Advice Line: Tapping AI as a Resource for Your Business

This week, Guy is joined by TRX exercise straps founder Randy Hetrick, chicken restaurant giant Raising Cane’s Todd Graves, and Chesapeake Bay Candle Company founder Mei Xu in a special episode of the Advice Line. We talk about how to navigate today’s crowded social media landscape... And ways founders can start thinking about AI. First, Shireen from Pennsylvania wants to know how to do better getting customers to attend her cooking demos… Then, Valerie from Idaho wonders whether separate social media accounts amount to the best path for her brand... And finally, Avani from New Jersey needs help scaling her business. Thank you to the founders of Moji Masala , Large as Life puzzles, and Modi Toys for coming on the show. If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298. This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo. You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for my free newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack. To hear our returning guests’ previous episodes: TRX: Randy Hetrick https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/28bb921b-3366-49c8-80ef-0451fd59079b/embed | Advice Line with Randy Hetrick of TRX https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/b0d731ad-83aa-4003-9a30-fb4f59b13ba8/embedRaising Cane's: Todd Graves https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/f71b2a3e-2451-4995-817e-77155e5b67e0/embed | Advice Line with Todd Graves of Raising Cane's https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/11fe9441-5ce9-49f0-8819-adf6adfcd0fd/embedChesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/6c7c5796-4b8b-4cbd-b826-c1d664b44756/embed | Advice Line with Mei Xu of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blueme https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/cb0f8c51-35b4-4536-ace4-2d7dc71fa64d/embed See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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  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. And this week, we're bringing you a special mashup episode featuring three returning guests and three new callers. You'll hear advice in using AI to grow your business and new ways to break through a crowded social media landscape. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  You can also send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at guyraz.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Our first guest is Randy Hetrick. He's the founder and the guy who actually invented TRX. Randy first came on How I Built This back in 2017, and he told this wild story about being a Navy SEAL on a remote assignment, rigging an old jujitsu belt to a door, and basically creating an entirely new way to work out wherever you are. It's an awesome episode.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  We'll put a link to it in the show notes or just search TRX in our feed. And as you'll hear, Randy's also exactly the right person to talk about how to get a product in front of more people and actually get it noticed. All right, Randy, let's bring in our first caller to the advice line. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Thanks. Hi, Guy and Randy. It's so great to be with you today. My name is Shereen, and I co-founded Moji Masala with my husband, J.D. We are a family-owned and operated business based in Philly. We started Moji Masala to make it super easy for anyone to make authentic, delicious, homemade Indian food from scratch. It's a very intimidating process often and a little complicated, but with Moji Masala, you just take one of our 14 pre-measured spice packets. You buy a few produce items. You use our recipe to make one specific Indian dish that serves three to five people. And they are my mom's heirloom recipes that I spent two years beta testing to actually create the final product.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Nice. Wow. Congrats. Well, welcome, Shereen. Thanks for calling in. So basically, these are spice packets and you mix them with like oil or clarified butter or and add them to a meat or vegetable?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a simple process, but it's actually you're actually cooking the dish as if you like opened up a recipe in a cookbook and they gave you like this list of 15 spices and gave you the like eight steps.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  So the hardest part of Indian food is actually aggregating the spices, having a recipe for the blends, and then just like knowing what to do with it. Our product packaging is very informative. It has like a shopping list on the back and a QR code that goes to the actual recipe and a cooking video. So there's no guesswork. There's no leftover spices. You're literally just using our product to create like kind of a magical dish and experience is so seamless that I think it's almost like alarming to people to actually have this experience.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  By the way, when did you start the business?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  So we really were ready to launch right in late 2019, right before COVID. And then coming out of COVID, the last couple of years is really when we've pushed hard on our online, but also on retail expansion.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  And is this your full-time job? Is this what both of you guys, you and your husband, are working on?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  This is my full-time job. It's my husband's half-time job, I would say, and my full-time job. Yeah, it's a second career for me.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  That's awesome. So you launched in 2019. Tell me a little bit about, and are you mainly selling online and through Amazon and retailers? Break that down for me.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, we started online and naively thought we could like hit the ground running online. I think it became pretty clear that unless we had like a million dollars that we really had to, we really needed a retail strategy. We got into Citarella about a year ago, which is a seven store chain throughout New York, Connecticut, and the Hamptons. We also got into Fresh Direct and we are in some, a We, which is an Asian online retailer.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Sure. We've done We on the show.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Yep. And tell us what your questions, what's your pain point that you're looking for help with?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Randy, our in-store demos have been very successful. We have a sell-through rate of over 90% when someone samples our product and actually gets to try it. And we're attracting a wide spectrum of customers, busy families, young people wanting to try something new, vegetarians, vegans.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  So Randy, just like you had to teach people not only what your product was, but how to use it, we're trying to figure out how to reach this broader way of potential customers that we can't get with a live demo. And we'd love your input on that.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, Shereen, your description has me salivating. I'm realizing that Indian for lunch would be exquisite right now.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  How are you guys getting your kind of, how are you promoting it early? Like, what are you guys doing right now to promote the brand?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  So, right now, the single biggest thing we do is because we have retailers that we want to support, and we have a very hub and spoke model of that, we show up regularly at the stores, doing the demos, letting people try it. In terms of spending money, we're on Amazon, and then we pay to like, you know, highlight our Amazon. We're, we pay, we do Google to like, our website is, it's not a flat website, it's a very interactive website. And because you need to access our recipes and our video, so paying to sort of lead people to our website is productive as far as hopefully leading to sales.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  So, I pulled up your website as soon as you started talking, and it's friendly and it's inviting. And what I was hoping you were gonna say is exactly what you said, which is you're out there sampling.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Right. And because to me, something like, I mean, you guys, are you guys profitable at this point? On a monthly operating basis? Or are you, how are you financing this, in other words?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the way I, it's self-financed, you know, because I had a long career, we did have savings. That's not a bottomless sort of pit of savings. So, you know, we have to be smarter about our next steps. But one of the things that was really important to me was that the product be profitable. Like, so when I, when we sell this product, it is profitable. Now, of course, There's, I don't know how to think about, and this is also, I'd love your input, like all the other costs associated with that, you know, as far as marketing and, you know, maybe you have to go do trade shows, which are thousands and thousands of dollars. And so it's very easy to be, to have, sorry.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Here's where, here's where I, where I was gonna go with this is that, you know, I, the reason I asked the question about profitability is because if you don't have, you know, outside investors that are, that are, for instance, you're ticking clock, right, that forces you to do things. You're in a great position right now. If, if you have a really great product and it certainly sounds like it and, and looks like it, the question is, how do you get that trial? And I would say to you, given that you don't have external pressures really on you, that the, that, what's the rush? The best way to do this, right, is to, is to be out there on the ground, letting people try your product.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  And then, and then, you know, showing them that you have a website, because obviously you have to be a little bit careful about going into a, to a retailer's establishment and then trying to drive people to your website. So you gotta be a little bit careful about that. But the, I think that the idea of figuring out how to scale your sampling program is to me, a better and much more sort of long-lived way to get customers who are gonna fall in love with you. Cause look, you can spend a lot of money putting your, your food's avatar in front of me, but if I can't smell it and I can't taste it, it's lost in the noise. Whereas if you put it in my mouth and I'm like, oh my gosh,

• 13:58Speaker 02

  this is delicious. Now you've got me, right? So to me, I would spend less time at the moment, given where you guys are, uh, doing paid media, and more time actually having people get their, get your product in their mouth.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yes. No, I, I love that you have that reaction because I think instinctively, we think that and we're two people and I'm, you know, We had the opportunity, for example, to go national. We deferred that because it's just takes a lot of money and we knew we can't have success without demos and that would mean probably hiring a demo team. So, and then I was like, of course, who's, who's going to represent on a demo team the way I can? Probably nobody. And then it was like, oh, then we have to train them, so on and so forth. So it's, it became a bigger idea, but then also more murky as to is that the way to do it? Should I be hiring people? Should I work with outside people? Should I just go myself and, and, and do like 10 stores hard

• 14:57Speaker 01

  and do it all like me because I'm the one who's gonna sell best?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Well, I don't think you're gonna be able to be the chief, the sampler in chief all the time, right? I can tell you, having done that with my straps, it, it, you know, you, you sort of run out of you pretty quickly, but, but you're gonna have to make some choices on where you spend your money, right? Cause you don't have a ton of it and I don't think it would be prudent right now to go get a ton of it from someone else. And, and then, you know, I think that a little bit of money can probably go a fairly long way in, in a, in an organic sampling program. And you'll know at the point at which you really start to have momentum and now you're like, okay, how do we amplify this? Uh, and then you'll

• 15:45Speaker 02

  have the next decision to make, right? Do you do it through paid media or do you step up your sampling program, you know, another level?

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think, I think Randy, you're exactly right. I would just add to that, that, that you can do some of this concurrently. Like, I'm not sure that you need to do one before you do the next. Like, I do think that it's true, this is something you wanna sample. People wanna smell this. It's gonna smell so delicious, right? But here's the thing, and you know this, there is, I, my kids right now, as we speak, are at my house, in the kitchen, making steak sandwiches based on a YouTuber, right? Because they follow a YouTuber and they told, and they went to the store and got all the stuff and they're making sandwiches. So, so many people now are making recipes based on what they're seeing on Instagram and YouTube. I'm talking about micro-influencers who might be, you

• 16:36Speaker 00

  know, maybe, maybe it's somebody who's just a really interesting food, you know, micro-influencer around food and you, and you work with them and you partner with them and you say, all right, we're gonna put like, 20,000 bucks into this, which is no, you know, no small amount of cash, right? But you say, let's think really strategically. Let's really kind of find out who's out there. And by the way, you can use AI to help you with this, to help you find and identify some of these sort of medium to micro. And a micro influencer is somebody with like 10 to 50,000 followers, right?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  You, you do want people to smell this and try this, but you want people to see it too. And it's hard to scale a say, an in store demo, right? The way to do it is through the right partner. And food influencers are enormous. There's, it's still a grow, as far as I understand, it's still a growing sector in, in a lot of these social media platforms.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  That's a good point you make, Guy, because we have worked with influencers, but I hadn't really put the number around it the way you have. And I think as opposed to 300 here, 500 there, let's see what we get, really sort of saying, okay, we're going to have a $20,000 budget for 15 months and really maybe go deep with two or three people with that. I don't know if that would go.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  And spend the time really following these people and looking at what they're doing and seeing how much engagement they're getting. Oftentimes people put their, their engagement numbers right there on, on their Instagram or TikTok. You can see how many views it is. So I would start by doing some search, searches and looking at AI and having them help you and having it help you. And then looking at some of these influencers and picking a few and just saying, you know what? We got 20 grand to work with over the next year and we're going to start to seed this cash.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that idea. What, where I was sort of thinking more that I would shy away from is doing sort of big paid ad buys, right? Because I think, I think, you know, spending a bunch of money on, you know, on Facebook platform or any other platform to, to take an ad and project it isn't really where you need to be right now. I totally agree with Guy that if you can find, you know, some fun quirky, uh, foodie influencers with followings.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  And get them to show just how cool and easy and tasty this thing is to use. That'd be a great way to do it and you wouldn't spend a bunch of cash.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  I love it. It's a great two-pronged strategy. It's great advice.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Shereen Kadri, the brand is called Moji Masala. Congrats. Good luck. Thank you so much for calling in.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Thanks so much.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  All right. Thanks. This, to me, is such a great product because it's not, it's not process. It's just, it's a spice blend and it gives you the step-by-step instructions. So it's really cool. It's really great.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know who did kind of a fun job on what you're talking about without any influencers? They were trying to create the persona and they're spending a lot of money doing it, was HelloFresh, right? Where some of the stuff that they did with meals, where you would watch their kind of, what looked to be organic user content, but showing just how easy it is to put it together. And it really made you want to, it really made you want to do it. And so I love the idea of using actually some micro-influencers instead of paid media.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, a jigsaw puzzle brand gets social media advice from the founder of a restaurant chain worth billions of dollars. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to a special mashup episode of Advice Line on how I built this lab.

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• 22:59Speaker 00

  Hey, welcome back to The Device Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So up next is Todd Graves, the founder of Raising Canes, the fried chicken tender chain. Todd first came on the show back in 2022, and we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes. And what's always stuck with me about his business is how he built a billion-dollar business without constantly changing the menu or adding a bunch of new options. And as you'll hear, Todd has a lot to say about why staying focused on your core business is often the real key to long-term success. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the Advice Line. You're on with Todd Graves. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a line or two about your business.

• 23:40Speaker 05

  Hi Guy, hi Todd. I'm Valerie. I'm calling from Boise, Idaho. I am a co-owner, co-founder of three unique new jigsaw puzzle companies, Learn About Life, Large as Life, and Laugh with Life. Our company creates conversation-starting jigsaw puzzles that spark laughter, curiosity, and connection through play.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Awesome. Valerie, thanks for calling in. All right, Large as Life, these are jigsaw puzzles.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  Am I to assume that they are large as life? They're giant jigsaw puzzles?

• 24:09Speaker 05

  Yes. So that was our first line that we came up with in 2024. They are life-size animal jigsaw puzzles, 50 pieces. So they're the large pieces. And there is a trivia question about the animal on the back of every piece.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  Wow. What animals do you guys make puzzles out of?

• 24:27Speaker 05

  So we just have three out to start out with. We have a red panda, we have a king penguin, and we have a koala. And right now in production, we have a life-size bald eagle with a six-foot wingspan. That one's 100 pieces, 100 trivia questions. That should be coming out this year, by the end of the year.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  Not doing a blue whale yet?

• 24:44Speaker 05

  Not yet. It might be a little cost prohibitive.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. So tell me how this business came about? How did this idea come about?

• 24:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, so my sister-in-law Courtney, she was visiting Yellowstone, and she made note in her mind, passing all of these "don't get so close to the bison" signs, which people unfortunately often ignore.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  They do.

• 25:06Speaker 05

  And she was just thinking about that, and she went into the gift shop and she thought, "You know what? I wish there was something that I could bring home that we could undo on our kitchen floor. We could lay down next to it and see the scale of the size, and we could have a life-size bison, and then put it all back in a box and put it on a shelf." And she is a mom of four and a teacher as well, and so she's, you know, done lots of puzzles and such. She said, "Oh, this is the perfect idea, life-size animal puzzles."

• 25:36Speaker 00

  And I'm assuming these are sold on your website?

• 25:39Speaker 05

  Yes. So we started out... Fulfilling orders through our website. Realized that since nobody knew who we were, we weren't getting many sales on our website. And once we got started on Amazon, which was about June of 2024, we just moved all our sales there for simplicity and sales tax remittances and things like that. So right now, we have a website and our products link all to our Amazon accounts.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. And tell us a little bit about how the business is doing. Give us a sense of what your sales are right now.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  Sure. So 2024, since starting on Amazon in June, we made about $30,000 in revenue. And then this year, we're projected to definitely be more than that. I don't know if it will quite hit double that. It's kind of hard to tell because some of our additional products just came out right toward the end of quarter four last year, and we're just starting puzzle season. So it's hard to get a accurate estimate of what we think we might be projected to do this year, but.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  All right. Before we dive in a little bit more, tell us your question.

• 26:42Speaker 05

  Yes. So my question is, are three puzzle brands all share the same heart, but they have distinct personalities? As we create a parent company to tie them together, I'm wondering what's more effective for social media strategy? Is it one unified account under the parent brand, or separate accounts that let each brand speak directly to its audience?

• 27:05Speaker 00

  And just to be clear, you've got the animals, puzzles, and then you mentioned trivia puzzles?

• 27:10Speaker 05

  Yes. So we have these life-size animal trivia puzzles. Then we have Laugh With Life line that incorporates jokes as well, and then Learn About Life, that's just trivia on a variety of topics.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  And you're promoting all of these separately, several social media channels to separate audiences?

• 27:27Speaker 05

  Currently, yes. Even though there's a connecting component, that they all have a conversational element integrated in them, and they all have the same high-quality standards and everything else, I'm not sure, do I just? Stick with each focus of each of those brands? Or do I put them all in one where it's easier to find? But maybe it looks a little bit more jumbled.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  All right. I want to bring Todd Graves in here. You guys have mastered social media. It's amazing with Cane's. So thoughts, questions for Valerie?

• 27:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, so Valerie, when you, when you said it's distinct, you know, it's distinct audiences between the three brands. Right, and so you have three different, you know, social channels. I mean, you know, literally, are they separate voices? So I mean, are you having, what's to say? For example, have you had some influencers? Would one, would they be like that? Are you marketing them very differently? Or are you just showing your product to the different audiences? But it resonates because they're into animals or into laughter or what?

• 28:23Speaker 05

  I think it's more the latter. I mean, I've had some influencers. I've had some homeschool moms and homeschool influencers on the one channel. And then I've had some people who are big into maybe speed puzzling or thousand piece puzzle collectors who have shown our product on some of the other lines. But I can't say that overall, we've had any huge push that totally pulls us away from puzzling in general.

• 28:49Speaker 06

  Okay, so, so I'll just give you some experiences. I mean, look, I think we're pretty good at social media for Cane's. And, but that's what I know. We, we feed the people. And, and our customer demographics range from old elderly couples that like to come into the restaurant because we're reasonably priced. And I like our friendly crew. And look, everybody likes fried chicken, right? And Cane's sauce. But then that goes down to all the way to kids, right? And so there are social media. I don't do different social media, you know, handles to where you go to different, different type deals. We only have, it's three. One is Raising Cane's corporate account. One is mine, right? The, the founder. And one is my dog, Cane Three, right? Our mascot. But we collab constantly and we reach.

• 29:32Speaker 06

  Sports fans. We have people that love, you know, actors and actresses that are going around. We have people that like all forms of music, right? We have, we have people with so many different interests. What you're uniting forces are people that like puzzles.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:46Speaker 06

  And, and, and like to have fun, right? And like to do things. I think the people that would like the, you know, the trivia based or the fun side would also love to see some beautiful puzzles of, of bison that are life size. I think all that can go together and actually creates more content for, and interesting content for your audience versus I'm just watching the one that done with the whole homeschool group and this is educational. They're missing out on seeing the bison. They're missing out on seeing these other ones. And I think the core goes together and I think when you can focus on that, it's kind of more of a win for everybody. And I also think expands your sales because I think they look across your products and say, hey, you know, it would be fun for us to do that tabletop puzzle.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 06

  And let's buy that. That's just my opinion.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Thank you. Yeah, I, I totally agree. I mean, social media isn't, isn't necessarily about products. It's about stories, right? Yeah. Uh, people, people are looking for like a vibe, you know, or a personality. But I think what you are selling is an emotional thing. It's an experience. You're selling families together, gathering together. It's family time, right? Yes. That's what your brand is. That's what your product is. It's not puzzles. It's not even the 10 other things you might make. It's the time that a parent and a child or parents are going to take to gather around and, and make this stuff and be together. And that's really what, what your brand is, right? And that's why you want to speak about that with one voice. Does that make sense? Yes, yes.

• 31:10Speaker 06

  Yeah. And then you can also, you focus your, you know, like content, right? You can focus on interesting things that all puzzle people and all, all families like together. Like let's say who's the fastest puzzle builder, right? Takes your thousand piece puzzle and does it and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever that puzzle is, it's about, that's exciting that someone did it. As a family, let's try to do it quicker, right? Valerie had so and so on and showed us how to do puzzles quick. And you can, and, and that's, that, that's unified across all your, your audience. And that's also too, what people start sharing. So I'd hate you to do that one idea on the 1,000 puzzle thing that goes to the one audience. And then the animal lovers didn't ever, ever see that, right? You want, you want that, and the engagement goes and you got more people talking about it and more people that will then start following you, right? And then when they share it and they engage it and they comment on it, that's when it really, the algorithms really kick up.

• 31:55Speaker 05

  Oh, that makes a lot of sense.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I even noticed you've got different websites for Laugh With Life and Learn About Life. And I mean, it would just save you time and money and just, you know, brain space.

• 32:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  By just putting it all under one. I would put everything on the main site, The Largest Life, or pick one, whatever one has the most traffic, and you sell everything there. You make that your brand.

• 32:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, that makes a lot more sense in terms of ease, as well as more people getting to see what we have to offer. When I focus on the common elements and common themes of puzzling and togetherness, it flows.

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, it flows throughout all of them, right? And it's like I said, you know, people should know what you stand for, right? We're puzzle people, and we're really about family spending time together, doing something very fun that goes through that. That's our core, right? And then your products, and you can keep adding products, right? Other puzzles might hit another group of fan base and things like that, but it's one voice that goes through. And also too, as you know, holiday time's coming up, so I'm already thinking about how do I order your puzzles, right? But if I have one place to go look at it, I got a nephew that's so into sports, right? But I also have a daughter that's so into animals, so like a life-size bison on the floor, that's gonna be a blast. But if I had to go to different places and look at that, I couldn't order for the five or six people I want to do. And the people that, when they all come to the house, they can all open the different puzzles.

• 33:16Speaker 06

  And I got, you know, people that are into trivia and all that, they can all, we can all like do all those together.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 06

  But we had one spot, and I bought six things versus I only knew about the one.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  Right, that's a really great point. Well, currently, we can't, you know, they're all sold on Amazon, so that's one, one-stop shop for them, but there's nowhere to find them all in one place before you go there. So I completely see what you're saying. That's a perfect recommendation. Thank you.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Awesome. All right, Largest Life, Valerie Abenrot, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck.

• 33:45Speaker 05

  Thank you so much. And if I could just mention real quick, I have listened to your show for so many years, Guy. It's been so motivational, inspirational for me. I'm so grateful. I just appreciate so much you sharing your stories and, Guy, you giving the platform for us to be able to hear these and be inspired by them.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Thank you for letting us know. Really appreciate it. That's why we do it. We do it for that, for those reasons. Thank you for calling in.

• 34:08Speaker 06

  Good luck, Valerie. Well, you know, Valerie doing that, that's a good question, right? And doing it, I think that was some good advice for her and to bring it all together. I think she'll see some good success over that. You know, for her too, is that getting the word out is the thing, right? And that can be done cheaply through influencers and doing. And then she should, you know, hit her local sources to get as much news and press as she can. She's got a great story, right? And they're doing, doing well. She just, she needs, she needs sales, what she needs is more people knowing about it.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, a caller gets some great AI advice that could change how she builds her product. Stick around, you're listening to a mashup episode of The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Hey, welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So our last returning guest is May Shu. She's the founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle. And May first came on the show back in 2017, and we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes as well. May's story is incredible. She's a Chinese immigrant who got her start in the candle business by experimenting with scents and then pouring wax literally into Campbell's soup cans in her basement. And the company really took off. She eventually sold it for $75 million. And in a moment, you'll hear May bring that same inventive thinking to a new challenge as she helps brainstorm how AI could help grow a very niche toy and book business. All right, let's bring in our final caller.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Advice Line. You're on with May Shu. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please.

• 36:00Speaker 07

  Hi, Guy. Hi, May. I'm Abhni Modi Sirkar. I'm calling from New Jersey. I am the co-founder of Modi Toys, a brand that helps Indian families in the diaspora stay connected to their roots through our plush toys and matching children's books inspired by Hindu culture.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  All right, welcome to the show. Thanks for calling in. All right, so you make plush dolls that are designed for Indians who are practicing Hindus?

• 36:25Speaker 07

  Correct. It's primarily for the Hindu community. Of course, not everyone that's Indian identifies themselves as Hindu and vice versa. We've noticed that those living outside of India really resonate with our products because they are the ones who have this deep-rooted connection to want to stay connected to the Indian roots.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Got it. Okay, and these are plush dolls that are... Tell me a bit more about them.

• 36:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, so these are plush toys that when you squeeze their belly, they sing five sacred ancient Hindu mantras. And we have a collection of a total of seven, and they come in three sizes, the mini, the medium, and the mega. And they also come with a corresponding children's book, which is written in rhyming verses. So it's really meant to introduce the Hindu culture to kids in a really fun, accessible way.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  And the plush toys are... Are there animals? Tell me, describe them a little bit.

• 37:23Speaker 07

  Yeah, so if you're familiar with Greek mythology, how there's, you know, Zeus, the god of war, Venus, the goddess of love. Similarly, in Hinduism, each god and goddess also represents some qualities. So Ganesh, which is the elephant-headed god. But Ganesh is the most widely known. He is considered to be the god of good luck, the one that is... who's most widely worshipped. We have Hanuman, the god of strength. We have Durga, the goddess of protection. So, you know, what we have learned is that although we designed the toys for kids, because of what they symbolize, they really resonate with people of all ages within the Hindu community.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  I was looking, I mean, massive addressable market. There's over a billion Hindus on the planet, but it sounds like you're focused on diaspora and maybe Hindus living in the West?

• 38:16Speaker 07

  We definitely have the biggest market here in the US. And in fact, my co-founder, who's my brother, he moved back to India with his family really to try to grow the market there in India specifically because we learned just, you know, through the demands that we were seeing from customers there that they wanted our products there as well. So we know that there is a global market, but you know, I think in terms of the price point and who the messaging connects with the most is the diaspora.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  And how much does it cost?

• 38:48Speaker 07

  So our toys range anywhere from $16.50 for the mini size to $55 for the mega size. And we also sell them as bundles.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  And you started, you launched us in 2018, you said?

• 39:01Speaker 07

  Correct, in late 2018.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  And how, what are you guys doing in sales per year?

• 39:08Speaker 07

  So that's kind of what leads me to my question.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Please, yes.

• 39:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, so we did really well when we first launched. We saw a strong year-over-year growth through organic buzz and just through the community love with little to, you know, no paid ads between 2018 to 2021. And in fact, we hit nearly a million dollars in sales in 2021. But over the last three years, sales have declined despite us launching more SKUs, investing in marketing and expanding to India. So my question is, how do we reignite growth and scale strategically and reach our true potential?

• 39:45Speaker 00

  All right. Meishu, I want to bring you in. This is, it's interesting because it's obviously a doll that is directed towards a specific community, but a huge community, right? I mean, the US alone, I was seeing there's, there's three, three and a half million Hindus. So, you know, interesting opportunity there.

• 40:03Speaker 08

  I'm always curious, do you see a competition usually, you know, there might be someone that you cultivated over the years?

• 40:14Speaker 07

  We have definitely inspired copycats in the past couple of years, but I don't think they are the reason why our sales have declined. I think the reason why we did so well initially is because we grew tremendously on social media. And of course, you know, the algorithms are constantly evolving. So you can't really control, you know, how many people you're reaching through social media. But, you know, 2022 onward is when we started seeing the decline. So I think some of it is macroeconomic conditions as well. But, you know, it still doesn't address the fact that we've continued introducing new products, which is really important in the toy industry. So where is the disconnect coming from is what I'm trying to understand?

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Avni, what kind of like resources do you have to work with? Like marketing resources, like do you have, you know, can you spend, you know, 20, 30, $40,000? It's a lot. I'm just curious.

• 41:10Speaker 07

  We actually do spend almost that much just on Google and Meta ads. I am the marketing team. I am the marketing intern. I'm the marketing CMO. But, but yeah, I mean, that's the extent of money that we spend currently on marketing. We do email marketing and paid ads.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  I, I, obviously I want to be sensitive because I'm not, I'm, you know, I don't know all the nuances of, of, of every, you know, religious tradition. But I wonder whether, see, I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, especially with AI technology and the ability to create animations very quickly and cheaply. Like I see an opportunity to make animated, just little animated shorts, like 45 seconds to two minutes that are tied to, to the tradition and the culture. You know, it's like Paw Patrol doesn't make money from the cartoons. Yeah, the movies do, but they make money from their selling lunchboxes and, and stuffed animals and pajamas.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  You know, that's really, you're basically, you know, it's a, it's a, obviously these are sacred characters, but they're characters, right? Like, and so to me, it seems like there's an opportunity to really. Try and reach especially audiences in Canada and the United States and the UK where you've got a huge Hindu diaspora. That, have you ever thought about trying animation?

• 42:38Speaker 07

  Absolutely. So in fact, the board books that we have to correspond with the plush toys, they're available on our YouTube channel completely for free. We've turned them into animated videos, but just off of those like seven books that we have. But those videos have garnered, you know, hundreds of thousands of views. So we know that there's definitely a demand for that. But we have not created independent animated material that's unrelated to the books. But yes, absolutely, that's something that we would love to do. But I don't know if it's as easy even with AI or even for you.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  It's not simple, but it's a lot easier now.

• 43:16Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  I mean, I can tell you that.

• 43:18Speaker 07

  With AI, yeah.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  It's a lot easier than ever before. And we do some of this with my kids' company, and I've even experimented with it. It's not perfect yet, but there's a lot you can do. And I wonder whether it's worth kind of exploring that, seeing if you could take a little bit of the cash you have for marketing and seeing if you could build a few short videos, just morality tales or cool, you know, little stories that are revolving around the, you know, these characters, but animated that tie back to what you're selling.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. I think there's definitely a demand. In fact, I think I recently heard that the two or three of the top five YouTube channels in the world currently are kids' channels. So there's definitely a demand and market for that.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  I don't know how it works on social media, but can you target Hindus? Can you target people from India expats?

• 44:08Speaker 07

  Absolutely. You know, we're trying all possible avenues and we've tried so many. And in fact, you know, May, one of the things that really excited me when I learned you were going to be on the show is that, you know, like you, I'm also an immigrant. I have no background in the business that I'm in. I'm also in business with my sibling like you or with your sister. And, you know, we're also in the novelty business and...

• 44:32Speaker 08

  But it doesn't have to be. Can I give you an idea?

• 44:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 08

  Maybe you'll tell me if it works. It is Guy that inspired me. What if you make this an interactive... AI-driven conversational doll. Because just making a doll, at some point, you know, if there's no interaction with people, they get tired of it and you can't really expand on just a doll. But what if you make it so that it's interactive? A kid can ask questions about, what is this god stand for? And why are you important in the history of the culture? And how does that relate to each other? And what would you do if I have this situation? What would you do?

• 45:16Speaker 08

  So that using AI, it becomes a talking god. I want one of those.

• 45:22Speaker 07

  Oh, I want one too now.

• 45:24Speaker 08

  And you can have a subscription program where you subscribe to one doll, you get one prize. You subscribe to two dolls, it's a different prize. And each one stands for something that can help you, giving you different directions in life.

• 45:39Speaker 07

  Oh, fascinating. So I have no idea how the mechanics would work behind a technology like that. But that sounds really interesting because you're right. Right now it's somewhat static and that I can only sing these five mantra and that's it. But yeah, what if it was more interactive in almost like real time?

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it could be interesting. I mean, there you would probably need to raise some money to do the R and D. But you, you know, an embedded chip in there that's wifi connected. And you know, essentially you've got a plush computer, right? And that could be more, you'd have to produce guardrails around that. You know, you'd want, you want the doll to be focused on primarily what it is. But, but it could be interesting.

• 46:19Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 08

  There are a lot of good engineers that's in the Hindu culture. And that's where.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Some of the greatest engineers coming from India.

• 46:28Speaker 08

  Exactly. You could build it with the resources back in your home country like I did, right? It's not that you are an outsider. You have a very unique advantage that none of us have, which is the ability to close that cultural gap, but also having a resilient workforce.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would also, I was just one last thing. From a, just from a business perspective, right? And we talked about the addressable market here and its significance. And it's not insignificant at all. I would also just think sort of in the long term, as you look out on the horizon, if you're, if you're focused on, especially on diaspora communities and on igniting interest in Hindu culture and Indian culture, you know, you've got books, you've got the plush dolls. But think about your business in a bigger way than just, you know, a business about dolls or books, but a business about getting people to become more knowledgeable about their history, culture and their religion.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  And so from that, that sort of thought process, you build out other products, other things, other offerings that also feed into that mission.

• 47:41Speaker 07

  Absolutely. We are definitely looking at building out more digital content that will be available for purchase as well. But a lot of that came from content that we're putting out on social media. And we've noticed that those posts that are educational in nature tend to have the most engagement in terms of saves and shares. So, and many people have actually asked, like, I wish this was like available in a book format so that I could just easily access it. So that's exactly what we're doing and we're turning, converting all that into a digital downloadable asset.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  Nice. Mayshu, any last thoughts?

• 48:15Speaker 08

  No, I think you are hitting a great core. I think with, with this cultural bound, knowledge based, but could be very AI driven and very interactive. I think that's the key words to be, to have a sustainable business model.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  The brand is called Modi Toys. Afni, thanks so much for calling in.

• 48:35Speaker 07

  Thank you so much for having me. Thanks.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Good luck. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it's interesting because, you know, we don't often get products on the show that are really targeting. A specific group, but I mean, when you're talking about a group that is so large, I mean, it is, it's, it's like, it's almost like, you know, when your entire marketplace is just the United States, right? You can, you can build a very robust company just in the US because there's 300 million people. But if you're trying to build, you know, a massive brand in, in like Norway with four million people, it's a little harder, a little harder. You got, you really have to export that, you know, throughout Europe. So.

• 49:13Speaker 08

  I know you recently interviewed my friend Larry that started We, and I was just going to say, this is very Lou, yeah. What happened, right? With such a very fringe idea back in 2017 or 2014. Yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Right. And for people who don't know that story, he sells, he started out by selling Asian, home delivered products, like Asian food products. And now it's, you know, all kinds and different, you know, not just Chinese, but Korean and things from Taiwan and Japan and, and, and sort of Latino food products. And it's so, it's really interesting what they built.

• 49:50Speaker 08

  Yeah. Cotter bound.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to this special mashup edition of the Advice Line. And special thanks to Randy Hetrick of TRX, Todd Graves of Raising Canes, and May Shu of Chesapeake Bay Candles for joining me on the show. And again, if you haven't heard their original episodes or their full episodes of Advice Line, you'll definitely want to check them out. We'll have links in the show notes. 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. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you

• 50:32Speaker 00

  solve them. You can send us a voice memo at [email protected] or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Romel Wood with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was By Andrea Bruce, our engineer was Sina LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, J.C. Howard, Kerry Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coats. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.