Pod Insights How I Built This with Guy Raz Advice Line with Monica Nassif of Mrs. Meyer's About this episode Plus, how candor has been a more effective press strategy than talking points for (the literal) Mrs. Meyer.
First we meet Allison in California, seeking marketing ideas for her novel wig designs which aren’t done justice by photos alone. Next, Nick in Idaho wonders whether retail expansion or content development is best to grow his children’s toy and book franchise. And finally, Ben in Virginia considers options like acquiring a nearby company to grow his chandelier cleaning business.
Thank you to the founders of Encelia Hair, Randimals and Chandelier Cleaning VA, for being a part of our show.
If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode — where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders — 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.
And be sure to listen to the founding story of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/3636aa39-bdf6-4ad1-aa36-1aa0964dd0dc/embed as told by Monica on the show in 2025.
This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce and John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.
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 or on Substack https://guyraz.substack.com/.
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5:16 Speaker 00 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 this show, who will help me try 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. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week from Minneapolis is Monica Nassif, the founder of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day. Monica, welcome back to the show.
5:52 Speaker 01 Glad to be back, Guy.
5:54 Speaker 00 So it's great to have you. You were, I think, on the show almost a year ago. And you told us the amazing story of building Mrs. Meyer's cleaning products. And for people who haven't heard it, we'll drop a link into the show notes. You basically had this, I mean, it came about during an epiphany when you were in the middle of, I think, like a Target or something, and you looked at the shelves of soaps and cleansers, and you thought, you know, I can probably do this better. This was, I think, the late 90s.
6:22 Speaker 01 Right.
6:22 Speaker 00 And you did go on to launch a line of cleaning products in 2000. It was called Caldrea. You eventually got that to Williams and Sonoma. And then Monica was worried other brands would knock off Caldrea. So you created your own knockoff version of your own brand, and you called it Mrs. Meyer's. And then that brand, of course, grew really fast, and then it was sold to Essie Johnson in 2008. Mrs. Meyer's is a real human. Mrs. Meyer's is named after your mother.
6:54 Speaker 01 She's still alive, still kicking.
6:55 Speaker 00 Still alive.
6:56 Speaker 01 93.
6:57 Speaker 00 She still reps, right? She still goes and reps the brand?
7:01 Speaker 01 Even though she's not on the case, she still reps.
7:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:06 Speaker 00 Did your mom hear your episode of How I Built This?
7:08 Speaker 01 She did. She really liked it, and she knows I'm doing this advice line thing, and she's very excited.
7:15 Speaker 00 We should have had her on with you. I don't know why we didn't think about that.
7:18 Speaker 01 She would be awesome on the show.
7:20 Speaker 00 Oh, man. Maybe, all right, we're going to figure that out.
7:22 Speaker 01 Oh, man, she'd be good.
7:25 Speaker 00 Before we bring on our callers, I wanted to ask you a question. This relates to your mom, right? Because, you know, a lot of the companies that we have on the advice line, and some that will come on today, are focused on trying to figure out how to build like an authentic brand voice. And from the very beginning, you guys had such a strong voice and identity, right? I mean, even the copy on the product would say like, it works like the dickens on dirt and your mom is the brand inspiration. She is Mrs. Myers. What advice do you have? And do you give founders who are trying to figure out how to like, build the voice of their company and their brand?
8:02 Speaker 01 I think it has to be true to the founder's mission. You know, you have to be authentic. You can't fake it anymore. You know, the consumer's way too savvy. There's so many brands to pick from. If I mean, if you don't resonate emotionally with the consumer, you're just gonna have a really hard time.
8:17 Speaker 00 Yeah. And also, I mean, in your case, your mascot was real. Like, your mom would go, like, there was, this was a real human who really did the cleaning in a house of nine kids in Iowa. And now you can get the cleaning products inspired by her.
8:34 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. She was the real deal. In fact, when we first started doing media interviews in New York, every time we had a new product launch, I tried to coach her with three key messages. That was a disaster. So I just let her rip. And she just talked honestly about raising nine kids. She was the original earth muffin. She had a garden. She recycled, repurposed, made every meal from scratch. You know, she was kind of the original eco-friendly mother, if you will.
9:00 Speaker 00 Yeah. Did you ever have to say, and bump, don't say this. Please, don't say this.
9:05 Speaker 01 Yes. Did I ever tell you the story, Guy? Maybe, can I tell you the story?
9:11 Speaker 00 Yeah, tell me the story.
9:12 Speaker 01 Can we say it on the air? Okay. She wrote a cleaning book, right? It was a marketing tool for us. We're in New York. We go around trying to find a publisher. We've got an agent. We've got six meetings. We go into our first meeting and this woman just immediately hugs my mother. She's from Texas and she's tall, buxom's got the big old draw. And she goes, "Before we begin, how in the world did you have nine children in 10 years?" And my mom says, "Well, I had a box of 48 Kotex and I never got through it."
9:45 Speaker 01 That was her opening salvo. I love it.
9:48 Speaker 00 I love it.
9:50 Speaker 01 The reporters loved it. I was mortified. I was so embarrassed. I don't think the intern that was taking notes knew what a Kotex was. We, I couldn't wait to get out there fast enough, but that's my mother, the truth.
10:03 Speaker 00 I love it. Um, Monica, are you ready to, to bring in our first caller?
10:07 Speaker 01 I'm ready.
10:08 Speaker 00 All right, let's bring in our first caller. Um, please introduce yourself. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one quick line about your business.
10:16 Speaker 02 My name is Allison Ombres calling in from San Diego and I'm the founder of Encelia Hair. Encelia is putting an end to subpar wigs. Wigs are itchy, hot, fit women poorly. Inspired by my own journey with hair loss, I set out to bring the same comfort and flexibility of yoga pants to the wig industry.
10:35 Speaker 00 Awesome. Allison, thanks for calling in. Encelia Hair, okay, so you make wigs. Tell me how this, how did you start a wig business?
10:43 Speaker 02 I was eight months pregnant with my son, second pregnancy, and I had one patch of bald, a bald spot at the top of my head and within 20 days I lost 80% of my hair.
10:53 Speaker 00 Wow, which is a lot more common than people realize. Alopecia, right?
10:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, I have alopecia universalis, which is the most aggressive forms. I have no hair anywhere, no eyebrows, no eyelashes.
11:05 Speaker 00 And it's just happened while you were pregnant?
11:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, total fluke. The doctors, we really didn't understand. I, I got sick. It's, it's sort of a long story, but I lost 15 pounds in the eighth month of my second pregnancy. And so it was stressful and all that, so.
11:22 Speaker 00 And I'm sure it was really traumatic, right? Because you all of a sudden have to figure out, okay, how am I going, what, you know, what am I gonna do?
11:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, I had to go shop for wigs with a newborn. Um, I lived in San Francisco at the time and so just, I mean, awful experience wig shopping. You know, I went into one shop in the Mission and, um, the guy looked at me with my baby, he was in the car seat and was like, you have 30 minutes to try on five wigs.
11:50 Speaker 00 Wow.
11:50 Speaker 02 And had no private room. I, I just, I had a terrible go with wigs.
11:56 Speaker 02 It crushed my self-esteem. My first wig was two sizes too big. It was itchy. It wasn't my style. Everything about it just wasn't me. And you're super self-conscious in the wig to begin with. And so I became obsessed with wigs. I started learning about wigs online and I went to a wig training program. And so I ended up starting a wig consulting business that I operated for two years. And so I learned a lot about the industry, what women like, what women don't like, and a lot of the frustrations.
12:28 Speaker 00 And then you decided to start your own brand?
12:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, the wig industry is, to put it really simple, is you have a handful of legacy brands that have been around forever. You can get affordable wig and your wig life is not all that great. Or if you want something that fits well and something that's comfortable, you're spending up to $5,000 to $10,000.
12:47 Speaker 00 Wow.
12:48 Speaker 02 And I just got tired of that story.
12:50 Speaker 00 It's so interesting because it's, I'm sure it's a larger market than most. But what is it, do you know what the total addressable market is for wigs in the United States?
12:59 Speaker 02 So the total wigs in extension is eight billion. And then for just wigs, it's about six.
13:05 Speaker 00 Six billion, $6 billion, did you say?
13:08 Speaker 02 Yes, yeah.
13:09 Speaker 00 That's massive. I mean, that is an amazing opportunity.
13:14 Speaker 02 Well, thank you. I'm trying my best. And that's why, I mean, Monica, you're a genius when it comes to marketing and creating brands. And Guy, you as well, I'm such a huge fan of you, your show. That's why I'm here, because like, I have a strong sales background, but marketing for me is, I'm not my specialty.
13:34 Speaker 00 Yeah. So you're trying to figure this out. And just before I bring Monica in, what makes your wigs different?
13:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, so wigs are traditionally made out of lace. The material is stiff, rigid.
13:43 Speaker 00 It's itchy on your head?
13:45 Speaker 02 Itchy, not breathable, heavy, bulky. And I'm just taking everything, the complete opposite approach. So, you know, think of the power mesh material and then the seamless, flexible stitching that you get in your athletic clothing. That's what the wig feels like. But it's hidden, it's unseen, you can't.
14:07 Speaker 02 See it from a picture and so I'm having a hard time figuring out how to reach more women and how to educate them on the unseen aspects of the wig that are actually the most important aspects.
14:19 Speaker 00 Okay, Monica, I want to bring you in here. A really cool story. Thoughts, questions for Allison?
14:25 Speaker 01 Well, I think the most exciting thing about your story is Allison, this is an unbranded category.
14:31 Speaker 00 Yes.
14:32 Speaker 01 And six billion in revenue and no one's building a brand and you have a really differentiated story. I was listening to you talk going, oh my gosh, it sounds like Nike, you know, fashion and fit. Hey, tell me this, that market that you mentioned, the women that you want to go after, how do they find you? I mean, do they find you how? From, they have, they have cancer, they've lost their hair, they ask a friend and how does that work?
14:58 Speaker 02 So, right now, I haven't done any advertising. I actually just started advertising on Meta and Google this past month, but I have, it's just been organic. So through just purely ranking on Google organically and then on my little lonely Instagram page that I work really hard on. I did have a wholesale side of my business that I've kind of ended, so I got some referral business from that. At one point, I was working with 20 wholesale wig boutiques across the US, but it just got overlooked and overshadowed by some of the leading brands. It's hard to get people to change what products they recommend.
15:37 Speaker 00 I don't know anything about this market, but if you are, if you are a woman looking for a wig, clearly you've dealt with these pain points, the itchiness, they don't fit well, they're heavy, they're not working for me. And so, is there a world where you literally like make videos, short videos, where you're showing people what the inside looks like and why you are making, let's say like the Lululemon, you know, performance wear, like literally tarring it inside out, stretching it and then comparing it to what's available on the market and why this one is very different?
16:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, I agree. I think the visual, it's, it's exciting, you know, in terms of what guys seeing. And, you know, especially you, you're the real deal, right? You don't have any hair and now you have gorgeous wigs.
16:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
16:27 Speaker 01 That's compelling.
16:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:28 Speaker 00 And you are the model in a lot of these photos, right?
16:30 Speaker 01 Exactly.
16:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, right now I am because I don't have the funds to outsource that. And it's hard. I'm sort of a big believer in having models who have hair loss. And it's hard to find them. So it's hard to get the right photos from the right people, sort of thing.
16:48 Speaker 01 I think you're just a compelling personality, that you should be doing these videos, you know, bald, inside out, showing how it fits.
16:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, you are, I agree, Monica. I mean, you are the brand here.
17:03 Speaker 01 You are.
17:04 Speaker 00 Are you putting yourself out there in any way, besides on the website?
17:08 Speaker 02 I mean, I've been very quiet with the brand on purpose. Manufacturing has been a huge hurdle. The industry is very opaque and hard to break into. So it's only within the last, actually, six months that I have diversified my manufacturing. And I work with some of the largest wig manufacturers in the world now. And I have very strong relationships with them. And so I haven't had the confidence that I could keep up with demand. And so I didn't want to shout to the world, like, here's this amazing wig that's just groundbreaking, and then not be able to deliver on it.
17:46 Speaker 00 Yeah, how are you doing with sales, by the way?
17:48 Speaker 02 So last year I did, and again, it's just myself, a bootstrapping, sole entrepreneur, no advertising. Last year I did 90,000. I only had one product, which was the sport headband wig, active wig. And then this year I introduced my full wig, which I'm wearing, and a few other accessory products that I'm doing. I'm going to hit above 200 this month.
18:11 Speaker 00 Amazing.
18:12 Speaker 01 Good for you.
18:13 Speaker 00 If you're going to bring in 200K this year in sales, you've got to think about how much of that you can put into marketing and advertising. Usually, it's about 10%. It's a lot of money. It's 20 grand, right? But you want to think about what you could, if you could spend that, what you could do with that money. I mean, it seems like you have an opportunity to really, you need to get in front of the camera, really dive into what you can do for free, which is you and social media. And then think strategically about how you want to spend some money on targeted ads.
18:50 Speaker 02 Where would you spend it, if you were me?
18:53 Speaker 00 I have some thoughts, Monica. Do you have thoughts?
18:55 Speaker 01 I mean, I would, social media is where I would spend it.
18:58 Speaker 02 Okay.
18:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:00 Speaker 01 Think about a TikTok store.
19:02 Speaker 00 It's tougher these days. You know, customer acquisition is tougher on social media, but you got to try. I wouldn't put all of your eggs in that basket right away. And I would try different, small experiments. You know, start with a hundred dollars and then maybe 500, a thousand and see where that goes. Small micro influencers for a category like this, critical. I mean, if you can find somebody with a thousand or 5,000 followers, you know, you could probably work with them for a few hundred bucks.
19:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:32 Speaker 02 Yeah. And it works. I mean, it's, I've done some micro influencers before, just people that I love that I've seen over the years. And as soon as I send them a product, I get, I usually get revenue back. I usually make sales from it.
19:47 Speaker 01 That's great.
19:48 Speaker 00 I would also think about investing in a video about you and your story. A two-minute video telling your story. You know, Liquid Death launched its brand with a $1,500 video. I mean, really, that is the story. And so your story is so compelling. Like, this happened to me. I didn't expect it. My life changed and all of a sudden I'm a young mom trying to find wigs and it sucks. And so I decided to start the company to do this. Like, that is a simple, clear, compelling story that you should, you know, turn into a two-minute clip and put it on every social media site you can.
20:29 Speaker 01 Totally agree.
20:30 Speaker 02 Do you think it needs to be like, super professionally done or just?
20:33 Speaker 00 Not at all.
20:34 Speaker 01 I think it needs to be real and you're real. I think it needs to be authentic. You need to show, look, I'm bald, now I'm not. And tell the story, Guy just said.
20:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:43 Speaker 00 All right. You've got your marching orders. Alison Ombre and Selya Hare. Good luck.
20:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, thank you, guys. Such a big fan. Thank you.
20:50 Speaker 00 Thank you. Thanks for calling in.
20:53 Speaker 00 Okay, next up after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz and we're answering your business questions right here on the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
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24:44 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Monica Nassif. She's the founder of Mrs. Meyer's, and we are taking your calls, and let's bring in our next caller.
24:55 Speaker 03 Hi, Guy and Monica. It's been a dream to be on your show, so thanks for this opportunity. My name is Nick Harmon. I'm the co-founder of Randomals. I'm originally from the UK, but I've lived for the last 32 years in Sun Valley, Idaho. Randomals are combination animal plush, figures, beanies, and two award-winning books with a simple message: What makes us different makes all the difference in the world.
25:21 Speaker 00 All right. Thanks for calling in, Nick. So Randomals, like random animals? Is that the portmanteau here?
25:27 Speaker 03 That's right. That's where it came from.
25:29 Speaker 00 All right. I'm looking at your website. So I see a framel, which is a frog camel. So it has frog arms and legs and a frog head, but a camel, like the camel humps. And there's a hork, so a shark's head. A shark on a horse, a girdle, which is a giraffe with a turtle back. Tell, this is super interesting, very, very unique. How did this come about? Tell me the story behind this.
25:59 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you, Guy. There's two inspirations. The first inspiration, this was a pandemic company back in 2021. And I had a dog, a Basset door, part Basset and part Lab. He had all the lovingness of a Lab and the stubbornness of a Basset. And that's where the idea came from. But more importantly, the book and the origin story of the Randomals, that inspiration came from my wife's daughter's love of Toy Story. And specifically, the inspiration of the little boy next door, Sid, that used to like to destroy his toys. She always thought that he needed a redemption story. And so in the book, Ollie the Basset door, choose all the little girls' toys. She's devastated.
26:43 Speaker 03 She finds bits and pieces everywhere, but she finds a way to put them back together and create the Randomals.
26:49 Speaker 00 I love it, yeah. Imagine if you could crossbreed a gorilla and an elephant. You would have an Elorilla, as you have in your cast of plush toys. Okay, so you start this business, you make, and I'm assuming these are mainly sold online? Or do you also sell these in shops?
27:09 Speaker 03 Probably 90% of the business is online. But we just recently had a really successful story through an unlikely place. The company called Ripley's Believe It or Not and Ripley's Aquarium. They seen one of our viral videos and they did a test in a couple of stores. They bought 10 cases to start with. And a few weeks later, they called back and said, we're gonna need some pallets. So they ordered 10 pallets. And then within three months, they went national. And they now order by the 40-foot container. And the manager of the retail department said they've never seen anything that's brand new fly off the shelf so fast.
27:49 Speaker 00 What do you expect to do in sales this year?
27:52 Speaker 03 Last year, we did just under a million, and this year, we're hoping to do just over a million.
27:56 Speaker 00 All right, that's great. Okay, so before we dive in further, what's your question for us?
28:01 Speaker 03 The question is, we think that Randoms is an important inflection point. We want to capitalize on our momentum, but we think our strategy's become a little scatter shot. We've launched in a couple of other countries. We've dabbled in rep groups. We're meeting with animation companies and toy companies, and we often talk about bringing on investment and hiring some real marketing and expertise in e-commerce. And we'd love any advice that you have regarding where you think we should focus our attention and what path you think we should take to scale the business to the next level.
28:36 Speaker 00 All right. Monica, I want to bring you in here. Randoms, definitely, and just a fresh take on the stuffed animal category.
28:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, they're really funny and odd and lovable all at the same time. Just listening to you, I really think you have to focus in terms of, I would just focus on the US market. And how many toy stores are in the US? Could there even be 10,000?
29:05 Speaker 03 Yes.
29:06 Speaker 01 So if you're going to go wholesale, you really have to work smartly with your rep groups to make it happen. Never, ever leave rep groups alone, never. You've got to do ride-alongs, you've got to do training, you've got to get them excited with incentives, because they're walking into a toy store with 10 to, you know, 20 brands, and why is your brand at the top of their bag? That's one thing, for sure. I would not go to other countries.
29:30 Speaker 00 Hmm.
29:31 Speaker 01 Right now, right now.
29:33 Speaker 03 Oh, I was just going to say, I agree, I agree. The one good thing, we did go to the London Toy Fair back in January, and the happiest of accidents happened. A guy with hardly any followers did a video of me telling the Randoms story, and within a couple of weeks, it hit 36 million views, and that really got the attention of not only people calling from, like, producers and also retail stores. So that was a really, a true blessing in disguise, but I agree with you that refocusing on the US, because I'm sure we haven't scratched the surface of it yet, is probably the way to go.
30:12 Speaker 01 And then that's not even Target, Walmart, Toys R Us. We're talking specialty, and then you're going to move to mass, so you have a huge opportunity here in the US.
30:20 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, how, tell me a little bit about your, about supply. I mean, how are you financing? Are you having problems financing purchase orders?
30:31 Speaker 03 With our success that we've had and some of the viral videos, yes, that's been a very frustrating aspect to begin with. We started with $100,000. We haven't taken any money out of the business for the last five years. Everything goes back into keeping up with inventory because I'm sure as you both know, running out of inventory is criminal and it's happened to us on more than one occasion, especially when these videos pop up online that we have no idea about. Just within the first couple of weeks of us launching, I thought that it was our killer marketing and social media posts that had blown up our store. But it turns out it was a toy designer in Chicago that just saw the brand online, ordered
31:14 Speaker 03 all the products, did a unboxing, and we sold out of everything and it essentially broke the store. And obviously, you know, it takes two or three months for the product to get over here. Tariffs have been a bit of an issue. So yes, keeping up with inventory is definitely a challenge.
31:33 Speaker 01 Nick, how many SKUs do you have? How many products do you have?
31:36 Speaker 03 We have 16 plush toys, 11 hard toys, 10 beanies, and three books.
31:44 Speaker 01 Okay, so you're not over assorted, really. That's good. So you can really control, do a better job of controlling your inventory.
31:51 Speaker 03 I'm always wanting to create more. I've got lots in the pipeline, but yes, my other partner tells me to slow down.
31:57 Speaker 00 So really, and so the question is, many questions. You expand outside of the US and again, I agree with Monica on this, I wouldn't do that right now. I would really focus on fixing your, your supply chain, right? Because, and this happens, you get an order from a toy store or a toy company and then you go and manufacture it and then they cancel it. And so you're left with all this product, right? And I mean, there are ways around that. You can, you can create some mechanisms to protect yourself. But at the end of the day, you want to find the cheapest and most efficient way to make this at the highest quality. And so the Ripley's thing is interesting, right? How many, do you know how many shops they have?
32:38 Speaker 03 I think we're in about 21. It's the Ripley's Believe It or Not, which is the oddities. And then there's also the Ripley's Aquariums. So they really like the ones, the random ones that have an aquatic theme. And they had a brilliant merchandiser, and that has been a key to our success in retail, I think, having a merchandiser.
32:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. I mean, it seems like you want to follow the pull, right? And, and, and the Ripley's, to me, seems like that's sort of the clearest, the clearest sign of a product market fit right now. I think you want to give that more time and really use the time to focus on operations before you really push out further. Just maybe take a step back. It may be a little frustrating because it's exciting, but you want to focus on having an efficient supply chain and you want to focus on having a strong relationship with that customer. And then maybe even building out in the cities where those Ripley's are located, right? And targeting independent toy stores.
33:40 Speaker 00 That's where I think you want to really kind of build out the brand, you know, in other stores around there.
33:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, I would agree. And get a good sales group to really pound away, let's just say, San Francisco, other major markets where there are just strong, independent toy stores.
33:55 Speaker 03 We've had quite a bit of interest from different sort of animation studios and producers as a result of that, that video that went viral. Do you think that we should pursue that hard? Obviously, that would be a tremendous exposure for the brand if we were to be able to get anything like a TV show or just YouTube shorts. I think it would be a great way of telling the story and bringing that to life.
34:23 Speaker 01 It's tempting, isn't it? Because it's so sexy, right? So you have to ask yourself, what business are you in? And you're so small, you have to pick a path right now. I'm not saying forever, but for right now, you got to pick a path in terms of a way to grow.
34:38 Speaker 00 I agree. I think you're being stretched and already being stretched in too many directions right now. I think you need discipline. I think you need operational strength. Think you want to focus on, as I say, supply chain. It's not, I'm not saying for a year or two, I'm saying for like three, four months. Really get that down, right? Because if you are doing too many things, that turns into chaos and not strategy. Right? You've got a good, it sounds like you've got, you've got a good brand. The IP is gaining traction. You've got this Ripley's thing that's going pretty well. I would look at that as a, as a, as an opportunity to really lean into and then try and build
35:20 Speaker 00 out geographically based on, on those locations.
35:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think, I think you're absolutely right.
35:27 Speaker 00 The brand is called Random Bulls. Nick Carman, good luck. Thanks for calling in.
35:31 Speaker 03 Thank you, Guy. Thanks, Nick. Thank you, Monica.
35:33 Speaker 00 All right. Awesome. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz. Stick around, you're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.
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36:57 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with Mrs. Myers founder Monica Nassif. So Monica, are you ready?
37:07 Speaker 01 I am ready. I'm thrilled to be here, Guy. Let's do it.
37:10 Speaker 00 Let's do it. Awesome.
37:12 Speaker 06 Hey, Monica. Hey, Guy. My name is Ben Roethen Hafer, and my company is Chandelier Cleaning VA. I'm based out of Richmond, Virginia, and service the surrounding states. We specialize in cleaning and the restoration of antique and modern lighting. Our work preserves the integrity in historic architecture while bringing a new brilliance to the spaces we serve.
37:37 Speaker 00 Ben, thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. So you are a-- you have a chandelier cleaning business. This is a highly specialized job, I imagine. Tell me, how did you get into it?
37:49 Speaker 06 Well, it was my destiny, Guy, you know?
37:53 Speaker 06 I started about four years ago in Washington, DC. And, you know, it is my way of serving the community, and I get a lot out of it. And we're in a new place all the time. We're in beautiful spaces, historic buildings, hotels.
38:09 Speaker 00 And you probably are dealing with like really complex, right? Like a lot of glass, a lot of crystal, that you've got to be-- you're taking it down very slowly. How do you clean a chandelier? Do you like dip it into something? I like-- I don't even know where to begin.
38:23 Speaker 06 We touch every piece by hand, twice. And sometimes we do undress the chandelier and put it back together just to reach certain areas.
38:32 Speaker 00 And by the way, how much does it cost to clean a chandelier? Like an elaborate chandelier?
38:36 Speaker 06 I mean, if I look at a piece in a half days, you know, $500. Or if it's a full day's work, maybe $1,000.
38:45 Speaker 00 Got it. All right, cool. So you've got this business, and you're in, you said, Virginia, DC, Maryland area. And what are you looking to do?
38:55 Speaker 06 There's a lot of opportunity to grow this business, and I service a large territory. But it's a lot to take on. But I just-- I'm in a-- I'm in a growth stage of two years of owning the business, and we want to expand. And we're ready to pay for more marketing, get in bigger magazines. My question is, I want to scale, am I ready to scale?
39:17 Speaker 00 Monica, I'll bring you in here. Questions for Ben?
39:20 Speaker 01 Well, one thing I always think, am I ready for scale? I always say it's research and math. Meaning, okay, how big is your market? I mean, you're in hotels, you're in homes, you're in lighting showrooms. Where are you? All these, how many are there? In how many markets? And if you think really big. Frequency of service. I mean, are you cleaning chandeliers for someone's home twice a year? Four times a year? Once a year? Once? Figure that out. Write that down.
39:48 Speaker 06 Okay.
39:48 Speaker 01 The cost per service. You know, you said a thousand dollars for a full day. That doesn't seem like enough, but I don't know the category. I mean, I kind of think of you as a high-end car detailer. You know, you're going after this very sophisticated, very high-end service, white glove, all of the above.
40:07 Speaker 06 Yes, it's luxury.
40:09 Speaker 01 And then, yeah, and then you can project your revenues. You know, once you answer all those questions on a spreadsheet, then you go, okay, that's the Richmond market. Then I'm going to move, you know, close at hand. You're not going to go running off to Austin, Texas, for example. So that's the way you answer the question, am I ready to scale? Is to do the math.
40:27 Speaker 00 Yeah. Do you have any employees right now?
40:30 Speaker 06 We have two that help me with the labor, yes.
40:33 Speaker 00 Got it, okay. And how comfortable do you feel bringing on additional employees?
40:38 Speaker 06 That's a really good question, because I still show up to every job. And I'm, you know, this is a high-risk job, and I want to be there for it. So, over the past year and a half, I have been really putting time, energy, money into training these associates to hopefully be able to do the labor, because I still do show up to every job site.
40:58 Speaker 01 I think a big part of this is education. I mean, and it's also just kind of a glamorous business, when you think about it. You know, I would think social media, anything visual, it would be super exciting to show chandeliers. I mean, the whole process, getting up on a ladder, how you clean it. I mean, people love to watch that stuff. And I would think if you were the expert, like the top of the line car detailer, that's kind of what you are with these chandeliers.
41:25 Speaker 06 Thanks. You know, there's a few other businesses out there. I, to be really short, I got really lucky. When I moved to Richmond, a guy had recently retired from chandelier cleaning and what started as a gentleman's handshake turned into a letter of agreement where I've serviced his clients over 30 years now. And in DC, something similar is happening. Do you think it's a business worth, you know, taking over the market like you're saying, Monica, and purchasing these other businesses?
41:54 Speaker 01 Well, I, I think you have to do the math. That's what I was saying earlier. You really got to figure out how big is this? How can I service? Guy was going there with how many employees, so you know your expense structure. But you gotta really sit down and invest time in figuring out, is it big enough?
42:10 Speaker 00 Ben, what are you doing in sales this year? What do you expect to do in 2025?
42:14 Speaker 06 Seventy-five thousand.
42:16 Speaker 00 Okay, so seventy-five thousand dollars. So, and you're thinking about expanding, which means you've got to hire more people, or hire more people and charge more money, or do both. And, and so what, you, you mentioned buying another business. What, what opportunities are there to buy other businesses like yours?
42:35 Speaker 06 A former, my, my former employer, who taught me how to do all of this in Washington DC, 20-plus years of clients, she's moved away to Florida. So there's been discussion. She's a dear friend of mine. And currently, she does send me some clients for a referral fee.
42:52 Speaker 01 I mean, I'm just kind of curious, what do you think the valuation of her business would be that you would acquire it versus just plugging away?
42:59 Speaker 06 Yeah, I would only buy part of her business, perhaps her client list.
43:03 Speaker 00 That, to me, seems like the most interesting thing, right? The client list.
43:07 Speaker 01 Agreed.
43:07 Speaker 00 And maybe you could, you could just buy that and, or, or negotiate some kind of, you know, rev share. Because really, I mean, you know how to do the work. You probably have a truck. You probably have the tools. Really, it's just about the client list.
43:21 Speaker 06 I agree. Yeah.
43:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're, and then you have opportunity to build your own brand of level of expertise, service, et cetera.
43:29 Speaker 06 Absolutely. My clients mean everything to me.
43:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:33 Speaker 00 I mean, it seems to me like you could run a great business as you're doing, right? You could do 80, 90, 100 grand a year, maybe more, and have some part-time employees who help you out, and you could do that for the rest of your life and grow slowly and have a really great, robust, profitable business. Or you can try and scale it, which really requires another, at least one more tech like you, who can be autonomous, who you don't have to supervise. And until you get there, I don't think that it makes sense to try, to think about scaling yet.
44:15 Speaker 00 I think you want to focus on really developing somebody who is going to work with you and who has an incentive to continue to work with you.
44:24 Speaker 01 I would agree. This is a difficult business to scale. It's all talent-driven.
44:30 Speaker 06 Guy, do you think that person should have stock in the business?
44:34 Speaker 00 Well, maybe. I mean, or maybe you come up with some kind of a five-year plan that over time, they get some bits of equity, that vest over a five- or six-year period or more, and that incentivizes that person to stay with you and help you grow the business so they don't leave and start a competitor, right? Your goal is to take over the chandelier cleaning business in this part of the country and maybe expand more. You're talking about a limited number of people who have chandeliers, but you want to capture all those customers. To do that, you need additional people who can also be cleaning chandeliers in one part of the state while you're doing it in another part of the state.
45:16 Speaker 06 Yes, to the same quality. Yeah. Thanks for your insights.
45:20 Speaker 00 For sure. All right. Ben, thanks for calling in. The company is called Chandelier Cleaning VA, that's for Virginia. Good luck.
45:28 Speaker 06 Thanks, Guy. Bye-bye.
45:30 Speaker 00 Thank you. You know, Monica, when you, you know, when you think about when you started this brand, right, you, the instinct is to just do a million things. It's actually really hard to stop and say, we're going to get disciplined and we're going to, do you remember that feeling when you started, like, just wanting to, you know, just wanting to be everywhere and do everything and do every partnership and activation and?
45:57 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, because especially if you're a creative person, which a lot of brand people are, you can already see five years ahead. And you just have to be, to your point, you have to be disciplined. That's why when we started Mrs. Meyer's, we just went after market after market. And we just chipped away. We went to, we tried the Midwest, that was a disaster. So we just chipped away, New York, Atlanta, a big, major markets that would be so much more accepting. And we did exactly what you said. We had one store, let's say the Whole Foods store in Columbus Circle in New York, and then we went after all the other stores in the city to generate, you know, a lot of awareness in a particular market. It's hard to be disciplined, but it really pays off big time. It really does. And I think I've learned the hard way, frankly.
46:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, for sure. Monica, when you, when you, you know, if you could go back to when you were starting your business, and you had done, you know, you done work for Target, I mean, you had experience, but you started a consumer brand and, you know, you also went through some challenges at home, and I won't talk about it here, but people should listen to the episode. If you could go back to when you were starting and knowing what you eventually discovered and now what you know as a mentor and an investor, what kind of advice would have been helpful for you at that time?
47:14 Speaker 01 You know, I think ignorance in some ways is bliss. I knew so little about the promotional dollars required to sit on the shelf of a Target or a Walmart or a Kroger. And yet, we went after it. And I think if I knew that, oh, my gosh, those promotional dollars were, you know, I don't know what the math is, let's say 100,000, I may have been a little more scared, but I didn't know. So I just kept chipping away. And they really, you know, a lot of retailers were like, okay, you're a young brand, we'll give you this space. And then as you grow, you got to pay. So there is a benefit of being ignorant, but at the same time, passionate and focused and persevering through it all. I think if I had to go back and look, I often wondered, should I have created
47:55 Speaker 01 all these brands? Should there have been Caldria, private label, and Mrs. Myers? Because we eventually got to Mrs. Myers. So at the end, it was right. But sometimes I go, did we need to do all that? It was learning, figuring it out.
48:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, for sure. It's a good point. Yeah. That's Monica Nassif, founder of Mrs. Myers. Monica, thank you so much for coming on to the Advice Line.
48:19 Speaker 01 Delighted to be here, Guy.
48:20 Speaker 00 And by the way, if you haven't heard Monica's original How I Built This episode, you've got to go back and check it out. You can find a link to it in the podcast description and the show notes. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. All of a sudden, you've got your mom in the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle in New York, and it's called Mrs. Myers. And she's like, I'm Mrs. Myers. But it wasn't like the Charmin Squeeze guy.
48:46 Speaker 01 No.
48:47 Speaker 00 She was re-
48:48 Speaker 01 She was like the real deal. Yeah. And we would bring her to trade shows. And people just loved seeing her. And she just embraced this whole thing. And I'm like, gosh.
48:57 Speaker 00 But would they ask her, like, hey, how did you invent this? How did you start this business?
49:01 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
49:02 Speaker 00 What would she say?
49:03 Speaker 01 She would act like she did it. And you know, at first, I kind of always wanted to interrupt. And I thought, uh-uh, just let her rip.
49:10 Speaker 00 Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com or on Substack. 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 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.
49:51 Speaker 00 This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce and John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Sina LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coats, Niba Grant, Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Chris Messina, Catherine Seifer, Kerry Thompson, and Ramel Wood. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
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