected experience? Because that's, I think, where you're gonna win people back right, that's how you get the return customer. So I have this equation that I like Happiness equals reality, minus expectations.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I didn't come up with it right, but it's like we think all the time, well, what do they expect and how can we give them something a little bit better? So that's something we're focused on. Karen's such a good operator too, so she's, if anyone ever I'm this is total Tangent here but if anyone thinks Karen is just like this, the, the figurehead, or anything like that, this girl is in the business and is so involved in the operations and is so good everything from like warehouse layout to Photo shoots, to everything and I just want to give her a huge shout out for that.
Speaker 1:Speaking of how has it been? Like husband and wife, you're working together. Like we've only interviewed other, like maybe one other husband.
Speaker 4:The Bowers yeah, we're neighbors, we love them. Yeah, yeah, I, we really like it. Five out of seven days. No, I think we. There's pros and cons.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally, me and Jeff. I feel like even when we were dating, even before we were working together, we talked all the time like, rather than watching a movie, we would sit and talk about to this day, we maybe watch 10 movies together.
Speaker 3:That's crazy. I know we love movies but we just don't have time for them, and so we talk a lot and I think we value each other's opinions a lot, and it's so. It was kind of a natural fit that way, but it's been very good and very hard at the same time. I'll be totally honest. Like, of course, like you're living and breathing each other's air 24-7 you don't get that eight hour break a day. You know when your husband goes to work and maybe you go to work or you stay home. It was also a very interesting dynamic to have him come to my world. You know, that's like kind of interesting to like I started something and was running it for four years and then he came into it and so he has a lot to say about that. No, it's been good, though. I feel like the pros is that we trust each other more than anyone. Right, I don't have someone in as a partner with me that has a Alter ego about what should happen or they're not. There's no fraud.
Speaker 4:There's no like scary things that we're on the same team, that way goals for what we want the business to do, what we want Our family to be like.
Speaker 3:So we're very aligned on and have a lot of trust that we're going in the same direction when he's gone working, like I know exactly what he's doing and I'm like yeah, that needs done when I'm gone working, he totally understands.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of like. The positive side of this is overlap in terms of every morning it's like okay, what, what needs to happen in all of our life? What do the kids need today? What is the business need? And it's not like we're competing where it's like well, I have to do this. Well, sorry, I have to do this.
Speaker 3:We don't really or I don't think we've experienced that. My time is more valuable, whatever like.
Speaker 4:I don't think we've experienced that in years or since we've done the business. But on the downside, that overlap, I call it being like married squared right, it's like to the next degree right, because you, you rely on each other that much more. You sure you know keeping commitments to each other.
Speaker 3:You see each other's weaknesses and you see their greatest strengths right. So a lot of you can't it's harder to compartmentalize right.
Speaker 2:Totally work, just bleeds into everything very hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we have to be very intentional when we want work to shut off. We need to stop talking about it. Right, we have to agree to stop talking about it. We have to, like, make a plan to shut that off and to move to this side, you know.
Speaker 4:I wouldn't say we're great at that. We're getting better sure, we're not great at that, we're getting better he hard to yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I know my tip thing to you is that you have to in order to be creative. You have to compartmentalize to totally like. You can't just be stewing over the same thing all the time. Oh it, burnout is real like you have to play with something else, to like be inspired with what you're wrestling with. Yeah, so like if all you're doing is thinking about work, like you're so in the weeds, like you can never just like zoom out and see the forest again.
Speaker 4:Yeah one little trick that we've learned that helps there is how much do you care about this, right? So sometimes Carol come to me and say, hey, I'm struggling with this decision, what do you think? And I'll say, well, maybe do this. And it's not what she would do. And so a quick thing is like hey, on a scale of one to ten, how much do you care about this? And if she's an eight and I'm a two, it's like, well, just do what you think. Then like, yeah, right. But if it's something I've thought a lot about, and I'm like, no, I really think this is what we should do, I care more. And she's like, okay, well, I trust you go. Sure, I think that's more outside of business.
Speaker 3:Totally right, yeah one of the hard things to spend like overlapping too much right, like not having his clear direct roles and then my clear direct roles. Sometimes we overlap a lot and then I think we trip over each other sometimes, yeah, or we get frustrated and it's like you just go do this, I'll go do this, I trust you to do a hundred percent and I'll do a hundred percent, but we don't have to talk about everything together, you know, so sometimes we get too codependent on each other and then it's like a drag and we trip over each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but once we feel that we just separate again and be like Kate, what's on your plate and what's on my plate, let's go and do, because we're very involved in the business it is.
Speaker 2:I should do that with my wife, because sometimes I just argue to argue, not to be like mean, but you know, she's like she'll have, she'll have to ask me. Sometimes she's like do you actually care about this or you just Playing devil's advocate?
Speaker 4:right.
Speaker 2:No, I don't really care that much right.
Speaker 4:If you go and do whatever you were going to do anyway, it's not going to affect me very much, and I don't really it doesn't bother me, so just go like yeah, I think so often we're asking opinion, we're looking for some feedback, right, and it's only when they disagree with you that you realize how strongly you feel about it, right?
Speaker 1:Sure yeah for sure, yeah, yeah. Well, I think that I think this conversation is great for people who don't, even who aren't married and working together. Like what I've learned about the best partnerships is like, I think your values and goals are actually the number one thing you should look at in a partner. Do that? Does this person have the same value and goal goals that I do, or very similar values and goals? And if that's the case, then we can start looking at each other's skill sets and dividing those things apart versus what most people do, is they look at skill sets, right, right, hey, what are you good at? Oh, that's awesome. Because I'm not good at those things. I'm good at these things, oh, cool, we should be partners, we should start a business. Logically, that makes a lot of sense, right? You know, it's like a football team.
Speaker 4:I need a center.
Speaker 1:I need a receiver, I need a running back, I need a quarterback, whatever. But in business that what happens is somebody who is doing it for their family. For example, they might be willing to go so much further to work, because if they don't, their family doesn't survive.
Speaker 3:Oh, totally.
Speaker 1:Versus somebody. So I think, like if you're looking for a partnership, you got to look at it as if, like it's very similar to what you would do with a spouse.
Speaker 4:I like that a lot because we have a very different skill set, like I, couldn't be more opposite. Very different, karen. The common joke is that Karen will walk through the office and see 10 things that need fixed and then she'll come into my office and say well, you go fix these 10 things. Then I have to walk back out. Hey, about five minutes ago you were just doing this thing.
Speaker 3:That doesn't happen as much anymore, but it used to happen a lot, but I had done every single one of those jobs you know like from the beginning. I've literally done it and written the manual for it Right. And I also understand, I think when my friends tell me who are fellow business owners, their pitfalls, it gets ingrained in my brain of how not to do that to the best of my ability. I'm not perfect, but I see where pitfalls can happen with brands and it just happens with little slips in company culture or processes and so I have become so process oriented, which I think has been one of Lulu's strengths. But yeah, but it's like it's easy for me to spot versus Jeff came in four years from the beginning.
Speaker 4:And so it's not as detail oriented as you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our personalities are that way too, and also just, I know, process is just a little bit better, so that's why that happens.
Speaker 4:But it doesn't happen too often now, but but I'm probably a little better on the people side and so he's good with the product. Exactly your point. If we had different values, those two different systems for working, we would really have a hard time working together. If we didn't have a common goal. So I think you're exactly right on that point.
Speaker 1:And we've kind of gotten lucky that way, like Mark and I are business partners in everything we own, and I think we're wildly different humans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and. But our values and morals are, are, I mean, almost identical. Yeah, in what we want, hope, strive for what's most important to us, you know so it makes it so much.
Speaker 4:So like I think about that so much more than what Mark's good at and what I'm bad at, and what I'm good at and what he's bad at what allows you to let go to say, even though you're doing that differently than me, I know that you're trying to get to the same place and I trust that you'll get there, so just go. I don't need to be involved 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people just forget that humans aren't insects, and so you know, insects are so specialized and they do one little thing, right. But a person can do many things and they can do it in their own ways, right? What is like there's 100 ways to skin a cat kind of a weird saying, but yeah, I got a skin and cat, I've heard there's
Speaker 1:a thousand.
Speaker 3:Is there a thousand? Is it a thousand ways? A couple thousand, maybe A couple thousand? We've also seen this with employees that we've hired that we thought had this one skill set, and then we're like no, we actually need them here. They would be so good here, but technically this is like what they interviewed for or what they applied for and or what their degree is in, but we move them over here and that's where they like flourish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you need both. You need the process and then you need, like, the human element, where it's like hey, it's alright, like we can, we can bend this a little bit to like fit you as a person. It's just like are you on board?
Speaker 3:Love it, I agree.
Speaker 2:Like are you going to push this boat or not? Push the boat? Yeah, you got to push it out to sea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, can't start sailing until you're out in the ocean. That's true, you got to get that off land. You know, push your head, get your feet a little wet, jump in the shoulder to the wheel.
Speaker 2:That's a cart, though Push along. So going to finish this up, I'd love to hear from you, karen, what have you learned about your customer that that they are not seeing, and that that you can really hook them into your brand again, make them feel something?
Speaker 3:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:I feel like you're like have something to say to you, because it seems obvious, because you've been dealing with moms and babies for so long, right, but I think trends have changed the way moms. You know what are they looking for.
Speaker 3:I feel like one thing that I get comments about a lot is like I don't know it's embarrassing to say about yourself, but just like Karen's very real Karen's very down to earth and I think one of the things that I connect with my customers on is that I'm a real mom too. So just this last year I changed my lives to a morning life because, with my five busy kids, night lives were getting hard. After six years I was like a little bit tough to do. 8pm lives right, but those 8pm lives I connected with them, I was real, I was honest. I told them I was going through X, y and C. They would see my kid jump up on my lap and so I think they were just like. I can trust her with her advice because she's just like me right, and I see her in motherhood doing it. I don't know if that's answering your question, but I feel like they value my opinion, so therefore they trust me.
Speaker 4:On product I would say, to piggyback on that is, that you feel a kinship or so much empathy for the mom who's like awake at 2am breastfeeding their baby, who feels alone, who feels overwhelmed, who feels like crazy hormones in her body and she's crying and she doesn't know why this shouldn't be this hard Am I not good at this? And I think the thing that Karen makes them feel is like I get you right, like there's a community here of people.
Speaker 2:And you're doing a really good job.
Speaker 4:Facebook groups that have formed around our brand that we've never been part of that are like 22,000 members. It's crazy and so we're so grateful and I just think that that's like the image in my mind of who our customer is, that 2am parent, the regular amazing mom that needs the boost.
Speaker 3:We actually just started a nice mom club, kind of merch on the side, and it's just like you're a part of the nice mom club. You are a nice mom, you're a good mom. Let's be a nice mom to each other. Let's lift and encourage each other, but let's also value our being a mother and be the nicest mom we can to our kids. You know, in the days where it is crazy and hard, sit down on the ground and let the to-do list go and be the best mom you can be At Target when you see the mom struggling and she's dropping stuff or kids having a meltdown, whatever, walk up to her and be like hey, we're not strangers, like we're the same and I'm on your team. How can I help you right now?
Speaker 1:Can I break this down in a business? Yes, in a business kind of like perspective. So in 2024, there aren't every year, I shouldn't say just 2024, every year that happens it gets. There are less and less new invented products and businesses and more and more copy cats, and I won't even just say copy cats, more and more people who are trying to do what you're doing, but better maybe or take a spin on it.
Speaker 3:Okay, I can go faster, because they've gotten investors on their backs, exactly.
Speaker 1:Right. So in 2024, that's what business is it's you're not going to. I'm not saying that there's not going to be the squatty potty's and these revolutionary products out there. You know what you did 10 years ago that didn't exist on the market, right? So what are you going to do to be different than the person who has all the investors or the person who? What are you going to do? Different, because it's not going to necessarily be the fabric.
Speaker 3:Right, it's not. You know what I mean. It's not going to necessarily be the design.
Speaker 1:Those are cool things that are add on.
Speaker 4:I would say you even have to have that if you want to succeed. Right, they're table stakes. Now is that you've got to have a good product 100%. So, what's going to separate you?
Speaker 1:What you're, what you're doing, right there is like I am a real human being to to the customer. And so now, if I'm thinking of the five or six other big competitors in this Lulu and company space, I know Karen, so that's who I'm going to go with, and whether she's $5 more or $5 less, I don't actually care because I know her and I feel like I trust her and I feel like I value we have the same values 100%.
Speaker 1:I think that that is like anyone in 2024, like that is what you have to find. Like it's more work oh yeah, it's a significant amount of more work. But like what we tell, what we tell brands all the time, anytime. We're working with founders and we oftentimes work with small people who are like really small, and we do work with people who are really really big too, and I. It's the same story. It's like a founders. One of the one of the main roles the founder should be, in my opinion, is they should be the person who is communicating with the customer, not necessarily from you know, you know, help desk tickets. I'm not saying that right, but I'm saying from what you're saying, it's like hey guys, this is who I am, this is this is me. You know, I was just thinking about this the other day.
Speaker 4:I we're big chip and Joanna Gaines fans and I was trying to think what would that furniture and home decor be without Joanna? Right, it would be actually kind of hard for me to differentiate there. Karen could probably do in two seconds because she's into like interior design, but it would be hard for me to say this is what no way Another furniture is different than XYZ, but because Joanne is there. I'm like Joanne. This is good enough for Joanna. Therefore, it's good enough for me, right? And I think that that's yeah, and.
Speaker 3:Shay. Like watching Shay, love Shay and.
Speaker 3:I'm so happy for her success and so, seeing her behind it and her, why all of her videos behind her walking us through a house? And why did they pick this color, this tile that sets her apart from any other brand here in Utah or across the nation? You know she's making a huge name because now people trust Shay and they think she's amazing, you know. So I feel like that is a big, a big differentiator that we're trying to do even more. I feel like this year we're trying to invest in face to camera quite a bit more.
Speaker 3:I feel like we already did a lot, but I think I mean simple change that we did of just Karen's faves this last weekend. You know I highlight all of my faves at the end of the week of what's on the site, but this time I said why.
Speaker 2:And a personal note for Karen of why she chose these things, and I did a personal note on every single product of why I love it. And how much better did that do than we're gonna see on Saturday? Yeah, we didn't know yet. I was just gonna find out.
Speaker 3:I plan my content like a week and a half ahead.
Speaker 3:And so Saturday I got back in, I got greedy, I tried to figure it out how to connect and I'm like they need to know my stamp, you know. They need to know why I chose this, they need to know why I developed this. And so often I think you're in the business and you forget to come out and really talk to your audience and be like. This is why this is why I love it, and every time people are like oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 4:That's so fun and in my head I'm like you didn't know that, but it's just because I talk about all the time we thought the shirt would be the main product differentiator, because she was not even aware of it To myself or my team.
Speaker 3:I love that and then, our ad guys always like you need to start at the beginning, far more often Meaning go back to the basics. Why did you start your company? Why is your product good? Be okay to brag about it, but we get so used to the product that we're like hey, our audience has been here for years, it hasn't. It turns over, and we can look at stats. How many new faces are coming in weekly? It's thousands.
Speaker 4:The baby world. We turn over our audience often because they grow up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then you get new ones too, yeah, yeah, so going back to the basics, it is so much more work, and I think yours that was really insightful, because this is the constant thing we're debating with Karen especially is Karen is an operator, but she also has to be the face and so it's just doubles the workload Right. And so we're always saying like even our team recognizes like when Karen the more personality and and FaceTime Karen can put on this, the better. But we're like, yeah, but Karen also like needs to go to these other 10 meetings and make sure I think people are surprised by that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think people are like, why don't you just become an influencer and then market your brand? But I'm like but I run a company, like I actually do a lot of the supply chain, I do a lot of the product development. Finding that balance for me and rebalancing that a lot more in 2024 is I need to get some really good people on the team who can carry that, who are really good at operations and good at all that, so that I can balance it a little bit more and come back out of the weeds and not work in the business but work on the business.
Speaker 1:We're hiring Love that Well, awesome guys, send your applications to wwwhelpluluincompanycom.
Speaker 4:Hello, hello, hello at luluncompanycom, hello.
Speaker 1:Guys, thank you. So this has been awesome, like we could probably go on for another hour or so. This is our favorite subject.
Speaker 3:That's why we.
Speaker 4:It's all we talk about.
Speaker 3:I know. I hope it's helpful to someone because I love listening to your podcast, I think it's really good and I learn a lot every time I listen to it. I take notes and I usually share clips with Jeff or to other business owner friends. So I think what you're doing is a really great thing. Thank, you for doing it, and I feel very honored that we got selected to come on, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, we were talking about this before. I actually asked Jeff like months ago, and he turned me down and then just texted me the other day, I'm sorry Texted me the other day. I was sad about it, I thought it was a shoe and I was like, oh, I can't even believe I forgot to ask these guys. Because I'm like thinking of guests. I texted him like hey, and you know, like no thanks.
Speaker 3:I'm like I thought he was going to be a guy. I'll take the weight of that.
Speaker 1:It was just because I'm shy.
Speaker 3:Jeff would come on in a heartbeat. He loves this stuff. I just I don't know why I get so nervous and let it get ahead of me, because really we're just friends.
Speaker 4:She was such a big fan of the podcast, she made a rare exception and she said let's go.
Speaker 2:I think she did great. She did great.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think she did. I wish that's the hard part about podcasts. It's like it's hard to get the feedback on this. It's not alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't get the feedback to be like oh, she was awesome. You only get that if, like my social clip will do really well, that's like the only time you can get like the real, real good feedback. But okay, where can people find Lulu and Co Company?
Speaker 4:Instagram at Lulu and Co L-O-U-L-O-U and Co. And then our website Instagram's, where we're most active.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, we're a little bit on TikTok. We have Facebook going Sometimes it's your website.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Check out the lives. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it being here and thank you everybody for listening and we will see you next Tuesday. Yeah, maybe, maybe we will. We will Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe to the podcast, whether it's good or bad, we want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.