What happens when you build a company specifically to sell it—and then execute that plan? 

Liz Saunders went from running registration at Seller Summit to delivering the closing keynote, all while building Fluencer Fruit, the Chrome extension that helps Amazon Influencer creators optimize their content strategy. In this powerful episode, Liz reveals her entire exit playbook, from reading "Exit Preneur" before she even started building to keeping GAAP-compliant books from day one. But this isn't just an acquisition story—it's a masterclass in understanding the Amazon Influencer ecosystem, where creators earn 1-4% commissions and brands are discovering that video converts better than text, and UGC converts better than brand videos.

—

Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!

—

Chapters: 

(00:00) Re-Introducing Liz Saunders 

(03:30) The Journey of Fluencer Fruit

(07:20) Amazon Influencer Program Insights

(10:09) Shifts in Influencer Marketing

(13:35) Brand Strategies for Influencer Engagement

(19:05) Multi-Channel Selling

(21:31) Building and Selling Fluencer Fruit

(28:03) Insights from the Sales Process

(32:05) Future Endeavors

—

Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 

Relevant Links:

• Liz’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-saunders
• Fluencer Fruit: https://fluencerfruit.com/

_

Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, JC Hite, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Jeff Oxford, Bryan Porter and more

Everybody is making more

money than they've ever

thought they could make off of

one piece of content in their

life, right? They're like,

I posted a five second video and retired,

and everybody's like, congratulations.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition

of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I'm your host, Brett

Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce,

and today we have a returning guest.

It's going to be an amazing episode.

I have Miss Liz Saunders back again

with a new title and a lot of new

developments that I can't wait to unpack,

but she is now the president of

the creative division at Wayward.

Talk about what that means and why

she's doing that. But with that, Liz,

welcome to the show and how's it going?

Thanks, Brett. It's going so good.

I mean, it's been, I guess a little,

almost two years since we chatted,

so this is a really fun

opportunity to reconnect.

It's so crazy when I first thought, man,

I should have Liz back on. I thought,

well, it's been just a few months.

And then I looked and yeah,

it's been almost two years, which that's

just the way life and e-comm goes, man.

It just goes by so stinking fast.

It feels like yesterday and

seven years ago simultaneously.

Right? 100%. That is

100% true. Yeah. Yeah.

So you've had a really big year, Liz.

We were both at Solar

Summit in Fort Lauderdale.

You were the closing keynote of

that event, which is a major honor,

so kudos to you for that. You

sold your company Fluencer Fruit,

you sold to Wayward, which is where you

are now, so I can't wait to unpack that.

And now you get to be on this show twice

in a couple of years, so it is a big,

big year for you, so congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Which by the way, what was

that, given the closing keynote, was that

kind of a bucket list thing?

Was it something you wanted to do or

something you're really nervous about?

Kind of walk us through that.

Kind of all of those things,

honestly. Well, not Bucket List,

that's the one that I'll say,

and this was part of my keynote,

was when I started with

Seller Summit. I mean,

it's was my entryway into

e-comm, and when I started,

I was running registration and

was just a new Amazon seller,

and my whole life was kind of in flux.

And so never did I ever think, oh, I

would like to be closing keynote, right?

Go from run of the admission table years

and years ago to now doing the closing

Genome.

Checking Bunch badge. And now

it's like, and here you're as the,

so I will say it definitely wasn't

something that I initially was like,

that's what I want to do. And also

when we got closer, it was like,

that would be really cool.

And in talking to Tony,

because they had a scheduling change

with the original closing keynote,

and she was like, you've been traveling.

Who do you see? And I kind of was like,

I'm going to pitch myself. I was like,

I'm a rags Riches seller Summit

full circle moment. Heck.

And she was like, I like

it. So they took it and.

Amazing.

It was nerve wracking,

but it was really fun.

If you're ever going to do

something that big, being in your,

I would call it our home audience,

those are my people, is like.

Yeah, everybody's rooting for you.

Everybody was cheering for you.

It was a perfect.

Environment, so nerve wracking,

but also if you fall on your face,

they're still going to love you.

So it's a little ambivalence.

Takes some pressure off for

sure. So yeah, it was great.

And your background is Jungle

Scout. You're a successful seller.

You've been doing Seller Summit

now, doing some really cool things.

And then a few years ago you had

this idea, let's build a platform.

You called it Fluencer Fruit,

that's the company you just exited,

which I want to hear all about the exit

because I just know so many people we're

kind of in the m and a game

we're looking to acquire.

I know a lot of people

that are looking for exits,

and so can't wait to unpack that a

little bit. But for those who don't know,

what is flu fruit and then how

does that fit into the wayward

ecosystem?

Absolutely.

So Fluencer Fruit is an extension

that helps content creators on or in

the Amazon Influencer program

helps them do product research,

and it helps them manage

their video library.

So that's the fastest way to explain it.

It's a Chrome extension that just helps

visualize all of the things that you

care about for onsite content

in an easy to digest fashion.

Nice. And so what are

you seeing right now,

and we'll talk about how

this fits in with Wayward,

but what are you seeing right

now with Amazon Influencer?

I know this has been an initiative

with Amazon for a while.

Amazon's always trying to

solve the problem of discovery.

How do we get customers

to discover new products?

They still mostly rely on search. They're

looking for things to go beyond that.

But what have you been seeing

with Amazon Influencer as of late?

Yeah, so it's interesting because I

think there's two pieces to that coin,

which is where it's like they're

trying to solve for discoverability,

and they're also trying to

solve for authentic feedback.

So we have seen a lot of

change for written reviews,

and I use it in quotes because are

they really reviews from customers?

Amazon's been fighting that.

Battle. Is it a real person?

Is it someone overseas?

Is.

It just fake? It's a

bot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like a competitor being

paid to leave one star reviews.

So they've been trying to simultaneously

solve both of these things.

And so where I see the onsite content

being the biggest win for them

is its authentic user

feedback for a product.

And so in a way, it does battle

some of those paid for bad good,

whatever reviews with really

authentic conversations in video.

The other thing is from.

A, so it's not just a discovery thing,

it's also like a conversion

piece as well, right? Yes.

And lending real feedback for a

specific product that should help with

conversions or.

Purchases.

So the onsite piece up to this point

has been almost 100% on the conversion

side.

It's like you're paying all these other

places to drive traffic to the listing.

This is the one thing that they let you

do that helps with your conversion rate.

But something interesting that they're

playing with in way of discoverability is

surfacing these videos in search results.

So every once in a while, and

they're still, I think, testing,

we don't see this consistently,

but every once in a while

you'll be searching and

instead of a main Amazon image

product picture,

you'll see a video that's

obviously not a brand videoing.

So I do think that they're

trying to pull that in.

So there's no way at the moment

for a brand to influence that.

But if you have those videos,

perhaps Amazon's going to grab that and

display that on a search results page?

Yeah, correct.

I call those miscellaneous placements

because we don't have any insight into

them. Amazon never tells

us when they're doing them,

but we see them and they'll just

plug our content into all of these

placements, just I think to

test conversion and see how

much they help or don't.

Got it. We do a lot on the

Amazon advertising side,

huge fan of the ads ecosystem,

love sponsor brand video.

You be called video and search.

What are you seeing, if anything,

from your perspective on brands using

some of this influencer content,

these influencer videos, and running

those ads, sponsor brand ads?

So this is really interesting

that you asked about this.

I do office hours with my

subscribers every Thursday,

and we were talking about this

morning. So out of curiosity,

are you seeing the ability to put

money on influencer content through

the ads console?

Well, I don't run the campaigns

myself, so I'd have to ask my team.

I've not heard anyone mention that yet.

But is that maybe in a beta right now?

So 18 months ago, they sent

us a bunch of questions,

would you rather this for three months

to license your content to a brand or

this for six months? And

they did this whole whatever.

And now in the backend, on the

creator side of Creator Connections,

we have a licensing tab, but it's blank.

So.

Where I think they're going is

to allow brands to kind of let

run traffic to creator

content through the actual

Amazon ads platform. So I was wondering

if you guys were seeing it in beta yet.

And then pay a licensing fee potentially

to the creator is the way that might

work?

That's what we're guessing.

Yeah.

So either they would pay a licensing

fee or the way it works now is if I'm a

creator, an influencer,

I post content about,

let's call it a coffee product on Amazon.

If someone views my

video and then purchases,

I get some kind of a commission

for that. Is that correct?

Correct. Yep.

Yeah. And what does that commission

look like? Are there ranges?

Does it depend on me as an

influencer? How does that look?

There are influencers who

have their own rate cards,

but those are the super producers.

So your average creator,

it gets between one and 4%

for those onsite commissions,

and it's tagged by category.

So however you as the

seller have decision trade.

If your nursery bookshelf

goes in furniture or in

kids, those are two different

commissions. For the onsite creator,

it's either 4% of furniture or two

and a quarter percent for baby stuff.

Interesting. I wonder why,

any insight into why those commissions

are different for different categories

for influencers?

I have no idea. I mean, I'm

assuming that Amazon has discovered.

Margin profile for those categories,

maybe something like that.

I kind assume that they tag it based

on the difficulty to sell and drive

traffic. So baby stuff

sells all day every day.

They don't need to incentivize people.

To that's.

Sell that stuff. Whereas furniture, how

many people are selling bookshelves?

Right?

That's my guess.

Yeah, makes sense. So what

have you seen change then?

So you started Influencer Fruit, what

is it, a little over two years ago?

Is that right? And so what have you

seen shift, what have you seen improve?

What have you seen change in terms

of the Amazon influencer program?

Yeah, I think it's in the influencer

program as well as just in product focused

content in general.

Right now we're kind of seeing this

moment of what I call infrastructure

stabilization. So we've

been in Blue Ocean,

everybody is making more

money than they've ever

thought they could make off of

one piece of content in their

life, right? They're like,

I posted a five second video and retired.

And everybody's like, congratulations.

So now we're in between TikTok shop

affiliate and Amazon Influencer.

We're seeing a little bit

of, it's not a slowdown,

but they're pulling back to create the

infrastructure that will build the long

term of the programs.

And so we're seeing people having to

adapt to how they're making money.

So what we're seeing working is,

I call it commission stacking, where

from the same piece of content,

I want to optimize how many

ways I can make money off of it.

Will the brand pay me for it?

Will they send me a product?

Do they have additional commissions

available through Creator connections or

Wayward? What are their sales?

Just trying to think through as opposed

to just picking a product and creating

content for it, thinking

through the big picture.

Are they on TikTok and Amazon? Can I

create cross-platform content for them?

Yeah. So what about from the brand

side? So if I'm a seller on Amazon,

how should I be thinking

about Amazon influencers?

Should I be going out pursuing recruiting

influencers? What should I be doing?

So if you're on the brand side,

the first thing you want to do is make

sure your brand registered and that you

have uploaded at least one product

video or brand video to every listing,

because that unlocks that

upper video carousel placement,

which is the number one converting thing,

thinking about the fact that

video converts better than text,

and UGC converts better than brand videos.

Totally.

So getting that above the fold close to

the buying decision is always positive.

The next piece that just

opens the real estate,

the next piece is actively

working with Amazon influencers

is really a cool opportunity

where TOS compliant and we're FTC

compliant and we're not a black box. So

it's not like the Vine Review program,

which I understand

holds a necessary place,

but you can't talk to Vine

reviewers. You can talk to us.

So if you have something,

people keep returning this coffee product

because they don't understand that you

have to clean the filter this many

times a week or the coffee tastes bad.

It's like, well, as a content creator,

I can go in and be like, you guys,

number one mistake that I've made with

this is I didn't clean the filter and it

hits different when I say

it than when the brand does.

It. It does, it does. But then

you can also say, Hey, it was.

Really.

Easy to clean, and man, now I get

the perfect cup of coffee every.

Time, user error type of thing, error.

That's on me. You know what I mean?

Much more acceptable coming from

a user where you're like, oh,

it's normal to do this rather than

the brand is making me do extra work.

Exactly. Totally makes sense. Yeah,

and we've leaned into this

for some of our brands.

It's something that we can help with

where we go out and find influencers.

And so I know for a

particular betting client,

it's been really effective

for 'em. Good. But yeah.

Any other things you've seen

change or shift from a brand's

perspective, or actually, I may have

cut you off. You said open up videos,

open up the carousel, brand registered,

get brand, open up that carousel.

Then what else should brands do?

Well, I think the brands finding a

way all watching everybody trying.

Everybody's always trying to be more

efficient with their spend and how they

fixing their margins,

whether it's tariffs,

whether it's changes in terms of service,

whatever the current

challenge is around margins.

So some of the things that we're seeing

brands do in way of new opportunities,

creative problem solving around this

is working with creators directly.

So you have more control

over those conversations.

And sometimes that means pulling

the actual transactions so that

they're outside of Amazon,

meaning I'm paying you a flat fee

for this as opposed to whatever,

but then I can use your content or.

Working.

With a company like Wayward where

you can use brand attribution

links to get the referral bonus to

offset the commissions you're paying to

the creators. It's like a win-win win.

So explain that a little bit.

I know hardcore Amazon sellers know

exactly what you're talking about,

but for those that are less familiar.

For sure.

What is that referral bonus?

Absolutely.

So the brand attribution link is basically

a brand's version of an affiliate

link. Amazon wants you to drive

traffic when you drive traffic.

They've done something where they'll

give you a brand referral bonus.

They're not cutting you a check,

but they're cutting back on the amount

you're paying them for the referral fee,

and it's usually around 10%. That's

not standard or that's not global,

but that's approximate.

And so what happened in this

conversation was brands were like,

if we drive traffic, we don't want

to pay for you to drive traffic.

And Amazon was like, you're right.

Here's how we'll solve that.

But then it was like this other

piece entered the chat and was like,

brands would be happy

to pay creators almost a

hundred percent of their margin

for that first sale to get a new

customer.

And so this allows people wayward

will take your brand attribution

link, then what the creator is using,

you are getting the brand referral bonus,

and then you can pay the creator a higher

percentage than if they're just going

through Amazon affiliates.

Because why not? That's free

money you're getting from Amazon.

Why not pay that to a creator?

Give them more incentives,

fuel your growth there

through influencers. So yeah,

it makes a ton of sense.

Yeah, I mean, it's such

a cool opportunity.

It incentivizes. It's a

literal, everyone wins, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. Good.

Have you seen more and more

brands adopting Amazon influencer?

Is it still kind of slow to pick

up? How has that been going?

It's a lot of education conversations.

It's interesting because

I think this is not uncommon,

but Amazon will launch a program and then

it kind of takes on its own side life

from what they initially intended

it to be, which is great, right?

Because it is its own

living organism, right?

Sure.

Because of that, though, I think,

and I don't have anybody at

Amazon that's told me this,

but I think the way they initially

designed this program was to be a much

tighter sister to the affiliate program.

So affiliate being the

people driving the traffic,

influencer being the people who

are helping convert the traffic.

And I think they initially thought that

this was going to be like a one for one

people. Were going to be doing

both, but it's become a very,

there are people that do both, but

it's become a very separate skillset.

The difference between if you're on a

product listing and me helping you make

that buying decision is much different

than me on my Instagram being like,

these are my favorite

wrist wraps when I lift,

you should go check out their stuff.

It's almost like a

different selling motion.

Totally, totally. Yeah.

You're more demonstrating the product

on that product detail page and showing

how it works. It's a little

more education type of thing.

Someone's already in the store,

they're already talking to you,

where if someone's on TikTok or elsewhere,

you got to convince them to go to the

store to check it out. Exactly. So yeah,

different feel.

And so what you're finding when Amazon

is finding is that's often a different

person.

So the person running TikTok influencer

content is maybe different than the

person who's doing Amazon Influencer

or it's maybe the same person,

they're just creating different

content for different places.

Yeah, it's a combination of those

two things. But yeah, it is.

It's like if I'm on TikTok, I'm trying

to get you moving and to click on a link.

If I'm on an Amazon influencer or if I'm

on an Amazon product listing, I'm like,

check out how I can

push up this shade tent.

It just clicks right into place on my

TikTok. People don't care about that.

But on the product listing,

if you're five four and you don't know

how you're going to set up this tent by

yourself, you want to see how I can

do it. And so it has more educational,

more faq, more like feature based, then.

It's more feature rich where the

content to get someone to go to the

store that's got to be more benefit

oriented, more action oriented.

You're moving someone,

and then on the page there's

kind of overcoming objections,

answering questions,

talking about features, helping them

decide between this product, your product,

versus a competitive product.

So yeah, makes a ton of sense.

How then are you seeing this pair? And

we've sort of just talked about it,

but TikTok shops obviously it's huge.

We have some clients that have

exploded with TikTok shops.

It's also not for everybody. Amazon's

got their own affiliate program.

I'm really excited about

YouTube's affiliate program.

It's basically their

answer to TikTok shops.

We're doing some early testing here.

It's.

Been very favorable, but it's early days.

So how do you see these things

working together and how would you

advise brands to consider

how they work together?

It's a good question.

So I think one of the current struggles

that everybody in this product focused

content seller space is struggling with is

the interpreted need to be

everything to all people and to be on

every single platform.

And while I think there is a

space for yes, be on TikTok,

be on Amazon, sell 'em,

Walmart, all those things,

I do think there's a little bit of,

depending on how big your team is,

how early you are in your company phase,

you can't personally probably

simultaneously run all

of those sales channels.

So I think making peace with, if you

took off on TikTok, double down, right?

Yeah. If.

You took off on Amazon, double down.

In.

Time, you can add all of those

from a content piece though,

if you're a brand who is selling on all

of those, when you're vetting creators,

check and see where they're

posting specifically if

you're on TikTok and Amazon

and you find a creator on TikTok,

because that's the more

likely direction this goes.

Ask.

Them if they're Amazon influencer and if

they would post an influencer video in

addition to what they're

doing on TikTok, because

it's much harder.

You can reach out to influencers from

Amazon through their storefront to their

socials and to their, but if you're

interacting with them on TikTok,

you've already got a little

bit of conversation going,

that's where I would the best direction.

Yeah, totally makes sense.

So start that conversation with someone

on TikTok and do an influencers working

with you there. See if they'll create

some content on Amazon as well.

And that kind of goes back to the

earlier discussion where same person,

different flavors of content.

Based.

On where someone is in the buying

journey. And it makes just a ton of sense.

Yeah.

So very, very cool. Well, awesome. Well,

let's kind of go back to what we

alluded to at the beginning of the show.

So you built Fluencer Fruit,

amazing site, amazing product.

Kudos to you. It really, really great.

Thank you.

Why did you decide to sell, and

actually when did you decide to sell?

So did you build it in order to sell

it or did you build it just for fun and

you're like, wait a minute, there's

something here. This is valuable.

I'm going to sell it.

So I built it to sell it. I went into it

knowing that I wouldn't run it forever.

I know that my skillset

falls between zero and two,

right of the stage of the company.

I do really well with ambiguity,

chaos,

and pulling it all into one place with

enough of a structure to start handing

things off to specialists. So over time,

I've realized that that is my skillset.

So I knew that I was probably not going

to be the person that took it past stage

two or whatever that turns out to be.

And I read Exit Preneur by our

mutual friend, Joe Val, as I was.

Joe Val, shout out to Joe.

Great book. Great book.

I mean, if you are even thinking

about Ever in the Future,

I just devoured that book and I had

legitimately been waiting to read it until

I knew I was getting ready.

I wanted it to be so fresh.

I should have read it twice, but.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing

I've noticed there is,

so we started going through

this journey and like I said,

we're looking at acquiring, we're trying,

we're an agency right now trying to get

it across the finish line and looking at

another deal as well.

But one thing I noticed is once

we started thinking about m and a,

and we'd even explored do we want to sell

to an investor? What do we want to do?

If you go through the process,

if you read Joe's book and there are

some other great books, buy, then Build,

buy Walker, and there's several

others just going through the process,

you'll run your business better.

Because if you start to look at your

business like an investor or a buyer looks

at your business, you are just going to

run it better. And then you may decide,

wow, I'm more profitable

running it this way.

I'm just going to keep

the business. So anyway,

I think even if you think you're

not going to sell for a while,

read those books and run your

business, you're going sell it,

it be a better business.

I think the best thing that I

took out of the book was my books.

I'm not a bookkeeper anyways.

And so as I set up the

LLCs hired a bookkeeper

because I just wanted,

because when I was at

Jungle Scout Chief of Staff,

I did a lot of coordinating around m

and a conversations and when we acquired

Downstream and those sorts of things.

And so I've seen the process

of when people's books

aren't clean and what that

looks like. And I was like,

so my number one thing was to make

sure that my books were always

whatever. Anybody could come in

if they didn't like the books,

that was one thing. Yeah.

Compliance super clean. Correct. Someone

looks at it, they trust it. Yeah.

End of story.

Exactly. So that was my favorite

thing, but I knew all along,

so I read the book and

then I was building,

I did think that I was going to run

the company for three to five years.

I.

Figured it would take me about

that long to be interesting.

The risks that I took that I knew

were risks was my brand was and is

still very attached to me as a person.

And so when people talk about flu fruit,

they talk about you should buy flu fruit

so that you get with it Liz's office

hours or.

Those sorts of things.

So I did know that that was a little bit,

but I also assumed because I

very specifically picked a pretty

niche community that I was going to be

a strategic acquisition for somebody

filling a gap that nobody else

has that fits a bigger picture,

whether it was an ads play or those.

You likely weren't going to be a platform

you were going to be more bolted on or

tucked into a platform most likely.

Yeah, my I was like, nobody else

is doing anything in this space.

I can fill that hole for whoever thinks

that it's the most valuable to them at

the time.

Yeah, that makes a ton

of sense. And really

building a brand that is a little bit

dependent on your personality. I mean,

that's what done here at OMGA,

public facing, I'm speaking,

I'm doing all kinds of things.

And so certainly my brand and OMG,

they're intertwined, which is fine.

I think part of that though is you got

to lean into your strengths, right?

Absolutely. You're good at

building community. People

know you, they trust you,

they like you,

so don't shy away from that

just so that a future exit is.

Agree.

Easier, whatever, lean into it a strength,

you're going to build a business faster,

it's going to be more profitable,

and that's going to make the

business more valuable. Absolutely.

And they kept you on as well,

which I'm sure was part of that was

related to your personal brand being

attacked.

So I was planning on being

around a lot longer solo,

and then

we've talked a lot about building your

network and being open to conversations

is really critical in

whatever realm you operate in.

And the wayward thing came out

of a LinkedIn conversation.

No way.

So.

Like a post you made on LinkedIn, someone

commented on it, or just a connection?

I made a comment on another post,

and the head of growth from Wayward

reached out to me and was like,

I'd love to get on a call

and just kind of chat.

And so I take a lot of those just

because interesting in our space.

And learn something.

And then he was like, Hey,

you should meet our CEO.

So I met Allie and then

she and I had lunch,

and then I did some consulting for them.

And as we worked together, it was like,

oh, this is actually a really good

fit. We have a whole offering together.

By the way, what a brilliant

strategy from wayward part,

I'm assuming this was part of

the strategy. Hey, here's Liz.

Cool product, cool tech,

let's hire her as a consultant and let's

see what it's like to work with her.

That's actually something we've done

several times as we looked at acquisitions

is, Hey, let's run some projects

together. So we're looking,

we're talking m and a, we're talking

about joining forces, whatever.

Let's run projects together. Let's

just see how this goes. I mean,

that's the best due

diligence you could ever do,

or the best addition to due

diligence you could ever do. So cool.

So what was it like going

through the sales process?

Any tips, suggestions for

someone who's considering it,

about to get into the sales process,

the selling of their business,

that process? What was it

like? What tips do you have?

So I think probably the two best

decisions I made were I had a broker.

So even though I had kind

of sourced or whatever,

I was working with Wayward,

I worked with a broker to help

me put together my valuation,

my kit, just some of those things.

So even though technically the

sale happened outside of the broker

situation,

there were so many things that putting

together specifically around the

valuation that was really valuable to

have his input around what's currently

going, what the multiples are.

And then the next best

thing I did was an attorney.

Because initially I was like.

Got to.

Got, I was like, I can do this

with chat GPT, and then I was like,

will I regret that if I do it wrong?

I was like, yes, I will. So you.

Will. I mean, I love chat GPT or

Claude or other tools for legal.

Help.

Structuring advice in the early

days. It can help guide you,

and those tools can really

show you some things, but man,

if you're doing a big deal,

this may be one of the biggest

transactions of your life.

If you're looking to acquire or sell or

whatever, hire a good m and a attorney.

It's so worth.

It. Yep, exactly. So

those are the things I wouldn't do

differently, you know what I mean?

Those are the decisions that I'm

really glad I made those two decisions.

For sure, for sure. Anything

you would've done differently?

It's a good question. I've been trying

to think about that. And honestly,

at the moment, I don't have

anything. I think probably because

I'm a big believer in if you feel like

you're trying to kick the door down that

maybe that's not the direction.

And it just felt like every door in

this situation just kind of opened,

and so I just kind of walked

down the path, right? The CEO,

Allie and I have a very open

relationship, and so if I had a concern,

I would just go to her and

there was nothing major.

But anytime you have these types

of big detailed conversations.

Making.

Sure that you're clear on things

is super important, obviously.

And so I don't currently

have anything where I'm like,

I wish I had done that part differently.

It's so great. Well, and one thing,

and because of the way this unfolded,

got to know them by meeting in person

and then working as a consultant with

them, you really got a feel for their

character and the way they operate.

And because even though

this isn't a forever thing,

it's kind of getting married,

especially if you merge companies,

that's like a marriage. So

you got to really make sure,

is this someone I want to be married

to for the next X number of years?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And that's where I love

being tenacious and if I get a no,

I'm going to figure out a way to

get a yes and things like that,

but you don't want to have to, Hey,

this is going to be a partnership.

I don't want to have to

fight for everything.

It should feel somewhat

seamless or effortless,

at least in parts of it,

like the communication and

the openness and the, Hey,

are we collaborative? And

stuff like that. Yeah,

it sounds like you definitely

took the right path there

and it paid off. It paid off.

I'm really pleased with the

outcome. I love being on the team,

and that was part of the reason that when

we started having those conversations,

I had been solo for two years,

which pretty extroverted.

So being able to join a team that's moving

in the right direction has been like,

oh, good. I have people again.

Dude, I thrive in a team

environment. I can do okay on my own.

I don't mind to sit and write or

crunch numbers for a little bit.

But doing that for a long period of

time, no, that's not where I want to be.

That's amazing. So now

kind of foreseeable future,

you're going to be helping build this

out, or is this a short-term thing?

Are you allowed to say what does

the future hold for Liz and for

flu fruit?

Yeah. Well,

I have this really cool opportunity

with Wayward to build their creator

division. That's awesome. So I

get to visualize, strategize, scope

and help execute on this in a way,

to your earlier point,

know your strengths.

I get to build a community that's

rooted in education and tools and

straight knowledge sharing

around a lot of this.

So I'm really excited about that.

So I don't know how long that

takes or where that takes me,

but for right now,

we're natural builders that appeals to

me is I get to go build something cool

with additional resources and helping

the community that I'm bringing along.

With a team with capital,

with a structure.

But you get a little bit

of the best of both worlds.

You can still be

entrepreneurial and build,

but with some resources at your

disposal. So that is awesome. Well,

Liz, kudos to you, man. Great job.

This was your goal at the outset.

Let me build something that is valuable

enough that someone wants to buy it.

You did it yet a successful exit.

Thank.

Now you guys are building

together, which is super great.

So if people are listening to

this and they're like, man,

I want to know more about

wayward or about flu fruit.

I want to tap into Amazon,

the Amazon influencer ecosystem,

either as an influencer,

I probably just got brands listening,

but I could have some people

who want to do an influencer,

but how can people find more?

Yeah, absolutely.

So wayward.com is like if you

just want a general whatever,

I also do calls with brands. So

if you're like, you know what?

I just have questions, I'm Liz at, at

wayward.com, just shoot me an email.

We'll set up a time.

I'll walk you through.

I'll do an audit of your listings and

tell you organically what you can be doing

to attract those influencers and or

how we can help you push more traffic,

kind of figuring, solving for

the problem you're having.

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.

And then it's Fluencer fruit.com

as well, is that's the.

Yep. If you're looking for the

extension, it's Fluencer fruit.com.

Amazing. And then Liz, what about

on the socials? Are you active?

Are you active on LinkedIn,

or was just the onetime

comment that changed your life?

Yeah, yeah. I know, right?

It's like random comment. I'm,

I'm active on LinkedIn,

so I think my profile is like Liz

Saunders, but if you look up Liz Saunders,

you should find me.

Awesome. I'll link to everything

in the show notes as well.

So check out what Liz is up to. Liz,

thank you so much. It's been a ton of fun,

super valuable. And man,

I'm excited to watch you guys build and

make the Amazon influencer space even

better.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Awesome. And as always, thank you for

tuning in. We'd love to hear from you.

What would you like to hear more of on

the show? And if you've not done so,

we'd love that review on iTunes,

helps other people discover the show.

And with that, until next

time, thank you for listening.