← The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
859: Why Listening to Your Audience Matters (How Feedback Can Grow Your Business)
00:49:01
With Katie Hunt and Jenna Kutcher
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- [00:02]
A
You think that you're gonna mess up and 10,000 people are gonna call you out on it? They're not. You're tiny when you start. You are a baby brand if you mess up. You know, maybe a hundred people see it, maybe one person calls it out. If you have fear around failure, you will never move.
- [00:23]
B
I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger Podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a 300 camera from Craigs and a dream. Now I'm running a seven figure online business that feels even better than it looks. All from my house in small town Minnesota. With my family here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle tackle practical, no fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Have you ever had a brilliant product idea but you've wondered like is this really worth pursuing? So many entrepreneurs dive into product creation without first validating if the problem they're solving is one people actually care about. Before you invest in sourcing manufacturing and branding, you need to ask does this idea truly fill a gap in the market? My guest today, Katie Hunt, is an expert in turning ideas into viable market ready products. As the co founder and CEO of OH Norman, she's leveraged her experience at Warby, Parker Hinge and Show Fields to build a brand that stands stands out in the competitive pet industry. OH Norman is a pet care brand inspired by actress Kaylee Cuoco's late dog Norman. The company is dedicated to creating eco friendly, durable and safe products for pets, from liquid supplements to stylish apparel for dogs and their humans. Plus, a portion of every purchase supports rescue organizations, making it a mission driven brand that pet lovers can feel good about. In today's episode, we're breaking down how to evaluate whether your product idea is solving the right problem, why trying to market to everyone is a mistake, and the steps to crafting a brand that speaks directly to the right audience and just a heads up about halfway through, I take a turn and ask Katie a personal question. And let me tell you, it might just be one of my favorite stories ever told on Gold Digger. If you are ready to take your product from idea to impact and avoid the costly mistake of building something no one really wants, then this episode is for you. Let's dive on in. Katie, I am so excited to dive in with you, and I want to kind of start with a big question, which is, what is the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make when adding a physical product to their business?
- [03:09]
A
If you think about your business as a video game, you have two major resources. It's time and money. And people spend way too much time and money getting to market. You know, nothing until something is actually in the ecosystem. From early negotiations when you're doing manufacturing to when you're even thinking about what you want to make. Go fast, do low quantities of items, get them in the market, get feedback. If I look back to even the early days of Warby Parker, before we ever had a physical product, Neil used to walk around campus and show a picture of glasses and be like, would you pay $98 or $95 and just walk around? You know, you don't know what you don't know. And so many people strive for perfection on that launch, and then they don't have enough time and money to iterate on that great first idea.
- [04:09]
B
I love this so much, and I think that it is so counterintuitive, especially for women who are perfectionists. Right? 100 and so it's like, I feel like so many women are sitting on their dreams, sitting on their businesses, sitting on their websites, their products, their offers, waiting for it to be perfect before they put it out into the world. Or spending so much time on the offer itself and not actually getting in community with the people they're creating it for, or even like testing the water. So I love that advice. So let's keep on diving into this. So you launched a company called oh, Norman. And I want to know, like, what was the inspiration? And how did you kind of find a gap? Because I think a lot of times we have these ideas and we might see something like, why has nobody thought of this? Or where is this? Or how can I find this? And so tell me kind of the iteration and how that began.
- [05:03]
A
You are the source of inspiration for any company that you should make. So anytime you have that thought of, I wish this existed. I wish I could find this. That is a company, there's most likely other people who feel the same way you do My co founder, actress Kaylee Cuoco, and I got connected, and we had the same feeling. We were those people reading every ingredient on pet products, looking for all natural, looking for things that we could get behind that were good enough for our dogs. And we were coming up short, right? We weren't finding the things that we wanted. And that's where we started. Like, we have a product called Stop Effing Itching. I have a rescue dog who literally couldn't stop licking his paws. It was keeping me up all night. And so I was like, there have to be other people that are going through what we're going through. Like, there are other people that are dealing with this. And that's when the research starts, right? You try and figure out how big the problem is. But data is never enough. It's then when you start asking your community if this is something that they're also facing. And so we, very quickly, thanks to Kayleigh, amassed a very large community and following around O'Norman. And from day one, before we ever made a product, we started sending out surveys via Instagram and email and being like, does your dog have itchy paws? Does your dog have anxiety? Does your dog have these things? Food allergies? We began using that data to create a product. So, you know, for me, it's always, be the inspiration for what you want to solve in your own life, and then don't do it in an echo chamber. Please don't invest in an echo chamber. Go out and try and confirm that other people are having the same issue you are. I mean, look at Uber. You don't want to find a taxi. It's the. You know, it's an idea that comes from someone wanting convenience in their life.
- [06:56]
B
Yeah, I love that. And, you know, it's so funny. Drew and I, we love Shark Tank. And our oldest daughter is now starting. She'll sneak out. If she can hear that, like, music, she'll be like, can I just watch one? Okay, what's happening? I don't like that guy that's bald. He's kind of mean. And I feel like so many of the Shark Tank products came from somebody recognizing a need in their own life and then being shocked that it didn't exist or there wasn't a solution out there that worked. And it's so funny, because I think that that happens a lot, but I also think that we are so quick to disqualify ourselves from being the person to bring something to market. And so did you have any fears? Did you have any, like, well, somebody else can take this idea. Like, how did that look for you?
- [07:42]
A
I have fear every day. I wouldn't be doing what I was doing right if I wasn't scared. If I was toeing the line, then I'm not actually living in it. I always say that being a founder is. You're running down a path and every day there's a wall and you have to figure out, do I go around, over, under? And that's every day. There's something that's going to go wrong, there's something that's not going to be right. There's going to be a competitor, there's going to be someone else who doesn't like your idea or gives you bad feedback. You have to just believe that a there's enough room in the market for whatever you're doing. It doesn't matter if other people are looking at it. In fact, if other people are looking at it and trying to do it, it usually means that it is a problem that more people are trying to solve. And, you know, if you're working within a big enough market, which pet, you know, which is slated to be over $300 billion by 2028, I mean, we have 70 million dogs in the United States that are pets. There's enough room to play. And I always think it's so funny when investors are like, well, like, who are your competitors? Of course we have competitors. It's 300 billion dollar market. If there was no one else thinking about the wellness of our pets, I would be doing something very wrong.
- [08:58]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting to me because I was just telling you we have a foster puppy. And even, like, when I picked her up, I was like, I want her to have the best of everything. Like, everything, you know, like, she's not even mine, she's just mine temporarily. And so we're like going out, we're doing all these things. I'm taking her to the vet, like, just like, take care of this baby. Like, just take care of this baby. And I feel like pets are such a unique market because they truly are members of your family. We have a geriatric dog who has literally been with us for almost our entire marriage. And to think of all the lives he's seen, all the iterations he's seen, and he's been this constant. And so people will do anything for their pets. And being at the vet the other day I saw a woman bring her cat in and they were like, she was panicking and they're like, we might have to do this. This. She's like, do anything. Do anything is my baby. And so I. I love the market of pets. So I am interested in this. And this is something I've often thought about. But a lot of entrepreneurs are either interested in starting a physical product business, or maybe they have an existing business that is service based or digitally based and they don't have a physical product. What is the first step that they should take to validate their idea? Because obviously this is something really important. You've talked about different ways that you've been able to do this, but where do you even begin validating some of your ideas?
- [10:22]
A
The people around you? Find your most honest friend, the one that, like, gives you that piece of feedback when you're like, oh, I don't know how this dress looks? And they're like, yeah, that doesn't look good. Go to that person first and be like, this is what I'm thinking. And then you can. There are so many places online where you can run surveys. You can literally put a poll up on your own Instagram. You can send an email out to friends and family with an anonymous survey through Typeform and just be like, let me know if you think this is even anything that anybody would be interested in. When we were creating the new hinge in 2015, we would do a focus group in the morning and a focus group in the evening. So we would take all the information from the morning. We would sprint all day putting that information into a new iteration. And then we would show another group of people at night. We would take that feedback, put that feedback in that evening, and do another focus group in the morning.
- [11:17]
B
Wow.
- [11:18]
A
I'm not saying that data is absolute from consumers because it's not. You know, people will always say that they're not willing to pay for things. People always lean towards the more familiar. So let's say that you are creating a supplement like we were. They're going to lean towards a chew or a pill because that's what they are used to using. But actually, like our liquid supplements, which you can put directly in food, sell better. So data is never absolutely. But I think it's about digging down to the intention. My favorite thing about Hinge was, you know, we were creating in New York, which is historically a place that is not great for dating.
- [11:55]
B
Yeah.
- [11:56]
A
And I was single at the time and I was like, oh, everyone here is so jaded. It's so awful. And one of the things I found fascinating was in every focus group, you could clock it, guy or girl. They would come in and they would Be like, I've been on 20 dates this week. I'm so great, I can't find anyone because I'm so perfect. And then they would get to the meet and everyone would be like, I'm really lonely, I'm really lonely. And I really am actually looking for something. And so I think it's about drilling down to that intention. When you're talking to people about what you want to create. And at the core of every great company is really an intention. You know, hinge is really love. It is really finding people love. And the entire company is built around that. And for one orman, I always think about it as if, imagine if you let a dog create a company. You know, imagine if Norman was the CEO of a business. How would you treat the people? How would you treat the manufacturing? You know, how would you treat the resources that you're using? You know, you would have a completely sustainable business where end to end, everybody is treated ethically and fairly. You would have a team that is, you know, loved and embraced in the business and given the ability to, you know, have endless vacation days and to be stay at home moms that they want to be and to pursue other things outside of their career as well. And you would have products that are all natural, actually work and, you know, give back to rescue dogs. At our heart, we always say, you know, what would Norman want? What would Norman want to do? It's a great north star for us.
- [13:29]
B
Yeah, it's 2025 and we all know how loud the B2B marketing space has gotten. It's not just enough to run ads. You need to make sure that they're actually reaching the right people. That's why I love LinkedIn ads. You're not just throwing your message out and hoping it sticks. You can get super specific targeting by job title industry or even the exact company you want to work with. There are over 130 million decision makers and 10 million C level execs on LinkedIn. These are the people who can actually say yes to your offer. And it's not just who you reach, it's the results you get. In the tech industry, LinkedIn ads delivered up to five times the return on ad spend compared to other platforms. I mean, 79% of B2B content marketers say LinkedIn gives them the best paid media results. So if you're ready to cut through the noise and get your ads in front of the people who matter, LinkedIn ads is the way to go. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll even give you a hundred dollar credit on your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.comgold to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com goal. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be. To be. I bet you didn't start your business to spend your days stressing over things like payroll. Like, I've been there before tax deadlines creeping up, wondering if I filled out something wrong. It is not fun. That's why you've gotta try Gusto. Gusto is the all in one platform that takes care of payroll, benefits and HR so that you can actually focus on your business. Whether you're paying W2s or 1099s, Gusto makes it simple. You can even offer health insurance and 401k options that work for nearly any budget. Gusto automatically files and pays all of your taxes across federal, state and local levels so you don't have to cross your fingers and hope that you got it right. Plus, their support team is made up of confident certified HR experts, so help is always there when you need it. Over 400,000 businesses, including mine, trust Gusto because it's just easy. You set it, forget it, and get back to doing what you love. If you've been putting off getting this part of your business figured out, Gusto's got you right. Now they're offering three months free when you run your first payroll. Head to gusto.comgoldigger to get started. That's gusto.com forward/gold digger. I mean, I want to work for a company with a dog. CEO. That sounds great. I mean, let's be honest. Our lives are run by these dogs. Anyway, they're already.
- [15:59]
A
I already have two CTOs right here, you know, leading my life. And we actually hired a dog. We hired a chief treat officer. We ran a nationwide search. We had over 6,000 applications, and we hired a dog. And he has a $10,000 a year salary and all he has to do is try the products and let us know, honestly, what he thinks. Talk about data collection.
- [16:22]
B
So sweet. You know, it's interesting because, like, I obviously come from the digital space and I think there are so many different ways to test out ideas. And I will never forget, Katie, we had this idea at one point where we were going to, like, teach people how to hire their first va, which I think is a great, great idea. And so my virtual assistant and I were going to create this course. We were so excited about it. We're like, you know what, before we do this, let's just like Kind of like make sure that people, like, actually want this.
- [16:51]
A
Right.
- [16:51]
B
And so we had created some content around it. We created a freebie opt in. I did an episode about it and it was kind of crickets. And I was so thankful that we hadn't gone down this long path of creating something that maybe people weren't ready for yet or they didn't even know that they needed. And so I think that getting viability not only gives you confidence to keep moving forward, but it also gives you clarity that what you're spending your time and energy and money on is actually worth it. And what's interesting to me and something that I'm thinking about as you're sharing is that I feel like, and this could be a generalization, but I feel like people are even afraid to admit their idea. Like, the thought for some people to like, say to their best friend, like, I have this idea and it feels kind of weird or scary or whatever. And so, you know, I just. What would you say to somebody that's like, I don't even want to, like, tell my friends and family. Like, I would rather tell a stranger who doesn't know anything about me. Or have you ever experienced experience that?
- [17:53]
A
Oh, all the time. I mean, there's imposter syndrome. There's this idea that a founder of a business is somehow this above the the line person. They're not. They're just somebody who, you know, decided to follow through with that idea. And I think everybody has ideas. There are meetups, there's Reddit, there's a million places where you can put your idea out there and get feedback that don't have to necessarily be your family and friends. And if it's feeling uncomfortable, you also need to examine that. Why does it feel uncomfortable for you? Why do you think you don't deserve it and somebody else does? What properties are you putting on somebody else that you're not giving to yourself? You know, whenever I feel insecurity, I'm always looking to where it's actually deriving from. And most of the time it's a solvable thing. Right? It's a solvable thing to be like, oh, I can't believe that. I think some stranger that I've never met, I'm giving them more grace than I'm giving myself. That's not a way to operate in this world, you know?
- [18:52]
B
Yes. Oh, my gosh.
- [18:53]
A
Back to your virtual assistant idea, by the way. I think probably the issue there was if someone's hiring a virtual assistant, they're probably already, you know, Capacity.
- [19:03]
B
Yeah.
- [19:03]
A
And so they can't take a course. They can't take a course. They don't have time. But I think if you had used, you know, AI and created a survey that someone could very quickly take, that would pair them with the type of resume that they should be looking for or questions that they could ask in their interview with a va. Oh, my God. Saves so much time and like, very easy little AI tool.
- [19:29]
B
I know. I wish this was, like, literally years ago when we were going to do this, and yesterday I sat on a call with a company that is leveraging AI to help people start businesses, and it was so amazing. My mind was literally blown. But it was this idea of, like, you sometimes you're afraid to, like, tell the people in your world. And so it was literally chatting with a bot saying, okay, here's who I want to serve. Here's the problem I think they have. And then the AI bot would be like, okay, is this the problem or is this the problem? And it helped give clarity. And it was just incredible to see how a lot of times, too, we might not be clear on what it is. Right. Or we might know what the problem is, but we don't. We're not clear on what the solution is. And so I do think that we're entering a very new era that is going to help us get clarity faster and also give us the right questions so that we can have that clarity to be able to express what we're creating, why we're creating it, and who it's for, which I think is really exciting.
- [20:32]
A
I love that. I love that take. That's good.
- [20:34]
B
Yes. Okay. So I want to know, for business owners who don't offer physical products, like I'm even one of them, why should somebody consider adding a physical product to their business? Like, what benefits could it bring to their brand, to their revenue? Walk us through it.
- [20:49]
A
We used to offer fun things for hinge that were like gym to date bag that would be like a tote bag that you would carry from, you know, work to the gym to your date, you know, and it said date clothes on it. You know, I think humor is one of the places that you're able to create product around that can go really viral for your business, because it's not just someone seeing your logo walk by on a bag or, you know, on a dog leash or whatever it is you're doing. You know, it's a way of, like, actually eliciting an emotion from somebody else that's unassociated with your company. Oh, Norman, if you haven't looked at our approach in terms of brand, Cayley has a saucy mouth. And so all of our products have interesting names like Calm the F down and Stop Effing itching and your breath Effing stinks, which is our dental wipes. And so when we think about physical product that would be out there in the wild, is there a funny way for us to brand a poop bag? Is there a funny way for us to brand something that ends up in a dog park? So humor is one way in, and I think that's a really wonderful way to create connection with your consumer. The other way is around things and causes that you care about. So, you know, maybe there is a particular charity or a particular cause that your brand really cares about. I find that leaning into those things can really make a difference. I mean, for us with the Los Angeles fires, you know, Kaylee has a farm with 200 rescue animals in Thousand Oaks. And the entire night we were all just like, sitting up being like, oh, my gosh, is she going to be okay? Are the animals going to be okay? It was awful. And on the other side of it, you know, being able to have a physical product that we could send, that was helpful, I think, for us. With Calm the F down, with so many animals displaced, I mean, we were able the next day to get 1200 bottles out and really, really do something that was meaningful to us. We have another project that's going to launch after this interview around it as well that I'm super excited about. But I think for people that don't have physical product, what is your value system? Like, what is something that you could get behind that speaks to your values? That is something that could give back. Don't just create things just to create things. We have enough of that in world, but create things that really speak to who you are as a company. So are you funny? Do you have a Give Back program? Are you, you know, serious? What is that thing that you want to communicate and how do you create a product around that?
- [23:28]
B
I love that. I love that so much. One thing I'm curious about, especially, you know, you kind of hit on this in the realm of, like, pet products. Like, you could argue that it's a crowded market or that it's owned by a few giants. And so we talked about using humor, which I think is one of the biggest ways you do but share some insights into, like, how do you position a product? Because I actually think that a lot of times people focus on copy and Branding. But positioning is actually equally or even more important to be able to express, you know, what makes you different. Why should somebody choose you over the others? And so can we talk about positioning a little bit and any advice you have around it?
- [24:09]
A
Well, we're really lucky because we had two people that are at the center of our brand. We have Norman, who was Kaylee's first rescue dog, who passed away and is her spirit animal. You know, it was the love of her life and she always wanted to, you know, start a pet company and name it after Norman. And what we talk about every day is, what would Norman do? As we already discussed. And then we have Kaylee. Kaylee is that sunny, wonderful person next door who's rescuing animals in real life and is wonderful and kind, but she's also hilarious and has a mouth like a sailor. So, you know, when we take. If you think about a brand, a brand is a person. It's a human or a dog. And for us, we were able to kind of combine what would Norman do with Kaylee's personality? So, you know, Kaylee's personality is rescuing dogs. And all natural and ethical and sustainable, but it's also, I mean, if you're ever on a call with her, she's the funniest person in the world. And we're very lucky. She's not the face of this business, by the way. She gets no salary. This is her company. She's my actual co founder in this world. And it just, I came to her with this brand that was like, so sunny and so, like dogs and so, like, perfect moment. She's like, hell no. She's like, that is not what the consumer wants. She's like, that already exists in the market. Let's make it more edgy. And she's right. Like, I now look at the first brand iteration that we did and I'm like, that's spoon feeding someone pets. That's being like, aren't dogs great? Oh, don't you love puppers? Like, that's not. I feel like the consumer is so much smarter than that. They are dealing with, like, raising a dog is not always. You just had a puppy, it's not always easy. You have a geriatric dog, it is not easy. And so, like, encompassing the humor and like, grit of actually raising a dog was a big part of it. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. And, you know, we're not dealing with sunshine and rainbows. We're trying to deal with wellness. And when things have gone wrong, how do we get in front of it. I mean we have a product that I need to send you for your, your dog now. Yeah. Called don't ever effing die. And it can be given to your dog from the time they're six months old and it gets in front of all of their health issues, all of their health issues before they become actual issues. So inflammation in their body, inflammation in their joints, brain health, eye health, dental health. It's you know, to me I think like the future of human and pet is about not necessarily living forever, but living better and can actually offer that. And so to me at the core of that is science. It's cutting edge, it's amazing. But on top of that is this reality around pet raising. And so like it's a kind of crazy all over their brand but somehow it works because if you are raising a pet, you totally get it, you see it and you understand it.
- [27:13]
B
Yeah. Well and it's just funny because it's like if you were to walk through Target, you know, you see like Purina One, you know, you see all the brands with the sunshiny little Bichon freezes sitting on the COVID and adorable, we love that. But again, just like you said, I think it's like when you meet another parent and they're like, like oh my gosh, my kids tantrums have been crazy and you're like oh my gosh, I'm not alone. Like. And so I think that that's a really powerful way to position. And I also think, you know, people we talk about attracting and repelling but I think in reality most of us, myself included, is afraid to repel. Right. We are afraid to not be for everyone. I think a lot of us have been conditioned to be yes girls and you know, say please and thank you and smile and all of that is lovely. But when it comes to actual positioning and really hitting the people that you are creating exactly for, you have to be willing to lose people along the way so that you can go deeper with the people that you're right for. And I think that that is something that is a hard fought lesson for a lot of entrepreneurs. And I think a lot of people are still speaking to everyone and trying to please everyone and we all know that that usually leads to not reaching anyone. Would you agree?
- [28:36]
A
Oh, 100%. Especially post Covid. I have a one year old daughter and whenever I see those perfect little prepared meals in the morning where everything's cut like exactly into stars and flowers and dinosaur waffles, it makes me feel bad about myself and Then immediately makes me look away. I don't want that anymore. I want reality. You know, I would rather have someone, you know, come on in their sweatpants and be like, did you make a healthy breakfast for your kid this morning? I know I didn't. Here's a solution on how to do that faster because we all know we don't have freaking time.
- [29:16]
B
Yep. Yep. Amen. Or did you cut the banana wrong and have a meltdown? I mean, we've all been there, right?
- [29:23]
A
I'm just starting there and it's, it's terrifying. I'm like, what did I do? What did I do?
- [29:28]
B
It's a wild ride. I was laughing today because I was loading up the car for school and my 6 year old is very sensory and she hates seams in her socks. So we've gone on this hunt to find like the perfect socks and today she's like, oh, my sock feels funny. It's not the same. It's something else. And I saw a meme yesterday where I was like, gotta go. Need to adjust my kids socks. See, in two weeks. And I was like, yep, that's about what's happening right now. I think that there is such beautiful relatability and even in the honesty of, like, you don't want your dog to die, like, this is a real.
- [30:01]
A
You don't.
- [30:01]
B
Well, don't talk about. We're only talking about protecting their health. But we all know what's on the other side of that. And so I think that, yes, when we step outside of like what we think people want and actually get to what they really need, that is where the secret sauce lives. And I think you guys have uncovered that, which is amazing.
- [30:22]
A
Thank you. And we're working on it.
- [30:24]
B
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- [31:40]
A
So yeah, right. I the story is amazing. I ran and was the co founder of a place called Show Fields as a physical department store in New York City. At our height we had five locations, we worked with a thousand brands. Covet hit physical retail, you know, started to struggle. I could no longer afford to even have an apartment, let alone pay rent in New York. I moved home at the age of 36.
- [32:06]
B
It's like a Hallmark movie. I'm dying.
- [32:08]
A
My parents to my parents house in Rhode Island. And I was like I have failed. I have failed. Like all the things I cared about. Having that fancy life in New York, like being that founder, like I have failed. And two weeks in I realized I had never been happier. I was sleeping again. I was still running my company, but I was like actually having some balance and getting outside and not staying out till 3 o'clock in the morning and then waking up at 5 to work and I was like what am I waiting for? Why hadn't I started this life? Why was I chasing and still chasing in New York? And so as a single woman, right before my 37th birthday, I had a company that I had invested in, Exit and I bought a house. I bought a house in East Hampton, Long island, by myself. I moved in the day of my 37th birthday in the snow, by myself, with only enough furniture for one room. And I started my life here. And I was thinking I would go and have a baby by myself. That I was ready for this section of my life and I was so sick of waiting for someone. And I was at a wedding and someone posted a video of me dancing. And my now husband saw it and he wrote to my friend and he said who is that? We started talking. He was building a sustainable hotel in Mexico. He flew to Long island and took me out to dinner and we got married a year later and we now have a one year old daughter.
- [33:39]
B
Stop it.
- [33:41]
A
I know.
- [33:42]
B
Oh my God.
- [33:43]
A
You have to live your life. You have to live your authentic life.
- [33:47]
B
Well, I love this so much because even when you're talking about Kayleigh and her farm and all the animals and different things, it's like there's so many things that we think we, like, someday we'll do or, you know, once we do x, y or 0, once we earn X amount, we'll finally give back, or once we have the baby, we'll slow down or whatever that is. And what a beautiful story of, like, look at what happens also when you calm your nervous system down and you, like, get your feet back in the grass. Not that it has to be grass, but just, like, come back to ear.
- [34:22]
A
You want to come to.
- [34:23]
B
Yes. Oh, my gosh. Okay. I'm obsessed with that story. That is amazing. Sorry, I took a detour there, but I was like, you're talking about single life in New York City. I need to know how this ends. Okay, So I want to know. You have obviously worked with major startups. You talked about Warby Parker. We talked about Hinge. What are three lessons you've learned from working with these brands and how do they kind of shape how you built? Oh, Norman.
- [34:48]
A
Yeah, so my first one is 100% from Warby, which is the customer is everything. I mean, they still have one of the largest customer service teams in the world, and it's actual people that, when you call, pick up the phone and answer emails. My first job at Warby Parker as a third employee was customer service. I would answer all the emails and all the phone calls, and Neil and Dave and Andy and Jeff would spend a couple hours a month in customer service with us to hear everything. But in the beginning, you know, there were like four of us in a room, and everyone thought we were this big company. We sold out of all of our classes in 24 hours. We had. We didn't even know how to turn sold out on on our website, so we were still accepting orders. It was chaos.
- [35:37]
B
Yeah.
- [35:37]
A
And I think being up close and personal with that customer through that portion of the business and through that first year until I moved into the marketing team, I learned so much. And so I think one of my biggest lessons is the customer. Be as close to the customer as you humanly can. I get every customer service email for oneorman as a pop up on my phone, and I read every single one before Jane, who runs our customer service, answers them. But it allows me to understand what might be going wrong and what might not be hitting. And because of that, we have a 0.54% return rate, which is absolutely insane for a Company. So customer, customer, customer. Warby Parker wouldn't be Warby Parker if the glasses sucked. Your product actually has to work. It can't be snake oil. No matter how great your branding is, no matter how big your community is, if you're selling something that doesn't work, ultimately that catches up with you. It just does. So that is one of the bigger things. We work with two veterinary nutritionists. There are only 130 the entire country, and we work with two to develop our products. You would be shocked at the products that are in your home right now that were not developed by vets, where the ingredients weren't even looked at, where they were not approved. You need to have great products to have success. And the last one brings us back to the original conversation, which is you have two things, time and money. Those are your only resources in this world. You have to go fast. Go fast. You think that you're gonna mess up and 10,000 people are gonna call you out on it? They're not. You're tiny when you start. You are a baby brand if you mess up. You know, maybe a hundred people see it. Maybe one person calls it out. If you have fear around failure, you will never move. Gotta go fast. You've got to mess up, and it's okay. Just take culpability when you do both as a leader and to your customer, and it will always be okay.
- [37:49]
B
I love this. I just did an interview with an amazing woman named Maha, and she said, are you learning or are you earning? And I was like, oh, that is like. It's like when you break it down in that way, it's like, oh, either way, you're not losing. Right? And I think we make it feel so much bigger than it is. I was kind of chuckling to myself this morning because I saw an influencer, like, announce that she was taking a break from social media. And it was like, no one will notice because they're only going to consume what they're actually seeing. Like, I'm pretty sure we all could log off for a month and nobody.
- [38:23]
A
Would notice, you know?
- [38:26]
B
Yes, exactly. It's like our microscopes are so deep in our own lives, in our own work, that we forget that, like, everyone's doing the same thing in their own life and in their own work. And so it's actually not that scary. Like, people aren't paying that close of attention, and that should actually give you a breath of fresh air, that you don't have to worry about being under a microscope besides your own.
- [38:49]
A
And there is no perfect There really isn't. It doesn't exist. If you're striving for that, this is not the right world for you. You know, I really. You will, you will hate life on a daily basis because you will get in bed at night and you'll think about all your mistakes. I get in bed at night and I sleep soundly and I start the next day and I think, okay, well that didn't go well. Let's, let's do this differently. But I think it also gives permission to my team to behave that way and they find genius by messing up. Like, it's not messing up, it's just, that didn't work. Okay, try something different. Okay, that didn't work. Okay, try something different. I mean, I remember when I first had access to the social media accounts at Warby Parker. I was out very late on a Saturday night, Saturday night, thought I was tweeting from my own account and tweeted from the corporate account for Warby Parker and I thought I would never recover from that embarrassment. I did.
- [39:47]
B
That is hilarious.
- [39:48]
A
I mean, I got made fun of and still get made fun of for it, but like, it, you know, you recover.
- [39:53]
B
Yes. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I think it's so funny too because it's like if you listen to any great founder, there are so many stories of mess ups, failures, the things you thought were dead ends, like all of it. And it's like really the only way to learn is by doing. And I think, you know, I can often see and work with people who are doing everything around the thing, but not the actual thing. Right. So it's like all of the extra things that don't really matter if you don't actually have the thing which is the product, the service, or the offer.
- [40:30]
A
Yeah.
- [40:30]
B
And I think that that is our way of like staying busy and like using perfectionism as a form of procrastination because then it's like you never actually have to release your baby out into the wild. And it's so sad to me because I just think that so many people are sitting on life changing work and beautiful products and businesses that could change lives. And it's such a shame. And so I think it's really, you know, interesting that you've seen so many different iterations of what a startup can look like and you've been able to take all of the experiences, the mess ups, the failures, and just carry them forward with you and you'll see that like really none of it was that big of a deal. Like we Have a joke in our business where we're like, we're not curing cancer. And I wish we were, but there are very few emergencies in the digital marketing space. So, like, everyone can sign off. We can have four day work weeks, like, like, in the sense of like, have you seen that trend right now? It's founded by this amazing girl, Janae Cecilia, where it's like, I went to coffee with my younger self. Have you seen that? Where people are posting? It's like these.
- [41:34]
A
I've seen like one or two. Yes.
- [41:36]
B
And so these beautiful poems and. And it's all based. She wrote this poem for her new book, but it was basically like, I met my younger self for coffee and I wrote one and I was thinking about how it just really brought me back to these days where, like, I would travel everywhere with my laptop as a wedding photographer. Like, there was an emergency. Like, I would bring it to family gatherings and crack it open thinking things were so important. And it was funny because my mom commented on it. She was like, I remember that version of you where it was like, you can't stop, you can't slow down, you can't rest, you can't do all these things. And it's like, at the end of the day, so many of us are doing this to make a difference and for freedom, and yet we create these scenarios that offer anything but that. And I just really love your personal story of, like, how life happened when you slowed down. And, you know, it's just, it's fascinating to me.
- [42:31]
A
I am so happy that I slowed down and now I'm really happy that I've finally been able to create a company where I actually think my team has time outside of work. And it's a very important thing to me. We're an all female team, two thirds of which are working moms. And I know for my own self, I gave birth eight weeks after we launched. I couldn't have done this in former iterations of my career. I just couldn't have. So I'm glad to have had the smack in the face of losing a business that I had put four years of my life into and no sleep and I had killed myself for the loss of that business was the gain of the life that I really wanted.
- [43:24]
B
That's so beautiful. 2025 has already proven to be an interesting year. And I am curious, what are some strategies that are working for you guys to get results, meaning sales or subscribers or followers? Give us a few things that are working really well.
- [43:40]
A
Partnerships. Get out there and partner with Other people do not try to just live in a vacuum. It will not work. There are other people who are talking to the same consumer that you are that are at the same stage or lesser stage or higher stage of business, but you are all speaking to the same people, and you've all spent a lot of money and time to get in front of those people, work together. They have the people that you also want to talk to. You have the people that they want to talk to. And I think two companies together, three companies together, partnerships in general really can fundamentally change how fast you can grow.
- [44:17]
B
Yes. Oh, my gosh. I love that. When you are partnering, are you looking at other pet brands? Are you looking at pet owners? Like, how are you doing? Are you doing all the above?
- [44:27]
A
All of the above? I mean, yeah, we have a collaboration with an artist coming out that just. We just loved their work. They have nothing to do with pet, but just they, you know, speak to a female consumer. They're super talented, and they were willing to take our logo and actually, like, reimagine it as a piece of art. I think it's. It's all about whatever inspires you. It doesn't have to be directly in your line of work. I mean, we've partnered with the dodo. We. We've done all of that. But sometimes I think the most creative partnerships work because they're just so unexpected.
- [45:02]
B
I love that. Where can everybody find out more about you? Check out or Norman, give me all the places.
- [45:09]
A
I'm not that interesting. Oh, Norman's super interesting. That is where, you know, I put my heart, my soul, my time, my tears, my everything. So onorman.com. we're also available on Amazon and PetMed. And if you order after February 14th on pet meds, you'll actually get a sample of an O Norman treat in every dog order going forward. So if you want to try the product and don't want to buy, that's a good way to get a treat for free and see if it's what your dog likes.
- [45:41]
B
I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was such a treat.
- [45:45]
A
Thank you, Jenna. Thank you for having me.
- [45:48]
B
Today's episode was so fun. I feel like I'm living in this sweet doggy world with our foster pup Willa, who is getting adopted tonight. And it has just been such a beautiful reminder of how incredible animals are. And so. Oh, Norman solves a problem that so many pet owners have. And I loved hearing Katie's experience. I'm also very obsessed with her personal story. Just about life and slowing down and going home and waiting for the right timing and also pursuing things in your own timing. It was just such a beautiful left turn that I took and thankfully she came with me on that ride. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I hope you loved every minute of it and thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with us today. I hope you have an amazing day and of course, until next time, keep on digging your biggest goals. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I hope today's episode fueled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action, and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to goldiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more. And if you haven't yet yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time. Gold Diggers.