Advice Line with Jeff Raider of Harry's

Harry’s and Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they talk with three founders grappling with strategic decisions. Today we meet Uli, who’s trying to balance multiple revenue streams for her Los Angeles-based gelato business. Then Travis in Boulder, who just hired his first employee for his upstart package delivery service. And Karly from southern California, who’s launching a children’s book subscription that makes the full moon more magical. 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] mailto:[email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298. And to hear the founding story of Harry’s https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/3f17c017-0be2-4cc0-a75d-b98b8ed9a591/embed, check out Jeff's first appearance on the show in 2023. This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch. You can follow HIBT on X https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com http://guyraz.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?

  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.

• 0:45Guy 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. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes

• 1:30Guy Raz?

  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. 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 2:00 AM 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. How do we make sure AI goes well for people?

• 2:14Guy Raz?

  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. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer.

• 2:58Guy Raz?

  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. 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.

• 3:40Guy Raz?

  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. 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.

• 4:23Guy Raz?

  And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked 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. 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.

• 5:07Guy Raz?

  Visit mobili fuels.com for details. 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 attempt with me to help you. 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.

• 5:52Guy Raz?

  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. Joining me today is Jeff Raider, co-founder of Harry's, now one of the best-known shaving brands out there. Jeff, welcome to the show.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Thanks so much, Guy. Appreciate you having me.

• 6:26Guy Raz?

  Thank you for coming back onto How I Built Us, of course, this time on Advice Line. The last time we had you on, you were with your co-founder, Andy Katz-Meifield, and you told us about how you found this brand and how you created a competitive advantage by selling razors direct to consumer online. And by the way, for those of you listening, if you haven't heard that episode yet, it's an amazing story, the story of Harry's Razors. We'll leave a link to it in the podcast description. Jeff, today, we're going to be talking with founders who are in the early stages of starting a company, or they're in the process of some major pivot. And either way, they're thinking about growth, right, and how they should be investing their time and resources. And, you know, early on at Harry's, you must have felt pretty overwhelmed, right, at times, because you're the co-founder, you were involved

• 7:10Guy Raz?

  in basically everything, managing, you know, all the day-to-day.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 7:15Guy Raz?

  But ultimately, that wasn't, presumably, that wasn't sustainable. And this is something I think a lot of founders struggle with as their companies start to really grow. So how did you figure out where to prioritize before you guys had the capacity to really hire people and bring more people on?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's a great question. And I think one of the things also that I certainly feel as a founder is I like new things. I like new ideas. And actually, in our very early days at Harry's, we had so many ideas. We had built a barber shop in Lower Manhattan that was doing well.

• 7:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  We wanted to build a brand that helped women with shaving and hair removal, you know, kind of for all over their bodies. We were building content, and I wanted to double down there. And it got to the point, maybe six months in, where I felt stretched really thin. The few folks in our team were stretched too thin. And we had to take a step back and say, like, what is our core business? What are we really great at? And at the time, the thing that was working best in our business was You know, selling our products direct to consumer, getting to our customers, learning from them, improving their experience. And when we were spending time on other things, you know, we were shortchanging that kind of core of our business.

• 8:24Guy Raz?

  And I think because Harry's is such a big brand, people probably assume that when you introduce a new product, it's like a slam dunk, you know, and I, and I say this as somebody who

• 8:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:33Guy Raz?

  I use Harry's every day. I shave in the shower. I got one of those

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 8:36Guy Raz?

  fogless mirrors and every few days I change the blade. And then I also use a deodorant product that you guys have called Mando.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  That's great. Yeah.

• 8:44Guy Raz?

  But just because you have one big product, it's not easy to scale the next one, right?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Totally, totally. And that's where I think direct to consumer is so powerful. Because as opposed to just making, you know, millions of something and trying to assume that everyone's going to want it, what we can do is start on direct to consumer, start to sell to a few people, see what they like about it, what they don't like. If we have to make changes to it, we can figure out how to talk about it, understand if we build a set of products, which ones people like the most, and then lean into those and learn in that experience. And so when we started Harry's as an example, we got a ton of feedback from customers that they wanted a precision trimmer on the back of their razor blade. We have five blades in our cartridge, but precision trimmer helps get to these hard to reach places like under your nose.

• 9:28Guy Raz?

  I know it. Under your nose.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  We didn't have that.

• 9:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  We didn't have that when we started. And so we said, oh, wow. Like customers seem to really want that. And so we went back to the factory in Germany and we said, this is a feature that lots and lots of customers really want. And so we were able to build that into our next generation of products.

• 9:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right, Jeff, we've got several callers waiting patiently to ask us for some advice. So hopefully we'll give them some good advice. Are you ready?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Hopefully.

• 9:55Guy Raz?

  For our first caller?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Fingers crossed, of course.

• 9:57Guy Raz?

  All right, let's bring in our first caller. Hello, caller. Please introduce yourself. Tell us your name, where you are calling from, and a little bit about your business.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. My name is Uli Nasibova. I'm calling in from Los Angeles, California. I'm the founder and chief everything officer at Uli's Gelato. I make great tasting gelato with locally sourced ingredients.

• 10:20Guy Raz?

  Nice.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  And I used to sell my product in my two brick and mortar gelato shops that I closed during the pandemic. And today I sell Lys Gelato pints and single serving cups in grocery stores.

• 10:31Guy Raz?

  Okay, amazing. And what's your question that you brought for us today?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  So my question is the following, um, to you Jeff and to you Guy as the brain trust of the American entrepreneurial experience.

• 10:44Guy Raz?

  Oh boy, here we are.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 10:46Guy Raz?

  Here it is.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Uh, what questions would you be asking yourselves if within your business, you kind of had two revenue channels that were constantly competing against each other?

• 10:57Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  But were also very necessary at this point in my entrepreneurial journey and I can expand on that a little bit too.

• 11:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah, can you just briefly expand on it? What are the competing revenue, revenue channels?

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Sure. So I sell my pints and single serving cups to grocery stores. It is a very capital heavy process because I have my own small manufacturing facility. I have staff. I have to manufacture my product from zero, package it up, deliver it to distributors or to grocery stores directly. I do both. And then wait to get paid. And then at the same time, to fund my business's operations, I do a lot of catering. And I do a lot of kind of high-touch, white glove catering, requires a lot of email, phone communication.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It is a very difficult situation to be in. It's a great situation to be in because, you know, I lost my two gelato shops and now I have these two great opportunities in front of me. But every week when I'm putting together my production plan for the week, I have to make very difficult decisions about whether I'm going to be dedicating my and my staff's time to catering, which pays upfront, or to manufacturing these large orders and then, you know, wait forty-five to sixty days.

• 12:17Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  To get paid.

• 12:18Guy Raz?

  Hmm. All right. So let's, let's talk a little bit about the business. When did you, how did you get into this business? How did you get into the ice cream business? Great question.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  I love food and I am an immigrant. I came to United States as an international student and my biggest culture shock was how bland everything tasted

• 12:39Guy Raz?

  huh

• 12:39Speaker 02

  when I went to markets.

• 12:41Guy Raz?

  Where did you immigrate from?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  I am from Baku, Azerbaijan.

• 12:45Guy Raz?

  Oh wow, okay, cool.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yes, I came to United States at seventeen because I got a full scholarship to go to a wonderful liberal arts college, Colorado College. But one of the first grocery store experiences that I had in the United States was at Walmart. And at the time, at least in two thousand and one, the taste quality maybe wasn't there. I love ice cream and a lot of times when I would buy a pint of strawberry ice cream, I would be eating it and saying, well, where's the strawberry? I'm searching for the strawberry. I can't find it in there. And I started making it myself. And then I was working in investment management and I wasn't very happy with my career path. At the time, it was necessary, doing the necessary thing to fund what you really, really want to do.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  And eventually I quit my job and used my savings to build my first gelato scoop shop in kitchen.

• 13:39Guy Raz?

  Amazing. What a cool story. Okay, so you make gelato under your name, Uli's Gelato. When did you start the business?

• 13:46Speaker 02

  I started my business twelve years ago.

• 13:48Guy Raz?

  Nice. All right, so tell me a little bit about the scoop shops. I mean, it's a tough business. What happened? Was it the pandemic? Was it, what was going on?

• 13:57Speaker 02

  So what happened was that during the pandemic, the foot traffic in my two specific locations really suffered. And a lot of my business was the lunch crowd, people who worked in nearby offices and then, you know, they would get a sweet treat. Also, at night, we would get a second rush, people after dinner looking for dessert. And the foot traffic never recovered. In fact, a lot of the buildings in my neighborhood would file for bankruptcy because they still have a lot of trouble with their occupancy rates.

• 14:28Guy Raz?

  Wow, so you had to shut those down and then at that point you pivoted to wholesale?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yes. I shut my stores down. It was a very difficult decision for me. I probably took a little too long to do it because I was just so attached to the idea of I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it. And then when I finally shut them down, I wasn't really ready to quit. I got a ticket from an industry contact to Expo West in Anaheim. And I walked the floor and I looked at all the different products and I said, mine is so much better. Sorry. Sorry, not sorry. I can do this. I am not ready to quit. I can just package it differently. I can sell it to grocery stores. I can do whatever it takes, but I'm just not ready to quit quite yet.

• 15:14Guy Raz?

  Got it. Okay. Jeff, questions for Uli about the business?

• 15:19Speaker 01

  What's the relative size of the catering business versus your new grocery business?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  I would say last year catering was more than half of my business and this year it will be just under half.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  I'm on your site right now. Willie, what are your favorite flavors or what are the best sellers?

• 15:38Speaker 02

  My best seller is my fresh mint strechotella, which is my take on mint chip.

• 15:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  I pick mint leaves off the stem. I do not use mint extract, but my business is scalable. We just, you know, do a little bit of more prep on the front end because customers deserve to have great tasting gelato. That's my mission.

• 15:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  And sometimes that means a little bit more work.

• 16:02Guy Raz?

  I mean, I'm looking at your website. Really nice design. Love it. And I see you voted best gelato and best ice cream in Los Angeles, two different years in a row. And I'm looking at the flavors like, you know, just really interesting. I mean, bee pollen gelato and saffron gelato, yogurt cherry gelato. I mean, olive oil. There's some really speculous cookies.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Espresso with waffle bits.

• 16:27Guy Raz?

  I mean, it's some really cool stuff in here. I don't see anything on the site that tells me that you picked the mint leaves for six hours and steeped them in the milk. I don't, I want to know that. I want to see something. I know this is not exactly your question, but if there's a way that I can just see something on the, right away on the landing page, like a little video of you like. Steeping the things or just, or just like a little, I don't know, infographic explaining like what makes your ice cream different? Because clearly this is, this is next level ice cream. We're not talking about Baskin Robbins here.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  You're absolutely right. My website, I did it as quickly as I could.

• 17:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  And, you know, there was this whole thing during the pandemic when everyone was going into DTC and thought they were automatically going to be the next unicorn. It's a little trickier when you have to ship with thick liners and dry ice and all of that. But, you know, that's what we threw together with the resources that we had. But it could be better. I probably haven't mastered the messaging as well as I could.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  How many people do you have working for you?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  So there's only three full-time employees, including myself and two part-timers for catering.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Got it. And do you think you could make your catering business bigger?

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Like if you doubled down there and said, hey, we want to triple the size of our catering business, make it really profitable. Do you think you could do that?

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. In the beginning, I would probably have to invest a little more into catering equipment and, you know, vinyl covering.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. The one thing that is nice about the catering business is that you have a sampling opportunity for hundreds of people in that environment. I guess like, it sounds like you've got a couple of challenges. One is like a just total capital challenge. How do you make this business really make money? And then it also sounds like you have a financing challenge. Like, how do you finance your orders? Where my head was going a little bit, and I don't know, this might be silly idea, and so take the input as just, just that as input, which is, if you're able to really scale your catering business, could you hire someone to run that for you? And if it's a very profitable business, presumably you could have someone who, who took that and really grew it for you. And that became kind of a sampling and profit engine for your business.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  But you could spend 10 or 20% of your time there, you know, like, and then in the interim, the huge opportunity is making this a national gelato brand. And so then the question is, well, how do you finance that? And you know, there are two ways to finance it, or three. One, there's profit from your catering business if you can scale it and scale it without spending much time on it, right? So like have someone come in and really own that for you, which is an exciting job. People love ownership of things like, hey, here's a huge mandate. We have a catering business, it's crushing it, triple it. You're the CEO of the catering business and you really let them go build that for you. So you can finance it with profit from your catering business or you can raise outside capital and outside capital can come in one of two forms.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  It can come in equity capital and that this is a tricky market, right? And how to raise, you know, outside capital. So unclear on what terms that comes and how much you need, or it could come in debt capital. And what's kind of interesting about what you said is the financing that you really need is receivables financing. It's, you know, you have orders, they've been placed, you just haven't been paid. And there are a bunch of people out in the world that do just that receivables financing. Now, the bigger your business, the more likely it is to be able to get that receivables financing. So I get you have a bit of a chicken and egg issue, but I would imagine that there are people out there that are willing to lend you money at some rate. And you might not love it to start, but it'll come down over time as you, as you get bigger

• 20:16Speaker 01

  for just that receivables financing. It's an issue we struggle with at Harry's, you know, we sit on a bunch of inventory and have a bunch of receivables from large retailers. And the way that we pay for that is with debt financing because people know at the end of the day that like their money good, like their risk is that Whole Foods defaults on their payment to you, which is a very low risk. And therefore they're willing to lend at pretty attractive rates against things like that. And so that might be a thing to consider just to unlock more capital for you to be able to go scale nationally.

• 20:50Guy Raz?

  Okay. So I think that I'm going to disagree with that disagree. I'm going to take a slightly different position to Jeff's because Jeff suggests maybe you look for some, you know, some loans and I'm, and you could do that. But I think, cause one of your questions is, how can I get another one of me willing to hustle like a maniac? And I think the answer to that question is, Find somebody and give them a part of your business. And the person you find, if you can find somebody who has experience working at an ice cream brand, you know, a Jenny's or, you know, Ben and Jerry's or something. I don't know if you heard our advice line a couple of weeks ago. We had this, one of the co-founders of Kava, the Mediterranean foods brand. And it was one store in Rockville, Maryland.

• 21:35Guy Raz?

  You know, when the three original founders found their fourth co-founder, he came in and he saw, he saw this as a national chain. He saw this as something so much bigger. You've got this really cool brand. You make great ice cream, but you need, I think you need somebody who has some experience working at a bigger brand. Is that something that, that you would consider doing?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely. I would love a co-founder. I know my strengths. I know what I'm good at and I know areas that need help where I'm just not enough.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  For what it's worth, I totally agree with what Guy said. And I'm not sure that our suggestions are mutually exclusive.

• 22:18Guy Raz?

  No, I was just trying to create some tension in the conversation.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  I love it. I totally love it. And I'm just saying, yes, and like, but you should totally do that. And someone who knows how to work with these retailers too, to build scale and big programs and sell the right products and all that's like, there's a lot of know-how there that you could hire or bring onto your team as a co-founder, whatever the right title is. I think that would be hugely valuable.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 22:44Guy Raz?

  And then eventually figuring out the partner will help you figure out how to scale it.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 22:48Guy Raz?

  Because the value proposition here is this is special because it's a premium product and you have, it has to, you have to scream that from the rafters. You have just, every time you see Uli's, you need to know that this isn't just another ice cream brand. It's like really special.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 23:07Guy Raz?

  All right. And if this happens, if this goes national, me and Jeff get at least 10 pints each.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  That's it? I thought you were gonna ask for 1%.

• 23:17Guy Raz?

  Oh, I got you. No, no.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  I just want some espresso gelato with waffles.

• 23:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Easy.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Maybe some California pistachio.

• 23:24Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Done. I can make that happen in a dry iced box tomorrow.

• 23:31Guy Raz?

  All right. Uli, thank you so much for calling in. It's Uli's Gelato. Good luck. And yeah, keep us posted.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Thanks, Uli. Congrats.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys.

• 23:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  The brand looked, to your point, the brand looks really good. I think just

• 23:44Guy Raz?

  Looks really good, right?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  storytelling around it and then real support and scaling. That was such a good idea around finding someone who's seen the next evolutions of the business to help her get there because that'll be so invaluable.

• 23:58Guy Raz?

  Even if she gives up half of the business, it's worth it because

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 24:01Guy Raz?

  this is really a turning point. And if you find the right person who understands the opportunity here, I mean, this is a, and you know, ice cream is a pretty crowded space. But I mean, people said water was a crowded space and look at Liquid Death, right? They understood that you can figure out how to position it in the right way. I mean, if people see this, I think there's, there's an opportunity there.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Totally. And if you've got a great product, that should do so much for you. You know, and it seems like she has a really great product.

• 24:31Guy Raz?

  All right, Jeff, we're gonna take a quick break. But when we come back, an upstart package delivery service that just brought on employee number two. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the advice line right here on How I Built This Lab.

• 24:52Guy 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.

• 25:34Guy Raz?

  The agents bring 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 into the tools your business already relies on.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

  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, and how to position your business to prosper from it.

• 27:04Guy Raz?

  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.

• 27:23Guy Raz?

  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 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

• 28:07Guy Raz?

  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.

• 28:27Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the advice line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Jeff Raider, co-founder of Harry's. Jeff, let's take our next caller.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Hi, Guy. Hi, Jeff.

• 28:38Guy Raz?

  Hello, welcome. Tell us your name, tell us where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  My name is Travis Leahy, and I am the founder of Bundle. Bundle's a Boulder, Colorado-based business, and we are a service provider for large multifamily properties, and we provide onsite package management and deliveries for those properties.

• 28:58Guy Raz?

  Cool. And Travis, what's your question?

• 29:01Speaker 03

  So as I'm bringing on new people to the team, I have been solo for so long now, and I'm trying to adjust to that. And I'm not going to be the one serving all 500-plus of our residents anymore. And so how does Bundle deal with that change as the business grows?

• 29:19Guy Raz?

  All right, we're going to get to your question in a moment, but some questions about Bundle. So basically, You deliver packages at like apartment buildings or condo buildings?

• 29:29Speaker 03

  That's correct. So as Amazon and UPS and FedEx each day, they show up and they can deliver up to 100 packages a day for these properties and it overwhelms the staff, residents aren't happy, packages get lost. So Bundle comes on site once a day and actually manages that problem for the property.

• 29:49Guy Raz?

  Got it. Okay, a couple of questions. I mean, aren't big buildings already doing that if they've got like an association board or if you're paying monthly fees, you know, to live in the building, don't they already have a staff that just gets all the packages into the mailroom and then just like distributes them?

• 30:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so kind of that 100 to 300 unit complex is our target client. And for the most part, those properties, they have two leasing agents and they have two property managers. And where we're at is the ownership groups, they don't want those people to be managing packages. So maybe in an 800 to 1,000 high-rise, unit high-rise building, they might have a staff dedicated to this, but the smaller properties do not.

• 30:35Guy Raz?

  So they're willing to pay you a fee, which means that the people living in the building are willing to pay you an additional fee to handle that job?

• 30:44Speaker 03

  That is correct.

• 30:45Guy Raz?

  Got it. Okay. Jeff, any questions for Travis?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  One more clarifying question, just in terms of how the actual flow of goods works. So they deliver to a bundle location and that's like a bin or something in the building?

• 30:58Speaker 03

  It is a room for the most part.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  A room?

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we, we take a utility closet or something and we retrofit it.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Got it. And then you have someone come, take all the packages and drop them at the individual doors?

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 31:09Guy Raz?

  And how many, how many employees do you guys have now?

• 31:12Speaker 03

  So Bundle, I actually just on-boarded my newest employee. His name is Hunter and he's going to be our COO and he's the second employee.

• 31:21Guy Raz?

  Nice. So he's a COO and also your other delivery guy?

• 31:24Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 31:26Guy Raz?

  And you're the other, you're the CEO and delivery guy?

• 31:29Speaker 03

  That's correct. Yeah.

• 31:30Guy Raz?

  And, and when did you found, when did you start this business?

• 31:32Speaker 03

  So Bundle started a year ago in May and so.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  For about a year, I was managing all 388 of our units by ourselves, doing door-to-door deliveries.

• 31:45Guy Raz?

  Cool. You know, Jeff, this reminds me a lot of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. We had Brian Scootamar on the show years ago, and what was so beautiful and elegant about that business was their very low startup costs, right? It was just human labor, a truck. He would buy a truck for 600, 700 bucks. He'd haul people's crap away. After five or six of these jobs, he would have paid for the truck. And so it was really a smart business because he could scale it as he did more jobs. He could just hire more trucks and more people. And so it's a really interesting idea. I wonder, Travis, how much does this cost people living in the building? What's their fee?

• 32:22Speaker 03

  So the fee to the residents, it is typically around $15 per door per month. But that is totally up to the building, how they charge it back, because our contract is with the building.

• 32:34Guy Raz?

  All right. So you are trying to figure out, how do you keep the high-quality standards of your service when you've just onboarded another guy? And it's your baby, it's your business, and you put a lot of care into it. And presumably, you're delivering these packages white glove with care. And so the question is, how do you maintain the quality of the service? I think another way to ask this question is, how do I delegate, right? And so Jeff, do you want to take a crack at this first?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Sure. Maybe one just clarifying question, because I think that thing that Guy mentioned was super helpful around quality is, how do you evaluate quality? Is it timeliness of service, completion rate, the personal relationship with the person? Like, I guess, how do you think about what a great service experience looks like?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  So if I'm being honest, as a small business, we haven't really set those quality metrics yet. However, with me being the primary service provider, I believe what I'd want it to look like is for the bundle employee to show up and know the majority of residents by their first name, and be able to talk to them and set expectations with them. And then, yes, completion of deliveries. So we have now delivered over 10,000 packages, and we haven't had one go missing.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Got it. That's great.

• 33:53Guy Raz?

  I mean, you're doing a lot of this yourself. And by the way, how are you like, what does the value add aside from bringing the package to their door? So they don't have to go to the mailroom. Is there other, is there like, can they track their packages through you or anything like that?

• 34:07Speaker 03

  So I would say the primary value add is our online resident portal. So now that subscriptions and things like that are such a massive part of e-commerce.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  A great part I should mention.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And definitely something that has helped bundle as well. But we now will accept delivery pause requests. So residents, we will hold on to their package for as long as they need if they get a box delivered and it's going out of town.

• 34:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Great.

• 34:36Guy Raz?

  Jeff, I'm curious on this question of quality standards. Like, did you guys early, early on, build sort of a brand bible for what it means to represent, represent Harry's?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Not in the very, very early days. I think what we were doing was much more like what Travis is doing, which I applaud, which is to be the customer service rep yourself and to teach people what great looks like by having them work with you, engage with you, follow you, and then hire incredible people who can take that forward. Over time, we totally did. You know, we thought about CX experience across a number of dimensions and then started to measure customer satisfaction. But a couple of thoughts, Travis, I think one, I love that you're the first delivery rep. I think that goes a long way and that you're setting that standard. I think two, the first people that you hire at the company are going to be so pivotal with setting the culture of the company. You know, when businesses get bigger, you can

• 35:32Speaker 01

  have values and behaviors that you really want people to live by. But in the early days, lots of it is like really tribal culture. You know, it's people looking to you and the other early employees for signals of how to act. And so I think taking a tremendous amount of care in who those people are are really, really, is really, really important.

• 35:49Guy Raz?

  I mean, I wonder whether there's value and Travis, I imagine you are in over your head. You are just so busy all the time.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:55Guy Raz?

  But I wonder if there's a world where you start, maybe you do one page a night or half a page a night, and you start to build. Like a bible, right? Like a guidebook on what it means to be a bundle representative. And make it granular. You know, where I'm looking at your website. I see a video of this dude. Maybe it's you. Is it you in the video?

• 36:14Speaker 03

  That is Hunter. That is the COO.

• 36:16Guy Raz?

  That's Hunter, okay. You know, he's got like a shaggy doo and he looks like a cool guy. He's got his backwards hat on. He's got his bundle shirt on. So maybe you've got like a thing like, hey, you know, we want to be friendly. We want to look approachable. You know, this is how we talk to people. We smile. We ask people how their day is going. Like, you know, Trader Joe's, Trader Joe's, man. I've never, Trader Joe's sucks if you're an introvert because you have to talk about your whole life story with the person at the register. Cause they're so nice. And they're like, oh, I see you're getting, making pizza tonight. And you're like, yeah, you know what I mean? But it's kind of amazing. It is kind of amazing that they've managed to do that. It doesn't matter what Trader Joe's I go to. I'm always experiencing that. Chick-fil-A, same thing. They're so friendly.

• 36:58Guy Raz?

  So to me, there seems to be value in actually writing it down in a document.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  I agree. And then I think the other thing I might encourage you to do is, you know, before Hunter goes on his own, have him follow you for two weeks. Do it together. Like take a lot of care and onboarding. And then the next couple of people that you hire, have them go with Hunter for a while. That's going to mean you have to grow a little bit more slowly. But I think quality is so important to your business. And then I think if you give it enough time, what you'll start to see is that these edge cases will pop up. Someone will have an experience that's tricky and you won't know how to deal with it. And if someone can see you or Hunter work through that problem, I think that sets culture in a, a really, really, really important way.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  And then I couldn't agree more with starting to write these things down just because as you scale, not everybody's going to get to know you, but they can read your words just as you've written them and a set of principles that you have.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  The last thing I would, I would invest in is, um, is really measuring, measuring satisfaction. And so how can you systematically start to survey your customers, understand how they view your service and their experience, create some set of standards that you want to sort of live by and set a set of metrics, say, hey, listen, we have a 97% customer satisfaction. If there's any building that we're less than 95, that's a red alert and we're gonna go jump in. But that I think will enable you to sort of understand how you're doing on a consistent basis for your customers. And that, that measurement can be very helpful in terms of then coaching people on your team to make sure that they're delivering at that level and measuring their own performance. That could become part of their performance review, for lack of a better term.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I completely agree. I think that's all amazing advice and, and things that Bundle definitely needs to start working towards is having guides in place and just systems that we can follow and any new person can come on board and, and immediately take that and be successful at Bundle.

• 38:57Guy Raz?

  Amazing. All right. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna be following you, man. Travis Leahy, Bundle, thanks so much.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Congrats, Travis.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you both so much.

• 39:05Guy Raz?

  All right. Good luck, man. Wow.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Pretty cool. I think what you said about 1-800-JUNK and the scalability of the model here resonates.

• 39:12Guy Raz?

  Right. Cause it's just your, it's, you start with your labor and then, I mean, I guess they have some fees and with, you know, sort of the tracking system they're using, but it seems like it's probably an off the shelf, relatively inexpensive product that they're working with. So.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 39:25Guy Raz?

  Anyway, Jeff, we're gonna take another quick break, but when we come back, a children's book subscription with a delivery every full moon. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

• 39:50Speaker 04

  Being a serious business owner takes hard work, patience, and a drive to keep moving forward. So it's important to find a serious business card that goes the extra mile. With a Venture X Business Card from Capital One, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. And with big purchasing power, you can spend more and earn more. This is your sign to take your business to the next level. The Capital One Venture X Business Card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details.

• 40:29Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. Today, I'm taking your calls with Jeff Raider, co-founder of Harry's. Jeff, let's bring in our next caller.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  Hi, Guy. Hi, Jeff.

• 40:40Guy Raz?

  Hello, welcome. Please introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling from and just a little bit about your business.

• 40:47Speaker 05

  My name is Carly Bonfante. I am calling from Los Angeles, California, and I am the founder of Full Moon Fairy, which is a children's book series and trinket subscription that's very immersive and interactive and meant to be experienced on every full moon. And we also do a line of premium organic stuffed animals to bring these characters and these stories to life.

• 41:13Guy Raz?

  Cool. And what's your question?

• 41:15Speaker 05

  So I am a solo founder. I'm self-publishing. I'm self-funded. I'm trying to do it all myself. And I'm currently gearing up for now a D to C launch. And I really am just wondering how I can create a really magical launch for FullMoonFairy.com.

• 41:35Guy Raz?

  Cool. All right, well, a couple of questions before we dive into your question. So this is a... It's a subscription model. There's a book.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:44Guy Raz?

  Parents read the books to the kids.

• 41:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:46Guy Raz?

  But they also get some trinkets. And then when the kid goes to sleep at night.

• 41:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:50Guy Raz?

  They put it like under their pillow, like the tooth fairy?

• 41:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, we say in our family, it's you put your shoes out.

• 41:56Guy Raz?

  Oh.

• 41:57Speaker 05

  And the full moon fairy will just come and drop a little trinket in their shoe to be discovered in the morning.

• 42:02Guy Raz?

  And do you do this on the full moon?

• 42:04Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. So the first book in this series tells the story of Faye, the full moon fairy. And she visits children and brings trinkets for them to discover in the morning. So every month, Faye goes on an adventure with another nocturnal critter friend. And there's this adventure to be had. And then the kids wake up to these trinkets that are kind of, there's a nod to something in the book that they'll discover in their shoe in the morning.

• 42:31Guy Raz?

  And are you the writer, the author of the stories?

• 42:34Speaker 05

  So I actually, um, back in 2022, when I first thought of this concept, I actually invited a good family friend of ours, who is the writer of Toy Story, the first Toy Story. I invited him to lunch and I told him the concept and I was like so excited. And he got so inspired and excited. And he actually was like, I want to help you write these. This would be so fun, such a fun project to work on. And so we ended up kind of brainstorming back and forth. He ended up having too many other priorities, but he introduced me to a gal that he'd been mentoring. And so her and I have been really working on bringing these to life together.

• 43:16Guy Raz?

  Tell me what you were doing around the time you founded this or what, I mean, I'm assuming you work on this full time now?

• 43:22Speaker 05

  I do. I actually lost my day job back in January. And so, you know, I'd been at this as more or less like a passion project, side project for a little over a year prior to that. And then back in January of this year. I thought, you know what? What the heck? I should go for this, you know? Let's see what we can do here. So I've really been trying to ramp up to really launch soon, any day now.

• 43:48Guy Raz?

  And what were you doing? Well, tell me a little bit about the work you were doing before.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I've been in fashion and wellness for a little over 20 years. I've primarily worked on the wholesale sales teams for brands. So if I was working for Manduka, I would be selling to, you know, Nordstrom's and Yoga Works. And, and then I've worked for other large brands like Seven for All Mankind and True Religion. So my, my product background ranges quite a bit.

• 44:16Guy Raz?

  And where, where are you getting the, the books and the, and the trinkets and stuffed animals made? Do you have, are you working with factories in Asia?

• 44:23Speaker 05

  Yes. So my books and trinkets are being made in Asia and then the stuffed animals are actually all handmade in Nepal. So there's two different factories that I'm working with.

• 44:34Guy Raz?

  And this is totally self-financed right now?

• 44:36Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. Which is, I mean, every day I'm like, oh my God, this is totally insane, you know? But it's, it's a pretty big undertaking.

• 44:46Guy Raz?

  Jeff, questions for Carly?

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Carly, you mentioned you have kids?

• 44:50Speaker 05

  I do. I have an eight-year-old and a six-year-old. And, you know, so when I started this a couple of years ago, they were really right in that sweet spot of the magic years is what I call them.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  That's so cute. My, my kids are just a little bit older and the tooth fairy, I think, just died for the last one of ours. Like, but for the longest time we, we believed and it was, it's the sweetest. So I empathize with the magic years.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  And then you mentioned you're launching soon, like imminently or?

• 45:15Speaker 05

  Yes. So the website actually just went live as like a soft launch and then I'm really ramping up for an August ship date for the first book. And, but I have been seeding this and kind of selling to my smaller network for a while. I got some advanced copies late last year of the books and the reactions have been amazing, which definitely fueled my passion and my excitement to really go for this.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Great.

• 45:42Guy Raz?

  And so your question, of course, is, is an important question and a good question for Jeff about customer acquisition and then subscription retention. You're about to, you're hoping to launch this in August. You want people to subscribe to this so they can get a book every month and then leave a trinket for, by the way. I have blamed the tooth fairy on many occasions when I have forgotten to leave the money.

• 46:06Speaker 05

  I know.

• 46:07Guy Raz?

  I was like, wow, she completely forgot us. She, this is personal. I'm gonna find out what's going on.

• 46:15Speaker 05

  It's tough. We're doing a lot, right? Parents were like juggling it all. And the last thing I want to do is layer one more thing. So, but the beauty of this is the full moon can last a few days, you know, so.

• 46:26Guy Raz?

  That's true. Yeah. Oh, it's still a full moon. It's, yeah, it's still full.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Look out there. Looks full to me.

• 46:33Guy Raz?

  So Jeff, let's talk about customer acquisition and then maybe we divide it into subscription retention into two. Where does Carly start?

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think in the early days, one of the thoughts I'd have for you is to start with your own network and your friends. They're the people who are going to be the biggest advocates for the brand because they know you and they know your story. And then figure out how to get them to tell their friends and their friends. And when we started Harry's, had this crazy idea to build this referral campaign. And I think a lot of other people have done similar things. And maybe now it's, you know, many years later and a bit played out. But when we started, we're like, we just want to tell all our friends about this. And then we're going to give them incentives to tell all their friends about this. And then their friends, we turned it into a game.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a great idea.

• 47:19Guy Raz?

  What did you give them? What was the incentive?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Graduated. It was like graduated reward. So if you told five friends and they came back and they had like your link that you got free razor handle. And up to, I think, 100 friends, you got like shaving for a year. And it was this fun game they created. I can't underestimate like this, the importance of doing that and building community. And then I'd imagine there's lots of other communities out there that you could tap into. Rather than spending a lot of money on marketing day one, I think about what are the communities that you can tap into just to build awareness of this around groups of parents that you can just start to spend time with, who can get to know you and you tell your story. That might mean you grow a little bit more slowly in the early days, but I think what you get from that. Is you get to start to really understand how customers feel about your products and how

• 48:04Speaker 01

  they talk about your products. And then you can use that as kind of the core of any of your future marketing campaigns.

• 48:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely looking to create, you know, the super fans, if you will, are the people that are really gonna be like long-term supporters. So that's a great, that's really, really great advice.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  You know, and if you can reach a few hundred people to start and they tell a couple more people and then, and you can build this great loyal customer base. And then it gets down to this retention point, which we can talk about a little bit. But then how do you make each of those people have such an incredible experience that they want to go talk about it to others?

• 48:38Speaker 05

  Right.

• 48:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah. You know, you mentioned that you worked for Manduka and we had Peter Sterios, the founder on the show a couple of years ago. But I remember that the way he got Manduka out there, right? Because there were a bunch of yoga mats available, was he got them in the hands of yoga instructors.

• 48:55Speaker 05

  Right.

• 48:55Guy Raz?

  And they could see that these were different, that the quality of the material was different. Then, then students would see the yoga teachers using these mats and they would say, how can I get one? And that's really how they built it out. Now, obviously you're not, you know, this sort of an apples to oranges comparison, a little bit, but not totally. Because if you can get it in the right hands of people, certainly, you know, mommy bloggers, I hate that term, but it's still a term that, that you hear, right? You got to get it in their hands for free. The other thing I think could be really interesting, and Jeff, you could speak about this too, because I know you guys, a big part of your business is a social mission, is can you include a charitable element? Like for every subscription, we send a percentage to, you know, Make-A-Wish Foundation, or some other

• 49:40Guy Raz?

  group that brightens kids' lives, something, something like that.

• 49:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think there's still such a draw for socially conscious brands that are doing good and giving back. So that's a great call out.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, Harry's, we give 1% of our sales to organizations that support men's mental health, which makes us feel great about what we do every day as a company. But I think to Guy's point, it also gives people another reason to talk about the brand and to tell others about it.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. The through line in all these books is really taking care of each other and taking care of the earth. So I think there's something there for sure of like whether it's, you know, we do something on Earth Day, or we do something, you know, along those lines, which could be really meaningful.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  And when you build that in really early, it's a lot easier than having to kind of start later, just because it's part of the business model. And then I love the idea that guy had around talking to mommy bloggers and other people, highly engaged people in the community. I think that that's a great audience for you. And as you, you start to get customers, I think what you'll try to start to figure out is like, who are your best customers? Like, who are the people who love this the most?

• 50:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  You know, what, what is it about them that's different from other people? How old are their kids? What is it about their kids that's different? And then you can go to people like that in the world and say, hey, you're going to be someone who loves this, which I think will then create even more virality because you're going to the people who you think love it.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  The other thing that we, we did early at Hare's when we started to advertise was we looked at all the things that our customers were saying about us and that press and other people in the world were saying about us. And we tried to find nuggets of things that were interesting that we could talk about in the world. And, you know, when we launched, we were very fortunate, GQ in the, in the magazine of GQ at the time, wrote an article about us saying that your dop kit just got handsomer. And we created an ad that said handsomer. We liked that word. We thought it was funny. We created an ad that said handsomer, sharper, or less expensiver. And we put razors under each of those words. We put it out. And that was our highest performing ad in the company for our first couple of years.

• 51:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, so good.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  And so I think there's like so much magic in learning about how people talk about your product and your brand, and then turning that into the messaging that you can put out in advertising communications and on your site, et cetera. And I think where the world is shifting a little bit today versus where we started is maybe it's not, you know, a banner ad on Google or something. Maybe it's having the right things to say to someone who is a paid influencer on, you know, a social platform.

• 52:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Who can go out and just talk, tell their own story about the product and the brand in a way that's interesting. And those places seem to be getting a lot of reach right now.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  Great. Yes. Thank you so much. These are very valuable nuggets. I really appreciate it.

• 52:20Guy Raz?

  Carly, thanks so much for calling in. The brand is called Full Moon Fairy, and we'll be, we'll be watching out.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:26Guy Raz?

  Good luck.

• 52:27Speaker 05

  Thank you, guys. Thanks so much.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  And you got a, you got a customer here.

• 52:31Speaker 05

  Awesome. I love it. Thank you.

• 52:33Guy Raz?

  Awesome.

• 52:36Guy Raz?

  You know, this question about customer retention, which we weren't able to kind of get into sort of too much depth, in part because I think acquisition is really, it's where she needs to put her focus on now. But I feel like a lot of brands learn this lesson late, which is they focus too much on customer acquisition at the expense of customer retention, right?

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 52:56Guy Raz?

  And retention is really where the, at the end of the day, that's really where the value is.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Totally. I couldn't agree more. And how that kind of math works in any business is the higher retention rates are on a customer, the more valued customers are to you. And then the more you can spend on acquisition to acquire them. At the end of the day, you can only spend to acquire a customer as much as those customers are worth to you. One thing, if Carly is listening, I would say is like, she should be very involved in the early retention efforts. Like, I mean, how cool would it be if the first 100 customers of Full Moon Ferry got on the phone with her?

• 53:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And, you know, or she personally reached out and emailed them and said, hey, thank you.

• 53:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I agree. Jeff, thank you so much for coming back onto the show and for being on the advice line first time.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. It's always inspiring to get to spend time with you. And gosh, so cool to hear these different stories.

• 53:49Guy Raz?

  Yeah, it's super cool. And by the way, if you guys haven't heard the Harry's episode, you have to go back and check it out. It is so good. You can find a link to it in the podcast description. Here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  We tried to convince them that like we were legit. And then we committed to buying a million razor blades, which for them at the time was like a meaningful number.

• 54:12Guy Raz?

  But I mean, when you made a commitment to buy a million razors from these guys, did you have, did you have millions of dollars at that point to give to them?

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 54:21Guy Raz?

  No. Thank you for listening to the show this week. If you are working on a business and you'd like to be on the show, send us a one minute message. Tell us about your business. Tell us about the issues or questions that you'd like help with. We'll do our best to help you. And please make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at [email protected] or you can call 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And don't forget to sign up for our free newsletter at guyraz.com. It's full of awesome advice from entrepreneurs like Jeff Raider and some of the other amazing people that I've interviewed on this show over the years. This episode was produced by Alex Cheng, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.

• 55:05Guy Raz?

  It was edited by John Isabella, and our audio engineer was Neil Rouch. Our production team at How I Built This also includes Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Chris Messini, Elaine Coats, J.C. Howard, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.