Advice Line with Tara Bosch of SmartSweets

Today’s callers: Lindzi from Chicago wants to expand her gourmet marshmallow brand into retail without cannibalizing her high-margin DTC sales. Then, Vivi from Hawaii considers how to best tell her sustainable swimwear brand’s story to a digital audience. And Aly from Los Angeles wonders whether a subscription model is best for her whimsical curated experiences. Plus, Tara talks about her latest entrepreneurial venture, Snackish, and how starting a new company feels different the second time around... Thank you to the founders of XO Marshmallows, Vivi’s Vacation, and Romanticize Collective for being a part of our show. Be sure to listen to SmartSweets’ founding story https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/700d610b-fceb-461b-9446-019d80db455f/embed as told by Tara on the show in 2024. This episode was produced by Chris Maccini with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Annlie Huang. You can follow HIBT on X https://x.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis/ and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com http://guyraz.com/ and on Substack https://guyraz.substack.com/. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  This episode of How I Built This is presented by Engine, the modern travel and spend platform built for businesses that are growing. Book faster, save more, and watch your rewards stack up. Stay tuned later in the episode to hear how Engine is helping thousands of businesses travel smarter. Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2AM kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one hard question.

• 0:43Guy Raz?

  How do we make sure AI goes well for people? So they asked over 100,000 people their hopes and their fears and are publishing what they find, even the uncomfortable parts. Me? I've got my own hard question about AI. Here it is. If everyone has access to something that can help them write the business plan, build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea. What separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt.

• 1:26Guy Raz?

  We get support from US Bank, a question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't. Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems.

• 2:11Guy Raz?

  But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands on the table in rewards you never earned, money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card. Now you're earning 3% cash back on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling.

• 2:52Guy Raz?

  Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer. For the first time ever, new Delta SkyMiles Reserve American Express Card members can earn two Delta Comfort Round Trip flights for travel within the 48 contiguous US states, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands.

• 3:33Guy Raz?

  Plus, you can earn 50,000 bonus miles towards your next getaway. And who doesn't appreciate an elevated airport experience? Delta SkyMiles Reserve Card members get access to the Delta Sky Club, your pre-flight oasis to recharge with 15 visits and four one-time guest passes each medallion year when flying Delta together. That's up to $950 in annual value. Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the card that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026.

• 4:18Guy Raz?

  Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Main to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talk to on this show, because the best ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does.

• 5:01Guy Raz?

  It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it. Three times cleaner compared to mobile regular gas in port fuel-injected engines. Actual results may vary. Visit mobilefuels.com for details.

• 5:37Guy Raz?

  Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. Joining me this week is Tara Bosch, founder of the low-sugar candy company SmartSweets. Tara, it's great to have you back on the show. Welcome back.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Honored to be back here. Thanks for having me.

• 6:01Guy Raz?

  So of course, you were first on the show in 2024, and you told us about the origin story of SmartSweets and how, I still think of how you experimented with making gummy bear recipes in your kitchen to building a company that sold a majority stake reportedly for $360 million. This is just an amazing story. We will put a link to that story, to that original episode, in the show notes if you guys haven't heard it, because it is a terrific episode about a founder who was very young. You dropped out of college at 21, and you had no background in food science, and then you built it into this incredible brand. I know, Tara, you are, you're not operationally involved in SmartSweets anymore, but you are in startup mode.

• 6:44Guy Raz?

  You've got a brand-new company called Snackish, which I'm excited to hear more about. Tell us about this new venture that you're doing.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Serendipity honestly kind of did its thing. I spent a lot of time being in service of other entrepreneurs and empowering other women. And kind of somewhere along the way, that kind of inkling came up of like, you know, it also would be amazing if there was ever another authentic why and an incredible group of humans to build with to bring another vision to life. And after setting that intention, my daughter, who was four at the time, became obsessed with the yellow chip bag and was carrying it everywhere with her. And it was the same visceral pull I had with SmartSweets, where I was like, wait, why can't you feel good about eating chips every single day?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  So that sparked the vision for Snackish, which is to create the everyday snack for a new generation and change what a chip can be.

• 7:45Guy Raz?

  Wow. I'm looking at the website now. So it is a, these are high-protein potato chips.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:51Guy Raz?

  I mean, I think that protein, right? Protein is here to stay. I think it's, I don't think it's a trend. And it's just a matter of time before this category of snacks, you get, you know, and you have a lot of protein snack brands out there, but that it really, protein, fiber, like these, these things become just normal in, right? I mean, I think that's sort of where it's heading.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. I think the thing that has to coincide with that is taste and that experience of whatever you're enjoying and the emotional connection to it. I mean, chips is what we're starting with, potato chips. But the innovation goes far beyond that to really any salty snack you can think of and want to feel good about enjoying every day. So, yeah.

• 8:36Guy Raz?

  And what's your role in the company? Are you the CEO?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started it, I mean, in the same lens of SmartSweets. My daughter, Willa, I think the really special thing is I really built SmartSweets for my grandmother, and now I'm building Snackish with my daughter. So it was actually, she'll be the first to tell anyone that Snackish was her vision and SmartSweets was mine. But she comes to retailer meetings, she comes to the snackery.

• 9:03Guy Raz?

  Your daughter's like a young kid, right?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, she's five now.

• 9:10Guy Raz?

  Got it, all right. But on her way to the C-suite, basically.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  She's, she's been a big, big driver for the vision behind Snackish.

• 9:20Guy Raz?

  So is there, is there a consumer in mind right now that you think this is going to particularly appeal to?

• 9:28Speaker 01

  There's really kind of two groups and it's kind of shows up through what's on shelf today in the category two. The first is really the better for you chip where perhaps they use avocado oil, but when you enjoy them, they still leave you feeling crummy afterwards. And then there's the functional category with the protein chips where you could eat a bag every day, but they just don't feel, leave you feeling emotionally connected to the product or taste great. So you don't really feel like reaching for it every day. So Snackish is kind of that bridge of those two kind of groups. So it's just she primarily, she may be, you know, going to her Pilates class, her spins class. She has children, but she still wants to find

• 10:09Speaker 01

  better choices. She doesn't want to have to hide in the pantry and eat her favorite bag of chips. She wants to enjoy it with her kids. And then there's also the woman who, you know, she may have just graduated college and she's just entering the world and she's a wellness girly, but also loves to go out and have fun and will eat traditional chips too. So we're not targeting an extremist or like a protein maxing demo. We're really targeting kind of your everyday person who just wants to feel good about eating chips.

• 10:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I'm curious, you know, you are obviously an experienced operator, right? But when you started Smart Sweets, you were a total outsider, right? You knew nothing about the industry. And I wonder how, I mean, this time it's different, right? Because you are experienced and you're coming with resources to do this. So is there less of a, I don't know, an urgency? I mean, is there less of that kind of intensity that you had the first time around?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  I think it's just as intense and it's just in a different way. I think I don't feel that I'm experienced this time around. I think this time around, I have the blessing of having some pre-existing relationships, for example, but I still very much feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I'm waking up every day, putting one foot in front of the other. The difference, I would say now, is I'm very at peace with the unknown and knowing that I will figure it out.

• 11:39Guy Raz?

  All right. Well, we will have, I'm sure, a lot of opportunities to talk about some of the ways you're, you're doing marketing and also your experience with Smart Sweets. Let's bring on our first caller. You ready?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Amazing. I can't wait.

• 11:50Guy Raz?

  All right, let's do it. Welcome to the device line around with Tara Bosch, founder of Smart Sweets and now Snackish. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Hi, hi, guys. So I'm Lindsay, founder and CEO of Exo Marshmallow, a gourmet better for you marshmallow brand that's reimagining this nostalgic sweet treat. And I'm based in Chicago, Illinois.

• 12:10Guy Raz?

  Great. Welcome to the show, Lindsay Exo Marshmallow.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:13Guy Raz?

  And I think when I think of marshmallows, like that, I'm sorry, I think of like the jet puffed, you know, like probably that probably is the 90% of the category, right? Those big plastic bags of marshmallows. I'm assuming that's not how you sell them.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Right. So you're describing what I call a bag of boring and that's not us. So you're used to like artificial ingredients, the same flavor, just like super processed. So we currently sell our marshmallows in boxes of 12, but you can use our marshmallows the same way you would the bag of boring, hot chocolate, smores, Ruskusby treats, but we encourage people to just snack on them straight out of the bag.

• 12:48Guy Raz?

  All right. How, tell me how this business started. I mean, how did you start this business?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I used to have a co-founder and we started this business together 10 years ago. She was in her last year of law school and looking for an inexpensive gift to give on a law student budget. And at the time, those Pinterest hot cocoa in a jar recipes were very popular and she found one. And at the end of the recipe, it said, if you're feeling brave, try making marshmallows. She did. People loved them. She experimented with flavors during her graduation party and promptly told her family, I'm not going to be a lawyer. I'm going to play around with this marshmallow thing. I was on the other side of Chicago, going through something very similar. I had started a clothing store while I was an undergrad and I ended up meeting this girl through social media. We started

• 13:38Speaker 02

  connecting. I sold her marshmallows at my store for a little bit. We became business partners and I grew up in East Texas where we went camping and I had so many wonderful memories of marshmallows. So like, how can we take this incredible memory I experienced growing up and bring it to somebody's pantry every day?

• 13:57Guy Raz?

  So you took a, just a left turn into marshmallows. Okay.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:01Guy Raz?

  So you now sell marshmallows mainly online, direct to consumer? Is that where most of your sales come from?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Right now, about 90% of our sales are D to C.

• 14:08Guy Raz?

  Okay, great. And, and tell me a little bit about your overall sales. What do you expect to, to generate in, let's say, revenue this year?

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, just a little under 5 million.

• 14:18Guy Raz?

  That's pretty great. So, and, and how are you staffed? How many people do you have working with you right now?

• 14:25Speaker 02

  I have 11. So we self-manufacture. There is no co-man for this style of marshmallow.

• 14:31Guy Raz?

  You own your own production facility?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Yes. So I'm in about 10,000 square feet right outside of Chicago right now.

• 14:37Guy Raz?

  All right. So you launched about 10 years ago. You're, you're doing about 5 million in revenue a year and mostly 90% of your sales are D to C. Before we get into that, what's your question for us?

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Sure. So a little bit of background before we get into the question. We are looking to move into grocery. So a big part of this year has been reformulations. We're pulling all the corn out of the product and moving into that shelf-stable packaging that takes us from four months to 18 months. We have a lot of interest from grocery stores, but creating velocity and moving product off a grocery shelf is fundamentally different than driving D to C sales. So how do we leverage the community and cultural relevance that we've spent the last 10 years building to drive grocery sales without cannibalizing our high-margin D to C sales?

• 15:28Guy Raz?

  All right. So now 90% of sales D to C, that's great because your margins are good on, on the sales. But you want to be in grocery. Tara, you know quite, quite a bit about that, you know, Target and grocery stores and Whole Foods. First of all, thoughts, questions, ideas for Lindsay?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, we live in the same world of whimsy. The, congratulations on your journey. I think it's, it's incredible that you're kind of reaching this fork in the road where you're thinking of, okay, we should really scale. We want to go the path of grocery. And your question on, does it cannibalize one another? We really found that the split was always like 70% wholesale, 30% D to C, but grocery really became like such an impulse buy, you know, where she may not be thinking about it two weeks before she wants to enjoy them to order them. And so having that accessibility when she's in her grocery shop and pulling them off shelf, I see them as living together in unison and serving very different functions

• 16:29Speaker 01

  versus cannibalizing one or the other, especially at this stage in growth.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's a really good point. You know, my customer's biggest complaint right now is the cost of shipping and the time it takes to ship something. And to your point, that's because, you know, marshmallows and candy are this impulse item. I'm just trying to figure out, you know, I, I feel like I've got D to C down pretty well. I've done it for 10 years. I'm just like, how do I take that marketing and drive it into grocery? I feel like when it comes to grocery, I'm a 10-year-old startup. It's, it's, it's like I'm in year one, right?

• 17:08Guy Raz?

  You know, I wonder, Tara, I mean, we're talking earlier about like the jet puffed marshmallow, right? Which is probably dominates, you know, maybe 90, 95% of marshmallow sales in the US. And I don't think there are that many, or certainly not many, national marshmallow brands, right? There are, there's, there's the jet puffed, I think it's Kraft, I don't know who makes it. And then, you know, there's like Peeps, but you eat those on Easter. And there might be, you know, a couple of vegan brands out there, but it seems to me like there's an opportunity to jump out, especially with ingredients, interesting, you know, all natural ingredients, maybe even something like a prebiotic fiber. I don't know if that's

• 17:51Guy Raz?

  possible, but you know, something where there's the utility of it, right? And I wonder if, if maybe there's an opportunity there.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So we are pushing ourselves a little bit to be what we consider a better for you indulgence, right? It's still candy. It's still sweet, but better for you. So we've taken all the artificial colors out of our products. We've taken all the artificial flavors out of our products and then we're removing corn. So it is going to be a cleaner product, especially compared to the existing offerings. We've talked to our customers about this idea of protein maxing or fiber maxing the product because I consider myself a very customer-focused CEO. And the feedback we've gotten consistently is we don't want to get our protein or fiber from our marshmallows. So it's finding that balance between better for you versus healthy.

• 18:44Guy Raz?

  Could you do like with Smart Sweets, a lower sugar version, you know, sweet enough, right? Because a lot of times, as you know, the sweetness profile in so many confections and foods in the United States is way higher than you find in Europe, for example. And sometimes it just over indexes and people don't really need that much sweetness.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, we are looking to find ways to lower the sweetness level of our marshmallows anyway. Part of the positive feedback we often get is I like that this product isn't too sweet to begin with. I personally, even for owning a marshmallow company, I tend to like our more savory flavors as opposed to the more popular flavors like birthday cake and cotton candy. So we are trying to find ways to lower the sugar without necessarily becoming a sugar-free brand.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. That makes sense. I mean, yeah, it's um, kind of a fun fact, but um, marshmallows is what I was recipe testing in my kitchen originally alongside Gummy Bears. And so very familiar with the kind of limited manufacturing that exists in this category and the really unique opportunity you have if you can scale the backend um and really become kind of that kind of next generation marshmallow brand. Um, I was having the same thought. I think the sugar, you know, it's um, if you're having like four to six of your marshmallows today, roughly how much sugar is in them?

• 20:10Speaker 02

  So if you're having four to six marshmallows, it's about 20 grams of sugar.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think um, I I'm biased, obviously, so take it with a grain of sugar. But um, I think one of the key insights with Smart Sweets that we identified was creating the permissibility to eating candy every day um, in the same way with marshmallows and thinking of that lens of what is that threshold with sugar? That's the tipping point for giving people that permissibility to truly eat marshmallows every single day as a snack.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's definitely something to think about.

• 20:46Guy Raz?

  You know, I I I'm gonna throw something out there and you may hate this idea or you might like it. Um, I think that you should, you you you've got your core product, right? Which is the snackable marshmallow. What if you offered a SKU that was made with allulose, which is um, a sugar alternative, which doesn't spike blood sugar? So there are a lot of people, not only diabetics, but people who are, you know, doing low inflammation diets that are okay with allulose. It's naturally derived. Most people can digest it well. And I think it could work. I think it could work like sugar.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, we are playing around with allulose a little bit um, with, we just hired a a special food scientist who actually built out the Peeps Factory years ago, um, so she's very familiar with marshmallows and experimenting with allulose. I'm a little on the fence about it, only because I know some retailers like Whole Foods and others.

• 21:44Guy Raz?

  They don't do allulose, right?

• 21:45Speaker 02

  They've started to ban it, right? So I think there's an opportunity to have a line that is either sugar-free or made with allulose that isn't part of the core group so that we have both options.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. There are so many ingredients too nowadays, especially for your application. Um, uh, stevia, monk fruit, um, different combinations of like, and I was using agar-agar and it worked actually really well in the marshmallows. Um, so yeah, the the paths exist. And it's interesting too, through that lens of like, uh, launching mass versus natural channel. I always found that the natural channel was more forgiving from an early-stage startup in terms of giving the end caps, giving the merchandising opportunities, not being as dull or incense from the beginning, which was really helpful with Smart Sweets because we didn't have the budget to pay um, what some of the mass retailers would require from the hop.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And that's kind of my thought is roll out in natural and even Midwest locally first. So we are bootstrapped, we're profitable, we we are raising for the first time. But until that happens, we know that we're gonna have to scale at a relatively efficient rate.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that there's also something with the marshmallow category specifically where there's so much like use, like specific use cases for them, like camping or campfires. So how do you take that category and then make it every day? And so I think that snackable element's a key insight. There was a brand called Smashmellow who was really trying to do that. Um, and I think ultimately manufacturing um, held them up.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's that's our biggest concern right now is the manufacturing side of things. And that is why we're raising is to be able to build out capacity here. Um, it's it's challenging. And to your point, there was a company that existed, both had um, capital issues as well as manufacturing issues. I do have their former director of manufacturing now on my advisory board. So I I will say we will be able to jump a little bit of steps uh, just because I kind of have the the plan in place.

• 23:55Guy Raz?

  That's great. Yeah, worth looking into what happened there and trying to learn from those lessons.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 24:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Um, awesome. Well, the brand is called XO Marshmallows. Uh, Lindsay Shanks uh, from Chicago, Illinois. Thanks for calling in. Good luck.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you guys so much.

• 24:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When you started Smart Sweets, there were some brands out there that were that were doing low sugar stuff, right? But um, but but there was an opportunity to stand out.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I think the key, the key insight with us, um, there was no one taking it to that next step of everyday snackability. Um, and for her, I think there's a huge opportunity there. I would eat marshmallows every day. I want to eat marshmallows every day.

• 24:42Guy Raz?

  Yes. Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. That's after the break. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

• 25:02Guy Raz?

  We get support from Engine. A lot of founders start with a product or an idea, but at some point, the business becomes something else. Think about Brian Scudamore. He started 1-800 Got Junk with one truck and a vision to make junk removal a real brand. That worked. And then it became hundreds of crews across multiple cities, trucks on the road every day, routes changing by the hour, and a team that had to be in the right place before the customer even called. Or Beryl Stafford, who started Bobos by baking oat bars in her kitchen. Next thing she knows, she's flying to retail meetings, demoing at trade shows, managing

• 25:43Guy Raz?

  distributors coast to coast, running a national food brand out of what used to be a family recipe. Or Tom Hale, who built backroads around the idea that active travel could be a premium experience. That means guides in six countries, gear shipments, guest logistics, thousands of moving pieces that all have to land before a single trip begins. Different businesses, same truth. Here's what I've noticed after talking to hundreds of founders. The hard part is rarely the big idea. It's what happens when the idea works. Suddenly, you've got people on the move and all the logistics that come with it. That's the real test. And that's why I think Engine is worth knowing about. Engine is the fastest-growing

• 26:27Guy Raz?

  modern travel and spend platform in the country, built for small and medium-sized businesses. The average business traveler spends 45 minutes booking a single trip on a legacy platform. With Engine, that drops to as little as two and a half minutes. Last year, Engine customers saved $318 million on travel. Average savings of 26% on hotel bookings. No contracts, no booking fees. More than 1,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com/built.

• 27:09Guy Raz?

  Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in. So the work is production-ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together. The agents bring

• 27:52Guy Raz?

  speed and scale, and people bring taste, judgment, and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply. AI isn't just opening new business opportunities, it's changing the way businesses get work done. The questions they ask, the decisions they make, the routine tasks they can hand off. That's the idea behind NetSuite Next, the next generation of NetSuite with AI woven

• 28:32Guy Raz?

  into the tools your business already relies on. NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together. And that shift is already underway. That's why NetSuite wants to put a new expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work. And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization,

• 29:17Guy Raz?

  and how to position your business to prosper from it. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built. Stripe is built for whatever comes next because the pace of change has never been faster than it is right now. New business models, new currencies, and new expectations for speed, reliability, and scale. Stripe builds financial infrastructure that helps

• 29:57Guy Raz?

  businesses start, grow, and operate globally. From payments and billing to fraud protection and cross-border payouts, Stripe is built to support the new pace of commerce. They're trusted by the companies building at the frontier, from 86% of the Forbes AI 50 to global leaders like Salesforce and OpenAI. In fact, more than 1.6% of global GDP flows through Stripe, with Stripe's users processing a combined $1.9 trillion last year. So if you're already thinking about what's next for your business, see what's possible at stripe.com.

• 30:47Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the Advice Line, right here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Tara Bosch. She's the founder of the low-sugar candy brand SmartSweets and the new snack brand, Snackish. And we are taking your calls today, so let's bring in our next caller.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Hi, Guy. Hi, Tara. My name's Vivi. I am the founder and designer of Vivi's Vacation. I'm currently calling out of Hawaii, but I'm usually based in New York and it is a sustainable swimwear label.

• 31:18Guy Raz?

  Welcome to the show, Vivi. So I'm looking at your website, Vivi's Vacation, and so bathing suits, swimwear.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:23Guy Raz?

  And tell me about the bathing suits. I mean, are they... Yeah, tell me a little bit about the aesthetic or the thinking behind the brand.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  So I've been very fortunate to be born and raised in Hawaii and my mom is from Brazil. So swimwear has always been a huge part of my life, in and out of the ocean, growing up surfing. So I began making bikinis by hand in high school for myself, then for friends, gone to college, and then worked as a fashion designer in the industry. So I have a lot of experience around swim. It's a very... The way that they make swim in Hawaii and the quality of Brazilian swimwear fabric is so different than anything that you can find easily in the market within the main continental United States. So I really focus on high-quality swim.

• 32:17Guy Raz?

  Where are you making the swimsuits right now?

• 32:20Speaker 03

  I used to make everything myself, but recently found a manufacturer and they are made in Brazil, sustainable fabrics and everything. So incredible manufacturer, incredible team there.

• 32:31Guy Raz?

  And you said you started working on this in high school?

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:34Guy Raz?

  And when did you formally launch the business? When did you start selling these?

• 32:39Speaker 03

  So I guess the first launch would be my senior year of high school. And then I went to RISD to study apparel design and I would operate on a seasonal calendar. So I would slowly design through the school year while working on other projects. And then I would launch for a pre-order window. And then I would sew them myself. My mom would help sew sometimes. We would listen to How I Built This while we were sewing the bikinis, which is great. And then I did that for a few years. And then I kind of paused as I was getting my footing, working as a corporate fashion designer and adjusting to the life of going to a 9 to 5 as an adult and all that.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  And relaunched very recently with actual stock, which has been so different in mid-July.

• 33:29Guy Raz?

  Wow. Okay, and right now you're selling direct to consumer, I'm assuming, right? This is on your website? And tell me a little bit... So you've relaunched this recently and tell me how you're doing. I mean, I can't imagine you have a huge marketing budget, right?

• 33:43Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:43Guy Raz?

  So you're probably still small. Tell me how your... Yeah. How have sales been in the last... Since you launched?

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Sales have been good. At my peak, I got like 60 orders in the span of two weeks, which was incredible. That was my biggest summer ever. Currently, I've done about... I've sold about 15 sets so far. And launching towards the end of summer isn't ideal, but it's been great because I've been able to get a first round of orders out and then having the time to sort of re-strategize, like rework the website and aim to hit a second round of orders for holiday season.

• 34:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Well, and also, I mean, Thanksgiving, Christmas, lots of people are going to the beach. So Hawaii, in fact. All right. Before we dive in further, what's your question?

• 34:36Speaker 03

  So I've only sold online and this whole time it's sort of been like you try to make a TikTok or like an Instagram reel that gets a lot of traction. And it's like if the algorithm works for you, it works for you. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. And it becomes so crucial that you've really done that edit down. So my official question would be, what was your process or system for editing down to the most important elements of your product, then translating that into packaging, social media posts, email blasts, and website headers?

• 35:14Guy Raz?

  Great question. I want to bring Tara in. Tara, say hello to Vivi, Vivi's Vacation. You don't have to answer the question right away, but you, of course, had to figure that out with SmartSweets. You had to figure out what the packaging was going to look like. So first of all, thoughts, ideas, or questions for Vivi?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Congratulations on your adventure. It's so inspiring that you had an idea and the courage to act on it when you were in high school and so inspiring for others that hear your story as well. It sounds like you're really clear on your reason to believe. And that sounds like it's really the fabric and the quality and how it's made. And you have such an authentic story behind that. I think if you're thinking across channels, what's so important is how are you going to communicate that value prop in three seconds or less to the consumer on shelf? When I reflect on SmartSweets' journey, and it was actually inspired by a podcast that I had listened to that Tim Ferriss was on when he was talking about

• 36:15Speaker 01

  how he was marketing his book, The 4-Hour Work Week. And it was the essence of, of course, you want all women to be wearing your swimwear, but identifying the niche that you are creating the most value for and then infiltrating their world. And with social and TikTok nowadays, you can get so specific in different niches. And there's so many ways that you can really show up in their world from a social perspective and make Vivi's seem like it's much bigger by infiltrating the niche.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  It does make me think too, I guess, how niche is too niche when you're looking for your target audience? And then how do you find that perfect balance of casting that net? But and then also meeting the needs of your niche customer?

• 37:07Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Great question. I mean, I think the blessing that you have is you have customers, right? So you have people who have bought the product and have resonated with it and perhaps also people who have bought it again. I always found such great nuggets in picking up the phone and calling the customers. I know it's so easy these days to just be behind the keyboard and the phone. And that works too in DMing them, but asking people to have a 10-minute conversation, it was incredible the amount that I learned and then also the consistent threads that were the emotional connections as to why somebody felt drawn to the product and why they were repurchasing.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  And you might find an answer hidden within the thread of similarities of those conversations.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  That is really, really helpful. Yeah, that's the beauty of Instagram. It's like you can just DM someone and then have that customer feedback and interaction. It's like the phone doesn't have to stop anything. It can connect you.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:17Guy Raz?

  Vivi, we've got an episode on another protein brand. This is a pasta protein brand called Bonza. And what really made that brand stand out was the orange color of that box. If you go to the pasta aisle today, your eye is going to catch that orange box. They have done a great job at packaging. And I'm thinking... I mean, I'm looking at your designs. They're terrific. I don't know if this is necessarily the answer, but when I think about Brazil, I think about green and yellow for obvious reasons as their flag. But I want to see, at least starting with your website, and hopefully that will filter into the overall brand aesthetic,

• 39:01Guy Raz?

  something that really tells us why this is premium. I just see you say premium, but why? Why is it better that it's made in Brazil? And I want to see that reflected, starting with your website, which will help you kind of codify and focus your creative energy on telling that brand's story, right? It's not enough to just say, "sustainable swimwear." This is something different. You have a different proposition. I don't know if you're on this website. I don't think you are, but I think you should be. I think your story, maybe an image of you surfing in the North Shore of Hawaii, wearing one of your swimsuits, something like that, right? I think as a consumer, you want to know, okay, well, what's the story? There's a... And you're part of that story here.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Yes. This is so, so helpful.

• 39:47Guy Raz?

  Vivi, thank you so much for calling. The brand's called Vivi's Vacation. Good luck. And yeah, good luck.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 39:57Guy Raz?

  You know, and a lot of people say, "Oh, apparel's a really tough category." It is a tough category. So are snacks. So is anything. And people say, "Oh, this is saturated or that's saturated." And the reality is, as you know, there's always, especially when you're talking about a category with, let's say, I don't know what swimwear is, but let's say it's tens of billions of dollars, right, a year? If you can just carve out a quarter of a percentage of that market in the US or North America, it's got a huge business.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And to your point, there's a reason to not act on any idea. But she has such an authentic story and it translates. There was great feedback that you had on making sure that shows up in her story and of site and how she's connecting the story to the product.

• 40:52Guy Raz?

  And you never know. I mean, she may, especially with a brand that is coming from Hawaii, where, I mean, it could be one post and it just could go viral.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:05Guy Raz?

  All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line, right here on How I Built This Lab.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  Football is back and PrizePix is bringing out their best offer yet. New users who sign up will get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. That's right. If you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups. On PrizePix, you simply pick two to six players, pick more or less on their stat projections and submit your lineup. Then sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want this football season, all in the same app. And now PrizePix is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on PrizePix. What you on?

• 42:08Speaker 05

  Download the PrizePix app today and use code WONDERY. That's code WONDERY to get $150 instantly in lineups. If you win your first $5 lineup. PrizePix, run your game. Must be present in certain states. Visit PrizePix.com for restrictions and details.

• 42:32Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the advice line right here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking calls with Smart Suites founder Tara Bosch. So Tara, what do you say? Ready for next call?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 42:44Speaker 06

  Hi Guy, hi Tara. Thank you for having me. I'm Ally Aguilar, based in Los Angeles. And I am the founder of Romanticize Collective. And it's an experience club bringing original whimsical ways to create, explore and play into everyday life.

• 43:02Guy Raz?

  Okay, welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in Ally. So I don't understand what the product is. Explain that to me. I get the whimsical joy. What do you sell? What do you make?

• 43:10Speaker 06

  Yes, so right now it's in the format of a subscription box. So instead of products, I deliver experiences. So you get an experience guide and then intentional items to bring the experience to life. And right now there are four that are delivered every month to our members.

• 43:27Guy Raz?

  Okay, so it's a box and what's inside?

• 43:29Speaker 06

  So the idea is rooted in getting you out of autopilot and bring a little more magic into an average Tuesday. So it could be anything from making homemade cavatelli pasta from scratch. Another could send you out into your town where you're exploring like a tourist again, or have you looking up at the night sky under a meteor shower.

• 43:50Guy Raz?

  Okay, so it's like it gives you prompts, but also it gives you like the ingredients to make pasta?

• 43:56Speaker 06

  So for that one, it would be the guide would kind of give you a backstory on cavatelli and where it originated from. And then I'll put together playlists to kind of set the Italian vibes. It'll have a tutorial or recipe and then the items are a wooden pasta block and the roller. So you would go out and get the flour, but that's kind of getting you to actually do the experience.

• 44:18Guy Raz?

  All right, so it's a subscription box and that's the revenue model is a subscription box, right?

• 44:24Speaker 06

  Currently, yeah.

• 44:25Guy Raz?

  And so tell me how this idea came about.

• 44:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, so my background is in real estate and development. And I've done that for high growth tech startups. And in those environments, you know, it's always about the next milestone, the next launch, go, go, go. And I realized I'd gotten really good at prioritizing that and kind of de-prioritizing the things that light me up. So things that made me curious or got me to create or explore or just simply play again. And I was like, how can I make this more accessible to weave into my life? And so I kind of came up with a subscription model where it was delivered to your door. It was guided for you, already curated, and you could easily do it on like a Tuesday evening.

• 45:11Guy Raz?

  And so you started this business and I'm sorry, when did you start it?

• 45:16Speaker 06

  I launched in January of this year.

• 45:19Guy Raz?

  Okay, and how is it doing? Give me a sense of your of your numbers.

• 45:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, right now we have 30 recurring members. So done just under 20,000 in total sales. And right now trying to figure out a sustainable customer acquisition.

• 45:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right. So before we dive in further, tell us what your question is.

• 45:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, so kind of relates back to the subscription model. So I'm curious how you know when to keep refining, how you market and grow what you've built. In this case, the subscription model versus when it's time to evolve the product or the business model to better deliver on the mission.

• 45:56Guy Raz?

  Okay, Tara, I want to bring you in. What's the sign that you look for when maybe you should try something else out? Or or maybe sunset something or double down on something?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're creating joy. You're creating moments of joy and experiences around that. And the world always needs more of that. So that's awesome. How do you determine what experiences you're including in the boxes? Seems like there's a pretty broad spectrum of, you know, someone going stargazing or someone cooking. And how do you decide kind of the like threshold that it's an experience that all your subscribers will like each month?

• 46:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, right now I'm constantly iterating on that. So it's four unique experiences that I design every month. So I'll either root it in things that are happening that month. So the stargazing was around the massive meteor shower we had. So I'll kind of think, okay, is there a season or a major event or a whimsical holiday that I can craft something around? But they're all intentionally, one is always getting you to create. One is exploration, reflection, and then another could just be like a whimsical way of doing something simple. Those are kind of like the core themes I try and diversify in each one. But eventually, like any subscription model, eventually is meant to be customizable

• 47:17Speaker 06

  to your desires and what you want to bring into your life.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Hmm, that makes sense. Sounds like you're in that kind of early validation of the like product market fit. And like, and what is that sweet spot? Have you talked to your current 30 customers to understand what's keeping them coming back?

• 47:38Speaker 06

  Some of them, but I definitely, I wrote that down. I know you mentioned that of doing those calls. I think that would be a good way to just get more of the feedback around the emotions and what people are liking and not liking.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 47:53Guy Raz?

  I think the the overall thesis of what you're trying to do is smart. And there are a lot of opportunities around this. You know, this sort of analog or tactile experiences, a lot of in-person experiences. I think it's going to be a bigger business as more and more things just become AI. And no, you know, people can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not. And so I see the kernel of something here. And this is like version 1.0, right? That this, and it may be that you continue to do boxes, but they are something different. Or it may evolve into, you know, into something that you aren't even,

• 48:32Guy Raz?

  can't even imagine now, like meetups or, you know, or sort of groups around the country or a network or some, some community building thing, right? That is, that serves the purpose of this idea that we need to have these tactile, these real world offline experiences. So I would give it a, you know, I think to Tara's point, I would touch your customers and get as much information as you can, as much data as you can. And I would continue to experiment with that while thinking about the bigger idea, right? Which is to get people connected in a different way.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, one question that's coming up for me too, that's like, when you chat with them, figuring out, are they opening the box, doing this experience? And then are they telling their friends and family? And are their friends and family subscribing? And if they're not, why? What's holding them back? I think of like fresh prep or like that kind of where it's like, oh my gosh, I made a dinner. Right away it comes up in friend conversation. You're like, this saved me so much time. The ingredients were in the box. And then your girlfriends signed up with her family the next day. So if people aren't kind of having that natural waterfall effects, what's stopping them? And I think that could be a really good nugget to understand how to evolve

• 49:57Speaker 01

  from a product perspective as well.

• 49:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, that's really good feedback. Thank you both. I, I think the overall vision is like, this is how it exists today. But essentially trying to make experiences as accessible as buying a consumer product. It's like the same way we can have something delivered to our door and consume it. And it's done. You could also, you know, learn how to do a new thing or experience a world somewhere far away. I'd be curious, like, given that it's experiences, kind of micro experiences delivered to you, is there another format that you guys envision for this model?

• 50:36Guy Raz?

  I would, I mean, you're in Los Angeles, right? I would think about testing out some kind of in-person thing, right? I mean, I think that could be a huge value proposition, right? You're, if you buy the box and, and there's an opportunity to actually meet up with a few other people and maybe, like you say, you experience your own city. It's worth experimenting because I also think aside from offline, you know, people want to, you're seeing people buy books, right? Instead of reading them on screens, people want to be around other people, right? And I, so I, it's not easy, but it might be worth trying to experiment with something

• 51:22Guy Raz?

  in the box and in a real world experience. If you have some people in the LA area, for example, that you can experiment with.

• 51:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm doing an event. It's funny that you say that. I am testing that at the end of the month, doing a collaboration with a local women's group. So bringing one of the experiences from the box to real life. So it's kind of like a scavenger hunt in Culver City. And then you're gathering items and then doing like a junk journaling experience. So it'll be interesting to test that.

• 51:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  There's a couple of companies too, I think, that are operating at scale. I can't think of one of the names, but where they, they plan the trips, that you can purchase the road trip, you know, and or the itinerary. And they're very experience based too. And it could be interesting to connect with some of those founders. And even from like a cross collaboration opportunity and things like that from a brand awareness perspective.

• 52:17Speaker 06

  Okay, thank you.

• 52:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Well, it's a, it's awesome idea. I would keep experimenting. Ally Aguilar, the brand is called Romanticize Collective. Good luck.

• 52:27Speaker 06

  Thanks.

• 52:29Guy Raz?

  Tara, thank you so much for doing this. It's so great to have founders come on and give advice. It's one of the great advantages we have on the show, which is we can bring all these founders who've been on and have them come back and help us out.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  I feel so honored, honestly, and so inspired by the entrepreneurs that came on today and shared their stories, too. It's really cool. The world needs more people having the courage to act on ideas than ever before.

• 52:56Guy Raz?

  I agree. Tara, before I let you go, just one question for you, which is, if you could go back to when you started SmartSweets in the basement, like mixing up the ingredients, if you could go back and say, hey, here's something you need to know as you're starting out, what do you think would have been helpful for you to know?

• 53:18Speaker 01

  I think the clarity of what the world looks like five years from now with your vision in it and being so crystal clear in that. There was a quote, and I can't remember who it was by, but it's always resonated. And it was the essence of, it's not that you can't get to where you want to go, it's that most people don't know where they want to go. So clearly defining, like, what is that point? I would have defined that even with more clarity from the beginning. And once I did, I saw how that catapulted the vision forward. It's pretty abstract, I know, but it dovetailed into all of the specific decisions like retailers

• 54:01Speaker 01

  launching nationally or not and things like that.

• 54:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah. It's great advice. Tara, thanks again. And by the way, if you haven't heard Tara's original How I Built This episode, you've got to go check it out. Here is one of my favorite moments from my interview with Tara.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  We put a launch date for December of 2015. Come second week into December, they call me and they say, hey, we are not going to let you use this recipe, this formula. You can use another formula with chicory root fiber as the bulking agent. And immediately, I knew what they were telling me was, we're going to give you a recipe that's actually not digestible, that's going to blow up people's stomachs. That manufacturer took the recipe and ended up going on to launch a product themselves.

• 54:53Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Chris Messina with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was An Li Huang. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estvez, J.C. Howard, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman, Kerry Thompson, Sam Paulson, Niva Grant, and Elaine Coats. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 55:36Guy Raz?

  Thanks again to Engine for their support. If your business is growing and your team is traveling, Engine makes it simple and saves you money doing it. 33,000 businesses have joined. Now, it's your turn. Engine.com/built.