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Ep 612: The Bootstrap Beauty Brand Going Up Against BlackRock in Target – Megababe
00:36:47
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- [00:00]
A
It's so deeply ingrained in our society that we should be having a thigh gap or anything that you're experiencing around Chafe is your fault. There's something wrong with you. I wanted to change that. One of the myths is that if you get into a large retailer, that means like the work is done and you kind of made it. Once we got into those large retailers, that is when the work started. It's like a David and Goliath every time we're in a retail shelf. Because all these brands are owned by the same three or four companies, they have so much more to spend with the retailers. They're more important to the retailer. Make sure you have a point of view. It is easier than ever to launch a product, but if you can't bring a point of view to the market, I don't know what your purpose is and I don't think that customers will either.
- [00:53]
B
This episode is brought to you by Triple Whale. If you're still making decisions based on messy scattered data bouncing between ad platforms, spreadsheets and dashboards, you're not alone. Most e commerce teams are stuck piecing together a story they don't fully trust. Triple Whale changes that It's a complete intelligence platform built for modern operators who are done guessing. Triple Whale centralizes all your data, equips you with measurement tools you can actually trust, and layers in best in class AI to turn that data into clear recommendations, showing you what's driving growth, what's hurting profit, and exactly what to do next. It even takes action for you. With Triple Whale, you can quickly spot trends, catch issues before they impact revenue, and uncover opportunities you would have otherwise otherwise missed. It's about moving faster, making smarter decisions, and operating with real confidence. That's why brands like True Classic, Whey Press, Juicery, and thousands of the fastest growing D2C companies rely on Triple Whale every day. They're saving time, increasing efficiency and unlocking insights that simply weren't possible before. If you're ready to stop guessing and start growing with clarity, now's the time to check it out. Visit triplewhale.com that's T R-I-P L E W-H-A-L-E.com to learn more. I hosted a mastermind last year here and we went out whale watching and saw like a whole pod and they were spy hopping and then they came back. Our place that we were having our event was right on the water and then the killer whales followed us into the inner harbor and were like hanging out while we were doing Our event.
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A
So Canadian killer whales are not trying to like, eat your boat?
- [02:29]
B
No.
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A
Well, in Spain they were attacking yachts.
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B
Eat the rich. That's what they're trying to do.
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A
Yeah, no, I was with them. I was like, that's right, do it.
- [02:38]
B
Bizarre opening to a DTC podcast. But Declan, we should just probably keep it because I'm here with Megababe herself, Katie Storino. Welcome to the D2C podcast. How you doing?
- [02:47]
A
I'm doing great. I'm so jealous that you live near Wales.
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B
Yeah, we do live near Wales. It's. It's not an everyday thing. Although I live very close on a place called the Gorge, and so I see seals every day almost when I'm out on the water there. We like to rowboat and paddle board and such. You'll have to come visit us. It's quite nice.
- [03:05]
A
I'm going to move in with you now.
- [03:07]
B
Nice. Okay, cool. I have an extra room. Okay, well, take me back to the early, the pre product Megababe days. Talk to me about the message that you kind of brought out into the social sphere even before you launched your brand.
- [03:22]
A
So I started this work as just a curvy girl on the Internet trying to help women who didn't see themselves represented get dressed. Um, basically it's a long winded way of being like, I was helping people find plus size clothing and I, I realized through all these different seasons we were going through that there were no Chafe solutions. Cause every, every spring people were like, what are you using for thigh chafe? And I was like, I guess I'm using this stuff. I'm hoping that some big brand launches something cool soon. But they weren't. So that's where the seed of the idea came because I, I was like, I can't believe no one cares about Chafe. And I found out no one even knew about Chave.
- [04:05]
B
Yeah. Though we've experienced it.
- [04:07]
A
Yes.
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B
I didn't know that other people knew that was going on, was that it was really common.
- [04:12]
A
It's so deeply ingrained in our society that we should be having a thigh gap or anything. Anything like that you're experiencing around Chafe is your fault. There's something wrong with you. And I wanted to change that.
- [04:25]
B
And so you built your audience up. Did you know you always wanted. I guess you're just revealing you didn't always know you wanted to launch the product. But talk about those initial days of like just building that audience. How did that go?
- [04:36]
A
Building. So I had my own following. So I think when we launched Megababe. I had something like 60,000 followers, so not enough to make a viral brand at all, but at least I had a community behind me, which I still do, that was able to like, give me feedback, tell me, like, what they loved, what they didn't love. And building that just came kind of organically. There weren't a lot of people talking about body diversity in the space that looked like me. And I was feeling a. A need in the market. And I realized that as soon as I started doing it because I've. I worked in public relations in the past, and you can tell when you're hitting something because there's a reaction. Um, I mean, sometimes things can take longer, whatever, but I feel like, you know, when you have something. And I knew I had something because, like, press started coming to me. My followers were growing, like, pretty organically, and I could tell I was. I was stepping into the next phase of my life.
- [05:37]
B
You'd hit a nerve.
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A
Yes.
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B
So what were your first steps? I. I think based on your origin story, you were. You built this out of your parents garage. Is that accurate?
- [05:45]
A
Yes.
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B
Like Jeff Bezos of Thigh Chick.
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A
I am. I know I'm still waiting for. I. Waiting for my yacht that the orcas can eat, but I did. I. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to make a thigh shaft stick. And I grabbed my. My two best people, which are my sister, who's very good at finances and business decisions, and I grabbed my best friend from camp, who just. We always kind of mind meld and speak the same creative language. And I was like, guys, we're gonna make a chafe stick. And they. Neither of them had experienced chafe up to that point. I talked to my family, my parents, extended relatives. They were like, I don't think that's a really, like, big issue for people. Might just be for you. And I was like, I know you're wrong. I know that you're all wrong. And I found out as we were starting to like, Google manufacturers. Cause that is really what we did. Really just finding, finding like the right place. And then someone would be like, we don't do that. But this person might. As I was starting to go down that hole, I realized people in that industry didn't even know what chafe was. So this was a total white space, which was exciting and scary because it was. The education has been all up to us.
- [07:00]
B
It's a white space. But you're lucky that it's also a touchstone, that when people hear they may not Know that they're looking for it. But when people hear it, like, you say, there's a reaction, people know. Cause it's such a painful thing when it happens.
- [07:13]
A
Yes. Well, even when you say the word chafe, we don't always get the reaction that you're hoping for. So I always say, you know, when you're rubbing and, like, your legs. Your legs rub together. I try to show people because that word does not really resonate with people.
- [07:28]
B
Yeah. For me, it's just. I just blow out the crotch of my jeans all the time within a couple of years, that. So, like, I think the jeans protect me from the chafe, but I just have to, like, patch up my jeans. Right.
- [07:39]
A
Well, that's. That is an indicator. I say, like, if your jeans have ever looked like this, then you need us.
- [07:45]
B
Yeah. Oh, that's good for the ads. Yeah. How much research went into knowing, like, what even stops thigh chafe? Did you look at other products? How did you figure out the science of chafe suppression?
- [07:55]
A
I looked at what was on the market and how I wanted to improve upon it and, like, what worked for me, what didn't work for me, what I liked about other products and what I didn't. And we Frankenstein together, like, the ultimate chafe solution. We cleaned up the formulas that we saw on the market and made them. Made them more towards something we would want to buy and less, like, something that an old man might use.
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B
You talking about me?
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A
I was just. I was just gonna say that the whole category really around chafe was so embarrassing. Also, I don't know if you've. If you've ever done a deep dive in there, but it really is, like. It's embarrassing. Things like Deez Nuts for her or Gooch Guard. These are real brands, and I. I shouldn't be shouting them out, but they're real brands that. That are in business. And me as a. As a girl who's just, like, trying to walk to work, I really wasn't. I. I didn't want to pull guard out of my bag. No.
- [08:51]
B
I could see how that would be a problem.
- [08:53]
A
No. So we. We did. We launched with two SKUs. We launched with. We launched with our megabay bust dust, which I decided that, like, first of all, powder to stop boob sweat is something that people were not talking about or even identifying as, like, an issue to talk about. Because I figured as long as we were talking about chafe, let's just open the conversation up and get into something else. Boob sweat. I wanted to take a talc free powder that was super fine and put it in a hands free pump that you could just pump into your bra, down your back and your underwear that you didn't have to touch with your hands. I'm big on not touching things with my hands and I found that people don't care about touching things with their hands. They are fine to touch things with their hands actually after all these years. So we kind of do both now. But yes, we launched with those two products in June of 2017.
- [09:47]
B
So the jobs to be done of Megababe is just to make people who have average, like the scientifically average body feel more comfortable in life.
- [09:58]
A
It's not even about the body size or the average body or plus size or thin. It really is. All these people in the world are dealing with really normal issues like the boob sweat, like a, like a sweaty butt. Like it's, it really doesn't have to do with your body size. And we, we wanted to just normalize that conversation and especially empowering women to feel comfortable talking about it. Not just like with their friends, but even with themselves like feeling comfortable and confident to, to leave the house and not feel like they needed to feel ashamed or that they were using products that made them embarrassed.
- [10:37]
B
Yeah, exactly. Or that they just had to suffer, which I think a lot of people do. Yes.
- [10:40]
A
Oh most. We have decided that our biggest competitor is people just dealing. It's really, it's like women just being like, I guess I'll just tuck my dress between my legs.
- [10:51]
B
This is my cross to bear.
- [10:53]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [10:54]
B
Okay. So you are, you get these great two, these two products together. Talk to me about the go to market strategy. And you, because you had, you built up this, you said you had 60,000 when you launched. So you had already started to build up the audience based on talking about,
- [11:07]
A
on my personal social. So we started a news channel, a new channel for megababe.
- [11:12]
B
Very cool. And then talk to me about the go to market. How did you launch it and how to go.
- [11:16]
A
We. So my, my sister who lives near my parents, we figured out with the factories that we were working with that we had to meet these MOQs that were about 10,000 units per persku which if you're talking about the type of business we're talking about launching is a lot. This is three people who have never been in beauty launching a product that everyone tells you isn't gonna work and doesn't matter and people don't need it and it's embarrassing. So why are you doing it? So you got 20,000 units in my parents garage. And we, I think we pushed go like, I think it was like June 15th or something. And I was like, do we sell out yet? You know, we'd sold like 10 sticks and we, we just posted live. I posted on my stories, we tried. We had hired a PR firm. We got like a couple press mentions. But at that time, even talking to press, it was like, what's chafe? Like, what is this for? This is for like when you're sitting down and you feel like your legs are irritated or like, I mean, I mean it, like people really don't, like, they didn't know what this was. So we were having to explain that over and over and over. But we did, we got a little bit of press. But the, the big thing that happened at the end of June, we were on the Today show and that is when I knew that we hit because we sold out of every unit that we made by July 1st.
- [12:43]
B
People say like those, you know, TV. No, people aren't saying TVs dead, but
- [12:48]
A
they are saying TVs dead.
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B
Some people are saying TVs dead. Yeah. And to think of the power of, of a, of a Today show experience having that and it doesn't.
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A
And you know what? It's never happened like that since. And it was just in that moment on that day. The people watching hadn't seen that messaging before and it hit, it hit a nerve.
- [13:09]
B
And then. So what were the core things you did to build off that success? To kind of keep the growth going?
- [13:15]
A
Obviously getting more product by August was difficult, but I believe we did. We were restocked by like mid August or something. And then we started having. So we were just on it. We just had our own website. We were just D2C. And then we were approached by both Target and Ulta to go into their stores like fairly quickly. And that was a huge deal. And we, we decided that, I think Target had offered us like a smaller amount of doors and Ulta was ready to like get behind us, full chain. So we launched exclusively in Ulta for I think the first year. And then we launched in Target after that.
- [13:56]
B
Very cool. I was, I remember one of my friends runs Bush Bomb here in Canada, I think, and he, his strategy, I think has been to go really, really deep with Ulta, I think Alt, like, and even forego some other launches. How are you, how are you managing your multiple retail presences? Are you in more than those two now or. Those are the main two.
- [14:13]
A
We are no longer in Ulta actually. We are just in, we are, we're not just in, we're in Target, we're in Walmart. We've just gotten into more products, into CVS and more doors in CVS and we're all, we're in some smaller retailers like Nordstrom and Anthropologie. But it's difficult. I think, I think what one of the myths about starting a brand is that if you get into a large retailer that then that means like the work is done and you kind of made it and, and like you did it. But what I found really interesting is that once we got into those large retailers, that is when the work started and we had no idea, we had no idea and we didn't hire anyone for years. So it was just us figuring it out by ourselves and you know, like doing everything, doing customer service. We did shipping, like my parents and my brother in law, like literally wrapping pallets in my parents garage for like the retail trucks to come pick up. So we were doing everything by ourselves and we bootstrapped it like that for many years.
- [15:20]
B
I imagine in retail especially for like it's a product that people understand but they may not recognize it on the shelf. It may just look like deodorant or something that, that doesn't call out to them. So what, what did you have to do in these retail stores? You know, I guess it's purchasing the promotional end caps and things like that. But talk to me a little bit about what you did to kind of break through those are a privilege.
- [15:39]
A
Like we have like we, when we've had M caps, that's been amazing for us but it's hard to get those. I'm just being really realistic for the people listening that it's hard to get those signs. It's hard to get those end caps. They don just give them to everyone especially we're a smaller brand, we're self funded, we don't have the, the same budget as the people. We're in the deodorant aisle in Target that is the most popular aisle in the store. We are competing against only giant brands. And I can't believe that we've lasted this long and done this well.
- [16:08]
B
What worked has worked for you in these places?
- [16:11]
A
Well, we've tried, we've tried all the things. So you pay into the marketing like that they offer you. You pay, you pay into the sampling opportunities and you figure out what works for you. Um, and I think sometimes it's interesting, you talk to other brands and like, and they're like this kills for Us like we like we do so well with this and then we try it and it's not for us or we do really well with something that. So it's like you have to find your secret sauce for what's going to work to help drive the sales on the retail side. And you, you brought up a really good point about the people don't necessarily recognize the product for what it is. And especially because we're in the deodorant aisle. Our chafe stick, I think for many years was, was getting confused for a deodorant and my husband actually was like, you guys need to say it on the bottle, you need to say it on the cap. So we have a big stops chafe sticker now on our Earth Eye rescue.
- [17:01]
B
Nice. That makes perfect sense. So I come from this world of performance marketing and E commerce via way of ads essentially. That's really in my DNA and I always love talking with people who created audiences through their own audience, through their products audience. And really ads were more of an. It sounds like in the, especially in the early days ads were more of an afterthought where you were really concerned with real product market fit, really building a community, leveraging organic social. Talk to me a little bit about that strategy and how it's evolved. Are you now running ads?
- [17:35]
A
Yes, but only recently in the past three years. So we will be eight in June. And I think for those first five years we were not running ads. We were not doing the traditional marketing things like I had dreams of billboards, I had dreams of things like that. And we didn't spend money in that way again because we're self funded. We didn't take salaries for many years. We did all the jobs ourselves and we built our team really slowly and we've basically grown with intention and grown sustainably so that we don't crash and burn and. Profitably, Exactly. We've been profitable since the start, but that hasn't always been like a cool thing. I feel like in the, in like those first five years the trend for D2C brands was to spend so much on marketing without any guarantee and then go out of business. Like they had like the, the. The founders had taken money from like fundraising. They built this brand. It didn't work. They still had money in their pockets, walk away and start something else. So that's. It's the opposite of what we've built which is again it's profitable from the start. And we haven't grown less than 33% year over year since we started one
- [18:52]
B
of my favorite creators is actually this guy that goes to grocery stores and he, he takes pictures of the shelves and he colors in all the brands that are owned by.
- [19:01]
A
I've seen him. My world's biggest.
- [19:03]
B
Yes, yes, cancel this clothing company is his name or his handle anyways. And so I imagine in your aisle, in, in on the retail shelves, there's, it's, it's a similar thing where it's like a very few brands are actually owned by owner, operator, family owned and the rest of them are owned by BlackRock or something. Right?
- [19:20]
A
Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly it. And I think people assume that we have funding in the way that other brands have funding. Most brands have funding because it's really hard to survive because you can't do that marketing and advertising without money. Again I said, I mentioned in the beginning my sister is very smart with money and she's the reason we're still in business. But I, I think that is one of the really hard things about going up against these, you know, so called, it's like a David and Goliath thing every time we're, we're in a retail shelf because I know that all these brands are owned by the same three or four companies and they have so much more to spend with the retailer. They're more important to the retailer. And I think supporting small woman owned brands became less trendy or less important recently. That's what I've noticed. They, they, they used to really want to brag about that or put signage up or highlight you and that has really gone away.
- [20:23]
B
Which just in the cultural, political, economic climate that we're now.
- [20:27]
A
All of it. Yeah. Yep.
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B
It feels like that. I can understand that. In the ad realm. How has the growth through advertising done for you?
- [20:35]
A
I think it's been a learning curve. I think it's really, it's been hard for us to write those checks to spend that money. But we found, and we're on Amazon, we're on Amazon now too. We resisted Amazon for a really long time because we thought, I don't know, we thought it would upset retailers. We just didn't know. And now we crash on Amazon. So I feel like it's interesting because it's hard to tell what is successful because you don't always have the numbers behind what you can, you can get how many impressions you're getting from a billboard. Let me back up. We did our first bus campaign last summer and we did, we had two buses which, you know, brands that like do bus campaigns, they get like 3040 buses. We had two buses, but people saw our bus. We had them in New York and Chicago and Boston and it was really incredible. And then we did a deodorant campaign that was for Chafe. And then we did a deodorant campaign. We also ran ads on basically regular tv, like not streaming. We started there.
- [21:42]
B
Classic, like call up the station.
- [21:44]
A
Yes. And that has been really interesting because everyone wants like these like new forms of advertising. And we got, we have gotten so much traction from just this like old school, out of, out of home. We advertise in the taxis in New York. And that is, that is probably our most talked about ad campaign.
- [22:09]
B
Very cool. How do you quantify that? How did it like get either the taxicab or the, or the, or the buses? How are you looking for halo effects in your retail? How are you, how are you quantifying the success about a home campaign?
- [22:22]
A
Yes, we are. And so I would say last summer, if I'm being honest, we were probably disappointed with the results based on the money that we had spent because it was so hard spending money for the first time like that. But I think also it's like the, the public, the audience, they like need to get used to you. They need to like see it, what is it, seven times now in, in order to buy something. So it's like I feel like we got in front of people and now totally fluke, like by accident. Had no idea. Amazon used our Chafe stick in an ad that's running right now. It ran during the Super Bowl. It ran during the Oscars. Like could the Olympics. I could not get better visibility, but I have no idea if that's really like, there's no like giant spike we're seeing. So it's, I have to, I have to wait to see if that brand recognition is going to hit people once it starts to become warm out and they're like, oh my God, I need something for Chafe or for sweat or.
- [23:20]
B
It's the season, we're just getting into Chafe season.
- [23:22]
A
We're just getting into it. It's not quite here.
- [23:25]
B
Any exciting activations you have planned for this summer?
- [23:27]
A
Yes, we have a very, we have our first non product focused campaign. It's called the I'm not Fine index. And we conducted, we conducted a survey with women asking like different questions about like, would you rather ask the driver to turn the air conditioning down or would you rather just sit there freezing? And like the percentages of women who just would rather not be thought of as high maintenance or annoying or it's fine. I'll just deal with it. Like, the amount of times we do that as women is sad. We've been conditioned to do that. We've been trained to do that. And so we're trying to highlight the fact that women every single day walk around saying that they're fine when they're not. That goes for your body comfort as well. So it's. It's the same thing. It's like, I'll just deal with it. I'm. I'm fine.
- [24:23]
B
That's really smart brand messaging to get to that problem because it connects so well to your product and it connects.
- [24:29]
A
Thank you.
- [24:29]
B
So many other things in life.
- [24:30]
A
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And especially right now, it feels like you need something like that.
- [24:35]
B
Yeah. Cool. And then. So how will that be rolled out? That's going to be mainly on the social channels.
- [24:39]
A
Really? No, it's really big for us. Are you ready? We're doing. We have billboards in New York. Like, big billboards.
- [24:46]
B
Nice.
- [24:47]
A
2. And then we have bus shelter advertisements. And then on. On social. And then we're doing a bit of, like, sponsored content with like, a select group of influencers.
- [24:58]
B
Super cool. Have you ever run person on the street style interviews as ad content?
- [25:02]
A
No.
- [25:03]
B
I could. I could see that working really well for you guys. We. I had. I had a guy who runs Street Talk on a little while ago, and it's just sort of like the ability to have. You know, because you're used to seeing person on the street style interviews as like comedy or political aggravation in some cases. But they're a really good way on with CPG products to overcome the awareness gap and sort of have like a full funnel all in one ad. And people will quite often watch it because it kind of feels a bit more organic. So I feel like for a category like yours where it's like, even if you ask questions around things that you
- [25:35]
A
put like, what are you doing for Chase this summer?
- [25:37]
B
Yeah, exactly. Even just simple, just right on the nose, like, what are you doing for Chase this summer? I think it could be really effective for you.
- [25:43]
A
Yeah. I like your idea. I will take it.
- [25:46]
B
All right. Thinking about, like, because it sounds like you have a lot of New York centric activations, does that impact sales nationally? Like in. I'm trying to think. Or are you really focused on just. I guess the New York audience is so big that it just becomes worth it.
- [26:02]
A
Well, here's the thing. New York is a walking city, so that's. You've got a lot of. You've got a walk in here.
- [26:08]
B
That's what they say.
- [26:08]
A
Yeah, I'm walking here. Exactly. So I feel like that is one of the reasons I'm based here. That's another reason. But we really. We're trying to get to America. Like, we're trying to get to the people. Yes. So we do. We obviously, we do digital advertisements and we do a lot of, like, social gifting, but it's hard. Like, it's really hard. And we have this.
- [26:35]
B
The density of the eyeballs in New York. Right?
- [26:37]
A
Yeah. No, that is the reason to do a billboard.
- [26:40]
B
Makes it make sense.
- [26:40]
A
But I also. We did billboards in Chicago. I would like to do billboards in smaller cities. But again, you got to make choices. Like, I'd like to do it all over Florida because it's hot all the time.
- [26:51]
B
Yeah.
- [26:52]
A
You ever, you ever look at, like, law firm advertiser, like, law firm billboards and the, the ad budgets for law firms are crazy. I don't know. I don't understand. They have like 50 billboards along a highway. How do they do it?
- [27:05]
B
Jim the Hammer Shapiro. I remember from my youth.
- [27:08]
A
Wow.
- [27:09]
B
Still with maybe an sob, But I'll be your sob. I was like, really?
- [27:13]
A
That's what I want to be for Chafe. That's what I want to be for Chafe.
- [27:17]
B
An SOB against Chafe. I like that. I want to talk a bit about the brand voice because I think, you know, you have such a distinct voice in your content, and previously I feel like that's really bled through. And I think in. In the cosmetic world, quite often you're not getting that level of realness. Right. You're. You're getting more brand. You're getting more polish, more brand voice. Talk about your brand voice and how you've informed it or created it.
- [27:43]
A
The brand voice is that we're. We're real. And. But that's not. Everyone says they're real and everyone says they're authentic. But it takes a special kind of brand voice to be able to talk about hemorrhoids in. In a way that feels like conversational and easy to understand and not, like, not weird. I think that we just say the thing, and that is hard for a lot of brands to do, mostly because they don't have the. I would say, like, we really are. We're woman owned, we're woman run, and we have the heart. We have, like, the story, we have the joy. We have all of that because that's like the energy we put into the brand every single day.
- [28:29]
B
Talk to me a little bit about your growth.
- [28:31]
A
Growth has been amazing again, because we, we have been very fortunate with our retail part and we roll out new categories. Like, I just mentioned the hemorrhoid and like. And, and that was something that took us several years to. To make because we needed to find the right manufacturer. And it was our first OTC product and formula, and we had no idea if people were going to trust us with a medical issue like that. And our, our butt stuff is now in Target, in cvs. It's a top seller on Amazon. So it's like, it's just really interesting. I think when you make people feel. I think when you make people feel seen, then that is something that not all beauty brands are able to do. I can't make you feel seen with a lip gloss or with a shampoo, but I can. I, I can identify some of your, like, issues that you feel, maybe you felt shame or you felt alone in before, and I can make you feel okay about them, I can make you laugh about them, and I can solve them.
- [29:36]
B
Are there any other. I actually didn't see your hemorrhoid product. Like, that's a issue members of my family have suffered in silence with, for. For years. And there's not a lot of other players in that space. It's like Anisol and like, maybe that's pretty blue.
- [29:51]
A
It's a crusty. Crusty. Yeah, it's a crusty category. It is.
- [29:54]
B
It's a crusty category. It's a good way to put it. Talk to me about formulating that product.
- [29:58]
A
Yeah, Hemorrhoids are thought of as, like, I don't know, you think of it as like, hemorrhoids are like, for old men. And when my, when my co founders both. I hope they don't mind me saying this, but they both had three kids during the, during the duration of our. Of building this brand, and they both experience hemorrhoids. And I was like, why aren't I get. I get hemorrhoids? Why? Like, you guys got hemorrhoids for the first time during your pregnancies. Why aren't we looking into that? But it's an intimidating category to get into because you have, like, you've got like, big, big hemorrhoid in there. Like, you've got like, Preparation H and like, who's going up against Preparation H? They own the category. Like, everyone knows. But the point is, when you are in your bathroom or you have to take something in your handbag or you gotta recommend something or whatever you Gotta buy something you don't want. I'm gonna. I have it right here. You don't want to buy this, like, old man's hemorrhoid cream. Like, this is fun. This is cute. This doesn't make me feel like I'm gross and weird. Like, this is. This is nice.
- [31:00]
B
And it's. Again, it's all in that. Jobs to be done. It's a great. It's. Whose idea was that product expansion? Was that yours?
- [31:05]
A
Me? Yeah.
- [31:06]
B
That's such a great idea.
- [31:08]
A
Thank you.
- [31:09]
B
What's next?
- [31:10]
A
Oh, we have a lot coming. We just launched a blister and heal prevention product at Target the worst, which
- [31:19]
B
is when that happens, a mouthful.
- [31:20]
A
I know right now when you pick
- [31:23]
B
a blister and then it like, you just. You have to try to not ever pick a blister so it heals itself, but you always end up popping it. You have to pop up with so bad.
- [31:31]
A
You have to.
- [31:32]
B
You're not supposed to.
- [31:33]
A
No, but you have to. It's a rule. But we actually launched a chafe gel six weeks ago, and that was our first expansion into like. That was our first like, like, innovation on chafe that we've done. And we were. Because we were like, thigh rescue's the best. What else do you want? And listening to customers over the years, we kept hearing that there was, like a desire to have a gel. And I'm like, why? We make the best products. So I was like, fine, let's look into this gel. And I found that actually you could make a gel that was sweat resistant in a way that our stick isn't. Not to say that the stick is less effective. It's more just like if you're in 90% humidity, weather and running, and like, everything is sweating, the gel is nice to have. So the gel is going very well for us. But that's like, that's, that's, that's brand new. It's our first summer with gel.
- [32:29]
B
If you were starting Megababe over today, is there anything you'd do differently?
- [32:32]
A
Take money right away. Just kidding. It's just. I'm just gonna say this again. It's so hard. And I think that I don't think we would do anything differently. I think sometimes we've been distracted chasing trends or chasing things that we see, like trending, listening to buyers, people. Buyers love to tell you they want something and then it doesn't do well. Like, it's. It really is sticking to what you know and what your audience wants. Like, I think we know what we Want. But sometimes it's hard because you get distracted.
- [33:07]
B
Have you taken any investment?
- [33:08]
A
No.
- [33:09]
B
Major investment? No. It's all bootstrapped.
- [33:10]
A
No Zero. No friends and family. No friends. I gotta say that loud and clear, because people are like, we didn't raise either. Just friends and family. And I'm like, no, we have no friends and family. We have. No.
- [33:21]
B
No outside investment gives you full control.
- [33:25]
A
That's right. You're talking to Ms. Megabab. Yes.
- [33:28]
B
And you joke that you would have taken investment in the beginning just. Just to have lived more large during that time or.
- [33:34]
A
You know what it is? It's just, It's. It's so hard. Like, it's. And I. Every day is hard. Like, every day you're like, how are we gonna climb this mountain? And not saying that if you have investment, that. That's easier. But there's like, there are structural things that come along with investment, so you don't have to. To build the plane while you're flying it. You can get into a plane and you might not like being in the plane and you might not like the pilot. But, like, that's the risk of taking investment. And that's why we have never done it.
- [34:03]
B
And now you can wear it like a badge of honor in a way. Right? That you.
- [34:06]
A
What do you mean? I talk about it all the time. It's, It's. It's my biggest badge of honor. I love talking about that because it's not done well.
- [34:13]
B
I look forward to continuing to follow your journey here. If you had any closing words for the entrepreneurs listening to this podcast right now. I'm also. I have a gestating product that I'm. That I'm thinking about and working on in the background here. Any. Any advice for. For us aside, then it's incredibly hard.
- [34:33]
A
Make sure you have a point of view, because it is. It is easier than ever to launch a product. And like, with AI, you can launch a marketing campaign, you can, like, get your site up, you can get all this stuff. But if you can't, if you can't bring a point of view to the market, I don't know what. I don't know what your purpose is, and I don't think that customers will either.
- [34:57]
B
I think that's a great piece of advice. And for any of our DTC listeners who may be mega babes out there who suffer from any of these challenges, you got to go to megababebeauty.com.
- [35:08]
A
thank you.
- [35:08]
B
Check out Katie's awesome suite of products.
- [35:11]
A
Thank you.
- [35:11]
B
Oh, I see you have Santa I love. I'm a big Santal Santal I love Santal oh, we got to get you Santal how many. How many skus do you have now?
- [35:21]
A
We had 37, and I believe we've been cutting down.
- [35:26]
B
Very cool. You've got bidet bars, blade bars, bumpy bars.
- [35:30]
A
Yes. We have soap. Soap was my sister's idea. I was like, who cares about soap? And she was like, I use soap. And soap has been a big hit for us. And it's also like a zero waste product. We use recycled paper to make the packaging, and then the bar goes away. It's.
- [35:44]
B
It's.
- [35:45]
A
I love our soap.
- [35:46]
B
That's funny. I started just buying, like, artisan soap. Every month or so, I buy a couple bars of artisan soap of just nice. Not just like the Dove or the. The Blackrock soap, essentially buying some neat. And it's like a nice part of my day every time I get to use it.
- [36:00]
A
That's nice.
- [36:01]
B
Treat yourself on nice.
- [36:03]
A
Yes, that is. Those are like. Those are like the little luxuries that you look forward to. That's nice.
- [36:07]
B
Nice. Well, thanks for hanging out with me today. This was a lot of fun, Katie.
- [36:11]
A
Thank you.
- [36:11]
B
Let's stay in touch. When you have your next big launch or anything, you have to come back and tell us about it.
- [36:15]
A
I would love to. I would love to. And I'll see you at your house.
- [36:18]
B
Yeah, that's right. You're going to come live with me.
- [36:20]
A
Yeah.
- [36:20]
B
And we're going to feed the orcas from a safe distance. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at Direct to Consumer, all one word co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.