Gary Erickson (4:47)

Thank you, Guy.

Guy Raz (4:49)

So Gary, when you were on the show, you and your partner Kit were still the owners of Clif Bar at the time, though your employees also owned a significant chunk. And in 2022, after 30 years, you sold it. And I know that in that time, over those 30 years, you guys fielded tons of acquisition offers and you even had to fight some of them off. And in fact, I think listeners who remember who heard your episode remember quite an emotional moment in our conversation when you talked about walking away the first time you had an acquisition offer and you had to come up with the money to buy out your first partner.

Gary Erickson (5:28)

Yeah, I still have now and then nightmares of what if I would have sold the company in 2000. Yeah, that was after only eight years in business, which is a long time. But I can't even describe the exponential growth and good things we were able to pull off over the next, what, 22 years?

Guy Raz (5:53)

Yeah.

Gary Erickson (5:54)

And if we would have sold it. Yeah, I probably. I'd be fine. I'm happy anyway. I'm happy living in a garage. Like I basically do that. Which I do now.

Guy Raz (6:03)

With your bikes.

Gary Erickson (6:04)

That's right. Which I did before I met my wife. And I'm just so thankful that we escaped that moment and went with the gut reaction and the heart, and both of us decided this is what we're going to do. And we did it for 22 more years.

Guy Raz (6:23)

And you turned it into one of the biggest energy bar brands on earth. One of the things that I love about how you started Clif Bar was that initially you focused on a community of people that you were a part of, which in your case was cyclists. You are an avid cyclist. You go, I know you do these long cycling trips through Europe and Italy multiple times a year. You started by getting the product into their hands, into cyclists hands. Was that critical, do you think, to Clif Barr's eventual success?

Gary Erickson (6:56)

It was the path to success for sure. Many ways to say that, but that's how I feel right now. I think the two sports that I was deeply involved in were, well, three actually. Cycling. I did some triathlons before that, and then I was a client. I climbed since at that point I was about into 20 years of climbing. And so I went to each of those groups and would just pass out bars. And I knew I had a tiger by the tail. When I was able to go to multiple, like either climbing crags or bike races or whatever and just literally hand out the bars out of my. Out of my car and for free, it's like, take this. And their reaction sold it to me. And then from there on it was just, as I say, hang on to the reins from year one to, you know, we just, we never. We never did not grow for 30 years.

Guy Raz (7:50)

And what started out with a small group of people, cyclists, triathletes, climbers, eventually became a mass consumer product with moms and kids and people on the go and people going to the gym and people just getting some energy. But it really, I mean, it's interesting because I think a lot of really great products start that way. They find a small, narrow group of people who love it, and then from there that group helps to grow it out into something bigger.

Gary Erickson (8:24)

You have to have that foundation first. And then from there you go out. If you're going to try to go mass market. You have to have so much funding to be able to do that, and chances are it's not going to work because you've got to build that base.

Guy Raz (8:36)

Yeah. Well, Gary, so you ready to take a call?

Gary Erickson (8:40)

Yes. Let's go.

Guy Raz (8:41)

All right, let's go. First caller on the line, I think it's James. James, are you there?

James (8:45)

I am here.

Guy Raz (8:46)

James, introduce yourself. Tell us what the name of your business is and where you live.

James (8:51)

I'm Colin in from la, Los Angeles, actually, from the techstars accelerator program podcast studio. I'm representing Stoke Plastics and Opelis Optics. We transform ocean waste plastic into sustainable performance plastic, and we're making everything from adventure gear to luxury hard goods.

Guy Raz (9:11)

And tell me what your question is for us.

James (9:15)

Yeah, sure. How did you cut through the noise when building Clif Bar and effectively communicate your product's unique benefits in a way that resonated with consumers and made them choose your product over the competition?

Guy Raz (9:27)

All right, we're going to get to your question and to Gary's answers in a moment, but if you don't mind, indulge me. I have some questions for you first. So your company is called Stoked Plastics.

James (9:40)

Correct.

Guy Raz (9:41)

And you basically use recycled plastics to make things like sunglasses and ski goggles, is that right?

James (9:48)

Yeah. So our specific or unique niche is that we use water bottles, Ocean bound and Ocean found.

Guy Raz (9:55)

Okay, so just to be clear, you've got Stoked Plastics, which is the technology company that makes this recycled material, and then you create a separate brand called Opolis, which makes sunglasses and ski goggles using the Stoked Plastics technology.

James (10:12)

Correct. And we started off making, you know, sunglasses and goggles, but now we're doing prototypes for buckles and trims and coolers and really anything that uses a high density of Arpet or PET in manufacturing.

Gary Erickson (10:30)

Yeah, now I'm understanding it a little bit more. So when you look 10 years from now, is Stoke Plastics the material supplier of this great plastic that you're providing, is that going to be 98% of the business? And Opelis is there as a kind of grounding thing or signature or, you know, the other way around.

James (10:49)

So Opolis Optics at this point is almost our proof of concept for Stoke Plastic about the capabilities that we have through our ip. But essentially, we would love to replace all virgin PET with our Stoke Plastic IP for us. And we want companies and brands to be able to use our Stoke Plastic in their manufacturing. And I have our icon right there. So when consumers are shopping, they know that it's affiliated with sustainability, circularity and performance.

Guy Raz (11:20)

It's a really interesting idea because it's your vertically integrated business from the get go. I mean, you manufacture your own material and then you make your own products. And essentially what you're saying is by showing how it can be used in your products, the hope is that other brands will just buy stoked plastics. You will continue to make sunglasses and ski goggles, but really it's stoked. It's the plastic material that you'd like everyone to use.

James (11:48)

Yeah, that's the impact. That's the change that we want to kind of motivate. When we first came up with the ip, you guys, no one wanted to touch us. I was a former US Government contractor. We didn't really have a foot in the door in the outdoor industry. So we're like, look, no one's going to buy it. Let's go create our own product and see how it resonates within the outdoor space and beyond.

Gary Erickson (12:14)

Put on my finance hat. Cost of goods, a pound of your stoked plastic versus your same use for same sunglasses or whatever.

James (12:27)

Sure, that's a great question. And one we get a lot. So, yeah, comparative to the R pet that you can currently buy on the market, ours is about 10% more than that. But because of our high recyclability grade, you know, and economies of scale, we can hit ESG targets a lot quicker for companies that are trying to meet those targets.

Gary Erickson (12:50)

Yeah, Here's a off the cuff idea, thinking out idea.

James (12:55)

Yeah, my pen and paper.

Gary Erickson (12:58)

So I think in food, organic is stoked plastics. Like, look, it's going to be hard times sometimes to convince the CFO of company to buy, but if you could build this to be like the organic.

Guy Raz (13:12)

Of plastic, then that's where you can justify the price point.

Gary Erickson (13:17)

Yeah, because you've got to justify the price point.

James (13:19)

No, I like that spin on just using organic because that makes people feel good and they know they're paying more money.

Gary Erickson (13:26)

Yeah, It's a certification.

James (13:28)

Oh, yeah, of course.

Guy Raz (13:30)

James, just out of curiosity, how have sales been so far?

James (13:35)

Well, I'll just say it this way. We've got enough sales where funds and investors are interested in us. I can't make a livelihood off of it.

Guy Raz (13:46)

Not yet.

James (13:47)

Not yet. But after four years of spending a lot of money, and this kind of goes into my question to Gary on educating the marketplace on the difference between what we're putting in our sunglasses and goggles and what others are not. And that is just, as you guys know, it's just been this huge PR and marketing effort that is time intensive and expensive.

Guy Raz (14:10)

So your question was about breaking through. Right. And your question for Gary is, why should somebody eat a Clif Bar versus a competitor snack? You know, which you're trying to figure out? How do we get people to get educated on what we're offering? Gary, where would you even start?

Gary Erickson (14:26)

Oh, boy. It's a tough one. It's changed over the last 30 years. It's changed so much. I'll start with our story in 1992. It was really only PowerBar, and a few bars had come out during that time, but they were kind of like, they took the powerbar ingredients and they added a little more vanilla or a little more peanut butter or something. We created a completely different product. You're kind of like that, and you're kind of not. There's so many sunglass companies, I don't have to tell you. And there's some beautiful designs out there in all these companies, but what is the difference? And we had this radically. We had to educate people that it is an energy bar. It just tastes better. And so we sampled a lot, which was. That was instant sale, but you can't get to everybody. So we did some print ads, and we did a print ad called it's yous Body, you, Decide. And it was going directly after PowerBar. And in five days, we had a lawsuit against PowerBar.

Guy Raz (15:26)

They sued you guys. But that lawsuit actually was a blessing in disguise, right, Gary? Because it got you all this attention.

Gary Erickson (15:34)

You took the words out of my story.

Guy Raz (15:36)

Sorry, sorry.

Gary Erickson (15:38)

No, I'm glad you did, because it's so. It's. People don't realize that sometimes it might be what you want. And, you know, so I. And I think people are afraid to attack competition. So, you know, my. My question back to you would be like, do you pick the number one competitor that you can grab, or do you do them all together and, you know, do you go after them and create a super aggressive campaign that gets you pr? Because back then, there was no PR as per se, but it was usually, oh, in. In a retail magazine or a trade magazine. You know, Cliff Bar gets sued by PowerBar, and we're like, thank you. And Guy's right. Like, then all these bike shops are like, well, let's just try it. I mean, gosh. And they did. We had 700 accounts in, like, months. And our goal. This sounds very aggressive, but our goal was to put them out of business. And for the first 10 to 15 years, our people were like, we are going to Just go after their market share everywhere we could. And so that's how you tell people you're different. You've got to show the difference between what everybody's doing and you're not doing and that you can't be bashful or shy about it. You gotta. That's my opinion.

James (16:49)

Yeah.

Guy Raz (16:50)

You know what's kind of cool is like you could have, you could basically take a competitor sunglasses and just show a pile of plastic and say this becomes this.

Gary Erickson (16:58)

Yeah, I like that.

Guy Raz (16:59)

Something like that.

Gary Erickson (17:00)

That's amazing. Yeah.

Guy Raz (17:01)

Guy, Madison Avenue here.

Gary Erickson (17:03)

You took the design right out of my head. Our heads.

James (17:05)

We're looking for some marketing guy.

Guy Raz (17:07)

Yeah, call my 800 number.

James (17:11)

And Gary, how important is like athlete influencer association with brand voice, brand identity?

Gary Erickson (17:20)

It was, it was in our mix always. And we still have, you know, world class athletes with clif bar stickers on their helmets and like ski racing. You know, you're, you're into skiing because I saw your goggles. You know Bryce Bennett, who won a World cup race this year, he gets in the start line and you see this big red sticker and then he crosses the finish line and he wins. And he literally points to the cliff bar sticker on his helmet like, holy crap, that is worth so much.

James (17:47)

Doesn't get better than that, does it?

Gary Erickson (17:49)

It doesn't get better than that. And so I 100%, without having to go on and on about it. Yes. We've always had athletes from day one endorsing our product and they're super legit. They're not just celebrities who look good and they could choose anything. But these people used our product for function and for quality and believing in our story.

Guy Raz (18:11)

I think that's a key point, Gary, is that there will be some consumers who are attracted to the story and the recycled aspect of it. But I think most people are gonna want to know about the function. They're gonna wanna know why this is better. And I think this, that having an athlete having I think like an Alex Honnold or an outdoor person, you know, somebody or Mikayla Shifrin wearing the ski goggles. I'm not. They're probably already sponsors. But you think about the shoe brand on right, which we're going to tell that story in the show. I mean Roger Federer supercharged that brand because all of a sudden Roger Federer is wearing ons and people are like, what is that? Roger Federer? They must be amazing.

Gary Erickson (18:54)

Sure.

Guy Raz (18:54)

People need to understand because the majority of people are going to buy it because they look good and they're Functional, not because they're recycled. Yeah.

Gary Erickson (19:02)

And I promise to do this. I'm going to get some. But I'm paying retail, buddy. I'm going online and I. That's my. That's my gig. I pay retail.

James (19:10)

That's fine with me.

Gary Erickson (19:11)

I pay retail.

James (19:12)

That's fine with me.

Guy Raz (19:13)

Hey, Gary Erickson wearing Opelis. That's a big deal.

James (19:16)

That's a huge deal.

Guy Raz (19:17)

A lot of people are going to be like, what is Gary wearing? Okay.

Gary Erickson (19:20)

I just resigned from the World cup, so I don't think up there with.

James (19:25)

How I built this and Gary Erickson wearing our eyewear. That would be cool.

Guy Raz (19:30)

James, thank you so much for calling in. Good luck. We're going to be following your progress and. And we'll catch up with you. Maybe you'll be back on the show.

James (19:38)

I hope so. You guys, Guy I've been listening to for four years, you've got me through a lot of ups and downs. And Gary, you've gotten me through a lot of hikes, snowboard trips, surf trips through your bars. I really appreciate the time and thoughts, James.

Gary Erickson (19:53)

Thanks a lot. And I hope we get to catch up more. I'd like to catch up one on one if we can someday, just to check it out.

James (19:59)

I'd love that. Thank you, guys.

Gary Erickson (20:01)

All right, take care.

Guy Raz (20:03)

Gary. This is a complex business, but I think the idea of producing the material and turning into products is kind of a cool idea. It's super innovative. He's gone from zero to vertically integrating his business right away.

Gary Erickson (20:19)

Yeah, there are a lot of ingredients and materials out there that are like what he's doing, but they're more purely functional, like a better plastic or a better Kevlar, for example, or carbon fiber. You know, radically changed the bike industry. But there's no patent on carbon fiber, and everybody's doing carbon fiber. There's. So I think he's got the advantage. If they get the IP on that, and it's got. It's got to be functional. And it looks like it is very functional. At the same time. It's got that property that, you know, it's where everything is moving towards more sustainable.

Guy Raz (20:58)

Yeah, totally, Gary. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, a co op of artisans competing with giants like Etsy. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on How I Built this Lab. Life is busy and full of things that take a long time to do, like sorting through countless emails, putting together office furniture, organizing files. And if you're an employer, you can add hiring to this list. But now there's Hope. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter finds qualified candidates fast, and today you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com Bilt how fast does ZipRecruiter smart technology start showing your job today? Qualified candidates immediately. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology works fast to find top talent so you don't waste time or money. Let ZipRecruiter find top talent for your roles in no time at all. See why? Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And if you go to ZipRecruiter.combilt right now, you can try it for free. That's the same price as laughing so hard that your sides hurt or getting a compliment from a random stranger. Again, that's ziprecruiter.combilt ziprecruiter the smartest way to Hire Whether you're scouring financial sites or listening to business podcasts like this one till your ears ring, you'll find there's no surefire secret to successfully managing your company's finances for the future. It turns out you might just need to pair with PNC Corporate and Institutional Banking, whose team of dedicated relationship managers bring 160 years of experience, pragmatic advice, and an array of tools and tech to scale to any size business. In fact, they're so tuned into what you need, they knew you'd be listening to this podcast. As for that ringing in your ears, that's the brilliant sound of success. PNC bank brilliantly boring since 1865, PNC and PNC bank are registered marks of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. Support for how I built this comes from ServiceNow, the AI platform for business transformation. You've heard a lot of hype around AI, but the truth is AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. ServiceNow is the platform that puts AI to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees. Supercharging productivity for your developers. Providing intelligent tools for your service agents. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com AI for people to learn more. Hey, before we get back to the show, we want to share this call that we got from a listener about a pretty funny encounter with Clifbar and a competitor.

Gary Erickson (24:12)

Hi, my name is Brad Chisholm.

James (24:13)

I'm listening to the interview right now.

Gary Erickson (24:16)

With Gary from Cliff Bar, and I.

Guy Raz (24:17)

Have a very relevant story that I.

James (24:20)

Just wanted to tell him very quickly. I was working in a bike shop in Milap, Utah, in 1992 or three, and PowerBar was the only option, really. And I remember all of a sudden, Clif Bar showed up on the scene, and one guy walked in, and I thought he was a customer. And he goes and looks at our energy bar display, and I point him over to the Clif Bar, and I'm.

Guy Raz (24:41)

Like, you gotta try these.

James (24:42)

They're so much better than the PowerBar. And I started kind of even batting my husband's Power Bar a little bit and was raving about Cliff Bar. And he just kind of like, okay, takes it in.

Gary Erickson (24:52)

He walks out.

James (24:53)

And when I look out the window, he got into a Power Bar van and left.

Gary Erickson (24:56)

And he was the Power Bar rep.

Guy Raz (24:58)

Brad, thanks so much for sharing your story, and thanks so much for listening to the show. And let's get back to the episode. Hey, welcome back to the advice line here on How I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I'm with Gary Erickson. So, Gary, market share is obviously super important, right? Especially in a crowded space. And as more and more competitors started to get into the Energy bar space, how are you able to fend off the competition and stay ahead? Like, what were some of the strategies that worked?

Gary Erickson (25:41)

I would argue that we were built through grassroots marketing. You know, we didn't. We did some print ads at the beginning, which did put us on the map, but Kit and I would fly all over the country and be cutting up bars and thousands of pieces of bars just at these marathons. And it was. It's so hard, but. And then we started hiring people to do that for us. We had a team of 25 people around the country, and then they had local people that they would hire for the weekend events. And I really think that's what put us on the map. But our product was inexpensive enough where we could actually give out whole bars and they could experience that. And then the next thing you know, they're buying 12, 24, and hundreds. And we built a lot of loyal. I mean, we have such loyalty with a small group of people that buy the majority of our product.

Guy Raz (26:29)

Yeah. Okay, let's get another. Colin, what do you think?

Gary Erickson (26:32)

All right.

Guy Raz (26:33)

What do you say? Another one? Okay. Valerie is on the line. Hello, Valerie.

Elsie (26:38)

Hello.

Valerie Franklin (26:38)

Hello.

Guy Raz (26:39)

Welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself. Tell us your first and last name, what the name of your business is, and where you live.

Valerie Franklin (26:46)

My name is Valerie Franklin. And I'm representing Artisans Cooperative and I'm calling in from the beautiful north Oregon coast.

Guy Raz (26:54)

Nice. Oh, this is a beautiful place. Okay, and what's your question?

Valerie Franklin (26:58)

So we have almost no funds, but a strong bottom up community ownership. How do we break into a market space that is filled with giants like Etsy and Amazon?

Guy Raz (27:09)

Those are giants. Okay, we certainly told the Etsy story on the show. First of all, tell us a little bit about your business, about Artisans Cooperative. What is it? What do you do?

Valerie Franklin (27:20)

Yeah, Artisans Cooperative is a co op alternative to Etsy. We're growing an online handmade marketplace for crafters, makers and artists owned and managed by the people who love it as a cooperatively owned business.

Guy Raz (27:35)

I'm looking at the website now. And so first of all, what's the problem with Etsy? Why did you. Because it seems like you are really, it is competing with Etsy. But what prompted you to start this?

Valerie Franklin (27:48)

Well, it's easiest for me to answer in some ways from a personal point of view because I'm one half of a leather crafting business, a small husband and wife leather crafting business that we started on Etsy in 2009. So we know Etsy very well and we're still on Etsy. And they are a great option to have in your portfolio as a small artist or maker. But over the years they've changed a lot. Starting in, I think 2012, they started growing much bigger. 2015, they went through an IPO and sellers started becoming, I would say, the product as much as the offering, the way that Etsy's making revenue. So this all really got started when they increased their fees a second time by 30% in 2022, and they announced that fee increase in the same week that they announced record profits. And that was just something that struck a lot of small makers and artists who rely on this income kind of struck a nerve. And so it kind of spontaneously organized into a protest online through social media, which is how I got involved. It was called the Etsy strike and thousands of shops took their listings off of the site for a week in protest. And it actually caught some pretty good mainstream attention, but didn't change the fact that the fees were going up again. It's at the point where a sales commission might vary anywhere from 10% to 40% per sale, and you won't really know what that is until the sale happens.

Guy Raz (29:26)

And how do you differ from Etsy? Presumably you're charging much lower fees to your sellers.

Valerie Franklin (29:33)

Not necessarily. No. The big difference is that we're owned and Operated or we're owned by the members themselves. So a cooperative is a member owned business that's organized on a principle of one member, one vote. So we have a multistakeholder cooperative, which means that the artisans themselves can be owners of the business and the shoppers or any general supporter can become an owner of the business. Which means they get governance rights, they get a vote, and they get to have a say in how things are run and they get financial rights so that when we have profits, the dividends are distributed. You'll get a cut among the people. Yeah.

Guy Raz (30:11)

How many artisans do you now have involved?

Valerie Franklin (30:14)

We have a little over 300 members now. Yeah. And we have about, I think 200 shops on our marketplace.

Guy Raz (30:22)

Okay, so Valerie, you brought us this question about you've got, say, almost no funds, but you've got a strong bottom up community. How do you break into a marketplace dominated by Amazon, Etsy, ebay and other massive retailers? Gary, you want to take the first crack at this one?

Gary Erickson (30:43)

Oh man, this is a tough one. Well, you've got a real targeted competitor. You would call Etsy a competitor, is that correct?

Valerie Franklin (30:50)

Yes. Although we're not necessarily trying to replace Etsy. If we could get the 1% of artisans who are looking for alternative and the consumers who are looking for ethical options, I think, you know, that's a great starting place.

Gary Erickson (31:06)

So the answer is yes, they're your competitor. You just don't want to say it. So. Yeah, and we used to say that at the beginning when we were at Cliff Bar, like if we could just get, oh man, 10% of their business or 20% of their business, I'll be set for life, you know, and that would be like, we'd be revenue of a million dollars. And, and little did we know that we far surpassed that. But so, yeah, so you could target that. Don't be shy about that. Is there a place where you would feel like if we got here, then we've got momentum and we're able to sustain our business for the long haul. Like, how far are you from there right now?

Valerie Franklin (31:47)

That's a great question. And I think that's one of the special challenges we have in trying to build a marketplace is that we're in a bit of a chicken or an egg situation. We need enough artisans to provide good consumer choice for the shoppers who are coming on so they have things to sort through and to find what they're looking for. But we need enough customers to make it worthwhile for artisans to want to sign up. And so I Hope that we're growing both in step with each other in a balanced way. We're not there yet. We just started. We launched our beta marketplace with existing tech in October of this year. So six months ago. And I would say we're probably at least half of where I'd want to be to start feeling like we were getting there.

Guy Raz (32:36)

And I think about. It's really interesting because we've done a whole series on the show recently about content creators and the business of content creation. And 10 years ago, in order to reach mass scale in media, you had to be on CNN or be at a major media organization. Today, you can be some dude with a YouTube channel and reach 50 million subscrib. And so what's interesting about how social media platforms work now is that they want to attract all these creators, Right? So for a long time, it was YouTube where they were trying to get onto, because YouTube paid the most. And then they went to TikTok, and now a lot of people are migrating to Snapchat. Now they all use all of them. But these different platforms offer different incentives. And now it's getting me to my question for you, which is, is there a world where you could offer an incentive that is so good, you know, like no fees for the first year or something radical where that kind of message spreads among crafters? Because there are. I mean, there are craft fairs all over the country. Crafters talk to each other. You guys have a Discord channel. I see. Is there some kind of incentive that you are able to offer to bring this critical mass in?

Valerie Franklin (33:52)

That's a really good question. I absolutely think that we could come up with such an offer if we could find the right audience and the right moment to share it. But I do think one of the things we've had a challenge with being on a platform is that we don't have a lot of ways to connect with other artisans other than at, like, craft fairs and things like that. Because places like Etsy control the narrative and control their forums.

Guy Raz (34:18)

Yeah, but you. Right, that's right. But for you to control the narrative, you've got to give your members the tools you got to make it easy for them. Right. I mean, you've got 300 members. Each of those members is on social media. I mean, they're not. They may not have hundreds of thousands of followers, but they might have hundreds or thousands on their social media. And I wonder whether you can leverage your community in a better way to have them promote what you're doing.

Valerie Franklin (34:47)

I think our members are not only Committed. They're literally invested. They're co op member owners, they've invested in this company and we're all equal owners of it together. So it brings up an interesting point that I hadn't fully thought through, which is that, you know, artisans have, we have people who are just starting their careers, people who are doing it just for fun, and then people like me and my partner who do this full time for a living. And so everybody comes with it with a different set of skills and a different background. And using everybody's strengths where they are makes a lot of sense.

Gary Erickson (35:24)

Valerie, once people come onto your site for the first time and maybe they buy something, do you got them? Do they come back? They're like, wow, I never thought this existed. This is really different.

Valerie Franklin (35:37)

And I think we've had repeat customers already. Yeah, I mean, in our six months of operating, I think one of the ways that we try to encourage that is through email campaigns and trying to make people aware of the variety of things on our platform. Everything from wooden coasters to hand woven silk shawls. There is such a wide variety of products and that's sort of the treasure hunt of it. But.

Guy Raz (36:07)

One of the things that I've noticed. I'm going to give you some feedback on this. I know the site's early, it's still in beta form, but there's too much, there's too much stuff. There's. Join the member four artisans handmade this. There's all these dropdown things. And what I think Etsy does well and what I think you could do really well is they just have pictures of different categories and you have some of that. But Gary, I know Gary is a cyclist and is there a world where you've got like people who love cycling or, you know, you've got clothing and accessories, arts and crafts, but could you break that down even further, like beanies or games instead of like personal care and leisure, like domino lovers? I mean you don't have to get like super, super like micro niche, but you could get kind of niche. And you know, I understand you guys don't have massive budgets, but you're working with artists. I mean, I know you have a lot of talent in your group to really kind of think a bit more intentionally about the design of the website to make it a little, to make it pop a little bit more. You know what I mean, Gary?

Gary Erickson (37:12)

I like that a lot and I like also that you try to move toward something that Etsy isn't doing on their website or with their product line or whatever. Is available. I mean, you know, there. Okay, you could go to. If you want to differentiate, you know, it could be your headline. You know, you may not find this on Etsy.

Guy Raz (37:33)

Yeah.

Gary Erickson (37:34)

You may not. You want me. You may not want to say you won't find this, because maybe you will, but you could say you may not find this on Etsy. That would give them, like, well, there. Maybe there's other stuff on here I won't find in Etsy. And because you've got to create. That's. You can't be an Etsy with better values.

Guy Raz (37:51)

Yeah.

Gary Erickson (37:52)

You got to be Etsy with a different product.

Guy Raz (37:55)

I'm telling you. I agree. I'm just spitballing here, but maybe think of a different way of categorizing what you offer, and you focus on the things that people love or might be attracted to.

Gary Erickson (38:05)

So here's a question that follows that I hope perfectly is how many people come to this and buy a gift versus buying something for themselves?

Valerie Franklin (38:17)

That's a great question. I would say so far more purchases have been personal, and yet that contradicts my own experience with my own business that when you make these niche things that are perfect for that one person, you know, a higher percentage of them is gifts. I also know that Etsy is pushing gifts hard right now.

Gary Erickson (38:39)

Okay, that's interesting.

Valerie Franklin (38:41)

That was their super bowl ad.

Gary Erickson (38:42)

Is that right?

Guy Raz (38:43)

Yes, but gifts is. Gary, you're right. I mean, gifts is the way to go.

Gary Erickson (38:49)

It's the way. I mean, if you put a gift, you might find something for yourself, too. You know, like, you go in for, like, I go to wherever. Wherever and buy a gift for my family or my wife or something. And then I ended up like, well, this looks. I think I want to get this for myself. Yeah.

Guy Raz (39:02)

I mean, there's a lady here who's making knit beanies with, like, an octopus on it.

Gary Erickson (39:08)

I'm seeing that. I'm seeing that. I'm on the same page.

Guy Raz (39:10)

And the chicken and the lemon. I mean, there's a. There's lots of people love octopuses or flowers.

Gary Erickson (39:15)

I can't believe I'm on the same page. The yellow one, right? The yellow picture.

Elsie (39:19)

Yeah.

Guy Raz (39:19)

Yeah. I'm looking for gifts. I'm looking for a gift for somebody, and I don't even know where to begin.

Gary Erickson (39:25)

You could have a revolving top gifts. Top sold gifts.

Guy Raz (39:30)

Yeah.

Gary Erickson (39:30)

And if you just had, like, a headline of, like, first thing is top 50 gifts, and. Because if I'm looking for a gift, I wouldn't know where to start here.

Guy Raz (39:38)

Yeah.

Gary Erickson (39:38)

And I would like to be led to something and I might come back here and be buying gifts all the time because I'm always searching for a gift for my friends and family.

Guy Raz (39:48)

Valerie, I think there's. I think. I think we're onto something. I think we might be onto something.

Valerie Franklin (39:54)

You have given me so many great ideas and feedback and direction. And I absolutely loved Gary's point too, that gifts are a great add on and it'd be a great way to increase our per order amount, not look for yourself and also think about other.

Gary Erickson (40:09)

Gifts to add on, you know, and back to the. Back to trying to get that message out is wherever you get. If you could just say a gift you may not find on Etsy.

Guy Raz (40:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, try that, try that.

Gary Erickson (40:22)

And you know, Etsy's not going out of business. They'll be fine.

Guy Raz (40:25)

And we love Etsy, by the way. They've been on the show. Big fans too, so no shade Etsy. Valerie Franklin Artisans Cooperative. Thanks for calling in. Good luck. We'll be watching.

Valerie Franklin (40:37)

Awesome. I was delighted to be here. Thank you so much.

Gary Erickson (40:40)

All the best, Valerie. Great job.

Guy Raz (40:43)

Gary, I'm gonna get you a chicken hat, I think.

Gary Erickson (40:47)

Which one?

Guy Raz (40:47)

I don't know. That or the lemon, the big lemon on the side of that knit hat.

Gary Erickson (40:50)

I think that one's.

Guy Raz (40:51)

I think you look good cycling through. Through Italy on your racing bike with that.

Gary Erickson (40:56)

I have to put it over the helmet. If I can get it over the helmet.

Guy Raz (40:58)

Put it over the helmet, yeah. All right, we're going to take another quick break, Gary, but when we come back, an inventor whose fluffy dog gave her a great idea. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the advice line here on How I Built this Lab. While most CEOs believe innovation is the lifeblood of the future, few of them feel that their teams excel at innovation and more than 8 out of 10 innovation projects stall. The problem is, once teams move from ideation to product development, there are a lot of factors that slow the innovation process. Things like outdated process management tools, team alignment and constant updates. Take a big step to solving these problems with the Innovation Workspace from Miro. The Innovation Workspace comes loaded with AI enabled tools to help teams get from idea to output faster. Our team in particular loves AI summaries to condense documents, stickies and overall board content in seconds to produce retrospective summaries, meeting briefs, research notes and more. Whether you work in innovation, product design, engineering, ux, agile or it, bring your teams to Miro's revolutionary innovation workspace and be faster. From idea to outcome. Go to miro.com to find out how. That's M I R O dot com. As a B2B marketer, you know how noisy the ad space can be. If your message isn't targeted to the right audience, it just disappears. But with LinkedIn ads, you can precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. Using LinkedIn's targeting capabilities, you can reach professionals by job title, industry, company, and more. Now, if you've been listening to this show for a while, you might know that I'm a small business owner myself. And LinkedIn has been a huge asset for my production company. In fact, when I look for new hires, LinkedIn is one of the first places I go. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com BuiltThis to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com BuiltThis terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be. To be. Hello and welcome back to the advice line here on How I Built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz. Gary, what do you say? Let's, shall we go ahead and bring in our last caller?

Gary Erickson (43:53)

Let's go. All right.

Guy Raz (43:54)

Hello, Elsie, are you there?

Elsie (43:56)

Can you hear me?

Guy Raz (43:57)

Yes, we can. Hello, Elsie. Please tell us your name, what your company's called, their business, and where you, where you live.

Elsie (44:06)

Hi, Guy. Hi, Gary.

Gary Erickson (44:08)

Hi, Elsie.

Elsie (44:09)

I'm in Denver, Colorado, and I started my company, Lily Brush 14 years ago after I invented a pet hair cleanup tool that's faster than vacuuming and better than sticky rollers without creating single use waste. I've since invented four more pet hair cleanup products and now we have this incredible core group of pet parents and professional cleaners who love our products. But I'm still struggling with how to scale up our marketing so more people can find us.

Guy Raz (44:54)

Right. Okay, so before we. So you're looking to figure out how to scale up to get more people to find you, how to do it efficiently? Before we get there, let me ask you a couple questions. Lily Brush is the. So this is a, a pet hair remover for like any like, furniture and whatever. Pet hair. I love pet. I've got two cats and a dog. So this is a big problem in my house. We have a lot of pet hair. I have one cat that has particularly bushy hair, Morty. He's a great cat, but he sheds everywhere. How does your, like, how is it different than like you know, I don't know. A roller or other pet brush removers.

Elsie (45:34)

Oh, let me count the way.

Guy Raz (45:37)

Please tell us.

Gary Erickson (45:38)

Yes, count them out loud.

Elsie (45:40)

Okay, I will. So if you have pets that have that very heavy undercoat, that soft, fluffy stuff that sheds all year long, we make these fantastic bristle products that you just. You just brush back and forth across the hair. It picks it all up there. There's no sticky roller waste. There's no peeling, and it's faster than vacuuming.

Guy Raz (46:12)

And you just pull the hair out and you just toss it in the.

Elsie (46:15)

It stays right on top of the bristles and you just. I like to tell people take the hair outside because birds like to use it for nests.

Guy Raz (46:26)

Wow, that's cool. It's like you're recycling, like our. Like James and plastics. You can build a nest for a bird and then. And then your cat can go and eat the bird.

Elsie (46:37)

Oh, dear. No.

Guy Raz (46:40)

How did you tell me how you started this business, because I see you started in 2010. What were you. I mean, did you have a different job? Were you doing something different in your life at that point?

Elsie (46:50)

I was. It's kind of one of those crazy stories, but I used to be a painter. I was a portrait and still life artist. And in 2009, I was a single mom and I shoveled a driveway full of snow and it caused my widowmaker artery to. To dissect at the family dinner table. So.

Guy Raz (47:24)

Wow.

Elsie (47:26)

After, I was very lucky to wake up the next morning. But I went to reach for a water glass and my hands were shaking. They were like nervous parakeets. I'm sure you can hear it in my voice. I have now a pretty prominent tremor. And so I knew that morning that my painting career was over.

Guy Raz (48:01)

Wow.

Elsie (48:02)

So, you know, I. I've never looked back. I just. I knew I had to find a new career.

Guy Raz (48:11)

I mean, it's an amazing story because you have this, of course, near death experience with the heart attack, and it completely changes your trajectory. I mean, you're a painter. You need still hands, but you develop a tremor and you have to pivot. But it's like, it's so. I mean, it's one of those weird things. It's like that happened and that as a result of that, you started this thing right like this. None of this would have happened without that horrible tragedy. But it's an amazing kind of turn of events.

Elsie (48:47)

I just. That's how my life has always been. I've had a lot of faith and just followed the lead. If something happens, you just Keep going through it.

Guy Raz (49:02)

I love your website. It's really clear. It pops. I like the logo. Lily Brush. The red. It pops. How did you, how did you invent this thing?

Elsie (49:11)

So I had to go to rehab for my heart. And I always wore this polar fleece jacket and this little dog Lily used to enjoy sitting on the couch with me. She's an Australian shepherd. Yeah, she's a very fluffy dog. And so I'd go to rehab with all the other 80 year old and I was only 48 when I have it. So I'd go and I'd be covered in pet hair and it was embarrassing, but. So I went to Petsmart and I looked to see if there was anything that would take care of the pet hair and all they had was a sticky roller. And I hate single use products. I just, I so. But I wasn't allowed to lift a vacuum. So I took the sticky roller home and I would carry it with me and roll my fleas and I just thought, there's got to be a better way. And then one day I was scrubbing around the fixtures in my kitchen and Lily happened to jump onto the couch in front of me and she had muddy paws. So I went over with a toothbrush and I went to wipe the mud off of the couch and I noticed that her hair stuck to the bristles and I was like, oh. It was like, oh. So I ran upstairs. I have two sons, I took both their toothbrushes, cut the heads off of them and I found this little palm sized block of wood in the garage and I super glued these three toothbrush heads onto mine as well. And my kids came home and they found me cleaning the whole house with this little block of wood with toothbrush heads on it. And I'm sure they thought I'd had a stroke.

Gary Erickson (51:22)

So, Elsie, Guy has a question. I know this is in your head right now. Guy, did you keep that prototype?

Elsie (51:28)

Of course.

Gary Erickson (51:30)

That you've got a. That's a Smithsonian, you know, museum piece. That is so awesome.

Guy Raz (51:39)

Yeah. So Elsie obviously is coming with question of how can she scale this? How can she get the word out? How can she grow this thing? She's been doing it for since 2010. Gary, what's your take?

Gary Erickson (51:55)

I've got a lot. This is, I mean, I just got it. I'm so inspired by this story, all of it. So it's awareness and trial now. How do you do trial question, Are you in like Petco or any of the Pets Mart or any of those retailers?

Elsie (52:16)

So we're in this. I'm very proud of this. We're in a container store that was our first big company, and I. It took me a long time to get there. We are. We kill it on Amazon, even though after, like, the first year, Alibaba just started pumping out copies, but cheap copies of our products. And the thing I hate about the products that these guys are making that are copying ours is that they. They only last for a week or two. And I built our products to last four. Really. The lifetime of your pet.

Guy Raz (53:07)

I mean, that's the competitive advantage. Gary makes me think of episode we did on TRX straps with Randy Hetrick several years ago, because that happened right away, all of a sudden, all these copycats, and they were poor quality, but he spent and still spends a lot of money suing them. And I know you don't have those kinds of those resources in time, and it's a pain, but I feel like a simple fix is to emphasize what you just said, you know, the original and you know best, because I feel like that is, you know, the brand is what is your advantage here.

Elsie (53:47)

Right, Right. It's a tough one, guy, because when I first started talking to buyers, they used to kind of laugh at me because they're like, why would you make something that lasts for years and years? We don't want that. We want the repurchase. But the fact that these things last so long has been kind of one of our problems.

Guy Raz (54:16)

I wonder whether there. You know, I think about partnerships, right? And, you know, increasingly you're seeing collaborations, right, with brands, and certainly in apparel, Adidas and Gucci, or Liquid Death does. That's not apparel, but they're doing partnerships with different kinds of brands, like grooming, men's grooming, for example. I wonder if there's a way for you to partner with a product that is associated with cleaning cars, I mean, or carpets, something like that, where they get it. You know, they get it with that product.

Elsie (54:55)

I think about that, too. And like a different. A vacuum, like a Bissell or something like that. Yeah, that's a great point, guy.

Guy Raz (55:07)

Yeah. Especially a product like Bissell or like a brand like that that's probably a little easier to get to the right person there. It's not an Adidas where there's a bazillion people pitching them. I don't think a lot of people are pitching Bissell for collaborations, but it could be kind of cool, right? Or like, you like this, to me, seems like, you know how Slim Jim is like, Slim Jim is at the checkout. Counter of every convenience store, right? And like, that's basically, you know, how Slim Jim and now five Hour Energy is there too. Like, I see this as a product that's at the checkout of every car wash, right?

Elsie (55:43)

That would be ideal. And I do go to the car wash trade show and I did the first year I went, I thought it was, I'd made a terrible mistake because I had this little 10 foot booth and I'm in this hall with all these spinning brushes and bright lights and I sort of timidly went and started doing demos and the next thing I knew, my booth was three people deep, just mobbed for three days. So that's when Gary talks about going and giving away product at bike events. That resonates with me because I knew I'd hit something. But we're still just a little tiny brand. We're still, you know, they talk on Shark Tank, they talk about the cockroach that people can stomp on. We're still that little guy. And it, it makes me nervous. It's 14 years in, you know, we're trying so hard and, and we're still that little guy.

Gary Erickson (57:10)

Well, first off, don't give up, okay? Because I think you've got, you have something here. I wouldn't even, I'm embarrassed that I didn't know your brand before this because we've had, I've got these sort of sayings about innovation and so on. You've solved a problem. Clif Bar, to me, solved a problem with a better taste and energy bar. And you know, it's inventive, it's totally original. I mean, how can you get more original than using toothbrushes to make the first product? And it's, it's transformative. You know, you're, you're it for people that have this issue. We, everybody that has a dog and a cat pretty much has this issue and we all want to solve it, but we just are lazy and we just, you know, and it's hard. And you try to vacuum, vacuum doesn't work. And the rolling thing doesn't work. So there's that.

Guy Raz (58:00)

I feel like it's a matter of time. In some ways, this is the kind of product that if you could get it into the hands of a couple of the celebrities who just have, you know, who post with their pet all the time. Like, I think, I don't know if Chrissy Teigen has pets, but I just think of somebody like that, you know, like Chrissy Teigen who's like associated with like cooking in A beautiful house and like, you just imagine her like, oh, my God. This, like, you know, here I am brushing this off with this thing. I think to get to some of those really high end ones, you've got to incentivize them. You know, you've got to say something like, look, we're trying to scale this and you know, we'd love to partner with you in some way. I don't know what that would look like, but to me it's just a matter of like getting it into. Getting it to a place where somebody like that who's a real like, lifestyle influencer gets people excited about it. Because as Gary said, it's a great product. It's just a matter of getting it, getting it in front of the right eyeballs.

Gary Erickson (59:04)

Question. How many people are with you in your company?

Elsie (59:09)

There are four of us.

Gary Erickson (59:11)

Four people's pretty lean.

Elsie (59:15)

It's tough.

Gary Erickson (59:16)

Yeah. So I love Guy's idea of the retail thing, like at the counter. I mean, we've all bought stuff that when we're in a store, like, ah, I never, I mean, what's that? Oh, okay, I'll buy that. And you may have to bring on a sales person that you've never thought of needing before that can go to the car washes and the car washes and the Walgreens and the, you know, and the Fridays, whatever.

Elsie (59:40)

Yeah, you know, we bootstrapped it, so it's been slow growth.

Guy Raz (59:46)

Yeah.

Elsie (59:46)

But we've got money in the bank.

Guy Raz (59:49)

That's awesome.

Elsie (59:51)

So I just, I just have to figure out who to hire. I'm really into giving people a shot, you know, show me what you got and do your best. And let's see. So I get, you know, marketing people from University of Denver and it was cool, you know, two, three years watching someone develop. But I think it's time that we go and we find someone who really knows what the heck they're doing. And we do have the money to do that. I just honestly done this whole thing. I've flown by the seat of my pants this whole time.

Gary Erickson (60:41)

It's super impressive. And you know, for the, for the record, I think if you can do it self funded, then you control your destiny. Kit and I never took a dime from anybody over our 30 years of running Cliff Bar. We never brought on an equity partner.

Guy Raz (60:59)

Yeah, I'm Elsie. We're gonna, we're gonna be following you and Lily Brush and, and good luck. Thank you for calling in. I think you've got something there. And I think in about six months Time from now, if we check in on you again, you will have hired somebody to take the load off and hopefully to start to really do some of that business expansion that you're not able to do because of the other stuff you have to focus on.

Elsie (61:26)

I hope so. And Guy and Gary, thank you so much. I just. This, you guys are my heroes, and this has been.

Gary Erickson (61:37)

Well, you're so welcome and thank you. And, you know, it's. We're just starting to roll, so just keep this momentum going with other people and keep this conversation going with other people that can support what we've talked about and take you, help you take it up a notch or two or more.

Guy Raz (61:54)

Thank you, Elsie. And we'll be in touch.

Elsie (61:56)

All right, great job.

Gary Erickson (61:58)

So I'm ordering one tonight.

Guy Raz (62:00)

You're gonna be saddled with all these products after today, Gary.

Gary Erickson (62:03)

Like, I'm solving all kinds of problems today. I'm gonna be sunglasses.

Guy Raz (62:05)

What's up, Gobbles? What's all these packages coming to our house? I know we're getting ski goggles and I got a brush and now I've got all this, like, these crafts. What's going on?

Gary Erickson (62:17)

Well, you know, I have like, all of our friends have animals. I'm probably gonna order a dozen of these and then pass them around and then tell them to see, that's the other way to do it. You know, this is a word of mouth product.

Guy Raz (62:29)

It's total word of mouth product.

Gary Erickson (62:30)

And you could have a brush in every vehicle you've got, in every room you've got. They're just sitting there because then you don't have to go, where's that brush? Yeah, they're everywhere.

Guy Raz (62:43)

Okay. All right, Gary, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It's awesome to have you.

Gary Erickson (62:47)

I'm honored. Thank you so much.

Guy Raz (62:50)

That's Gary Erickson, founder of Clif Bar. And by the way, if you haven't heard Gary's original How I Built this episode, you've got to go back and check it out. It's so fun. You can find a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.

Gary Erickson (63:05)

You know, I remember setting up a little table and standing out there in the aisle with a tray of cut up bars. And as people walked by, I'd say, hey, try this new energy bar. And they were like, no, no, no, I've had energy bar. I don't want to try. Oh, come on, just try it. And they try it. And then they would walk along and they wouldn't want to look back because they were going to, you know, didn't want to embarrass me. And then they would be chewing and they would turn around and go, come right back and go, what is that?

Guy Raz (63:30)

And by the way, since we first ran this episode, a few cool things have happened for the startup entrepreneurs we Talked to. James Co. Actually collaborated with an eyewear brand on a pair of snow goggles made entirely with stoked plastics and it's now available at rei. And Elsie well, back in May she underwent surgery to correct her tremor and it was a success. Slowly but surely, she is regaining control of her hand and voice again. It's awesome news. Congrats, Elsie. Thank you everybody for listening to the show this week. If you are working on a business and you would like to be on this show, please send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions or problems that you would like help with. And please make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us that voice memo@hibtid.wondery.com or you can call us 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there and we'll put all of this in the podcast description on your smartphone. Thanks again. We will see you back here next time. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was James Willits. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Chris Messini, Elaine Coates, J.C. howard, Neva Grant, Devin Schwartz, Katherine Cipher, and Kerry Thompson. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line here on How I Built this Lab. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondery.com survey this is a PSA or public sock announcement. Experts have declared Bombas socks as the best way to warm up chilly feet. These pairs are super cushy, soft and designed for maximum coziness. Plus, for every pair purchased, another pair will be donated so someone in need of essential clothing can stay warm this winter. Go to bombas.com wondery and use code wondery for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S.com wondery.