The Story of a Brand Show

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

Hammitt is on a mission to become the most outstanding new luxury handbag brand coming from the United States, says Tony Drockton, the company's Founder and "Chief Cheerleader."

"Our simple philosophy is that we build the most beautiful, luxurious product that also incorporates the highest level of functionality so that we're the go-to handbag or accessory that our fans will carry when they travel when they go out for some coffee with friends, when they go to the office or for the evening to have a little fun," Tony says.

The brand is 15 years old and is now carried in more than 950 retail stores around the country, along with two of its locations in Southern California. (A third is about to open.)

Tony says he moved to SoCal from Ohio with the goal of incorporating his love of art, architecture, and entrepreneurship.

"The fashion industry just fit," he says.

In Manhattan Beach, he was introduced to a fashion designer looking for an investor.

"I fell in love with her designs, spoke to some people in the community that also loved them," he says. "I thought, let's just do this thing."

Tony says fear and failure are vital parts of an entrepreneur's life - it's just how you deal with them.

"If you choose the life of an entrepreneur - everyone needs to understand - you choose to fail," he says. "Nobody really can call themselves an entrepreneur if it's successful the first time they do something. That's just luck."

The key is turning the fear of failure into positive energy.

"The purpose of fear - going back to the earliest times - was fight or flight. It was to make you aware of a danger of a predator," he says. "As an entrepreneur, the danger of the predator can come in many ways, and the fear to me, that's the battery. That's the charge that keeps us all moving."

For Hammitt, Tony says the factor that has set the brand apart is the focus on the brand experience.

"We want everyone to walk away from meeting Hammitt, touching a Hammitt bag, encountering a Hammitt fan - just really understanding what we're all about and what we're all about is we're this little brand out of Hermosa Beach, California."

In Part 1, Tony talks about:

* Gratitude for a Father's Day gift from his young son years ago that he still displays today. * The company focuses on building the brand one relationship at a time. * His background in art, architecture, and entrepreneurship. * How to stare down fear and failure. * The focus on the brand experience. * Why making a high-quality product is better for the environment.

Join Ramon Vela and Tony Drockton as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Hammitt, visit: https://www.hammitt.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.

If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?

They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.

Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.

Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.

Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.

Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story 

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

At Seattle Chocolate, the mission is the elevate the dialog around chocolate, says Jean Thompson, Owner, and CEO. Part of that mission is also helping the community.

To that end, the company gives its product to food banks. Chocolate, Jeans reminds us, is a plant-based food that's high in antioxidants.

"If we could use the power of our category to empower our consumers, to help their neighbors in their time of need, it felt really good, and it has felt so good for the past ten years to do that to the point where we've now added a built-in mission for chocolate," Jean says.

Seattle Chocolate likes to think of its products as "thank-you bars." With gift-giving in mind, the brand spends a lot on design to help set it apart from the competition.

Other considerations at Seattle Chocolate are ensuring the ingredients are clean and non-GMO. They're often vegan and locally sourced as much as possible.

Jean says that the company's Jcoco brand is more of an "origin" chocolate.

Inspiration for the various flavors comes from everyone and anyone at the company and often is inspired by travel and destinations. Flavors also change for the seasons and holidays.

In Part 2, Jean talks about:

* A rundown of the brand's products. * The difference between truffles and chocolate bars. * The company's charitable efforts. * Why chocolate is a healthy food in some ways. * The emphasis on package design. * Why the company partners with Girls Inc. * A look at the ingredients. * Where to find the products.

Join Ramon Vela and Jean Thompson as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Seattle Chocolate, visit: https://www.seattlechocolate.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

Rising acquisition costs and the return to in-store shopping have eCommerce marketers double-clicking on their retention strategy.

Now more than ever, brands need to focus on lifetime value. Yotpo is proud to announce Yotpo Subscriptions on Shopify, making retention easy and affordable for growing brands.

Take 8 minutes, or less, to add a recurring revenue channel to your business.

Download Yotpo Subscriptions from the Shopify App Store today https://apps.shopify.com/yotpo-subscription 

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

It took an earthquake to turn Jean Thompson, an investor at Seattle Chocolate, into the company's owner.

In 2001, an earthquake hit the Seattle area, leveling the building that Seattle Chocolate was renting. The building was condemned, so suddenly, the company needed significant investment to buy and prep another building to make its confections. Thompson went from investor and owner. Shortly afterward, the company's CEO resigned, and the company was entirely in her hands.

"I luckily was so naive as to how difficult it would be and how steep the learning curve would be that I just thought, 'It's a great product, and I love chocolate,' and I'd gotten a little bit of a taste for it, so I decided to try running it myself," she says. "And that was 20 years ago."

The key to surviving any challenge is figuring out your brand's trajectory and having patience with yourself, Jean says.

"I forget the silly ballplayer or coach who said, 'We didn't lose - we just needed more innings,'" she says. "I thought about that many times because it’s the long runway that allows you to work through all the difficulties."

Surviving a competitive environment can seem like a massive jigsaw puzzle year after year.

"If you give yourself enough time, ultimately, somehow, miraculously, it seems to work," she says. "Or at least that was the case as I look back on my 20 years."

In Part 1, Jean talks about:

* Gratitude for the support and hard work from the people who work at Seattle Chocolate. * An overview of the two brands - Seattle Chocolate and Jcoco. * How an earthquake changed her role in the company. * The challenges of running the company without a marketing background or business degree. * The case for patience and perseverance.

Join Ramon Vela and Jean Thompson as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Seattle Chocolate, visit: https://www.seattlechocolate.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

Rising acquisition costs and the return to in-store shopping have eCommerce marketers double-clicking on their retention strategy.

Now more than ever, brands need to focus on lifetime value. Yotpo is proud to announce Yotpo Subscriptions on Shopify, making retention easy and affordable for growing brands.

Take 8 minutes, or less, to add a recurring revenue channel to your business.

Download Yotpo Subscriptions from the Shopify App Store today https://apps.shopify.com/yotpo-subscription 

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

Brands just getting started with influencer campaigns don't necessarily need to budget a ton of funds toward the cause, says Yash Chavan, Founder of Saral, a tool designed to help emerging DTC brands build profitable influencer marketing campaigns.

Yash offers a six-step strategy for getting started, beginning with coming up with three to five core hashtags. Start by searching for related hashtags on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Then using those hashtags, find influencers with a following of between 3000 and 20,000. From those, scale your list down to 100 influencers. Email the prospects - don't DM them because those messages get buried, Yash says.

Make your pitch a personal one - don't copy and paste a message, he says. Be specific in your request. Pitch your product. Offer an affiliate deal. Send them the product. And then track the results.

"Everything's done for free: Email is free. Prospecting is free. Talking to them is free. Zoom is free," Yash says. "The barrier for entry is literally in your head. So get out of your head and start executing."

When Yash began building Saral, he talked with dozens of e-commerce founders along with influencer marketers, and everyone said they wanted the same thing - a platform. While Yash says all brands can use the Saral platform, emerging brands are the focus for now.

"We want to build for those and grow with those," says Yash, who's had a passion for early brands.

"One of my first jobs was at an early-stage startup. I was, I think, the fifth or the sixth employee there," he says. "A brand is more human. You relate to the founder, you relate to the team, to the message of the brand. So I think it's an exciting market for me personally."

Yash has words of wisdom for entrepreneurs like himself and those building a brand.

"Stop waiting for help or funding ... God helps those who help themselves," he says. "If you're an e-commerce company, you first need to go to your customers. See if there's a need for it. See if you can validate the same outcome without building a tool or without building a brand out of it. But then just start with the small steps, and you'll eventually compound that into something much bigger."

In Part 2, Yash talks about:

* Six steps to starting a social influencer program. * What parts of a social influencer program can be done for free. * Why building relationships with influencers will yield oversized results. * What the onboarding process is like. * Advice to fellow entrepreneurs.

Join Ramon Vela and Yash Chavan as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Saral, visit: https://www.getsaral.com/ 

If you want to get more best practices around influencer marketing, Yash is offering a “Free ebook” for listeners: https://offers.getsaral.com 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.

If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?

They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.

Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.

Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.

Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.

Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story 

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

Saral is an influencer marketing tool that can find any influencer's email as long as they're on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, says Yash Chavan, Founder of Saral. It's designed to help emerging DTC brands build profitable influencer marketing campaigns while avoiding losing money on traditional social media campaigns.

Before founding Saral, Yash worked as a growth consultant guiding product-oriented brands. As part of that work, he also found success in helping execute influencer marketing programs.

"I'm a marketer at heart, so I want to help other marketers and founders who want to do marketing and make influencer marketing easier for them," he says.

Truth be told, Yash says he's not comfortable with the term "influencer."

"If I become dictator, I'll just remove the word influencer from everybody's dictionaries because I hate the word influencer," he says. "It has a connotation of the kind of person who is just famous on Instagram for posting hollow content or something like that."

Yash prefers the terms "creator" and "ambassador" because it better describes the action of creating content focused on a brand.

He says that keeping track of creators is a tough chore, and existing tools in the market are expensive. Plus, the current tools privatized transactions over relationships.

"Saral is right now the only tool on the market that puts the relationship front and center as opposed to the transaction of it," Yash says. "I like to call it relationship-focused influencer marketing, where you look at the creator as a person first and not just like a one-time salesperson."

Yash insists that small brands can do influencer marketing similar to more prominent brands. It's an essential tool because traditional practices - like Facebook ads - no longer have the same impact.

"(If) Facebook was working as well as it was in 2016, 2017, then we won't be having this conversation," he says. "But I think because these bad ads and cheap clicks are now no longer cheap, people have to look at these other, more organic, more human forms of marketing. And that is why influencer marketing is shining."

In Part 1, Yash talks about:

* Gratitude to the Internet for providing him access and opportunities from his home in Mumbai, India. * An overview of the Saral influencer marketing tool. * His background as a growth consultant. * The difference between an influencer and an ambassador. * Why the need for a tool like Saral. * The downfall of Facebook ads.

Join Ramon Vela and Yash Chavan as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Saral, visit: https://www.getsaral.com/ 

If you want to get more best practices around influencer marketing, Yash is offering a “Free ebook” for listeners: https://offers.getsaral.com 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.

If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?

They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.

Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.

Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.

Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.

Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story 

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

Know one knows better than yourself what your brand or business is about, says Jose Alvarez, Co-founder of Abbott NYC, a company that makes clean fragrances inspired by beautiful destinations.

"I think the most powerful brands are authentic," Jose says. "In today's world, a lot of that authenticity comes from the founders and their beliefs and values."

Jose recalls the highs and lows of the brand's launch, calling it an "emotional rollercoaster." Meditation proved to be the key to coping with the pressure.

"I meditate in the mornings every day," he says. "I have a journal where I journal different thoughts, different ideas. I think having a co-founder or even a person you trust is advantageous. They can bounce ideas off. I found that that's helpful."

Forward momentum - "action" - is one of the most important things not only in business but in life in general, Jose says.

"It's quite easy to just stay in your head and get down on things," he says. "But nothing gets done in the world, your life, or your business if you don't take action."

Abbott NYC began with four fragrances: Mojave, Telluride, Sequoia, and The Cape. Jose says he likes to focus on a memory for a specific location when coming up with the scents. It can take three to six months to develop a new fragrance.

In Part 2, Jose talks about:

* Advice for fellow entrepreneurs starting a brand. * The importance of staying even-keeled. * How meditation helped with the stress of the startup. * The importance of having a trusted friend or co-founder to bounce ideas off of. * A look at the brand's products. * The process of creating a scent.

Join Ramon Vela and Jose Alvarez as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Abbott NYC, visit: https://abbottnyc.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.

If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?

They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.

Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.

Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.

Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.

Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story 

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

Jose Alvarez, Co-founder of Abbott NYC, started the brand because he believes nature is healing. The company makes clean fragrances inspired by beautiful destinations.

"Urban life is very stressful, and nature provides an escape for us to reconnect with ourselves," Jose says. "I also believe in the power of fragrances to transport you to a particular place, a memory, and I think we've all experienced that. When you do experience it, it's something very visceral, something very emotional. So I wanted to start a line of fragrances that transports you to the natural world."

Jose grew up in Nicaragua, surrounded by what he calls "very virgin nature." He fell in love with beaches and surfing in his home country. When he moved to New York City, he found that he came to miss nature, so he began traveling across the country and fell in love with the natural destinations around the U.S.

"All these destinations that I fell in love with ended up being the inspiration behind each one of our fragrances," he says. "I also wanted to ensure that we were protecting it - leaving Mother Earth in a better place than without it. So the first thing we did was ensure that all of our ingredients are sustainable."

For example, for the brand's sandalwood scent, a green synthetic ingredient is used instead of actual sandalwood, a tree that takes a long time to grow. Likewise, recyclable parts of grapefruit are used for the brand's Montecito scent. Even the products' glass containers and boxes are recyclable.

Another Abbott commitment is to avoid any ingredient that could adversely affect consumers.

"This means no parabens, no phthalates, no hormone disruptors, no carcinogens," he says. "If you look at most perfume ingredient lists, they'll just put all the perfume in alcohol. We list our full list of ingredients. We believe consumers should know what they're putting on their skins."

The idea for the fragrance line began with his travels. Jose and his co-founder Michael Pass used trips to escape their high-pressure careers. A shared passion for fragrances led them to connect the dots.

In Part 1, Jose talks about:

* Gratitude to his first boss out of college, which gave him a shot working on Wall Street even though he lacked the traditional Ivy League credentials. * Our emotional connection to nature. * His childhood in Nicaragua and how moving to New York changed his perspective. * How he fell in love with natural destinations around the United States. * The need to make products with sustainable ingredients. * The brand's work with charities. * The need to make scents unisex. * How he and his co-founder turned travel into a brand. * How their career success to date helped them gain an advantage with potential investors. * How he re-engaged the creative side of his energy.

Join Ramon Vela and Jose Alvarez as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Abbott NYC, visit: https://abbottnyc.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.

If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?

They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.

Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.

Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.

Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.

Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story 

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

The Rosy Wellness app is a "safe space" that can create a personalized journey for each woman on her sexual health path, says Dr. Lyndsey Harper, the brand's Founder and CEO.

"We have a library of personalized and curated content waiting for you," Lyndsey says. "If you are suffering from infertility, if you're pregnant, if you're a postpartum menopausal in the middle of life like I am, you're taking care of your kids, your professional life, and your long-term relationships. We create a personalized sexual health journey for each of our users, and sexual health, the way we define it, is not a problem to be solved. We bring all those resources together in one safe space, one convenient platform so that women can access whatever resource they need during their specific life, moment or journey."

The most frequent users of Rosy are women in the late 30s or early 40s when sex has fallen to the wayside, Lyndsey says.

"They might come to their physician describing low sexual desire, which is the No. 1 complaint of women when it comes to sexual health - 38 percent of women say that they have low sexual desire," she says. "We have resources from sex therapists that have created a bunch of resources for us to help women reprioritize sex and desire."

Putting these resources on a smartphone app is a significant component of Rosy's mission - to meet women where they are. The app is free to download. Users are welcomed and then are invited to take a 27-question quiz to help build their journey inside the platform. Access to experts, doctors, and therapists is available, as well as a library of erotica - an evidence-based tool for sexual dysfunction, Lyndsey says. Individual coaching also is available.

Lyndsey offers some words of wisdom to would-be entrepreneurs considering a new venture: Have the big picture in mind. Write it down. Repeat it. Also, don't let the big work ahead intimidate you on a daily basis.

"Just move on past it and keep going," she says.

In Part 2, Lyndsey talks about:

* The ideal consumer for the Rosy app. * The resources available via the app. * The No. 1 issue users say they face. * How the app works. * What the user experience is like. * Advice to fellow entrepreneurs.

Join Ramon Vela and Dr. Lyndsey Harper as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Rosy Wellness, visit: https://meetrosy.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

Rising acquisition costs and the return to in-store shopping have eCommerce marketers double-clicking on their retention strategy.

Now more than ever, brands need to focus on lifetime value. Yotpo is proud to announce Yotpo Subscriptions on Shopify, making retention easy and affordable for growing brands.

Take 8 minutes, or less, to add a recurring revenue channel to your business.

Download Yotpo Subscriptions from the Shopify App Store today https://apps.shopify.com/yotpo-subscription 

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

Getting women's health out from under the radar - that's one of the missions of Rosy Wellness, an app offering women a holistic approach to sexual health and wellness, says Dr. Lyndsey Harper, the brand's Founder and CEO.

"The fact of the matter is, for the most part, medicine has been led by men in the past," Lyndsey says. "Women as physicians and health care consumers are standing up and saying, ‘ this whole experience was not designed for me. I have vast medical health needs that are not being met.' And how do we start to look at those when it comes to women's sexual health specifically?"

Lyndsey's path to Rosy began after college during her medical residency when she learned what OB-GYNs did and continued into private practice, where she and her patients developed strong bonds that evolved into conversations about sexual health.

"I wasn't even asking my patients about their sexual health because I didn't have any resources," she says. "Even if they had said, yes, I have a sexual health problem, I didn't know what to do with that. That wasn't part of my training."

The worst part is the unnecessary shame and isolation the patients were feeling, Lyndsey says. About 43 percent of women have a sexual problem, but nobody was talking about it.

The answer, Lyndsey felt, was to create a platform that could educate women and get them in contact with the necessary resources - as soon as possible.

"It's been so exciting to watch that all unfold, but I'm still as mad today as I was when I started, so there's still a lot of work to be done," she says.

The topic continues to have a taboo feel to it, she says.

"One thing that I think that we've been able to do successfully - and I hope to do really at scale for the world - is to position women's sexual health as not seedy as not some dark part of the Internet where you're going to be erasing your Google search," she says. Women's sexual health should be part of women's health - just as it is for men.

"We can talk about it as physicians, we can get it covered by insurers, we can advertise effectively on all the platforms that we need to advertise on, and we can get physicians trained," she says. "I think it takes a lot of that shame and lack of certainty away from the conversation and can position it in a more weighty, meaningful, and legitimate light."

In Part 1, Lyndsey talks about:

* Gratitude to her former partners at a medical practice who gave her encouragement and support when she left to form her brand. * Why medical research has traditionally revolved around male participants. * Women's growing role in addressing modern health problems. * Her path to women's sexual health as a space. * The need to get help, information, and resources to women ASAP. * The struggle to remove stigmas from the women's sexual health space.

Join Ramon Vela and Dr. Lyndsey Harper as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on Rosy Wellness, visit: https://meetrosy.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is brought to you by Yotpo.

Rising acquisition costs and the return to in-store shopping have eCommerce marketers double-clicking on their retention strategy.

Now more than ever, brands need to focus on lifetime value. Yotpo is proud to announce Yotpo Subscriptions on Shopify, making retention easy and affordable for growing brands.

Take 8 minutes, or less, to add a recurring revenue channel to your business.

Download Yotpo Subscriptions from the Shopify App Store today https://apps.shopify.com/yotpo-subscription

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

It's a mix of ingredients - and omission of others - that go into the products from BelliWelli, including cutting down on short-chain carbs that are poorly digested, says Katie Wilson, Co-founder of BelliWelli, a brand that makes snack bars for those who suffer from digestive issues.

Katie says that making the products compatible with the Low FODMAP diet and plant-based and gluten-free are the top three goals.

"I knew that if we could achieve all three, I could look you in the eye and tell you you will have this bar, and you will not suffer gut consequences later," she says.

Katie says the products aren't gimmicky - there is no hero ingredient. There's a base dough into which new flavors, fruits, and chips are added. She adds that some ingredients - like caramel - aren't on the Low FODMAP diet, so that's not a flavor the brand can offer.

To that end, the brand has both taste testers and gut testers.

"If 20 people can't stomach it right with sensitive guts, we can't launch that product because that's part of the promise," she says.

The brand's core flavors as of today are lemonade, chocolate, cinnamon swirl, fudge, brownie, birthday cake, and a blueberry muffin. Some additional flavors are exclusive items; once they sell out, they don't always come back.

In Part 2, Katie talks about:

* The composition of the brand's products. * Why some flavors, such as caramel, aren't options for BelliWelli. * The lack of a big "hero ingredient." * The need for gut testers. * The core set of flavors. * A tour of the website. * Where you can find the brand's products.

Join Ramon Vela and Katie Wilson as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.

For more on BelliWelli, visit: https://belliwelli.com/ 

Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.

*

This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.

If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?

They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.

Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.

Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.

Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.

Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story