Pod Insights How I Built This with Guy Raz Advice Line with Tim Ferriss About this episode Entrepreneur, author, and podcaster Tim Ferriss joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage founders. Plus, Tim shares the inspiration behind his latest venture, Coyote— a 10-minute card game that encourages time spent with friends and family.
First, Lauryn from San Francisco asks about the best way to scale her biodegradable ear plugs in two very different directions. Then Emily from Kansas City weighs whether DTC or wholesale is where to focus her accessory brand after Taylor Swift wore one of her rings and sales exploded. And finally, Kimberley in Woolwich, Maine wonders how to incentivize her customers to pre-order her high-quality, sustainable, clothing.
Thank you to the founders of Gob, EB & Co, and K. Becker Designs for being a part of our show.
If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298.
And be sure to listen to Tim Ferriss’s founding story https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/ad5b84a9-ae91-450d-aee1-1e431d2bfa57/embed as told by Tim on the show in 2020.
This episode was produced by Noor Gill with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.
You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com http://guyraz.com and on Substack https://guyraz.substack.com/.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 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 a.m. 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? 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,
0:46 Speaker 00 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. We get support from U.S. 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.
1:32 Speaker 00 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. 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
2:16 Speaker 00 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 based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer. For the first time ever,
3:00 Speaker 00 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. Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits
3:45 Speaker 00 or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the car 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 Maine to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show, because the best ones obsess over things
4:29 Speaker 00 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. Visit mobilefuels.com for details.
5:18 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. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. And 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 some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at guyraz.com or on Substack.
6:03 Speaker 00 And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Tim Ferriss. He's an entrepreneur, investor, host of The Tim Ferriss Show, and author of many books, including The Four Hour Work Week. Tim, it's great to have you back on the show.
6:20 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me back. So nice to see you.
6:22 Speaker 00 You, too. Tim, you were first on How I Built This back in 2020. And as always, for anyone listening, if you haven't heard that episode, it's so good. We'll put a link to it in the episode description, so check it out. In that episode, Tim, we talked about your time as a student and learning Japanese and how you got a sales job out of college, and then you started your own business, a supplement company. And then, of course, you published your first book, which many people know you for, The Four Hour Work Week. And initially, you couldn't even find a publisher. And the story of how you managed to use your blog to get it out there. It sold millions of copies, became a massive bestseller. And of course, since then, you've written several other books. You've launched a massively successful podcast, which hit a billion downloads last year. Congratulations.
7:05 Speaker 01 Thank you.
7:06 Speaker 00 Give us a little bit of an update about what's been going on in your life since we last spoke.
7:11 Speaker 01 Well, there are a number of simultaneously running chapters, so supporting a lot of early-stage science.
7:18 Speaker 00 Yes.
7:19 Speaker 01 And then I would say every three to four years, I want to try something completely off-menu professionally to see what I can learn. The angel investing after the success of the first book, the podcast after the third book, et cetera. And now I've spent two years working on a card game. This is a tabletop analog game that is called Coyote that is now launching everywhere.
7:49 Speaker 00 I think part of your story for people who haven't heard it is that you kind of follow your passions and your interests in ways that have led you to do not just interesting things, but things that have been lucrative, that have worked out. Like, your podcast was just kind of a, started out as just a fun little project, which turned into a real business. Now you're doing a card game, which is totally out of left field. Tell me about how you, what inspired this idea?
8:14 Speaker 01 So I tend to explore these off-menu, out-of-left-field things.
8:20 Speaker 01 For skill development, learning and new relationships. Right. So the podcast, I launched it as a lark, but I basically wanted to ask myself, how could this win even if it fails? And I did the same thing with angel investing, just treated it as paying for a business degree. So in this particular case, I'm looking at it the same way. And it came about because I have seen in my audience as sorely needed as an antidote to digital malaise and loneliness, which is in-person social time with something that is a light lift. So how could I design a game that takes about two minutes to learn, 10 minutes to play,
9:03 Speaker 01 that can help people offset their screen time and all of the things that come with excessive screen time with family, with friends, that hopefully makes you a little bit smarter.
9:15 Speaker 00 Right. And I wonder whether some of that came out of your own experience. Like, did you find yourself maybe at certain points in the last decade, just being, you know, a slave to, to screens, to your phone, to whatever was in front of you?
9:32 Speaker 01 Oh, for sure. This is basically creating what I want more of in my own life, certainly. For the last, I'd say, two, maybe three years, I've had no social media apps on my phone. Because if you think, if you think you're going to use discipline to beat teams of, you know, computational neuroscientists and statisticians and computer scientists who are, have billions of dollars at stake in ensuring that they can overcome any type of resistance you have to using their program or platform compulsively, you're just bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. And I think it's uncontroversial, when you look at the scientific literature,
10:17 Speaker 01 these technologies, like there are costs. So my thought is,
10:23 Speaker 01 Just offset it. Try to offset it a little bit. And I think that in-person still counts. We are not evolved for two dimensional screens at 18 inches, 10 hours a day. That is not what we're evolved to handle at all. But I really think that there is a quality of life value to in-person. And we see some countervailing trends. So for instance, in New York City, these massive game nights in-person have become a big thing. Running clubs, people getting off of dating apps. I think that at the very least, you know, microdosing analog is a good idea.
11:05 Speaker 00 Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, it's, we just had a, there's a crisis and a tension. And this, this is relevant for entrepreneurs, right? Because I think many of the entrepreneurs I interview on this show also have multiple interests. I mean, their, their passion might be their business or the thing they started. But I think that in many examples, the sort of the underlying foundation for their success has to do with being interested in lots of different things. And I wonder how you find those things.
11:32 Speaker 01 I would say that I just, I throw a lot against the wall. And part of the reason that I do many different things, by the way, some of them have been dead ends and failures. But if you look at, say, the angel investing, it's still going. You look at the podcast, it's still going. And these are things that provide energy and recharge the batteries, right? So the energy that you might get from playing a game, spending time with two particular friends, you can transfer that to everything else that you do. And that's part of the reason why I think a lot of startup founders in particular could benefit from a little bit of identity diversification. If your entire identity and self-worth is wrapped
12:15 Speaker 01 up in your company, there are too many factors outside of your control that can give you a, a real curveball type of damage. And I just know dozens of founders where if they have a bad quarter or they have a bad year, they feel like a failure. And for that reason, having a few concurrent projects allows you to make progress in other areas to offset lack of progress in another. And then you just, you're like, okay, this is the one out of 20 that seems to get me super excited for some reason. Let me just follow that scent trail and see where it goes.
12:52 Speaker 00 I love that. All right, Tim, let's go ahead and bring in our first caller. Are you ready?
12:57 Speaker 01 I'm ready.
12:58 Speaker 00 All right. Hello, caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Tim Ferriss. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one quick line about your business.
13:05 Speaker 02 Hi, Guy. Hi, Tim. I'm Lauren Menard. I'm usually based in San Francisco, actually, but I'm in my hometown in Beakman Town, New York, right now. I'm the CEO and founder of Gob, and we are on a mission to reinvent single-use personal care products that disappear after you use them, as they should.
13:24 Speaker 00 All right. So what's your product?
13:25 Speaker 02 Our first product is a single-use foam earplug made entirely out of mycelium.
13:31 Speaker 00 Which is from mushrooms?
13:33 Speaker 02 Yes, it's the root structure of a mushroom.
13:34 Speaker 00 Amazing. Congratulations. Thanks for calling in. So Lauren, the products that you have now, they're earplugs, like regular earplugs, except, I guess, and I've always wondered this, because I've used earplugs, lots of people, you throw them away, and they're probably mainly plastic. Yours, what, they biodegrade?
13:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, so normal foam earplugs, they're all made out of pure petroleum. They're polyurethane or PVC, and they're really bad for you and the planet. And ours are a bioengineered material foam that's actually biofabricated. It's grown into its form.
14:09 Speaker 00 Wow. And how did nobody ever think of this before?
14:13 Speaker 02 You know, that's exactly why I started the company, Guy. When I had the idea, it's like, why has no one done this yet?
14:20 Speaker 00 Yeah, tell me how you, how you came up with this. Are you, are you an engineer by background? Or tell me a little about, about what you were doing before.
14:27 Speaker 02 So I'm an industrial designer. I was running a design agency, thought that was going to be the rest of my life, working with large Fortune 500 companies, helping them bridge the gap between mass manufacturing and better materials.
14:40 Speaker 00 And you launched the business when? When did you launch Gob?
14:43 Speaker 02 Just the middle of March this year.
14:45 Speaker 00 Wow. And tell me a little bit about how you're doing so far. I mean, you're selling mainly to who? And what kind of traction are you seeing?
14:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, so we sell directly on our website currently, and also in a number of music venues. And that's a bit about like, why I'm here and asking you a question.
15:03 Speaker 00 Go ahead, Lott. What's your question?
15:05 Speaker 02 So, we're really lucky to be gaining mega traction in the live event space with actually a national partnership with a massive company that owns many venues. And at the same time, we're growing a really strong direct-to-consumer customer base for sleep. So, my question, and I'd love both of your advice, is around how to successfully scale two very different verticals simultaneously without losing focus.
15:37 Speaker 00 All right. Awesome questions. I'm gonna bring Tim Ferriss. Tim, questions maybe for Lauren or thoughts about her question?
15:45 Speaker 01 Lauren, if you had to focus on, say, the venues or the DTC?
15:50 Speaker 02 Oh, gosh.
15:50 Speaker 01 Which, right now, let's just say you had to make a decision, which way would you go and why?
15:56 Speaker 02 Oh, it's really tough because on the sleep side of things, we're getting customer feedback, like, we're getting a lot of rave reviews, although I feel like we're really finding that need and we're meeting that need. On the venue side of things, however, you know, we have access to guaranteed eyeballs, thousands, sometimes tens of thousands in a night. And basically, we're meeting people in these cultural, emotional moments. And, Tim, you were mentioning IRL experiences. That's where people really connect with brands. So, that's why I'm so torn.
16:30 Speaker 01 Guy, do you mind if I riff for a second?
16:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, please.
16:33 Speaker 01 Okay.
16:35 Speaker 01 I would actually be curious to know if you think it could make sense to build up your coffers and generate a nice, healthy, reliable stretch of income with the music venues. And that puts you in a position to experiment with different ways of acquiring customers on the DTC side. And then you can make an informed decision based on at least some math and history which way you want to go. Do you have any?
17:08 Speaker 01 Any feelings on where you want to go with this company for yourself? Do you want to be some type of investor backed company? Or do you want to maintain control and remain private?
17:22 Speaker 02 Great question. So we are actually investor backed. We raised a pre-seed last year of a million dollars and I'm currently raising our seed on a safe note. So we do have that outside investment, but basically because my dream and my vision of this company is to build it into a new category. And I intend to find these kind of forgotten about personal, single-use personal care products and adopt biomaterials that can meet the need. Right? And because of the nature of biomaterials, there needs to be a little bit of R and D that requires some funding. So basically that's why I've had to do that thus far, but I intend to build this into a very large company.
18:07 Speaker 02 I want to take on 3M. If you're, if you're, I'm, I'm an ambitious person.
18:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, I can tell. All right. I want to pass it over to Guy because I feel like I'm hogging the mic.
18:17 Speaker 00 No, no, this is great, Lauren. I'm curious with AEG, how does that relationship or how will it work? Will they sell the earplugs at their concerts?
18:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, so we pay a marketing fee or sponsorship fee to be there for the full year at each venue. And we keep 100% of the revenue. And we sell both at concessions. So we have these little light boxes near all the cans of drinks. And we also have gob green bright vending machines.
18:45 Speaker 00 Right, okay. Are you able to work to make independent deals with other music festivals? And or are you, do you, are you exclusively tied in with AEG now?
18:56 Speaker 02 We are their exclusive hearing protection, but we are not exclusive. We, we can definitely work with other venues.
19:03 Speaker 00 One of the things, I think of course where you are in San Francisco, Outside Lands, one of the biggest festivals where people would be more receptive to really listening and hearing about the story. But the other thing I keep thinking about is airlines where people have time to really look at a package and know, particularly in first class, when they get, do people get these kits in first class and they get a card with all the information about the products in there. And to me, it seems like an opportunity to get this in front of a pretty influential group of people. Have you approached airlines?
19:36 Speaker 02 We have, yes. And we're definitely going down that path. It takes a bit of time. But what's interesting is some of our angel investors have invested because they have received those kits in business class. And everything is quote unquote, sustainable, but they still have the little foam earplugs in the plastic pouch. So that's actually a fun fact that that's what actually led quite a few people to investing in my company.
19:58 Speaker 00 Tim?
19:59 Speaker 01 When you are, so you're planning on raising around in the not too distant future. What is the slide in that deck going to say for how we plan to use all your money, dear investors?
20:11 Speaker 02 Well, the deck is together. So I've been pitching.
20:13 Speaker 01 There we go.
20:14 Speaker 02 I'm in it. I'm in it. So basically, the funds will be used to set up operations. So we manufacture in the United States and we need to scale up our operations because right now we're building all of our product in a tiny little space in San Francisco. And definitely need to move that into a 3PL on the East Coast because that's where a lot of our traction is. And we're also using that capital. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't using some of it for marketing, right?
20:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:43 Speaker 02 But I do have a bit of an allergy these days to advertising heavily on social media because it's just like so competitive and saturated. So I want to use that in smart ways to do IRL experiences, actually.
20:57 Speaker 01 Well, and also, I don't know if this is part of your deal, but if you have
21:03 Speaker 01 Sponsorship deals, right? Hopefully you have the ability, I don't know if this can be negotiated, but to use that brand on your website as, right? Exclusive hearing protection provider to X. I don't know if that's something you can finagle, but using that as part of your marketing for social credibility for some of the D to C stuff.
21:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, but what I'm hearing from you, Tim, is that this ability to capture eyeballs and capture people in real ways in these B to B spaces is maybe more impactful gaining trust of consumers. Is that what I'm hearing?
21:43 Speaker 01 I think that that's one way to approach it. I wouldn't say it's more effective writ large, but it may be more effective for your stage of funding, if that makes sense, right? Because if you were like, all right, we're going to go full D to C, you're going to need more than one person to do everything that will be required to make good use of investor funding, to make that count as, like you said, in a very competitive, certainly online landscape, which is why you lean towards I R L. But if you had the right employee or contractors for selling into more, let's just call it, venue conglomerates that run multiple locations, you could actually get a lot done with one full time,
22:28 Speaker 01 one part time or several part time. And I think that's harder to do direct to consumer, if that makes sense.
22:35 Speaker 02 It does.
22:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, I agree. I keep thinking about Monster Energy Drinks, right? And what they did and how they scaled so quickly was they made a decision when they were launched, they were going to work with motocross and MMA and heavy metal concerts. And so they focused on those three areas, targeted those fans, those kinds of people. They were going after men who loved heavy metal music. And Monster became the number two bestselling energy drink very quickly. And it's interesting here because you've got the music venues, but it sounds like the sleep side is really where you see an opportunity. And I wonder whether there's an opportunity to partner with some of these brands that are known for sleep, you know,
23:21 Speaker 00 a certain mattress brand or. Something connected to sleep, if that's something that you want to move towards.
23:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's a really great thought and it's complicated, right? Because the use cases that we're attracting are so opposite. And so those brand partnerships feel very important. And because they already have leverage and they already have an audience, which is really nice and good for us. And I will note, you mentioned Monster Energy. I am very lucky to have just hired the ex VP of Cult Indoctrination from Liquid Death. He just joined our team this week and he's going to be going out there and trying to get as many new brand partnerships as possible. So I'll give him that task of looking more into the sleep side, just as much as the venue side.
24:15 Speaker 00 Awesome.
24:15 Speaker 01 Lauren, what is the retail price?
24:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, so we sell our smallest SKU, which is two pairs for $5, four pairs for 10. And before us, the venue was selling one single pair of FOMIS for between $5 to $10.
24:34 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
24:34 Speaker 02 So we're right in there.
24:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, in a really good position.
24:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:39 Speaker 00 There you go. Laura Menard, the brand is called Godbirth. Congrats. Good luck. Keep us posted.
24:44 Speaker 02 Thank you so much. What a pleasure.
24:45 Speaker 00 Thanks for calling in.
24:46 Speaker 02 All right. Thank you.
24:47 Speaker 01 Thanks, Lauren.
24:47 Speaker 00 Awesome, thanks. I love that idea.
24:50 Speaker 01 It's a cool idea.
24:51 Speaker 00 One earplug, like hack that I used when my kids were little, when they were babies. We would go and we'd get on an airplane. Because you get an airplane with a baby and you almost, oftentimes you'll sit next to somebody and you could just tell they're just like, oh my God, I gotta sit next to this person with a baby for the next four hours? And what we would do to disarm people is I would go to the people in the row in front and behind and say, hey, I have a baby. There's a chance he's going to cry, but I brought some earplugs. And if anyone would like some, please take some. And I'd have the bag and I'd pass it around and nobody would ever take the earplugs, but they would always be so nice to us because we just made that gesture. So hack for any new parent.
25:29 Speaker 01 I love that.
25:30 Speaker 00 Bring a bag of earplugs. It costs you $4 at CVS or $9.95 if you get Gob.
25:34 Speaker 01 My buddy had an adjacent strategy, which was, anybody want a vodka tonic? I'm buying everybody drinks.
25:41 Speaker 00 I love it. That's great. That's great. A little bit more expensive than earplugs, but yes.
25:46 Speaker 01 Not usually exclusive.
25:49 Speaker 00 All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
26:04 Speaker 00 Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted, but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in. So the work is production-ready from day one, and you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together. The agents bring speed and scale,
26:48 Speaker 00 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.
27:30 Speaker 00 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.
28:15 Speaker 00 If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built. Stripe is built for whatever comes next because the pace of change has never been faster than it is right now. New business models, new currencies, and new expectations for speed, reliability, and scale. Stripe builds financial infrastructure that helps businesses start, grow, and operate globally. From payments and billing to fraud protection and cross-border
28:59 Speaker 00 payouts, Stripe is built to support the new pace of commerce. They're trusted by the companies building at the frontier, from 86% of the Forbes AI 50 to global leaders like Salesforce and OpenAI. In fact, more than 1.6% of global GDP flows through Stripe, with Stripe's users processing a combined $1.9 trillion last year. So if you're already thinking about what's next for your business, see what's possible at stripe.com.
29:42 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is entrepreneur and investor Tim Ferriss, and we are taking your calls. So hello, hello, caller.
29:52 Speaker 03 Hi, my name is Emily. I own EB and Co., which is a women's accessories brand based out of Kansas City, Missouri. We specialize in sizeless gifting, and we have mainly hair accessories and jewelry. We were founded in 2012, and yeah, a Midwest girly.
30:11 Speaker 00 Nice. Emily, welcome to the show. So EB and Co. accessories, so like hair bands? Like, are you selling rings, earrings, bracelets?
30:20 Speaker 03 All of the above and more. Earrings are kind of the big hero product for us. I have a manufacturer in India that I work with that does hand-beaded stuff. So we have some custom headbands, scrunchies, all the fun things that make an outfit look more finished when it's not.
30:39 Speaker 00 Awesome. And you have a brick and mortar store in Kansas City?
30:42 Speaker 03 I have two brick and mortar stores. I also wholesale at the airport and I rent booths inside other stores as well.
30:50 Speaker 00 And are most of your sales coming in through the store? Are you also selling online? Where are you seeing most of your revenue come in from?
30:57 Speaker 03 Well, last year was a bit of an outlier because Taylor Swift wore my ring and we went viral.
31:04 Speaker 00 She wore one of your rings? A bit of an outlier. What was the ring? What was the ring she was wearing?
31:09 Speaker 03 Well, it was Travis Kelsey themed, of course, guy.
31:12 Speaker 00 Oh, wow.
31:13 Speaker 03 This is Jersey and we developed a relationship with Donna and we kept gifting her things that were Travis Kelsey themed that we created and...
31:22 Speaker 00 Donna's his mom, right?
31:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, my apologies.
31:24 Speaker 00 Okay, okay, I got you. Okay, so you made rings that had a, like his jersey was on the ring?
31:30 Speaker 03 Yep.
31:31 Speaker 00 Like, like, it's, okay, I got you. So Taylor Swift wore one of your rings?
31:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, to the AFC championship, which qualified them to go to the Super Bowl. So if you can imagine my mind being blown and then all of a sudden like that Shopify ding happening and it was just like ding ding ding ding ding ding.
31:49 Speaker 00 Okay, now I'm, now I'm looking at, now I see it because you have all, you've got these rings with the jerseys. So you have, Taylor Swift wore one of these rings and I imagine it had an impact on your sales, right?
32:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, so my sales went up 50% from 2023 to 2024.
32:07 Speaker 00 Wow, wow, amazing.
32:09 Speaker 03 So yeah, we doubled and it's been bananas. It's been a wild ride and I hope to give her the biggest bear hug someday.
32:17 Speaker 00 I bet. All right. So tell us what your, what your question is for us today.
32:21 Speaker 03 So my question is, in 2024, my brick and mortar sales went up 37%. My wholesale orders went up over 300%. And so I'm trying to decide, even though the majority of my business, about 90% of my revenue coming in is in that retail, direct to consumer.
32:43 Speaker 03 My wholesale side is what has a much significant more growth. So should I follow what is where the money is coming from? Or should I follow what areas growing the most aggressively?
32:57 Speaker 00 All right, lots to think about. Tim Ferriss, I want to bring you in here. Questions for Emily.
33:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure. Well, congrats on a lot of different aspects of the business. You've made it past a lot of places where other companies do not cross the river, so to speak. So congrats on that. Yeah, I don't even know what to say about Taylor Swift. I would say, you know, that may be a nonrecurring phenomenon. And so probably don't want to bank on that. But my God, congratulations. Let me ask you a couple of questions related to products. Are the earrings the best selling category of product?
33:31 Speaker 03 Yes.
33:32 Speaker 01 Okay. By how much?
33:34 Speaker 03 Say about 50%.
33:36 Speaker 01 Okay, so the earrings are huge. In terms of, this is coming to your question related to wholesale and say the brick and mortar. So you're talking about revenue. If we're talking about bottom line profit, however you want to define that, what is actually contributing the most at the moment? It's still the, is it still the brick and mortar, would you say?
34:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's the retail side for sure. So D to C definitely gives us more revenue. Last year it accounted for 89% of all the revenue. And 13% was wholesale. You know, the great thing about wholesale is that, you know, there's not as many expenses, right? But at the same time, it's just not accounting for as much revenue. So that's why I'm having a hard time deciding which area to focus.
34:24 Speaker 01 If you were to basically get the wholesale up to the point that it was generating the same as your current brick and mortar, how would you feel about that versus keeping the wholesale where it is and basically doing the same doubling, but with brick and mortar?
34:43 Speaker 03 I mean, wholesale is great because it essentially acts as a Shopify order. It's just bigger and I already have all those systems in place. You know, I have a fulfillment manager. I have an assistant manager. We ship out of our store. So it doesn't take more calories from me to execute that. But opening more stores takes a lot more energy, right? Like I have to approve everything and, uh, you know, go, go sites and find what feels good. Negotiate, you know, wholesale is just another online order, which doesn't take any energy from me. So I would love that. And that's one reason why we're putting so much energy into growing that. But it's just hard to prioritize it that much when 90% of the revenue is coming from direct to consumer.
35:28 Speaker 00 Emily, do you have a, a sales team or a salesperson who focuses on wholesale?
35:34 Speaker 03 It's me.
35:35 Speaker 00 It's you.
35:36 Speaker 03 I'm over here.
35:37 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is there a world where you can hire somebody, maybe even on a part-time basis, to only focus on building the wholesale business?
35:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that has some links to it for sure. I'm really trying to focus also on like customized pieces too. And that was a new area that we're developing. So I've been really focusing a lot on building those direct to other business like relationships. But that's definitely something that I want to work on.
36:07 Speaker 00 And have you done trade shows, any trade shows?
36:10 Speaker 03 I haven't, I haven't, no.
36:13 Speaker 00 Because that would really be the fastest way for you to get some wholesale deals done. I mean, it sounds like you really want to build the wholesale part of your business out. That what you're saying is it, the potential is greater there, which I agree with. And in some ways it's, it's easier. There are obviously downsides too, but it's easier with what you are doing, rather than trying to open up, you know, other brick and mortars. Cause brick and mortar is expensive. It's challenging. There's a lot of, a lot of moving parts there and it depends and relies on foot traffic.
36:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, for sure. And it's done really well for me. And so I think that's another thing that's like, man, it's a lot of fun to have a space where people enjoy, you know, talking about your digital detoxing, like getting out of your house, getting off of your computer, walking around a store, trying things on. So I enjoy creating those spaces.
37:07 Speaker 01 Well, let me hop in here for a second, just to say, I don't want to discount that. So if the only thing that mattered for your quality of life were growing the business, then there would be one line of thought and a certain set of advice that we could give. But people start businesses and run businesses for a million different reasons. And not everyone's trying to build the next startup that they sell to Meta or Google or whoever, right? So if you really enjoy the time in those spaces, I think that number one, they're not mutually exclusive, but you could take the attention on growing brick and mortar and apply it to wholesale for a period of time, right? You decide like
37:50 Speaker 01 for six to 12 months, I'm really going to focus on wholesale, can still keep the brick and mortar running, but maybe there are places where we can streamline, maybe there's extra help I can bring in. And I agree with Guy that trade shows could be interesting. Also, you don't necessarily need a booth. If you just have samples of your products, you can meet not only direct wholesale customers, but also potential distributors. That's going to affect your profit margins. So I think it's relatively, speaking, very low cost way of doing a lot of really valuable in-person research.
38:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, totally. And you know, when people get their hands on it, they are like, I'm in. And so, yeah, I think I can definitely see your point in that. When people try it on, it's, it's easy.
38:35 Speaker 01 Guy?
38:36 Speaker 00 I think Tim's idea is great. You know, make, make a decision that you're going to spend six to 12 months on this thing, on this wholesale side, and test it out. And, and you're trying to position yourself for the day after the Taylor Swift bump ends, but then you won't need it anymore because you've built out the wholesale business.
38:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think that sounds great. You know, I tried to get some Brain Quicken today and I couldn't get my hands on it. I was like, what's gonna make me a sharper shooter? I couldn't find it.
39:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's been a few decades. I sold it, so I'm not sure what they did with it. Maybe it got set out to pasture, for all I know.
39:13 Speaker 00 Emily Boardner, the brand is called EB and Co. Congrats. Good luck. Keep us posted.
39:18 Speaker 03 Thank you. And I just want to say you both have been so instrumental in inspiring me to make my business. So, thank you.
39:26 Speaker 00 Thank you. Thanks for saying that. Yeah, that's awesome. 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.
39:46 Speaker 04 Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
40:16 Speaker 05 With the Venture X Business Card from Capital One, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Plus, big purchasing power means you can spend more and earn more. The Capital One Venture X Business Card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details.
40:40 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking your calls with entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcaster, Tim Ferriss. Tim, you ready to get our next caller on?
40:51 Speaker 01 I am ready. Let's do it.
40:52 Speaker 00 All right, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the Advice Line. You are on with Tim Ferriss. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
40:59 Speaker 06 Hey, Tim and Guy. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Kimberly Becker and I'm a clothing designer calling in from Woolwich, Maine. My brand is Kay Becker. It's a collection that I've designed with a focus on women over 40 years old, which is me. And this is a group of women who have been looking for high-quality clothes for quite a long time. It's an underserved population in the fashion industry.
41:28 Speaker 00 And you design all the clothing?
41:30 Speaker 06 I do.
41:30 Speaker 00 Kimberly?
41:31 Speaker 06 Yeah.
41:31 Speaker 00 Wow, amazing. And they're manufactured overseas in Asia?
41:34 Speaker 06 No, I have a team in New York City and the fabrics are sourced from Japan and Italy, mostly.
41:42 Speaker 00 Oh, wow.
41:43 Speaker 06 A lot of deadstock fabric, so most of the fabric is quite sustainably sourced and really high-quality.
41:50 Speaker 00 And deadstock means fabric that was, that one manufactured too much of and so was available?
41:55 Speaker 06 Yeah, exactly.
41:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. And I'm looking at your website now and it'd be beautiful. I mean, amazing. So did you, you studied as a fashion designer as your background?
42:04 Speaker 06 I'm actually a textile designer by training, which I bring a unique angle to the apparel industry. I worked in almost every cotton mill in America before they all closed.
42:15 Speaker 00 Wow. And, and it's got a little bit of an Eileen Fisher kind of vibe to go in for a little bit.
42:21 Speaker 06 Yeah. So I listened to your interview with her and she-
42:24 Speaker 00 Years ago, yes.
42:25 Speaker 06 Yeah. She really, I mean, changed the fashion industry for women, gave women a way to dress in a, that, that sort of Japanese aesthetic is so timeless and so beautiful. But I almost think of myself as her alter ego. We're not trying to make sort of a simple boxy silhouette. We're trying to bring style, fashion forward, sort of whatever was on the Paris runways, so that it's not dumbed down. It's not timeless. It's not shapeless.
42:56 Speaker 00 How many years have you, have you been doing this?
42:58 Speaker 06 So I launched in October 2023, so I'm quite new. And from year one to year two, we've doubled our sales. I sell direct to consumer on my website, but-
43:11 Speaker 06 Really primarily, I am doing this all in person.
43:14 Speaker 00 So you are the designer and the CEO and the sales rep. It's all you, basically.
43:20 Speaker 06 Basically.
43:21 Speaker 00 And, and, and have you broken past a hundred thousand in sales, two hundred thousand in sales?
43:27 Speaker 06 At the end of this year, I believe we'll be at seventy five thousand in sales. So we're slow and steady here.
43:33 Speaker 00 Awesome. All right. Let's hear your questions and then we'll dive in a bit deeper.
43:36 Speaker 06 Okay, so I want to shift away from an inventory model to a preorder model.
43:41 Speaker 00 In other words, you're carrying inventory and you want to shift away from that model.
43:45 Speaker 06 Yeah. So being a small, sustainable indie brand, we can't compete with the huge corporations that massively overproduce and then deeply discount and unload at the end of the season. It's not, it doesn't work for us financially and it's also just not sustainable. It's not good for the earth to be doing it that way. However, the US population isn't so game to wait five, six, seven weeks for a garment. So the, the idea of preorders that we actually take the orders and then manufacture what's ordered. So my question is sort of twofold. When do I make that move from an inventory model? And how do I shift the mindset from instant gratification to patience,
44:28 Speaker 06 knowing you're going to get something great at the end of the day?
44:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, a lot to think about here. And as you know, we've done a lot of apparel on the show. And for people who are unfamiliar with the industry, you've got to anticipate what somebody's going to order. And, and the more you make, the, the higher the, the chances you're going to lose money because you're making these all, these high quality material, making it in New York. So I understand the challenge and you're looking at a way to basically show off a design, but, but get taken preorders. So then you've got the money in hand and then you only order what you need instead of, instead of having all this excess inventory, right?
45:02 Speaker 06 Exactly.
45:03 Speaker 00 Okay. Tim Ferriss, I want to bring you in here. A lot to think about. Kimberly's idea, I mean, what she's doing is awesome, but consumer behavior is consumer behavior.
45:15 Speaker 01 All right, so I'm looking at the website. I like the website, by the way.
45:18 Speaker 06 Thank you.
45:18 Speaker 01 Very elegantly done. I had a definition question for me because I have sadly no fashion sense. But what does choose the first piece of your capsule closet today mean? What is capsule closet?
45:31 Speaker 06 So in the sustainability world, the idea of a capsule closet is that you can have 10, 15, 18 pieces that you can mix and match, you can wear again and again. That's the idea. I actually have clients that are basically every time I release a new piece, which I think of as the next piece in the capsule closet, they are buying it. They're like, I'm building my capsule through you.
45:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, Tim, you do have a capsule closet.
45:58 Speaker 01 I do.
45:58 Speaker 00 It's t-shirts and jeans. And you mix and match.
46:03 Speaker 01 So a couple of thoughts. I would say one company you might want to check out, run by a friend of mine, but it just so happens there might be some parallels. It could be pretty interesting. His name is Sep, but it's spelled S-E-P-H. Skerritt, propercloth.com is his company. And he makes people wait. And the company has been going for, I want to say 10 years now, but started off with something like 10 different fabrics and one type of shirt in his apartment. And now it's this very successful company.
46:42 Speaker 01 So I would say that there are exceptions to the US customers not being ready to wait. So I would go out of your way to try to find some of those outliers. The second thing. Is that in terms of when to make the switch, I would reframe that question. How do I experiment? Because that's a risky switch. And so what I thought of were, say, limited drops where you don't make a full switch, but you test the waters to say, hey, guys, we're running a really limited edition as an experiment. Here's why it's exciting. The race goes to the swift. We're only
47:25 Speaker 01 accepting this many orders and then you're going to have to wait four to six weeks. Right. But you, but you make it a feature instead of a bug.
47:34 Speaker 06 That's a great idea. And it would go right. It would dovetail beautifully with the short amount, small amounts of fabric I'm sourcing in those dead stock, like beautiful Italian fabrics I can only get 87 yards of or something. So it's
47:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, like that's part of the story.
47:48 Speaker 00 I wonder if the, the term pre-order could be, like, could you, could you say made to order? I don't know if that's going to make a difference or move the needle that much, but maybe pre-order scares people because they think, oh, it's, it's like a Kickstarter. You get, you know, how many times have you given money to a Kickstarter and it never, ever arrives? But maybe made to order, like, hey, you know, we're gonna, you, you put the, you make this order and we're gonna start working on it right away. It's worth trying. Again, it may not move the needle, but it's worth trying, playing around with the language.
48:18 Speaker 06 That's a great idea. Yeah.
48:20 Speaker 00 Kimberly, I'm, I'm wondering, I mean, are you hoping to move exclusively to this model?
48:26 Speaker 06 Um, so in the long run, yes, it's, it, in a way that goes to the whole idea of that, Tim, you talk about the smarter, not harder concept. So you design some, I designed 12 pieces a year and once a month, a new piece drops, those orders come in, the manufacturing happens, they all get shipped together, like consolidating the effort. But also then clients know when the next piece is coming. So they're, they're watching for it. They're waiting for it, that Friday night drop. That would be the the smartest way for me to reduce the amount of effort it takes to sell the products as well, right?
49:06 Speaker 00 Yeah. While you're working on the transition, is there a way to keep bestsellers in stock, right? Or maybe you design sweaters or things that have a sort of a longer, more sort of timeless lifespan that are always in stock as you transition more and more to the made to order? Because there are things you can do to incentivize people, free shipping, maybe they get inducted into a club, maybe people get a first look at what you're working on, maybe they get an insight into the sketches you're working on or photographs of you, you know, kind of cutting material or drafting designs. I mean, that could be something that you may want to experiment with, too.
49:44 Speaker 06 You know, it's funny you say that because earlier when Tim was talking about the his friends brand and the benefits that come from that sort of exclusivity, I was thinking it's the menswear angle on things is so different than the way we sell women's wear. But one of the aspects that I'm trying to embrace is to think more about menswear and how it's pitched, because you guys are a much harder sell. You don't buy as much and so you actually require a little bit more carrying through. And so in the idea of the club idea, which I love calling it that, it never occurred to me to do that, but to send swatches of fabric for a new piece, because the fabric is such a big part, the quality is such a big part of my brand, to send a swatch of
50:29 Speaker 06 fabric and say that you're getting exclusive, like first touch, like first opportunity to see this beautiful gabardine that we're going to be making the next blazer in. It's coming out in a few weeks. Keep your eye open when it drops, you know, you would be one of the first people to get your hands on it.
50:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure. I feel, and also coming back to what you said about consolidating effort, I love the idea of shipping swatches, but that seems like it could turn into a hell of a lot of work. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do, but you might be able to scratch some of the desire for community, or you give them a peek behind the curtain, using something that's off the shelf, like Patreon or private YouTube. Something like that, like, hey, guys, this is what I'm looking, this is what I'm working on right now. And I'm always looking for low cost, fast experiments that are easy to do. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But if it does work, then all of a sudden,
51:29 Speaker 01 you've created a new type of loyalty program, which has a community where they get to be part of it.
51:34 Speaker 06 Would also give people something to talk about, about the brand that's unique.
51:37 Speaker 01 Which, yeah.
51:38 Speaker 06 Right now is everything. It's word of mouth is everything in this brand. Like, we have to get people to the website, or it's never going to happen.
51:45 Speaker 00 Well, it's just, you gotta get that club going, the exclusive club.
51:49 Speaker 06 I love it.
51:50 Speaker 00 Yeah. Kimberly, thanks so much for calling in, Kay Becker Designs. Good luck.
51:55 Speaker 06 Thank you so much. It was really lovely talking to both of you.
51:57 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me, Kimberly.
51:59 Speaker 00 Tim, I'm not, not surprised. I mean, we've done, you know, over 100 of these episodes now, and I'm not surprised that you really are like, one of the best. You have great advice.
52:10 Speaker 01 Thanks, man. It's part of the fun of business for me, right? It's a puzzle. And you can get handed a different Rubik's Cube every day, every week.
52:20 Speaker 00 Yep. Um, Tim, before I let you go, I want to ask you a question that I've asked every returning founder on this show, which is if you go back to when you were kind of building your business, what advice could you have given yourself that would have been helpful?
52:35 Speaker 01 I would say, first, there's no, there's no one right way to do it. And there's no one better finish line than another, in the sense that you don't have to build the next venture backed startup. You don't have to have your company bought by X, R, Z. You don't have to grow at a 200% per year. You might have a business that doesn't grow at all, but it is deeply meaningful to you and you impact people, or you love the craft you're involved with. So I would probably say that. And then the second thing I would say is,
53:10 Speaker 01 Mind your mental health along the way.
53:12 Speaker 00 Yeah.
53:13 Speaker 01 Right?
53:13 Speaker 00 Yeah.
53:13 Speaker 01 Get outside, get some sunlight, spend time with your friends. As much as you pay attention to the business health, also pay attention to the the mental health and the social health side of things, I would say.
53:25 Speaker 00 I love it. That's great advice. That's Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcast host, and now the inventor of a new card game, Coyote. Go check it out. It's available pretty much everywhere you can think of. Tim, thanks so much for coming back on the show.
53:40 Speaker 01 What a pleasure. Always nice to spend time with you, Guy. Thanks for having me.
53:44 Speaker 00 Thank you. And by the way, if you haven't heard Tim's original, How I Built This episode, please go and check it out. You will put a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.
53:56 Speaker 01 There's a difference between persuading someone to purchase a product and debating with someone who has no intention of ever changing their mind.
54:06 Speaker 00 Right, right.
54:07 Speaker 01 I wasn't making that my job, which I think a lot of people do. They make it their job to convince the world, and you shouldn't convince the world. You should convince the people who match most closely to what you're providing.
54:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
54:16 Speaker 01 So I came to believe really early on that it's not about the number of people who don't get it. It's about the number of people who do get it.
54:24 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. This episode was produced by Nora Gill with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.
55:08 Speaker 00 It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Sina LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Kerry Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Ramel Wood, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coats. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
Previous (July 2021) Ben Chestnut: From Side Business to $12 Billion – The Accidental Triumph of Mailchimp Next Don Vultaggio: AriZona Beverage Company - The Snap Decision That Outsmarted Snapple Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
