← Founder's Story
Founder's Story
The $1M Shark Tank Surge and the Product Test That Changed Everything | Ep. 321 with Wombi Rose Co-Founder and CEO of Lovepop
00:26:38
Daniel Robbins sits down with Wombi Rose, the co founder and CEO of Lovepop, to unpack how a naval architect turned paper engineering into a company built on human connection. Wombi shares the exact moments from the transcript that changed everything, from testing cards in Boston Public Garden to a single customer story that revealed Lovepop was not paper, it was emotion. He also walks through the Shark Tank experience, the million dollar sales surge, and why physical, meaningful relationships may matter even more as AI and social media reshape how people connect.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:21]
Interviewer
So, Wambi, I'm super excited today because I've always wanted to go on Shark Tank. And something I've always wanted to know is what is the feeling? I watched the show so many times, like, I want to go on, what's the feeling when you're on there? And not only that, but if you get a deal, what is that feeling like? But first, Love Pop. So your mission at lovepop is one billion magical moments. And I think we can all agree we are in a mental health crisis right now, it seems like. And then on top of that, we have so much disconnection from social media and AI now that people are, like, going to robots for comfort. It seems like what you're doing is even more important right now.
- [02:05]
Wambi Cook
That's right. So our mission at Love Pop is to create 1 billion magical moments. Of course, we do that by making this beautiful, intricate paper art. So look at that. That's one. That's our cherry blossom. Really beautiful. And the reason this is so important, especially right now, is because loneliness is really, really bad for you. Working on your social connections is really, really important. And that's why we've really built a whole company around that idea.
- [02:36]
Interviewer
Go back to the beginning when you had this idea. What was the idea then compared to what it is? What it's morphed into now.
- [02:45]
Wambi Cook
Yeah, when we first started the company. So my co founder John and I are originally ship designers, naval architects, marine engineers. We were in Vietnam on a business school trip. Our goal was to. To start a business out of business school. And we just fell in love with this amazing paper art. So I'll just show you one more because I love the products. This is the roller coaster of love. You can see the engineering that has gone into this. So we're really engineers. We thought we'd be doing something with like, hard hats and steel toes, but we fell in love with this concept and we're just like, oh, my God, we can make anything out of this. It wasn't really business. It was just like, this will be fun. We want to use it for our own personal stationery. And then it really kind of took one step after the other, which had a bunch in our backpacks. We were showing them to our friends and family. We went out into Boston public gardens with the product and we were just handing it to people and we were asking like, hey, what would you do with this? And that was actually one of the most important moments is wasn't exactly this design, but it was very similar to this. We handed it to a lady named Kyle and we asked her, what would you do with this? And she just like, instantly said, oh, I know exactly what I would do with that. I would give it to my mom and I would give it to her today because it's the fifth anniversary of my dad passing away. And it's so beautiful. It's like a tree of life. It's just going to make her day. And that was that moment where it really clicked of like, yes, this is fun. This is exciting. We can make all kinds of fun little paper sculptures with this technique, but it's really more than that. You're sending an emotion. You're creating that magical moment. It's more than paper. And that was the moment for us where it really clicked. Like, there's this big industry in greeting cards that hasn't changed in a hundred years, needs disruption, and people are hungry for something that's going to have more of an impact.
- [04:42]
Interviewer
I like that you went to people. I think sometimes we think, oh, there might be a need for something. But we don't ask people if there really is a need for something. And I think a lot of businesses fail in that sense because they don't really see is the market big enough for something that they're trying to create. So sounded like you had a very large market you went to people, people loved it. How did you get going? How did you create the actual business where you realized, like, this is really going to be something?
- [05:12]
Wambi Cook
That's a really great point you just made because, yes, in the beginning, we did not have design, we did not have production, we did not have marketing. We really didn't have anything. We were just testing the idea with real consumers in real environments. So we worked with some contract manufacturers, we got some product, and we went to local fairs and markets. We sold them out of our backpacks. We really tried to get an understanding of the consumer and the market need before we did anything else. And one of the moments from that that I remember distinctly is we went to this market south of Washington Avenue in Boston, and this was our first time at the market. We spent $100 to get it used. Know a spot for a tent which we borrowed from someone and we went there. We didn't even have envelopes for cards. We were sitting there like cutting envelopes out and putting the little like two stick tape on it as we were selling people cards. And we ended up doing seventeen hundred dollars that day. And the tent next to us did $100. And it was. People were coming and they were bringing their friends. They were like, oh my God, you got to check this out. And so John and I, we're not consumer products people at all, engineers, but we had never felt that energy like going into an apparel store. People aren't like, oh my God, look at this T shirt, like, come here. But that's what was happening with lovepop. And so that was kind of that initial spark that was like, there really is like a really important demand signal that we can't ignore. And then it was only well after that that we, you know, started making our own designs, started started doing our own production, built the website, kind of all those foundational pieces came after we already had a pretty good idea that there was something big here.
- [06:57]
Interviewer
I mean, 1700 in one day at a fair. That is pretty epic. You know, you're onto something right there. Let's go to Shark Tank. So you're on Shark Tank. You walk out there like, I would probably poop my pants, to be honest. Like, if I walked out on a shark tank, I don't know if I get what was the feeling when you walked out and then what was the feeling once you finished?
- [07:21]
Wambi Cook
Yeah, well, exactly like you said, we, I mean, we were so nervous. It was nerve wracking because, you know, you stand in front of those doors, which I don't know they're like three stories tall and you're just waiting, waiting to come out on set and they open the doors and then you're walking down that hallway and you know a million things running through your minds like, are we going to say the right thing? Am I going to remember what I want to say when I get out there? And as soon as we got in front of the Sharks, it was just this moment of relief almost, because it's like you see them and it's like these are the people you've seen like a million times. And so it wasn't as scary. He's like, oh, I know these people. Obviously you don't know them, you just see them on tv. But it added that familiarity. So now all of a sudden we were a little bit calmer and then we started talking about the business and at that point, like everything else melted away. I forgot there were cameras, lights, like all. It just completely faded into the background. And we were just talking about the business and you know, that's kind of our jam. We got into the flow. We completely didn't notice the time passing as we were going through the pitch. And then of course, incredibly lucky to land a deal with Kevin.
- [08:35]
Interviewer
So what, what did you find besides the deal with Kevin? The aftermath of Shark Tank in terms of visibility, sales, all that stuff. We've, we've had a few people on that that did get deals that also did not get deals. And all of them have confirmed on their end that the Shark Tank effect was just insanity right after. Although some of them, it kind of faded. What was the impacts of Shark Tank to the business just being on there?
- [09:04]
Wambi Cook
Well, when our episode aired, it aired to 7 and a half million people across the country. And we ended up with almost immediately 33,000 people on our website. And we were really lucky. We had prepared before that with another Shark Tank company, Wicked Good Cupcakes in Boston, who had been on a few years earlier. So their CTO came over, like really helped us prepare everything for that moment and everything held together. So we had seven phone lines going. It took us a few weeks of getting through the email backlog, but it was real. And they actually did a follow up episode a month later or so because we did about a million dollars of sales online based on that initial Shark Tank airing. And the demand kind of that came from that. And then over the years we still have people who learn about love. Hop on Shark Tank. So it's been an incredible way for people to get to know us. And I think it's Really a personification of the American dream to be on Shark Tank. And for any consumer product brand that is universal, like lovepop, I think it makes a huge difference.
- [10:16]
Interviewer
There's just something about creating a. I think I've created like six failed products. I feel like I'm, like, I'm way too early on things. Like, I think 10 years later, I feel like every time I create something, somebody then creates it. But 10 years later, but they have money and funding and I had not. I did. I didn't even have, like, I should have gone to the fairs, you know, I should have got. I should have done something. I was lazy, to be honest. But. But there's something about creating a product and then seeing it. So how is it for you? Like, if you create the product and then you see it somewhere, like you see it on a shelf or you see it on tv, how is that feeling for you when you see your product somewhere?
- [10:56]
Wambi Cook
Well, I think it's. It's one of the most rewarding things. And I have to show you more product because this is what we love to do. But our designers, you know, when, when they make something like this. Is that the Angler Fish Valentine's Day card? Actually it's just a love card. You can give it for any love occasion. But, you know, when you make something like this, we can get it into a market within a few weeks and then continue to get it out to customers. And you can see how many people have actually bought that design and given it to someone. And, you know, that's actually made a magical moment where someone's like, oh my God, it's so cute. You know, that's really. That's really everything that we live for at LovePod.
- [11:36]
Interviewer
Obviously the, like, the consumer good landscape has changed in terms of like, you know, used to be used to got to get into retail stores and then it was, you got to get into E commerce and now people are like, you got to get on the social selling. What are you finding as a brand that are. Are marketing channels or channels where you need or sales channels that are still highly successful to this day?
- [12:02]
Wambi Cook
Well, I think every product is different and every brand is a little bit different, but there are some principles that kind of hold true. So I'm a big believer of the. There's some work. There's a book, how brands grow. It's a great one to pick up if you're really interested in brands. And one of the main ideas there is, you need mental availability. That availability can come from being on the shelf or it can come from advertising, but in some way, shape or form, you need to be aware. The consumer needs to be aware of you in their mind when they think of your category. And so for us, that's been direct to consumer. We have had a lot of success in social media advertising. We've had a lot of success in organic traction online. But for us, retail hasn't been as big of a picture. We do have seven retail locations, you know, in Disneyland, Disney World, Grand Central Station in New York, a lot of really amazing retail locations. But because our product takes up so much space to display and is really special, it's actually easier to sell where we have control of kind of what the shelf looks like. But that's different for. For every different product.
- [13:12]
Interviewer
This is a very visual discussion today. I don't think I've ever had a discussion with anyone that was so visual. Like, I mean, I could just sit here. You could just. Every two seconds, just.
- [13:22]
Wambi Cook
Here we go. Look at this. This. This is a fun new one.
- [13:26]
Interviewer
Oh, my gosh. Cloud fit into the card.
- [13:31]
Wambi Cook
That's the magic Love pop. Magic.
- [13:33]
Interviewer
Wow.
- [13:33]
Wambi Cook
This one actually comes out of the card. Whoa. Super cute. Brand new this year for Easter.
- [13:41]
Interviewer
That's amazing. Like, that's like. I feel like I'm watching like a magic show where they're like, what. What's going to come out of the hat? You know, like, you open up the card that's like the hat and like, something's going to pop out. That's amazing. So what, what was. What was something that you had to change within yourself as a founder, as you really grew and scale this, like when you scaled it and you said, this is a really legitimate business. It could be after Shark Tank, after, you know, a million dollar day. It could be after whatever milestone that you have. What is something you need to change within yourself?
- [14:16]
Wambi Cook
I think there's been quite a journey for me in terms it's tax season.
- [14:20]
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- [14:23]
Interviewer
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- [14:49]
Wambi Cook
In terms of how I think about what's important, I'll give you an example of my journey in this one dimension. When I was little, I grew up in a household that was very logical and very black and white. So things were right or wrong. You had to defend your position. There was a lot of debate. And so when I went to college, that was kind of what I brought. And I remember having a debate with classmates over lunch where it was about electric vehicles and emission impacts of electric vehicles. And I was like, I started realizing this debate, it's not really landing. Something is wrong. And so after I went to grad school, I ended up consulting, which was an amazing opportunity. And I learned from my team leaders there, it's like, it's not just about the right answer. It's actually about influencing the organization. And that's not always a linear path. So, yes, the right answer is important, but also, there are sometimes multiple right answers. And it's just as important that people buy into what's going on. So, okay, so I learned about that. And then when we started the business, I had to evolve again, because what happened was I was figuring out how to. How to influence and convince people to go in the direction that I wanted us to go in, but that direction often ended up being wrong. And so then after being wrong a bunch of times, and I remember one specific example is like, I really wanted multiple card sizes, and my co founder really didn't want multiple card sizes, especially in the beginning. And a few years later, I just sat back and said, you were right. We should have just stuck to one size. It would have made everything so much easier. But I had convinced us that we were going to have these multiple sizes. And so then I learned, like, it's not even about convincing people about your point of view because you might be wrong. And in fact, I'm wrong a lot. And so it's really about listening and understanding the other points of view and incorporating that into a really solid decision. And then ultimately, as I've continued to evolve, the next step on that journey has been it's not even about me making the decisions. It's about other people making the decisions, which means finding really great people and figuring out how to work with really great people, which is an incredibly tricky and difficult skill. And so that's kind of the part of the journey where I am now. And I'm really curious what comes next, but I know that that's kind of how I've evolved over the years.
- [17:27]
Interviewer
People and communication might be the two most challenging things of running a business. I can imagine, you know, as you've grown and Scaled and things, at least from what I hear too, that those. If you have the people breakdown and the communication breakdown, like the whole company can collapse. When you look at launching new products and services, and I like how you brought this up like you were going to launch a product. Your co founder said it's not a good idea. You didn't, and that was a great thing. How do you look at when you. When you are launching a new product and service? And the reason I ask as well is it seems a lot of people try to do too many products and services without getting really, really good at like one or two in the beginning.
- [18:12]
Wambi Cook
Yeah, I think it's a great question. How do we think about launching new product? I think one of the most important things before putting too much time or energy into a product is really understanding the customer, really understanding the problem that they're having and really understanding if, if your product is the solution. And you know, at this point, is it a product, is it a service, is it a combination in some way? In some way it's a solution for a customer problem. And what I've continued to find is that the customer is the only person who can tell you whether what you're doing is what they want. And they will tell you immediately if you structure the test correctly. And so, for example, a survey, would you like. This doesn't give you any good information. An email that says, hey, here, this is available to purchase right now, gives you fantastic information. And so I think there's an art in structuring tests. I think what we've continued to find at Lovepop, I mean, we launch 100 products a quarter almost and we get instant feedback. So like the second we launch it in email, we know we whether it's working or not. So there's no question once you get it out there, how the consumer is responding.
- [19:26]
Interviewer
And thank you for sharing that. I mean, that's amazing that you're launching so many products, but you're getting the feedback instantly, which then allows you to pivot and change in the moment. I know you have stash that you're launching. Tell me about that.
- [19:43]
Wambi Cook
Yes, the stash. So we did a lot of customer research and understanding and over the years as well, what helps people send more cards. And again, our mission is 1 billion magical moments. We know that working on your own personal relationships and nurturing them is what makes you healthier and happier. Tons of research back that up. And so we've been really focused on how can people send more cards. What we learned from our best customers the people who are sending 30, 40, 50 cards a year is that they all have a stash of greeting cards at home. It might be in a drawer, in a box in some way. They are always ready to go. And you know, some of those occasions you can plan out. But some things happen last minute. Maybe you have to go to go to a funeral last minute someone has a birthday you forgot about. Like you need to have cards on hand. And so that's what we heard from everyone. So we built into that the subscription program called Stash Pass, where we actually have multiple different versions of it, but you can get shipped five cards a season, five cards a quarter, and you always have the right card on hand. And it's also a way for us to give our customers some value and giving ourselves some more kind of operational certainty around how many units will need at a certain point in time.
- [20:57]
Interviewer
Do you ever have a moment? And I like that stash, I mean, it makes sense. Like we do.
- [21:02]
Wambi Cook
We all have our greeting card stash.
- [21:03]
Interviewer
We have our card stash. You know what though? When you move on from relationships, sometimes you have to remove the stash. But some people keep the stash. I don't know, I guess that's, that's a debatable. That's a debatable talk.
- [21:16]
Wambi Cook
Well, I mean, you're talking about there's, there's the, you know, there's the stash of cards you've received and then there's the stash of cards that you have yet to send. In this case, we're focused on the cards you have yet to send. Not a lot of re gifting going on in the greeting card space. But we've seen it all. We've seen it all for sure. People have regifted love paths they've received, which is always funny.
- [21:41]
Interviewer
Well, I could see yours because I wouldn't want to write in the card. I would want to keep it. So if you. The hard part of re gifting a card is if you write in the card. But if you don't see that's funny. I don't want to write in that card.
- [21:54]
Wambi Cook
Yeah. So we early on in Lovehop we actually started developing this slide out note that we slide out because people don't want to write on the inside of the love hop because it's just too precious and you don't want to mess it up. And so we added the slide out note. So actually Love Hub is about as regiftable as it gets because you add a new slide out note which we also have available on the site, you could do it.
- [22:18]
Interviewer
So you could regift it. Do you? I would imagine this. It's very interesting being in business. It's like there's so many things you have to balance. You said this before, you also have to balance whether your company is going to even be relevant in the future. And I would think that with technology, many times people get fall into this trap of like oh, your company, it's a green card company or it's a book and it's a record, whatever it is, right? And people are like, oh well, technology is going to move away from that. But I think what we find is technology moves us away from something but it then moves us even further into it. For example, like books, like physical books, magazines, cards, like I find that it's, it's fascinating how it's like we almost be go so far into technology which then pushes us so further into physical things. Are you finding now where with this, with everyone going into AI, it's like everything is becoming fake. We don't even know what is real. That people are even more interested to physically have something in their hand that, that they know is real.
- [23:29]
Wambi Cook
I think there are a couple different trends going on and I'm curious how it all plays out, but I have some theories of what's going to happen. So I think the first trend is we're starting to recognize as a society that social media is a drug and that these feed based algorithms are not good for us and that, you know, the time we spend scrolling is actually a net negative. So I think that's going to continue, we're going to continue to realize that and it's going to be really tough to deal with. But ultimately that is going to push us towards figuring out ways to abstain from it in the same way that we have with other drugs. And so I think that's really important and it really increases the focus on personal relationships. I think AI, it's another really amazing tool. There's amazing things about it and then there's challenging things about it. And I agree with you that trust is one of the things that's mostly impacted because now you know, you don't know what something is or where it's coming from. And so I think that again will also put more focus on your real human, personal relationships. And you don't need to have that many close relationships for it to be a really positive impact on your life. But you do have to focus on them. And so I think that's a really important trend. It's going to continue and I believe that we are going to continue to do more and more amazing work to make it easier for you to actually build those relationships.
- [24:59]
Interviewer
Hey, sounds, you are a visionary. So I wrote this book right here, Unlimited Possibilities because I feel like we, we often set our own boundaries, not based on what's really possible. Did you have an unlimited possibility moment in your life where you had something, you said, you know what, this, this is a huge goal, but I'm going to achieve it.
- [25:19]
Wambi Cook
Well, we've talked about Love Pop a lot, so I'll not use that because it's definitely 1 billion magical moments is this massive goal that we have a lot of work to do to get to, but I'll use something smaller. You know, one of my, my own personal kind of leadership principle and goal is to make pigs fly. I worked on this a lot and the really, the thing that that means is get people to believe that they can do something that seems impossible and get people together to do something that seems impossible. One very small example of this but really fun one is back in 2012, I brought together a group of people for a goal of building a Mississippi steamboat to launch onto the Charles river in Boston for the fourth of July. So there's Boston Pops plays like fourth of July and it's, you know, hundreds of thousands of people downtown in Boston. You can't go and really get a good spot. So he said, we're going to build a boat and we're going to take it on the Charles. And we ended up in one week, actually three and a half days, we built this 32 person barge themed as a Mississippi steamboat, got it out there, stayed on it overnight, had everyone out there for the barbecue and then brought it back to shore, disassembled it, sold all the pieces on Craigslist and the whole thing was done. And we did all that in the space of less than a week. But it was this magical moment that no one who was on that boat will ever forget that moment. And I think it's that kind of experience that I live to create. You know, whether it's a boat there or it's, you know, the products that
- [27:04]
Interviewer
we make at lovehop that is your unlimited possibility. I like that pigs fly moment. I'm going to remember that. But Wambi, people want to get in touch with you. They want to find out more about Love Pop. Maybe they need to move their stash, they need to add more into their stash. How can they do so?
- [27:21]
Wambi Cook
Lovepop.com so lovepop.com has all of our. At this point, we're close to 6,6000 unique designs that are up on the website. And of course, Stash Pass. You can find us in retail in Grand Central Station, Moynihan, or Hudson Yards in New York, in Harvard Square or Prudential center in Boston and in Disney World and Disneyland. And you can find us on Instagram and Facebook as well at Love Pop. I love Pop cards.
- [27:49]
Interviewer
Well, thank you for. I love the. The one billion magical moments. I'm going to remember this. I'm going to say, you know what, Wambi, that that's your legacy right there. In a time when people are in need, you came and you gave them a magical moment. So thank you so much for all that you do.
- [28:07]
Wambi Cook
Thank you. And we're at 67 million magical moments today, and I'm sure that just a few of the people listening to this are going to add some more magical moments to the goal. So thank you.
- [28:19]
Interviewer
Every moment gets you closer to 1 billion. I like that you have the counter. That's amazing.