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- [00:00]
A
This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. I am here today with my husband and co founder, Greg Lavecchia.
- [00:18]
B
Good morning, wife.
- [00:19]
A
Good morning. Today we are talking about how we built Bloom, our entrepreneurial journey from the beginning. So if you're listening and you have starting a business on your vision board for 2025, if you're thinking about how you want to get started, really like the actual steps in starting a online business, obviously we have physical products now, but we have, we've really been through such an evolution with our business and started from PDF guides to resistance bands to supplements. So we have had a lot of experience with starting companies. So I wanted to bring Greg on today to talk to you guys about how we did it and give you guys some tips and tricks and inspiration to start your own company.
- [01:04]
B
Yeah, I'm super excited about this. I'm diehard entrepreneur, I would say. There's two points every year that I try to click a little reset. One is January 1st, the second is my birthday. So I'll just write, like, I'll write in my personal notes on my phone, what does Greg in 2025 look like? What does Greg at 30 year olds. 30, 30 years old looks like. And then I'll kind of just like create my goals that way.
- [01:28]
A
Yeah.
- [01:29]
B
And I'll kind of like imagine like, well, he's going to wake up on time. Well, he's going to start this business. Well, he's going to start creating content. So that's what I'm doing to prepare for January. And actually on our list, I think we have a business that we want to start. So, so, so kind of, perhaps I'll listen to this. Coming to prepare for 2025.
- [01:45]
A
So I feel like let's talk about our story from the beginning because I do feel like people know of Bloom as this, like, large company now. Everyone's kind of seen it, but we started very scrappy, very small. And I want to talk about that because I really think I want people to understand that you don't need to have this massive crazy business idea and start huge to have a successful business. So if you guys haven't heard my personal fitness journey, my transformation story, I would recommend listening to that because it will give good context about how our business started. But basically, in 2017, I lost 90 pounds from a really dark place in my life, fell in love with health and fitness, nutrition. Greg was a huge part of my journey. He taught me how to weightlift, he taught me how to eat properly. And together we kind of, like had this passion for a year straight. And Greg's always been into fitness, but it was around November of 2017 that I first started posting on social media. I posted a before and after photo that really, like, took everyone by storm. I guess. Like, it really took off more than I had anticipated and got a lot of attention on social media, Instagram specifically. And I know things have changed, guys. So 2017 was very much an Instagram era. People were YouTube vlogging. TikTok wasn't around yet. So we were organically getting a lot of requests for products. And these products were, okay, what's your workout plan? What's your nutrition guide? So the very first product we made was a PDF.
- [03:21]
B
Yeah, I think Mari was creating this content that was delivering such a special message to the community that you were growing. And we realized, just by demand that there was something to monetize here. And so everyone was saying, I need workout guides. I need to understand how to, you know, transform my life physically, how you did. And that started with a workout guide that started with nutrition guides. And so we started to create instant download PDFs that we were able to deliver, slash, sell to people in the direct messages of Instagram. It was incredibly inefficient. It was just Mario and I.
- [03:54]
A
So just for context, that meant we were on our phones all day messaging people. If they wanted the guide, we would email it to them. They would PayPal us. Like, everything was manual.
- [04:04]
B
It was so silly. We had keyboards for our iPhones because you couldn't, like, get Instagram on a computer at that point, I think. And so if we were doing our DMS and our thumbs were just at that point, like, getting swollen because we were just typing all day. So we literally had. I had keyboards for our iPhones.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah. And just for context, also, the PDF guide was something. We went to Barnes and Noble, typed it up, like, very simple, wasn't anything crazy, wasn't beautifully designed. It was literally just a very well thought out workout plan. And we put a lot of energy into it, but it wasn't like professional looking.
- [04:35]
B
And it definitely did not cost us a single dollar other than our time.
- [04:39]
A
Yes. No overhead. We didn't have any employees. We literally just went to Barnes and Noble. So, like, anyone could do that.
- [04:45]
B
And. And. And we're both, like, kind of control freaks. So the idea of, like, bringing in a software to bring efficiency to our business was like. But what do you mean? Like, currently this is fine. Like it's taking a lot of. We didn' couldn't even like fathom bringing efficiency to this system. So to be honest, it was, it was a, it was a painful first step to bring that efficiency into our system because we were just scared of it. But oh my gosh, was it eye opening once we pulled the trigger?
- [05:10]
A
So our first website, we were like, okay, we need to figure out how to make a website. We want it to be easy. We had no idea what we were doing. So we found Shopify and we made our first ever website which was Marieasy Fitness.com and Shopify made it really simple because you can design everything yourself. They have templates like it was just a, for people who have no idea what they're doing. User friendly. And I'd seen, I mean some of the most successful businesses of the time were on Shopify. So we were like, okay, this has to be a good platform. And it ended up changing our lives. So that was our first website. We had our PDF guides on there and we just kept adding to it. That's the nice thing. We started with one PDF guide and then we just kept adding more and more and more until we had our first ever physical product.
- [05:55]
B
And you know when like you buy a product online and you get an email instantly Shopify has that ready to go. Like, you know when like you, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to put a label on a product and ship it to somebody. If you have a physical product, Shopify has that ready to go. You just click print and you get like a $20 printer on, on, you know, some website and, and like it has everything there that you need to operate a, a business where you're selling items whether they're digital or physical. And we don't know how to develop, we don't know how to like create a website. Right. It's all like click, click and drag. Is that the term? Yeah.
- [06:27]
A
They have built in tools that you can use. And it's also what I like about it is that you could be the smallest business ever and have one PDF guide that you're selling or you could have a business the size of bloom with 15 different SKUs. You know, like Kylie Cosmetics is on Shopify. It could, you could be any range of size of business. You could have zero employees, 100 employees, it really doesn't matter. It's just the perfect starting point to scale. So from there we kept selling our guides and they were selling pretty well. And we decided we Wanted to make our first physical product, which was a big leap for us. We'd never done that before. And I wanted to make a resistance band. Resistance bands were, like, all the rage back then. Everyone was doing glute workouts, but all of them were rubber and they would roll up your legs and, like, grab your skin. It was just not a good vibe. So I wanted to make a fabric resistance band because there were not many of them out at that point. So we called around a bunch of manufacturers. I rem none of them took us seriously. Then we finally found one. Still remember that guy. Like, I feel like you worked really closely with him. I sketched out a logo for Mari. Was it Mari Fitness or Mari Easy Fitness on the band? I thought it was Mari Fitness.
- [07:37]
B
It was Mari Fitness. The website was mariisyfitness.com which is still live. I'm curious what happens if you type that in?
- [07:42]
A
It takes you to the strength app, which is my new. Basically the app version of those workout guides, which is, like, really funny because it's such an evolution from the beginning.
- [07:51]
B
To now, which we still use Shopify to link you to our app.
- [07:55]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [07:55]
B
All of our businesses are, to date, ran through Shopify.
- [07:59]
A
So these resistance bands we manufactured, I think the first order was like 900 bands. Because we were like, let's just see if people like them. We had them shipped to my dad's.
- [08:10]
B
House, which may not sound like that in St. Anthony. I don't know what 900 sounds like to people listening, but it was the most boxes I have ever seen at somebody's doorstep.
- [08:18]
A
Yeah.
- [08:19]
B
You know, and like, they were heavy boxes. They were coming from overseas. So they had just literally gone through, like, a journey on a sailboat. And they showed up at our doorstep, you know, after a month of waiting for them, we didn't have, like an easy tracking code. They just showed up one day and it was like 15 plus large boxes.
- [08:36]
A
But it's just funny now because we order, like, I don't even know what inventory we order for greens now. 40,000 bottles at a go or something.
- [08:43]
B
Yeah, I mean, millions. Like. Well, we just made 40 million energy drinks in January.
- [08:48]
A
Wow.
- [08:49]
B
Yeah.
- [08:49]
A
Isn't that.
- [08:50]
B
You were just. You were just at the warehouse. I guess. Like, you just can't even fathom what you're looking at. Like, it's such a weird to put a number to what you're looking at is very odd.
- [08:57]
A
So we went from 900 resistance bands feeling like a lot to how many million?
- [09:02]
B
Yeah, I mean, 40 million energy drinks for January. Yeah.
- [09:06]
A
Anyway, so we decided to hand pack and ship 900 of these resistance bands ourselves. I wrote a note in every single package. It was like a whole. You know what's funny? How did we know, like when we were doing the website, like did we say 900 inventory or did you know to say like 850?
- [09:24]
B
We had sizes. I'm pretty sure from the jump we had sizes and potentially two different colors.
- [09:31]
A
Small, medium, large. Yeah.
- [09:32]
B
And so we, we learned what a skew was really. We learned what. And like you would keep track of all of the inventory on Shopify.
- [09:39]
A
So I would say the resistance bands were a really good taste of like what was to come for Bloom. So after we hand packed and shipped the bands, we figured out that we needed a warehouse. So basically we needed to find some somewhere that would pack and ship everything for us. Do you remember about that process? You probably remember better than me.
- [09:56]
B
Yeah. We had. We assumed we would have to get our own warehouse and go rent a building. But all of these, there's so many entrepreneurs at this point, especially in the United States where there's services such as third party owned warehouses. It's called a3PL that can handle all of this for you. So you send it to that quote three plus, you know, third party logistics center and they will handle everything and they will literally tap right into your Shopify and they will plug in and get all of the. They will receive all of the orders and send it out and a lot of times within 24 hours. And then the tracking number automatically gets sent from an email to the customer's email and or to the customer's inbox. And they can now track their order.
- [10:38]
A
Yeah.
- [10:38]
B
And like, you know, just to rewind a little bit, the reason we chose a fitness guide, the reason we chose resistance bands is obviously that was very on brand for what Mario was up to. But let's say you're a chef. Let's say you're making sourdough ballerina farms. Sure. Like what's, what's some simple inexpensive products that you could get going if you were a chef or like a, you know, what other hobbies can we just kind of give some examples of?
- [10:59]
A
Notebooks, bikinis. I see a lot of girls doing that.
- [11:03]
B
So yeah, if I was a chef, I would make utensils. I wouldn't even go right into like advanced pans. I would just make like wooden cooking utensils. Right. And then you could just sell those on your website.
- [11:13]
A
That's what Ballerina Farms does. She has sourdough knives. She has spatulas, she has dried sourdough, starter. She does other bigger things too. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's on Shopify, but I love. I love her stuff.
- [11:24]
B
So just. Just starting with inexpensive on brand, Made with love, designed with love products. Like, you don't need to go right into creating like an advanced formulation of a supplement. Start small.
- [11:35]
A
Yeah. Start.
- [11:36]
B
Only order 15 of them. Only order 200 of them. You don't need to even order 900. Start with a small number and just see where it goes. And create. Create a system that's keep you motivated. So if you sell out, hell yeah.
- [11:47]
A
Yeah. And make a big deal about the.
- [11:49]
B
Sellout, that's for sure. Publicly make a big deal about it.
- [11:51]
A
I have to say, social media was such a big part of this for us, and I don't want to leave that out because I think building a community online, whether you are more comfortable with Tik Tok or Instagram or YouTube or whatever it may be, continuously posting, involving people in what you're doing, showing them the creation of labels. Like, I was documenting every moment, like when I was at the library working on things or when I was, you know, coming up with fabrics or what color do you guys like the best? What do you think of this logo? Like, I was so diligent about posting and my community was growing very, very quickly, and I think that was a huge reason for, you know, I mean, the resistance band sold out in the first couple hours that we had posted them. And that would not have happened had.
- [12:39]
B
We not generated previous demand through content.
- [12:42]
A
Yeah. And I had people that trusted me, were interested in what I was doing, felt like they were a part of everything. Like, you want to include your community so they feel invested in what you're doing. I'm sure you guys have seen on social media, when you see someone's story come up or post come up and it says promoted, and it's either like an influencer talking about a product or maybe it's a brand, or you can just tell it's a paid thing. Back in those days, no one was doing that, really. Like, there were ads sprinkled around, but no one was promoting their own stuff. And Greg, coming from a marketing. Were you even coming from a marketing background at school or do you just think that way?
- [13:22]
B
I guess in theory, that was my major.
- [13:24]
A
I just feel like your brain works that way. And Greg was like, oh, we got to put. We got to put paid marketing behind your content, because people are really reacting well to your content. It's Making them want to purchase things from the business. If I put paid marketing behind your posts, I can get it in front of more people who haven't seen you yet, and therefore our business will keep growing. So Greg was focused on that. I was focused on the content and the products and making things look great and be great.
- [13:52]
B
Yeah. I can give some little tidbits on what we did early on that I think is still very unique. And I would suggest people do now. Where entrepreneurs do now is instead of running ads to go, quote, buy our product, we ran ads with all the extra money that we were able to keep as profit from our products that said, go follow Mari. And so our whole KPI or like our key performance indicator KPI, I don't know. The thing that we cared about most with everything that we did was just continuing to grow this community and share this really special message that Mari was sharing. So when Mari was creating content about. So every ad was just going towards, go follow Mari, join this community. And then later on, if somebody wanted to convert, fantastic. But what's so cool about running ads, especially on all of the platforms like Meta, which is just Facebook and Instagram, or TikTok or Snapchat, is you can say, like, I only want to show this to women in the United States, men in the United States, women in Florida, women who like cooking. You can get very specific about who you want to show those ads to. So instead of a normal Instagram influencer who just relies on, let's say, the Instagram algorithm to show that content to people who care about it, you might be getting your content shared with, not necessarily the perfect person who would want to buy your product, but because we were running targeted ads to women in categories of demographics that we knew would be interested in your community and in monetizable communities. Right. So we wouldn't show it to anybody outside the United States. At that point. We couldn't ship outside of the United States. We wouldn't show it to men because we knew men didn't really want Mars pink booty bands just to, you know, as simple examples. Maybe they did. I used them. But so I think using these ads to your example, but using to your. To your. To your advantage, but using them in a way to grow your community and grow your following should always be the first thing you're thinking about instead of running, you know, what you would call performance marketing to just sell more of your products.
- [15:50]
A
Yeah.
- [15:50]
B
Community is the most valuable thing that you could grow.
- [15:52]
A
I mean, even so, if you know, that's how we started in the early days. If you look at my following now and my demo now, I mean, it's been, what, 95% women, 97% women the entire time. And that was incredibly helpful when launching Bloom. Like, my community really reflects what we were doing. And I feel like it's. I mean, a lot of people talk about, with influencers now, like, the quality of followers. You know, like, you'll see someone with tons of followers, but they're not people who are very engaged customers.
- [16:24]
B
Like, you know, I. If I'm sharing a lot of pictures of my butt, for example, Right. I might not be getting the type of people that I would want to sell cooking utensils to, which is why I've stopped showing pictures of my butt on my Instagram.
- [16:37]
A
Just to clarify, Greg's never done that. That has never been a thing. But, like, it's such a good point. Like, I remember when I lived in L. A and I would hear girls talking about their following, and they'd be like, they have all these followers, but.
- [16:48]
B
No one buys anything when they post about it.
- [16:51]
A
To have to have a community that relates to you, that feels like a real community, that is a loyal following that engages on your content, that buys things, you need to put out consistent, quality content. You need to put out products that make sense for you and that community. And also, you can't buy followers. And, like, I just get.
- [17:15]
B
There's no. There's no like, like skipping the steps to this.
- [17:18]
A
Right. There's no. You got.
- [17:20]
B
It's quality over quantity. And I think that if. If in the name of entrepreneurship is fulfillment to the person who is the entrepreneur, you will find this process potentially a little bit slower, but far more fulfilling.
- [17:32]
A
Like, I'd rather have less followers.
- [17:34]
B
Yeah.
- [17:35]
A
And have them be people who genuinely are interested in my content and would potentially buy my products. Because if you're trying to build a business, at the end of the day, you need people who are going to buy your stuff and engage in your stuff. I'm thinking about Taylor right now building her new cooking business. And she already has. Forget the number she told me, but she has a great. A great number of people following her email list because they're interested in cooking and recipes. And even though her following isn't ginormous, all you need is a certain amount of people to get started and be engaged in what you're doing. You know what I mean? So. So in 2018, we started sampling for Bloom Nutrition. And as you guys know, Bloom Nutrition is now our whole life and has grown Far more than we anticipated. But the reason we started Bloom is very simply, I wanted supplements for me. And I felt like when I would come home with supplements and show Greg and I would have all this, like, masculine, kind of really intense, like pre workouts or proteins, and he would look at the ingredients and be like, no, you're not. You're not using this. Like, this is crazy. And nothing really felt like it was meant for me or my community at that point. Like, they were all like, okay, Mario, what supplements do you take? Like, what? What do you use? And I was like, I really can't find anything that's good. And Greg, I remember we were in the kitchen in Scarsdale in my dad's house, and you were like, let's do it ourselves. Like, let's make our own supplement company. And I was like, oh, my God, you're crazy. How are we ever going to do that? Like, I feel like in our relationship, I'm definitely the creative. Like, I like coming up with the business name, the colors, the branding, the vision, the content around it. Like, that's my thing. But I was truly very intimidated by it. And Greg is like a big risk taker, like, why not? Type of vibe. And I also feel like you probably had always wanted to do a supplement company.
- [19:30]
B
Always.
- [19:31]
A
Like, you made a fake one in high school, right?
- [19:33]
B
This all makes sense. I'll say that.
- [19:34]
A
You just really needed it. You needed a face.
- [19:36]
B
I needed a face. I saw you in Greek life in college and I was like, she's the one. She's going to make me that supplement company.
- [19:44]
A
Oh, that's why that's really concerning for our marriage. That's how you viewed me. So started sampling in 2018 and everyone's like, oh, my God. Well, how did you start a supplement company? Like, where did you guys go? Did you make it yourselves? Like, how does that even work? So we started researching and guys like, Google is a really great search engine.
- [20:05]
B
Like, it's pretty great.
- [20:06]
A
It's pretty great. So you can just search supplement manufacturers near me. And that's what we started doing. We wanted somewhere that was nearby so we could visit and make sure it was great. Third party tested, sourcing good ingredients, reputable, worked with other great brands. And we found a manufacturer on Long Island. We went and visited them and we were like, here's what we want to do. We want good formulas that taste good. The first product I wanted was a pre workout. So we spent 2018 sampling, figuring out what flavors we wanted to do from there, creating a new shopify bloom new.com to host our new supplements. And I started working on product photography. I got a light box. I was shooting with my camera in the light box for the website photography. Building out an Instagram and everything was.
- [20:58]
B
Was a pre made template that Shopify provided us.
- [21:02]
A
Right. And I was like inserting the photography I was taking. I was doing product descriptions.
- [21:08]
B
So you don't need to be like, where do I put add to cart? Like it shows you.
- [21:11]
A
I feel like we did pretty good. I feel like we had different sections of our website. Like, we got pretty far without having a website person on our team.
- [21:19]
B
If you feel like you can remotely run an Instagram profile, you can run.
- [21:24]
A
A website with Shopify. You can obviously link products directly on Instagram. So wherever you're promoting, you pull your Shopify link, you promote directly to the products. We did everything ourselves, customer service, labels, the whole thing. And then we were like, okay, I think we should launch January. Because New Year's has always been a huge time for our business. We were like, okay, let's full send it in January. And I do feel like. And leading up to that, I was posting myself drinking the pre workout. Even though I wasn't saying what it was, people were asking me questions. I was teasing it. It's so funny because I feel like all of these launch strategies are quite commonly known now and everyone does them, but at the time we were just sort of guessing. We were like, let's just make it seem a p. We just, I don't know, we just kind of figured it out. So I'm like drinking it in my YouTube videos. I'm sharing behind the scenes of me shooting it. I was doing a lot of boomerangs back then. Me shooting things in the light box, like, whatever. I remember we did a photo shoot on our porch in Colorado because we lived in Colorado at the time with our three pre workouts stacked in front of us in a triangle. It was pink grapefruit, green apple pina colada.
- [22:34]
B
And why would we do a grapefruit flavor?
- [22:36]
A
I have no idea. That was so crazy.
- [22:38]
B
But we were like, that's what people want. People want grapefruit.
- [22:41]
A
I feel like it sold well.
- [22:43]
B
I don't know.
- [22:43]
A
Whatever.
- [22:44]
B
It doesn't exist anymore. I know that.
- [22:46]
A
Yeah, but like, guys, it was so scrappy. Like, maybe we'll try and find a picture of the labels. And we look so.
- [22:53]
B
It's hung up in our headquarters in la.
- [22:55]
A
We look so young in that photo. But we launched and we were like introducing our new supplement company, Bloom Subs and, like, tagged it on Instagram, the Instagram page I had made myself. I remember I did a little post for each flavor and the ingredients and the L theanine and the ginseng and everything was. That was in there. And it did really well, I feel. I don't know how many units we got. I don't know, but it, like, I think it's sold out. I mean, our goal, we ordered the.
- [23:20]
B
Smallest amount the manufacturer would let us order.
- [23:23]
A
I know that minimum order quantity.
- [23:25]
B
There you go.
- [23:25]
A
Yeah. So if you start a business and.
- [23:28]
B
You want to, don't be afraid to ask the manufacturer, what's the least amount I can order.
- [23:32]
A
Yeah. Say, what is my minimum order quantity? Because if you're just getting started and you want to see, okay, how much of this do I need to order? Start with the minimum amount. It sold out quickly. We were like, okay, we need another order of it. And I remember it took us a really long time to restock because we didn't anticipate how long everything would take. Anyway, we just kept building it from there. From there. We wanted to make EAAs and essential amino acids. We did whey protein with collagen in it, I think.
- [23:58]
B
I mean, I feel like some of these products would still kick ass today. Like, the EAAs, we don't have that anymore. But, like, it had coconut powder in it, like for electrolytes to drink during your workout. With the eaas. Yeah, we had a collagen whey combination.
- [24:10]
A
That product was bad because I was obsessed with collagen.
- [24:13]
B
Yeah.
- [24:13]
A
And it was, like, basically anything I wanted, we made.
- [24:16]
B
Yeah.
- [24:16]
A
And, you know, we had used all of the capital we raised from. I hate using that term. All the money we made from selling guides and resistance bands, we put into bloom. So everything we were making, we were putting back in. And that's what allowed us to keep going and going and going. And no, we didn't have an office. We didn't have tons of employees. So we were keeping things very scrappy for a long time. And, yeah, we just kept scaling. And Shopify was really our main point.
- [24:46]
B
I mean, it was our only point of sale for two years.
- [24:48]
A
It was our only point of sale. And it was fantastic because it was such a good way of. I mean, I'm sure on your end, collecting, like, analytics and data. Where are people shopping from? What's the age range? I remember every time we would launch a new product, I would. We'd have the Shopify pulled up. And there's a feature on Shopify called the Live view. And it was the most exciting part of a launch because you'd sit there, I would announce the launch on my Instagram, and we would just watch the amount of people on the website, and every time we launched, it would be more and more people. So, like, I remember the first time we got 200 people at a time, and then it was 500 people and it was 800, then it was 1500, then it was 2000, and then quickly it was 10,000. And I'm watching all these dots around the US because you can see where people are shopping. Like, we had a big map and I could see like, it's all these dots and lines of people checking out and they all pop up. And I would film it on my Instagram. Not the number, not the revenue, but I would film the map and just show how many people are on the website. And I would be like, oh, my gosh, thank you guys so much for the support. This is amazing. And it would create this sense of urgency because people could see everyone shopping and they wanted to get on the website. And it was just a really exciting time for us. And we'd sit in front of the computer together. And I have so many memories. I mean, if you scroll Back to like 2019 in my phone, it's just Shopify screenshots constantly. Because we were so excited about everything happening and, you know, we were expanding our business so quickly. We would see how much inventory we had left and, okay, what do we need more of? And still very much doing things in a scrappy way, but like, really, really learning a lot. And I think that the beautiful thing with Shopify is you are so. It's so easy to learn about the back end of everything. Even if you're not a numbers person or a business person, it makes it very simple to see, okay, what's selling more. Like, I wanted to see what the best selling flavor was. Like, what could I be talking more?
- [26:42]
B
What's your top state?
- [26:43]
A
Yeah, what's our top state? Like, it gives you a really good sense of, like, what's going on. And although you're not like, in a physical shop, you're. It kind of feels like you are. Like you're seeing people come in and buy things and it's just this surreal feeling. So at this point, we were scaling quite quickly and starting to hire people for customer service and. But very slowly. And I would say advice on hiring for your first team member is, what are you the worst at? Like, what should you not be doing? And for us, that was customer Service.
- [27:13]
B
Yeah. Just what's an inefficient use of your.
- [27:14]
A
Time and what do you really excel at? And focus on that. So right before COVID we decided to launch Greens, and this was something that I really wanted myself. You guys probably know the story. I really wanted, like, fruits, veggies, things I could take in one scoop because I didn't really like eating my vegetables day to day. So I was like, how can we make it fun and yummy? And we sampled for a long time for the greens because it's like, there's tons of amazing things in there with all the fruits and veggies, and there's like. I think there's like, broccoli powder and spirulina, and it's difficult to make that taste good. So took a long time, finally got it right, and we launched it right before COVID which was kind of crazy timing because people really started to care about their immune system and wellness.
- [28:03]
B
Yeah, that was probably our, not counting flavors, probably like our fifth or sixth product, but very quickly became our number one seller. And for a while there, we were, like, 95 of our revenue was from this greens powder.
- [28:16]
A
And were we doing influencer marketing at this point?
- [28:19]
B
Probably not until 2020. Yeah, not until 2020 was. So for well over a year, it was just you.
- [28:26]
A
Yeah. So launching Greens, talking about it a lot on social media. The pandemic hits. Pandemic was a really big time for us, I feel like, because we, yes, we had launched our first quote, unquote, wellness product rather than a gym product, but we needed to pretty quickly pivot everything we were doing. So, like, you know, I'm doing at home workouts instead of gym workouts. I'm starting to show baking. Like, it was just a time that wellness was really exploding, and I needed to reflect that in my content, and we needed to start thinking about that in our products as well. And I feel like Covid was a time where it either, like, made or it would make or break your business, basically, and you needed to act accordingly. And we were very much. I think we were panicking a little bit, and we were like, let's. Let's go all in on wellness right now. And I think it also matched up with my journey and what I was starting to care about.
- [29:20]
B
Yeah, I think it just, like, reflected something that we deal with a lot, which is like, you can't control everything, so just control what you can. Really. Well, yeah. And so, you know, you can continue to have a great product. You can continue to speak to your consumer you can continue to create as much great content as you can. What you couldn't control was obviously the, the outside world. And so we just tried to listen to the feedback as much as we could about what people wanted to see. And what's really nice too is sometimes the feedback that you're getting. For example, on the comment section once you do grow, that following or that community is not actually what people want. So, for example, we would receive tons of comments asking for a vegan protein, which I guess went against sort of our original ethos, because it's not even like you wanted a vegan protein, but the consumers we thought did based off of the comment section. And so I don't know if we've come up with this term, but we call it the loud minority. Sometimes there's groups of people on social media who will leave comments about what they want, but they do not represent actually a large quantity of people. They are just loud and so.
- [30:24]
A
But we tested that out.
- [30:25]
B
Yes. And so we've tested things out. Like, I mean, we're seeing a lot of success, success stories here, but there's been many times where we're like, look at all these comments asking for this product. Let's order a ton of this product. Once we formulate something and then we launch it. And like, nothing sounds cells, right?
- [30:39]
A
So like, for example, seeing all the vegan protein comments and really wanting to honor the request and okay, like, let's give it a go. Like we want to have an option for them putting it out there and it just not moving. And it's funny because I, I was someone that took way religiously back then and I think everyone would see that and know that I wasn't taking it. And so it wasn't really moving and it wasn't really like, like necessarily authentic to our brand. I'm still glad we tried it because now we know. But it is, I think there's like a balance with listening to online requests. I love listening to feedback. I think it's so important to be in touch with your community. I think social media really allows you to do that and have a really good sense of what's going on. But we did find that, like, you still need to be so strong and confident in what you know is true for yourself and your brand.
- [31:35]
B
Like, and actions speak louder than words. So like, if someone is buying a product but you see comments that they don't like, it probably should keep that comment and vice versa if they're not buying it, but they're like, you're seeing Comments that they love.
- [31:46]
A
Product, you mean?
- [31:46]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, just make sure you're, you're reading some of the statistics and basing your decisions off of that just as much as you're basing decisions off of community feedback.
- [31:55]
A
Right. As. And as we said before, Shopify makes that so unbelievably easy to see what's moving, what isn't and having discussions around that and just like it really is the best place for data. And obviously now we sell on other.
- [32:10]
B
Channels, but which has brought so much complexity to bloom as a business that when I speak to people who are still 100 on Shopify, I like, you're so jealous. I'm so jealous. I know. I try not to be jealous of things, but like the grass, it's not even that. The grass is always greener because I know what that grass looks like. That grass was great. It was the best grass. Now our grass is lumpy and there's wet spots and you don't want to walk on it. And like, because it's so messy with everywhere that we sell products.
- [32:38]
A
Yeah.
- [32:38]
B
That, like when I talk to someone who still has a business, a business that's only on Shopify, I am truly jealous.
- [32:44]
A
Yeah. Because it really is the best. You have the most information about your customer. It makes it really easy. Like it's just a, it's a good place to go from. And I remember when we first started pitching other retailers and stuff, they were like very excited about our information from Shopify.
- [33:00]
B
And you know what's the greatest is if you can create a product that has a subscription. If you can create a subscription product. So like, for example, our strength app is obviously a subscription based app, but there's also supplements that people subscribe to. Like a lot of we, A lot of people are subscribed to our greens powder, of course, but. And to our energy drinks now. But if you can create a business that's like based around growing a subscription with Shopify will completely handle for you. Oh my gosh. It's just like the best because like you, you have this commitment from your customer every month and you can create a guess of like how much inventory you're going to need every month, how much money you're going to make every month. So. So if you can, if you haven't started yet or if you can make a pivot with your business and base it around a subscription model, please take the time and do it.
- [33:41]
A
I also just want to say Greg does a lot of mentorship calls and has a lot of People asking him for advice. Me too, but, like, more so you. And I think people get excited about the big retailers or some of the other sales channels because they think that, like, oh, the big businesses are on all of these places. I need to do that too. My biggest recommendation for when you get started is just start on Shopify in one place, build the social media. Like, keep it simple, have all the data because it will help you later on simplicity scales.
- [34:12]
B
The only reason we've had to grow the Bloom team so large is because of the complexity that we've brought in with different sales channels. I know businesses the size of Bloom that are only on Shopify and have 15 team members. It's insane. It is incredible how large you can scale something and keep it simple when you only have one channel like that, that.
- [34:29]
A
There's a business on TikTok these girls run called Strawberry Milk Mob, I want to say. And it's this, like, really cute bikini brand. And I'm pretty sure they're only on Shopify and they are, like, making waves with this really cute bikini brand. And they're like, these young Girls are like 20 years old or something. So, like, when I spoke at Harvard recently and the girls were asking advice, I kept thinking about these brands that are just exploding from Tick Tock and these girls filming in the office every day and showing their boxes being shipped out and the. Their Shopify website and the whole thing. So it's just really cool to see these young people, like, just making their passions into a business. Like, you can really do anything.
- [35:10]
B
I'm of the belief that social media and. And platforms like Shopify, in a few years, when we see, like a max exodus of university applications and, you know, traditional cubicle employment, we're going to see that because of how easy it is now.
- [35:28]
A
Yeah.
- [35:28]
B
To become that entrepreneur, content creator. Monetizing yourself.
- [35:32]
A
Totally. Like these people on Tick Tock with passions that. I mean, people are selling, like, candy and like, doing these amazing things, like, based on their hobbies or knitting or maybe they're obsessed with hosting dinner parties, so they put out a dinner party guidebook or whatever it may be.
- [35:49]
B
You know, it's massive. Quilting.
- [35:50]
A
Really?
- [35:51]
B
Oh, quilting's huge.
- [35:52]
A
Wow.
- [35:53]
B
Yeah.
- [35:53]
A
Slay.
- [35:54]
B
In fact, I think if it's probably an older demographic selling to older people, that's another boat we missed. You're too young.
- [36:02]
A
You can't be on every boat.
- [36:03]
B
No, you can't be on every. You can't be on every boat. But if you're running Facebook ads to old people, Supposedly it's like hysterically efficient.
- [36:09]
A
Well, yeah, I feel like they're very loyal.
- [36:13]
B
Yeah. And it's like you're like literally running them on Facebook and that. You know what I mean? And it's a QVC ad, you know, and like you would turn TV on when you were a kid at night it was like these like 1, 800 number.
- [36:24]
A
I mean, you know, QVC is basically back with TikTok Live Shop.
- [36:27]
B
The model of QVC is Tick Tock Shop. That's funny. Yeah, yeah. Tick Tock Live. Yeah.
- [36:31]
A
So what would you say for someone who is ready to start a business, but maybe they have like a regular job right now?
- [36:37]
B
You had a regular job. Mario's working 4am Morning shift at a gym, front desk. When we started Mari Fitness.
- [36:45]
A
Yeah.
- [36:47]
B
And yeah, I mean you got to keep the lights on, you got to pay the bills, you gotta put food on the table.
- [36:51]
A
Yeah.
- [36:51]
B
The chef gotta eat.
- [36:52]
A
I think it's so easy to accomplish a side hustle nowadays. I'm not saying it's easy. Actually, it probably isn't easy. But there's a time simple, there's a time and a place for that hustle. Right. And I was at the point in my life where I was down to hustle and I would leave the gym, post on my social work on this, be building our website on the side. I mean, investing time into something like this is in the. I mean it changed our life. Right. Like we wouldn't be sitting here right now if we didn't go all in on that and put time into that. So I do think, you know, pushing yourself during this era of your life, if you really want to be a business owner and you want to be your own boss and you're an entrepreneur and you're so passionate about it, like put everything you can into it and find, you know, every free moment. I mean, I didn't have friends at that point. Like I didn't actively try to have a social life because I knew that pouring everything into this business, into my self development into fitness would lead to somewhere good. And it did. So, yeah, just a little inspiration for anyone listening who really is ready to start their own business at this point in their life.
- [37:58]
B
I couldn't agree more. We didn't have an end goal in mind by any means. We still don't. We just constantly execute fun ideas that we have. And again, some of them totally fall on their face. But you don't need to say I have the goal of growing a business this size or creating this, this, this this empire of a business. You can just say, I want to sell spatulas on my Instagram page. And that's really cool in itself. And again, I think it just all goes back to creating your own control around the fulfillment that you're receiving from some of the activities that you're putting in. And so we've always kind of been short term thinkers and quick strikers.
- [38:35]
A
I hope this episode was helpful for you guys. I really want to hear some of the business ideas you guys are having. Like comment down below, like let us know what you're thinking. I really want to hear. I mean, honestly, DM Greg, he would love to hear about it and give you guys advice. I just offered you up. Sorry.
- [38:50]
B
Please do.
- [38:51]
A
And yeah, I loved filming this episode with you. Thank you so much.
- [38:54]
B
Mari's going to invest in five businesses.
- [38:58]
A
I. I honestly would. I honestly would. Like we can talk about that. Maybe we will take some like live calls on the podcast and figure out who has a good business plan. We can call it PO Tank.
- [39:08]
B
That'd be crazy, no? Yeah. The Pursuit Tank.
- [39:11]
A
The Pursuit Tank. Pow Tank. Guys, if you are ready to start your entrepreneurial journey, head to shopify.commari and see how easy it is to bring your idea to life. Whether it is a side hustle or a dream business, there is no better time to start than now. That is my favorite quote of all time. Start now. There is no perfect time. No one's going to give you permission. Do it now. Stop talking about it. This episode was sponsored by Shopify. Thank you so much Shopify, for partnering with us. Seriously, dream partnership. So organic for us. Shopify changed our lives. I cannot emphasize that. Enough would not be here right now without Shopify. Greg, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [39:50]
B
This was great.
- [39:59]
A
Thank you for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast to support this show. Please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites@marilewellyn.com it will be linked in the show notes. This podcast is a Pursuit Network production brought to you by Michaela Phillips, Joel Contartese, Daviel Waldner, Jen Lauren and Mackenzie Meisel. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube YouTube channel at Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Love you POW girls and power boys. I will see you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.