548: He Made $20M in a Year Selling Supplements | Caleb Marshall [VIDEO]

Summary

Episode Summary: He Made $20M in a Year Selling Supplements | Caleb Marshall

Podcast: The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Host: Foundr Media
Guest: Caleb Marshall, Founder of Tropeaka
Release Date: January 24, 2025

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1. Introduction

In Episode 548 of The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan, Caleb Marshall, the innovative founder of Tropeaka—a rapidly growing supplements brand—shares his compelling journey from battling chronic fatigue to building a multimillion-dollar business. The conversation delves into his entrepreneurial strategies, product development insights, marketing tactics, and the lessons learned along the way.

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2. Overcoming Personal Health Challenges

Caleb begins by recounting his battle with chronic fatigue syndrome between 2011 and 2014. Diagnosed with what he describes as "a doctor's polite way of saying, I've got no idea what's wrong with you" (00:00), Caleb experienced severe exhaustion, inflammation, and emotional turmoil, including suicidal thoughts. His turning point came in 2014 when he discovered functional and integrative medicine, which emphasized high-quality nutrition and lifestyle changes. He shares:

"If you cut out the crap from your diet and replace it with high quality nutrition, your life will change. And an absolute miracle occurred. Within two to three weeks, I was feeling like a brand new person." (00:00)

This personal transformation not only restored his health but also inspired the creation of Tropeaka.

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3. Founding Tropeaka: From Apartment to Multi-Million Dollar Brand

Caleb and his housemate, who became his co-founder, invested $60,000 each over two years (from 2014 to 2016) to launch Tropeaka. They started modestly from their apartment, experimenting with product formulations and packaging. Initially considering kombucha, they pivoted to organic superfoods and, eventually, plant-based proteins—identifying a larger market niche. Caleb reflects:

"We went from $0 to doing over $10 million bootstrapped in three years." (06:18)

Their first product, a plant-based protein that tasted significantly better than existing options, became the brand's hero product, setting Tropeaka apart in the saturated health food market.

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4. Product Development and Innovation

Choosing to focus on high-quality, great-tasting plant proteins allowed Tropeaka to stand out. Caleb notes:

"I didn't know any other company that had a plant protein that tasted great. They all tasted like crap back in the day and was branded really cool and something that someone would want to show off to their friends rather than something in a brown paper bag." (08:29)

This commitment to quality and appealing branding was pivotal in attracting early customers and influencers.

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5. Early Marketing Strategies: Influencer Marketing Success

With a zero-dollar marketing budget upon launch in 2016, Caleb and his co-founder turned to influencer marketing. By sending free products to social media influencers, they garnered significant free publicity. Caleb shares his excitement about their first sale:

"I still remember our first sale that came in and it was through an influencer...did you know you helped generate our first customer?" (10:02)

This strategy leveraged their high-quality product and strong branding to generate word-of-mouth buzz, propelling their growth from zero to over $10 million in three years.

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6. Scaling the Business: From Apartment to Facility

After nine months of operating from their apartment, Caleb and his team moved into their first warehouse and subsequently a larger facility. This transition led to a dramatic increase in sales:

"As soon as we got out of our apartment into our first warehouse and first food facility, sales skyrocketed." (12:00)

Their ability to maintain high product quality while scaling was crucial to their sustained growth.

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7. Navigating Challenges: Market Saturation and COVID-19 Impact

Caleb discusses the highly competitive nature of the supplements market and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. He admits a significant strategic mistake:

"One of our biggest mistakes in business was not going into retail early enough." (39:05)

The influx of new competitors during COVID-19 drove up advertising costs and made performance marketing more challenging. To counteract this, Tropeaka diversified into retail and export markets, ensuring resilience against market disruptions.

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8. Building a Strong Brand: Reputation and Customer Loyalty

Tropeaka's success is deeply rooted in its strong brand reputation and customer loyalty. Caleb emphasizes:

"Brand is everything. Brand is what separates you from your competition." (17:49)

With over 20,000 five-star reviews and a robust word-of-mouth strategy, Tropeaka has cultivated a loyal customer base. Their approach includes leveraging existing customers as influencers and creating seamless ambassador programs to encourage organic promotion.

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9. Current Marketing Focus: Performance Marketing and Creative Excellence

In recent times, Tropeaka has shifted focus towards performance marketing, recognizing the limitations of traditional influencer strategies. Caleb highlights the importance of creative content:

"Creative is the new targeting." (42:12)

With a six-figure monthly ad spend, Tropeaka produces around 40 different creative variants each month, balancing video and static content to engage diverse customer segments effectively.

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10. Future Plans: International Expansion and Continued Growth

Looking ahead, Caleb outlines Tropeaka's plans for international expansion, particularly into the US market by establishing a US3PL (third-party logistics) to enhance shipping efficiency:

"We're working on a US3PL...getting product on the ground will be really powerful for us in order to scale into 2025." (46:17)

The company's mission remains steadfast—to positively impact millions' health through high-quality supplements.

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11. Final Advice: Impact Over Profit and Authentic Entrepreneurship

Caleb concludes with heartfelt advice for aspiring entrepreneurs:

"Business is there to do good...make a genuine difference in this world." (48:03)

He encourages founders to focus on creating meaningful, high-quality products that positively impact consumers' lives rather than merely chasing profits.

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Conclusion

Caleb Marshall's journey with Tropeaka exemplifies resilience, innovation, and a commitment to quality. From overcoming personal health challenges to building a respected supplements brand, his story offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs aiming to create impactful and sustainable businesses. Nathan Chan wraps up the episode by commending Caleb's success and dedication, leaving listeners inspired to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams with purpose and integrity.

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Notable Quotes:

• Caleb Marshall (00:00): "If you cut out the crap from your diet and replace it with high quality nutrition, your life will change. And an absolute miracle occurred."

• Caleb Marshall (06:18): "We went from $0 to doing over $10 million bootstrapped in three years."

• Caleb Marshall (08:29): "I didn't know any other company that had a plant protein that tasted great...something that someone would want to show off to their friends."

• Caleb Marshall (10:02): "I still remember our first sale that came in and it was through an influencer."

• Caleb Marshall (17:49): "Brand is everything. Brand is what separates you from your competition."

• Caleb Marshall (42:12): "Creative is the new targeting."

• Caleb Marshall (46:17): "Our central mission...is to positively impact millions of people in their health."

• Caleb Marshall (48:03): "Business is there to do good...make a genuine difference in this world."

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This detailed summary encapsulates Caleb Marshall's insightful discussion on building Tropeaka, offering valuable takeaways for current and aspiring entrepreneurs in the health and wellness industry.

Transcript

[A]

I was chronically sick. Doctors labeled me with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a doctor's polite way of saying, I've got no idea what's wrong with you. Absolute exhaustion, inflammation throughout my whole body. Pain, couldn't run 50 meters without being dizzy. If you cut out the crap from your diet and replace it with high quality nutrition, your life will change. And an absolute miracle occurred. Within two to three weeks, I was feeling like a brand new person. We started out of our apartment, we brought the powders in and then we just filled them in two pouches. We went from $0 to doing over $10 million bootstrapped in three years. And then when we moved into our facility, sales skyrocketed. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder podcast with Nathan Chan.

[B]

We've got Caleb Marshall, founder of Tropeaka Incredible supplements brand. He's come down from Sydney, all the way from Sydney to do this interview. So Caleb, thank you so much for taking the time, man.

[A]

Thanks for having me, mate.

[B]

You're welcome. So let's start off with your story. You experienced chronic fatigue in 2011, and that's really what shaped this brand. Tell me exactly what happened.

[A]

Yeah, so it was a very horrible period in my life between 2011 and to 2014. For three and a half years I was chronically sick. Doctors labeled me with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a doctor's polite way of saying, I've got no idea what's wrong with you. And that's because it's an exclusionary illness. So they go down the list of different possible issues that you could have and then they get to the bottom, they say, what's not this, this, this and this. And they get to the bottom and they say, well, the only thing we have left is to label you with chronic fatigue syndrome. And what that looked like on a day to day basis was absolute exhaustion, inflammation throughout my whole body, pain. I couldn't run 50 meters without being dizzy with the physical pain. I had emotional pain, I was depressed, I had suicidal thoughts at times. And one of the worst things was a lack of hope because doctors didn't know what was wrong with me and when I'd be healthy again. And that led me on a path of self discovery of like, how do I, how do I heal myself? And in 2014, I found a thing called functional and integrative medicine. And they look at the underlying, they, they try to find the underlying root cause of why you're sick in the first place. And they also Say things like if you cut out the crap from your diet and replace it with high quality nutrition, as well as doing very other very important things like focusing on great sleep, stress reduction, exercise, drinking clean filtered water, all of that stuff. But for the, the biggest focus is cutting out the crap from your diet and replacing it with that high quality nutrition. They say your life will change around. Your body has the capacity to heal itself in, in the vast majority of cases. And I tried everything else and I'm like, yeah, I'll give it a go. And yeah, I did that. And an absolute miracle occurred. And within two to three weeks, I was feeling like a brand new person again. I'd reduce that inflammatory load on my body and I was feeling. And I wasn't getting those symptoms and I was starting, my body was starting to heal and my housemate at the time was going through his own health issues and high quality nutrition changed his life around as well. Now, on a side note, I learned through functional medicine the underlying root cause was long term antibiotic use for my skin as a teenager that I used, that I used because I had acne. And so those five years of antibiotics absolutely destroyed my gut. And, and with that, that's where your immune system is. And so my immune system was massively compromised. Anyway, through all of this journey, as we were trying to get healthy and were getting healthy, we'd go down to the health food store in 2014 and realize the only people going into a health food store at the time were old people and hippies. Like, no one was making health foods cool to anyone. Everything was in a brown paper bag. And one of the best strategies in business is finding old outdated industries and being like, how can you make this cool? How can you. Especially in the world of social media, where we realized like, okay, a fashion brand or an alcohol brand could make their products cool in 2014, but no one could make health foods cool. And social media is there as an outlet for people to express their values. And so we recognize that we're like, let's do it on an absolute bootstrap, shoestring kind of budget, barely any money. And so it took us two years to find the best product development experts to help us develop the best products. We obviously were consumers of the products, so we really knew what we loved and what we wanted to do as well. And then all the other things that come with growing a business and launching. And so in 2016, we finally launched and we had a zero dollar marketing budget. We put all our money into buying inventory and getting the Website up and running and all of that fun stuff. And so we're like, well what do we do? How do we sell this product? And so we, you know, I stumbled across a thing called influencer marketing. And, and it was if you send your products to people on social media, which was the thing that we were trying to endeavor in doing anyway, then hopefully they might promote the product for free. And we did that. And because we were the first in the industry to one, have an incredibly good product that was branded really well and the product did what it said it would do. So people had a great impact from it. We got so much free publicity because of it through these, these influences back then. And you know, I'm going much further than what your question said, but I might as well tell the full journey. Well, a lot of it. But in, in that time we, you know, we didn't need to spend money in order to grow the business. It was, it was an exceptionally great time to be kind of that first mover advantage around providing a product and a brand that people wanted to get behind and really enjoy taking.

[B]

Yeah, I see. So talk me through like obviously working on your gut health and eating high quality foods help change your life and your housemate's life. Like what was the first idea iteration of the product? Did you start with the hero product? I know, got some research here. You put in $60,000 to launch your business and get the first line of supplements. Like what? Talk me through the details.

[A]

Yeah, so my housemate became my co founder. I should probably mention that as well. So it was a really cool story there. And we ended up putting in $60,000 each over the course of that two year period. So we'd work 16 hour days. I was a tennis coach, I was getting healthy so I could work a lot. And I put all of my money over that two year period into, into launching the business. And so the funny thing is the first thing that we wanted to do in terms of product development was Kombucha. Before Kombucha was cool. I still remember like making my own Kombucha back in the day before it hit. I think around 2017 it became pretty trendy. So this is 2014. But we didn't have the money to start a kombucha brand.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, and buy, you know, the moqs and things along those lines. So we're like, well what else do we take? Well, we love organic superfoods and so we decided to start an organic superfood brand. And the funny thing that came out of that was we also, as an afterthought, just before launch, were like, oh, we should also. We take plant proteins. We should create a plant protein product as well. And that ended up being our hero product. It's. It's a much bigger niche, protein powders than organic superfoods. So thank God for that. And we essentially became the first company, at least in Australia, one of the first in the world. I didn't know any other company that had a plant protein that tasted great. They all tasted like crap back in the day and was branded really cool and something that someone would want to show off to their friends rather than something in a brown paper bag. So yeah, that was our first products.

[B]

Got you. So you launched with a plant protein, plant based protein in the superfoods. What happens with the superfoods?

[A]

Oh, they're still around.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And they're doing great. So they're in major retail and we export them all around the world. But I just, we went to our first, our first love was, oh, we take superfoods, you know, grains, powders, immune supporting powders, and acai powder, all organic. So that was kind of the. We're scratching our own itch. We're like, we want to be able to take these products as well.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And that's how it kind of came about. But then we're like, oh, we can also do a protein here. And we did take proteins and we're like, oh, we can make this protein taste a bit better than what we're taking at the moment. Through X, Y and Z. Yep.

[B]

Got you. So when it came to the launch, talk me through your first sale. Like, was it through influencer marketing? How much did it cost to launch? Right. You, you and your co founder put in $60,000 from what, 2016 to 2018, is that right?

[A]

Yeah. So 120,000 in total.

[B]

Yep. Okay. And that's just in Stock.

[A]

Sorry. From 2014 to 2016.

[B]

Okay. So 2014 to 2016, putting 60 grand each. And that was just in stock.

[A]

Website, the whole, the whole box and dice.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Us wasting money trying to do. Figure out what to do, you know, trying to answer the question of what, what do we not know that we. What do we don't know that we don't know?

[B]

Yep. Okay. And talk to me around. First batch of orders. What was moq? How many products did you launch with and how'd you get your first sale?

[A]

Yeah. So we started out of our apartment.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And we brought the powders in that were already completed. Powders. And then we just filled them into, into pouches.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so you don't know about how. Like the funny thing is we have the highest level of product quality and food safety at the moment. Where Tropeaka is with HACCP was HACCP certified, but we had none of that back in the day. But we always think like when you start out of your own apartment, in your own house, like your food quality and food safety, when it's just the two of you is the highest it'll ever be. It's like one, you live in the place, but two, it's the two founders doing whatever they can to make the product the best it possibly can from day one. So you. It was one of those stories where, yeah, we're starting out of our apartment but we were able to still produce high quality products that then we'd send to customers they didn't know that it was coming out of an apartment or they saw was, oh, this is fantastic and high quality. And so that's where we started in terms of our first sale. Yeah, I still remember our first sale that came in and it was through an influencer. I still remember our first influencer who posted, she posted a. Around our acai and our immunity product. And I think I caught, I met, I saw her at a trade an expo like a couple years ago, a few years ago. And I was like, did you know you helped generate our first customer? So I was like a special experience.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, there you go. And was like sales booming because you were early days influencer marketing or was it like talk me through that.

[A]

Yeah. So it took us nine months to get out of our apartment. So I don't know if you'd say that's booming. I mean it was booming for a company that was in an apartment. Yeah, yeah. So the trajectory of our business was we went from $0 to doing over $10 million bootstrapped in three years.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that period was booming. But I remember it was just the most perfect timing when as, as soon as we got out of our apartment into our first warehouse and first food facility, sales skyrocketed. Skyrocketed that next month. So it was. And then when we moved into our facility, the one before where we are now, sales skyrocketed. So there's been some really perfect, I suppose, divine timing and everything, which has been very special.

[B]

Yeah. And look, there's a lot of supplement brands, superfood brands out there. For anyone watching, what advice would you give to compete in this market today?

[A]

You really need to come up with something that's innovative. And when I say innovative, what I mean is that every week I see a new company in the health and wellness space come up and it's the same thing and it's like, do you not realize like what you're up against? Like company? There are so many companies doing what we do. They have the budgets that can just outcompete you with CPA, CPMs. They have the know how. They have the brand reputation and loyalty and following to crush you. Like it is so, so hard when it's a saturated market. The blessing with this market is it's a low barrier to entry. So we were able to get in in the early days back in 2016. But the issue with a low barrier to entry is every man and his dogs trying to create a protein and superfood company at the moment. So I'll give you some good examples to do it. There's a guy on, I can't remember his name, but there's a guy on Instagram and he was like the first to bring out CMOs and there was no CMOs like three years ago. And he's doing a great job and it's innovative. He's using his audience to promote a product that isn't saturated. He's bringing a really high quality product to market and that's awesome to see. Whereas. Whereas if you don't have that point of difference, you're just going to get flooded and saturated from competition. So always trying to think, okay, what's different about this? Why would a customer want to purchase off me as opposed to someone else? And then also being aware that first mover is great, but also first mover on the flip side is really tough. And an example of that is we are first movers in a thing called beauty custard, which is the world's first beauty powder. It's you, you mix it in with cold water and milk and it's, you can have a delicious dessert in one minute. And the issue with that is there's no other beauty custard on the planet. So it takes a whole lot of education, which costs a lot of money in order to teach people one why they should take it by this product and why they should use it in the first place. So although I say, okay, you got to come up with something innovative, you've also got to balance that off with what are your capabilities of educating an audience. That one you don't have because you're a new company to one, purchase the product, know that it's better to purchase off you than going and purchasing another health food product and then on top of that, how to actually use it in the first place.

[B]

So what would you say to somebody that's thinking of drop shipping, something like Shilajit? Well, is there a business in that?

[A]

Well, drop shipping is extremely hard. I've never done drop shipping, but I've listened to enough people who I look up to have said, like, drop shipping is tough. And I mean, I can see the value in drop shipping to test a market. And I can also see, okay, Shilajit is trending really hard on TikTok and it's a great quality product, especially if you get the tar.

[B]

So that thing's legit.

[A]

I was taking sheer legit four years ago.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Before anyone even knew about it. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But I mean, it's been used for thousands of years, so I'm not really that much of a first mover there. But yeah, it's, it's a legit product. It's a great product. But I could name a few companies already dominating that space. I was just at an expo a couple weeks ago and those sheer legit companies. So, yeah, again, you're going up against competition.

[B]

So if you want to, if, if anyone's watching, listening, or reading this and they want to create an incredible health and wellness brand in the supplement space, you need to create a brand. Right. And like, what. What has been key to Tropeaka in terms of brand building? Like, you started with a great product, you've got a great story, right? There's a story people remember. That's a story people resonate with. It's an amazing origin story and it really shows the strength of your products. But what else do people need from your perspective to create a brand that stands out in this market?

[A]

Well, brand is really just the reputation you hold. And you can hold reputation through a number of ways. We hold reputation by the fact that we have over 20,000 five star reviews. We hold reputation over the fact that you can put the product anywhere on your shelf at home or even cafes, do this, and show it off as a statement piece. We hold brand through the fact that people want to tell others about our products. And one of our biggest acquisition channels is word of mouth. So brand is everything. Brand is what separates you from your competition. But brand is not a thing unless you build something foundational behind the brand in order to give brand what it's meant to give. You can have a bad brand and you can have a good brand. And so the components of a good brand is all of those things that I just said.

[B]

What about association? Do you guys have any sponsored ambassadors? Like, I know that's a big thing. I can't remember that company. But there was that guy. He was a bit funny looking, but he was a real muscly kind of dude. And, and he had an old ambassador program for his line of, I guess powders and stuff. Forget now he's come and gone. But yeah, like do you have an ambassador program or do you do anything like that?

[A]

Yeah, we have, I mean we had, we still do have influencers and ambassadors. We were very, very dominant in the influencer marketing space between 2016 and 2020, up until Covid. And then everyone came in with dumb money, especially corporations and started throwing massive amounts at influencers. And then also the, the level of trust that influencers once held is, has been degrading for quite some time. But we focus a lot still on areas where trust is still relatively high, like micros and nanos and those with smaller audiences. And we do both in house and work with an external agency there as well in order to do that. But that's just one piece of our puzzle. Our main focus is performance marketing these days, but we try and encourage our customers to be our influencers. So again, like acquisition, word of mouth is one of our greatest acquisition channels. So the question is, how can we as a business help people tell other people about our products? And you know, there's a range of strategies from what everyone now does, but it was innovative back in the day many years ago which is, you know, give some sort of incentive for people posting on their account on social media for their next order. And yeah, there's different programs that you can use like Shopify, Collabs and whatnot that allow you to have a system in place to help people and create as little friction as possible to be an ambassador for your, your company.

[B]

Yeah. So if you were to start a brand today, would you start with performance or you'd start with influencer or what would you do to get traction? Assuming the product is great, I would start with performance.

[A]

Pay to play. Absolutely. I mean organic is so tough even for influencers. Like there's just a growing amount of, a growing amount of competition across content and it's going to exponentially scale in the next year and two years off the back of AI, even Mark Zuckerberg came out a couple of weeks ago and showed his video version of AI video content that people will have access to next year. AI is going to create scale that will be mind boggling and so the only way that you can guarantee getting eyeballs is through pay to Play, which is performance marketing. And I'm completely happy as a company figuring out, okay, what do I need to do in order to produce great creative that I can then send to millions of people in order to convince them to purchase my product. That does not mean that you shouldn't look at a whole bunch of different strategies, including influencer marketing and ambassadors, and you should have an ambassador program for your existing customers. But it's not the glory days of influencer marketing anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

[B]

Mm. Okay. So even with the emergence of TikTok, TikTok shop, you don't see you, you know, do you got. You guys would ship internationally, you guys on TikTok shop.

[A]

So, no, we're not. So that's a great point. And I was, funnily enough, and I should have spoke said this earlier, like, treat what I say as well with a grain of salt. Things change so quickly, right? And so I don't. I don't hold firmly to any beliefs. Like, it's. What is it? October 21, 2024. You could ask me this in December, and my opinion could completely change. And that's what's so important that you stay up ahead with the trends and know what you're doing. So at the moment, TikTok shop isn't available to Australians, but I'm going to be the first on TikTok shop when it's available. And yeah, utilizing creators to incentivize and provide a commission is a great idea. I mean, we do that already through Shopify collabs, and it has success. And also take what I say as a grain of salt because, like, our business is structured in a certain way. Like, I could be saying all of this stuff and I could just suck at influencer marketing these days. I could try TikTok shops and tell you that it's not good, and I could just suck at it. I see plenty of accounts that say, hey, I made $100,000 last month on TikTok shops. Now, are they telling the truth? Maybe not. Maybe they are. And I think the only way for you to get a definitive answer as a founder is you need to dig deep into things, test and see if it works for your business. And that's the other thing. Everyone sells different products. So you need to have an answer that applies to your company, not someone else's company, including mine.

[B]

Yeah, no, I agree. One of my mentors once said to me, this thing around situational Stage advice, right? Like, it was early days, founder, and I was like, oh, man. Like, do you think I should just be responding to every comment on Instagram? Because, like, that's what Gary Vee does. That's what Gary Vee says to do, right? And he's like, Nathan, you got millions of followers on Instagram for founder Gary Vee has millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars in salary that he can afford to pay people. So he has the time to do that. He's like, you don't. Right? And that's where you have to be really, really careful when you listen to a podcast like this, because people can just take something. It's like, that's the gospel, that's the truth. That's how it works. At the end of the day, every single channel works. It just depends on your execution. Do you agree with that?

[A]

So true, so true. And who are your employees within your business and what are their strengths? That's the question you need to be asking yourself if you do have employees and you're not just a founder by yourself. Like, I've got to be asking myself every day, okay, is our front office marketing department and the agencies that we work with, are they set up to effectively execute on this channel or that channel? What's our type of. What are our creators and our in house creative team? Like, what kind of creative are they really good at? Are they really good at video? Are they really good at Pinterest images? You know, should we be on Pinterest and spending money on Pinterest? Because everyone wants to talk about TikTok and everyone wants to talk about Meta. Well, I can guarantee there's companies out there killing it on Pinterest. I know one.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

We're not killing it on Pinterest. Doesn't mean that Pinterest isn't great. Right? So you need to know your product, but also you need to know your team and you also need to know the type of product that you're selling, even within an industry to really make an informed decision.

[B]

So talk me through Tropeaka's growth. What can you share with us around? Any numbers around? You started this company, what, almost a decade ago now? Well, yeah, you saw, you signed 2016.

[A]

2016, yeah.

[B]

You started in 2016, so almost a decade now, you know, can you talk us through what you can share around? You've gone from zero, bootstrap the business still, you know, zero to 10 million in three years. Where you guys are at now, what can you share around either valuation, top line, Revenue. Any major financial milestones that you'd like to share just to give people understanding of scale.

[A]

Yeah. So I mean, we don't disclose our numbers, I don't even know what our valuation is. But we're an eight figure a year business. We're growing, which is great. Growing across retail, e commerce and exports. And yes, still 100% owned by Blake, my co founder and I. And bootstrapped and loving it.

[B]

Yeah. Awesome. So talk me through, I guess, the early stages, that first couple of years of getting the business up and going, talking about the hard times. Were there any times you felt like giving up? Any times you thought this ain't going to work?

[A]

Yeah. So Blake and I, we've never felt like giving up, but we've certainly had plenty of occasions where we know things aren't working and won't work. And we've learned a lot through our mistakes. One of the biggest dangers in business is not knowing what you don't know. And so I think so much of what you're trying to figure out in those first couple of years, but even now is like, what do I not know that I need to ask someone to tell me what my blind spots are? That's where mentors are so great. But mentors don't have to be anything official. Right. So from how to send freight domestically and internationally. When we first started, we're standing freight internationally after like eight or nine months. How to set up operations, how to create a facility that's able to scale with the systems around it to ensure we maintain food quality and food safety, how to become certified organic, how to have the correct inventory system because we're manufacturers, how to be great at hr. All of these were massive challenges that, you know, that we had no idea how to do it. So I asked a heap load of questions and that has been one of the the best ways to expediate success. Finding people who are smarter than you and being like, what do I do here? And one of the great places to do that as well is like find a provider and then ask them heaps of questions because it's in their economic incentive if they're providing a service, to tell you about their service, plus the other peripheral things of which there are many around their chosen topic. So for instance, we have consultants around inventory systems. And so I asked the question, okay, what else would they know or that they would know potentially? Operations, systems and operations, freight and operations, connecting different systems within a company from the website to the inventory system to the shipping system. And so these experts, they'll provide you with one service, but then you can ask those questions because you've engaged them to learn more about the service. And suddenly you get free mentorship while also paying them to do a service.

[B]

Yeah, look, I think consultants agencies always great to learn, find out what they're doing with other clients. But then at the same time, over time, where you can. You want to bring that internally. It depends, once again, situational stage. But yeah, I agree, that's a great way to learn, especially when you're paying for a service and they have experience and exposure to other markets and other industries to find out what's working. So can you give us an example? I guess if we go a little deeper. Caleb, I'd just like to go a little deeper. Like in those first two years, you know, you started with influencer marketing. Was there anything there that. Where it was just like, wow, this is not working right. Or was it just like fully, like, smooth sailing?

[A]

The funny thing is I have an incredible ability to forget things that were painful.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's true.

[A]

And I think. I think you need that as an entrepreneur. I can't remember, like, I have a really good memory, but even my fiance is like, man, you think, like, forget things about, like traumatic events in business, like from two weeks ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I. It needs to be water off a duck's back. So, I mean, I look back at some of the things that were really traumatic that still I get like some PTSD from. And that's like moving warehouses while being bootstrapped. It's not like you have all this cash flow to then put into building and constructing a new facility and then you not being able to have any downtime and moving it all across and the costs involved in that and the legalities around CDCs and OCS and you've got HACCP and you've got ACO certified organic and USDA certified organic to keep happy and all that. So. They were a couple of my most challenging moments in my life that really I wouldn't wish on my enemies. But besides that, look, we. We started from absolute rock bottom, like, no money. And then during the times when I was sick, I was riding around on an old push bike that I had to get repaired. I was flat broke, chronically sick. So anything, any sale was better than what I had. That doesn't mean that every day wasn't like, working my ass off 16 hours a day across tennis coaching and this new company to get it into a space where we could actually start paying ourselves. It was close To a full year before I stopped being a tennis coach entirely about. Yeah, about 10, 11 months. So the irony with it is you're working 16 hour days, doing something very unhealthy and stressful while running a health food company, trying to preach to be healthy. But that's the sacrifice you have to make. Our central mission in our company is to positively impact millions of people in their health. I know how much it sucks to be unhealthy and I want to do whatever I can to make millions of people healthy. And by blessing so many people and my team has that same vision, we're able to, to, you know, have ourselves blessed at the same time when you impact so many people.

[B]

I remember when I was early days founder, man, I didn't sleep some nights. I was having so much fun. Did that happen to you? 16 hour days, that's pretty long, man.

[A]

It is.

[B]

I was doing 80 hour weeks above 80. 90 hour weeks.

[A]

Yeah. Well, 16 hour days Monday to Friday and then I dropped back to about eight hour days on the weekend.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But yeah, I love what I do. Like I still to this day, I have the same passion. It's like I can see someone watching Netflix next to me and I have no interest. I want to work. I love building stuff. I'm. I have entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial spirit running through my veins. And it's fueled by a lot of pain in my health back in the day and how powerful it was, my life turning around so that I could not only not be practically bedridden at some time, but now being able to live a life full of energy and full of purpose and passion. I'm so incredibly grateful.

[B]

Have you ever experienced burnout?

[A]

Not during Tropeaka. You could call chronic fatigue syndrome when I was sick burnout. But I am so proactive on looking after my health and so proactive on recovery. And I know what I need to do to look after my body. And I put myself through the fire so often mentally that I reject all thought of burnout. And I think, and I truly believe that if people aren't looking after five key fundamentals of their health, which is cut out the crap from your diet and replace it with high quality nutrition. Drink clean filtered water, get great sleep. I get great sleep every day. Or I aim to stress reduction and finding ways to meditate or reduce stress and exercise, I truly know that they're the foundational elements of great health and that so many cases of burnout are because people aren't focusing on all five of those things. And that's Something that I do every single day. And I need to continue to do that and be very disciplined around it.

[B]

Yeah, look, I, I was going through each of your five things because I've went through burnout and I wouldn't wish it like, same as you, I wouldn't wish it on my. Not I have any enemies, but like, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Like I remember thinking I could have all the money, the success, all these things that we, you know, inherently strive for, like, you know, the greatest business in the world. But you don't have anything if you don't have your mental health. And I went through a period where I'm sure, same as you guys, Covid just absolutely boomed. And it did for us at founder. And I was like, you know what? Like, I'm like, I just. And you couldn't do anything but work. And I worked, worked. And then when things started to come back early 2021, I was just like, I didn't even want to go to work. It was really, really, really tough. And I look back on those five things that you shared and I wasn't really doing any of them. And then it's, it's no wonder that happened. And like up until that point I had no off switch and I loved work. And there's a part of me, man, that perhaps I haven't like fully ever got back to that ever since then. And it's, it's really, really tough. Like so with your chronic fatigue that, that came obviously from the food and nutrition, but were you working super hard as well and, and did you live a very stressful life or.

[A]

I wasn't working very hard. Pre2011 I was at university. Yeah, I had stress in my life, but the main thing was the long term antibiotic use. I should also say, by the way, I know my limits. Like I'm not working 16 hour days now. Yeah, I mean occasionally I might get up to 15 hours, but on a day to day basis, I'm working Monday to Friday, 12 hours. Yep. Actually no working more than that. 13 hours, maybe 14 hours. And then I'm also going out and reducing stress throughout the day. Like I live on the beach, I'm able to go ground in the sun, exercise, be by myself, mentally refresh, have deep breaths and do the things that I need to do in order to look after my health and put myself first. Because I can't be a great leader without putting myself first. And so it's really important to know your limits. If my limit hits and I can only And I recognize that. And suddenly I can only work eight hours a day. Then I'll work eight hours a day. I won't go and work 12 hour days because that's what I'm meant to do. I'm just very grateful and very blessed that my body is capable looking after those five foundational elements of great health. My body allows me to work 13 hours a day, Monday to Friday and then on the weekend I might do eight hours a day, six hours, one day maybe.

[B]

Yeah. Got you. Thanks for sharing, man. And look, when it comes to expansion, you said you guys are in over 70 countries, right? Can you talk us through kind of partnerships and the retail side of that that's allowed you to rapidly grow and what you've had to do there. Because I think iOS14, you talk about performance marketing. Post Covid, boom. Then iOS14, a lot of E commerce brands or strong performance marketing led companies really took a big hit, right? Massively, massively. Because it's only natural, right. You have one channel, you just keep doubling down. Right. And so I found that out of my successful founder friends, the ones that, you know, particularly we'll talk in the context of E. Com, the ones that were just really focused just on performance versus had a performance and retail, they were able to work their way through it. Now Facebook ads is back better than ever and it works really well. Still not as easy as that what it was, but. But you can make it work again. It was really, really tough there for some period of time unless you had a really good AOVA and just like, yeah, like you had a solid brand. But now that the. The brands that really stood the test of time, that didn't take too much of a hit were on the. They had a strong retail arm. So you guys were one of those.

[A]

No. So one of our. We do now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One of our biggest mistakes in business was not going into retail early enough. We had the majors in Australia, all of them from 2018, saying, hey, we want you stocked. And we chose not to off the back of a little bit of stupidity, just saying, look, our brand is premium and there's not a place for that in a major supermarket or a major retailer. And also we were dominating online. Why go into retail?

[B]

And the margin aren't as good. Sorry, margins aren't as good.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Right. But also like cannibalization of product sales and things along those lines we were thinking about. But that was a dumb decision. And it was a dumb decision because history shows us that Covid came and then again, every man and his dog wanted to come in, start a health food company during that time. And all the major corporations and all these just companies even outside of your industry that are competing with you in the Meta auction came in and Rose drove up CPMs and CPAs and so we really struggled after the first six to nine months of COVID It was really, really tough, big competition. And so we're like, oh crap, we better do something about this. And it was diversification that was so, so key. And so the last three years, we've been driving heavily into retail and export markets. And now Meta's back and our company's doing great with E commerce again, which is awesome. But more importantly, we have diversification around, around retail and export. And it's like those Black Swan events, I think the phrase is called, where it's those events that come from nowhere that you can never see, like Covid, that disrupt your business. And unless you are diversified, you're. You're very vulnerable. And so I'm very proud of our team. The last two to two and a half years, we've dug ourselves out of that hole and our company stronger than ever now.

[B]

You talk about performance and Meta. When did you find things starting to work again and you start to like, it's really working. When did you find that? I'm just curious.

[A]

Yeah, probably. Probably around this time last year.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Going into Black Friday again.

[B]

Yeah. Started when they started bringing that performance max.

[A]

Yeah, I think so. I don't touch the day to day anymore. I used to run our accounts back in the day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I haven't for a number of years. We also went through some experience of working with bad agencies as well. That kind of set us back a little bit. But yeah, at the moment our job is creative and producing great creative and then working with an agency who's able to do the magic after that. And. And you know, my marketing team has a focus on that as well.

[B]

With them these days, it's creative game more than ever. Right. Can you talk to your experience there's.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, creative is the new targeting. And so having a really good understanding of the core pillars that your company creatively should be based around, and knowing what pillars attract customers in kind of with each end benefit that your products are situated around is really important. So what do I mean by that? Like at Tropeaka, we have a range of different products and it's a very different customer for all of them. We have everything from a greens powder to a collagen powder to a bundle for menopause. Right. And so different, different genders, different age groups, different interests, different periods of their life and different problems that we're trying to provide a solution for. So that requires completely different core pillars of content for you to create creative around. We have a range of it from founder led stuff, us versus them sale creative. That's one that you've got to nail as well during key periods in the calendar year. Static based, video based, expert base because we do work with health professionals as well. So figuring out and producing enough creative and knowing what creative and foundational pillars are working best in your business and then figuring out, okay, well how can we produce more of that is really important.

[B]

So could you share like you guys like what you guys monthly spend is? Could you share that like is it multiple, six, seven figures a month?

[A]

It's, it's in the, the six figures. Yeah.

[B]

Yep. Okay, so how much creative would you guys produce and run and test every single month?

[A]

I'd guess around 40, 40 different variants. 40. No, we'll produce variants of each bit of creative.

[B]

Yep. So 40 original pieces.

[A]

Yeah. But remember a lot static as well.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So we're not doing 40 videos.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we might pump through a few videos a week.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

On a good week. Five.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then different hawks and variants on that.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But we have the capacity to scale create static creative as well.

[B]

And when it comes to I guess the post purchasing sequence and you know you guys have a great product and it's a consumable product. Are you guys focusing on repeat purchases? You get into the subscription side of things and really driving that. What's your, your plans there?

[A]

Absolutely. So I mean we're a fast moving consumable good. So having a really strong back end repeat customer flow is crucial. Having just strong email marketing campaigns, SMS campaigns and then also tying that to subscriptions. So having different flows for subscription based customers and the incentives around that loyalty is another one that we rely heavily on and we've built out very, very well over the years. So we have a very good repeat customer rate for that reason. And we're always looking to really get more out of the most profitable type of customer, which is your existing customer, and getting them involved in all different areas as well. So how can we get someone who got a subscription onto loyalty or how can we get someone who joined our loyalty program onto a subscription? How can we get them onto our SMS list? How can we interact more with them in a variety of different ways and build a deep and meaningful relationship is something that we really Care about.

[B]

Yeah. So we have to work towards wrapping up. Caleb, what's your goals and plans for the future of Tropeaka?

[A]

We're really excited about expanding internationally. So we're working on a US3PL.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And we'll have that sorted in the next few months. The US is our second biggest market and it's still a crappy experience even eight years on. That's another, you know, mistake that we've made where we haven't moved into a 3 PL soon enough. And so we ship from Sydney for our U.S. and international customers. So getting product on the ground will be really powerful for us in order to scale into 2025. And just our central mission, it's again to positively impact millions of people in their health. And so when you impact millions of people, you will naturally be blessed as a company. And that is something that I want to continually harp on about with my employees so they know, okay, why we do what we do. There's strong purpose and meaning behind what we're trying to achieve. So that's what I'm excited about. It's what makes me passionate and I'm grateful that my, my co founder and I and my team, we have a strong purpose and we can truly make an impact.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's incredible. Like I said, you have an amazing story and it's so cool that from that adversity that you experience with your own health, you've been able to build this incredible brand, these incredible products. So congratulations on all of your success thus far.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

I look forward to following the journ. Just one last question. Was there anything that you wanted me to ask you that I didn't, or any final words of wisdom that you'd like to share with our community? Early stage startup founders, either just about to launch something, just working on something, or recently hit product market fit.

[A]

It's a great question. I think one thing that I really love to tell other companies in our industry and that's a little bit of a. It's not applicable to everyone. But you can take the, the general concept. I think business is there to do good and I don't see that. I don't see my competitors as competitors within my industry. I see my competitors as the junk food industry that's creating the most highly addictive, salty, sugar, fat based products that don't satiate you and make you addicted to those things and contribute to the chronic disease burden that we have. My competitors who produce great quality products, they bring people into an industry that costs more than buying junk food and so if they're producing great quality products, they're able to get people in to try maybe health foods for the first time and have a great experience. And that's amazing because once you're in an industry like this and you're then healthy and you're looking after your, your health, you'll try products from all different brands. But if you're a company that is producing crap products and health washing, like greenwashing, pretending it's healthy, you're leaving a very bad experience for a person who's coming into your, into our industry for the first time. And they'll be like, why am I going to try this shit? Like I'm going to go back to junk food. And I think that same principle should really apply to a lot of founders going out into the world. So many young founders, they want to just make a shitload of money. It's like, well, no, like what impact are you making on the world? Like, why are you doing this? Because as you talked about, like when the hard times hit, when burnout hits, like what's your why? And if it's just to fucking make some money, like what are you doing? You know, like make a genuine difference in this world. Because we live in a world where we got this ridiculous thing called E commerce and it allows this incredible low barrier to entry to be able to start a company when you like 200 years ago. Like God knows the complexity of starting a company back then. So we're incredibly blessed to live in this time where you can be entrepreneurial, you can go out there and take risks and, and then go again even if you fail. So go and take some risk creating products that genuinely make a difference and that leave a lasting impact on the world.

[B]

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, man. Thank you so much for sharing and sharing your story and your passion. I love it, dude. Well, look, thank you so much for taking the time to come down. This was an awesome interview and like I said, congratulations on all of your success and you're welcome back anytime.

[A]

Thank you, mate, I appreciate it.

[B]

Hey guys, if you love this episode, you've got to check out my interview with Davy Fogarty on how he finds trends in under capitalized markets and turns them into multimillion dollar businesses.

[A]

I'm generally looking for trends globally. We find trends that haven't been kind of capitalized in certain markets or in certain marketing channels. Yes. And then we also obviously add our flair to it. You need to differentiate your product.