Shownotes
BUSINESS BUILDING INSIGHTS
- Keep persevering even through the challenges.
- It’s fun to do the impossible. Hardship is part of the process and experiencing the sour helps to appreciate the sweet.
- Believe in your product. Believe in your vision.
- Having a co-founder or other significant sounding board is important throughout your entire business lifecycle.
- There are 3 roles in a business: Hipster, Hacker and Hustler.
- There are a lot of ways to get visibility for your products. Word of mouth, website optimization, affiliate partners and strategic partnerships are a few.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
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Gift biz unwrapped episode 272.
Speaker:My first step was anxiety.
Speaker:And then my second step was anxiety.
Speaker:My third step was anxiety.
Speaker:Why were you anxious?
Speaker:You hadn't done anything at exactly attention.
Speaker:Gifters bakers,
Speaker:crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Speaker:Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.
Speaker:Now you are in the right place.
Speaker:This is give to biz unwrapped,
Speaker:helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Speaker:Join us for an episode,
Speaker:packed full of invaluable guidance,
Speaker:resources, and the support you need to grow.
Speaker:Your gift biz.
Speaker:Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.
Speaker:Hi there.
Speaker:It's Sue.
Speaker:And thanks for being here with me today.
Speaker:Before we get into the show.
Speaker:One quick announcement.
Speaker:I continue to hear from a number of you asking about
Speaker:how to get into maker's MBA.
Speaker:So this is a program that's created to take a brand
Speaker:new business dreamer from concept to profitable business in a proven
Speaker:step by step manner,
Speaker:and it's open once a year.
Speaker:So the next possibility to get into it is 2021,
Speaker:but I'm hearing you because the truth is even when you
Speaker:have a business up and running,
Speaker:things can get messy and important foundational elements like websites and
Speaker:email marketing can be forgotten or never set up in the
Speaker:first place because you're busy.
Speaker:So I created a new option for you.
Speaker:My established business listeners who have been running your business for
Speaker:two years or more,
Speaker:it's called makers,
Speaker:MBA accelerator,
Speaker:and it fast tracks you to a specific area of your
Speaker:business that you know,
Speaker:needs attention,
Speaker:but you haven't had the time to focus on it.
Speaker:This comes at a perfect time.
Speaker:As you start to prep for the all important holiday season,
Speaker:particularly this year,
Speaker:if this sounds like something,
Speaker:you'd be interested in head over to gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com forward slash maker's MBA there,
Speaker:you'll see a link for established businesses.
Speaker:Just click on that.
Speaker:I ask you a couple of questions and you can be
Speaker:in maker's MBA accelerator quickly from there.
Speaker:Let's talk now about this week's show.
Speaker:If I were to tell you a young man recently out
Speaker:of school would have a passion and interest in snail mail,
Speaker:much less greeting cards.
Speaker:You'd probably think I was crazy.
Speaker:Well, I am kind of crazy,
Speaker:but that's beside the point,
Speaker:Alex, the hero of this story is taking things we already
Speaker:know. And to be honest,
Speaker:may think of as part of the past and re-inventing them
Speaker:in an entirely new and way.
Speaker:He's making waves in the greeting card industry and beyond make
Speaker:sure to stay until the end to hear the impressive vision
Speaker:he has for the future.
Speaker:It blew me away.
Speaker:Okay. I'm opening the envelope and revealing all Today.
Speaker:I can't wait to introduce you to Alex.
Speaker:Krakowski. Alex is the founder of a greeting card startup called
which actually began when he was pursuing his MBA at rice
Speaker:university, after graduating and entering the workforce.
Speaker:Alex noticed that his free time was slipping away along with
Speaker:his relationships with friends and family.
Speaker:So to keep in touch,
Speaker:he started snail,
Speaker:mailing them,
Speaker:literary art seasonal work in the form of letters.
Speaker:He would draw pictures in story form and mail them out
Speaker:to loved ones piece by piece over time.
Speaker:So imagine a comic with images being taken apart page by
Speaker:page. And then those pages sent out one by one throughout
Speaker:weeks or even months for his friends and family.
Speaker:It was a way to stay connected and create fun,
Speaker:personalized stories.
Speaker:They would look forward to checking their mailboxes every day and
Speaker:enjoyed the stories because they were always goofy sent over time
Speaker:and big bonus Alex's family and friends were the main characters
Speaker:in their own personalized mailbox movie from there telling guh was
Speaker:born Alex,
Speaker:welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.
Speaker:That was quite the intro suit.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:I am very grateful for being here.
Speaker:I am thrilled to have you on,
Speaker:and we get a lot of people who are interested in
Speaker:being on the show and I have to look and see
Speaker:if they fit with the audience,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:all that type of thing.
Speaker:I looked at your website and I was in thrawled like,
Speaker:this was so cool.
Speaker:So unique.
Speaker:I am a really,
Speaker:really excited to hear your whole story.
Speaker:So yay.
Speaker:You're here.
Speaker:Uh, thank you.
Speaker:So I have a big smile on my face and you're
Speaker:making my face a little bit red right now with all
Speaker:the compliments at a time that I desperately need them.
Speaker:So thank you,
Speaker:sir. Aw,
Speaker:we all can use a little bit of that right now,
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:Right? Well,
Speaker:let's start out in our traditional way.
Speaker:I know that this made you have to think for a
Speaker:second, but I like to have our guests share with us
Speaker:a little bit about themselves by way of a motivational candle.
Speaker:So if you were to tell me a color that resonates
Speaker:with you and a quote that you would put on a
Speaker:candle, if you were creating one that spoke all about you,
Speaker:what would your candle look like Alex?
Speaker:So I'm going to answer in a way that maybe none
Speaker:of your podcast members have answered before.
Speaker:I'm going to say that my candle burns in two different
Speaker:colors. And I think that with people that come on,
Speaker:there's many different personalities and then even within the podcast member
Speaker:that comes on,
Speaker:they sometimes are at an extreme high.
Speaker:Sometimes they're an extreme low.
Speaker:So I think for me,
Speaker:and for all of your listeners that are entrepreneurs can completely
Speaker:attest and agree with this is I think I burned two
Speaker:colors. One is an extreme white light,
Speaker:yellow, and that's because I'm an extreme optimist sometimes.
Speaker:And that's the way that I have to be to,
Speaker:to keep moving things forward.
Speaker:But then there's days or times that I'm kind of almost
Speaker:like a dark black where things are a little bit lonely
Speaker:and sad.
Speaker:And I think that the motivational quote behind the dark black
Speaker:light is you have to grind a shine is what I
Speaker:like to say.
Speaker:You have to keep grinding to keep shining,
Speaker:right? And what that means is whenever things are black and
Speaker:looking down and looking bad,
Speaker:you have to keep persevering and working through them to kind
Speaker:of take that black light and turn into a lighter color
Speaker:where it can eventually turn into that bright white light yellow,
Speaker:right? And then with the bright yellow,
Speaker:I would say that the motivational sides of that is it's
Speaker:kind of fun to do the impossible,
Speaker:right? And Walt Disney said that that might be kind of
Speaker:a cliche quote.
Speaker:But to me it means that I always like to put
Speaker:a lot on my plate.
Speaker:And for the stuff that I think is Dane near impossible
Speaker:to complete,
Speaker:as long as they keep pushing and moving forward,
Speaker:I'm usually able to complete those things in one way or
Speaker:another. So it's being an extreme optimist with that bright yellow
Speaker:light pair with the Walt Disney quote.
Speaker:So I think that I kind of shine in two different
Speaker:colors for that question.
Speaker:I think we can all relate to that.
Speaker:Anyone who's an entrepreneur starting something new like that definitely has
Speaker:those two sides,
Speaker:hopefully more the yellow than the black.
Speaker:Right. But you would also note,
Speaker:I don't know if you've seen my podcast logo,
Speaker:it's totally bright yellow and black.
Speaker:So when you were saying that,
Speaker:I'm like,
Speaker:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker:I nailed it.
Speaker:Nailed the answer there,
Speaker:you nail it.
Speaker:As long as it's resonating with you.
Speaker:And like it made 100% total sense to me.
Speaker:And I'm a super positive person just by nature also.
Speaker:So yellow dominate,
Speaker:but it would be so nice if we could just stay
Speaker:away from those black times,
Speaker:not reality,
Speaker:You have to go through the tower to get to the
Speaker:suite. And I think that's what entrepreneurship is all about.
Speaker:It's not for the fainthearted.
Speaker:It's for those that are tough and it's easier said than
Speaker:done. And whenever you're actually going through and you're going through
Speaker:those dark times,
Speaker:you've got to grind your way out of it as best
Speaker:you possibly can.
Speaker:And I think that there's some listeners out there right now,
Speaker:they're shaking their heads and smiling and completely agreeing with what
Speaker:I have to say right now.
Speaker:Totally what I'll also say.
Speaker:And I'd be curious about your thoughts on this as well
Speaker:is it's during those dark times when most people quit,
Speaker:when it's a struggle,
Speaker:when they reach a challenge,
Speaker:I think for a lot of us,
Speaker:it's the tech part of some of the things we're trying
Speaker:to do.
Speaker:It starts to get almost too overwhelming.
Speaker:And this is when you really want to plow through,
Speaker:because if you think about it,
Speaker:most people fall off then.
Speaker:So if you can get through that,
Speaker:I'm almost thinking of like a race like hurdles or something.
Speaker:People fall off certain hurdles.
Speaker:There are less people coming to the finish line,
Speaker:which means less competition for you when you actually reach the
Speaker:line, get your business started,
Speaker:get that new product out,
Speaker:whatever it is for you.
Speaker:So it's worth getting through these dark times is the point.
Speaker:Yeah. And I think,
Speaker:like I said earlier,
Speaker:It's a necessary evil because I feel like they do need
Speaker:to go through that sour to really appreciate the sweet and
Speaker:there's no sweet without the sour.
Speaker:Right. And if things just come easily to you then is
Speaker:that meaningful?
Speaker:Is that impactful to you?
Speaker:And I think that overcoming those hurdles as part of the
Speaker:process and the process is so super important,
Speaker:not in terms of personal growth and overall learning experience,
Speaker:but I feel like that you need to have those moments.
Speaker:So then at the end of it,
Speaker:whatever success,
Speaker:however you define success,
Speaker:whatever that looks like to you,
Speaker:that whenever you do achieve that,
Speaker:you can look back it's where you first started and then
Speaker:reflect on where you are and see how far you've come.
Speaker:And I think that moment right there,
Speaker:and it happens and I've hit certain milestones since I launched
Speaker:something. And we'll talk more about the hand a little bit,
Speaker:but I've picked certain milestones now where I look back and
Speaker:thought to myself months before years before,
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:Like I never thought I could achieve that myself.
Speaker:And I just kept my nose to the grindstone.
Speaker:I was able to do that.
Speaker:So I feel like that part of hardship,
Speaker:and I don't want to go so far as the same
Speaker:going through depression,
Speaker:but like going through a hardship,
Speaker:hardships is part of the process.
Speaker:And as part of that sour to ultimately appreciate the sweet,
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:And so often,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:we're always going for that next step.
Speaker:And so sometimes we forget to go back and celebrate and
Speaker:really recognize how far we've come.
Speaker:Sure. Because we're just always striving to go forward,
Speaker:forward, forward,
Speaker:forward. But instead of going forward right now,
Speaker:I want to go back and talk to me about what
Speaker:happened after you graduated.
Speaker:I didn't include in the intro,
Speaker:some of the other jobs you had,
Speaker:so I'd like you to quickly go through there and then
Speaker:we're going to talk all about your business development.
Speaker:Sure. So after I graduated from my MBA at rice university,
Speaker:I was thrilled really upon graduating because while I was obtaining
Speaker:my MBA also had a full time job in my career
Speaker:that I currently have,
Speaker:but I was thrilled because I didn't have the workload of
Speaker:20 to 30 extra hours a week of MBA academics on
Speaker:top of my normal career workload.
Speaker:And then I kind of had that monkey off my back.
Speaker:So now I felt like a superhero pretty much because now
Speaker:I didn't have to worry about that extreme workload.
Speaker:So I continued on my career that I currently have and
Speaker:continued to work on my startup on the side,
Speaker:what little hours I had left over in the day.
Speaker:Okay. So,
Speaker:but you also worked for other people for a while too,
Speaker:right? Or you worked other businesses,
Speaker:Right? Yes.
Speaker:And I currently work for quote unquote,
Speaker:other people right now I'm in the corporate world.
Speaker:And so I still have a full time job slash career
Speaker:and I've launched and in growing to Linka as kind of
Speaker:like a side hustle slash startup company on the side with
Speaker:what little hours I've left over.
Speaker:So I am doing both currently and my workload is intense,
Speaker:but there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker:Okay, perfect.
Speaker:That's perfect.
Speaker:Because so many of our listeners are doing the same thing.
Speaker:This is something that I think is a really smart move
Speaker:growing and building on the side versus,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:how the people will say,
Speaker:Oh, just quit your other job and jump in and then
Speaker:it'll have to be a success.
Speaker:I think that's so stressful when you're doing it that way.
Speaker:You're putting yourself up for risk.
Speaker:And it's just like,
Speaker:I much prefer what you're talking about,
Speaker:where you have some income,
Speaker:you have some stability and you're able to start building something
Speaker:of your own also.
Speaker:So that's perfect,
Speaker:but okay.
Speaker:So now that I know that let's just get into,
Speaker:to Linga.
Speaker:Okay. So start with how you decided to turn this into
Speaker:an actual business.
Speaker:Like when did that come about?
Speaker:Sure. So roughly three years ago,
Speaker:I decided to go back to school and obtain my MBA
Speaker:from rice university.
Speaker:About a year into the program,
Speaker:I was inundated overwhelmed with work.
Speaker:It must have been midnight on like a Tuesday.
Speaker:I was studying for an accounting exam and I got really
Speaker:tired of work,
Speaker:extremely bored with what I was studying.
Speaker:And I was like,
Speaker:what am I doing here?
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:it's midnight on a Tuesday.
Speaker:And I've realized like I have a full time job and
Speaker:I'm getting my MBA with an intense workload.
Speaker:And I really have no time for friends or family anymore.
Speaker:So taking a step back from there even,
Speaker:I've always been a huge fan of snail mail whenever I
Speaker:was in sixth grade,
Speaker:my English teacher said that she used to write letters to
Speaker:her mom and they used to exchange letters back and forth
Speaker:as a way to keep in touch.
Speaker:And at that time back then,
Speaker:whenever I was 11,
Speaker:12 years old,
Speaker:people were still writing letters to each other,
Speaker:but there wasn't the digital or social media experience that we
Speaker:had today in the world that we live in today.
Speaker:Right. So I thought it was really cool that she used
Speaker:to exchange letters with her mom a unique way to keep
Speaker:in touch.
Speaker:Right. So right after I heard that from me being in
Speaker:sixth grade,
Speaker:I started writing letters to my grandma.
Speaker:Right. And so I started writing letters back and forth and
Speaker:it was fun.
Speaker:We did that for roughly two years or so.
Speaker:And then from there,
Speaker:I used to exchange letters with people while I was in
Speaker:college. Right.
Speaker:So I've always been like a really big fan of snail
Speaker:mail. I've always looked forward to getting greeting card in the
Speaker:mail sports illustrated in the mail.
Speaker:So with that kind of love of the traditional mailbox,
Speaker:I started thinking,
Speaker:man, I don't see my friends or family anymore.
Speaker:I'm constantly studying midnight on Tuesday accounting exam.
Speaker:I'm studying for nothing seems to stick anymore.
Speaker:I need to take a break.
Speaker:Right. So what I did is I drew little stick men
Speaker:drawings of two prior experiences before in my life.
Speaker:And I sent them off one to my mom and then
Speaker:one to my brother.
Speaker:Yes. Now Madison envelopes in my car and some stamps on
Speaker:my car.
Speaker:And then I sent them off as kind of me being
Speaker:stressed out and wanting to take a break from my work.
Speaker:Yeah. And one of the drawings was reminiscing,
Speaker:a period from my past with my mom.
Speaker:And this is kind of hard to follow,
Speaker:but I'm hoping your listeners can understand where I'm coming from
Speaker:here. But whenever I was growing up,
Speaker:the first star Wars movie,
Speaker:Phantom menace was a huge movie at the time.
Speaker:And one of the characters,
Speaker:Natalie Portman played queen Amidala.
Speaker:And so my mom watched it when my brother and I
Speaker:had the movie theater,
Speaker:I think we went opening day and my mom afterwards in
Speaker:a way to get us to do chores and for us
Speaker:to keep to our studies,
Speaker:she said,
Speaker:you listened to me on queen mama Dolla.
Speaker:So instead of queen Amandola,
Speaker:she nicknamed herself queen mama Dolla.
Speaker:I love that we laughed the one time,
Speaker:but then like It became a thing probably Cause she kept
Speaker:saying it over and over again.
Speaker:And maybe there was a diminishing return on the comedy there
Speaker:because she kept saying it over and over again.
Speaker:So I drew a little stick man,
Speaker:drawing of reminiscing,
Speaker:her saying that,
Speaker:and her dressed up as a queen.
Speaker:I sent that off to my mom.
Speaker:And then the other incident was with my brother when we
Speaker:were growing up,
Speaker:I was,
Speaker:I think,
Speaker:16 at the time he was 18.
Speaker:He was a senior in high school.
Speaker:We went up to Wisconsin to visit some relatives.
Speaker:And we're at the Kansas city chiefs training camp.
Speaker:And one of our favorite players growing up was Tony Gonzalez
Speaker:tied in for the Kansas city chiefs at the time.
Speaker:And keep in mind,
Speaker:my brother is 18 years old.
Speaker:He pretty much has chest hair,
Speaker:facial hair.
Speaker:He's almost full grown man about to go off to college.
Speaker:Right? Whenever Tony Gonzalez comes out of the locker room,
Speaker:he in the most childlike voice goes,
Speaker:Tony, Tony,
Speaker:Tony, can you please sign my ball?
Speaker:I came all the way from Houston,
Speaker:Texas for you to sign my ball,
Speaker:please, please,
Speaker:please. It's kind of a,
Speaker:one of those had to be there type stores.
Speaker:Cause it blew me away.
Speaker:Blew my parents away.
Speaker:They were standing by like,
Speaker:where did that little childlike voice come from?
Speaker:You're like almost an adult male.
Speaker:Like what are you doing?
Speaker:It was the most cringe-worthy it was just the worst thing
Speaker:in the world during like,
Speaker:Oh my God,
Speaker:you're like an adult man.
Speaker:Like you shouldn't sound like that.
Speaker:And so we all gave him a hard time for that.
Speaker:So I drew a stick figure,
Speaker:picture drawing of him,
Speaker:trying to reminisce that period from as much as possible.
Speaker:Cause I wanted them to go and check their mailbox and
Speaker:to receive it and it to be a different form of
Speaker:message or receiving something from someone I've really put a smile
Speaker:on their face as a way to kind of keep in
Speaker:touch with them.
Speaker:So they absolutely loved it.
Speaker:Some days go by I'm in one of my classes at
Speaker:rice, I tell one of my friends what I did and
Speaker:that friend actually told me,
Speaker:Hey, maybe you should turn this into a business.
Speaker:Right? And so that's essentially the birth of to
lingo stands for telling a story.
Speaker:And what we do is we create a pistol area,
Speaker:greeting cards that tell people's unique stories.
Speaker:That is so cool.
Speaker:Do you think that if your friend wouldn't have said that
Speaker:you would have ever come to the idea?
Speaker:I don't think so because I just wasn't thinking about it
Speaker:that way.
Speaker:While I was getting my MBA,
Speaker:everything was so much bigger than sending letters or greeting cards
Speaker:in the mail.
Speaker:Everything was very corporate.
Speaker:So to speak of getting the next position in your current
Speaker:career and getting the next spot,
Speaker:or if you were to start a company,
Speaker:start something,
Speaker:another electric car company or saw or something way,
Speaker:what people would perceive as a bigger,
Speaker:so absolutely not.
Speaker:And not cross my mind at all.
Speaker:Yeah. It's very interesting.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:that happened to me too.
Speaker:It was my husband who had to say,
Speaker:why don't you go into business yourself?
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:I had been coaching people forever on the corporate side.
Speaker:And so when I stopped,
Speaker:it was the same thing.
Speaker:And I think it's similar with our listeners too.
Speaker:They don't necessarily,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:if they make things,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:they're creators,
Speaker:handmade, creators,
Speaker:the idea doesn't necessarily come to them themselves that they're capable
Speaker:of doing what other people have seen them do.
Speaker:So this is kind of a heads up to anybody who's
Speaker:listening. Who's had anybody ever say to you,
Speaker:Hey, maybe you should start selling that.
Speaker:It's such a great product.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:You should think about turning it into a business because you
Speaker:can see here where other people have had that experience and
Speaker:it's been successful.
Speaker:So I love that.
Speaker:That was your story.
Speaker:So what then did you,
Speaker:do you thought about it and obviously considered it to be
Speaker:a good idea?
Speaker:What was your first step to actually forming a business around
Speaker:this? My first step was anxiety and then my second step
Speaker:was anxiety.
Speaker:My third step was anxiety.
Speaker:Why were you anxious?
Speaker:You hadn't done anything at exactly.
Speaker:Well, as anxious is because I haven't done anything yet.
Speaker:I've never started a company before.
Speaker:I've never done any of the immediate things that I thought
Speaker:that I would need to do upon launching the company,
Speaker:not to mention I had a full workload with my career.
Speaker:And then on top of that,
Speaker:I was getting my MBA.
Speaker:So I have two major things going on already.
Speaker:And then how do I launch a company coming to be
Speaker:that third thing in my life?
Speaker:Oh, so why did you decide you needed to do it
Speaker:then versus waiting?
Speaker:Like until you were done with your degree,
Speaker:were you that excited about it or I was that excited
Speaker:about it,
Speaker:but I just had an entrepreneurial kind of itch that I
Speaker:needed to scratch.
Speaker:And Rice's entrepreneurship program is for whatever it's worth your listeners,
Speaker:just ranked number one in the nation.
Speaker:There's a very strong entrepreneurship program and I was constantly immersed
Speaker:within the program with other entrepreneurs as well as the academics
Speaker:behind it and almost being consistently bombarded by entrepreneurship at rice.
Speaker:So I've always kind of had this itch that I've wanted
Speaker:to scratch with entrepreneurship.
Speaker:And then I paired that with getting my MBA from a
Speaker:really strong entrepreneurship school.
Speaker:And then you pair both of those things with the fact
Speaker:that I really loved the idea.
Speaker:And I thought,
Speaker:ultimately, that this is a simple idea.
Speaker:I'm not creating a cure for cancer.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:as I mentioned,
Speaker:I'm not creating another electric car company.
Speaker:That is a simple enough idea that I could perhaps execute
Speaker:on this at least starting by myself and having a full
Speaker:career workload paired with an MBA workload.
Speaker:And I could actually do this.
Speaker:Right. So as far as getting started,
Speaker:it's just anxiety.
Speaker:Because even though it's not some big grandiose ideas,
Speaker:I mentioned,
Speaker:there's still a huge learning curve,
Speaker:but I've never done this before.
Speaker:And so I started trying to tackle things,
Speaker:right. I knew that I wanted to have a website.
Speaker:I started doing research,
Speaker:tons of research,
Speaker:tons of research.
Speaker:What were you researching?
Speaker:Just researching a,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:if anyone's currently doing this and what epistolary is a literary
Speaker:art form in the form of letters being sent through the
Speaker:mail, a Dracula print broker.
Speaker:Did you know that word when you started out or you
Speaker:found that in your research?
Speaker:No, I didn't.
Speaker:And I'm sure while you're listening to it.
Speaker:Cause I mean,
Speaker:it's a thing,
Speaker:people know pistol.
Speaker:I did not know that.
Speaker:And so I didn't know it.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So a pistol is thing and then I started researching epistolary
Speaker:if there's any companies currently doing it.
Speaker:And I started researching other greeting card companies,
Speaker:I started researching like where this could be a fit,
Speaker:right. And I had a certain vision for it.
Speaker:So whenever I first started and it's definitely changed since whenever
Speaker:I first started,
Speaker:but just started doing a bunch of research on kind of
Speaker:the landscape of different industries and if anyone's doing it and
Speaker:where it would fit.
Speaker:And then on top of that,
Speaker:I started researching,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:how am I going to be able to build a website
Speaker:and how am I going to generate traffic?
Speaker:Where am I going to find the artists?
Speaker:What style are they going to draw on?
Speaker:How are operations going to look,
Speaker:accounting, finance,
Speaker:the business functions and entrepreneurship has to take on.
Speaker:I started just kind of thinking and researching all those things.
Speaker:And then I just started building a list and tackling one
Speaker:thing at a time.
Speaker:And if I knew back then what I knew now,
Speaker:it's just,
Speaker:I say that and I shrug my shoulders at the same
Speaker:time and close my eyes and think it's been,
Speaker:even though this is an epistle Eric greeting card company and
Speaker:what was seemingly simple to launch and grow at the time,
Speaker:roughly two years ago,
Speaker:it's been so much more work than I anticipated since then.
Speaker:But so I started doing all of this research.
Speaker:Essentially. I started to kind of morph this product and started
Speaker:to kind of build on it slowly over time.
Speaker:Okay. What would you say to somebody now you were just
Speaker:mentioning if I would have only known back then?
Speaker:Well, back then,
Speaker:first of all,
Speaker:isn't that long ago,
Speaker:two years ago,
Speaker:but what would you say to yourself that you wish you
Speaker:would've done differently at this point?
Speaker:Like I'm thinking for people,
Speaker:Alex, who are just thinking of starting out,
Speaker:could, do you have any tips right here at this beginning
Speaker:point of something you would have done differently By no means
Speaker:am I an expert or a teacher,
Speaker:but You're an expert on your situation though.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you,
Speaker:sir. You brought up a point earlier the tech side right
Speaker:early in the podcast.
Speaker:The way that I look at it now is a,
Speaker:I would find a co founder,
Speaker:right? I did not have a cofounder and launch.
Speaker:I think it's so super important to have another person launching
Speaker:a company with you because you have all of these ideas
Speaker:and opinions and thoughts about where you want to take the
Speaker:company and how you want to do it,
Speaker:how you want to execute.
Speaker:But I think it's so important to have someone that has
Speaker:maybe contrasting skills years or just anyone else,
Speaker:really to help field your opinions and ideas and thoughts,
Speaker:and then build on those and then develop new ones.
Speaker:Right? So that's one huge mistake that I made is not
Speaker:having co-founder in the way that I look at it is
Speaker:I learned in grad school,
Speaker:you're supposed to have this hipster,
Speaker:right? And you're supposed to have a hacker and you're supposed
Speaker:to have a hustler.
Speaker:So kind of start with three people.
Speaker:What I mean by that as the hipsters kind of the
Speaker:visionary and the thought leader and where they want to take
Speaker:the brand and what the brand is and where they want
Speaker:to take it.
Speaker:The hacker is essentially that the coder,
Speaker:the programming,
Speaker:the tech person,
Speaker:which I thought,
Speaker:which I so desperately need now and definitely needed fact then,
Speaker:and then the hustler,
Speaker:right? The salesman.
Speaker:And that's more of who I am.
Speaker:It's kind of the hustler slash hipster.
Speaker:And I kind of lack those hacking skills,
Speaker:but the hustle hustler,
Speaker:the salesmen to go out acquire leads,
Speaker:acquire sales,
Speaker:build SEO factors.
Speaker:So I think starting not just what,
Speaker:maybe one co-founder,
Speaker:but starting with three people,
Speaker:the hustler,
Speaker:the hipster and the hacker I think is super important.
Speaker:Interesting. Yeah.
Speaker:If you can,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:a lot of people do just start as one and have
Speaker:to play all the roles and eventually gravitate into what is
Speaker:the most comfortable for them.
Speaker:That's when me,
Speaker:and I think,
Speaker:I think that,
Speaker:like I know that I've definitely stunted my acceleration and growth
Speaker:for doing that,
Speaker:but I think about this daily Sue and I think about
Speaker:why I lost the company by myself is because I didn't
Speaker:want to,
Speaker:well, I was kind of foolish if I went back in
Speaker:time, would I do that again?
Speaker:I'd be 50 50.
Speaker:Why I just gave your listeners advice that I would do
Speaker:that. There's also a part of me,
Speaker:maybe half of me that wouldn't do that.
Speaker:Why? Because I feel like it's so important that you have
Speaker:a lot of listeners.
Speaker:You've had a lot of people on your podcasts that you
Speaker:said that would not,
Speaker:or that I had to do it by themselves.
Speaker:And I think that's super important because you're learning all the
Speaker:facets of what it takes to get the job done.
Speaker:Right. You're learning all your business functions,
Speaker:you're learning your business and you're not delegating it out.
Speaker:So since you understand your business,
Speaker:then you can hire later on.
Speaker:So for example,
Speaker:I didn't know anything about SEO whenever I first started.
Speaker:I didn't know anything about building a website.
Speaker:I didn't know anything about a lot of stuff that I've
Speaker:now learned.
Speaker:Right? And so I feel like it's so important for people
Speaker:to go out and go through that hardship of learning early
Speaker:on. So then whenever the company does scale to a point
Speaker:where they have to start hiring on employees,
Speaker:that they can do so in a very intelligent way,
Speaker:because they know what the business needs and they know here's
Speaker:what I need from SEO.
Speaker:Here's what I need from a website.
Speaker:Here's what I need from an application.
Speaker:Here's what I need from whatever,
Speaker:because you've gone through it yourself.
Speaker:And you know that you can't necessarily tackle due to some
Speaker:constraints, whether it be time or anything else,
Speaker:but you know what the business needs more than anyone else
Speaker:does. So instead of immediately just delegating out tasks,
Speaker:you don't even know how to manage those tasks.
Speaker:You don't know how to manage those people because you've never
Speaker:gone through yourself.
Speaker:But if you've gone through building website,
Speaker:you've gone through SEO,
Speaker:you've gone through accounting,
Speaker:finance, other business functions.
Speaker:You've gone through that,
Speaker:suck by yourself.
Speaker:And you know how to manage that with the people that
Speaker:you do decide to hire on later in your business,
Speaker:if that makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah. And I think a lot depends on just how you
Speaker:are as a personality too.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:I don't have co-founders or partners with either of my businesses,
Speaker:but I have an assistant who is solid gold and she
Speaker:is like,
Speaker:Sue, if anything happens to you,
Speaker:do you know that I am not taking on this company?
Speaker:Like, she didn't want any responsibility like that,
Speaker:but she's loving everything she's doing.
Speaker:She doesn't have the skin in the game like that,
Speaker:especially financially.
Speaker:So I think that,
Speaker:and I also like to call all the shots too with
Speaker:advice and all of that.
Speaker:So I think I really like what you're talking about is
Speaker:having someone else around to bounce ideas off of maybe that
Speaker:a business coach,
Speaker:maybe it's entering a program.
Speaker:Like we have a special program called maker's MBA for makers
Speaker:to help them start their business.
Speaker:Maybe someone from your chamber or a local,
Speaker:who's also starting a business.
Speaker:So you guys can like bounce ideas off each other.
Speaker:But I think having somebody else there,
Speaker:because let's face it,
Speaker:when we're looking at our own ideas all the time,
Speaker:everything looks great.
Speaker:Right. Or we get stuck and we're overwhelmed.
Speaker:Okay. So you got things started,
Speaker:you did all your research.
Speaker:You wish you would've had someone else to bounce ideas off
Speaker:of. So that's really interesting and good for us to know,
Speaker:talk us through where you were and what you had in
Speaker:place. At the point you went quote,
Speaker:unquote, live with the business we're coming right back after a
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Speaker:Sure. I'll explain just briefly what the business actually is.
Speaker:Right? So
as I mentioned,
Speaker:stands for telling a story,
Speaker:we create a pistol lyric greeting cards that tell people's unique
Speaker:stories, usually love stories.
Speaker:And this is usually sent to someone as a premium greeting
Speaker:card or a really unique gift,
Speaker:right? And so let's say,
Speaker:Sue, you and I are best friends,
Speaker:and I want to buy you a birthday gift,
Speaker:right? So I log on it to linda.com.
Speaker:And then the first thing I do is I select a
Speaker:certain story length,
Speaker:whether it be a one day story or one week story,
Speaker:a two week story or a one month story,
Speaker:and I'll come full circle with that hearing a little bit
Speaker:and what those story links are.
Speaker:And let's say,
Speaker:I say,
Speaker:Sue is an evil podcast host,
Speaker:trying to actually take down all makers and creators and craftsmen
Speaker:across the globe.
Speaker:She's not really doing this from the kindness of her heart.
Speaker:She's not really trying to do anything positive for the makers
Speaker:of the world.
Speaker:And she's really trying to take us down,
Speaker:Alex. I'm not liking your story.
Speaker:Keep going.
Speaker:I'm just kidding.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:And you find this funny,
Speaker:cause I know you and I know that you do this
Speaker:right. I'm also a maker and craftsman myself.
Speaker:So it's funny.
Speaker:It's relatable to both of us because we're best friends.
Speaker:And then I throw your brother in there.
Speaker:Let's say you have a brother and say,
Speaker:C's brother is my sidekick and we try to take you
Speaker:down or whatever.
Speaker:Right? So I probably description.
Speaker:And then I upload a photo of your brother,
Speaker:upload a photo of me and then you,
Speaker:and then I hit submit.
Speaker:And then from there it gets sent off to a team
Speaker:of 25 contracted artists that are located throughout the United States.
Speaker:And they then begin illustrating out that story on a five
Speaker:and a half by eight and a half size greeting card,
Speaker:like card stock.
Speaker:They begin drawing out that story.
Speaker:And these snail mail it out piece by piece every other
Speaker:day for one week,
Speaker:two weeks or one month.
Speaker:So going back to the story links,
Speaker:the one day story is just one hand drawn illustration.
Speaker:The one week story is three hand drawn illustrations sent out
Speaker:every other day over one week.
Speaker:The two week story is six hand drawn illustrations sent out
Speaker:every other day,
Speaker:over two weeks.
Speaker:And then one,
Speaker:one story is 12 liters and sends out every other day
Speaker:over one month.
Speaker:Right? So the whole point of this.
Speaker:And so let me get back to the story is let's
Speaker:say first part you get in your plotting to take down
Speaker:all craftsmen and makers and stuff like that,
Speaker:right? And that's the first illustration that you receive in your
Speaker:mailbox. And then two days later it's even know that illustration,
Speaker:it's me meeting up with our brother and he's my sidekick.
Speaker:And we're like going to go take you down or whatever.
Speaker:And so every other day you receive another part of that
Speaker:story in the mail.
Speaker:And it's essentially like a very personalized storybook for all ages.
Speaker:If you were to rip out all the pages that personalized
Speaker:storybook and you were to snail,
Speaker:mail them out every other day for that period of time,
Speaker:that's what we're doing,
Speaker:right? And the whole point of this is kind of tap
Speaker:back into the tangible,
Speaker:the physical,
Speaker:the real side of life,
Speaker:getting people to look forward to their mailbox.
Speaker:Everybody has a mailbox,
Speaker:but they're not often excited to check it anymore because it's
Speaker:usually filled with junk mail and bills.
Speaker:And you pair that with everything's email,
Speaker:everything's social media,
Speaker:everything's digitized electronic these days,
Speaker:that this is the anti social media,
Speaker:anti digital electronic company.
Speaker:And that we're trying to kind of get back into that
Speaker:tangible, physical,
Speaker:real old school way of life.
Speaker:And we're trying to accomplish that really through the mailbox and
Speaker:be a mailbox company and getting people at the end of
Speaker:a hard work day,
Speaker:they come home and they receive another part of the story
Speaker:that they're the lead character.
Speaker:And just to put a smile on their face.
Speaker:Well, first off,
Speaker:who wouldn't want a story written about them,
Speaker:whether you're the evil villain or not,
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Like I want my story now.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:But then you can keep that,
Speaker:like, that's something,
Speaker:it is a gift unto itself.
Speaker:It's a card.
Speaker:Right. And so many of us have challenges of like,
Speaker:what do you do with your cards after you get them
Speaker:anyway? Right.
Speaker:But now these are pictures.
Speaker:So you could be framing them.
Speaker:You could put them all together for the story.
Speaker:Or you could just keep them together as like you're saying,
Speaker:like its own little storybook where you're the main character.
Speaker:I think it's brilliant.
Speaker:And the reason why position is officially as like a greeting
Speaker:card or an alternative greeting card is because I just think
Speaker:traditional green cards,
Speaker:for lack of a better word suck,
Speaker:right? They're not truly personalized.
Speaker:They're fixed,
Speaker:they're cheesy.
Speaker:They don't say what you really want to say.
Speaker:Right. And usually whenever I received them and I think 99%
Speaker:of your listeners would agree with me is that whenever I
Speaker:received them,
Speaker:I fake smile say,
Speaker:thank you.
Speaker:Maybe I pretend to put it up on their fridge for
Speaker:a second.
Speaker:But whenever that person leaves my house or at least whatever
Speaker:situation I'm in,
Speaker:I'll take it and usually throw it away where it's almost
Speaker:meaningless to me because of how generic fix and lame it
Speaker:is. Right.
Speaker:Then there's really no additional benefit after you receive it just
Speaker:the first time.
Speaker:Or you can't do anything like frame it or you can't
Speaker:put it on a tee shirt or a mug,
Speaker:or you can't put it somewhere up in your office to
Speaker:remind you how you need to have a gift.
Speaker:That was really the lead character.
Speaker:And right.
Speaker:So I just think that greeting cards that they have with
Speaker:other companies and will continue to be disrupted because they need
Speaker:to be because of how fixed they are in nature.
Speaker:Right. I mean,
Speaker:there are customized cards now,
Speaker:but they still only take it to a certain level.
Speaker:You are way over that with what you're doing.
Speaker:So what are the price ranges?
Speaker:You don't have to tell me for each one of the
Speaker:times, but like where does it range from the least expensive?
Speaker:Like the one day to the two months,
Speaker:what's your range?
Speaker:It's 10 to $120.
Speaker:Okay. So reasonable.
Speaker:If you wanted to do like one card,
Speaker:one week,
Speaker:even two weeks would equal the cost of a gift.
Speaker:Let's say you were sending someone a gift.
Speaker:It's kind of the greeting card that serves as the gift
Speaker:and also the greeting card at the same time.
Speaker:But even at $10 for the one day card,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:that's still extremely competitive for the premium greeting card space.
Speaker:And you look at other more premium green card offerings at
Speaker:the top shelf at CVS or Walgreens or some other company's
Speaker:currently selling more higher and greeting cards mean you're looking at
Speaker:10 to $15 anyways,
Speaker:but those greeting cards that you're purchasing there are still 10
Speaker:to 15 bucks or that are still fixed.
Speaker:And to have the same message,
Speaker:mine is completely a hundred percent personalized and customized.
Speaker:So we're really excited about that.
Speaker:Totally get it.
Speaker:I'm totally in line with your pricing.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:Okay. So now that we understand what the product is,
Speaker:what did you have in place when you got started?
Speaker:Let's start there and then I have a follow up question.
Speaker:You had your website,
Speaker:obviously Here come the hardest,
Speaker:right? Like I gotta plug an artist,
Speaker:where am I going to find these artists?
Speaker:Right. So I reached out to art organizations at rice university,
Speaker:as well as the university of Houston is a Houston based
Speaker:company. And I asked the presidents there,
Speaker:do you have any people that'd be interested in this?
Speaker:And so they blast it out to their people.
Speaker:And the response was over whelming.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:I must have had a hundred applications sent to me just
Speaker:from two different groups that I sent it out to.
Speaker:So, I mean,
Speaker:there was a real need for artists to want to get
Speaker:plugged into a cool new startup platform.
Speaker:So I need to hire the artist.
Speaker:Right. And then from there,
Speaker:what do I do with artists?
Speaker:Right? Like what are they going to be illustrating on?
Speaker:What's that gonna look like?
Speaker:And how is that going to be delivered?
Speaker:What internal platform are we going to use to communicate and
Speaker:to run operations on?
Speaker:There's just so much to consider.
Speaker:But like I said,
Speaker:it was one thing at a time.
Speaker:And as soon as I reached out to acquire artists and
Speaker:I interviewed the artists,
Speaker:I was like,
Speaker:well, what am I going to do with them?
Speaker:Now that I have them on board.
Speaker:And now that I have them on board,
Speaker:what platform are they going to be plugged into?
Speaker:Where they can communicate and post their artwork to.
Speaker:And then it was just one thing at a time.
Speaker:And like,
Speaker:really it's like I had what I thought at the time,
Speaker:two or three more things to do.
Speaker:It was really like in reality,
Speaker:it was like 20 to 30 things more to do,
Speaker:but I didn't see those 20 or 30 things to do
Speaker:from there.
Speaker:I only saw the two or three because I thought it
Speaker:would be a lot simpler than what it actually was.
Speaker:Cause one thing leads to another leads to,
Speaker:Oh yeah,
Speaker:for sure problems lead to other problems.
Speaker:So did you start with several artists and then get up
Speaker:and running and test the system to see where the holes
Speaker:were and other things that you had to add in That
Speaker:is exactly what I did.
Speaker:Yep. I saw one of the holes where I had immediate
Speaker:friends and family obviously purchase telling stores just to give it
Speaker:a good test and then worked out the holes later on.
Speaker:Okay. So it wasn't totally perfect when you started,
Speaker:which is a good lesson for all of us to remember
Speaker:you still got started and sometimes you can't find the holes
Speaker:until you've started.
Speaker:It was awful.
Speaker:Okay. So there has to be a story.
Speaker:I'm not letting that statement just pass by.
Speaker:So what was awful?
Speaker:It was awful because the website functionality,
Speaker:like it was bad looking and like,
Speaker:I didn't know how to build a website.
Speaker:I'm so much better at it now.
Speaker:And I still have a lot to learn,
Speaker:but the user experience for the website was awful.
Speaker:The artist's way that they received orders.
Speaker:Mike. So whenever a customer submitted an order,
Speaker:I took that information and sent it off to an artist
Speaker:via text message.
Speaker:And then just said,
Speaker:Hey, can you please complete this order via text message.
Speaker:And now we have an internal platform that obviously is automated
Speaker:that whenever an order comes in,
Speaker:it automatically gets sent out and it gets posted and then
Speaker:they take it and they complete the story and they upload
Speaker:images where at the time it was just me sending out.
Speaker:First of all,
Speaker:it was a terrible user experience.
Speaker:A website barely worked.
Speaker:And then if a customer was able to complete an order
Speaker:on the website,
Speaker:that order was just taken by me and sent to an
Speaker:artist via text message and say,
Speaker:Hey, can you just complete this and send out these illustrations
Speaker:whenever you can.
Speaker:And it was all done on computer paper at the time,
Speaker:eight and a half by 11 size piece of computer paper.
Speaker:And now we have nice,
Speaker:good premium recycled card stock that we illustrate from,
Speaker:with branding and a logo all over it,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:but it was on computer paper and it was really just
Speaker:a lot of guesswork.
Speaker:And it was me wondering if the artist was completing the
Speaker:story on time,
Speaker:what the artwork actually looked like,
Speaker:because I had no clue what it looked like whenever they
Speaker:were completing,
Speaker:it sent off to customers.
Speaker:The time that they were sending it out,
Speaker:that was very important for it to stay consistent with every
Speaker:other day schedule.
Speaker:So it was all over the place.
Speaker:And I don't want to get into the nitty gritties of
Speaker:it, but like suddenly the website and it was the process
Speaker:behind the order,
Speaker:in the internal platforms that we use or didn't use at
Speaker:the time.
Speaker:So it was clunky and a high level of just manual
Speaker:activity that had to happen.
Speaker:But I hope you don't beat yourself up a lot about
Speaker:that because you had to go through that process to get
Speaker:to where you are now.
Speaker:I'm proud of my team and I'm proud of myself for
Speaker:having overcome that.
Speaker:And when you talked earlier about just wanting to give up,
Speaker:especially from the tech side,
Speaker:man, I've wanted to give up so much,
Speaker:but I believe in this product,
Speaker:I believe in the vision so much that it's keeping me
Speaker:pushed forward.
Speaker:So what did you say to yourself on those days when
Speaker:you, on the black days when you wanted to give up,
Speaker:right. And you were just going to be over,
Speaker:how did you keep going?
Speaker:Lots of coffee.
Speaker:I'm into that.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:Yeah. Lots of coffee.
Speaker:And just being a pause,
Speaker:like ha I just,
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Some internal driver of mine Drive,
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Self-starter and me envisioning what this product could be and where
Speaker:it needs to be.
Speaker:And the niche that it will be in and kind of
Speaker:has already placed itself in,
Speaker:but kind of seeing and understanding that before in the past
Speaker:week, I just need to get over this little hurdle here.
Speaker:And after I get over this little hurdle here,
Speaker:I'm gonna have to get over this slightly bigger hurdle here.
Speaker:Am I taking it one step at a time?
Speaker:And I'm just gonna keep moving forward.
Speaker:Right. But it's kinda like when you watch like sports and
Speaker:you just hear athletes talk about taking things one game at
Speaker:a time.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:that's so true.
Speaker:And it's just taking one play at a time,
Speaker:one game at a time,
Speaker:one task,
Speaker:one challenge at a time overcoming and not thinking too far
Speaker:into the future.
Speaker:You kind of have the Superbowl in mind.
Speaker:Right. But you're not consistently thinking I need to be at
Speaker:super bowl right now.
Speaker:You're just thinking I need to have a good regular season.
Speaker:Once I have a good regular season,
Speaker:then I'll get into the playoffs.
Speaker:I need to have good playoffs.
Speaker:Playoffs will beat me to the super bowl.
Speaker:Right. It's but not completely so fixated and stuck on the
Speaker:super bowl,
Speaker:but just taking everything once that one game,
Speaker:one play at a time.
Speaker:And that's the approach that I took and just kind of
Speaker:little bite sizes at times.
Speaker:Yeah. So you have the overall vision,
Speaker:but then you work on the little tasks,
Speaker:each little task at hand.
Speaker:And each of those is a mini success too.
Speaker:When you've gotten that one done,
Speaker:then you go to the bigger one,
Speaker:like you said,
Speaker:and the bigger one.
Speaker:Yeah. What guests is exciting.
Speaker:Right? We've been on podcast,
Speaker:bill farmer.
Speaker:The first time we were on a podcast,
Speaker:I was rattled.
Speaker:I was so nervous.
Speaker:And now I feel a lot more confident talking to you
Speaker:and I feel comfortable.
Speaker:And it's fun for me.
Speaker:Whenever I first did a podcast,
Speaker:I was very uncomfortable.
Speaker:I wasn't having fun.
Speaker:I was nervous.
Speaker:And now talking to you,
Speaker:Sue, this is great.
Speaker:And so it shows the growth of me shows the growth
Speaker:of the company.
and there's more growth in the future for sure.
Speaker:So one question I know our listeners will be really interested
Speaker:in hearing about is how did you attract your first customers?
Speaker:So you're not physically anywhere,
Speaker:right? You're only on the website.
Speaker:I'm thinking,
Speaker:correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker:Pulling on the website.
Speaker:Yep. Okay.
Speaker:So how did you attract your first customers to even know
Speaker:about the website?
Speaker:First of all,
Speaker:his friends and family,
Speaker:we had to create content for the website.
Speaker:We had to create illustrations to show his examples,
Speaker:right? So to get my mom,
Speaker:dad, brother,
Speaker:girlfriend, all of my peers at rice at the time like,
Speaker:Hey, please buy this,
Speaker:please buy this.
Speaker:And it was extremely frightened.
Speaker:Now we have listed,
Speaker:for example,
Speaker:a $10,
Speaker:one day card.
Speaker:It used to be called $3.
Speaker:So it was extremely cheap.
Speaker:Right. And just getting people around me to make sales,
Speaker:but that was fun.
Speaker:But obviously what matters most is to having customer that's never,
Speaker:or that you don't know order your product.
Speaker:Right. And so I actually reached out to the rice thresher,
Speaker:which is a newspaper at a rice university.
Speaker:And I told them what we were accomplished,
Speaker:trying to accomplish about our project.
Speaker:And they did a story on to lingo.
Speaker:And then once that posted,
Speaker:there was a sale that was made that night from a
Speaker:person that I've never heard of before had no connection to
Speaker:any of my friends or family,
Speaker:nothing at all.
Speaker:And sometimes sales before then would come in and it'd be
Speaker:from someone I've never seen before.
Speaker:But then I later found out it was a friend of
Speaker:a friend or a friend of my parents or something like
Speaker:that. Right.
Speaker:But then a cell came through and I did so much
Speaker:research just to find out that it was from someone that's
Speaker:not connected to me at all through any degrees of separation
Speaker:That was pivotal.
Speaker:And then that was the most euphoric,
Speaker:exciting, entertaining,
Speaker:awesome feeling.
Speaker:And I later found out,
Speaker:I think the next day that they had saw the article
Speaker:in the rice thresher and decided to give it a try.
Speaker:And I remember it was at night whenever they made the
Speaker:order, I was sitting in the middle of class and I
Speaker:couldn't sit still.
Speaker:I almost wanted to leave room and do jumping jacks and
Speaker:pushups because I was so pumped at that.
Speaker:It actually happened.
Speaker:Right. And that's whenever the validation hit before then everything leading
Speaker:up to that moment,
Speaker:it was kind of like,
Speaker:ah, this is probably not going to work.
Speaker:This product stinks.
Speaker:Nobody wants us.
Speaker:Nobody wants me.
Speaker:Nobody likes this idea,
Speaker:whatever, you know,
Speaker:but whenever that sale was made,
Speaker:there was so much weight that was lifted off my sores.
Speaker:That monkey was essentially off my back and still came from
Speaker:a person that no one knew no one's heard of.
Speaker:And it was the most amazing thing in the world.
Speaker:I couldn't believe it.
Speaker:And just so much validation.
Speaker:Yeah. That is amazing.
Speaker:And when that happens,
Speaker:then, you know,
Speaker:there's more,
Speaker:when that first one comes in like that,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:there can be others behind it.
Speaker:Sure. Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely. And a lot has come since then.
Speaker:So that was kind of the start,
Speaker:I would say.
Speaker:That's pretty much the launch of
of like a pilot program test program.
Speaker:Okay. All right.
Speaker:And so now what are you doing today to attract people
Speaker:over to your website?
Speaker:I'm getting on a gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped podcast and talk group.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:No, right now,
Speaker:uh, currently I'm working a lot on SEO search engine optimization.
Speaker:I'm currently working with a person we're doing a lot of
Speaker:key things to help boost the organic rankings up to Linga.
Speaker:So whenever people search for key things on Google,
Speaker:they'll find us the top of the search rankings,
Speaker:right. Also have some Google ads that are currently running out
Speaker:there that are generating traffic for the website.
Speaker:There's a lot of a word of mouth going on right
Speaker:now. And then I have an affiliate program where affiliates are
Speaker:awarded 20% of whatever sales that come through their affiliate code.
Speaker:There's a couple of minimal things out there.
Speaker:And currently I'm actually talking with three or four different companies
Speaker:about potential partnerships,
Speaker:strategic partnerships that we'll put to Linda in a place to
Speaker:help their brand,
Speaker:but then also their brand helped to Linga.
Speaker:And that's kind of the next big phase of sales is
Speaker:that I've done the SEO thing.
Speaker:I've done pay-per-click and Google ads.
Speaker:I'm on social media,
Speaker:all the social media platforms and maximizing those as much as
Speaker:I possibly can.
Speaker:I've realized as long as kind of gotten to this point
Speaker:where I blog,
Speaker:but things kind of gotten to this point where partnerships is
Speaker:kind of the name of the game.
Speaker:And right now I'm talking with a few companies out there
Speaker:to help hopefully put some lingo and that white,
Speaker:bright, yellow light we talked about earlier.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:So something that comes to mind and I did not look
Speaker:for this specifically on your website yet,
Speaker:but I'm just curious is someone who is in receipt of
Speaker:one of the cards or the whole series,
Speaker:let's say they did a whole month worth.
Speaker:Is there a way for them to take those images and
Speaker:to transfer them over to other things like you had alluded
Speaker:to earlier?
Speaker:Is there a way to do that today?
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker:I have a spot on the website where like you received
Speaker:the physical,
Speaker:obviously print via that card stock I brought up earlier,
Speaker:but then you also received the digital print simultaneously.
Speaker:So you received both the digital and physical and what you
Speaker:can do with the digital is you can go back to
Speaker:that Selingo website and you could put your favorite illustration or
Speaker:all of your illustrations if you want to.
Speaker:And you can put it on a mug or on a
Speaker:tee shirt or on eight brain,
Speaker:whatever you want to,
Speaker:you can go back to the Celine website and put your
Speaker:favorites on the illustration on whatever you want to,
Speaker:to personalize another gift item and serve as a forever.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Do you include like a gift card or the option to
Speaker:have a gift certificate for the recipient to be able to
Speaker:do that,
Speaker:to take their favorite?
Speaker:Sure. Yeah.
Speaker:We actually do offer gift cards.
Speaker:Some people don't want to tell a story.
Speaker:They don't want to provide a description,
Speaker:upload photos,
Speaker:but they want to provide that for someone else.
Speaker:So they give them the gift of a tongue,
Speaker:a gift card.
Speaker:And we have sales coming through from people that have purchased
Speaker:gift cards for other people that have wanted to tell their
Speaker:own story for themselves,
Speaker:or to offer that as a good gift item for someone
Speaker:else. So we do offer the ability for customers yes,
Speaker:to come back and put their digital print on whatever item
Speaker:they want to put it on,
Speaker:on this link website,
Speaker:as well as gift cards that they can take in gifted
Speaker:people in unique ways.
Speaker:Love your model.
Speaker:I love it because it's an extension of the card.
Speaker:So it's another way to generate revenue and just to pass
Speaker:on the creativity that was already done in the beginning with
Speaker:the first cards.
Speaker:Absolutely. Yep.
Speaker:That's fabulous.
Speaker:Okay. So would you say the business has been up and
Speaker:running for two years or three years?
Speaker:It's two years.
Speaker:Two years.
Speaker:Okay. It's almost two years.
Speaker:Yep. Okay.
Speaker:So look at how far you've come already in two years.
Speaker:It's crazy.
Speaker:Like really It has,
Speaker:and I have to remind myself of that constantly.
Speaker:I have to constantly look back and like,
Speaker:man, what were you just two years ago?
Speaker:Where are you at now?
Speaker:Keep pushing.
Speaker:Let's keep pushing.
Speaker:Yeah. Well,
Speaker:and I appreciate you being honest and saying that because here
Speaker:we've been talking about how great everything is not without the
Speaker:black days,
Speaker:right? Like things get dark and troublesome and all of that,
Speaker:but it's good for us to hear when there are struggles
Speaker:and challenges from others who from the outside looked like everything
Speaker:is going well,
Speaker:because to get to that point have been challenges before.
Speaker:And when we're in those days,
Speaker:when it's hard,
Speaker:you forget that there's the yellow later,
Speaker:right? There's the light later because you just get bogged down
Speaker:because the darker days just feel so yucky That they do.
Speaker:And there's been more dark days than light days.
Speaker:But the good thing is within the past,
Speaker:I'd say six months there have definitely been more light days
Speaker:than dark days.
Speaker:So getting out of that dark time,
Speaker:the worst is in the beginning,
Speaker:the worst with everything that we're seeing the beginning,
Speaker:but then I'm so glad we grew out of that.
Speaker:It felt like forever.
Speaker:But now I would say we are officially out of those
Speaker:very, very,
Speaker:very dark days.
Speaker:Okay. So here's a question for you.
Speaker:Do you think the days were dark because of what you
Speaker:said to yourself because of the pressure,
Speaker:like the pressure you put on yourself and the drive to
Speaker:be where you're trying to go faster.
Speaker:That's probably half of it,
Speaker:right? I'd say the other half comes from me having a
Speaker:vision for what this product should be for a great customer
Speaker:experience, right.
Speaker:That putting the customer first and thinking about ordering it,
Speaker:telling a story through their eyes,
Speaker:for them to go to the website for them to go
Speaker:through the process and then receive the cards that they receive
Speaker:and just creating a great customer experience that I'm charging money
Speaker:for this product.
Speaker:I want it to be the best possible product and provide
Speaker:the most value to the customer.
Speaker:So yes,
Speaker:it was built on speed and where I want this platform
Speaker:to go where it is now.
Speaker:But a lot of it is like built off and driven
Speaker:from the customer experience and me wanting them to have a
Speaker:great time.
Speaker:So I would say both of those things.
Speaker:Okay. Well,
Speaker:I'm glad to hear that it's leveling off and soon it's
Speaker:going to be the yellow is more than the black,
Speaker:right? For sure.
Speaker:But the theme of the podcast.
Speaker:Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker:I've just kept going back to that also,
Speaker:because I thought I love actually both those colors too,
Speaker:to be honest.
Speaker:Sure. So where do you see this going from here?
Speaker:Yeah. So the goal is to start onboarding writers in the
Speaker:future. Right now we just have artists that are illustrating out
Speaker:stories is that,
Speaker:but then the next three months,
Speaker:I really want to start onboarding like novelists people that are
Speaker:writing short stories,
Speaker:poets, if you will,
Speaker:and to do like letter writing.
Speaker:So we're doing artists.
Speaker:And then we also have writers since to do both of
Speaker:them and to really eventually own the mailbox,
Speaker:right. And to be a mailbox company.
Speaker:And we're delivering letters and we're delivering a pistol area,
Speaker:art, right?
Speaker:We're doing all through the mailbox.
Speaker:And then I want to implement a subscription program that where
Speaker:people can subscribe and they can say,
Speaker:Hey, I have an anniversary here at Valentine's day here,
Speaker:birthday here,
Speaker:whatever event that they're trying to celebrate,
Speaker:that they get subscribed.
Speaker:And then on certain dates,
Speaker:they receive another part of their story,
Speaker:their life story,
Speaker:whatever story they want to tell,
Speaker:or they receive a brand new car,
Speaker:but to have some kind of subscription platform in place.
Speaker:And then I want to open this up for businesses to
Speaker:allow right now we're a hundred percent BTC,
Speaker:but to open this up,
Speaker:the BDB that there's been a lot of interest from businesses
Speaker:that have wanted to please to Linda as thank you cards
Speaker:to their clients.
Speaker:And then other ways of using the telling of cards from
Speaker:a B2B perspective.
Speaker:So having subscription model in place,
Speaker:and then eventually as it scales,
Speaker:it's going to need to get flipped into like an Airbnb
Speaker:style model where artists can across the world.
Speaker:And we shipped out to 36 different countries at this point,
Speaker:which I'm extremely proud of.
Speaker:It's amazing,
Speaker:but artists across the world can onboard themselves quickly onboard themselves
Speaker:through a verification process.
Speaker:They can post their previous artwork or their towing to artwork
Speaker:and have their own personalized portfolio.
Speaker:And they can set their own pricing within limits and allow
Speaker:people to let the market dictate what they're worth and determine
Speaker:if they want to buy cards from them.
Speaker:And to flip into an Airbnb.
Speaker:And everyone kind of has their own little page,
Speaker:right. But as you know,
Speaker:Airbnb is apartments,
Speaker:not like a mansion.
Speaker:A mansion is going to cost a lot more than an
Speaker:apartment, but people can very quickly onboard themselves and start renting
Speaker:out a space on Airbnb.
Speaker:So I really want to get into that.
Speaker:And then eventually I want to initiate really direct mail advertising
Speaker:partnerships. And I want to approach businesses that let's say there's
Speaker:a comparable business that selling like art utensils,
Speaker:right. Or art materials,
Speaker:right. And approach like hobby lobby and say,
Speaker:Hey, hobby lobby,
Speaker:you already do a direct mail advertising campaign.
Speaker:I will guarantee you a hundred percent open rate.
Speaker:You go ahead and give me whatever advertisement,
Speaker:brochure, marketing piece that you would normally send out your direct
Speaker:mail campaign.
Speaker:You go ahead and give it to me.
Speaker:And I'll instruct all of the artists to put your brochure
Speaker:or your advertisement in the envelope and let that be another
Speaker:form of revenue generation.
Speaker:Right? So everybody's going to want to open up the envelope
Speaker:and they're gonna want to see they're telling a story that's
Speaker:being gifted to them.
Speaker:And then right next to that,
Speaker:that illustration,
Speaker:there was economical.
Speaker:It was going to be a hobby lobby or whatever.
Speaker:Ed's art supply store brochure in the envelope.
Speaker:Right? So bottom line,
Speaker:I want to do writer's number one and want to get
Speaker:the subscription model.
Speaker:Number two,
Speaker:with a business to business,
Speaker:I want to flip it into an Airbnb model and eventually
Speaker:get into this direct mail advertising partnership model.
Speaker:Okay. I'm speechless.
Speaker:That is amazing.
Speaker:Alex easier said than done.
Speaker:At first,
Speaker:I was going to say,
Speaker:yeah, you don't have any ideas,
Speaker:but that would not have given credit to everything that you
Speaker:just said as I'm listening to your vision for the future,
Speaker:the passion that comes through in your voice gives me chills.
Speaker:It's just amazing.
Speaker:I absolutely love every single thing you said,
Speaker:and I am really excited for you,
Speaker:Alex. Thank you,
Speaker:sir. It sounds amazing to talk about,
Speaker:and it's another thing to be about it,
Speaker:right? Anyone can say anything's actually executing it,
Speaker:but I think all of these things I can execute.
Speaker:So I'm shaking my head right now and I'm feeling confident
Speaker:about it.
Speaker:And I think that is something that we can handle.
Speaker:Yeah. And one at a time,
Speaker:and you definitely know where you're going.
Speaker:That is for sure.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Share a little bit with our listeners about where they can
Speaker:learn more about you.
Speaker:And then I was also thinking we have creators here.
Speaker:So if you want to give a little pitch for,
Speaker:if you're looking for more artists or now writers take it
Speaker:away, Sir,
Speaker:I'll start with page two,
Speaker:the artists and the writers.
Speaker:If you were a really unique and creative artist,
Speaker:I would love for you to reach out to me.
Speaker:You can go to the lingo website and you can contact
Speaker:us on this lingo website.
Speaker:Same thing for the writers.
Speaker:I'm looking at,
Speaker:do this.
Speaker:I'm looking to start onboarding writers and August,
Speaker:September, not necessarily doing it right now,
Speaker:but if you want to reach out to me right now
Speaker:and get in the pipeline,
Speaker:you'll be the first people that I contact.
Speaker:You can still go to the website and contact me.
Speaker:They're looking for anyone that's interested in poems or short stories,
Speaker:a little novels,
Speaker:love letters.
Speaker:If you think that you want to do that and you
Speaker:want to come on board to Linga,
Speaker:then go there to lynda.com
Speaker:website and reach out to us.
Speaker:It'd be awesome.
Speaker:And as far as for customers,
Speaker:a lot of holidays coming up on the latter end of
Speaker:the year,
Speaker:or if you just want to send a two Linga card
Speaker:to someone just to keep in touch with them in unique
Speaker:way, you can visit
You can go through the steps to where your story.
Speaker:There is a discount I like to offer.
Speaker:You can get a 15% off of your order using coupon
Speaker:code to Linga,
Speaker:T E L L I N G a
You can use that for 15% off,
Speaker:and then you can also find us on social media at,
Speaker:to Linga stories on all the major platforms.
Speaker:If you'd like to tell your story with us,
Speaker:we would love to you.
Speaker:You can reach Out to us@tellinga.com.
Speaker:Thank you so much too,
Speaker:for having us on Alex.
Speaker:This has been absolutely wonderful.
Speaker:Like I said,
Speaker:I love the passion.
Speaker:I love your product,
Speaker:actually. Just the whole thing is so creative yet.
Speaker:It ties in with things we know,
Speaker:right? Our story,
Speaker:the mail greeting cards,
Speaker:all of that.
Speaker:So it's very relatable.
Speaker:I'll though done in a completely different way.
Speaker:I am so excited to watch how you progress and what
Speaker:the future holds for you and to Linga.
Speaker:Thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:So you have a good day.
Speaker:You too,
Speaker:are you as impressed with Alex as I am?
Speaker:I feel like I lit a rocket ship when I asked
Speaker:him about his future vision and he lifted off with his
Speaker:full plan.
Speaker:It's a lot it's big and I have no doubt that
Speaker:it will happen next week.
Speaker:We're going overseas and talking about manufacturing,
Speaker:your product in a foreign land.
Speaker:Did you ever wonder about the process behind going from a
Speaker:product idea to actually having it in your hand or maybe
Speaker:even having your current product mass produced?
Speaker:Because demand is increasing a great problem to have,
Speaker:right? We'll uncover what's behind overseas production in the show next
Speaker:week until then a gentle reminder that subscribing and reviewing.
Speaker:It's a great way to give back and show your support
Speaker:for the show.
Speaker:I've made it much easier for you to do that.
Speaker:Now, just go over to gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com forward slash review.
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:And thank you so much to those of you who have
Speaker:already written a rating and review for this show,
Speaker:make it a great week,
Speaker:stay healthy and safe,
Speaker:and I'll see you again next Monday.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook
Speaker:group called gift is breeze.
Speaker:It's a place where we all gather and our community to
Speaker:support each other.
Speaker:Got a really fun post in there.
Speaker:That's my favorite of the week.
Speaker:I have to say where I invite all of you to
Speaker:share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,
Speaker:to show what you're working on for the week to get
Speaker:reaction from other people and just for fun,
Speaker:because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody
Speaker:in the community is making my favorite post every single week,
Speaker:without doubt.
Speaker:Wait, what,
Speaker:aren't you part of the group already,
Speaker:if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search
Speaker:for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.
