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
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Everybody is making moremoney than they've ever thought they could make off of
one piece of content in theirlife, right? They're like,
I posted a five second video and retired,and everybody's like, congratulations.
(00:21):
Well, hello and welcome to another editionof the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.
I'm your host, BrettCurry, 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 newdevelopments that I can't wait to unpack,
but she is now the president ofthe creative division at Wayward.
(00:44):
Talk about what that means and whyshe'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 funopportunity to reconnect.
It's so crazy when I first thought, man,I should have Liz back on. I thought,
(01:04):
well, it's been just a few months.And then I looked and yeah,
it's been almost two years, which that'sjust the way life and e-comm goes, man.
It just goes by so stinking fast.
It feels like yesterday andseven years ago simultaneously.
Right? 100%. That is100% true. Yeah. Yeah.
So you've had a really big year, Liz.
(01:24):
We were both at SolarSummit in Fort Lauderdale.
You were the closing keynote ofthat event, which is a major honor,
so kudos to you for that. Yousold your company Fluencer Fruit,
you sold to Wayward, which is where youare now, so I can't wait to unpack that.
And now you get to be on this show twicein a couple of years, so it is a big,
(01:46):
big year for you, so congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Which by the way, what wasthat, given the closing keynote, was that
kind of a bucket list thing?
Was it something you wanted to do orsomething 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,
(02:07):
was when I started withSeller Summit. I mean,
it's was my entryway intoe-comm, and when I started,
I was running registration andwas just a new Amazon seller,
and my whole life was kind of in flux.
And so never did I ever think, oh, Iwould like to be closing keynote, right?
(02:28):
Go from run of the admission table yearsand years ago to now doing the closing
Genome.
Checking Bunch badge. And nowit's like, and here you're as the,
so I will say it definitely wasn'tsomething that I initially was like,
that's what I want to do. And alsowhen we got closer, it was like,
that would be really cool.
And in talking to Tony,
because they had a scheduling changewith the original closing keynote,
(02:51):
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 Summitfull circle moment. Heck.
And she was like, I likeit. So they took it and.
Amazing.
It was nerve wracking,but it was really fun.
If you're ever going to dosomething that big, being in your,
(03:12):
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 forsure. So yeah, it was great.
And your background is JungleScout. You're a successful seller.
(03:34):
You've been doing Seller Summitnow, doing some really cool things.
And then a few years ago you hadthis 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 exitbecause I just know so many people we're
kind of in the m and a gamewe're looking to acquire.
I know a lot of peoplethat are looking for exits,
and so can't wait to unpack that alittle bit. But for those who don't know,
(03:55):
what is flu fruit and then howdoes that fit into the wayward
ecosystem?
Absolutely.
So Fluencer Fruit is an extensionthat helps content creators on or in
the Amazon Influencer programhelps them do product research,
and it helps them managetheir video library.
So that's the fastest way to explain it.
(04:16):
It's a Chrome extension that just helpsvisualize all of the things that you
care about for onsite contentin an easy to digest fashion.
Nice. And so what areyou seeing right now,
and we'll talk about howthis fits in with Wayward,
but what are you seeing rightnow with Amazon Influencer?
I know this has been an initiativewith Amazon for a while.
(04:37):
Amazon's always trying tosolve the problem of discovery.
How do we get customersto discover new products?
They still mostly rely on search. They'relooking for things to go beyond that.
But what have you been seeingwith Amazon Influencer as of late?
Yeah, so it's interesting because Ithink there's two pieces to that coin,
which is where it's like they'retrying to solve for discoverability,
(05:01):
and they're also trying tosolve for authentic feedback.
So we have seen a lot ofchange for written reviews,
and I use it in quotes because arethey 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 abot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(05:22):
It's like a competitor beingpaid to leave one star reviews.
So they've been trying to simultaneouslysolve both of these things.
And so where I see the onsite contentbeing the biggest win for them
is its authentic userfeedback for a product.
And so in a way, it does battlesome of those paid for bad good,
(05:44):
whatever reviews with reallyauthentic conversations in video.
The other thing is from.
A, so it's not just a discovery thing,
it's also like a conversionpiece as well, right? Yes.
And lending real feedback for aspecific product that should help with
conversions or.
Purchases.
So the onsite piece up to this pointhas been almost 100% on the conversion
(06:06):
side.
It's like you're paying all these otherplaces to drive traffic to the listing.
This is the one thing that they let youdo that helps with your conversion rate.
But something interesting that they'replaying with in way of discoverability is
surfacing these videos in search results.
So every once in a while, andthey're still, I think, testing,
(06:28):
we don't see this consistently,
but every once in a whileyou'll be searching and instead of a main Amazon image
product picture,
you'll see a video that'sobviously not a brand videoing.
So I do think that they'retrying to pull that in.
So there's no way at the momentfor a brand to influence that.
But if you have those videos,
(06:49):
perhaps Amazon's going to grab that anddisplay that on a search results page?
Yeah, correct.
I call those miscellaneous placementsbecause we don't have any insight into
them. Amazon never tellsus when they're doing them,
but we see them and they'll justplug our content into all of these
placements, just I think totest conversion and see how much they help or don't.
(07:10):
Got it. We do a lot on theAmazon 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 usingsome of this influencer content,
these influencer videos, and runningthose ads, sponsor brand ads?
(07:31):
So this is really interestingthat you asked about this.
I do office hours with mysubscribers every Thursday,
and we were talking about thismorning. So out of curiosity,
are you seeing the ability to putmoney on influencer content through
the ads console?
Well, I don't run the campaignsmyself, so I'd have to ask my team.
(07:52):
I've not heard anyone mention that yet.
But is that maybe in a beta right now?
So 18 months ago, they sentus a bunch of questions,
would you rather this for three monthsto license your content to a brand or
this for six months? Andthey did this whole whatever.
And now in the backend, on thecreator side of Creator Connections,
(08:15):
we have a licensing tab, but it's blank.
So.
Where I think they're going isto allow brands to kind of let
run traffic to creatorcontent through the actual
Amazon ads platform. So I was wonderingif you guys were seeing it in beta yet.
And then pay a licensing fee potentiallyto the creator is the way that might
(08:37):
work?
That's what we're guessing.
Yeah.
So either they would pay a licensingfee 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 myvideo and then purchases,
I get some kind of a commissionfor that. Is that correct?
Correct. Yep.
(08:58):
Yeah. And what does that commissionlook like? Are there ranges?
Does it depend on me as aninfluencer? How does that look?
There are influencers whohave 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.
(09:20):
So however you as theseller have decision trade.
If your nursery bookshelfgoes in furniture or in
kids, those are two differentcommissions. For the onsite creator,
it's either 4% of furniture or twoand a quarter percent for baby stuff.
Interesting. I wonder why,
(09:40):
any insight into why those commissionsare different for different categories
for influencers?
I have no idea. I mean, I'massuming that Amazon has discovered.
Margin profile for those categories,maybe something like that.
I kind assume that they tag it basedon the difficulty to sell and drive
traffic. So baby stuffsells all day every day.
They don't need to incentivize people.
(10:01):
To that's.
Sell that stuff. Whereas furniture, howmany people are selling bookshelves?
Right?
That's my guess.
Yeah, makes sense. So whathave you seen change then?
So you started Influencer Fruit, whatis it, a little over two years ago?
Is that right? And so what have youseen shift, what have you seen improve?
What have you seen change in termsof the Amazon influencer program?
(10:21):
Yeah, I think it's in the influencerprogram as well as just in product focused
content in general.
Right now we're kind of seeing thismoment of what I call infrastructure
stabilization. So we'vebeen in Blue Ocean,
everybody is making moremoney than they've ever thought they could make off of
one piece of content in theirlife, right? They're like,
I posted a five second video and retired.And everybody's like, congratulations.
(10:46):
So now we're in between TikTok shopaffiliate and Amazon Influencer.
We're seeing a little bitof, it's not a slowdown,
but they're pulling back to create theinfrastructure 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,
(11:06):
I call it commission stacking, wherefrom the same piece of content,
I want to optimize how manyways I can make money off of it.
Will the brand pay me for it?Will they send me a product?
Do they have additional commissionsavailable through Creator connections or
Wayward? What are their sales?
Just trying to think through as opposedto just picking a product and creating
(11:28):
content for it, thinkingthrough the big picture.
Are they on TikTok and Amazon? Can Icreate cross-platform content for them?
Yeah. So what about from the brandside? So if I'm a seller on Amazon,
how should I be thinkingabout Amazon influencers?
Should I be going out pursuing recruitinginfluencers? What should I be doing?
(11:50):
So if you're on the brand side,
the first thing you want to do is makesure your brand registered and that you
have uploaded at least one productvideo or brand video to every listing,
because that unlocks thatupper video carousel placement,
which is the number one converting thing,
thinking about the fact thatvideo converts better than text,
and UGC converts better than brand videos.
(12:13):
Totally.
So getting that above the fold close tothe buying decision is always positive.
The next piece that justopens the real estate,
the next piece is activelyworking with Amazon influencers
is really a cool opportunitywhere TOS compliant and we're FTC
compliant and we're not a black box. Soit's not like the Vine Review program,
(12:36):
which I understandholds a necessary place,
but you can't talk to Vinereviewers. You can talk to us.
So if you have something,
people keep returning this coffee productbecause they don't understand that you
have to clean the filter this manytimes 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 withthis is I didn't clean the filter and it
(12:59):
hits different when I sayit than when the brand does.
It. It does, it does. But thenyou can also say, Hey, it was.
Really.
Easy to clean, and man, now I getthe 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 froma user where you're like, oh,
it's normal to do this rather thanthe brand is making me do extra work.
(13:19):
Exactly. Totally makes sense. Yeah,
and we've leaned into thisfor some of our brands.
It's something that we can help withwhere we go out and find influencers.
And so I know for aparticular betting client,
it's been really effectivefor 'em. Good. But yeah.
Any other things you've seenchange or shift from a brand's
(13:41):
perspective, or actually, I may havecut 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 away all watching everybody trying.
Everybody's always trying to be moreefficient with their spend and how they
(14:02):
fixing their margins,whether it's tariffs,
whether it's changes in terms of service,
whatever the currentchallenge is around margins.
So some of the things that we're seeingbrands do in way of new opportunities,
creative problem solving around thisis working with creators directly.
So you have more controlover those conversations.
(14:23):
And sometimes that means pullingthe actual transactions so that
they're outside of Amazon,
meaning I'm paying you a flat feefor this as opposed to whatever,
but then I can use your content or.
Working.
With a company like Wayward whereyou can use brand attribution
links to get the referral bonus tooffset the commissions you're paying to
(14:46):
the creators. It's like a win-win win.
So explain that a little bit.
I know hardcore Amazon sellers knowexactly 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 basicallya brand's version of an affiliate
link. Amazon wants you to drivetraffic when you drive traffic.
They've done something where they'llgive you a brand referral bonus.
(15:07):
They're not cutting you a check,
but they're cutting back on the amountyou're paying them for the referral fee,
and it's usually around 10%. That'snot standard or that's not global,
but that's approximate.
And so what happened in thisconversation was brands were like,
if we drive traffic, we don't wantto pay for you to drive traffic.
And Amazon was like, you're right.Here's how we'll solve that.
(15:30):
But then it was like this otherpiece entered the chat and was like,
brands would be happyto pay creators almost a
hundred percent of their marginfor that first sale to get a new
customer.
And so this allows people waywardwill take your brand attribution
link, then what the creator is using,
(15:53):
you are getting the brand referral bonus,
and then you can pay the creator a higherpercentage than if they're just going
through Amazon affiliates.
Because why not? That's freemoney you're getting from Amazon.
Why not pay that to a creator?Give them more incentives,
fuel your growth therethrough influencers. So yeah, it makes a ton of sense.
Yeah, I mean, it's sucha cool opportunity.
(16:16):
It incentivizes. It's aliteral, everyone wins, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. Good.
Have you seen more and morebrands adopting Amazon influencer?
Is it still kind of slow to pickup? How has that been going?
It's a lot of education conversations.
It's interesting because
(16:38):
I think this is not uncommon,
but Amazon will launch a program and thenit kind of takes on its own side life
from what they initially intendedit to be, which is great, right?
Because it is its ownliving organism, right?
Sure.
Because of that, though, I think,
and I don't have anybody atAmazon that's told me this,
(16:59):
but I think the way they initiallydesigned this program was to be a much
tighter sister to the affiliate program.
So affiliate being thepeople driving the traffic,
influencer being the people whoare helping convert the traffic.
And I think they initially thought thatthis was going to be like a one for one
people. Were going to be doingboth, but it's become a very,
(17:20):
there are people that do both, butit's become a very separate skillset.
The difference between if you're on aproduct listing and me helping you make
that buying decision is much differentthan me on my Instagram being like,
these are my favoritewrist wraps when I lift,
you should go check out their stuff.
It's almost like adifferent selling motion.
(17:41):
Totally, totally. Yeah.
You're more demonstrating the producton that product detail page and showing
how it works. It's a littlemore 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 thestore to check it out. Exactly. So yeah,
different feel.
(18:01):
And so what you're finding when Amazonis finding is that's often a different
person.
So the person running TikTok influencercontent is maybe different than the
person who's doing Amazon Influenceror it's maybe the same person,
they're just creating differentcontent for different places.
Yeah, it's a combination of thosetwo things. But yeah, it is.
It's like if I'm on TikTok, I'm tryingto get you moving and to click on a link.
(18:23):
If I'm on an Amazon influencer or if I'mon an Amazon product listing, I'm like,
check out how I canpush up this shade tent.
It just clicks right into place on myTikTok. People don't care about that.
But on the product listing,
if you're five four and you don't knowhow you're going to set up this tent by
yourself, you want to see how I cando it. And so it has more educational,
more faq, more like feature based, then.
(18:44):
It's more feature rich where thecontent to get someone to go to the
store that's got to be more benefitoriented, more action oriented.
You're moving someone,
and then on the page there'skind of overcoming objections, answering questions,
talking about features, helping themdecide between this product, your product,
versus a competitive product.So yeah, makes a ton of sense.
(19:06):
How then are you seeing this pair? Andwe've sort of just talked about it,
but TikTok shops obviously it's huge.
We have some clients that haveexploded with TikTok shops.
It's also not for everybody. Amazon'sgot their own affiliate program.
I'm really excited aboutYouTube's affiliate program.
It's basically theiranswer to TikTok shops.
We're doing some early testing here.
(19:28):
It's.
Been very favorable, but it's early days.
So how do you see these thingsworking together and how would you
advise brands to considerhow they work together?
It's a good question.
So I think one of the current strugglesthat everybody in this product focused
content seller space is struggling with is
(19:51):
the interpreted need to beeverything to all people and to be on
every single platform.
And while I think there is aspace 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,
(20:13):
you can't personally probablysimultaneously run all of those sales channels.
So I think making peace with, if youtook off on TikTok, double down, right?
Yeah. If.
You took off on Amazon, double down.
In.
Time, you can add all of thosefrom a content piece though,
if you're a brand who is selling on allof those, when you're vetting creators,
(20:35):
check and see where they'reposting specifically if you're on TikTok and Amazon
and you find a creator on TikTok,
because that's the morelikely direction this goes.
Ask.
Them if they're Amazon influencer and ifthey would post an influencer video in
addition to what they'redoing on TikTok, because
(20:56):
it's much harder.
You can reach out to influencers fromAmazon through their storefront to their
socials and to their, but if you'reinteracting with them on TikTok,
you've already got a littlebit of conversation going,
that's where I would the best direction.
Yeah, totally makes sense.
So start that conversation with someoneon TikTok and do an influencers working
with you there. See if they'll createsome content on Amazon as well.
(21:19):
And that kind of goes back to theearlier discussion where same person,
different flavors of content.
Based.
On where someone is in the buyingjourney. And it makes just a ton of sense.
Yeah.
So very, very cool. Well, awesome. Well,
let's kind of go back to what wealluded to at the beginning of the show.
So you built Fluencer Fruit,amazing site, amazing product.
(21:42):
Kudos to you. It really, really great.
Thank you.
Why did you decide to sell, andactually when did you decide to sell?
So did you build it in order to sellit or did you build it just for fun and
you're like, wait a minute, there'ssomething here. This is valuable.
I'm going to sell it.
So I built it to sell it. I went into itknowing that I wouldn't run it forever.
(22:05):
I know that my skillsetfalls 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 withenough 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 goingto be the person that took it past stage
(22:28):
two or whatever that turns out to be.
And I read Exit Preneur by ourmutual friend, Joe Val, as I was.
Joe Val, shout out to Joe.Great book. Great book.
I mean, if you are even thinkingabout Ever in the Future,
I just devoured that book and I hadlegitimately been waiting to read it until
I knew I was getting ready.I wanted it to be so fresh.
(22:50):
I should have read it twice, but.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thingI've noticed there is,
so we started going throughthis journey and like I said,
we're looking at acquiring, we're trying,
we're an agency right now trying to getit across the finish line and looking at
another deal as well.
But one thing I noticed is oncewe started thinking about m and a,
and we'd even explored do we want to sellto an investor? What do we want to do?
(23:11):
If you go through the process,
if you read Joe's book and there aresome other great books, buy, then Build,
buy Walker, and there's severalothers just going through the process,
you'll run your business better.
Because if you start to look at yourbusiness like an investor or a buyer looks
at your business, you are just going torun it better. And then you may decide,
(23:33):
wow, I'm more profitablerunning it this way.
I'm just going to keepthe business. So anyway,
I think even if you think you'renot going to sell for a while,
read those books and run yourbusiness, you're going sell it,
it be a better business.
I think the best thing that Itook out of the book was my books.
I'm not a bookkeeper anyways.
And so as I set up theLLCs hired a bookkeeper
(23:57):
because I just wanted,
because when I was atJungle Scout Chief of Staff,
I did a lot of coordinating around mand a conversations and when we acquired
Downstream and those sorts of things.
And so I've seen the processof when people's books
aren't clean and what thatlooks like. And I was like,
so my number one thing was to makesure that my books were always
(24:23):
whatever. Anybody could come inif they didn't like the books,
that was one thing. Yeah.
Compliance super clean. Correct. Someonelooks at it, they trust it. Yeah.
End of story.
Exactly. So that was my favoritething, but I knew all along,
so I read the book andthen I was building,
I did think that I was going to runthe company for three to five years.
I.
(24:43):
Figured it would take me aboutthat long to be interesting.
The risks that I took that I knewwere 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 fruitso that you get with it Liz's office
(25:04):
hours or.
Those sorts of things.
So I did know that that was a little bit,
but I also assumed because Ivery specifically picked a pretty
niche community that I was going to bea strategic acquisition for somebody
filling a gap that nobody elsehas that fits a bigger picture,
whether it was an ads play or those.
(25:25):
You likely weren't going to be a platformyou were going to be more bolted on or
tucked into a platform most likely.
Yeah, my I was like, nobody elseis doing anything in this space.
I can fill that hole for whoever thinksthat it's the most valuable to them at
the time.
Yeah, that makes a tonof sense. And really
(25:48):
building a brand that is a little bitdependent 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 gotto lean into your strengths, right?
Absolutely. You're good atbuilding community. People know you, they trust you,
they like you,
(26:08):
so don't shy away from thatjust 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 thebusiness more valuable. Absolutely.
And they kept you on as well,
which I'm sure was part of that wasrelated to your personal brand being
(26:29):
attacked.
So I was planning on beingaround a lot longer solo,
and then
we've talked a lot about building yournetwork and being open to conversations
is really critical inwhatever realm you operate in.
And the wayward thing came outof a LinkedIn conversation.
(26:52):
No way.
So.
Like a post you made on LinkedIn, someonecommented on it, or just a connection?
I made a comment on another post,
and the head of growth from Waywardreached out to me and was like,
I'd love to get on a calland just kind of chat.
And so I take a lot of those justbecause interesting in our space.
And learn something.
(27:13):
And then he was like, Hey,you should meet our CEO.
So I met Allie and thenshe 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 goodfit. We have a whole offering together.
By the way, what a brilliantstrategy from wayward part,
I'm assuming this was part ofthe strategy. Hey, here's Liz.
(27:34):
Cool product, cool tech,
let's hire her as a consultant and let'ssee what it's like to work with her.
That's actually something we've doneseveral times as we looked at acquisitions
is, Hey, let's run some projectstogether. So we're looking,
we're talking m and a, we're talkingabout joining forces, whatever.
Let's run projects together. Let'sjust see how this goes. I mean,
(27:55):
that's the best duediligence you could ever do,
or the best addition to duediligence you could ever do. So cool.
So what was it like goingthrough the sales process?
Any tips, suggestions forsomeone who's considering it,
about to get into the sales process,the selling of their business,
(28:16):
that process? What was itlike? What tips do you have?
So I think probably the two bestdecisions I made were I had a broker.
So even though I had kindof sourced or whatever,
I was working with Wayward,
I worked with a broker to helpme put together my valuation,
(28:37):
my kit, just some of those things.
So even though technically thesale happened outside of the broker
situation,
there were so many things that puttingtogether specifically around the
valuation that was really valuable tohave his input around what's currently
going, what the multiples are.
(28:57):
And then the next bestthing I did was an attorney.
Because initially I was like.
Got to.
Got, I was like, I can do thiswith 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 orClaude or other tools for legal.
Help.
Structuring advice in the earlydays. It can help guide you,
(29:18):
and those tools can reallyshow you some things, but man,
if you're doing a big deal,
this may be one of the biggesttransactions of your life.
If you're looking to acquire or sell orwhatever, hire a good m and a attorney.
It's so worth.
It. Yep, exactly. So
those are the things I wouldn't dodifferently, you know what I mean?
Those are the decisions that I'mreally glad I made those two decisions.
(29:41):
For sure, for sure. Anythingyou would've done differently?
It's a good question. I've been tryingto think about that. And honestly,
at the moment, I don't haveanything. I think probably because
I'm a big believer in if you feel likeyou're trying to kick the door down that
(30:02):
maybe that's not the direction.
And it just felt like every door inthis situation just kind of opened,
and so I just kind of walkeddown the path, right? The CEO,
Allie and I have a very openrelationship, and so if I had a concern,
I would just go to her andthere was nothing major.
But anytime you have these typesof big detailed conversations.
(30:25):
Making.
Sure that you're clear on thingsis super important, obviously.
And so I don't currentlyhave 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 personand then working as a consultant with
them, you really got a feel for theircharacter and the way they operate.
(30:48):
And because even thoughthis isn't a forever thing,
it's kind of getting married,especially if you merge companies,
that's like a marriage. Soyou got to really make sure,
is this someone I want to be marriedto for the next X number of years?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And that's where I lovebeing tenacious and if I get a no,
(31:10):
I'm going to figure out a way toget 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 tofight for everything.
It should feel somewhatseamless or effortless,
at least in parts of it,like the communication and the openness and the, Hey,
are we collaborative? Andstuff like that. Yeah,
(31:30):
it sounds like you definitelytook the right path there
and it paid off. It paid off.
I'm really pleased with theoutcome. I love being on the team,
and that was part of the reason that whenwe started having those conversations,
I had been solo for two years,which pretty extroverted.
So being able to join a team that's movingin the right direction has been like,
(31:52):
oh, good. I have people again.
Dude, I thrive in a teamenvironment. I can do okay on my own.
I don't mind to sit and write orcrunch numbers for a little bit.
But doing that for a long period oftime, no, that's not where I want to be.
That's amazing. So nowkind of foreseeable future,
you're going to be helping build thisout, or is this a short-term thing?
(32:12):
Are you allowed to say what doesthe future hold for Liz and for
flu fruit?
Yeah. Well,
I have this really cool opportunitywith Wayward to build their creator
division. That's awesome. So I
get to visualize, strategize, scopeand help execute on this in a way,
to your earlier point,know your strengths.
(32:34):
I get to build a community that'srooted in education and tools and
straight knowledge sharingaround a lot of this.
So I'm really excited about that.
So I don't know how long thattakes or where that takes me,
but for right now,
we're natural builders that appeals tome is I get to go build something cool
(32:56):
with additional resources and helpingthe community that I'm bringing along.
With a team with capital,with a structure.
But you get a little bitof the best of both worlds.
You can still beentrepreneurial and build,
but with some resources at yourdisposal. So that is awesome. Well,
Liz, kudos to you, man. Great job.This was your goal at the outset.
(33:18):
Let me build something that is valuableenough that someone wants to buy it.
You did it yet a successful exit.
Thank.
Now you guys are buildingtogether, which is super great.
So if people are listening tothis and they're like, man,
I want to know more aboutwayward or about flu fruit.
I want to tap into Amazon,
the Amazon influencer ecosystem,either as an influencer,
(33:40):
I probably just got brands listening,
but I could have some peoplewho want to do an influencer,
but how can people find more?
Yeah, absolutely.
So wayward.com is like if youjust want a general whatever,
I also do calls with brands. Soif you're like, you know what?
I just have questions, I'm Liz at, atwayward.com, just shoot me an email.
We'll set up a time.I'll walk you through.
(34:02):
I'll do an audit of your listings andtell you organically what you can be doing
to attract those influencers and orhow we can help you push more traffic,
kind of figuring, solving forthe problem you're having.
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
And then it's Fluencer fruit.comas well, is that's the.
Yep. If you're looking for theextension, it's Fluencer fruit.com.
(34:24):
Amazing. And then Liz, what abouton the socials? Are you active?
Are you active on LinkedIn,
or was just the onetimecomment 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 LizSaunders, but if you look up Liz Saunders,
you should find me.
(34:45):
Awesome. I'll link to everythingin 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 andmake the Amazon influencer space even
better.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Awesome. And as always, thank you fortuning in. We'd love to hear from you.
(35:05):
What would you like to hear more of onthe 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 nexttime, thank you for listening.
Everybody is making moremoney than they've ever thought they could make off of
one piece of content in theirlife, right? They're like,
I posted a five second video and retired,and everybody's like, congratulations.
(00:21):
Well, hello and welcome to another editionof the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.
I'm your host, BrettCurry, 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 newdevelopments that I can't wait to unpack,
but she is now the president ofthe creative division at Wayward.
(00:44):
Talk about what that means and whyshe'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 funopportunity to reconnect.
It's so crazy when I first thought, man,I should have Liz back on. I thought,
(01:04):
well, it's been just a few months.And then I looked and yeah,
it's been almost two years, which that'sjust the way life and e-comm goes, man.
It just goes by so stinking fast.
It feels like yesterday andseven years ago simultaneously.
Right? 100%. That is100% true. Yeah. Yeah.
So you've had a really big year, Liz.
(01:24):
We were both at SolarSummit in Fort Lauderdale.
You were the closing keynote ofthat event, which is a major honor,
so kudos to you for that. Yousold your company Fluencer Fruit,
you sold to Wayward, which is where youare now, so I can't wait to unpack that.
And now you get to be on this show twicein a couple of years, so it is a big,
(01:46):
big year for you, so congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Which by the way, what wasthat, given the closing keynote, was that
kind of a bucket list thing?
Was it something you wanted to do orsomething 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,
(02:07):
was when I started withSeller Summit. I mean,
it's was my entryway intoe-comm, and when I started,
I was running registration andwas just a new Amazon seller,
and my whole life was kind of in flux.
And so never did I ever think, oh, Iwould like to be closing keynote, right?
(02:28):
Go from run of the admission table yearsand years ago to now doing the closing
Genome.
Checking Bunch badge. And nowit's like, and here you're as the,
so I will say it definitely wasn'tsomething that I initially was like,
that's what I want to do. And alsowhen we got closer, it was like,
that would be really cool.
And in talking to Tony,
because they had a scheduling changewith the original closing keynote,
(02:51):
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 Summitfull circle moment. Heck.
And she was like, I likeit. So they took it and.
Amazing.
It was nerve wracking,but it was really fun.
If you're ever going to dosomething that big, being in your,
(03:12):
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 forsure. So yeah, it was great.
And your background is JungleScout. You're a successful seller.
(03:34):
You've been doing Seller Summitnow, doing some really cool things.
And then a few years ago you hadthis 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 exitbecause I just know so many people we're
kind of in the m and a gamewe're looking to acquire.
I know a lot of peoplethat are looking for exits,
and so can't wait to unpack that alittle bit. But for those who don't know,
(03:55):
what is flu fruit and then howdoes that fit into the wayward
ecosystem?
Absolutely.
So Fluencer Fruit is an extensionthat helps content creators on or in
the Amazon Influencer programhelps them do product research,
and it helps them managetheir video library.
So that's the fastest way to explain it.
(04:16):
It's a Chrome extension that just helpsvisualize all of the things that you
care about for onsite contentin an easy to digest fashion.
Nice. And so what areyou seeing right now,
and we'll talk about howthis fits in with Wayward,
but what are you seeing rightnow with Amazon Influencer?
I know this has been an initiativewith Amazon for a while.
(04:37):
Amazon's always trying tosolve the problem of discovery.
How do we get customersto discover new products?
They still mostly rely on search. They'relooking for things to go beyond that.
But what have you been seeingwith Amazon Influencer as of late?
Yeah, so it's interesting because Ithink there's two pieces to that coin,
which is where it's like they'retrying to solve for discoverability,
(05:01):
and they're also trying tosolve for authentic feedback.
So we have seen a lot ofchange for written reviews,
and I use it in quotes because arethey 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 abot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(05:22):
It's like a competitor beingpaid to leave one star reviews.
So they've been trying to simultaneouslysolve both of these things.
And so where I see the onsite contentbeing the biggest win for them
is its authentic userfeedback for a product.
And so in a way, it does battlesome of those paid for bad good,
(05:44):
whatever reviews with reallyauthentic conversations in video.
The other thing is from.
A, so it's not just a discovery thing,
it's also like a conversionpiece as well, right? Yes.
And lending real feedback for aspecific product that should help with
conversions or.
Purchases.
So the onsite piece up to this pointhas been almost 100% on the conversion
(06:06):
side.
It's like you're paying all these otherplaces to drive traffic to the listing.
This is the one thing that they let youdo that helps with your conversion rate.
But something interesting that they'replaying with in way of discoverability is
surfacing these videos in search results.
So every once in a while, andthey're still, I think, testing,
(06:28):
we don't see this consistently,
but every once in a whileyou'll be searching and instead of a main Amazon image
product picture,
you'll see a video that'sobviously not a brand videoing.
So I do think that they'retrying to pull that in.
So there's no way at the momentfor a brand to influence that.
But if you have those videos,
(06:49):
perhaps Amazon's going to grab that anddisplay that on a search results page?
Yeah, correct.
I call those miscellaneous placementsbecause we don't have any insight into
them. Amazon never tellsus when they're doing them,
but we see them and they'll justplug our content into all of these
placements, just I think totest conversion and see how much they help or don't.
(07:10):
Got it. We do a lot on theAmazon 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 usingsome of this influencer content,
these influencer videos, and runningthose ads, sponsor brand ads?
(07:31):
So this is really interestingthat you asked about this.
I do office hours with mysubscribers every Thursday,
and we were talking about thismorning. So out of curiosity,
are you seeing the ability to putmoney on influencer content through
the ads console?
Well, I don't run the campaignsmyself, so I'd have to ask my team.
(07:52):
I've not heard anyone mention that yet.
But is that maybe in a beta right now?
So 18 months ago, they sentus a bunch of questions,
would you rather this for three monthsto license your content to a brand or
this for six months? Andthey did this whole whatever.
And now in the backend, on thecreator side of Creator Connections,
(08:15):
we have a licensing tab, but it's blank.
So.
Where I think they're going isto allow brands to kind of let
run traffic to creatorcontent through the actual
Amazon ads platform. So I was wonderingif you guys were seeing it in beta yet.
And then pay a licensing fee potentiallyto the creator is the way that might
(08:37):
work?
That's what we're guessing.
Yeah.
So either they would pay a licensingfee 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 myvideo and then purchases,
I get some kind of a commissionfor that. Is that correct?
Correct. Yep.
(08:58):
Yeah. And what does that commissionlook like? Are there ranges?
Does it depend on me as aninfluencer? How does that look?
There are influencers whohave 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.
(09:20):
So however you as theseller have decision trade.
If your nursery bookshelfgoes in furniture or in
kids, those are two differentcommissions. For the onsite creator,
it's either 4% of furniture or twoand a quarter percent for baby stuff.
Interesting. I wonder why,
(09:40):
any insight into why those commissionsare different for different categories
for influencers?
I have no idea. I mean, I'massuming that Amazon has discovered.
Margin profile for those categories,maybe something like that.
I kind assume that they tag it basedon the difficulty to sell and drive
traffic. So baby stuffsells all day every day.
They don't need to incentivize people.
(10:01):
To that's.
Sell that stuff. Whereas furniture, howmany people are selling bookshelves?
Right?
That's my guess.
Yeah, makes sense. So whathave you seen change then?
So you started Influencer Fruit, whatis it, a little over two years ago?
Is that right? And so what have youseen shift, what have you seen improve?
What have you seen change in termsof the Amazon influencer program?
(10:21):
Yeah, I think it's in the influencerprogram as well as just in product focused
content in general.
Right now we're kind of seeing thismoment of what I call infrastructure
stabilization. So we'vebeen in Blue Ocean,
everybody is making moremoney than they've ever thought they could make off of
one piece of content in theirlife, right? They're like,
I posted a five second video and retired.And everybody's like, congratulations.
(10:46):
So now we're in between TikTok shopaffiliate and Amazon Influencer.
We're seeing a little bitof, it's not a slowdown,
but they're pulling back to create theinfrastructure 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,
(11:06):
I call it commission stacking, wherefrom the same piece of content,
I want to optimize how manyways I can make money off of it.
Will the brand pay me for it?Will they send me a product?
Do they have additional commissionsavailable through Creator connections or
Wayward? What are their sales?
Just trying to think through as opposedto just picking a product and creating
(11:28):
content for it, thinkingthrough the big picture.
Are they on TikTok and Amazon? Can Icreate cross-platform content for them?
Yeah. So what about from the brandside? So if I'm a seller on Amazon,
how should I be thinkingabout Amazon influencers?
Should I be going out pursuing recruitinginfluencers? What should I be doing?
(11:50):
So if you're on the brand side,
the first thing you want to do is makesure your brand registered and that you
have uploaded at least one productvideo or brand video to every listing,
because that unlocks thatupper video carousel placement,
which is the number one converting thing,
thinking about the fact thatvideo converts better than text,
and UGC converts better than brand videos.
(12:13):
Totally.
So getting that above the fold close tothe buying decision is always positive.
The next piece that justopens the real estate,
the next piece is activelyworking with Amazon influencers
is really a cool opportunitywhere TOS compliant and we're FTC
compliant and we're not a black box. Soit's not like the Vine Review program,
(12:36):
which I understandholds a necessary place,
but you can't talk to Vinereviewers. You can talk to us.
So if you have something,
people keep returning this coffee productbecause they don't understand that you
have to clean the filter this manytimes 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 withthis is I didn't clean the filter and it
(12:59):
hits different when I sayit than when the brand does.
It. It does, it does. But thenyou can also say, Hey, it was.
Really.
Easy to clean, and man, now I getthe 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 froma user where you're like, oh,
it's normal to do this rather thanthe brand is making me do extra work.
(13:19):
Exactly. Totally makes sense. Yeah,
and we've leaned into thisfor some of our brands.
It's something that we can help withwhere we go out and find influencers.
And so I know for aparticular betting client,
it's been really effectivefor 'em. Good. But yeah.
Any other things you've seenchange or shift from a brand's
(13:41):
perspective, or actually, I may havecut 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 away all watching everybody trying.
Everybody's always trying to be moreefficient with their spend and how they
(14:02):
fixing their margins,whether it's tariffs,
whether it's changes in terms of service,
whatever the currentchallenge is around margins.
So some of the things that we're seeingbrands do in way of new opportunities,
creative problem solving around thisis working with creators directly.
So you have more controlover those conversations.
(14:23):
And sometimes that means pullingthe actual transactions so that
they're outside of Amazon,
meaning I'm paying you a flat feefor this as opposed to whatever,
but then I can use your content or.
Working.
With a company like Wayward whereyou can use brand attribution
links to get the referral bonus tooffset the commissions you're paying to
(14:46):
the creators. It's like a win-win win.
So explain that a little bit.
I know hardcore Amazon sellers knowexactly 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 basicallya brand's version of an affiliate
link. Amazon wants you to drivetraffic when you drive traffic.
They've done something where they'llgive you a brand referral bonus.
(15:07):
They're not cutting you a check,
but they're cutting back on the amountyou're paying them for the referral fee,
and it's usually around 10%. That'snot standard or that's not global,
but that's approximate.
And so what happened in thisconversation was brands were like,
if we drive traffic, we don't wantto pay for you to drive traffic.
And Amazon was like, you're right.Here's how we'll solve that.
(15:30):
But then it was like this otherpiece entered the chat and was like,
brands would be happyto pay creators almost a
hundred percent of their marginfor that first sale to get a new
customer.
And so this allows people waywardwill take your brand attribution
link, then what the creator is using,
(15:53):
you are getting the brand referral bonus,
and then you can pay the creator a higherpercentage than if they're just going
through Amazon affiliates.
Because why not? That's freemoney you're getting from Amazon.
Why not pay that to a creator?Give them more incentives,
fuel your growth therethrough influencers. So yeah, it makes a ton of sense.
Yeah, I mean, it's sucha cool opportunity.
(16:16):
It incentivizes. It's aliteral, everyone wins, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. Good.
Have you seen more and morebrands adopting Amazon influencer?
Is it still kind of slow to pickup? How has that been going?
It's a lot of education conversations.
It's interesting because
(16:38):
I think this is not uncommon,
but Amazon will launch a program and thenit kind of takes on its own side life
from what they initially intendedit to be, which is great, right?
Because it is its ownliving organism, right?
Sure.
Because of that, though, I think,
and I don't have anybody atAmazon that's told me this,
(16:59):
but I think the way they initiallydesigned this program was to be a much
tighter sister to the affiliate program.
So affiliate being thepeople driving the traffic,
influencer being the people whoare helping convert the traffic.
And I think they initially thought thatthis was going to be like a one for one
people. Were going to be doingboth, but it's become a very,
(17:20):
there are people that do both, butit's become a very separate skillset.
The difference between if you're on aproduct listing and me helping you make
that buying decision is much differentthan me on my Instagram being like,
these are my favoritewrist wraps when I lift,
you should go check out their stuff.
It's almost like adifferent selling motion.
(17:41):
Totally, totally. Yeah.
You're more demonstrating the producton that product detail page and showing
how it works. It's a littlemore 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 thestore to check it out. Exactly. So yeah,
different feel.
(18:01):
And so what you're finding when Amazonis finding is that's often a different
person.
So the person running TikTok influencercontent is maybe different than the
person who's doing Amazon Influenceror it's maybe the same person,
they're just creating differentcontent for different places.
Yeah, it's a combination of thosetwo things. But yeah, it is.
It's like if I'm on TikTok, I'm tryingto get you moving and to click on a link.
(18:23):
If I'm on an Amazon influencer or if I'mon an Amazon product listing, I'm like,
check out how I canpush up this shade tent.
It just clicks right into place on myTikTok. People don't care about that.
But on the product listing,
if you're five four and you don't knowhow you're going to set up this tent by
yourself, you want to see how I cando it. And so it has more educational,
more faq, more like feature based, then.
(18:44):
It's more feature rich where thecontent to get someone to go to the
store that's got to be more benefitoriented, more action oriented.
You're moving someone,
and then on the page there'skind of overcoming objections, answering questions,
talking about features, helping themdecide between this product, your product,
versus a competitive product.So yeah, makes a ton of sense.
(19:06):
How then are you seeing this pair? Andwe've sort of just talked about it,
but TikTok shops obviously it's huge.
We have some clients that haveexploded with TikTok shops.
It's also not for everybody. Amazon'sgot their own affiliate program.
I'm really excited aboutYouTube's affiliate program.
It's basically theiranswer to TikTok shops.
We're doing some early testing here.
(19:28):
It's.
Been very favorable, but it's early days.
So how do you see these thingsworking together and how would you
advise brands to considerhow they work together?
It's a good question.
So I think one of the current strugglesthat everybody in this product focused
content seller space is struggling with is
(19:51):
the interpreted need to beeverything to all people and to be on
every single platform.
And while I think there is aspace 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,
(20:13):
you can't personally probablysimultaneously run all of those sales channels.
So I think making peace with, if youtook off on TikTok, double down, right?
Yeah. If.
You took off on Amazon, double down.
In.
Time, you can add all of thosefrom a content piece though,
if you're a brand who is selling on allof those, when you're vetting creators,
(20:35):
check and see where they'reposting specifically if you're on TikTok and Amazon
and you find a creator on TikTok,
because that's the morelikely direction this goes.
Ask.
Them if they're Amazon influencer and ifthey would post an influencer video in
addition to what they'redoing on TikTok, because
(20:56):
it's much harder.
You can reach out to influencers fromAmazon through their storefront to their
socials and to their, but if you'reinteracting with them on TikTok,
you've already got a littlebit of conversation going,
that's where I would the best direction.
Yeah, totally makes sense.
So start that conversation with someoneon TikTok and do an influencers working
with you there. See if they'll createsome content on Amazon as well.
(21:19):
And that kind of goes back to theearlier discussion where same person,
different flavors of content.
Based.
On where someone is in the buyingjourney. And it makes just a ton of sense.
Yeah.
So very, very cool. Well, awesome. Well,
let's kind of go back to what wealluded to at the beginning of the show.
So you built Fluencer Fruit,amazing site, amazing product.
(21:42):
Kudos to you. It really, really great.
Thank you.
Why did you decide to sell, andactually when did you decide to sell?
So did you build it in order to sellit or did you build it just for fun and
you're like, wait a minute, there'ssomething here. This is valuable.
I'm going to sell it.
So I built it to sell it. I went into itknowing that I wouldn't run it forever.
(22:05):
I know that my skillsetfalls 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 withenough 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 goingto be the person that took it past stage
(22:28):
two or whatever that turns out to be.
And I read Exit Preneur by ourmutual friend, Joe Val, as I was.
Joe Val, shout out to Joe.Great book. Great book.
I mean, if you are even thinkingabout Ever in the Future,
I just devoured that book and I hadlegitimately been waiting to read it until
I knew I was getting ready.I wanted it to be so fresh.
(22:50):
I should have read it twice, but.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thingI've noticed there is,
so we started going throughthis journey and like I said,
we're looking at acquiring, we're trying,
we're an agency right now trying to getit across the finish line and looking at
another deal as well.
But one thing I noticed is oncewe started thinking about m and a,
and we'd even explored do we want to sellto an investor? What do we want to do?
(23:11):
If you go through the process,
if you read Joe's book and there aresome other great books, buy, then Build,
buy Walker, and there's severalothers just going through the process,
you'll run your business better.
Because if you start to look at yourbusiness like an investor or a buyer looks
at your business, you are just going torun it better. And then you may decide,
(23:33):
wow, I'm more profitablerunning it this way.
I'm just going to keepthe business. So anyway,
I think even if you think you'renot going to sell for a while,
read those books and run yourbusiness, you're going sell it,
it be a better business.
I think the best thing that Itook out of the book was my books.
I'm not a bookkeeper anyways.
And so as I set up theLLCs hired a bookkeeper
(23:57):
because I just wanted,
because when I was atJungle Scout Chief of Staff,
I did a lot of coordinating around mand a conversations and when we acquired
Downstream and those sorts of things.
And so I've seen the processof when people's books
aren't clean and what thatlooks like. And I was like,
so my number one thing was to makesure that my books were always
(24:23):
whatever. Anybody could come inif they didn't like the books,
that was one thing. Yeah.
Compliance super clean. Correct. Someonelooks at it, they trust it. Yeah.
End of story.
Exactly. So that was my favoritething, but I knew all along,
so I read the book andthen I was building,
I did think that I was going to runthe company for three to five years.
I.
(24:43):
Figured it would take me aboutthat long to be interesting.
The risks that I took that I knewwere 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 fruitso that you get with it Liz's office
(25:04):
hours or.
Those sorts of things.
So I did know that that was a little bit,
but I also assumed because Ivery specifically picked a pretty
niche community that I was going to bea strategic acquisition for somebody
filling a gap that nobody elsehas that fits a bigger picture,
whether it was an ads play or those.
(25:25):
You likely weren't going to be a platformyou were going to be more bolted on or
tucked into a platform most likely.
Yeah, my I was like, nobody elseis doing anything in this space.
I can fill that hole for whoever thinksthat it's the most valuable to them at
the time.
Yeah, that makes a tonof sense. And really
(25:48):
building a brand that is a little bitdependent 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 gotto lean into your strengths, right?
Absolutely. You're good atbuilding community. People know you, they trust you,
they like you,
(26:08):
so don't shy away from thatjust 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 thebusiness more valuable. Absolutely.
And they kept you on as well,
which I'm sure was part of that wasrelated to your personal brand being
(26:29):
attacked.
So I was planning on beingaround a lot longer solo,
and then
we've talked a lot about building yournetwork and being open to conversations
is really critical inwhatever realm you operate in.
And the wayward thing came outof a LinkedIn conversation.
(26:52):
No way.
So.
Like a post you made on LinkedIn, someonecommented on it, or just a connection?
I made a comment on another post,
and the head of growth from Waywardreached out to me and was like,
I'd love to get on a calland just kind of chat.
And so I take a lot of those justbecause interesting in our space.
And learn something.
(27:13):
And then he was like, Hey,you should meet our CEO.
So I met Allie and thenshe 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 goodfit. We have a whole offering together.
By the way, what a brilliantstrategy from wayward part,
I'm assuming this was part ofthe strategy. Hey, here's Liz.
(27:34):
Cool product, cool tech,
let's hire her as a consultant and let'ssee what it's like to work with her.
That's actually something we've doneseveral times as we looked at acquisitions
is, Hey, let's run some projectstogether. So we're looking,
we're talking m and a, we're talkingabout joining forces, whatever.
Let's run projects together. Let'sjust see how this goes. I mean,
(27:55):
that's the best duediligence you could ever do,
or the best addition to duediligence you could ever do. So cool.
So what was it like goingthrough the sales process?
Any tips, suggestions forsomeone who's considering it,
about to get into the sales process,the selling of their business,
(28:16):
that process? What was itlike? What tips do you have?
So I think probably the two bestdecisions I made were I had a broker.
So even though I had kindof sourced or whatever,
I was working with Wayward,
I worked with a broker to helpme put together my valuation,
(28:37):
my kit, just some of those things.
So even though technically thesale happened outside of the broker
situation,
there were so many things that puttingtogether specifically around the
valuation that was really valuable tohave his input around what's currently
going, what the multiples are.
(28:57):
And then the next bestthing I did was an attorney.
Because initially I was like.
Got to.
Got, I was like, I can do thiswith 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 orClaude or other tools for legal.
Help.
Structuring advice in the earlydays. It can help guide you,
(29:18):
and those tools can reallyshow you some things, but man,
if you're doing a big deal,
this may be one of the biggesttransactions of your life.
If you're looking to acquire or sell orwhatever, hire a good m and a attorney.
It's so worth.
It. Yep, exactly. So
those are the things I wouldn't dodifferently, you know what I mean?
Those are the decisions that I'mreally glad I made those two decisions.
(29:41):
For sure, for sure. Anythingyou would've done differently?
It's a good question. I've been tryingto think about that. And honestly,
at the moment, I don't haveanything. I think probably because
I'm a big believer in if you feel likeyou're trying to kick the door down that
(30:02):
maybe that's not the direction.
And it just felt like every door inthis situation just kind of opened,
and so I just kind of walkeddown the path, right? The CEO,
Allie and I have a very openrelationship, and so if I had a concern,
I would just go to her andthere was nothing major.
But anytime you have these typesof big detailed conversations.
(30:25):
Making.
Sure that you're clear on thingsis super important, obviously.
And so I don't currentlyhave 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 personand then working as a consultant with
them, you really got a feel for theircharacter and the way they operate.
(30:48):
And because even thoughthis isn't a forever thing,
it's kind of getting married,especially if you merge companies,
that's like a marriage. Soyou got to really make sure,
is this someone I want to be marriedto for the next X number of years?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And that's where I lovebeing tenacious and if I get a no,
(31:10):
I'm going to figure out a way toget 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 tofight for everything.
It should feel somewhatseamless or effortless,
at least in parts of it,like the communication and the openness and the, Hey,
are we collaborative? Andstuff like that. Yeah,
(31:30):
it sounds like you definitelytook the right path there
and it paid off. It paid off.
I'm really pleased with theoutcome. I love being on the team,
and that was part of the reason that whenwe started having those conversations,
I had been solo for two years,which pretty extroverted.
So being able to join a team that's movingin the right direction has been like,
(31:52):
oh, good. I have people again.
Dude, I thrive in a teamenvironment. I can do okay on my own.
I don't mind to sit and write orcrunch numbers for a little bit.
But doing that for a long period oftime, no, that's not where I want to be.
That's amazing. So nowkind of foreseeable future,
you're going to be helping build thisout, or is this a short-term thing?
(32:12):
Are you allowed to say what doesthe future hold for Liz and for
flu fruit?
Yeah. Well,
I have this really cool opportunitywith Wayward to build their creator
division. That's awesome. So I
get to visualize, strategize, scopeand help execute on this in a way,
to your earlier point,know your strengths.
(32:34):
I get to build a community that'srooted in education and tools and
straight knowledge sharingaround a lot of this.
So I'm really excited about that.
So I don't know how long thattakes or where that takes me,
but for right now,
we're natural builders that appeals tome is I get to go build something cool
(32:56):
with additional resources and helpingthe community that I'm bringing along.
With a team with capital,with a structure.
But you get a little bitof the best of both worlds.
You can still beentrepreneurial and build,
but with some resources at yourdisposal. So that is awesome. Well,
Liz, kudos to you, man. Great job.This was your goal at the outset.
(33:18):
Let me build something that is valuableenough that someone wants to buy it.
You did it yet a successful exit.
Thank.
Now you guys are buildingtogether, which is super great.
So if people are listening tothis and they're like, man,
I want to know more aboutwayward or about flu fruit.
I want to tap into Amazon,
the Amazon influencer ecosystem,either as an influencer,
(33:40):
I probably just got brands listening,
but I could have some peoplewho want to do an influencer,
but how can people find more?
Yeah, absolutely.
So wayward.com is like if youjust want a general whatever,
I also do calls with brands. Soif you're like, you know what?
I just have questions, I'm Liz at, atwayward.com, just shoot me an email.
We'll set up a time.I'll walk you through.
(34:02):
I'll do an audit of your listings andtell you organically what you can be doing
to attract those influencers and orhow we can help you push more traffic,
kind of figuring, solving forthe problem you're having.
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
And then it's Fluencer fruit.comas well, is that's the.
Yep. If you're looking for theextension, it's Fluencer fruit.com.
(34:24):
Amazing. And then Liz, what abouton the socials? Are you active?
Are you active on LinkedIn,
or was just the onetimecomment 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 LizSaunders, but if you look up Liz Saunders,
you should find me.
(34:45):
Awesome. I'll link to everythingin 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 andmake the Amazon influencer space even
better.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Awesome. And as always, thank you fortuning in. We'd love to hear from you.
(35:05):
What would you like to hear more of onthe 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 nexttime, thank you for listening.
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