Advice Line: Reaching New Customers

This week, Guy is joined by Leah Solivan of TaskRabbit, Scott and Ally Svenson of MOD Pizza, and Holly Thaggard of Supergoop! to answer questions about reaching new customers from three early-stage founders in this special “mashup” episode of the How I Built This Lab Advice Line. First, Erin from Alameda, California wants to introduce users to an online divorce platform so the legal process isn’t any harder than it has to be. Then, Kaveh in San Diego seeks to bring his olive oil beyond the farmers market and into kitchens nationwide. And finally, Erik from New Jersey offers on-the-go medical kits to make travel prep that much easier. Thank you to the founders of Hello Divorce, aficio22 and JetSet Meds 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] or call 1-800-433-1298. To hear our guests’ previous episodes: TaskRabbit: Leah Solivan https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/c961ab82-bc92-4c93-a87e-82a5eef82b99/embed | Advice Line with Leah Solivan https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/5750344b-e679-416d-84bc-0d0c76fbdabe/embed MOD Pizza & Seattle Coffee Company: Scott and Ally Svenson https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/a66736fd-b95e-4289-9e0a-4e08b9f0cdb7/embed | Advice Line with Scott and Ally Svenson https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/f16bc7dd-dcbb-4897-b73e-440f3381cac6/embed Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/13cef5f8-a566-4f56-bf88-59aa8cdbe6df/embed | Advice Line with Holly Thaggard https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/37732e10-a36e-4dee-8f29-95d8f192560d/embed This episode was produced by Chris Maccini with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineers were Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez. You can follow HIBT onX https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis &Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis and sign up for Guy's free newsletter atguyraz.com http://guyraz.com/. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:46Guy Raz?

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• 1:32Guy Raz?

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• 2:16Guy Raz?

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• 3:00Guy Raz?

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• 3:45Guy Raz?

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• 4:27Guy Raz?

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• 5:12Speaker 01

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• 5:24Guy Raz?

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• 5:57Guy Raz?

  Hello and welcome to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will attempt with me to help you. And this week, we have a special episode. It's a bit of a mashup. Three callers and three different former guests, but all tackling some version of the same question. How do you get the word out about a growing business and reach new customers? And by the way, 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.

• 6:40Guy Raz?

  Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at [email protected]. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at guyraz.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Our first guest today is Lea Sullivan, the founder of TaskRabbit, the online marketplace for services like cleaning, building furniture, running errands, and a whole lot more. And Lea told the story of TaskRabbit on How I Built This back in

• 7:23Guy Raz?

  2022. It is such a cool story. You can find it in our podcast queue, and we'll put a link in the podcast description as well. And as you'll hear, Lea had some fantastic advice for our callers when she joined me on The Advice Line earlier this month. Hello, welcome to The Advice Line.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Hi, Guy and Lea.

• 7:43Guy Raz?

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

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Sure. I'm Erin. I'm calling from Alameda, California, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Hello Divorce.

• 7:56Guy Raz?

  Hello Divorce?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Yep. We are an online platform that transforms the notoriously complicated and messy and super expensive divorce journey into an easier, kinder, and much more equitable and affordable process through a platform that combines easy-to-use technology and tools with built-in access to expert support along the way.

• 8:22Guy Raz?

  Wow, so it's like a platform like LegalZoom or whatever to make an online will or whatever, trust, and you just speed through the divorce in a simple, straightforward way?

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Similar, but from one platform, you not only complete your legal forms, and there's a lot, but you can also send them for filing with the court. You can chat with a lawyer or a financial advisor, or even a mediator to help you resolve conflict. And you can get the resources you need for everything from dividing home equity to co-parenting challenges, and then to navigating post-divorce hurdles as well.

• 9:03Guy Raz?

  And what's your question for us today?

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Okay, so when I started Hello Divorce, I knew it would be a great option for people who couldn't afford lawyers. But what surprised me, in a good way, was that even those who could afford an attorney have started to find value and be successful with us. However, we continue to face this recurring challenge. Most people still think they need to hire a lawyer to get divorced. So how do we overcome this deeply rooted belief and build trust in the idea that an online divorce can work?

• 9:42Guy Raz?

  Right, okay. Well, as somebody who has not experienced this and hopes never to, I'm curious how, I'm assuming that you have a background in this, like maybe as an attorney?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Actually, I spent 15 years practicing law as a divorce attorney.

• 9:59Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  And I saw just how broken the system is. It is unfair. It ramps up conflict literally every step of the way. And it's set up to make divorces longer and messier because lawyers get paid by the hour, and it creates literally no incentive for us to add efficiencies or to work towards a resolution. The longer the divorce goes, the more we get paid. So I knew we could do better. But to truly make a difference, we had to help people opt out of the system altogether and provide much more holistic support.

• 10:42Guy Raz?

  And so basically, it's like a flat fee that you pay?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Correct. So depending on the complexity of your divorce, customers pay between $400 and $3,800 for a plan that covers their entire divorce. And they can pay that as a flat fee, or they can pay that over time. And then from there, they can seek à la carte expert help to the extent that they need some extra advice along the way, or help resolving conflict.

• 11:12Guy Raz?

  Leah Sullivan, I'm going to bring you in. You may have questions of your own before we answer these questions.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, first off, I mean, Erin, I'm always looking for founders that I say have product-market fit. And you, as a founder, having experienced this industry, I mean, it makes so much sense that you have built this company. I love that you have seen where the gaps are, and you have seen that it can be done a different way, and that's what you want to tackle. So I think that's so fantastic. What percentage of divorces do you feel like this works for? Does it work for everyone? Or are there outliers? Or like, I have had this experience myself, right? It's a really big deal. You don't want to mess it up.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  And so you don't want to start down a path if you're not sure it's going to work. Is it going to make it worse? Or is it actually going to be better to go this way? So how do you think about that? When you look at the customers that you've worked with to date, and you know, what percentage does it work for?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, that is on my mind all the time, primarily because women file for divorce 70 to 75% of the time. And that is their biggest fear. So you get it. And It works for the vast majority of divorces. And the reason being is because most divorces don't go to trial. And most divorces don't happen overnight. So you will have time to use our software and complete everything you need to complete. And have a lawyer, an incredible lawyer on the platform, review it with you if you'd like advice. You'll have time to work with a financial advisor and have them really think through

• 13:03Speaker 02

  how you can come out of this in a much more resilient way. In fact, the problem with the lawyer-led divorce is that lawyers end up leading everything there is to lead about divorce when in reality, most of us should be working with a financial advisor or a real estate expert. And so what I love about our platform is yes, it's emotional, but it makes space for that and gives you the opportunity to connect with whoever you might need before you make that big decision to sign on the dotted line and sign your divorce judgment.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah, I mean, I have a couple of ideas. I mean, it is sort of, this is much higher stakes, but it is sort of reminiscent when we were first launching TaskRabbit, again, building that trust around, am I going to invite someone, a stranger into my home? People were really scared about that. They were really nervous about that in the beginning. And so there is this element of education, I think, that has to be done to overcome that and trust building. You know, with TaskRabbit, we did it with background checking and we did it with, you know, utilizing social networks. I think in your case, bringing in some more of those emotional support elements that sort of give people the trust and confidence that, listen, I've got you.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  I know what you're going through. We're gonna, you know, support you through this. Right now, it feels very transactional, which is, is good. It's fine. I mean, it makes me feel confident that you're going to be able to handle all of the paperwork and filings and, you know, keep sort of the trains running on time. I think what I want to feel is that element of

• 14:48Speaker 03

  I understand how to make this path a healthier, happier approach for you. I mean, is it even possible to take some divorced un-couples and bring them to the forefront with some reviews of how it went, you know, with some videos of, hey, listen, yep, we got divorced and we feel better off for it. And this is where we are today. Thank you to Hello Divorce for making it so uncontentious for us.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I love that. And I think that's actually what we do best, but kind of leaned away from because for the longest time, we were leaning into the empathy and the storytelling and the videos and the testimonials. But the problem was, is that people didn't think we had the authority, like that we had

• 15:44Speaker 03

  I could see that.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  the ability to handle their needs. And so now it sounds like we need to go back, we need to find the balance.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  It's a balance. It's a balance. And you have the credibility. You have the background to say, I know how to do this. I can handle the legal forms and the filings and all those things. So it's a little bit of maybe bringing you to the forefront too, while you balance that empathy piece. I think building that credibility with, directly as a founder with your customer base. But you also have that empathy as well. I mean, that's where this really all started. This is why you built what you built. So actually, I think it's really about you. Like you are the balance and maybe bringing that more to the forefront would be helpful.

• 16:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah, great. Agreed. 100%. Erin Levine, Hello Divorce is the platform. Good luck. Congrats. Thanks for calling in.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 16:40Guy Raz?

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, the founder of a premium olive oil company asks for advice from two founders with decades of experience in the food industry. Stick around. You're listening to the advice line right here on How I Built This Lab.

• 17:01Guy Raz?

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• 19:13Guy Raz?

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• 19:40Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. Our next return guests are the husband and wife team behind Mod Pizza and Seattle Coffee Company, Scott and Ally Svensson. And when they were first on the show, they told the story of how they brought pizza to the fast casual industry after selling their coffee company to Starbucks. And we'll stick a link to that full episode in the podcast description. Anyway, when Scott and Ally came back onto The Advice Line, they offered some really great advice to our callers.

• 20:11Guy Raz?

  Hello, hello caller. Please introduce yourself. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business briefly.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Hi there, it's great to be here. My name is Cave Nurmofidi. I'm calling from San Diego, California, and I'm the co-founder of Aficio 22. We're a mission-driven, premium olive oil company sourcing our single-origin olive oil from central California.

• 20:35Guy Raz?

  All right, and what's your question for us today?

• 20:37Speaker 04

  My question is, you know, given our growth aspirations for Aficio 22, what is the best strategy to scale our brand nationwide and enhance our distribution channels?

• 20:47Guy Raz?

  Got it, okay, great. Well, thanks for calling in, Cave. Tell us a little bit about the business. You're in Southern California, you said?

• 20:56Speaker 04

  That is correct. We're currently based in San Diego. We participate in various weekly farmers markets between San Diego all the way to Malibu. We also align ourselves with various wine festivals, mostly in California.

• 21:10Guy Raz?

  And so you source your olive oil from California, and it's called Aficio?

• 21:15Speaker 04

  22.

• 21:15Guy Raz?

  22?

• 21:16Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 21:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah, tell me about that name.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  So Aficio is driven from aficionado.

• 21:21Guy Raz?

  Oh, okay.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  And the 22 is, we're launched in December of 2022. We're also mission-driven, so we allocate 2% of our total sales to two youth organizations in San Diego.

• 21:34Guy Raz?

  Cave, tell me how you got into the olive oil business.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  That's a great question. I mean, olive oil was always a staple in my mom's kitchen. Whether we used salad dressings or she made stews, it was always a staple ingredient. And my brothers and I really developed an appreciation for the flavor profile, the health benefits that comes with using olive oil.

• 21:55Guy Raz?

  And what were you doing? I mean, did you do this right out of school? Were you doing something else in life when you started this?

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Similar to Scott, my background is in banking and finance. I led a team of investment advisors.

• 22:07Guy Raz?

  Cool. All right. Before we get to your question, Scott, Ali, questions for Kaveh. Do you have any further questions for him about the brand that he's starting?

• 22:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, Kaveh, your business sounds really neat and it's a fantastic product. I'm curious where you're connecting with customers today. It sounds like through the farmers markets and wine festivals. Is that your primary distribution channel today?

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Scott, one thing that we're really proud of, we're able to have the opportunity to move in for Mother's Day weekend, this past Mother's Day weekend, we were able to get into Nordstrom. And we had a sellout two-day event on the 15th and 16th of May. We're really proud of that, the amount of traffic that we receive and the amount of overwhelming support, positive response, that gave us the confidence to continue to move forward and propel. The farmers markets currently and the wine festivals and various events across the state is currently where we're growing and where we get a chance to speak to our customers and develop that relationship. And we're trying to organically grow from here. It's quite challenging trying to get distribution outside of California for the time being.

• 23:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. Just out of curiosity, how did you end up generating that opportunity with Nordstrom?

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Great question. One of our customers visited us at a farmer's market. She loved the product. She was a huge advocate. She reached back to Nordstrom. They have apparently a committee that helps with pop-up and collaboration with local brands. And met with them, their head of team development came and visited us again at our farmer's market. She loved the product. She loved the design. She loved our interaction with our customers. Because when we do tastings, it's more than just people come and check out the bottle and we talk about the story. We allow them to sample our products. We provide an interactive and engaging customer experience so that when they leave, they have a really good feeling about our product and what we're trying to do.

• 24:03Speaker 05

  That's fabulous. Have you experienced any other retail distribution? Have you gotten your product into any other outlets?

• 24:11Speaker 04

  I've tried with Whole Foods. I've tried with some of the local boutique shops. It's kind of hard to get your foot into the door. But you know, I'm a one man show essentially. I do all the farmers markets. I do all the filling of the bottles, packing, shipping. So it's marketing, sales, distribution, accounting. As you can imagine, you know, we're quite scrappy, but I'm confident with my skill sets. We can grow the brand.

• 24:34Speaker 06

  First of all, congratulations on starting something that's special, that's mission based. That's really cool and important. So, thank you. I do have one question before we can help answer your question, and that's around your subscription situation. I know that was mentioned, or I think I saw it on your website. And I just want to know what kind of what's the what's the status of that right now?

• 24:58Speaker 04

  So it's actually growing, Ali, as we speak. I actually have subscribers joining on a weekly basis. So it's not a tremendous growth we're seeing right now. But as I increase the awareness at farmers markets, at wine festivals, anyone approaches us, I usually talk about our subscription plan. And it's quite flexible in terms of the frequency and the number of bottles that customers want us to ship to them.

• 25:22Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 25:23Guy Raz?

  Cave, a couple of questions for you. First is, your price point is high. So obviously you have a premium product. It's about 45 bucks a bottle right now. Is that right?

• 25:33Speaker 04

  That is correct.

• 25:34Guy Raz?

  Which makes it, I think, challenging for some retailers because they, you know, they want to put that on the shelves and they need to get your price point down. What's your, what are the possibilities for getting your price point down? I mean, is there a world where you can, you're able to reduce the cost?

• 25:51Speaker 04

  Currently, our cost of goods sold is high because everything is worked on in the U.S. With the exception of our bottles, glass bottles, Naked arrives in the U.S. from Italy and Spain. We work on it locally in the U.S. Whether we UV protected, labeling, the labor, the California olive oil in itself is very expensive. And everything is certified olive oil extra virgin through the California Olive Oil Council. All those things pose a challenge in terms of reducing the cost of goods sold. The next way to go about this business is to reduce our cost of goods sold through our glass manufacturer to move over to Asia, which would significantly reduce our production, our production costs. And obviously, we can pass on those savings to our customers and eventually be able to have the option to go into retail.

• 26:35Guy Raz?

  You know, it's interesting, before we answer your question, I'm looking at your website and the bottles are absolutely beautiful. I mean, clearly, this is a beautiful design and, but what you just told me about the quality of the bottles and the quality of the olive oil, it's not, doesn't jump out at you right away. The thing that you emphasize initially on the website is the mission, which is awesome. You know, allocating 2% to, to supporting kids, but, and Scott and Ally, you know, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think ultimately consumers, you know, they, they might like the mission, but they're gonna, they're gonna be interested in this product based on its quality, based on what makes it really great. Cause you guys have a mission with Mod Pizza. I mean, you, you, one of your biggest missions is you employ formerly incarcerated people in the shops.

• 27:18Guy Raz?

  Amazing, but I don't think people go to Mod Pizza for that reason. Maybe one, 2% of customers do, but they go to it because they like the pizza.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, Guy, I think you've hit on an incredibly important point. And, and Kavi, it feels like you have all of the foundations for this, which is ultimately the consumer's going to focus on the quality of the product. And that's what's gonna bring them in, it's gonna bring them back. The, the mission will then create that, that incremental emotional connection with the consumer that I think will build loyalty over time, but is not likely going to be the thing that necessarily brings people in, in the first place. And it, and it feels to me, that example that you gave with Nordstrom's is such a great example of building a followership, building disciples of the brand, and then having them help you extend and grow the business.

• 28:09Speaker 05

  And that's maybe an extreme example where somebody went to bat for you and actually helped open the doors at Nordstrom's. But man, going into the farmers markets, the wine festivals, and trying to find a way to leverage, build that community, build that followership, and then leverage that into having those individuals advocating for you with their local gourmet shop or their local, and starting to kind of build it that way and having that ground soil, if you will, of somebody who wants that super high-quality product, as Guy said. Now, they might love the product, they might go to bat for you once they learn of the mission behind it, but it's gonna be driven by their appreciation for the quality.

• 28:50Speaker 06

  The only thing I would add is, the first thing that came to mind when I saw your profile was the importance of things like gift guides, and I'm sure you're very familiar with, I mean, Brightland has done an incredible job, I think, of getting into the mindset of gift guides, and when you mentioned Nordstrom, I thought, wow, you're not far from there. If you did that for Mother's Day, that kind of getting yourself into those publications and that kind of thing would be huge. And I also, you know, your mission, as we've already discussed, as being something that people discover, don't underestimate the importance of working with the organizations that you are supporting. I saw that Big Brothers Big Sisters is one of the groups you donate to, that's a fantastic organization, and you should make sure that they're, you know,

• 29:34Speaker 06

  talking to all of their people and their supporters for you on your behalf and make it easy for them, provide them with information, links to things, subscription, application, whatever, but helping them help you might not be a bad idea.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  I love it, I love it.

• 29:49Speaker 05

  I mean, that's a great example of if you could have them help you extend and market your brand to their community, and if you could get a bunch of the supporters of Big Brothers Big Sisters to start being subscribers to your product, that gets that flywheel turning of people who have a direct connection with your purpose who want to support.

• 30:11Guy Raz?

  You know, and I think we're all, in different ways, answering your question about how to grow your brand nationwide and enhance your distribution channels. And Ally mentioned Brightland, and they do a great job with, particularly with flavored olive oils, basil, and hot pepper and things like that. There's another brand, Graza, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and the squeezy bottle. And what they do so well is they've got two options, drizzle or sizzle, right? You're going to use it to drizzle on olive oil on a salad, or you're going to use it to cook with. And so you basically know what to do with it. What you've done here is you've got three options, delicate, medium, and bold. And one of my suggestions, especially for kind of building out the brand, is to say, maybe in parentheses underneath, delicate, you know, great for salad dressing.

• 30:55Guy Raz?

  Medium, you know, drizzle this on your tomatoes. And then bold, and you know, use this with, eat this, dip your bread in it, just something small, simple like that, to kind of do a version of what Graza did, but certainly appealing to to consumers who are really, you know, open and interested in trying and working with a premium olive oil.

• 31:16Speaker 06

  And perhaps also, you could partner up or become friends with certain chefs in your area, get them to love your product, and perhaps even feature it with some of their dishes or in their restaurants. Kind of to Guy's point, having them promote what olive oil goes great with, you know, dipping their bread or things like that. You create more ambassadors of people that can really help inspire consumers.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  That's a great point. We actually do custom recipes every week or every two weeks with a local chef or Instagram influencers. They come up with cool recipes that we showcase on our social media.

• 31:50Speaker 06

  Fantastic.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  And to your point, gift ideas are fantastic things. We're actually revamping our packaging with the new custom boxes with inserts.

• 31:58Guy Raz?

  Nice.

• 31:59Speaker 04

  So that should really separate us from, you know, the competition, hopefully.

• 32:02Guy Raz?

  Everybody who signs up and subscribes, every email you collect, start a newsletter, make sure there are recipes in it once a week, send that out, even if it's to 200 people, it'll grow to 500 and so on. Recipes with your olive oil will work. Cave, the brand is called Officio 22. Good luck. Awesome product, and we're going to keep our eye on you and your growth.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Guys, Scott, Ali, thank you for this opportunity, and thank you for allowing me to share my story with you.

• 32:27Speaker 06

  Nice to meet you.

• 32:28Speaker 05

  Congratulations, and best of luck, Cave.

• 32:32Guy Raz?

  You know, I was in Italy earlier this summer and I went to a restaurant and it's very Italian, but they get, at the end of the meal, they gave me, me and my wife, a little bottle of olive oil and said, this is the olive oil we use in our restaurant. And they tell you the story. There's a little sort of letter that comes then. It tells you how they source it. And it was a delicious restaurant. And I thought, what a cool idea.

• 32:51Speaker 06

  So cool.

• 32:51Guy Raz?

  Beautiful little bottle. Yeah.

• 32:52Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  What a fun business, too. And I mean, to be in a, to be in a business where you love your product and you love all of the mystery and the magic around it, what a neat business.

• 33:05Guy Raz?

  We're going to take another quick break, but when we come back, another caller with another question for another former guest. Stay with us. You're listening to a special mashup edition of the Advice Line, right here on How I Built This Lab.

• 33:32Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. And joining me next is Holly Thaggard. Back in 2020, Holly told the story of how a friend's skin cancer diagnosis inspired her to launch her sunscreen brand, Supergoop. And if you want to hear that incredible story, just check out the link in the podcast description. Holly was also the perfect founder to answer some Advice Line questions from some of our up and coming entrepreneurs.

• 33:59Guy Raz?

  All right, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the show.

• 34:05Speaker 07

  Hey, Guy. Hey, Holly. How are you?

• 34:07Guy Raz?

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

• 34:11Speaker 07

  My name is Eric Wilk. I am calling from the lovely beach town of Margate, New Jersey. I am the co-founder of JetSetMeds.com. We provide our patients with a physician-curated travel medical kit. The kit includes about a dozen prescription medications and about a half a dozen over the counter medications and some first aid supplies. And it, you know, it leaves our patients feeling pretty, pretty comfortable while they're traveling overseas in case the, you know, the inevitable happens.

• 34:44Guy Raz?

  Yep. And what's your question for us, Eric?

• 34:46Speaker 07

  This is a product that is a bit unique and I think requires as much education as it does marketing to the potential consumer. And so there are so many channels and so many options these days and how I could potentially reach my audience. And so keeping in mind that we're trying to educate while marketing, what channels do you think I should spend my time and my energy pursuing?

• 35:09Guy Raz?

  All right. We'll get to your question in a moment. Eric, let me ask you a couple of questions first. You are a doc, you're, you're an MD, right?

• 35:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, so I'm a board certified emergency medicine doctor. I worked 15 years in a very busy level one trauma center. And I started a boutique concierge medical practice about four years ago. And one of the things that I started doing for my patients was providing them with these travel kits. After the fourth, fifth, or sixth time that I found myself on the phone with a pharmacist in Paris, trying to speak French, trying to explain to them what medication I was trying to ask them to provide for my patient, I said, there has to be a better way. And my co-founder is also a physician. He's a urologic surgeon. He had a little bit of experience in e-commerce. And so we put together this travel kit and we're live as of a month ago.

• 35:58Guy Raz?

  Okay, so you've got these kits and I should mention that, that I, when I used to go overseas for, I covered wars, I was a war correspondent 25 years ago, Afghanistan, Iraq. I always traveled with doxycycline, with amoxicillin. And that's essentially what you do, right? Like people can, you basically can, you have people travel with these things just in case.

• 36:21Speaker 07

  Exactly, yeah. So, you know, in my, my 15 years of doing this, it's really the same 10 or 12 medications that come up over and over again. And we're able to meet the needs of probably about 95% of the different issues that may occur, antibiotics being one of those, but also things just like anti-nausea medications, topical medications, steroid creams, antibiotic ointments, it's all in the kit. And because there's prescriptions involved, the way it works is our patients come to our site, they fill out a brief medical intake survey. Based on the answers they provide us with that survey, our physicians have to go through and determine to make sure that the kit is safe for them to have. So if somebody has an allergy to blank medication,

• 37:04Speaker 07

  we're not prescribing said medication. Once our physician deems it's safe for the person to have that kit, it all happens on the backend where the prescriptions that get sent to a third-party logistic pharmacy, they build the kit for us and it gets shipped directly to the consumer.

• 37:20Guy Raz?

  And some of it is prescription medication, some of it's over-the-counter medication?

• 37:24Speaker 07

  That's right.

• 37:25Guy Raz?

  Got it. All right. Let me bring the expert in. Holly Thaggard has built a multimillion-dollar business in skincare and sunscreen. Holly, interesting idea. A curated, custom-made kit here. I'm looking at these. They're not cheap, but they're very reasonably priced. $400 for the starter kit. What are your thoughts about what Eric is trying to do here and also his question?

• 37:53Speaker 08

  So I have one question for you. So with the purchase of this kit, do they have access to you while they're on their trip?

• 38:00Speaker 07

  Not to me personally, but to our doctor network, which is a physician network that we partnered with to help support the kits.

• 38:08Guy Raz?

  Like through texts or emails or something like that?

• 38:11Speaker 07

  Exactly. Yeah, through text, through chat. That's exactly right.

• 38:13Guy Raz?

  Yep.

• 38:14Speaker 08

  Well, having just returned from South Africa about a month ago, our family, we did take medicine with us, but we have a concierge doctor as well. And she, we've had that relationship for, gosh, five years or so. And I know that's kind of a newer concept in doctoring. What we've learned from that experience is she's incredibly hands-on and wants to be at the text of anything that would ever go wrong. And so to kind of think about your question in what channels to focus on, I think thinking about the bigger part of our population that even still goes to an urgent care clinic. And

• 38:57Speaker 08

  Doesn't have access beyond maybe a primary doctor when it's actually very difficult to even get in touch with primary doctors. You have to go through the administrative office, the nurse, the nurse then contacts the doctor. So I wonder if marketing towards urgent care, even in the form of pamphlets and posters and things that like bringing awareness because as you said, we need to let the world know that this is a possibility. They can, they can access prescription drugs this easily before maybe a big, maybe a big vacation.

• 39:29Guy Raz?

  I, I have a, Holly, I have a slightly different take, which is because I think you're right, right? You, you know, looking into those kind of urgent care kind of places. But, but like to me, what you're doing here, it seems like a great opportunity for an employer to offer this as a benefit to their employees, you know, a big consulting firm, a big law firm. They have people who travel all around the world every single day, sales reps, companies with a lot of employees who then have access to this. It's a benefit. It's part of the package that they get as part of just being an employee. And, and I, and you know, your question is about how do we take our, our money and spend it? And, and there's a million

• 40:11Guy Raz?

  ways to skin that cap, but one way might be to look for a consulting firm that can help you get access to some big companies to make the case for, for why this should be a benefit.

• 40:23Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 40:24Speaker 08

  We're always thinking at Super Group of ways to make our team more comfortable to make, to give our team benefits, things that they need to make their life happier. And, and I think this definitely would be one if we had a lot of international, and we, we do, we have an office in Singapore and Paris and we have people traveling internationally as we've launched the Middle East two years ago. And we have, you know, I mean, there's things that come up and the last thing that we would want is for our, anyone in our brand or our company to be uncomfortable and to not have access to the medicine that they need.

• 40:58Speaker 07

  So be your B to B, just go kind of go that route.

• 41:01Guy Raz?

  I don't think it's one or the other, but I think that's a really promising channel for you because this is something that, you know, You could sell to like my family's going to, you know, we just got back from Italy for three weeks. We could have gone and done that, but selling a kit, a one-off kit, you know, to a family every five or seven years is one, is one channel, but, but having a company that has people traveling all the time that will then need to renew the kits because, you know, medicine, as you know, right, it expires. That to me seems like a really cool opportunity to really think about working with, you know, corporate partners.

• 41:40Speaker 08

  And I would imagine you can use your FSA dollars for this too as well.

• 41:44Speaker 07

  Hundred percent. HSA and FSA both. That's right.

• 41:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah. But, but the luxury market is, is one, it's certainly an opportunity, but it is limited at a certain point, right? You really want to get this in front of, because a lot of people, you know, if you're, if you're working for a big company and the company's going to pay the 400 bucks for the kit, it's worth their, it's worth the dollar spend for them because if it could prevent, you know, if it could keep their employee healthy and working while they're overseas, they're, they're, they're on board with that.

• 42:13Speaker 08

  And then from a marketing, I mean, I think also getting in touch with, with the, the travel and leisure, Wall Street off duty, all these, all these, you know, magazines and, and media outlets that could bring, help bring awareness to, hey, before your next trip or.

• 42:32Speaker 07

  Right. I think part of, one of the challenges I'm running into is as opposed to 2005, when it was media, it was print. Now there's, there's social, there's YouTube, there's Facebook, there's meta, influencers, micro-influencers. It's like, it's very overwhelming and I, I feel like I'm getting a little scatterbrain. There's too many choices. And so I'm really trying to make sure I spend my time, you know, going down the right path and I'm not spinning my wheels.

• 42:58Guy Raz?

  I, I think that, that there is, and, and look, when you talk about social, social media strategy, that can take time, but what you bring to the table is your expertise. You are a medical doctor. You have over 20 years of experience in emergency medicine. So, and that carries a lot of weight, especially when you're sitting across the table from, you know, somebody who makes purchasing decisions for a company, right? But at the same time, makes a lot of sense if you're trying to do social media. I would put you out there, put your, your, your co-founder out there. You're both doctors. I would put yourselves out there in your scrubs, talking about, you know, how important it is to. Be safe and healthy when you travel and just start experimenting with videos.

• 43:42Speaker 07

  Right, right, right. No, yeah, I love that. That's great feedback. I appreciate it. We're testing all our channels and seeing what's going to work. It's a really exciting time, actually, in the, I think, in the phase in the journey of an entrepreneur. Like, we're 18 months to get to where we are and we're a month out of a launch. And so it's an exciting time, a challenging time. And so we'll see what happens.

• 44:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Eric, good luck. The brand's called Jet Set Meds. So cool. Congrats on taking the leap and we're cheering you on, man.

• 44:17Speaker 07

  Thank you so much. Thanks for your time, Holly and Guy. I appreciate it.

• 44:20Guy Raz?

  Thank you.

• 44:20Speaker 08

  Yeah, nice visiting with you.

• 44:22Speaker 07

  All right. Take care.

• 44:24Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to this special mashup edition of The Advice Line this week. And a special thanks to Leah Sullivan of TaskRabbit, Scott and Ally Svenson of Mod Pizza, and Holly Thaggard of SuperGoop for joining me on the show. By the way, if you haven't already, please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode. And also, please check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com. Every week, we put in tons of insights from entrepreneurs and some of my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd

• 45:06Guy Raz?

  like help with, and hopefully, we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at [email protected] or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Messini with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineers were Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Elaine Coats, J.C. Howard, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, Devin Schwartz and Neva Grant.

• 45:48Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.