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Limited Supply
S11 E2: The Low Down on DTC Data, Deals, and Discounts (with Isaac Medeiros, Founder at Kanpai Foods)
00:37:06
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to season 11 of limited supply, a place for hot takes on what it's really like building and scaling consumer brands. I'm your host, Nick Sharma. Let's get into today's episode. As a brand, you know that you're spending hard earned dollars driving traffic to your site. The problem is 98% of that traffic is anonymous and you don't know who they are. And once they leave, it's hard to find them again. There's a new tool that helps you identify these visitors and get in front of them. It's called Instant Inst. Instant gives you another chance to convert these shoppers into buyers using their retention marketing platform. You can use their platform to send two to three times more site abandonment emails, which you already know generates meaningful revenue and build audiences to retarget on meta. Double your abandoned flow revenue and increase your roas with Instant. Go to Instant One Podcast to learn more. That's Instant One Podcast. All right, this is a last minute switch up on the episode here, but you, you texted me this morning that you're. I. I don't even know what you're doing here in New York.
- [01:07]
B
I came to mooch your office like I can.
- [01:09]
A
Specifically, I got a text from Isaac. Isaac started Mini Katana. Did you start anything before Mini Katana?
- [01:16]
B
No.
- [01:16]
A
Okay, Mini Katana. And then now Kanpai Foods, which I'm grateful to be an investor in. And yeah, he was just in New York and came to work by the office. I always invite people to come to the office if they're nearby. And then I said, hey, want to record a podcast? And I had an idea which was, we're gonna basically come up with a few ideas, maybe five ideas each, and we'll see how many we can get through. Uh, but things that we wish existed in our ecosystem. You especially with being more into retail lately, me obviously, on the digital side and just thinking through like, you know, you've launched two brands now. We work with a ton of brands and so what are things that we wish existed either for brands or for. For us to use with brands that would, you know, I think be businesses that should exist or products that should exist. So anything you want to add before we dive in?
- [02:17]
B
No, but maybe we should start with TikTok.
- [02:20]
A
Oh yeah, what are your thoughts on that? How many views do you currently pull on TikTok?
- [02:24]
B
Not many. 10 million month through 50.
- [02:27]
A
And where do you normally pull views?
- [02:30]
B
So we're very YouTube centric. The Mini Katana posts like a billion views a month on YouTube.
- [02:36]
A
Wow.
- [02:37]
B
But yeah, man, we kind of divested from TikTok two years ago because, Yeah.
- [02:42]
A
I remember you said that.
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B
I mean, like, I think any brand who's savvy saw this coming. And if you look at history, like.
- [02:51]
A
What were the early times or early signs to see this coming.
- [02:55]
B
So I think if you look at like the geopolitical tensions, like, they keep getting hotter and hotter. So as a general, you could say, like, I am bearish on any China based business, period. And that's a good, that's a good viewpoint to how I think right now. But it was really Trump, like for his first presidency where he tried to ban TikTok.
- [03:15]
A
Yeah.
- [03:15]
B
That was the first kind of, hey, this is like really not a good idea to be super invested in here.
- [03:20]
A
Right? Yeah. I mean, what do you think is going to happen? Last time? I think Oracle almost bought it. No.
- [03:27]
B
Yeah, but I think it's real.
- [03:29]
A
Yeah. Like it's gone for good.
- [03:31]
B
Yeah. I mean, look, you have really bad geopolitical tensions and Tick tock is basically brain slop disguised as a giant psyop. Or a psyop disguised as a giant brain slob.
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A
Right.
- [03:46]
B
Like, that's kind of the, Imagine during the Cold War if the Soviet Union bought like Fox News.
- [03:53]
A
Yeah.
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B
And it was like, you know what? We like communism.
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A
Right.
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B
It's awesome. Like, that's inconceivable.
- [03:59]
A
Right.
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B
So why is it conceivable that we're in a new Cold War and we're letting them own a giant media company in the U.S. yeah. Aren't they?
- [04:06]
A
Yeah, it's a fair point. I mean, I think the, the argument to have servers in whatever country, it's like how cannabis, you can't ship cannabis across state lines has to be grown and sold in the same state. They should have that for servers. That should be a global rule that every company should, should have. Well, I think, I guess most of the big companies also come from here.
- [04:29]
B
Yeah. I mean, but privacy is a giant issue in general.
- [04:31]
A
Yeah.
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B
You know, I, I, I will say I really hate this is happening. I will miss TikTok. I'm here today because.
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A
Do you use TikTok shop a lot with Kanpai?
- [04:40]
B
No, no, no. We launched on TikTok shop for Kanpai, but we, we pivoted to retail.
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A
I see.
- [04:45]
B
Early on.
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A
Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, do you want to go first with your idea?
- [04:51]
B
Yeah, I wrote down five ideas here.
- [04:54]
A
Okay.
- [04:55]
B
So the biggest issue I've run to run into of compai and for context, we, it's a brand I launched in 2024. We launched into Target that same year. So it's, it's scaling really fast.
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A
And what is it?
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B
It's. We sell freeze dried candy, but we've been releasing skus that are not freeze dried recently. So it's just a viral candy company.
- [05:13]
A
Nice. And I feel like after you came to market is when like Skittles decided to come out with their version of freeze dried.
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B
Yeah. They launched their version of freeze dried Skittles.
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A
Yeah.
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B
November.
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A
Which is hilarious because it was definitely driven by the hundreds of millions of views you've accumulated.
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B
I think it's driven by the, like, it's a new category for them.
- [05:34]
A
Yeah, for sure.
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B
You know, I, it was like scary when they launched because I. A big company is coming into your market, you're like, is it going to affect me? And it's actually done the opposite. They're pouring a lot of money into it and it legitimizes the brand.
- [05:48]
A
Right. Yeah. I think I saw a tweet of yours that said you're moving more velocity too.
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B
Yeah. After Mars was launched.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I was like, whoa.
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A
Yeah, that's cool. That's epic. Yeah.
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B
Ride tailwinds. That's the lesson.
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A
Yeah, totally. What is it? It's like. Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, with one of these big conglomerates that come into the space, it just validates the space. And they spend so much money on all the awareness too.
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B
Yeah. And I think also like front of the consumers, like my biggest issue in a new category is 99% of people don't know what it is.
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A
Right.
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B
So any level of awareness helps me by virtue.
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A
Right.
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B
Like it doesn't matter who produces it.
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A
Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, tell me your idea.
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B
So attribution for retail, for media spend, there's like, no, no one does this in a meaningful way. And I've tried finding like a good platform and I've asked other founders and I can't, like, no one has an answer. So specifically, like, how does metal spend impact your velocities and target? I know that's very hard to measure, but I'm surprised no one has like data in the back end to see how that, you know, performs.
- [07:00]
A
Yeah. I feel like there's, I mean there's really the only thing you could do is like an incrementality study, but that is also more directional and not like specific to your day to day reporting.
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B
Yeah. I mean in DDC you have all these platforms like triple whale.
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A
Yeah. Triple north beam.
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B
North beam. It's Just nothing exists for retail brands that are multichannel.
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A
What? Yeah, I mean I feel like. Yeah. And the biggest issue is always around like getting the data back from the retailers. And what I'm sure like you've gone into these conversations and asked them about data. Like what's their response usually?
- [07:39]
B
Yeah. So they don't. They. I mean we can pull weekly reports. It's not real time. A lot of people will pull like data from spends or other large data brokers to see their competitors.
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A
Right.
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B
To get a benchmark. I feel like there's probably a tool that could use a combination of data brokerage services and being digitally savvy to kind of compare the two and contrast.
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A
Right.
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B
I'm just surprised nothing exists.
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A
Yeah. Is, is the data you get across different retailers, is that formatted? Is that format streamlined? Like is there a universal format?
- [08:17]
B
Yeah, I mean we, we pull reports. We get one report every month. I'm really cheap. So I basically asked our Target broker to send it every month to us. And yeah, it's like I say 40k a year, so.
- [08:29]
A
Nice.
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B
Sweet. But yeah, it gives me a summary of all retailers and all brands and all retailers and then Target got it.
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A
Okay. Sick. Yeah. I mean what would need to happen for that to exist? Basically the stores would need to be cool with somebody getting that data.
- [08:49]
B
Well, data brokers are getting it somehow.
- [08:51]
A
Yeah, that's true, I guess. Like how does spins get it? They always call it just scanner data. I don't know how they get that data.
- [08:57]
B
Somebody told me that card companies like Amex.
- [09:01]
A
Yeah.
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B
They sell there, sell on the back end.
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A
But then you can't, you still can't get individual item level data that way.
- [09:08]
B
I think you get brand level.
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A
Right.
- [09:10]
B
So I'm not sure the details, but it's just really shock. This is like a billion dollar opportunity.
- [09:14]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [09:15]
B
Right. So it's just really shocks me that nobody has done it. The DDC opportunity for that is like smaller. Like what's the outcome size for a north beam? It's in the nine figures probably.
- [09:25]
A
Right, Right.
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B
But for retail that since that has so much more gmv, you're looking at billions, right?
- [09:30]
A
Yeah, totally. It ties closely to one of my ideas I had, which is a landing page that you can optimize toward, which has the ability for you to run performance marketing ads to it. The kicker is going back to what we were just saying, you would have to be able to get that sell through data from the retailer. So for example, if you're working with Target and you use this Tool. And you're driving, you know, Facebook ads to this page, which is like a landing page. But then, you know, let somebody find the nearest target to them, you know, within seven or 14, 21 or 30 days you could see, you know, does somebody end up going to Target and, and purchasing that product?
- [10:11]
B
I think the theme here is there's just this giant disparaging disparage between retailer data and like getting access to it and using it for things. Like every retailer is really secretive about it.
- [10:22]
A
Yeah.
- [10:22]
B
You know, this idea is really good. It could be as simple as all the people who didn't convert. Whenever you have run promo in store, boom, they get notified.
- [10:30]
A
Right.
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B
And it pushes them to trial at promo. Because that's a really big part of growing a brand. You're trying to drive repeat through promo.
- [10:36]
A
Right. Have you used the novel wallet pass at all? No, they I think can do that. Like when you walk into a Target you get a notification that says, you know, welcome to Target compais on sale.
- [10:51]
B
That's badass. It just tracks your location on the phone.
- [10:53]
A
Yeah. Because it lives in your Apple wallet. So if you walk into a geofence of targets that they have saved, then it'll just put a push notification down.
- [11:03]
B
What I always worry about when it comes to these apps is the type of user on them. Because a lot of these apps are like deal hunters.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And you're not always trying to get that kind of consumer.
- [11:11]
A
No, totally.
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B
Because that consumer only repeats on promo.
- [11:15]
A
Yeah. Well the way that this, this one works is it's not like you go find a coupon site. This would be like you have to send it to the user. So you have to basically get opt in first or you can essentially qualify the user.
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B
I'll check it out.
- [11:29]
A
Yeah, it's worth checking out.
- [11:30]
B
That's cool.
- [11:31]
A
Okay, you want to go with the next one?
- [11:33]
B
Yeah. So I haven't found this but guerrilla sampling at scale and there's agencies that do this. And what I mean by guerrilla sampling is we have a cybertruck, we wrapped it of wrap for our brand. We go out in front of targets without permission and we sample. Why? Because you can't really sample at Target unless you use their in house agency called Advantage.
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A
Right.
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B
And you're going to get some random kid that's like texting on their phone, not even really working the table. So there's a lot of retailers like that where you can't properly sample but they're not going to kick you out if you're like in the parking Lot in front of the store.
- [12:07]
A
Right.
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B
Doing sampling. And it has almost the same outcome. People go into the store and buy your candy because you just sampled it.
- [12:13]
A
Yeah.
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B
So that's something I looked for where you could pay a service or an agency or whatever to do this kind of gorilla sampling in front of every target nationwide at scale.
- [12:22]
A
Yeah. How would you. How would you want to pay for that?
- [12:27]
B
I think like hourly. Right. Because that's usually how it works. You get some person in front of the table, two people maybe, and pay them hourly to do sampling.
- [12:37]
A
Yeah. 100. Is this something you guys are building out?
- [12:40]
B
No, no. If. I think if we had a lot of money, we'd buy a few cyber trucks and go crazy. Like, you know, the Red Bull.
- [12:46]
A
Yeah.
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B
With the free Red Bull.
- [12:48]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [12:49]
B
I think the. Like, that works really well for them.
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A
Right.
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B
It's ingrained in everyone's psyche in America.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So crazy assembly campaigns with scale do work.
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A
I agree. Yeah. Like the same beverage cans and hands.
- [13:03]
B
Cans in hand or sips to lips, crunch to mouth. Candy.
- [13:10]
A
Candy to. I don't know. Okay. Another idea I had was, have you ever heard of Contentful or Salsify?
- [13:22]
B
It sounds familiar.
- [13:23]
A
Okay. From my understanding, both these platforms basically centralize the information across different, like e retailers or storefronts or, you know, if you. If you. Let's say you have kanpi across, you know, 40 different countries and each one has a different site. You can use Contentful as, like, you update everything in Contentful and then it distributes across all.
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B
It's an aggregator.
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A
Yeah, it's kind of like, I guess, asset management platform or content. Yeah. And, you know, all of the. You know, one of the hardest things that people say is like, setting up TikTok shop. And like, it's so complex. And all the social shopping platforms have intricacies in their own way or things that make it complex. And I think somebody should create like a Salsify, but for all the social commerce platforms because, you know, when you have a new product in stock or a new sale you want to run, you know, it's much easier to just do it once and then that reflects everywhere versus, you know, now I got to go to Meta shops and add the Flash sale and then TikTok and then YouTube.
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B
I guess my pushback on that is any channel worth having is this channel that you'll focus on on your own.
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A
Yeah, no, totally. But if, like, you know, if you. If you've got a lean team that. That still sells well on different channels or you just have to update content. Or let's say you have a large catalog.
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B
That's. I think that would be a huge.
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A
Catalog, like Foot Locker. It'd be hard for them to update them all manually.
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B
I think that's the use case.
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A
Yeah. Maybe the catalog is the place to do that. Yeah. And. And then you could also syndicate things like product reviews too.
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B
So it'd be TikTok Shop, Amazon, Shopify. Is Facebook Shop still Facebook shops.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It feels like it's not a thing anymore.
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A
I know what he's talking about. I don't think it gets much traffic.
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B
But do you think that's coming back with the TikTok thing?
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A
Yeah. Well, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm sure Facebook is planning to make some huge moves.
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B
I feel like Facebook doesn't even have meta. Doesn't even have to do anything. Like they're just gonna immediately be the most benefiting from the ban.
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A
Yeah, they're gonna get a lot of traffic out of this.
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B
Yeah. I, I. Look, I think it's a good idea. It makes sense. Would it work across international channels too? There's like all these weird. Right, Like Timu, right?
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A
Yeah, I think so. I think the more you could, you know, I think it would probably start with the. The ones that are core here in the US but immediately I think you.
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B
Could Taobao, Temu, Shop.
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A
All of them.
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B
Shop is like huge in Thailand.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That's a good idea.
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A
Sick.
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B
My next idea is. And this, I got this from video. So there's a company called 11 Labs.
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A
Mm.
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B
You heard these guys.
- [16:20]
A
I feel like I have.
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B
So they can take your voice, you train it, give it to an AI. It trains the AI and then translates it into any language you want.
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A
Wow.
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B
And it's your voice. It sounds exactly like your voice, just a different language.
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A
Wow.
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B
No accent, none of that.
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A
Wow.
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B
We tested this internally and if you guys want to see it in use, check out our Spanish mini Katana channel. It has 6 million subscribers.
- [16:42]
A
Nice. Oh, 6 million.
- [16:43]
B
Yeah. Launched last year.
- [16:44]
A
What?
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B
Yeah. So we're syndicating the content across multiple languages. Right. For Kenny Brand, we're launching like 20 languages this year and we're front loading all this awareness into other markets because this is going to be a global company. But I noticed there's no company that specializes in doing this for ads. Like, what if you could have your entire infrastructure built on in the US for building meta ads and then you have a company that comes in, automatically translates it, and might even manage it in other marketplace markets? Like Europe, Brazil, et cetera.
- [17:21]
A
Yeah. So this would be almost like creative production specific to international markets for like multi language.
- [17:28]
B
So you wouldn't have to get like local influencers or creators. It could be the same creatives.
- [17:33]
A
Yeah. Oh, that's really cool. Would that need to be. I guess that would mainly be then like a. A software product. Right. You can basically just plug in. I mean, you could even do it where like you just plug in your ad account, it grabs the creative, changes the language and then launches the ad. Yep. Either internationally or to like a Spanish speaking market here.
- [17:57]
B
Yeah. I mean, there are so many barriers to entry into international markets. Logistics being the hardest, but this is the second hardest.
- [18:03]
A
Yeah.
- [18:04]
B
Is the creative how you understand the local dialect? Local language.
- [18:08]
A
Right.
- [18:08]
B
I can really help with that. I also think, and I'm going to steal the thunder here, this segues into my next idea, which is doing this, but for Shopify websites. We looked into translating our website a year ago. I couldn't find any good AI solutions and I think AI has come far enough for that.
- [18:24]
A
Yeah, agreed. I bet you could totally do that with AI.
- [18:27]
B
Yeah. And you can launch it across all the weird marketplaces and then plug in your content creator app.
- [18:34]
A
Yeah. I mean, Shop. Shopify is also so simple to edit that you wouldn't even have to lift the finger. The AI could probably edit all of the text on the site too.
- [18:47]
B
Yeah. And it could. You could just hit an approval button for each page.
- [18:50]
A
Right.
- [18:51]
B
You know, have somebody who might be able to read the language, translate it.
- [18:54]
A
Yeah. Or you could use AI to translate it again.
- [18:56]
B
Yeah.
- [18:57]
A
Well, there you go.
- [18:58]
B
I think what gets missed in translations is like context and jokes and puns and.
- [19:02]
A
Totally. But if the AI can make up for that, then you're chilling.
- [19:05]
B
Exactly. And it has come far enough. I mean, with this 11 labs thing. We've tested it. You know I speak Portuguese.
- [19:10]
A
Yeah.
- [19:11]
B
So I have it translated to Portuguese and it's like. It sounds like a Sao Paulo accent.
- [19:16]
A
Right.
- [19:17]
B
Speaking natively. It's like freaky.
- [19:19]
A
Yeah. And same voice.
- [19:21]
B
Same voice.
- [19:21]
A
Crazy. I got to check that out. Hundreds of merchants like Garrett, Popcorn, Heaven, Mayhem and Selfie Leslie are making six figures in incremental revenue through instance two supercharged retention marketing platform. It takes less than 60 minutes to go live and you see results within days. You most likely already send site abandonment emails, but because most of the traffic on your site is anonymous, you don't get to email 98% of those visitors. Instant gives you another chance to convert these visitors into buyers and send Two to three times more cart abandonment emails than you were before. Learn how you can double your abandoned flow revenue at Instant One podcast. That's Instant One slash podcast. So one. Okay, so this is a, an idea that came to mind as I was talking to somebody yesterday and the idea is I was talking to, do you.
- [20:17]
B
Know David Siegel, Shock my memory.
- [20:20]
A
He started Firebelly with Harley and David's tea.
- [20:23]
B
Yeah.
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A
Now he's the president of High Beam. And we were just talking about like.
- [20:25]
B
I didn't know he ran High Beam.
- [20:27]
A
Yeah, he just became the president there. We were talking about M and A activity and then I was thinking, you know, High Beam should build this product where it's like an M and a kind of like a junior M&A analyst or something where essentially you could plug in all the pipes from, you know, maybe it's like it connects into, you know, connects into Shopify, into Facebook, Klaviyo, all the main things, maybe even your ERP or you know, any sort of store sales data that you could upload. And it basically just runs an analysis. Like it looks through all the customer list, it can take that and run it through the TransUnion API to make sure they're legit customers, valid customers. It's not a bunch of fugazi. Basically it could run a true ltv, cac, profit inventory cost analysis, make sure everything is legit in what they're saying verbally or putting down and then essentially give you a light decision of like, yeah, this is looking like a good deal or no, it's not. Maybe if it leverages AI, you can put in what you plan to do.
- [21:32]
B
Or how it could help you plan too.
- [21:34]
A
Exactly, it could help you plan. In fact, that's one thing that they're already doing is inventory planning.
- [21:40]
B
So it's almost like you hire part time junior financial analyst to give you insights data and give you feedback.
- [21:47]
A
Yeah. And it basically understands how to interpret store sales data and customer customer data.
- [21:54]
B
Because those details matter. Like.
- [21:55]
A
Yeah, they hugely matter. And they're so hard to, you know, like who has time to go through and upload. You can't even get that permission to download and upload a customer.
- [22:04]
B
Like a retail brand looks great and then you look at the customer list and it's like the discount stores.
- [22:09]
A
Exactly.
- [22:09]
B
Like only discount stores. And you're like, this is not a great brand.
- [22:12]
A
Right, right, exactly.
- [22:14]
B
Yeah.
- [22:14]
A
So this could be a tool. You know, obviously you have to do a bunch of your own due diligence and like, you know, especially if it's a physical product. But this could be a good like preliminary way to get the first, you know, two meetings out of the way.
- [22:26]
B
And also to give a founder feedback.
- [22:29]
A
Yeah.
- [22:29]
B
Something even worth pursuing at this juncture.
- [22:31]
A
Exactly.
- [22:32]
B
Because I feel like the M and A markets are so close lipped.
- [22:35]
A
Yeah.
- [22:36]
B
In a way like there's not a lot of data about what. How do you know when your brand's ready for exit?
- [22:41]
A
Yeah. I mean even if you think about like where do you get information on this data? It's like you just have to ask bankers or know somebody. Yeah. Or know somebody.
- [22:51]
B
Yeah. It's all very tight. Tight lift.
- [22:53]
A
Yeah.
- [22:54]
B
Yeah. Do you want to do your fourth idea? Because I use two of my slots.
- [22:58]
A
No, go for it.
- [23:00]
B
My last idea is, and this is like probably the simplest one, you press a button and it turns on automated retail media campaigns and all the retailers you plug into Target, Walmart, Instacart. If you're on DoorDash. DoorDash.
- [23:17]
A
Right.
- [23:19]
B
A lot of we started spending on retail media, not large amounts, you know, a few hundred a day just to kind of drive more trial and get our feet wet. And it's, it's super easy. Like it's kind of like it's a no brainer. Right. And you have to like an AI could totally do it. Right. So I don't, I haven't found a tool that kind of just will do it automatically and give me one unified dashboard and report.
- [23:44]
A
Yeah, yeah. Basically like at Espresso but for retail media. And I think you can totally do all of the optimization on top. Like why couldn't you? I mean you've got to, it's got to be pretty easy to decide whether you allocate more dollars to Target today or Walmart or DoorDash. Yeah.
- [24:02]
B
I mean look, let's say you're running a promo on Target.
- [24:04]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [24:05]
B
You have like a 10% off, you know, circle members only TPC as it's called and you want to make sure you can spend $5,000 a day to really drive that promo up.
- [24:16]
A
Right.
- [24:18]
B
Yeah. Maybe you can see all your promos you're running in one dashboard and also spend across all your accounts. Like it's. I, I don't know why it doesn't exist. It seems like a very easy thing to build.
- [24:26]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I, I wonder why. Maybe, maybe those APIs are not readily available.
- [24:32]
B
Make it use AI. AI agents that read the screen. That's true. APIs are no longer a barrier to anything.
- [24:39]
A
Yeah, that's so true. Because you could Just run agents to do that. Yeah. Somebody should build that. Would you invest in that?
- [24:46]
B
Yeah, I'll drop an angel check.
- [24:48]
A
Sick. Okay. One idea. I had one idea, but I think it got created already. It was basically third party testing of all these supplements that exist. There's. I don't know if you've seen on Twitter, there's a woman named Val and she calls out brands like health and supplement brands.
- [25:06]
B
I followed her. I thought it was funny.
- [25:07]
A
Yes, hilarious. It was epic. So, you know, I was thinking there should be like a company that does third party lab testing. And then I was on the cure hydration website and they actually had a widget that said, you know, this is our third party lab test results. And it's a company that you basically, every time you have a new production batch, you send one or two bags there and it gets tested and your results get updated on your site.
- [25:30]
B
Have you ever seen on Twitter, did you see that guy who tested every single food brand, like large food brand for plastic?
- [25:37]
A
Yes.
- [25:37]
B
Yeah.
- [25:38]
A
And you made an iPhone app, right?
- [25:39]
B
Yeah, it should. It feels like there should be all these indexes.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah.
- [25:43]
B
I feel like people are really starting to care more and more about their health.
- [25:46]
A
Totally.
- [25:46]
B
Somehow Kampai has less plastic than, like, known, like, actual food brands.
- [25:51]
A
Really.
- [25:52]
B
And I think it's. I think what it is, is like a lot of brands will have something weird happen in their supply chain. Like maybe a manufacturer is like using plastic and heating it up somewhere and then like a ton of plastic sneaks in.
- [26:03]
A
Yeah.
- [26:03]
B
It could happen to anyone.
- [26:04]
A
Yeah, totally. Okay. I have one more or actually two more. Do you have any more?
- [26:11]
B
I. Let me check. I don't know why. No. Okay, so I only got five.
- [26:20]
A
One I have is. Is a better version of a customer referral software. So like, most referral platforms today are, you know, like, send five, get five, or like, you know, if I want to get you on a Jolie shower head, it's like, I have to go to the website, go find my unique URL and then send it to you. And then you have to click that URL and then go buy the product. And then once you buy it, I get $5 and you get $5.
- [26:47]
B
Yeah.
- [26:48]
A
Right. And it's like, it's such a shitty experience. It's not even worth $10 that we would collectively save.
- [26:54]
B
I feel like everyone values their time too much.
- [26:57]
A
Exactly.
- [26:58]
B
Like that used to work, though, back in the Uber day when they would give you massive referrals.
- [27:03]
A
Totally now. But what's interesting is, like, with Uber and also with Dropbox, which used to. Used to get free storage data, that's.
- [27:10]
B
Actually how they grew so big. So.
- [27:11]
A
Yeah. And. But the thing is, like, those integrations were so native to the experience. Right. It was like within the app that you're already using, there's an option to get free rides or get more data storage. And it's just like you click once and then you click text and you just text the link. You don't have to like, go find the link and do all that. And so I was thinking, you know, there's two things here. One is, I don't know if there's a way here, but to. To make a more consumer app feeling referral system that populates on the mobile site experience. But I don't know how possible that is. The other idea I had was like, you know, imagine if Jolie had a phone number, like iPhone number or I guess any kind of phone number where, you know, if I was hanging out with you and I was like, bro, you got to try this Jolie shower head. And, you know, I could just make a group chat with you and Jolie and be like, hey, Jolie, this is Isaac. He's one of my friends. You know, can you get him set up with a shower head and a discount?
- [28:10]
B
What if it's just as simple as a post checkout extension that you can share with a friend that gives them a credit?
- [28:16]
A
But that's still the same concept then as like the get5 give5 in terms of placement of where you're pulling the URL from. Right.
- [28:25]
B
But like, I think the thing that makes it so transactional is you're getting a credit for it though.
- [28:29]
A
Yeah.
- [28:30]
B
Like, if it's just like, bro, they just gave me 20, 20, $20 in credit for a friend. I'm just gonna send this to you. Yeah, it's a bro move. Like, what if you just consolidate it all and give it to your friend as a post checkout?
- [28:41]
A
Yes, totally. I think I. I agree. I mean, that would be way better if I was like, instead of me getting 10 bucks and you. 10 bucks, you know, you take the 20.
- [28:49]
B
Yeah. Screw it. I mean, you're going to do your homie a favor if it's a great.
- [28:52]
A
Exactly. I think it's actually more of a. You get more clout that way.
- [28:57]
B
Yeah. And you can also like, put it in your packaging too, so it arrives.
- [29:00]
A
It's like, you know, hellofresh, does that. Like, they have these little cards that are like $50 gift cards that come with your order. And you can just hand them out to people.
- [29:08]
B
Yeah, I've got one of those actually. I think that's why my fiance signed up.
- [29:12]
A
Really? She got one?
- [29:13]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:14]
A
So that works nice.
- [29:15]
B
But yeah, making that into a SaaS would make sense.
- [29:18]
A
Yeah. I feel like the group chat referral content the same way you'd intro somebody, you know, if you were like, you should meet this person, you know, that.
- [29:25]
B
Kind of like, kind of sidebar. Remember Groupon?
- [29:28]
A
Yeah.
- [29:29]
B
Yeah, it kind of fell off. What if, like somebody made a new Groupon that worked like Venmo? Like everyone would just pull money together for a thing and then everyone got a discount off that thing for bulk buying.
- [29:41]
A
What's an example?
- [29:42]
B
Like, let's say, you know, we all want to get, I don't know, like a hellofresh subscription because just mentioned them. And if I pull together 10 friends.
- [29:51]
A
Yeah.
- [29:52]
B
I get. We all get 30% off, like for a full year.
- [29:55]
A
Oh, I see what you're saying.
- [29:56]
B
Yeah. So it's like a group buying.
- [29:58]
A
Interesting.
- [29:58]
B
Get a discount for the bulk.
- [30:00]
A
Yeah. Oh, that is.
- [30:02]
B
And it works more like a social app. Like.
- [30:03]
A
Right. It's like, how much would you save in CAC or in spending on to acquire these same customers?
- [30:08]
B
10 customers? 30%? Like 50 customers? 50%, yeah. Right. And it's like, because that was the Groupon concept, those group buying.
- [30:15]
A
Right.
- [30:15]
B
And in China, that's popular too. Like a lot of the E Com major ecom websites started out as a bulk buying thing, but Groupon kind of fell off because it was low tier, low quality, you know, stuff.
- [30:27]
A
Wow.
- [30:27]
B
So what if it's actually quality brands and you just get a massive discount as a group?
- [30:31]
A
Yeah, that's genius. Yeah, somebody should totally do that. You know, there's like, have you heard of that company Goodyear?
- [30:39]
B
No.
- [30:40]
A
Goody is like a platform. I think it's on goody.com and like you can basically, you know, if I want to do corporate gifting but didn't want to deal with like this year we bought a bunch of speakers, branded them and then shipped them out to clients. If I wanted to just gift everybody a parachute sheet set, I could just go to Goodie, fill out everybody's name and email, write a note and then it goes out to everybody and says, oh, you know, Nick has gifted you.
- [31:04]
B
This also makes corporate gifting easier.
- [31:06]
A
Super easy. But you know, they have the pipes into all these companies to be able to place orders and do, you know, they all have separate rates for buying different stuff.
- [31:15]
B
So I feel like commerce is A so old school commerce was a social experience. It's not as much anymore. But imagine pre ecom, you go out with the girls, you go shopping, you know, you bring your bros and you go like you go to line up in front of a store for shop. It used to be like a real social activity and I think E Comm has kind of removed a lot of that. Yeah, but people at their heart crave social activity. And you can make buying a social activity again.
- [31:41]
A
Yeah, I mean, group buying. I. That's a great idea.
- [31:46]
B
Imagine if we could buy, get like 5% off of Rolex if we bought this. Like bought it together.
- [31:50]
A
Yeah, there you go.
- [31:51]
B
Totally.
- [31:52]
A
That would crush. I mean, you know companies technically, if you were to reach out, like, they would probably all do it. If you reach out, reach out, you know, one by one or like I'm even thinking when I go to Apple and buy 10 laptops, I get a discount versus if I just buy one laptop top.
- [32:08]
B
Yeah, I mean they do it already.
- [32:09]
A
It's just about doing as one more.
- [32:12]
B
And most consumers don't even know this. We had a guy who runs like a martial arts dojo. He was like, I want to buy 10 swords and have it be your best quality. They're like a thousand bucks each. And we gave him 30% off.
- [32:24]
A
Yeah.
- [32:24]
B
You know, he just saved himself three grand.
- [32:26]
A
Right. That's awesome. I like that idea. My last idea is the concept of app clips. Are you familiar with app clips? We were talking about it for a second before.
- [32:36]
B
Oh, you mean the Nikita beer?
- [32:39]
A
Yes, similar to what he just did with Explode. I should have known that was him.
- [32:43]
B
You didn't know that was him?
- [32:44]
A
No, but I got one yesterday and I was like, this is so good. Yeah, let me explode out.
- [32:50]
B
Let me pull up a screenshot. Can the cameras. Can the camera see screenshots?
- [32:53]
A
The camera can see screenshots, yeah.
- [32:55]
B
Let me pull up a screenshot. So this is.
- [32:57]
A
Oh, move it back. There you go.
- [33:00]
B
Maybe you can zoom in. I don't know. But this is what explode looks like. And it will show this thing, thing in your home screen.
- [33:06]
A
You basically, you get a text message that says you have a new photo and it's about to explode. You open it, you view it. It's kind of like Snapchat basically, but Snapchat within imessage.
- [33:17]
B
Yeah, I don't think it's going to get very far.
- [33:19]
A
Really?
- [33:19]
B
Because I think Snapchat is just very sticky. Yeah, it's a great experience.
- [33:23]
A
Yeah, totally. But anyways, app clips allow you to Take one function of an app or one page of an app and, and not have you install something, but rather you can get just like here, you can get it texted to you and open the whole experience. Or a lot of times if you're, if you're at a restaurant and they use toast as their point of sale, they'll have the QR code at the bottom. You can scan it. It opens a beautiful, like, you know, bill experience. And then you can double click and pay with Apple Pay. And I'm just surprised more apps like don't use app clips or nobody's created the ability to create app clips on the fly. Like, I think, you know, I think building an app, a mobile app for your store can make sense for sure. But I think everybody could be using app clips.
- [34:09]
B
I think the mobile app store builders will probably release their own version after this episode.
- [34:15]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's been around for over a year. Like app clips came out, they were announced in 2023 and I thought we were going to see them last year, but nobody did. But like, imagine if you're getting a subscription to Kanpi, right? Your next subscription order is about to ship and you get a text and it's an app clip and it says, you know, choose your free sample that you want in your box this month.
- [34:33]
B
I mean, it's like anything else, though. So when I started Mini Katana, social commerce wasn't a thing. Yeah, There were like 10 brands doing it the way we were after TikTok shop came around and like there was actual awareness because TikTok wanted people to know about it.
- [34:46]
A
Right.
- [34:47]
B
There are thousands and thousands. So it's like anything else. If it's new, there's an arbitrage opportunity and nobody's going to know about it.
- [34:52]
A
That's true. Somebody should build the ability to make app clips on the fly for anything. For anything. Yeah. Okay. Those are all the ideas I had and we should probably do this again at some point.
- [35:08]
B
No.
- [35:08]
A
Down. Cool. Well, thanks for listening to this week's episode. I hope you have a good rest of your week and I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next time to cut through the noise on CPG retail and E commerce. If you enjoyed this episode, why not share it with a friend? And be sure to subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss the next one.