Advice Line with Marcia Kilgore of Beauty Pie (June 2025)

Summary

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How I Built This: Advice Line with Marcia Kilgore of Beauty Pie

Podcast: How I Built This with Guy Raz | Wondery
Episode: Advice Line with Marcia Kilgore of Beauty Pie (June 2025)
Original Air Date: March 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging Advice Line episode, host Guy Raz is joined by Marcia Kilgore—serial entrepreneur and founder of Bliss, Soap & Glory, FitFlop, and Beauty Pie. Marcia offers tactical, no-nonsense advice to three early-stage founders grappling with key business challenges. She digs into topics like focusing product strategy, overcoming fear of failure, and optimizing sales channels, all while reflecting on her own entrepreneurial journey. The episode is full of hard-earned wisdom and practical takeaways for anyone building a brand.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction & Marcia Kilgore's Philosophy

[04:14–09:21]

• Transparent Pricing in Beauty:
  Marcia explains "warehouse pricing", contrasting Beauty Pie’s direct-to-consumer approach with the conventional multi-layered distribution model, which can inflate retail prices by 1,200%. By cutting out intermediaries, Beauty Pie keeps markups minimal—about 3x manufacturing cost—offering luxury products at accessible prices.

  Quote:
  "For me, it was a little depressing that customers would have to spend so much to get something that actually didn’t have the value that they thought it had. So I decided to start Beauty Pie just for that reason."
  — Marcia Kilgore [06:03]

• Importance of Customer Service Experience:
  Marcia stresses the value of firsthand experience and deep expertise in your chosen field, but warns against simply replicating what others are doing.

  Quote:
  "It is much easier to start a business in an area that you’ve got expertise... however, if you just go and do what everybody else is doing, you’re not going to have anything new."
  — Marcia Kilgore [08:17]

• Building a Brand in 2025:
  Marcia highlights how increased competition, digital noise, and the “ownership bias” (believing passion guarantees traction) make it harder than ever to stand out.

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2. Caller #1: Victor Garcia, Soldiaz Ice Cream

[11:03–19:44]

• The Business:
  Traditional Mexican paletas and ice cream, 3 shops in Dallas-Fort Worth, $1.5M revenue, split between brick-and-mortar and wholesale retail.

• Victor’s Challenge:
  Should the focus be on expanding brick-and-mortar stores or growing retail/wholesale distribution?

• Marcia’s Advice:

  • Hero Products: Push non-frozen, easy-to-distribute items like spicy gummies as a scalable wholesale hero product.
  • Retail as Branding: Use brick-and-mortar more as branding/marketing “flagships” rather than a volume expansion strategy.
  • Maximize Store Impact: Invest in stand-out store design and create “Instagrammable” moments to drive organic buzz.
  • Community Events: Host in-store events (e.g., spicy gummy contests) to generate lines, social sharing, and local excitement.
  • Social Proof: “Nothing is better for your business than a line out the door... take photos of the lines down the street.”

  Notable Quote:
  “You want to have one big hero product... something that is not frozen. It’ll be a lot easier to not worry about that, especially in heat waves...”
  — Marcia Kilgore [17:19]

  Actionable Takeaways:

  • Optimize for a few successful flagship stores over aggressive brick-and-mortar expansion.
  • Use organic social media and unique in-store events to build a cult following.
  • Focus on scalable products for wholesale/retail distribution.

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3. Caller #2: Lydia Welch, Clear Story Skincare

[23:37–30:50]

• The Business:
  Science-backed botanical skincare made in small batches. Sold D2C online, starting to consider growth after a slow “side hustle” phase.

• Lydia’s Challenge:
  Overcoming fear of failure and rejection in pitching and marketing.

• Marcia’s Advice:

  • Normalize Fear: Everyone has a fear of failure. “It never goes away... you just get used to it after you fail a couple of times.”
    — Marcia Kilgore [25:51]
  • Naming Matters: Consider the challenges of a misspelled or confusing brand name. If people can’t spell it, they can’t find it online.
  • Test Before Scaling: Leverage AI and Meta ads to cheaply test brand concepts, packaging, and positioning before spending big.
  • “Fire Bullets Before Cannonballs”: (Jim Collins reference) Test small iterations with tiny ad spends to validate what resonates in the market.

  Memorable Advice:
  “Don’t listen to your friends or family, because they will always be nice... It’s better just to see what happens in the wild.”
  — Marcia Kilgore [29:54]

  Actionable Takeaways:

  • Spend a week learning AI ad tools and start micro-testing messaging and branding.
  • Don’t let perfectionism or fear of failure lead to paralysis—iteration is the antidote.

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4. Caller #3: Jack Boland, Wampy Bags

[34:48–44:37]

• The Business:
  Custom, playful bike frame bags and accessories, fabricated to fit any bike, using a unique ordering process involving a mailed sizing postcard.

• Jack’s Challenge:
  The ordering process is complex and requires a physical mail step, leading to customer drop-off due to loss of momentum and “decision paralysis.”

• Marcia’s Advice:

  • Reduce Drop-Off:
    • Automate a series of follow-up reminder emails (“Don’t be too polite. If you wait two weeks, they might have bought a bag by then!” [40:16])
    • Keep up anticipation and guide customers through each step.
  • Simplify Choices:
    • Reduce options by presenting a “best seller” or starting with a loaded configuration, allowing customers to remove (rather than add) features.
    • Highlight social proof: show what most people are buying to guide decisions and reduce anxiety.
  • Menu Psychology:
    • Present small, medium, large options (people gravitate toward the middle).
    • Use default selections as a nudge toward a simpler and faster checkout.
  • Don’t Fear Follow-Up:
    • Frequent reminders and clear next steps help keep customers engaged.

  Notable Quote:
  “Assume they want the very best one and tell them this is the one that everybody else buys. Everybody wants to do what other people are doing because they think it’s right.”
  — Marcia Kilgore [43:08]

  Concrete Recommendations:

  • Implement a multi-step email nurture flow post card request.
  • Streamline the online customization process.
  • Use behavioral nudges and social proof everywhere possible.

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5. Marcia’s Final Reflections: If I Could Go Back...

[45:11–46:13]

When asked what she would tell her younger entrepreneurial self, Marcia emphasizes the power of testing and not betting the farm upfront:

“Take small risks and learn without betting the farm... It’s a great piece of advice for anybody who’s a young startup founder who is working on their own and working on a limited budget.”
— Marcia Kilgore [46:03]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On luxury beauty pricing:
  "You’ll see creams out there selling for $3,000 for a 50 milliliter jar of cream, which is just insanity. There’s nothing in them."
  — Marcia Kilgore [07:24]

• On fear of failure:
  "Everybody has fear of failure. Everybody. So welcome to the club. It never goes away... you just kind of get used to it after you fail a couple of times."
  — Marcia Kilgore [25:51]

• On product testing:
  "Jim Collins would say you fire a bullet before you fire a cannonball... you’re going to test small before you do anything big."
  — Marcia Kilgore [27:44]

• On guiding customers:
  "Don’t make them do ten things, make them do one. It shouldn’t be that many clicks. Assume they want the very best one and tell them this is the one that everybody else buys."
  — Marcia Kilgore [43:08]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & Marcia’s DTC Philosophy: [04:14–09:21]
• Caller 1 (Victor Garcia – Soldiaz): [11:03–19:44]
• Caller 2 (Lydia Welch – Clear Story Skincare): [23:37–30:50]
• Caller 3 (Jack Boland – Wampy Bags): [34:48–44:37]
• Marcia’s Reflections on Advice for Founders: [45:11–46:13]

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Episode Updates (Nine Months Later)

[47:05]

• Victor is opening a new brick-and-mortar location.
• Lydia has added mini versions of her products for sampling.
• Jack is collaborating with bike groups for custom bags.

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Summary Takeaways

• Test fast, test small, iterate relentlessly—don’t guess at product or brand-market fit.
• Embrace fear as part of the journey; don’t let it paralyze you.
• Simplify choices and experiences for your customers, nudging them with social proof.
• Focus on scalable “hero” products for wholesale/distribution.
• Make your brick-and-mortar locations marketing engines, not expansion burdens.
• Harness AI and digital tools for efficient, data-driven experimentation.

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Practical, straight-talking, and full of actionable insight, this episode is a must-listen for any founder navigating uncertainty, risk, and the everyday grind of building something new.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I'm Guy Raz.

[A]

This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a 1 minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice [e-mail] and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entreprene. You can sign up for [e-mail] and we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it.

[B]

Joining me this week is serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, founder of Beauty Pie. Marcia, welcome back to the show.

[C]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

[A]

We're excited to have you.

[B]

So you were first on the show back in 2018. You told us about the origin story of Bliss, which was the spa brand that really kind of changed the beauty landscape. And then of course, you went on to build all of these different brands afterwards like Soap and Glory and Fit Flop and then Beauty Pie. It's just so awesome to have you back. And we will put a link to your original interview in the episode description. And also anybody listening can easily find that by searching How I Built this And Marcia Kilgore. Lots of great stories and insights. Marcia, I know that today you are continuing to grow Beauty Pie and pushing to kind of give consumers access to luxury beauty products at a more transparent pricing. And I know recently you've been focused on educating consumers about something called warehouse pricing. So can you tell us a little bit more about what that is?

[C]

Well, there are different definitions for it in the US versus the uk the mainstream beauty industry has always had a really multilayer distribution system where it would go from the mind of a founder to a manufacturer. Manufacturer would then ship it to a warehouse, the warehouse would ship it to a distributor, the distributor would then ship it to a retailer. And in all of these different layers of distribution, you would end up with a markup of 1,200% at minimum on that product. So something that is manufactured for $5 would retail for 60 at minimum, because the retailer themselves are taking at least half of that. And especially if you're a new brand in the cosmetics business, it can be really tough because they will demand higher percentages of that pie because they have the shelf space and you don't really have much negotiating leverage. And I'd been in the beauty industry for quite a long time and realized that for me, it was a little depressing that customers would have to spend so much to get something that actually didn't have the value that they thought it had. And so I decided to start PewDiePie just for that reason, so that people could get the good stuff when it landed in the warehouse with enough of a markup to cover that, which we call our warehouse pricing, or lab to warehouse pricing, and not any other markup that happens after it leaves that warehouse and ends up in the hands of a distributor or a retailer. So that's our definition of warehouse pricing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because most of the or most of the high end luxury beauty brands are made in Switzerland or in Japan, some in France, and you are offering the same quality, essentially, but at much lower

[C]

prices, very often even a better quality, but at much lower prices. We can manufacture from scratch. We can kind of dream, because we're not really worried about all that extra added cost that a product will engender once it leaves the warehouse and goes to a retailer. So we negotiate hard with our manufacturers, but it stops at about three times the manufactured cost, and it doesn't go farther than that. Whereas most beauty products go to 10 or 12 or sometimes 20.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

I mean, the kind of. The more luxurious the brand, the crazier the prices. And you'll see creams out there selling for $3,000 for a 50 milliliter jar of cream, which is just insanity. There's nothing in them. But if it makes you feel better about yourself that you can buy something really expensive, I guess there's, you know, there's a little bit of that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, Marcia, before we get to today's callers, I want to ask a little bit more about your story and kind of how it relates to building a company today. Because in your original episode, you know, you told us about how you started by giving facials in this tiny room in New York City and how that kind of led to and taught you what customers value and that helped you build bliss into this amazing brand. Do you think that's necessary today for founders to have that direct kind of customer service or hands on experience to succeed in beauty?

[C]

It's a great question. I think Jim Collins would always say that you want to focus on what you're good at and then you want to look at those tangential things to try and do something different. So it is much easier to start a business in an area that you've got expertise because you can solve your problems very often yourself and you've got that deep and rich insight into whatever that problem is. However, if you just go and do what everybody else is doing, you're not going to have anything new and you're not going to have any kind of leg up in the market with all the other people who are doing exactly that. So it's really important, I think, one, to have expertise in the area that you are trying to build, but then also to look sideways and see what people are doing in other areas of business that might dovetail into yours and create something that's really fresh and new.

[B]

What do you think? I mean, you've built so many brands and building a brand is really hard and arguably harder in some ways today than ever than it's been in recent years. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges of trying to build a brand in 2025?

[C]

In 2025, there is more competition than ever. And I think that people also look at the Internet and think it's super easy to put your product out there on the Internet and spend money advertising it and people will flock to you. I think what they don't necessarily realize is, number one, how hard it is to get visibility and any kind of scale. Number two, how many iterations you might have to go through before you get something that resonates with a customer. Number three, how expensive that can be depending on which market you're in and which niche you're in. Because there are a people thinking exactly like you're thinking. And I think that everything has moved towards digital in such a fast way. Covid did that for us, right? It was this huge digital rush. So it used to be quite easy to throw a website up and it still is. But getting people to come to that website is the hardest thing. So I think there's always, always on the part of a founder a little bit of ownership bias where because they think it's great that other people will naturally show up and maybe they don't realize how hard it is to get attention in such a saturated world of trying to get eyeballs. You have to do a lot more, be constantly creative. And there's a lot of help out there now with AI which can help you be more creative if you're not necessarily creative, but everybody's got a lot of the same tools. You have to work smarter, you have to work faster, you have to work harder, but you have to really be a to know.

[B]

Yeah. Marcia, let's go ahead and take, take some calls. Let's, let's bring in our first caller. Hello, welcome to the advice line. You are on with Marcia Kilgore. Please tell us your name and where you're calling from and just a little bit about your business guy.

[D]

Marcia. What an honor it is to be here. Very excited. My name is Victor Garcia. I am calling from the very hot city of Fort Worth, Texas, co founder of Sol Diaz Ice Cream. We specialize in making ice cream and paletas with the flavors and preparation styles of my hometown, Mexica Can Jalisco. And we are on a mission of making these treats as popular and accessible as tacos are in the US Today.

[B]

Awesome. So tell us a little bit about paletas or popsicles basically. Right?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And ice cream. So tell us a little bit about what. Yeah. What about what you sell?

[D]

So the two things that really helps us stand out, number one, as I mentioned, the flavors, the ingredients. So we've got things like mango gochamoy or like a rice cinnamon. We have a tequila ice cream, Tequila, paletas, mamey, the flavors of Mexico.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And our churn process is very slow. It takes 25, 35 minutes to make a batch. And really that just helps the natural flavors of the product get injected into what the ice cream is or what the Valletta is. A lot of American ice cream or a lot of ice cream in general.

[E]

Right.

[D]

It gets injected with air and blasted frozen six, seven minutes. So one of the big things I tell people just you can have a pint of regular ice cream and you can have a pint of soldiers and you will be able to feel the difference. The soldiers is going to be a lot heavier because it's got a lot less air. So that's kind of a little bit about us and what we do.

[B]

And how did you get into the ice cream business.

[D]

The tiny town that I mentioned, Mexican Jalisco, is nicknamed La Cuna de le. La de la Paleta, which just briefly translates to the birthplace of ice cream and paletas. And so that's kind of where everything came from. We immigrated to the US didn't quite find the same flavors of home. And that's kind of what encouraged the business to start.

[B]

And so you've got a brick and mortar shop or you've got more than one shop?

[D]

We got three brick and mortar shops in Dallas Fort Worth. Yeah.

[E]

Wow.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

Congrats.

[A]

And how.

[B]

Tell me a little bit about how the business is doing.

[D]

The business has been growing steadily, 35 to 40% a year. Everything's been. Been going well so far.

[B]

All right, so what's your question for us?

[D]

Yes. So we have brick and mortar side of the business, and then we have a retail side of the business. We've been trying to tackle both. The nagging question is, is that too much? At our stage, right. Right now, three stores, 1.5 million in revenue. Does it make sense to continue trying to go after both? Should we focus on one or the other?

[A]

So.

[B]

So do you focus on selling your products in retail or do you focus on brick and mortar? Okay, Marcia, let me bring you in. He's got a growing business, a brick and mortar business with ambitions, I think, right. To grow. But you've got these products that you could sell in stores. Sam's Clubs and maybe Costco's and other places.

[A]

What should he do?

[B]

What should he focus on?

[C]

Victor, what a dream to be selling ice cream.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

I think many of us would want to have a business like yours. It sounds really exciting. It sounds like you have a really great market niche also. And so congratulations. Building it so far, and it sounds like you really have a lot of success and more to come. I'm going to ask a couple of questions. I'm just going to fire them away at you. Can you tell me right now how the revenue is split between your stores and your wholesale?

[D]

Right now it's 60% stores, 40% wholesale.

[C]

And in terms of margin on stores versus margin on wholesale, once you take the stores and the operations into account, it's about 17%.

[D]

The net margins on the stores. Net margins on wholesale is slightly higher, hovering at around 20.

[C]

Okay, so relatively the same, but easier to scale. Obviously your wholesale, isn't it? Retail is tough, as you may not know yet.

[D]

I know.

[E]

Yet.

[D]

I know. Trust me.

[C]

You know, you've got weather. You know, a big football game comes on like no one leaves their house. You know, you're sort of at the mercy of a lot of different elements. However, retail is really great for marketing for your brand. So it's nice to be able to have those flagship retail locations where people can come and experience it and test product, et cetera, et cetera. How are you guys doing on social media? Are you getting a lot of information out to potential clients or doing a lot of promotion via organic social media or. Not yet.

[D]

That's the only way that we advertise. It's really just social media word of mouth, like you mentioned earlier. Is the product good enough to live without any advertising? And I immediately thought, well, we sometimes don't post for a month and things continue to go well.

[C]

But yeah, okay, and can you tell me what percentage of your product is frozen or needs to be kept cold when shipped versus not because you have other things. Right. You have other products that it's not just ice cream and palettes.

[D]

Correct, correct. That's like those are our hero products, but we also make a variety of other Mexican sweets and treats. Churros, aguas, frescas, dulces, enchiladas, like spicy gummies. On the storefronts, it's probably about 70% is frozen, 30% is not frozen. On the retail side, we just have two products in stores which is going to be the paletas and the spicy gummies. And right now it's really about half is paletas, half is spicy gummies.

[C]

I thought spicy gummies might be popular. As soon as you said it, I just thought, you know what, there's something about spicy gummies like a jalapeno or some kind of like hot pepper gummies.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

I can see every teenage boy if you had the one that's so crazy that it burns your mouth. Do you know every teenage boy would be buying those? Yes, I know because I have teenage boys.

[D]

The extreme version, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

You got to have that obviously in your distribution and your wholesale. You're going to want to try and get more of those non frozen products in because it's just so much cheaper to not have to ship something in refrigerated trucks and also really build a couple of hero products like those spicy gummies. If that's like something you're really known for that you can then kind of branch off of and develop more products like the spicy gummy or it's the spicy chewy or the spicy whatever, whatever. But you want to have one big hero product and of course you'll have your ice cream. Right. And you'll have your palettes, but something is not frozen. It'll be a lot easier to not worry about that, especially in heat waves, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure it can get kind of crazy when you talk about retail stores. I don't think you need 20 of them. I think you need a couple of really good ones strategically located where there is a line out the door. Nothing is better for your business than a line out the door of people waiting for ice cream. Right, right. And then you. Where I would spend money, instead of doing two stores or four stores, you now have three. So instead of doing six, hire some really great brand designer who knows how to bring that all together for you. So that when you have a store, it is irresistible. And people cannot not take a photograph and post it on social media. You're gonna have them with their ice creams, them with their paletas, them with their spicy gummies, whatever it is. And you're gonna run events in those stores, like the spicy gummy eating contest. Right. And you're gonna invite people to come and. Right. Or you're gonna invite people. You're trying out a new flavor. You put it out, Everybody come down or giving out, you know, little cups of this new flavor, come down and see what it's like. And they'll come in, they're gonna take a picture of themselves in the store. They're gonna come in to try the new flavor. They're gonna post about it, talk about it on social media. Everything will be free for you for a very long time. If you can have events around the products that you're launching or your hero products and make that store look so cool.

[D]

Yeah, okay.

[C]

But you get a line down the street, then you take photos of the lines down the street from your shop, and then everybody's like, oh, my God. Why is everybody lining up with that? It's really quite easy with what you've got. We can do it if you do the branding right around it. And then you just keep coming up with ideas around how to get people to come in and be part of your brand.

[B]

It's great advice. Victor Garcia. The brand is called Soldia. Good luck. Thanks for calling in.

[D]

Thank you so much, Guy. Marcia.

[B]

All right. Thank you.

[C]

Take care, Guy. I talk too much. I'm sorry.

[A]

No, it's great.

[B]

You are carrying the day as I'm battling a cold and a pretty severe migraine.

[C]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

You are helping to carry the advice line today, so I appreciate that.

[C]

Anytime.

[A]

We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz. Stick around. You're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. When it comes to your health and well being, the right care can change everything. That's why Cleveland Clinic has been elevating world class pat care for over a century. From the most specialized heart, neurology and cancer treatments to the latest surgical innovations and beyond, Cleveland Clinic is here for every care in the world. Whether you're exploring advanced care or just looking after your health, all the info you need is waiting for [e-mail] Whenever I'm researching a founder for how I built this, one of the very first things I do is pull up the company's website. Because a great site tells you a lot about a brand. The tone, the ambition, and how seriously they're taking what they're building. But if updating your site feels intimidating or worse, you keep putting off small changes because they take too long, Framer might be the website builder for you. With real time collaboration, a robust CMS with everything you need for great SEO and advanced analytics that include integrated a B testing, Framer empowers you to build and maximize your.com from day one. Learn how you can get more out of your.com from a framer specialist or get started building for free [e-mail] built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.combilt for 30% off framer.combiltine rules and restrictions may apply when you're starting off with something new. It seems like your to do list keeps growing every day with new tasks and that list can easily begin to overrun your life. Trust me, I know getting my production company built at productions off the ground was no easy feat. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be such a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Heinz and Mattel to brands just getting started with hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. Shopify is also packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhances your product photography. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify and Start. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.combilt go to shopify.combilt that's shopify.combilt.

[B]

Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Marcia Kilgore. She's the founder of many successful brands including Bliss Soap and Glory Fit Flop and Beauty Pie. And we are taking your calls. And let's bring in our next caller.

[F]

Hi, Guy. Hi, Marcia. My name is Lydia Welsh. I'm calling from Seattle, Washington and I'm the founder of Clear Story Skincare. We make small batch botanical skincare products using science backed ingredients for a simple, effective daily routine.

[B]

Awesome. Welcome to the show. Lydia, how did you get into to skincare? Tell me a little bit about how you started the business.

[F]

Yeah, I majored in biology. Then I worked in disease research for a few years after college. And I've always been interested in skincare but somehow it didn't hit me that skincare is actually all about chemistry and biology until 2020. Had some free time and I started reading research papers about different ingredients and it all just sort of came together in my mind. So I started tinkering with different ingredients and making my own formulas, sharing them with family and friends. And then I launched my business in 2021.

[B]

And tell us a little bit about what your. Yeah, I mean, how it's going so far.

[F]

It's been an interesting and slow journey. I've been around for, you know, four years, but the first two years of that I was working full time and then the following two years I had two kids. So I've had my hands full. I've basically I started with a few simple products and just did a lot of like farmers markets and things on the weekend and shipping orders in the evenings. And right now we have a gentle cleanser, a hydrating mist and a couple of facial oils. And we have like a small customer base, but the people who have used our products really love them.

[B]

Tell us a little bit about what you are, where you're selling is all direct to consumer online on your website now?

[F]

Yeah, that's right. So everything's direct to consumer.

[B]

And tell us what your question is or what your challenge is.

[F]

So I've spent this time refining my product line and I feel like I'm finally ready to grow my business. But I find myself holding back from pitching and marketing because I'm afraid to fail. And so my question is how do I overcome my fear of rejection and gain the confidence to put myself out There.

[B]

All right, Marci, I want to bring you in with some answers, hopefully.

[C]

Oh, Lydia. Okay. I'm going to tell you something that might really shock you. Everybody has fear of failure. Everybody. So welcome to the club. Never goes away. Like anything else, you just kind of get used to it after you fail a couple of times. So you kind of have to let that go. It's almost like people who tell me, oh, I can't do this because I'm a perfectionist, so I just can't decide. And it's just a cop out. No offense, but it's a cop out to say you have fear of failure or you're a perfectionist because it just gives you an excuse to not go do what you have to do to get this done and also not to face the things that aren't working and openly, honestly, and immediately a move on them. Right. It's like so easy to just go, oh, I'm too scared to fail, so I'm just not gonna do anything. You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna fail. So anything. If you wanna just say you have a fear of failure and let it give you paralysis because it's a sure thing. Can I ask you a couple of questions?

[F]

Go ahead.

[C]

Number one, how did you get the trademark for Clear Story? Do you have it trademarked?

[F]

I do, yeah.

[C]

Okay. And how do you spell it?

[F]

C L E, R Story.

[C]

Huh. If you say your brand is called Clear Story, you're now reaching a subset of people who don't know how to spell the word clear.

[F]

That's true.

[C]

Yeah. You might want to reconsider what you call it.

[F]

Okay.

[C]

Unless you have 50,000 units of product sitting in your warehouse.

[B]

Yeah, interesting idea.

[C]

Okay. And there's an infinite number of brand names that you can have, but I would never have a name myself that if people spell the word properly, it doesn't come up. So you're going to say, oh, my brand is called Clear Story. And then you have to say, but not with an A. Yeah, right. That's already a handicap right there. So you want to just try and fix that? Do you run any ads?

[F]

I actually don't.

[C]

Okay. So I want you to spend a week when your children are not right there with you learning AI and learning how the Meta ad library works. You can even go on ChatGPT and say, give me a seven day training program so that I understand how Meta works for advertising. And you can do that. This is the best way to figure out if your proposition is going to resonate with a Large number of people. Although you're not going to pay for a large number of people. In the second best business book of all time, second only to How I Built this by Guy Raz. Jim Collins would say you fire a bullet before you fire a cannonball, which means you're going to test small before you do anything big. So you're going to make sure that people actually click on your ad with your picture of your product with its description and its brand and its packaging, and they actually click on it before you go manufacture a whole bunch of them. I'm going to assume you're doing small batches at the moment. Yes. Correct.

[F]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay, so you're not sitting on like tens of thousands of anything.

[F]

I'm not.

[C]

That's really good. So, number one, I would go revisit the brand name. Number two, I would mock up using artificial intelligence, a whole bunch of different versions of the packaging of the name, the description of what the products do, and then learn how to do meta advertising and test. Because you will see when you get something that people are interested in, they're going to click on it and you can count those clicks for very little money before you do anything really big and make any really big decisions. That will be a really nice way to iterate your way to a product that will resonate with people and that they're going to come looking for. Before you then go and manufacture a lot of that product, then you're going to take all of that knowledge and you're going to start just testing a little bit with very inexpensive ads. Not putting them in front of millions of people, you put it in front of a thousand. If nobody clicks on it, you don't have something yet. Right. And iterate a few times, spending as little money as possible. Don't listen to your friends or family because they will always be nice and they're going to say it's great. Or they're going to be like, nah, that'll never work. You're going to get the two, the very supportive ones and then the ones who are just like naysayers because they're really risk averse. And that's them, not you. Right. So it's better just to see what happens in the wild when you put something in front of an average human who's in the skincare market and whether or not they click on your thing and come through to your website.

[F]

Okay.

[C]

And then you iterate, and you iterate and you iterate and you iterate until you have something and you'll build a landing page, perhaps for this new version of what you're testing. And so they land on. You'll still see if they click and add it into their basket. But then you'll say, I'm sorry, this thing is sold out. But that's okay because it's a lot better to make 10 people really upset than to be sitting on hundreds of thousands of units of something that's not going to sell. Right.

[B]

It's great advice. Lydia Welch. The brand is called Clear Story. Thanks so much for calling in.

[F]

Yeah, thank you both.

[B]

Thank you.

[C]

Bye.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it is, right? I mean, this is the.

[A]

You're right.

[B]

I mean, everybody is afraid of this. Right. It doesn't matter who the founder is. Everyone is afraid of failure and rejection. This is just a common part of the process.

[C]

Yeah. You know, boxers probably get in the ring and are they afraid of, like, a really hard punch? Yes. But the other punches that just are part of the job. I mean, get used to it because you're gonna fail. We've all failed.

[B]

Right.

[C]

We've had disasters and you kind of forget about them. Thank God that the human brain is wired to. It's like childbirth. You just don't remember it. Otherwise, we would never propagate as a species.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Next up after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your business questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab. Every business right now is asking the same question. How do we actually make AI work for us? Because the possibilities are huge. But guessing is risky, and sitting on the sidelines, that's not really an option because chances are your competitors are already making their move. That's where NetSuite by Oracle comes in. With NetSuite, you can put AI to work. Today, NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP, trusted by more than 43,000 businesses. It brings everything together. Your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM all in one unified system. A single source of truth. And now with the NetSuite AI connector, you can connect the AI tools you already like directly to your real business data. That's what makes AI actually useful. Helping automate routine tasks, deliver actionable insights, and even cut costs. So instead of waiting and wondering, you can start moving forward if your revenues are at least in the seven figures. Get their free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com built netsuite.com Bilt as you've heard on this show. Running a small business means hustling and figuring it all out a lot of times on your own. But that doesn't mean you have to spend every night guessing at tax forms or looking for onboarding docs. Gusto handles all of that so you can spend your time on the parts of your business you actually love. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Gusto does it all. Automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter benefits, workers comp 401k. And Gusto has options for nearly every budget. You get. Unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price with no hidden fees and no surprises. Try gusto [e-mail] BILT and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com BILT com. One more time. Gusto.com built. Welcome back to the advice line on

[B]

how I built this lab.

[A]

I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with serial entrepreneur and PewDiePie founder Marcia Kilgore.

[B]

So, Marcia, ready for our next caller?

[C]

I'm ready.

[B]

Let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Marcia Kilgore. Hello, welcome. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

[D]

Hello.

[E]

Thank you for having me on. My name is Jack Boland.

[C]

Hey, Jack.

[E]

I'm out in San Francisco at the moment, and I'm the founder of Wampy Bags. So we make custom bike bags and accessories that perfectly match your bike and your style. We focus on a style of bag called a frame bag, which basically sits inside the triangle on your bike using that negative space there. And our ultimate goal is to get people to opt for their bike over their car when they can.

[B]

So it's a storage bag that fits in the frame of your bike basically.

[E]

Exactly. Yeah. That's the core product. And then we have a handful of other ones that mount on your handlebars for water bottles or on the front, allow you to put snacks in there.

[A]

What.

[B]

What fits inside the bag?

[E]

So it's a little dependent on your frame, but it's anything from a water bottle, spare layer, snacks. We'll use it for bike packing trips. So they'll throw a tent in there and a sleeping bag or just a couple of beers and a blanket to go head down to the park.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How did you Come up with this idea.

[E]

I got into using this just for commuting around town, just going to the breweries in town and a more casual thing. So I'm trying to design a bag that is really intended to be more fun and playful and a little bit more accessible than kind of those hardcore bags.

[B]

That's awesome. Okay, and how much of the bags sell for, by the way? What's the price?

[E]

It depends on the size of them. So we've got a small one that's good for maybe tools or a snack, and that's about 125. And then a full frame starts at 149.

[B]

And these are custom made?

[E]

Exactly, yeah. So basically, customers can take a picture of their bike. They have this little special postcard that we'll send them, and they include that in the photo, and then they upload this to the website. They can design the shape of the bag they want, they select all the features they're interested in, and then we fabricate it, we print the fabric and create this kind of one of a kind bag for them.

[B]

Got it. Okay, so what are you trying to solve here? What's your challenge?

[E]

So my question is around sales channels, ultimately. So I mentioned that postcard that's used for sizing and fitting the bag. There's a million different varieties of bikes and sizes and shapes. And so they need that postcard to get it to fit just right. So we mail that to them for free. And in that time, they kind of, you know, lose a little momentum on their excitement for purchasing this bag. And so I'm curious for what are the channels that we can be exploring or focusing on that allow us to get this postcard in your hands. When you start your journey and then you're good to go, you can kind of design and purchase that bag.

[B]

Got it. Okay. So the problem now is that people start the process, but then they drop off, basically.

[E]

Exactly.

[B]

Gotcha. Okay. All right, Marcia. People are coming in, they're starting the process of designing their bags, but it's

[A]

too clunky and they just drop off.

[B]

So he's got to solve this.

[C]

Okay, Jack, I'm going to ask some really basic questions even before they even come in to start the process. But first I'd like to say there's nobody I like better than a product designer. Just the way product designers think is always so incredibly original. So I'm sure. Is this your 20th idea?

[E]

You're like the 50 to 100 range?

[C]

Yeah, my kind of guy. Love a bit of a product designer. I'm going to ask, you said there are other bags on the market for these purposes. Are they also fitting between the same area of the bicycle or is that your thing?

[E]

So there's kind of a spectrum of them. There's the off the shelf made internationally, one size fits all that doesn't really fit anything, but it's a slightly lower price point. And then there are a couple companies doing this custom, but it's quite bespoke. It involves, you know, a couple weeks of back and forth emails to like figure out exactly the size of your frame. And so we kind of land in that middle because of this software. It lets us work a little bit more efficiently, manufacture a little bit more efficiently and land somewhere in between the two of those.

[C]

Okay. So a customer can go out and find at retail a bag similar to your bag, just not customized.

[E]

Yeah. And then that also kind of typically limits them to your browns and your blacks. So one of our big offerings is this can be as colorful, it can be as fun, it can have a picture of your dog on the exterior as well.

[C]

Got it. Okay.

[E]

Yes. So because this kind of unique process where I need to get a bunch of data from them on what their bike looks like and the sizing, it has this back and forth that doesn't allow people to just hop on the website, order something because they saw it and they're excited about it. Yes.

[C]

And so it is almost about. Do you have a series of emails that goes back to them once they've hit a certain stage in the process saying how excited they are. So normally when you're, you know, when you go into a website and it tells you you're at step one of step six. Right. Do you have email follow ups for people who are sort of at step one, but they haven't continued to say, hey, you're almost there, you only have a few steps left. Here's where you are.

[E]

We only have one. That's the, like you requested the card and then here's the getting started steps type of thing. But I like the idea of two weeks after that just a check in type of one or more integrated too long.

[D]

Okay, perfect.

[C]

Perfect. Yeah. So three days later you're going to send them another email and say, hey, did you get your card yet? I mean, maybe they haven't got their card yet, but you still need to be like in their inbox. Right. If they don't want to hear from you, they're going to delete you. And that's okay. But you got to be there and you have to keep the momentum going yourself. Don't be too polite. People are getting constantly barraged with emails, and if you think, oh, I'm going to be polite, I'm not going to send this for another two weeks, they might have bought a bag by then. Right. From somebody else. So you need to say how excited you are to be making this bag for them. And you've sent out the card. And as soon as they receive their card, please, you know, scan. Do you have a QR code on that card?

[E]

I do, yeah.

[C]

Okay, so they scan the QR code and then they take the picture and then it lands them somewhere. That makes the next step really easy.

[A]

Yes.

[E]

So it sends them a link and then they can design the bag over that photo.

[C]

And how many choices for designing the bag are there?

[E]

So they can do the shape and then there's a couple toggles for features, you know, various types of zippers, that type of thing, and then the like print for the fabric.

[C]

And do you find that people drop there or just at the beginning?

[E]

Anecdotally, I think that you get a lot of people in that decision paralysis where they want to. I gave them so many tools that they can optimize this thing perfectly. And because of that, they sit on it for a couple weeks.

[C]

They can't figure it out. Yes. Okay, so Dan Ariely, fabulous behavioral science guru, would say that if someone was ordering a pizza, you would start with giving them 10 toppings and let them remove them rather than asking them to add them. So you want to actually start with, here's the bag that most people buy. Take them to a page where you got a fully loaded bag and they just have to upload a picture or choose a color. And if they want to remove certain things, they can. But you make them do one thing, don't make them do 10. Right. It shouldn't be that many clicks. Assume they want the very best one and tell them this is the one that everybody else buys. Everybody wants to do what other people are doing because they think it's right. And so they will very likely find it easier to just do what everybody else is doing, and you need to make it easier for them. And then if they need to upload a photo. Right. Do you happen to know the average age of your customer?

[E]

I don't. I would fathom it's in the 20s, early 30s.

[C]

Okay. So they know how to upload photos. Right. If you have an older customer, they don't know how to upload photos. So you also have to make it easy for Those customers who may not be so tech savvy but might have a little bit more money. But if they're in their 20s and 30s, you're good. And can I ask a question? Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

[E]

A question on the pricing. So I do it starts at the 149 and then you have price adders for various waterproofing or various little features that you can put in there. Should I. I've been thinking about doing the like one click purchase type of thing automatically sets it up. Which approach there do you think? You know, one builds the cost up in a way that people are like recognizing the value of the item they're adding maybe. Or should I just jump to the. This is five additional features on there.

[C]

I would show three bags. I would show small, medium and large. Right. Very often people feel more responsible if they just go for the medium. They feel cheap if they go for the small, they feel superior if they go for the large. It's really crazy, but these things are very true. So start with something that's one click. I think it is about reducing the complication in terms of what should they choose. And you could even say like X people chose this one today. X people chose this one today or this one's the bestseller. And you see all of these when you go to websites. You see all the times that people sort of guiding people towards what the best selling one is because people will think that if a lot of other people did it, it must be the right thing to do. It's just how the human brain works. And then get your follow up emails in order so that you are communicating with those customers regular. They were excited about that bag. You know, it's a great thing and it's really practical for them. Don't let them forget.

[F]

Right.

[C]

And just don't feel shy about following up and sending those emails because if you don't, somebody else is going to get them.

[B]

That's great advice. Yeah, great advice.

[A]

Jack Boland.

[B]

The brand is called Wampy Bikes. Thanks so much for calling in.

[A]

Good luck.

[E]

Thank you so much. This has been so helpful and wonderful to meet the two of you.

[C]

So thanks Jack.

[A]

Thank you, Marcia.

[B]

Great, great advice.

[C]

My God, I just loved this. I loved it.

[A]

Super helpful, very practical.

[C]

I'm practical for sure.

[B]

And also thank you for helping me out while I'm getting through this, recovering from being sick all week. Marcy, before I let you go, you know something, I ask every guest who comes onto the advice line which is

[A]

what would you, you know, now that

[B]

you have all of this experience.

[A]

What would you if you could go

[B]

back to you when you started out, you know, New York, giving facials and then bliss. What advice do you have now that would have been helpful for you back then?

[C]

Oh, so much. There is a mountain of advice and I'm giving it to people all the time. It's a very different time, of course, and we didn't have the Internet to get feedback on. I think that's a real gift to new entrepreneurs today because you can put your thing out there and just get straight, immediate feedback from people and listen to it and use it as a tool. So I was very hands on in my businesses and we had to take quite a few cannonball fires before bullets where you had to take some big risks. I think taking small risks and learning without betting the farm is a great piece of advice for anybody who's a young startup founder who is working on their own and working on a limited budget.

[B]

That's great advice. That's Marcia Kilgore, serial entrepreneur and founder of Beauty Pie. Marcia, thanks so much.

[C]

Stay alive, guy, no matter what cold occurs.

[A]

And by the way, if you haven't

[B]

heard Marcia's original How I Built this episode, you've got to go back and check it out. You will find a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.

[C]

I treated myself to a facial after an economics exam and I had saved 40 or $50 to go to this place that was supposed to be the be all and end all of facials. And I remember walking into that place and the esthetician looked through the lamp at my skin and she actually went, what a pity. And I thought to myself, this is not a treat. And I left feeling so horrendous. And I remember just seeing my reflection and my face was kind of raw and blotchy and thinking if I ever had a place like that, I would never make my customers feel bad about themselves.

[A]

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. It's been about nine months since this episode aired, so we checked in with Victor, Lydia and Jack to see how their businesses are doing. Victor is in the process of opening a new brick and mortar location, and Lydia has added mini versions of her product to encourage more sampling. As for Jack, he started working with bike groups to design custom bike bags for their organizations. And thank you to all the callers who participated in the advice line. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice [e-mail] or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carla Estevez

[B]

with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.

[A]

It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Sina Lofredo. Our production staff also includes Chris masini, Alex Chung, J.C. howard, Casey Herrmann, Sam Paulson, Kerry Thompson, Kathryn Cipher, John Isabella, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.