The Story of a Brand Show

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

BelliWelli makes snack bars and treats that are safe for those with stomach or digestion issues, says Katie Wilson, Co-founder of BelliWelli.

Stomach issues are more common than most people think, Katie says.

"My favorite thing to say to anyone is go ask five people in your life willing to be kind of honest with you if they suffer from daily gut issues or gut issues, period, and you will be shocked," she says. "It's going to be at least four out of five. I can promise you that."

Katie's career didn't begin in the food marketplace or anything related to digestive health. Instead, she developed gut issues during her career path working for matchmaking companies. Traditional treatments didn't help, so she turned to help in Facebook groups and found tens of thousands of people just like her. Eventually, her husband came to the rescue and hired a food scientist and dietician who were charged with developing the perfect IBS-friendly chocolate chip cookie. A brand was born.

"It seems like we found the right product at the right time and the right community," Katie says.

Katie says many of the critical decisions have come from the gut-challenged community, including the name of the business, the brand's tagline, and every flavor that BelliWelli has launched to date.

"I tend to think of our customers like friends. I never find myself using the word customer," she says. "I think of them in terms of how would I treat my best friend?. Every customer deserves to be treated that way."

In Part 1, Katie talks about:

* Gratitude to three executives at Nordstrom, including the CEO, who took 30 minutes to go over an idea that Katie pitched them when she was working there as a teenager. * A 100-foot overview of the BelliWelli brand. * Her career background. * How her gut issues began and her reaction to traditional treatments. * The development of the brand's first cookie. * How the community plays an essential role in many brands’ decisions.

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 

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.

Upcycling is a crucial business practice at TBJ Gourmet, a specialty food brand that makes spreadable bacon jam its claim to fame.

"I would say the majority of food companies that are doing upcycling started doing it because they were on a mission to help combat climate change or save the planet," Michael Oraschewsky says. "For me and TBG, it started as a way to reduce costs."

Pork belly is cut into pretty, uniform shapes when used as bacon for consumers. That leaves out the odd piece here and there - just as tasty when it's cooked but not as appealing in looks as traditional bacon. Those pieces get used for bacon jam,

"I would argue that that pork is probably the first upcycled animal to be domesticated to eat things that we didn't want to eat and turn it into delicious, delicious meat," Michael says.

For TBJ Gourmet, it's just an economic mindset but an environmentalist mindset that makes upcycling an essential part of the brand's strategy.

"For me, it was always more than just the climate battle because I was raised not to waste food," Michael says. "My grandparents on my dad's side were raised in Europe during the wars in the 20th century. They were often times with very little or no food. My grandfather always told us this story about how his most memorable birthday gift was a farmer who gave him an egg that he was working for. He gave him an egg, and he shared it with his mom and his sisters. And his mom made a meringue out of the white and then got the yolk, and they enjoyed the meringue from this one egg. So we weren't allowed to waste food."

Michael says TBJ's finances got through the COVID pandemic just fine. Though restaurants were closed, the brand's CPG side performed exceptionally well. He expects sales to climb more as in-person family celebrations resume during the coming holidays.

For now, TBJ Gourmet's product line is anchored by three bacon jams: classic, sweet chili, and black peppercorn. A reserve line includes additional flavors, including maple bacon jam, honey habanero bacon jam, and balsamic fig bacon jam. A tomato jam provides a non-meat option. Future variations are coming soon.

In Part 2, Michael talks about:

* Why the company turned to upcycling. * The story behind his mission not to waste food. * How the COVID pandemic affected the company. * The importance of community and social media. * A rundown of the brand's products.

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

For more on TBJ Gourmet, visit: https://tbjgourmet.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.

If everything tastes better with bacon, then things must really hit another level with bacon jam. That's the mission of TBJ Gourmet, a specialty food brand that makes spreadable bacon jam its claim to fame.

Michael Oraschewsky, the brand's CEO (he calls himself the chief executive boor), says bacon jam is made of bacon, caramelized onions, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar. It's sweet and savory, so it has many applications, from burgers and sandwiches to crackers and charcuterie boards.

"People are already putting bacon on burgers - that's familiar - and they're already putting condiments that have a sweet and acidic nature, like ketchup on burgers," Michael says. "That this flavor profile is combined into one awesome condiment or spread already made sense to people, but now it's crazy. We see people putting it on pan-seared scallops instead of wrapping them in bacon or putting it on deviled eggs and exploring the space."

It turns out the bacon jam came almost by accident. A while back, Michael owned a restaurant that had a catering job canceled at the last minute. The bacon for the event was already cooked, so his future business partner suggested turning it into jam - a product he made for tailgate parties. Customers loved it from the start and wanted it in jars. A brand was born.

"Relatively soon after that, we were selling more bacon jam than I was selling anything else at the restaurant," he says. "So that's the genesis of the company."

The brand's founders started with pre-sales on Kickstarter and quickly sold 13,000 units before anyone had sampled the product. They took the bacon jam on the road to bacon festivals around the country and found similar hot demand. The feedback at a Hughe Christmas market in Philadelphia confirmed they were onto something big.

"It was there that we realized it was beyond just the bacon love of it - there was a foodie component," Michael says. "People weren't just saying, I'm buying this for my uncle because he loves bacon. They were saying, " Oh, my son's a chef, he's going to love this."

From there, things moved fast, Michael says. The company found an angel investor and then searched for a USDA facility for production. The brand was featured on QVC. It was selling 8,000 units a minute and quickly sold out. The product is available in about 6,500 stories across the U.S. and Canada.

In Part 1, Michael talks about:

* Gratitude to his wife for taking on the responsibility of home-schooling children during the COVID lockdown. * Why the bacon jam works as a condiment - because it combines sweet and savory elements that are already familiar. * How the idea for bacon jam came about. * The initial and unexpectedly high demand for the product.

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

For more on TBJ Gourmet, visit: https://tbjgourmet.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.

One of the mantras of Robin Wilson, chairman and founder of A Blue Egg Corporation, is asking people when they last washed their pillows.

With Blue Egg's brands in the clean home product space, it's a question that's important to get across to customers, she says.

"They're so embarrassed - the average answer was six years," Robin says. "That's drool dander. If you put oils on your hair and have a pet sleeping in your bed, anything you can imagine is on that dirty pillow that now weighs more than when you bought it."

In 2015, she published a book on home health called "Clean Design: Wellness for Your Lifestyle." Another book is in the works.

Robin's company also has a social justice campaign called Project Lilac that supplies bed sheets to safe houses or shelters for victims of domestic violence.

"That's just a simple gesture that can put someone on the road to believing in themselves again," she says.

The company's mission is to be an affordable luxury brand for the allergen-aware consumer.

"You don't have to have allergies to get our product," she says. "It's something you can get, though, if you want to prevent and protect yourself because it's woven at a 0.5 micron. So bedbugs and dust mites can't penetrate through the fabric, so it's almost like a tech play on sheets and sheeting."

When sharing wisdom, Robin first cautions about how life advice is dispensed.

"I want to remind people that anyone who gives you advice, often it's from their perspective," she says. "You should take a piece from this and a piece from that and make it your piece. Make it your vision."

What Robin hopes will happen soon is that we'll emerge from the pandemic and get back to the basics of coming together as a community, especially when it comes to socializing with friends and mentors.

"Have people in your life who are connectors," she says. "Those people get great joy from telling and talking to all their friends and saying, do you know about? Did you know about? And make sure there are a few people like that in your world because they will tell everybody what you're doing and why it's so great."

In Part 2, Robin talks about:

* The importance of pillow health. * The words of wisdom in her book. * Her brand's social justice campaign - Project Lilac. * Where you can find Clean Design Home products. * Why sleep is so vital to your health. * The perils of taking just one person's advice. * The importance of socializing with connectors.

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

For more on A Blue Egg Corporation, visit: https://ablueegg.com/ 

For her book, “Clean Design: Wellness for Your Lifestyle,” visit Amazon.

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.

The COVID pandemic caused a lot of people to feel trapped at home, putting a lot more focus on the needs inside a house. That's where A Blue Egg Corporation comes in, says Robin Wilson, chairman and founder of the holding company for real estate, design, and licensing.

Robin's childhood was spent fighting off a slew of allergies, a challenging situation that she'd later use to her advantage in her career. After starting in the corporate world, she shifted to real estate development and project management.

Robin says she's found resilience and empathy through a network of friends who offer constant reassuring words.

"Don't look at other people - run your race," she says. "Set a goal for yourself. Whatever that goal may be, it may be that you don't want to have any debt in one year. It may be that you want to have enough money to go on a vacation or have a certain amount of money in your bank account if that is your goal. Work toward your goal."

In Part 1, Robin talks about:

* Gratitude to his friends and family who invested in his company and trusted him to use the money wisely. * How her childhood allergies affected her career path. * Why she pivoted into real estate. * Why "resilience" and "empathy" are keywords to her.

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

For her book, “Clean Design: Wellness for Your Lifestyle,” visit Amazon.

For more on A Blue Egg Corporation, visit: https://ablueegg.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.

Alex McIntosh, co-founder and CEO of Thrive Natural Care, has three big pieces of advice for fellow entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams.

The first is to know yourself and what makes you tick.

"It's beneficial as an entrepreneur and a leader if you have a good idea of what is important to you," Alex says. "I think at the end of the day, if you're going to take the risk of building a company, it needs to be something in a space that you care about beyond just an intellectual thing or even a financial opportunity because it is so hard."

His second suggestion is to find and invest in good people.

"I think one of the things I've learned is as good as my ideas might be or as hard as I'm willing to work or as lucky as I might be on something, my success in large part is determined by how passionate the people are around me and how much they believe that what they're doing is meaningful for their purposes and to their ends," he says.

Lastly, Alex says don't do anything without a vision that can inspire others.

"I think doing something on a scale that matters is very compelling to people for meaning in their lives," he says. "If you can give them something to plug into, it does make a difference."

The common thread through Thrive's products is the super plant ingredients. Alex worked with ecologists, botanists, and skincare experts for several years to choose from thousands of plants in Costa Rica. Ultimately, Alex wanted the ingredients to have an oil or extract that was good for skin but also comes from a plant not widely known to avoid clutter in the competitive skincare business. But just as important, the plant needed to be native and play a critical role in the health of the place where it's grown.

"Our model was to go places that were eroded and degraded or smallholder farmers had land and to replant these native plants and then to grow them in an extraordinary way that we would now call regenerative farming," he says. "This makes them much more potent and pure."

Despite all the hard work and thought toward regenerative farming, the product's price point is reasonable - between $12 and $30.

Ultimately, the goals of Thrive are to provide super plant skin care for better skin health and to grow those product ingredients in a way that consumers will be proud to support.

In Part 2, Alex talks about:

* Words of wisdom and advice for fellow entrepreneurs. * A look at the brand's products. * How the products were developed and the mission behind the development. * Why shaving oil gives you a better shave than foam. * The danger of chemical sunscreens. * Where consumers can buy Thrive's products.

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

For more on Thrive Natural Care, visit: https://thrivecare.co/ 

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.

Super plants that are good for your skin and the environment - are the key ingredients to the skincare products of Thrive Natural Care, says Alex McIntosh, co-founder and CEO.

"It's not only the plant ingredients themselves, and not only the special way we grow them, but those things combined help people look better and have a beautiful business model because all the places we're working, the land is coming back to life intentionally and the farmers' lives are being boosted both the livelihoods and the health of the farmers," Alex says. "I'm not arrogant enough to say it's my business model or even Thrive's business model, but it's this idea that we can design products intentionally that have this impact, and it applies to many, many other sectors, whether it's mining or agriculture or fisheries or timber."

Alex says the spark for Thrive came from two inspirations. First, he had long suffered from sensitive skin and wasn't satisfied with available skincare products. Second, his career with a large CPG company, where his role as a sustainability director led him to believe businesses needed to aim higher in protecting the environment.

"I'm not the one who invented regenerative business or regenerative agriculture, but we were the first to intentionally build an entire business, at least in our segment in beauty and personal care, which is a huge global industry, the first ones that intentionally started this way," Alex says.

Being on the front lines of pulling together investors with Thrive's mission has been "fun," Alex says.

"There were times where I didn't throw in the towel, but I was looking to see where it was in case I needed to throw in the towel and kind of grab it and say, that's it," he says. "But fortunately, because of a lot of hard work and sacrifice by the folks on my team and others, it has come together, and it all makes sense now, which is the cool part about it."

In Part 1, Alex talks about:

* Gratitude to two team members and a Costa Rican farmer who formed a bond that became the seed of his whole business. * Why the production of the plants is as important as the ingredients they contain. * His inspiration for Thrive. * The larger-than-imagined challenge to pull together the brand's vision.

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

For more on Thrive Natural Care, visit: https://thrivecare.co/ 

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.

Baby nightlights sold online often project blue light, but that's not the right hue to keep someone asleep, says Sofia Axelrod, Founder and Chief Science Officer of Solaria Systems, which makes the Kulala Land brand of baby lights.

"We know from science that blue light activates our inner clock and tells us that it's daytime and suppresses sleep," Sofia says. Instead, based on her experience in labs, Sofia knew that red light helps keep subjects from waking up.

"So I bought a bunch of red light bulbs ... I noticed it made me sleep here at night, and then when my baby was born, it helped her learn what is daytime and nighttime because her body learned it," she says.

Today's electronic devices - particularly our phones - all emit light. Light tells your body it's not time to be tired. It promotes the release of hormones that trigger wakefulness. The solution isn't to turn off all the lights, Sofia says, instead just turn on the right lights.

"It's just a light - it's so simple," Sofia says. "That's why I got so obsessed with this idea because it's relatively easy to implement."

It's also important to know that there's no one answer for how much sleep a person needs. Though the average is eight hours, the answer comes on a bell curve, Sofia says. Your genetics and age primarily determine it. She says that once you figure out your daily sleep need, don't change it.

Using the Kulala lamp the right way is essential, Sofia says. That's where the app comes in.

"The app is basically like the wing woman to the Kulala lamp," she says. "It will tell you how to use the lamp most efficiently. It will tell to give you all the right schedules for your baby. And it will say, okay, now you turn on the lamp. Now it's time for the bedtime routine. And that's when it can be efficient and efficacious to help your baby fall asleep."

Future plans for the company include lamps for the whole family and businesses. The lamp would help improve your mood and production.

"I see a lot of potential to improve people's lives in an easy, effective, and safe way," she says. "I am focused on building something that just works out of the box and will improve your life."

In Part 2, Sofia talks about:

* The difference between blue and red lights at night. * How she initially experimented with red lights at home. * How light affects your body. * How to figure out your sleep need. * How the Kulala lamp works. * Future product plans.

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

For more on Kulala Land, visit: https://kulalaland.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.

"If the baby doesn't sleep, nobody sleeps." That's the challenge that faced Kulala, a brand that creates sleep solutions for the baby and the whole family.

Sofia Axelrod, Founder and Chief Science Officer of Solaria Systems (parent company of Kulala), had insomnia for much of her early life. Her struggles led her to study behavioral science, where she researched the fundamentals of sleep.

How Babies Sleep: The Gentle, Science-Based Method to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night

"I wrote a book about it, and the book has been a big success in many countries," Sofia says. "I thought, what else can I do? ... I started a company developing lighting and other technologies to help us sleep better."

The brand aimed at helping babies sleep is Kulala - a word meaning "sleep" in Swahili. Ultimately the company - Solaris Systems - will create other products to help adults sleep better.

"It's hard to quantify how much sleep you should be getting," Sofia says. "There's a lot of messaging around that that seems contradictory. The good news is that we have many answers from a scientific perspective. And that's why I started a company."

According to Sofia, about 60 percent of Americans report they don't sleep well some of the time and over a longer time, sleep deprivation can make you sick by increasing your risk for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and more.

Sleeping pills - a traditional and easy-to-obtain approach - will cause people to get tired and fall asleep, but she says they don't leave you well-rested.

"Ultimately, that's where I have specific thoughts and a specific method and priorities of what's important and what's not important," she says.

In Part 1, Sofia talks about:

* Gratitude to New York City for providing the right environment for her to thrive in her career, * Her early struggles with insomnia influenced her career path. * How sleep deprivation affects a person. * Why sleeping pills aren't the cure. * The differing schools of thought about baby sleep. * The importance of recognizing your total daily sleep needs.

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

For more on Kulala Land, visit: https://kulalaland.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.

The journey of an entrepreneur should be personal and unique to the person with the vision, says Fiona Chan, founder of Youthforia, a brand that creates makeup products that are so good for your skin that you can sleep in it.

"When I look back to even the last 15 years of my life, I've never actually followed the path that I thought I was supposed to follow," Fiona says. "And that's always done well for me. So I always tell people to remember that their experiences are unique, and that's a strength, and no one can ever take that away from you."

One of Fiona and Youthforia's early challenges was the lack of a marketing plan.

"I think in the early days, the challenge is always brand awareness," she says. "It's very interesting spending a whole year in silence, just working on the brand. You launch it, and you're like, wow, nobody knows about it."

Organic social media turned out to be the brand's early plan - along with finding out how to create ads and content on Facebook and TikTok.

"I was definitely not a content creator," she says. "I was not ready for any of it. But now it's a bigger part of my day, something that I just do regularly and enjoy."

Customer feedback has been quite positive - particularly from those who struggled with other makeup brands.

"I have some customers telling me that it has completely just fixed their skin, which is incredible feedback," she says. "This is always something I've wanted to do, just like the idea that makeup can improve your skin."

Ultimately, it all comes down to the brand's tagline: "Life's messy, but your makeup isn't."

In Part 2, Fiona talks about:

* How confidence in her vision guided her journey. * What it was like launching with no marketing plan. * How she grew to become a social media content producer. * The value of educational content. * Feedback from customers. * A rundown of the brand's hero products. * A look at the ingredients involved. * The brand's ambassador program. * Where you can find the brand's products.

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

For more on Youthforia, visit: https://youthforia.co/ 

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