Poppin Bottles

Adam Callinan, founder of BottleKeeper is here to tell us all about what it was like growing a business on Shark Tank, how to take a rough prototype and turn it into a successful product, and the importance of listening to customer feedback. 

Plus Jamie Geffen from Geffen Events is hanging out with Ben in the studio. She made the transition from television to owning her own event planning company. She shares some gems she’s learned from her years in business, and she lets us know what form of marketing is the most effective.

And if you have a passion for flowers, our Lady Boss of the Week can teach you how to turn it into a successful business.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Lady Bosses and I heart radio podcast. I jumped when
that first little noise comes every time. Welcome to Lady
Bosses and Ben. I'm Ben, and we have a special
co host today, Jamie Geffen. Hi, thanks for having me.
You're probably asking where is Jesse Draper. Well, we were
asking the same thing, but she's stuck in the storms

(00:24):
in Chicago and cannot make it to the podcast. So
Jamie was kind enough, nice enough, sweet enough to come
in and help co host today. But we're gonna jump
right into it. We have our very first uh Lady
boss guests of the day, Adam callinan from Bottlekeeper. And
you may be asking, this is Lady Bosses and Ben.

(00:47):
He's not a lady, he's a guy. But for all
your listeners out there, we had Adam in here because
he has a story of bringing his business to Shark
Tank that we thought Jesse and myself team here. I
Heeart thought you all you Lady bosses out there may
want to hear. Adam has insights to share. Adam, you

(01:07):
have a great product, Thank you, but we don't know
anything about it. So if for anybody out there listening,
can you please explain what a bottle keeper is I will,
and I fully understand you can't see this on the radio,
but I did bring some samples, including our very first prototype.
What it is effectively is a stainless steel bottle that
my cousin Matt, who is trying diligently to enjoy a

(01:29):
beer out of a red Solo cop and it, you know,
it gets warm and disgusting in a couple of minutes
in any relative temperature. So I had this idea to
take what is effectively and off the shelf water bottle,
cut it in half, line it with neopren so he
could take a beer bottle and put it inside, which
is what that is. That is literally literally our first
hack sad in half prototype vice script marks included. Um

(01:51):
So from there I brought you guys a couple of
on samples you can play with speak there. But it
has improved significant at least since that first product type
and I'm dropping all that. That's the one of the
significant benefits. It's come a long way since two thousand thirteen.

(02:12):
It's like an advanced couzy. It's like a super duper
ridiculous I mean, let's let's get into some of the
details of the product first, and then I want to
bring in some of the shark tank ideas, Um, how
long would my bottle of beer stay cold? And a
bottlekeeper in this first edition, we have a couple of
models out so in this this first edition UM, which

(02:34):
is again kind of changed over the course of a
number of years as we iterated with customer feedback and whatnot.
Up to about two hours. So it sort of depends.
I mean, if you're in Phoenix, Arizona on a hundred
and forty degree heats and well, it's a little bit different.
If you're you know, sitting down on a beach in California,
it's gonna be a little bit different. But ideally we're
talking up to two hours to keep it cold. We
do have another product that we launched in the end
of last year called bottle Keeper Acts, which is double

(02:55):
all vacuum insulated that will keep it cold for like
six hours if you really gottah, yeah, I mean it's yeah, yeah, true.
I this is this is all you know. This is
everything we do is based on customer feedback and and
the data we get from our customers. So that product
was driven by feedback with people that are going out
on hikes and and they you know, that's the use cases.

(03:18):
They want to put a beer in a bottle and
it be cold when they when they drink it at
the end of their hike five hours later. So we do, uh,
we do listen to them very diligently. Yeah, I mean
it actually is. It's really cool to look at here
and also hold. So you come up years ago. The
story is this UM. On a summer day, cousin Matt
was sitting lazily on a beach with Uncle Van. As

(03:40):
Uncle Van's beautifully full push brew mustache was gently wavering
in the sea breeze. They began complaining about the warm
beer simmering in our red solo cups. There are a
few things that can kill your mood on a relaxing,
warm summer day, they say, but the taste of warm
beer is definitely one of them. So you come up
and you have this, this product that you believe in

(04:02):
um that it's pretty obvious. Hey, this this even the
prototype like this could work, like this is gonna be something,
and you decide to start a business based on this prototype.
It takes you then, too Shark Tank, and we would
know you best, probably by seeing you on Shark Tank.
Can you walk us through starting at the beginning, the
process of them get of the seitning gone Shark Tank

(04:24):
than being on Shark Tank and now where you at? Sure?
Um you know, to to really get into specifics of
like that, the whole process would take a full day
worth of getting getting to this. But the reality is
we launched the product based on you know, we use technology.
This technology is an amazing place now. I mean with
your business as a perfect example, you can build these
amazing websites and companies online and you don't have to

(04:47):
have any web development experience. I mean, our grandparents can
literally build their own businesses online today. Ten or fifteen
years ago, you couldn't do that. It was a different story.
So with this we launched, uh, you know, a very simple,
one color, one size product direct to consume, are only,
no retail, no distribution, with the intent to be able
to show the customer unique experience and have them want
to come back and buy more. Um So that happened

(05:10):
In two thousand thirteen, we launched on a crowd funding
campaign which was a really really good way from my perspective,
our perspective, Matt Nite to to prove that a customer
would swipe their credit card and pay for this product
before we went and spend a bunch of time and
money building it. Because asking your family members what they
think of that is not the same thing like that
is not how you prove a true concept. So the

(05:31):
crowd funding was a great way for us to do that,
and it worked really, really well. But it was literally
the crowd funding campaign. We used this hacked up version
of you know, looking at the pictures, you see these
crazy vice gript marks and hacks online. So um. From there,
we shipped our first product in January of two you know,
fumbled along for six or eight months until Facebook launched

(05:52):
the video ad platform, and that changed everything in the company.
Because this is a visual product, you have to see
it in action to understand what it is. Our brains
look at it and it just has water. So that
was our first real inflection point. We went from doing
two thousand dollars of sales in a month to three
months later we were doing eighty. I mean it really
OCCUSI So we that happened. We doubled year over year
for a couple of years in a row, and in

(06:13):
two thousand fifteen, we got contacted by a casting director
at Chart. So that was the beginning of the process
for us. And now again we filmed in June of
two eighteen. We are episode aired in November eighteen, so
there was a lot of time between that first contact
point and the time for which we actually ended up
on the show. The first season. Um, you know, we

(06:34):
went through the process, everything went great, that we had
some scheduling conflicts with UM when that the show needed
to tape and when we could physically be in town
because I was out of the country and they, you know,
for whatever reason, I just couldn't. They weren't okay with
me just coming back for that period of time, which
is totally fine. So it pushed it to the next
season and then the next season. You know, from what
I recall, there were too many beer companies on the

(06:55):
previous seasons. Then, you know, just these things just keep
getting pushed and pushed and pushing. You know, they have
I want to say, it's like forty thousand applicantcy years.
It's sum insane numbers. So they have no shortage of
like awesome companies to put on the show. UM, and
I'm just getting idea at this point you're annual revenue
is estimate it what, So that the when they first

(07:16):
reach out to us in two thousand we did three
years after, yeah, two years after kind of concept. So
two thousand and fifteen we did about a million and
a half. So that's great. I mean we have we
had at that point, we had no team members, no employees.
That was one of my major things going into it
was to try to build a scalable business on technology

(07:37):
that didn't require people to physically operate it outside of
you know, me and Matt from anywhere in the you know,
in the world where you had access to in so
that was that was a really important piece of that. So, yeah,
we did about a million and a half, so we're
still relative I mean, that's not nothing by any stretch
of the imagination, but it's still relatively small. So that's
part of the challenge when you look at valuations and
going into a situation like Chark Tank, like you're doing

(07:58):
a million and a half in revenue, you know, maybe
it's a five million dollar company and you're gonna get
pushed back on that pretty significantly, and how big was
the company at this point, how many people there's just Matt.
So going into two thousand sixteen, now we're having the
discussion again. Well two thousand and sixteen we did seven
and a half million dollars. So again so with no team. No,

(08:19):
I mean this is heavily leveraging automation and technology in
a very personal way. I mean our customers we take there,
they're willingness to invest in us, in our products very seriously.
So it's it's it's it's extremely personal. But we had
no team. I mean it was just us. And you know,
there's a I learned the hard way that that works
to a point and then the wheels start falling off

(08:41):
the bus. But that's a very different valuation and discussion
and size of a company when you're doing one and
a half million dollars versus doing seven and a half million.
I mean you had seven seven growth in one year.
Then you're going on Shark Tank, where your valuation is
incredibly important. Of course, Yeah, how do you decide? So

(09:02):
let's fast forward. Then you're on the show, you present
your product. How did you get to the step of
value a company that's growing that fast? Um? So how
we got to it on the show was research. I
mean we went back through every episode from the previous season,
from season nine, and we're very, very very data heavy,

(09:22):
So we the numbers. You know, you have to take
your remove your emotion out of a lot of these
really all of these decisions and look at the numbers
because they're the ones that that's what really tells the story.
So looking at the data of the other companies that
had been on, we looked at how much revenue they
had done, whether or not they were profitable, how much
debt they had taken on, or investors they had taken on,
um where the valuation was, whether that they came in at,

(09:44):
whether or not they did a deal, and if they
did do a deal, what was the deal that got
done in at what valuation? And we took that data
over the course of the you know, hundred or so
companies that were on the show in the previous season
and kind of found where we you know, where we landed,
which was you know, good Batter and Different is on
kind of the highest end that that you could go

(10:04):
just based on again the other companies that had gone on,
you sort of max out of evaluation standpoint about. So
that's how we did it on the show. But we
also had an investment bank that was giving us information
as to what of a if we wanted to go
sell the company today, this is actually what it would
be worth. And that you actually saw that interaction on
the show. It's interesting. I've always wondered watching Shark Tank,

(10:25):
like how legitimate those valuations are? You know, you know,
it's always it's it's intriguing. Who yeah, who comes up
with them? Who's backing? Are you allowed to hire an
investment bank to do it? I mean these little startups, right,
I mean if my company went on there right now,
I could. I don't have the funds to hire an
investment bank to do that, Like, I would be losing
money on the deal, no matter what to to make it.

(10:47):
So I'd be pretty much throwing darts at a dartboard
with blindfold on, Like I have no clue. But are
you so? Are you the data person or is your
cousin the data person? Like? Who? So? We're We're all
data people in different parts of the business. My responsibility
is more on the front end with marketing and branding
and Facebook advertising and doing all that stuff. And we
to be clear, we do now have a team of
people that are way better at the stuff than I am,

(11:09):
and that's what they do. But at that point, yeah,
it was when we looked at the valuation stuff. Um,
you know, that's that's something that we just took really
long time to figure out. And to your point about
the investment bank, we didn't go higher an investment bank.
We had a you know, investment banks love growing businesses.
They want to help you, they want to give you, you
you know, as much information as they can. So I've
we've had over the years a number of discussions with

(11:31):
two different investment banks, more along the lines of if
you know, five or ten or twenty years from now,
if we want to sell the company, what are the
things we need to be doing today to make that,
you know, sort of get the most bank for our buck.
And from that discussion, you know, we started a relationship
with an investment bank that wants to be the bank
that does that when, if, and when that work to happen.

(11:51):
And as a result, they were able to give us
do a little bit of you know, relatively simple analysis
for them to say, well, these are the comparables in
the market, just like bluying how so, I mean, let's
look at the other companies that are similar to yours
and what that have sold in the last two years,
and let's take their multiples, whether it's on you know,
earnings and ibada or whether it's on top line gross revenue.

(12:11):
And that's that's what we did. We looked at the
most the most recent comparable is hydro Flask, which sold
about two years ago to Helen of Troy for more
than four times. They're grow sales. So that's that was
the perfect ammunition and it worked amazingly on the show
because it was just what it is. You can't say
it's not that I'm interested in it. It was the
bank because you know, at this point you guys had

(12:33):
a good partnership, you're working alongside them. Were they in
favor of you going on the Shark Tank? Absolutely? Okay, yeah,
I mean the to be clear, like the depending on
where you are in your business, the investment part is great.
The strategic insight that you're getting from the from the
right sharks that have are a good fit for your business,
no question. There's tremendous value that can be derived from that.

(12:55):
The exposure that you get come on, I mean, that's
that is amazing. Our marketing director Mike Sembachan who's brilliantly
smart data like guy Um did an analysis that he
found it to be worth about nine million dollars in
free advertising, and to a small business, that's an insane
amount of money, absolutely in free customer acquisition. So let's

(13:19):
fast forward them. So walk us through that day. You
walk into shark tank, you propose your product, You put
out your proposal on the table of the sharks. What happens, um,
I mean, what happened is exactly a little bit of
what we expected to happen. I mean, you going at
a twenty million valuation, the first thing they do is,
you know, all sigh and scream and talk about how

(13:41):
crazy it is and scoffe exactly, and we fully expected
that particularly, I mean, you know, this isn't a cancer therapy,
this is a beer product. So we expected that completely. Yeah, Um,
so we knew that that was going to be a
big hurdle in the route is what you you know,
and I can't get into too much detail for lots
of legal reasons, but you know, you tape for forty

(14:02):
five minutes to an hour for us, it was about
an hour, and that gets cut down to you know,
seven to ten minutes for the episode, So there's clearly
there's a lot that goes on you didn't see and
and with us, you know, they pushed back significantly on
the valuation, even despite the revenue numbers we had. I
mean at that time that we were going in, we
had trailing twelve months of nine million dollars in revenue
that was profitable, with no doubt on the company, no investors,

(14:23):
and it's it's a profitable business. But still it's like
they just have a hard time with with big valuations.
So we spent a lot of time talking about that
um once we you know, finally got past that, which
really came down to using the comparable with you know,
they didn't mention the name of the company on the show,
but with the comparable at hydro flask Um, we were
able to move on and get into a lot more

(14:44):
specific detail about the business, which fortunately is what you
end up seeing on the episode. Who jumped on it,
I'm assuming one of the sharks that invested, correct, meaning
they two of them? Yes? We yeah, So so Mark
went out. I mean we went in clearly with the
strategy or strategy was to get market LORI because based

(15:05):
on what we could use from a strategic value standpoint,
and SAD as a company, they're the ones that made
the most sense, and that is who we ended up getting.
But Mark went out almost I mean, he went out
early because because you know, the value, because of the risk. Yeah,
which it's like, okay, well that kind of shot that.
But but our intent, you know, based on the information

(15:28):
and data that we had about all the you know,
the h previous companies over the previous season for that,
if you're gonna get two of them, you're gonna give
up at least time the company. And so we we
didn't want to do that by any stretch of the imagination,
but we had an expectation that if we were going
to get the two of them, that was going to
be likely reality. So so you know we're going and
Mark goes out, you know, then you know Mr Wonderful

(15:51):
does is pretty standard Mr Wonderful thing and you know,
values of business that's doing nine million dollars in trailing
twelve months at two and a half or three million
dollar value, which you know, that's just what he does.
It's like his thing. Um. But it was really that
was actually kind of an inflection point in the episode
because that's what started the offers like that at least
started the bidding process because then you see a rod

(16:12):
come in and sort of piggyback on top of it,
and then you know Lori's kind of dipping her toe in,
and that really accelerated, accelerated these things. So so the
final deal was a million dollar investment. Yeah, So the
final deal was so Mark we got marked back in
that was a kind of a fun twist at the end. Um,

(16:34):
the final deal was a million dollars for the two
of them at five percent, so each of them got
two and a half percent Mark and Lori and the kicker,
which we had to do a little on the fly
math um was the royalty. We were not okay with
royalty until we were there, and mean, yeah, so we were.

(16:57):
We had agreed to pay each of them seventy of
sense per unit until they each got one million dollars back.
So so we were effectively paying a dollar fifty per
unit up to two million dollars as a royalty. So
the kicker for us, and why that doing that type
of deal with the royalty made sense was because we
were talking about five percent equity and not ten percent equity.

(17:20):
Equity is way more valuable than the royalty, and we
run you know, again, it is a profitable business. We
have strong margins. We you know, we could afford to
do it. It was an ideal. We didn't want to
do it, but it made sense given the fact that
we were looking at a smaller piece of equity that
we're giving. You're doing all of this on the fly.
Can you imagine, I mean, you operate your own business.
Can you imagine having this in front of you and

(17:42):
saying this is this is probably the biggest decision that
you've made to this point, other than cutting up bottle
and half to try to create a product. This is
your biggest decision at this point. And you have how
long to agree or just or to agree or to
deny the proposal? I mean you have you have seconds?
You have Yeah, No, it's a it's a huge decision.

(18:05):
It's you know, we were so prepared. We had planned,
you know, for what we thought. We definitely didn't know
that was gonna happen, but we had planned for every
scenario that we thought could possibly happen. So by the time,
you know, based on the way that the episode had
gone and the fact that we were getting the two
people that we wanted at a lower equity, you know,
giving up lower equity than we expected. You know, it

(18:26):
was kind of a we just turned to each other
and Matt, it runs the back end of our business.
Are all of our financials and inventory and the really
super important stuff. Um, he knows, he knows what our
numbers are. That's that's what he does every day. So
it was it was a pretty easy decision at that point,
exactly because because the royalty started higher. If if you

(18:48):
remember from the episode, it started at three dollars a year,
and that's that's not tenible. I mean that's ten percent
of the cost, like the retail cost of the product.
That that's that doesn't work. It just shows me too,
which is good. I think the show would appreciate this. Um,
if you did not go and you're obviously an intelligent person.
Matt's obviously an intelligent person. Uh, if you went into

(19:09):
this unprepared, or say, you just came up with a
really cool product that was really awesome, but you just
had no business since the sharks literally would eat you alive,
and they do if you Yeah, it's the guy that
aired before us on our episode. I mean they destroyed
that guy because he, you know, for I don't know,
for whatever reason, he just wasn't I didn't know this

(19:32):
stuff as well, and his his you know, business had
some issues with it and they sharked him. I mean,
he had already had a rough time. So let's then
fast forward today, this deal is done, Mark Human and
LORI uh are now five percent owners of your company.
How has it gone? So I'll clarify that the deal

(19:55):
you know, is ongoing, so that that's not final as yet.
It's yeah, it's not going to processing. Again, can't get
into the specific spect um, the you know, the reality
is since the episode aired, and for us, we were
really fortunate with the timing because our product, you know
very much is we do about half our revenue in
the fourth quarter, and realistically we do about half a
revenue in the last six or seven weeks of the year.

(20:16):
So airing on November twenty, which is two days after
Black Friday and the day before Cyber Monday, I mean
we could not have been more fortunate. And I mean
that's just you know, from our standpoord, that's just luck.
I mean, we can't script that any better. So so
we were really really fortunate and our sales were already up,
you know, almost double from the year prior, so you know,

(20:36):
we were sort of cranking on all cylinders and everything
was working as we wanted it to. Our team is
is just epically talented. Um So. But even with that,
you know, upon the airing that Sunday night, our sales
as of that Monday, We're so I mean, we we
had a huge jump that we expected. We didn't. You know,

(20:58):
you talked to other people that have been on the
show and about their experience after the fact and try
to take from that and apply it to your business.
With reality is it's not It's never going to be
the same because the timing, the products, the way they're
set up, the way you're set up, so you kind
of just take what you can and prepare for the worst.
Um But the beauty of the way people are consuming
this content now versus you know, eight years ago when

(21:20):
they were in their second or third season, is that
now a lot of this content is you know, it's
dv RT, it's streamed, so people you don't just get
this huge bump on the night that the episode airs
and then it quickly tails off. I mean, we got
a huge bump the night the episode aired, and then
it continued the next day and the next day and
the next day and through the entire I mean honestly,
through probably December, twenty plus percent of the sales on

(21:46):
our director consumer site we're still coming from shark ny insane.
How just I'm interested with the product that obviously takes
a little bit of time to manufacture. You're going on
the show, you know you're gonna have a spike in sales.
You don't really know what that spike is going to be.
How do you build up your inventory? How did you
plan ahead? Yeah, that's no question. One of the hardest things.

(22:08):
I mean, again, we probably do a whole podcast on
international manufacturing, but the we have a over the course
of a number of years after with Matt specifically, managing
multiple manufacturers overseas comes with eight an insane amount of complication.
Every time you fix something at this one, it's something
else you know, gets changed with this other one. One

(22:28):
company changes a little tweak in the cap, and all
of a sudden the cap doesn't fit the product from
the other two. It's like all the stuff that comes
with managing all these manufacturers. So about a year and
a half ago, we moved to US what's called a
soul source manufacturer, which is a US based company that
we technically now we buy buy the product from them.
They have three boots on the ground overseas that that
go and find the factories. They oversee the product from.

(22:51):
I mean all the way from sourcing raw materials through
early stages of manufacturing, packaging, like all the stuff. They
oversee all of it because we don't pay for it
until you know, we put a deposit down or not,
but we don't pay for it until sixty days after
we receive it. So if there's problems with the product,
we're not paying for it. So they have a tremendous incentive.
We're very much on the same page with putting out

(23:11):
high quality products, and because of our relationship with them,
we actually got them to make I want to say
it was seven extra containers of product, five or seven
extra containers of product that we didn't have to pay
for until after the fact. So they we basically got
them to float eight million dollars worth of worth of

(23:33):
inventory that we could pull from as we needed. I
would say again, either really great negotiation, which is a
lesson or luck for us. No it was trust. It
was trust. Trust. We've been working with this company for
a year and a half. When they send us a bill,
we have sixty days to pay it, and we pay
it six days in. We've done everything that we said

(23:54):
we were going to do with them. We have an
amazing relationship with them and we have a mutual trust.
But it's to be clear, like that didn't happenough for night.
That took a long time to get to them. The
we we talked about on on last week's episode of
Lady Bosses. But it's uh, the sourcing, shipping, manufacturing, the
oftentimes becomes the biggest cog in the system. I'm I

(24:15):
want to kind of go into you called your soul
would you say it was called the soul soul source?
To explain that a little further than also, um, is
that a trend? I'm unfamiliar with with that term. So
is that a trend now in manufacturing? Does that increase
the price per unit to a point where now you
can't sell it? That's a great question. So yeah, So
the concept of soul sources that if you in order

(24:37):
to get the volume that we need and sort of
making these numbers up, let's say we need five separate
manufacturers all making product, all at the same time. For
us to manage that as people that aren't experts in
international manufacturing, it's a night and we learned that the
hard way, and we're doing up to three. So instead
of doing that, you use you go to one company.

(24:57):
That company hasn't I expertise in this, So they go
to the overseas wherever it is that you need to
make your stuff, and they find the manufacturers that do
these things. They put them through the ringer on quality
control and on prototypes and all this stuff. Like we
actually just brought on another manufacturer through that, so we
just got a case of prototype product. There's all these

(25:19):
little tweaks, but it's this company that's their role to
oversee that, to make sure that that stuff gets done.
That makes sense, it does. So is there a levels
for anybody out there listening? A lot of our listeners
are starting their own small businesses. Maybe they have a
small business, it is probably operating round a million dollars.
Is there a certain amount of volume that makes this
That's where it gets tricky. Had we tried to go

(25:40):
soul source three years ago, it wouldn't been possible because
we wouldn't have been doing enough volume for a company
like this to get interested. Because the challenge you go
to the question of doesn't make it more expensive. Yeah,
it makes it more expensive. Let's break that down. It
gets more expensive because they're charging a margin, but it's
a very reasonable margin, let's say between five to The

(26:02):
difference though, is that they're able to go instead of
five separate factories each going and for us sourcing stainless steel,
they go and source stainless steel in one order for
all five factories. So they accomplished this a comedy economy
of scale that reduces the cost of the raw material,
which actually offsets the margin they're charging. So so it's

(26:23):
crazy like going to them, we actually paid less per
unit because of the economies of scale we achieved by
sourcing raw materials in larger quantity. Would you advise a
small business to look into this, No, absolutely. I mean,
if if you can find uh in, you know they're
the This concept, to your other point, is not new. Um,

(26:43):
so there there are certainly companies out there that will
do this. I would just say that you're you'll have
a little bit of difficulty if you don't have the
scale or if you cannot sell them on the concept
that you're going to get to that scale relatively quick.
It's really interesting. Have you ever done any international manufacturing.
I haven't, but it's it's interesting because I know that,
like you were saying, there's all these people that are

(27:04):
starting up companies and it's definitely something that people are
researching and making sure that it makes sense. And obviously
for you, you know, it made sense and so once
so once you got all these orders, was there any downtime?
Did the customer that the consumer feel like, oh, you know,
it's there was a delay in shipping. No, I mean

(27:29):
we had the product was on the ground in our
fulfillment center, the teams were all trained up and ready
to go. We had more than tupled our customer service team.
There's all these things. Yeah, but these we're the part
in from the Shark deck experience, Shark Tank experience that
probably sets the sport is we were just we were
a more developed business, Like we didn't start two years ago.

(27:52):
Like we've learned a lot of these lessons and you
learned them the hard way. In two thousand six, why
we started building a team is because I bottled that
our growth by my lack of willingness to start hiring people.
I just didn't want to manage people. In my last company,
we had lots of people, and that's a story. I
didn't want to but get nervous to. Yeah, just because
you don't know until you know. I wanted. Yeah, my

(28:14):
wife Katie and I were traveling. We were out of
the country four plus months of the year because we
could operate the business anywhere that there was Internet, I mean,
which today is in a lot of places. So bringing
people on changes that. I mean, it can change that.
Certainly you get into like distributed workforces like that, that's
a whole another thing. But I don't know how to
do that, I mean, make it up, I guess. But

(28:35):
so in we had to literally turn the sales off
because when when you automate things, you can I think
I believe that you can automate about stuff. And when
you're doing a hundred orders a day or fifty orders
a day, that five percent that you have to manually
touches in a ton like you can manage that and
still be doing the other things that are important for

(28:55):
running the business. Doing the Facebook ads with the photography
or whatever that stunes but when you're doing a thousand
or rs a day, that five is two people's full
time jobs. And that's what happened in two thousand sixteen.
We you know, we had this huge explosion. Again, if
you look about half a revenue comes in the fourth quarter,
if we did seven and a half million dollars, more
than three of that happened just in November into something.

(29:17):
So that's thousand thousand plus orders a day. And I
was the one managing that five percent, and it just
got out of control. And as a result of that,
we did learn some lessons about being able to ship
product in time, and we've we've learned a lot of
these lessons a hard Yeah, you don't want to lose
the interest if people are buying it. You want to
be able to of course there's a delay. Yeah, it's

(29:39):
really hard to garden. Yeah, you don't get that customer back.
You burn them once and that's it. I found out
the hard way December of this year. The company that
I operate U of our sales this year happened in December, right,
this is our first year, so it's the first twelve
months of operating our online business sales, So all of
a sudden, you know, surprise, bang boom bomb. I'm ordering

(30:02):
coffee from Uganda to try to get here in the
next month because I have back orders. Um, you learn
this that you go and I say that only to
do this. We we have a theme. I don't know
if if anybody listening can pick up on this, um,
but we have a theme on this podcast right now
is where we have very successful, very smart people coming
and sitting here and they go, we've just kind of
made it up as we go and we've failed along

(30:23):
the way, and our listeners are listening to this emailing
us going are they serious? Do they mean this? Because
I think that they also can just be all talk.
I mean, how many examples do you want? I got
a lot of them. I mean, this is a great one.
This is an awful story. When the first version that
we came out with just this stainless colored it was

(30:43):
one size, was followed like the model T keep it simple.
That was it. And so that went on for a year.
We literally sold one product in one color for a year.
Early the next year two, I guess it was, we
start like, hey, maybe we want some colors because our
customers are saying, hey, we really want colors, so we
just we're gonna come out with five colors like or no,
it was that time it was only two colors, blue

(31:04):
and red. And we have our factory and again we're
manu managing the factories. Matt specifically is managing the factors.
At this point, we have the factories, you know, add
the paint and a very very specific clearly this has
to be completely lead free. I mean, this is a
consumer product. There's all sorts of state and federal regulations
for consumer products with paint and all the stuff, like
there's there's no gray area. It's a very black and white.

(31:27):
We but we're super paranoid. So we have everything tested
and we get the product in um and we test
the paint at a what is supposed to be a
federally certified facility and it comes back over the legal
limit for lead. We have five thousand units and we've
we've reinvested every dollar. I mean, we didn't take paychecks

(31:50):
for the first two years of operations because we did
not pay ourselves. We were reinvesting of what was coming
into the company, which is how we did it without
taking on investors or debt. So it's not like we
could throw this product away and to start over, like
that's game over. So and clearly we weren't going to
ship that to customers lots of legal and moral reasons.

(32:10):
So we went to home Depot is where it started
at least. We went to home Depot and we bought
like super industrial paint stripper, and we in our garages
in Phoenix and in l A manually stripped with like
rubber gloves and you know, lab coats and lab goggles
and manually stripped like three thousand of these units. And

(32:35):
then we had to because you can't just like strip them.
Then they're all you know, they're all like gooey, and
then you have to wash them, and then you have
to buff them because now all this like shine that's
on the outside is not there anymore. So Matt created
this like a lid that we've changed this lead since
the first version, but it's effectively like that that had
a bolt in the top of it that we could
fit a drill to and so a drill would spin

(32:56):
the super fast, so we could just take a brillo
bad and go and just droop it out grind it. Yeah,
like that. So we had my dad with the Times
Simmer retired was at Matt Shop in Phoenix. Literally just
like grinding model givers all day, every day for I
don't know, two months. That's that's one of the best,
just so we could use and sell this product because

(33:17):
it would have been I would have the best part.
As we find out, we move our um testing facility
like six months later. The next time we get an
inventory order in, we move our test facility and we
use it as comparable. It had no let the moral
of the story always find it back up. Yeah, get

(33:41):
a second opinion. When you're dealing with things that are
like catastrophically huge, you have to get a second opinion.
But the moral of the story is that, And also
how great of a story is this to tell? Like
that isn't incredible? It was? And literal pictures of like
the cars pulled out of the garage and the whole
garage floor lined with with garbage bags basically and like

(34:05):
just dozens and dozens because we could only do like
fifty of them at a time because you have the
much space, So like dozens dozens of bottle keepers turned
upside down like this so the stuff would run down. Um,
we can't skip over this because I think this is
a good lesson I want to touch on is as
you're standing there looking into your garage of bottles tipped
upside doubt and draining out, you have all of your

(34:27):
money then maybe not all of your your worth, but yeah,
all the company's money back invested into those bottles sitting
in that garage. What is going through your mind? I mean,
you just figure it out, you hack it together? You
this did? You still believe in it? Absolutely? Because at
that point we were selling product, you know this, Maybe

(34:48):
this would have been a different story if this was
like right at the beginning, and I mean in our
crowdfunding campaign we sold I think a thousand years or something.
If we did that and we shipped those units and
then like things didn't really happen or they weren't really
working or whatever, Like fine, maybe that's a different story.
But this happens in two thousand fourteen, and we're doing
two or three thousand dollars a month, you know, which

(35:09):
isn't I guess isn't nothing, but it's not much. And
then Facebook changes their video ad platform. I shoot a
video on you know, with an off the shelf camera
showing the product in action, and you put that up
in August when they launched the platform. In September we
do grand, and October we do thirty grand, and November
we do fifty grand, and December we do sixty grand
in the first ten days and completely sut of products.

(35:30):
So we went I mean, we did a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars or so in the year, but dred
thirty of that was like in November and you know,
the last three months of the year. So that was
that was the point where were like, holy hell, this
is actually a thing. Like now it's working. But even then,
it's like eight months from the point that we launched.
To get to where the things started working. You just

(35:50):
have to test and test and tweak and test and test.
And your story is the one that I've really enjoyed
and and I really do think. Um sometimes we people
come on the podcast and we're like, ah, your products, Okay,
this is a cool deal. Um, mostly because I think
it's a great gift. Uh, it's gonna keep your beer cold,
like I said, if we and there's a bottle that's brilliant. Um.

(36:15):
So as I'm holding this, the as I'm holding this,
it really is it's it's a a cooler, UM for
your bottled beer. So if you have somebody that drinks
bottled beer or anything bottled, I guess ciders, juice, whatever, Um,
this will keep it cold. Adam, before we let you
go here, UM any advice to any I really enjoy

(36:39):
ending these segments with the opportunity for you, somebody that
has built a successful business, UM, with the ability to
give some advice to the listeners who are either operating
successful businesses or just getting started. UM any advice with them? Um? Yeah,
I think one of the most valuable things that we've
done relative to showing our customers unique experience which keeps

(37:03):
them from wanting to go and buy it at other places,
you know, and Amazon or competitive products or whatever. UM
is personality people. You know, we're all buying stuff online.
We're doing it constantly. It's happening more and more and
more every year, and it's it has a tendency to
be a very impersonal experience. And so if you can
show your customer a personal experience with your whether it's

(37:25):
your voice, it's the brand's voice, maybe that's the same thing.
In our case, it was I was just being kind
of like smarky snarky, sarcastic eye, and that was became
the Bottlekeeper brand voice. UM. If you can show that
to the customer and show it to them in every
point at which you touch them on the website, in
your you know, your Facebook marketing, keep it consistent in

(37:47):
your after UM purchase emails. Like their order confirmations. A
lot of these systems, whether it's Shopifire or Magenta or whatever,
they have these template confirmations that come after and they're
very impersonal. They look like everybody else is ordered template.
Make it personal you. There's all these things. One of
the one of the smartest things in hindsight UM that
we did early on is I set up a an

(38:09):
email that I personally wrote that goes out to every
customer after they place in an order, goes out to
them the next day. Clearly, I'm not manually writing out
thousands and thousands emails, but so it is automated, but
it is personal. It's from the heart. It's a thank you,
it's a we cannot believe that we that it worked
like this. We got to where we are and it's
because of you. You're the reason that this works. If

(38:31):
we can help if you have questions, if you have comments,
if you have feedback. PA's how we grow. It means
everything to us, and it comes from my personal emails.
I mean, yeah, it's me. I mean it literally is
that has a little picture me on the bottom. And
it's not a built out template that has headers and
footers and a bunch of images like. It's just an email.
And of our customers respond to that email, and I

(38:53):
personally got them and I personally read and respond every
single one of them, because that is a that is
a personal link and connection that I can have with
one of our customers. And most of the time, you know,
ninety of the time, it's wow, that's so cool. I've
never got an email from a founder of a company,
you know. And it would be great. Effects It would
be great if you put an opener in the cap.
It would be great if you put added a tether

(39:14):
to the cap. So so when I you know, leave
it right, you know, I put it in my bag,
I don't lose it because I lost mine or whatever
like that sort of stuff. It would be great if
it was powder coated like that is how we developed
that product is based on feedback that I personally get
from our customers. It doesn't take a lot of time,
but it's just touch your customers personally, reach out, communicate

(39:34):
with them personally. A lot of these things you know,
you can you can automate. You don't need to hire
somebody to just man to leave, you know, camera out
on the typewriter or sevens. Make it personal from the
Bottlekeeper boss himself. If you want to find Bottlekeeper, make
sure you visit their website at bottle keeper dot com.
You can also hashtag them if you're using a bottle

(39:55):
keeper Keeper product at Colder Beer is Better, there's the hashtag.
Fund him on Facebook at the bottle Keeper, Instagram at
bottle Keeper, and Twitter at the bottle Keeper. Adam, thank
you for coming in, Thank you for talking about your product.
Thank you for joining us on The Lady Bosses and
then podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

(40:16):
The Relish is not your dad's sports network. It's a
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(40:38):
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Relish app from the app store now to sign up
and tune in. Now back to you, James, the wonderful
co host who decided to come in here while Jesse
is stuck in a snowstorm. I'll have to be honest,
I know nothing about you, but I know oh that

(41:00):
you have stories to tell. So Jamie, I just kind
of want to give you the floor to talk about
yourself and to talk about why it is that you
decided to come in the Lady Boss Podcast. Well, UM,
my story began UM when I worked at Sony Pictures Television.
Actually started as a temporary employee for the studio. I

(41:20):
was an assistant to the head of Special Events and UM.
I slowly worked my way up over a couple of
years and UM eventually became the head of the Special
Events and Talent Relations department at Sony Pictures Television, UM,
where I ran all of the television events, so launch parties,
rat parties, all the corporate events, meetings, retreats, those types

(41:44):
of things. I was at Sony Pictures TV for about
nine and a half years UH and I had great
experiences there UM. Towards the end of my stay at
the studio, I was getting a little bit aunty and
realizing that there was more out there and other companies
planning big parties, doing different types of events, working for charities,

(42:04):
doing other things. So I actually joined with another gentleman, Brian,
who was my business partner, and we launched a company
by the name of Your Bash. We launched it very quickly.
I left Sony in November and we launched our company
within thirty days. Our website was up, our photos were there.

(42:24):
We we were both experienced event planners in our own areas.
I worked for one studio, he worked for a different studio,
but we did both did very different things. I was
in charge of all the logistics and the back end
and the budgets and the clients and the marketing, where
he was the designer, and he was very He was

(42:45):
a brilliant designer. He could walk into a blank room
and he could visualized beautiful party. UM. So we had
a lot of success and we luckily because of our
both of our relationships where we worked, we UM had
a lot of studios signed on to do events with us,
and actually a lot of our first events were all
the American Idol parties we did UM an American Idol

(43:09):
was very new at the time, so it was all
the beginnings of American Idols. So we would do the
top twelve parties of finale parties UM and a lot
of different events for different studios. We also did personal events, weddings, UM,
social events, those types of things. So we were together
UM actually nine years. Nine seems to be my magic
number UM and decided to part ways. He moved to

(43:32):
Atlanta to continue his journey with designing and producing weddings,
and I stayed here in l A and basically continued
the business that we had started. But it was time
for that business to get a rebrand and a fresh face,
and so UM I did that, and I then launched
Geffen Events, which is my own company, and that is

(43:54):
two and a half years old now and it's fantastic.
UM similar we're doing. I'm doing a lot of studio
and corporate events, but I'm also now able to pick
and choose different charities that I want to work with.
I do a lot of different charity galas, fundraisers, UM
Halloween events. Just basically it's kind of my way of

(44:14):
giving back to the community from an event standpoint and
bringing people together, bringing brands together. Um. I still also
do a lot of social events to weddings, Bermitzva's, you
know those types of things. So, um, that's kind of
my journey in a nutshell. Um, I definitely, it's been
a long journey to get to where I am. I'm

(44:36):
I love where I am now. I'm very happy with
my business. I'm very proud of my business. It's it's
everything I ever wanted it to be. So how many
employees now you have? So that's that's a tricky question. Um. Technically, uh,
it's me and two others that are permanent employees. UM.
But I have teams of people that depending on the clients,

(44:58):
So if it's a if it's a design heavy event,
I'll bring on certain designers that will come on and
design with the clients. I have a ton of incredible
day of staff that freelance for me. So it's a
very small company. It's a boutique firm basically, which is
how I wanted to be. When people hire me, they
hire me, and I want to keep it that way.

(45:19):
I've always wanted to be in the mix. I there's
a plenty of companies that do what I do, where
you hire the company and you get the assistant, the
number two of the number three, and I just I
never I never wanted it to be that way. So
I am a little picky with who I take on
as a client. But at the end of the day,
I think it's all about the personal touch and being

(45:41):
involved from the beginning till the end. So how many
events are you doing? I usually do two to three
a month. The we have a one of my my
assistant actually is an event coordinator, and she was asking
the other day how she markets her company right, because
there isn't a lot other than word of mouth. Is

(46:01):
there ways that you market get and events to kind
of get the word out there? Um? I will say
that word of mouth is actually the best way. Um,
it's most of my Most of my events referrals come
from past clients or people that I know. There are
many different areas of my life. I tried marketing, I

(46:21):
tried magazines, I tried, I tried it all. I will
tell you're not going to open up magazine a wedding
magazine and go I'm gonna hire that wedding planner because
I like the picture. So for me, it's really been
word of mouth, It's Instagram, it's social media. Um, you
know that's I would say that it's it's a very
visual business. So anything where you can show photos and

(46:42):
you know, tell the story. We've had it's We've had
a couple of tech entrepreneurs in here and we were
asking them, you know, how they're marketing their company, because
I think everybody's trying to figure it out right now, right,
how do you reach out to millennials? Head shifted completely,
It's shifted completely. There was a trend that we've kind
of die sected in a very non scientific way on

(47:02):
the podcast, and we feel like we if we want
to be successful as marketeers, we have to start grassroots programs,
word of mouth programs, even to put that as in
front of social media, so social media actually takes a
backseat to the word of mouth, the grassroots marketing campaigns.
Would you agree or disagree? So I would agree. I

(47:23):
would agree. I would say, I mean, I take a
lot of risks. I do some events where I don't
take a fee because it's getting me out to the
right people. It's getting me further down the road with
making new relationships, being working with brands that I maybe
never worked with before. I did a lot of that
at the beginning. I mean, you kind of have to
get You want to have stuff on your resume, right,

(47:43):
you want to say that you did this or you
did that. And I've been very lucky in my career
where I've I've been able to produce some really high
end and you know, beautiful events that have given me
my publicity, if that makes any sense. So in and
of itself, like the social media are being magazines and
that's kind of you know, how I've gotten my publicity.

(48:04):
But I did have somebody that was running my social
media because, like you said, that was the way of
the world. But I agree, now it's more about me
being out there and talking to people and meeting people
and constantly like trying to stay up on the new
trends and the new venues. And because events are so
different now too, there's a perception of people don't throw
these over the topic events as anymore like they used to.

(48:27):
It's more they're more calculated because it's more about getting
the brand in the right with the influencers and the
you know, in the right eyes and getting them to
post pictures and really you've seen that. I mean, that's interesting,
it's kind of sad, kind of sad. That's great. That's

(48:47):
what I think of when I think of big events. Great. Uh.
You know, So for anybody out there listening, Uh, how
as an event coordinator, what events are you ex upting
and what events are you turning down? You said you're
obviously you want to be a boutique firm. You want
to have a hands on touch. If somebody's out there listening, going,
I have a wedding coming up, or I have a

(49:07):
bermits coming up, or I have a massive celebration coming up,
what makes them fit into your criteria or how do
they why would you fit into their criteria? UM, I
think it's all about a relationship. I think you can
tell in the first ten minutes of a conversation if
you're a good match with this person. And I think
if if you're going to be for a wedding, for instance,
if you're going to be talking to this person every

(49:28):
day for the next year, you want to make sure
that you have some some sort of rapport with that person.
So whether that you can tell that immediately over the phone,
or whether that's sitting down and talking about this person's
style and what their visions are. Because obviously before I
send a contract or contract with any client, I have
a personal meeting with them and we talk about sort
of their overall goals and ideas. And if that's something

(49:51):
that I feel like I can put, you know, my
brand on, or I feel like I can create for them,
then it's absolutely a great fit. If I feel it's
not really the right fit, I'm very honest and I'm
happy to refer them to somebody that I feel maybe
a better fit, because at the end of the day,
you just you don't It's the process is long, usually
with planning an event, and you don't want to be unhappy.

(50:12):
You don't want them to be unhappy, and at the
end of the day you want them to walk into
their event and say, Wow, this is amazing and be happy.
I have a thirtieth birthday coming up. After talking to
me for the last ten minutes, do I feel for
to be out there listening? How would they find you
to at least court you for a little bit see
if it's a good fit. So Geffen Events is the

(50:33):
name of my company. My website is www dot Geffen
events dot com, and my Instagram handle is at Geffen
Events and we're gonna be Instagram friends as of now. Perfect. Hey,
thank you so much for coming in. And I know
short notice, but you're obviously very well qualified to sit

(50:56):
in this seat and help me out today. So I'm
going to ask you to help guide me because I
need all the help I can get. Um. Really, I'm
kind of you know, Adam said, I'm just trying to
get all these entrepreneurs admit that they're faking it, because
really I'm just faking it and I feel like if
I can get them too, then I can say confidently
and nobody's gonna question me. Uh. But we do have

(51:16):
a really special guest up next, uh, somebody that you know,
so it's not weird if you guys talk as friends. Um.
Our Lady Boss of the Week is Amy Marilla from
Hidden Garden Flowers. Amy. Hey, guys, how are you hi? Amy?
We Uh, we obviously know that you two know each other.

(51:37):
Jamie's already mentioned that before. Amy, just to get this
thing started, we have to be honest because you've been
great and you've taken some time away from a very
special event. Where are you at right now? Right now,
I'm at my son's basketball game because I like to
a full time job from it. Literally came from oh hi,

(52:01):
from a walkthrough to drive all the way to our
Hollywood to get this basketball game in time. So then
get on the phone with you guys. Game. I know
the feeling, girl, I know the feeling, right of course. Yeah,
no one knows the difference. But ships actually thinks that
I'm to stay at home mom, Yeah, of course you'll
be at the best rug game. It's unbelieve you have

(52:21):
a nine year old, right, I have a nine year
old son yet, and a lot of our listeners because
of previous podcast Jesse's talked about it pretty openly as
a mom, you kind of just have to do it all.
It seems like, absolutely, Yeah, I was. I was at
his assembly before I came here and I had to
run out to get here. So you just do it.
You just make it work. You do right now, and
no one knows any different. Absolutely, It's it's it's something

(52:44):
to laugh. I hear you know, kind of laughing about this.
But it's also just super impressive. I don't know, I
think that's one of the reasons why we started the
podcast is is to highlight the journey to success and
and talk about the failures, but also just highlight the
fact that you all are doing it all and I'm
I'm learning from that every episode Amy to get this
thing started. You are the owner of Hidden Garden Flowers.

(53:05):
Can you tell our listeners what that is? Yes? Um so.
I I always say I own a flower shop, and
my friends always joking say, why do you say it
like that. It's not just a flower shop. I don't
know what else to call it. Um. We do floral
We do anything that pertains the floral, so like Ali
orders you know, I love you, happy birthday anniversaries. Then

(53:28):
we have our hotel accounts that we do the lobbies
of hotels like Beverly Hills Hotel and Hostel bel Air
and Waldorf Vistoria um. And then it comes from country clubs,
and then we do weddings, and then we also do
social corporate functions. So any anything that test flowers touch
we kind of participate in. And I've had it for

(53:52):
twenty years, so it's spent a long time. Don't give
over the small little event that you do the super Bowl.
Oh yeah, we do the super Bowl, that little thing.
Yeah yeah, I know. Yeah, we leave on. This is
our eleventh super Bowl, um, which is pretty cool because
I will sit up one of my most favorite ones
that we do because one NFL, I have to be honest,

(54:14):
is very cool to work for. Um so, and they appreciate, uh,
they appreciate women owners, they appreciate the minority. You know that.
They're really great about it. So this is our eleventh
year that we've gone to every Super Bowl, and we
do what's called the tailgate party, which is the Commissioner's
party before the games. You have to have a to

(54:35):
conticute into the game and you have to have an
invite party. And it comes out to be I think
they say it's ten thousand people that go to the party.
Um and then yeah, it's really cool. It's an amazing,
amazing event. Yeah. So, and we started eleven years ago
in Arizona, and then the NFL after that year said

(54:57):
come next year, and then next year, and then they
finally said can you just do every single year? And
we were like waren yes, um so, Amy when the
NFL brings you on to do these parties, how do
they how do they decide what to do? Is there
a theme every year? Is it something that I give you?
I know you're also a designer, You're not just you

(55:18):
don't just work in a flower shop. So do they
give you? Do they give you, you know, the lead
on designing the event overall? No, we have, um, there's
a company called Party Planners, with which Jamie I'm sure
you're probably famiar with of course, and they they read
the whole entire production and they're the ones that actually
brought us in originally, and then they go over the

(55:40):
whole design and they come up with the concept of
what the overall looks going to be. And then they
give us the look book of what the look is
and took down with me as far as what the
floral is going to be. Events, they let us kind
of dictate what we're going to do for florals that
complement the look of the rest of the party. So
definitely group effort. And you know, Gammy, you're similar with that.

(56:02):
We are. We all sit down, we pow wow. We
talked about you know, some people have ideas and I'm like,
that's a great idea of throw that in vice versa.
Um so, and every year ends up being a different
color pellette and theme, and but the flow of the
party has to remain the same to about many people.
But they give us the information and we kind of

(56:23):
work with what they've given us. Have the two of
you work together? We have you have? I wondered they've
created magic? Of course, Amy, you know you have this
business built on flowers. And before we dig into trying
to get as intimate and vulnerable as possible, why flowers?

(56:47):
You know, I used to be in the music business,
and um, I was in the music business out of college.
I had friends that were in fans and I got
a job and then I just kept kept going and
going in it. And one day I told my boyfriend
at the time, which was not my hostess, um, I
just like making fire rangements for people. It makes people happy.

(57:08):
And so he was like, for make fower reasons And
I started making fire rangements for everyone that we worked
with in the music business at the time, and I
kept getting a bunch of orders before I go to work,
and then before you know it, my apartment at the
time I had been to my boyfriend then, um, I
had it at sixty degrees and I had it filled

(57:29):
with flowers and bug flyin er everywhere in the kitchen,
and he was like, you need to move out. We
can't do this. This is not working. And so I said,
all right. And I never worked in a flower shop before,
so I um found this space and I decided I
was gonna open up a so to Seek flower shop
with a zero idea of what I was doing. And

(57:51):
I just did it. I just made it work. That's
always my running joke. And we'll make it work. It'll
be fine. Yeah, And I'll be fine. That's what we say.
We're event planners. It'll be great, no problem, that works
all right, and then we have to figure out how
to do it. They look at your in your life
won like, okay, if you walk right know, like how
I don't, but it looks great, you know. It does

(58:11):
bring up the point though, to all that what's your differentiator?
Like how I mean you have a flower shop in
your house. There's a lot of flower shops out there,
and your friends make fun of you to say it's
not just a flower shop. I know what separates you?
I mean, I guess this question could be the both
of you. Uh, what separates you from from the crowd
to make your business scalable, larger and more successful than most.

(58:34):
And and let's start with amy. That is a great question. Sometimes.
I know sometimes you wonder what does make me different? UM?
I think maybe because the idea that I'm always like
we can do that, like just always always having a
good attitude about it, being positive while we're doing something.

(58:55):
I always feel like we can do it. We can
do it, don't work. We got this um and having
that personality that keeps people moving all this time. It's
really important because you want your team to feel like
they have a strong leader behind them, and if they
have a strong leader, then they'll do more for you. UM.
So I think that's a big part of it. And

(59:17):
I think that our product shows that we care. Like
our service. Our customer service is another big part. I
think we when we first started, we would gain more
and more clients just because someone else gives bad customer service.
It was like if you just answer the phone, returned
to phone call, sent a proposal on time, did what
you said you were going to do, like one you know. Um,

(59:41):
And that was that was a big part of it too.
So attitude, good team and customer service. UM. I would say,
I agree with all of that, and to further your
point of the other people and other people in the business,
it's it's interesting and I'm sure Amy you get this too,
that people end up sometimes with you because they've already

(01:00:04):
had a bad experience with someone else and they're like,
but we heard you were so much easier to work
with and so much. But you know, so I feel
like you're kind of sometimes we're thrown in to clean
up the mess, so that it's kind of a double duty, right,
So now you have to prove yourself, but you also
have to prove that you were better than the other
person for some reason. So that happens a lot. But
I agree. I think that I'm a very strong leader.

(01:00:25):
But I also never ask anybody on my team to
do anything that I wouldn't do myself. So that means
I'll call up on the ladder, I'll hang the drape,
I'll stay until four in the morning, I'll be the
one to clean the bathroom, like whatever it is. Like,
I think that very much shows your team that you're
a team player, you're in it with them. Yeah, they'll

(01:00:47):
do more for you because they're like, she'll do it,
I'll do it exactly and having a relationship. And I
would think that that that shows through our work as well,
because we're all in it together and you know, makes
us successful. Yeah, finitely, Amy, But it hasn't always been success.
There's been feels along the way. We talked about it

(01:01:07):
often on here. Can you do you have any stories
or any specific examples of failures that have led you
to this point? Oh my gosh. Well, every every year
there's a new lesson UM. But I would say the
first five years of me starting, I mean, I joke,
I cried myself to sleep, but I think I probably
did UM because it was past and it was hard

(01:01:29):
and it was like always, you know, financially it was
such a burden and how do you make this work?
You know? And then the next part of failure, you know,
is I did start another company UM in the middle
of this called Flourish, which is a d I y
flower bar, and I I went to several times and

(01:01:52):
I loved it. I know everyone left it. But you
know it's funny is the formula was a failure. The
concept was great, but the formula to make nest work
was a fail And as much as we tried to
make it work, and we kept going back and forth
with the investors and you know and having me, um,
you know, giving up the equity and get taking more money,

(01:02:13):
and at some point you have to raise the white
flag and just say, you know what, this didn't work,
and um, I didn't want to do that, but we
needed to do it also for my stanity. I needed
to do it. And what didn't work for you that? Yeah,
what it really was was the concept was great. You know,
it was a d y flower bar. People will come

(01:02:34):
in make their flowering, but they were supposed to learn
how to make them via the tutorials that were on
the iPads on the station. Well, because it was connected
to the Hidden Garden as well, a lot of our
customers from the Hidden Garden would go to the store
and they were used to getting whatever they asked for.
Everything was custom, so they would come in and say,

(01:02:55):
I love that. That's really pretty, but I want to
make your tink instead of yellow, and I want to
add and these instead of roses. And so before you
know it, you had a designer that needs to be
on the floor to help them design it because they
weren't following the tutorial that was right in front of them.
Then you needed to have a buyer that bought different
flowers than all the recipes that we already had put together.

(01:03:17):
So at that point, now we've added into the biggest component. Yeah,
the labor and the flowers. Um and and those were
the two big parts that we had taken away from
the d I Y Flower of our concept, and we
put them back into the model. And as a result,
the cost to do business was so high, and um,

(01:03:37):
I felt like I was running a d I Y
hitting garden, which was exactly the opposite of what I wanted. Sure, Amy,
just because I'm just hearing this, would you say you're
the failure or the point of no return was when
you decided to go against your original plan and bring
in labor. If you would have stuck to the original

(01:03:58):
idea of just saying, hey, sorry, you have to follow
a pad and this is what we have to offer,
could you have made this work? Yes? Do you almost
have to do it? I kind of go back to
and I know this that Alley from dry Bar on
the on the show before. I kind of have to
go back to like car model, like you have to
rebaly sist your guys, Like when people walk in to
get their hair blown out. This is what we do.

(01:04:19):
We blow out here. We don't do a bank trim.
Sorry the police are driving. We don't. We don't. Um,
you know, we don't do bank trim. We don't do
a little color touch up. We don't. We just fill
it drive. That's what we do. So had we originally
went out and said this is what we do and
owned with that concept and not tried to make everybody happy, um,

(01:04:41):
maybe maybe that would have worked. Um, but I think
we started to beer off course a lot, and then
before you know it, it it kind of got wild and
you were d I y hiitding garden and that was
not the plan. And it was hard. I mean, I joke,
I I don't have my m B A, but I
definitely paid for my m B A and in altering

(01:05:01):
up star, um real life experience. Uh. But now I
can sit in front of you know, investors, I could
do at Jack, I could do a presentation like I
could do all of that, and UM, pretty confident. Yeah,
So Amy, we we like to I know you've got
a game to get to, so we're gonna we're gonna
respect your time here. But we love for all the

(01:05:25):
listeners out there coming from all different age ranges, backgrounds,
et cetera. We love to end each kind of segment
with advice, UM two entrepreneurs and lady bosses or I mean,
we have a pretty good male following as well. Anybody
out there that's a boss. What's your advice? The cheep
at it? Don't give up Sometimes the things that like you,

(01:05:48):
you know, you hear people say you gotta take two
steps backwards, take a step forward, like, don't give up.
If you really believe in something and you believes that
you could do it, there's gonna be optacles in their way.
But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
And I've always told myself that and I think that's
what has kept me going forward all the time because

(01:06:08):
it's hard to own your own business. It's hard to
have employees, it's hard to succeed. But if it was easy,
everyone will be doing it. And that's why we do it.
We like to challenge, So don't give up. Amy and
Marella the owner of Hidden Garden Flowers, go back, get
back to that game. Thank you so much for coming
on the podcast. You are welcome. Guy's good to talk

(01:06:29):
to you. By Amy. Thanks guys, by jam Bye Jamie.
Today we've we've learned a couple of different lessons that
I've written down. Okay. Adam Bottlekeeper told us um to
keep the experience personal, right as if you want to
grow your business and differentiate yourself, you have to keep
it personal. Uh. And as we've heard there with Amy Um,

(01:06:53):
she says something very similar said customer service is what
helped her scale her business. When somebody else would miss
the call, she would answer it. And then she also said,
as a leader out there, keep at it, don't give up.
If you believe in something, continue to do it. I
think those are little tokens for us to take and
a lot of aspects of life. Absolutely, Jamie Geffen from

(01:07:15):
Geffen Events, you are a great co host. Thank you
for stepping in here. Um. You're poised and collected just
like any Lady Boss would be. Well, thank you, Thank
you everybody, and we will talk to you next week
on Lady Bosses and Ben. Follow Lady Bosses and Ben
on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to podcast

(01:07:36):
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