333: Thinking Outside the Box For A Better Future: One Brands Mission to Combat Climate Change

Launching a first-of-its-kind product comes with challenges, but Pela has always been a creative first-mover. They’ve had massive success and fun educating consumers and keeping their mission to combat climate change positive.  This episode’s guest is Pela CEO Matthew Bertulli. Pela makes compostable phone cases and they just launched a new product called Lomi that went viral on Kickstarter.  Matt and his team at Pela are forward thinkers and Matt share’s how that’s led them to success, what it was like to go from bootstrapped to venture-backed, as well as what he’s excited about for the future of eCommerce and environmental products.   This is an excellent episode with somebody who is in the arena building things and very passionate about his work.  Episode Highlights: 3:56 How the Lomi Kickstarter went viral  5:15 What exactly Lomi is  10:17 Educating consumers about environmental products & the problems with Facebook  14:52 Using storytelling to build word of mouth momentum  15:28 What Lomi stands for as a product and way of life  19:36 Is pollution a personal or corporation problem & the mission to combat climate change 22:01 Consumer demand for better companies  25:59 Better packaging options for brands  28:45 The power of education: from $5k to $85k in 3 months 29:40 Raising money and becoming venture-backed  31:16 Early success and first-mover advantage 35:39 The difference between running a bootstrapped brand and a venture-backed brand 38:12 Challenges of running an agency in comparison to a D2C 40:46 The benefits of launching a new product on top of an established company (even if they’re not directly related)  41:57 Competition when you’re a first of its kind product  43:45 Building a product for the future & being a visionary brand with the mission to combat climate change 46:29 Resources that have been helpful to Matt on his journey  48:06 Best in class marketing & messaging tactics  50:30 Identifying what’s wrong with current stories in your niche and changing the narrative for your product  54:30 The intersection of blockchain and climate  58:55 The powerful culture of being a mission-driven company Resources: Pela Lomi @mbertulli on Twitter The Brand Growth Membership @a_brawn on Twitter Review or subscribe on iTunes