Episode Transcript
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You know what it is? That'sright. It's time to talk money with
your money nerd and financialcoach. Now tighten those purse strings
and open those ears. It's theMoney Talk with Tiff podcast.
Hey, everyone. I am so excitedbecause I have Amy Vail here. She's
the founder of for the Cubsand she's here to talk to us about
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how she started her productbased business and got to where she
is today. So. Hey, Amy, howare you?
I'm good. Thanks so much forhaving me.
Yes, no problem. Thank you somuch for coming on. I thought this
was a great topic for myaudience, so let's just hop right
in. So I know you have aproduct based business, but it's
product based for a cause. Socan you help, like just explain a
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little bit of that for us?Like, what made you decide to do
something for this cause andwhat is the cost?
Yes, absolutely. So thebackground there is, I came up with
the idea for, for the Cubswhile I was training to be a foster
parent. And one of the thingsthat you learn how to support kids
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while they're in your care whohave come from hard places. And so
a lot of that is focused onsensory processing tools. And one
of the insights that I learnedwas that we need 8 to 12 hugs a day
as humans to maintain ouremotional well being. And so that
sort of sparked the idea of myhero product, which is a weighted
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bear named Percy. And one ofthe things that I was really struggling
with was the need that is sogreat for kids and fosters foster
care. And so this for me was away to care for more than one child
that was in my home at anygiven time and to really sort of
create impact for kids thatare probably going through one of
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the hardest chapters of theirlife to date and really showing up
for them in a way that is justa small signal to them that there
are people in the world thatbelieve in them and care about them.
Awesome. Awesome. I love that.So tell us a little bit more about
this weighted bear and how ithelps these kids.
Yeah. So Percy, one of thethings, was really sort of focusing
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on designing him to mimic ahug. So when I researched the market,
I saw that a lot of productshad the weight distributed in the
center of the body, whereas ahug often has different pressure
points. And so the weightedbear sort of acts or pulls from theories
around deep pressure therapy,which helps regulate the body, calm
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the mind, lower bloodpressure, all of those types of things
that when we're reallystruggling in a hard spot, we're
overwhelmed. We'reoverstimulated. That gentle pressure
just really helps sort ofrealign things and get us back to
center. So what I focused onwith the design was really distributing
the weight in different pointsof his body so that he could be sort
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of maneuvered around a childor an adult. So it felt like it was
more of an embrace than justsort of one focused area of weight.
So when you were developingthis product, how did you go about
that? Like, were theredifferent iterations that you have,
different prototypes? Did youhave groups to try it? Like, how
did you go about developingthis physical product?
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I spent a lot of time andmoney developing this product, and
it was because I'd never doneit before. A lot of it was really
sort of having a vision ofwhat I wanted to achieve and continuing
to iterate until I sort offound the sweet spot of delivering
on the promise that I wantedto offer to customers. And so the
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first thing was I actuallystarted working with an illustrator
because Percy is a character.He's not sort of just a bear or any
other sort of random animal orthing like that. He really sort of
embodies that idea and supportof belonging, which is something
I think everyone is sort ofstriving for as a human. And so that
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sort of character developmentwas really important at the beginning,
and the element of sort ofbeing able to bring through his personality.
So I actually worked with anillustrator first to really bring
his character to life. Iwanted to see what he looked like
when he smiled, when he wascurious, things like that, so I could
sort of really round out thestory of who Percy is to the customer.
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So all of the details aroundhis wearing the glasses and the love
heart nose and the sort oflittle smirk on his face, they were
all really intentionaldetails. And one of the other pieces
that sort of went into makingPercy was my grandfather. At the
time that I was sort ofworking on the concept of this product,
he passed away. And as achild, he played a really, really
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big role for me in creatingthat sense of belonging. And so I
wanted to find a way to honorthat, but also sort of send some
of that feeling out into theworld that could be created with
this weighted bear. So Percywas my grandfather's nickname. And
so that's why I sort of wantedto bring everything together in a
personality before I went intothe design. And then when we went
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into the production design, Iwent through several different iterations
of this bear. And sooriginally, he was an off white snow
color, and he represented moreof a Polar bear. I quickly realized
that if children were going toplay with this and he isn't machine
washable at the moment, hewhite was not going to be a good
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color. So I needed to changethe colorway and sort of turn him
to that almond brown color.That was like one insight that I
learned very quickly. And thensort of building out his body in
a way where the mimic thedesign of creating that hug experience
also took a lot of iterationbecause I focused first on him laying
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down and then it was to movehim to sitting up and then it was
like testing into the amountof fill that was in his body. It
was testing into the stitchingand the, the gauge of the thread
that was being used. Thingslike that that I would never have
considered when I firststarted. But it was such an exceptional
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learning experience to be ableto dig into all of these aspects
of product design that in mycareer in the past I had never had
as much exposure to. So thiswas a really sort of good way of.
I was learning on the job, ifyou will. But it was also sort of
teaching me a lot in terms oflike the investment of getting it
right up front, regardless ofthe amount of samples that I to go
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through to get to that sort ofideal first product. That was a really
important learning curve andit took 10 times longer than I thought
it would. But I also am gladthat I didn't rush into something
because I don't think that Iwould have received the wonderful
feedback that I have from thisbear and how he's helped so many
customers so far.
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That is so awesome. And Ididn't even think about the illustrator
like making sure all of thefacial expressions, all of that stuff
I didn't even think about whenit came to a physical teddy bear
know. So I'm glad that youbought that all up. Now. How long
did it take to get from thevery first prototype to actually
launching?
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It took about just over 12 months.
Okay, so in that year afteryou released everything, did you
have to go back and do anotheriteration after release or was that
it?
Yeah, I definitely was lookinginto customer feedback in ways that
I could continue to iterate.So with the second version, there
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were additional sort ofelements of like I'd mentioned, sort
of the double seam stitching,the heavier weight thread, things
like that, where until thefirst like the 1.0 got out into market
and I had multiple people, youknow, using him for what he was designed
for. One of the things that Idid observe was that kids are inclined
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to throw things up in the Airthat have weight and can sort of
get air. So Percy's notdesigned to be thrown in the air.
He's a therapeutic device.He's not sort of a, you know, a lightweight
product. So when. When he'sthrown in the air, that puts stress
on his seams because there'sweight in all four of his paws as
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well as his body. So reallysort of working with the manufacturer
to make sure that we hadclarity on really doubling down on
the durability of the bear.Because in my mind, like, I want
every customer to have awonderful experience with this bear.
And so making sure that he canlast the distance and offer hundreds,
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if not thousands of hugs,that's really the goal. So I think
the durability piece was oneof the things that I was constantly
focused on, because that wasreally important to me. I know that
there's a lot of things outthere that kids will sort of get
attached to and then loseinterest in. And the feedback that
I've had is that this is sortof one of those things that kids
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and adults will attach to justby the support that he offers. And
so I wanted to make sure thathe was going to be lasting the distance
for the period of time heneeded to serve his owner.
Gotcha. And I could totallysee my kids throwing things in the
air. When you said that, Ijust died laughing because I was
like, yep, I can absolutelysee that happening, or just throwing
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it down just because. Just tosee what happens. So, yeah, and it's
stuff that you don't real.You're developing, you don't take
into consideration as much.But once you get it out into the
wild, we'll call it, that'swhen you realize, oh, okay, so this
is what they're going to bedoing with this. Let's see what we
can tweak. So I'm glad thatyou and. And I wanted to bring that
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up to the audience because asbusiness owners, we're constantly
iterating. Like, I wouldn't besurprised if there's a few more iterations
coming down the road. Youknow, just because somebody's using
it in a way, you're like, oh,didn't think about that. Now let's
do this. So I like that youhit that. Now I do want to do one
more thing, and that's X. Ifyou have, like, maybe one to two
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tips that someone who isinterested in launching a product,
they should do or think aboutwhat is. What are one to two tips
for our business ownersthinking about that, I.
Think always keeping the Endcustomer in mind. My anytime I have
someone write in, I've had somany people write in and share unsolicited,
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like, experiences with Percyand really sort of focusing in on
what people are experiencingpositively and really leaning into
that as much as the feedbackfor improvement. So when I think
about when I initiallydesigned Percy, I was thinking of
it as a children's product.And as I released him into the wild,
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I learned that a lot of adultsreally found great value from him
as well, whether it be theysuffered from anxiety, adhd, they
had just gone through a loss,medical treatments. So I think being
able to sort of really take inthat feedback and pivot as you find
those sort of new niches toserve a customer, that's really an
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important aspect to keep inmind, especially when you're in the
beginning, because what youthought you were designing for, you
may sort of open up youraperture to who you are serving in
different ways, shapes and forms.
Perfect. Perfect. Thank you somuch for sharing that with our audience.
Now, if people were interestedin finding out more about you, more
about for the Cubs, wherecould they find you?
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Yes, they can find me onforthecubs.com or on LinkedIn. I'm
always happy to connect withfolks and help wherever I can. I
think the other learning thatI would share also is that you need
to be incredibly humble whenstarting a business. I've been in
marketing and executiveleadership for a long time until
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I started this business. Andso I had very specific ideas of how
things were going to go. And Iwas quickly humbled because when
it's your own money and you'restarting with yourself or a very,
very small team, you justreally have to pivot constantly and
just be okay with the constantfeedback and changes that you need
to make. And sometimes thatcan really challenge your ego. But
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at the end of the day, myfocus is always give me as much feedback
as possible, because at theend of the day, all I want to do
is help people manage throughanxiety and any types of struggles
they're going through orreally just be able to ultimately,
at the end of the day, help asmany foster kids as I can.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thankyou so much and thank you for dropping
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that last gym for us. Becauseownership, entrepreneurship, small
business owner, whatever youwant to call it, it is a very humbling
experience in many waysbecause you are constantly learning.
You're constantly, you know,figuring out what you're doing wrong.
And so I love that you putthat out there. Now, what about social
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media? Are you on social mediain any way.
I am. We have for the Cubs onInstagram and TikTok. I don't personally
have my own social mediapresence that's public, but LinkedIn
is mostly where I'm at most active.
All right, perfect. And I'llmake sure I have all of those links
in the show notes. So thankyou so much Amy for coming on the
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show today and dropping thesegems about for the Cubs and pretty
much product development.
You're so welcome. Thanks somuch for having me.
All right, bye.
Thank you for listening,joining and being a part of the Money
Talk with Tiff podcast thisweek. You can check Tiff out every
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