Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Amanda Goetz
Founder & CEO, House of Wise

How Amanda Goetz Built House of Wise With NO PAID Media

In this episode, we sit down with Amanda Goetz and discuss how she built such a successful brand with NO paid media.

Notes & Links

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Follow the people featured in this episode here:

- Rabah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabahrahil
- Amanda's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmandaMGoetz

Transcription

Amanda Goetz (00:00):

If you're a founder, having other founder friends is the most important thing you can do for yourself, because there are times where you're like sitting behind your computer and you're like, I am a failure. Like how can I not, I didn't grow this fast enough. And I, why is this so hard for me? And you just think that it's just you, but when you surround yourself with founders and you're all sitting around the table and you're like, this is really fucking hard. And everybody's sharing like, you know, their stories of somebody who made it to the end of diligence, they planned their entire fundraise around them. And then they pulled out at the last minute and they were like had no capital left. And they were like, literally transferring money to pay, do payroll from their own personal, like, literally these stories are a dime a dozen. And once you remember that and you surround yourself with that, you're like, okay, I'm, I'm doing okay. Like this is just far for the course.

Rabah Rahil (01:03):

We are back for another episode of you and not your rose. And I am excited about this when we actually had a little bit of preamble in the, uh, Miami geek out. I got to meet her in person. And I gotta tell you, the hair is even more fab in person. Um, and she is the rock star, the queen behind house of wise, the gummy guru, Amanda goats. How are you?

Amanda Goetz (01:26):

I'm good. How's it going?

Rabah Rahil (01:28):

I am fantastic. You were just hot off a trip jet lag, but still looking fabulous. Um, how'd your talk go?

Amanda Goetz (01:38):

Um, yeah, every the trip was amazing. I spent a week in Switzerland and a week in Amsterdam just trying to unplug because I hadn't really done that in a very long time. And I realized how much I needed it. So it was amazing.

Rabah Rahil (01:55):

Oh, fantastic. Um, your recent Miami transplant, correct. How long have you been there?

Amanda Goetz (02:02):

Been here now? It'll be a one year anniversary coming up in August. I was in New York city for the last 11 years. Then COVID hit and I am a single mom with three kids. And at the time it was like three kids under the age of six, when COVID started. And New York city is not built for you to live in your home. Like you spend the majority of your time outside of your home. And so the inverse of that was not a reality I wanted to live in so left New York city during the pandemic with the kids and migrated south.

Rabah Rahil (02:38):

Amazing. Amazing. How did you, I guess let's kind of just jump into a little bit of your backstory. How did you get into entrepreneurship? Was, is it, uh, I can't even pronounce ITER or out your wedding tech company? Was that your first four? A or was it even

Amanda Goetz (02:54):

Oh, a

Rabah Rahil (02:54):

Vender Ader yeah. Oh

Amanda Goetz (02:56):

My gosh. A vender, um, yeah, availability, calendar available. Um, so interestingly enough, like I, so I grew up in a small town, 800 people, like in the middle of central Illinois. Um, neither of my parents went to college and so on paper, my dad is the town plumber and electrician, et cetera. But like he is an entrepreneur. He started that business, um, right out of high school and built it to successfully, you know, provide for our family while my mom took care of us. And I watched him go through the ups and downs of what it looks like to, to have a business, to, to balance his life. Like he never missed his golf on Thursday mornings. He never missed one of my basketball games. He was the high school golf coach for my brother. Like he was very, very like focused on making sure that he, he fulfilled all areas of his life that were important to him, but also it came with like the ups and downs of owning a business.
So I saw all of that kind of firsthand. Um, but then my first job, so I don't think I've ever shared this, but so my senior year of college, I was already married. Like I got married super young and oh, wow. I wanted to graduate early. So I, yeah. And so I wanted to graduate early cuz one, I was paying for college two. I now had a husband who lived in Chicago and so I wanted to get out of, out of college. And so I had to take 18 hours of credits, um, to, to graduate early. And I took them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, full like full days of class. Then on Wednesdays, I would take a bus up to Chicago to be with my husband at the time. And I worked at Ernston young, um, for 10 hours on Thursday, 10 hours on Friday as an internship. And so my first job after I graduated that December was I went full time to Ernston young and I helped manage their entrepreneur of the year program. So I was analyzing companies that were going through EOI and shepherding them through, through the program. So I guess actually like, you know, like Nell Kirby of Ulta and, and like big name founders and entrepreneurs who were, you know, nearing the, the I P potential. And so that was actually my, my first exposure really up front to what it was like to build a, a venture back business.

Rabah Rahil (05:30):

Oh, wow. That's, that's some hustle from some young age. That's incredible. I'm also a big 10 guy. Um, I went to Indiana. Yeah, really? Actually. Yeah. Indiana. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Goetz (05:43):

I I've been to, what is it called? Little five.

Rabah Rahil (05:46):

Oh my gosh. You know how to get down then? Yeah. That's a, uh, a unique experience to say the least,

Amanda Goetz (05:53):

Oh my God, I have some stories, but that's a different podcast.

Rabah Rahil (05:58):

<laugh> we could, we could swap 'em offline on, on the same. Uh, the urban champagne was cool though. I, I went out there for a few conferences, uh, when I was into some academic stuff, but that's awesome. So tell me a little bit more about kind of what it's like to, like you were at thenot. Are you still at teal? Are you house of wise full time?

Amanda Goetz (06:19):

So my, my journey to be an entrepreneur this time around was very different, cuz the stakes were higher. I had kids. Yep. My first job I was, I had a partner, I had a husband and it was a little easier. Um, so my first startup I did that, that was about back in 2011, 2012, when I was the new York's tech scene was just heating up. I did an accelerator, um, that was a wedding tech company that led me to thenot and I was at the, not for five and a half years or so. And I was working on house of wise about a year before I actually put some steam behind it and raised some capital for the idea. Um, but it was during the pandemic that I decided that now is the time that women actually, and men need products that are, are not alcohol, that they can like actually go towards for stress and anxiety and depression.
So I told my boss that I was gonna start working on this and I started talking about it publicly and I was still at, at the not. And, but I was very, very clear to everyone involved that I'm doing both. I'm gonna talk about both. I'm gonna everybody's clear. Then what happened was towards like September, October, I lo I raised around of capital in June, then towards September, October I realized that house of wise needed more of me. Mm-hmm <affirmative> not just nice weekends. And so it was very serendipitous. I'd been talking to Dave, Fano the founder of teal and loved what he was doing around career management. And there really wasn't something like there, like it out there. And so we started talking and he was like, Hey, if you would ever wanna be a fractional CMO and help us like figure out, go to market strategy, like I'm down.
I was like, let's do it. Let's time box it though. Cause I wanna manage expectations because I'm gonna go raise a round of true like seed round, um, Q1 of next year. So we did a six month fractional CMO, um, where I, I helped him think through kind of go to market strategy, set up like the, the idea around his marketing team, et cetera. And that was two days, two and a half days a week. And then two and a half days. I now had house of wise where I wasn't paying myself, but I had more time. Then fast forward to six months is over by then. That was my deadline to raise the round of capital and I did. And so I raised the 2 million seed round. And so now I could pay myself a little something, build out a team. And so at that moment I'm transitioned to advisor role of teal.

Rabah Rahil (08:52):

How cool you are, just what a rockstar you are

Amanda Goetz (08:57):

Or a masochist, like what are the

Rabah Rahil (08:59):

<laugh> tomato, tomato? Um, tell me a little bit about raising money was, uh, I mean 2 million. That's pretty substantial. That's pretty awesome. What was that like? Does that, was that pretty difficult? Is that like a road show? Like how was this just people you knew through your network? Like gimme a little bit of color there.

Amanda Goetz (09:20):

Oh, I mean, what I say now is not applicable to the market right now. Like it was raising 2 million Q1 of 20, 21 is like night and day from raising capital right now. Um, so a couple of things when I was raising at that time, like you have to remember a couple things were true. One, we were still in the thick of the pandemic and we clubhouse was still a thing and people were still very active on social media. Like they were spending a lot of time consuming and engaging. And so raising at that point and especially cuz I had built up a, you know, a pretty decent Twitter following. So I was kind of just sharing the story of what I was doing and why it was important and how it was different because we're, we're obviously different. I know this, I, I don't know if this is the podcast I can talk about not using performance marketing, but um, I'm in an industry where you can't, you know?
Yep. It's not, it's not a, uh, a true positive Roaz because you can't do direct to an ingestible cannabis product. So long story short, uh, it was intriguing to people who were really thinking about like the new next step of D TOC and, and how do you build brands through community? And so I, I was able to, to raise the 2 million pretty quickly, um, just because we got a lead investor, it just clicked. And he had known me from Twitter and so it clicked. And then, um, everyone followed on like literally raising capital is like, it's like, Laings like once one person that has, you know, some semblance of influence to other investors, once they jump on, they all everybody's like, oh, okay, this someone else legitimized it. I can go on now. And so it's really about finding that linchpin.

Rabah Rahil (11:17):

I love that that's first of all, congrats. And the other thing that I, uh, the analogy in terms of, uh, capital raising is throwing a party and like nobody wants to be the first person at the party. Like you invite, Hey Amanda, I'm gonna have this party. You should come. You're like, okay, cool. The first question everybody ask is, oh, who's coming. And so like the who's coming invite list is the cap table. And so like, all you need is like, if I tell people, Hey, I'm throwing a party and Amanda's coming everybody like, hell yeah, I'm coming. And then it's just that, uh, you need that like weds that breaks the dam. And then it's just this flood of awesomeness. Um, that's incredible. Have you always been so fashionable?

Amanda Goetz (11:55):

<laugh>

Rabah Rahil (11:56):

Kind of a random question, but I just, I just follow your stuff. I follow you on all your like on your Instas and everything. And you're just like, so hip and I don't know, is that like in, cause you coming from, I mean, I guess Chicago's kinda fashion of-ish I'm the Midwest, Midwest is not fascinating.

Amanda Goetz (12:12):

Cute. I will text you what I looked like. No, um, you wanna know something funny is I, well, one, I was a quote unquote tomboy. Like I was an athlete my whole life. So in high school, like I didn't wear makeup. I wore jerseys every day, either a football Jersey or like a Reggie Miller Jersey or whatever. Like I was, uh, like a through and through athlete, uh, then like, no, it wasn't until I got divorced. And something happens when you get divorced that you lose all sense of identity. You have no clue who you are. And you're kind of like, I have to start from scratch and figure out who I am independent of. And for me it was an 11 year marriage. And so that was like an interesting kind of like rebirth. I think of like who I am, who I want to be like, and, and I, and obviously then you're single and I was a single mom, so I was like, I gotta get back out on the dating world again. So I had to care what I looked like. Like there was so much to it, but no, I was not. This is like, and trust me, five minutes ago, I was wearing like the geek out hoodie. So I appreciate you.

Rabah Rahil (13:29):

That's amazing. Oh, I love it. Um, so kind of in that same vein of that rebirth, excuse me, you're super fit. You're super motivated. You're mentally super sharp. How do, and you have three kids? Like, how do you, like, do you use resources, frameworks? Like how do you stay so fit so happy, so motivated? Like what, is there any things that you can share with our listeners in terms of like secrets, routines, anything like that?

Amanda Goetz (13:58):

Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm a fun robot. Um, but I'll, I'll share a few things that I've learned. So the best thing about Ernston young starting my career there is they had a lot of focus on learning and development. And like I took like a course on the four day work week and a course on seven habits. And that was very early in my career, but, um, I've always done a lot. Like I told you, like, I, I, I graduated early and I was working at Ernston young and I had three jobs in college. Like I've always been a person that, um, had like a lot of Stokes in the fire, so to speak. But the things that I've learned, I'll say a few things. One habit is like habit loops are your friend when it comes to efficiency, like the less decisions I have to make in a day, the better.
And so I time block my days and they're pretty consistent every day. Like I know my flow state and my cortisol levels are higher in the morning. I can hit flow, state easier. That's like when I do all of my, what I call offensive work, meaning it's projects that matter to me and are aligned with like the goals I'm working on. And I, I never have more than three things that I wanna do in that like two hour time block, cuz three is manageable. If I, if I hit three and I could have more time, then I'll do something else. But like I will always tackle three things. And so imagine if you just got three things done a day, but they were the most important three things like you really, really chip away at like meaty projects. So that's number one. Um, I block my calendar before 11:00 AM and, and only until 11:00 AM is when I can take meetings at 3:00 PM is when my cortisol levels like truly, truly start to like nose dive.
And I hit that wall. And so I've efficiently like thought, found that working out at that time helps to restabilize. Cause most people like reach for the cup of coffee or sugar or something to like get through the afternoon. If you work out and not try to like push through till 5:00 PM, like work out when you start to feel that crash because you're, you'll naturally get your like adrenaline back up and, and, and restabilize your like it's called adrenal fatigue. But like you'll, you'll bring that back up. And so I'll do that in the afternoon. Come back, crank out a little bit more work then by five 30, 6:00 PM, I've now gotten the things I wanted to done. I've done the meetings. Um, I've gotten my workout in and, and now it's like phone away, kid time for the next three hours. And then I think the biggest secret of all that, like I feel like is unpopular is I don't work at night.
I truly shut off. And I, I read and then I go to bed and I go to bed every night before 9:00 PM. That's like, I may sound like an old lady, but for me sleep has always like, even in college, I was like the person that pretended to drink. And then like once everybody was hammered, I'd like go out of there. And then I would go to bed cuz I had to be up at six in the morning to like teach group fitness classes. But like for me, it's, it's about one understanding your body and, and aligning your work to when your body it's just like an athlete. Like if you don't think about your biomechanics and when you have energy and when you don't like really, really thinking about your work from a, how can I do my best work from a biological standpoint?

Rabah Rahil (17:33):

That's brilliant. I love the offensive kind of defensive type of thing. And that, do you have any cause I'm trying to get the bedtime thing down too. Cause I, I, I know when I sleep more like, or get to bed early, like when I win my morning, I win my day and when I lose my morning, it can be super challenging. And one of the things I'm in central time zone and my bosses are in Eastern and then we have people in Israel that are seven hours ahead. So you can wake up to just this de they lose of just stuff that you, you wanna touch and get on. How do you get to bed at 9:00 PM? Do you have like an alarm? Do you have like, how is there I'm trying to build a morning or an evening routine? Because I, I, I know that's what I need to do, but I can't like, I struggle with it. And then I wanna spend time with my partner and I feel bad going to bed early and like, so any, any like

Amanda Goetz (18:21):

Tips there? Yeah. So I'll say the first thing, like when you wake up and you see all that stuff coming from Israel and, and other people, like that's like the first issue because you can't look at it. Like you have to keep all your notifications off because all of a sudden then that's now in your brain and you think, well, that'll take two seconds. I'll let me just respond to that and respond to that. And now you're on their time and they're like, none of that's urgent, if it was urgent, they'd text you. And, and so I think like matching your, your todos with like the channel and making sure that you block out that so you can own your morning, but nighttime is okay. So the, because we have a sleep product, we've worked with sleep experts in sleep doctors, the two biggest things around sleep that affects sleep. The first one is stress.

Rabah Rahil (19:07):

Yeah.

Amanda Goetz (19:08):

That'll affect your sleep. The second one is temperature. And the third one is, you know, food, caffeine, et cetera, what you've ingested. Um, so if you, if you just focus on those three things, so, so stress, like, that's why I have a, I built a CBD business because it, it, you know, is directly correlated with reducing your cortisol levels and working with your endo cannabinoid system. Um, but so you have to bring down your stress, what increases stress, looking at work, looking at. So figure out what you're doing. That's increasing your, your brain to, to cycle through. I don't allow myself to look at social media after 8:00 PM. Like I I'm, it's brilliant. Luckily I have kids. So they're like the great, I, I will literally put them to bed and that's kind of my signal to myself that it's time to go, like, take a bath, turn on Dave Matthew's band, like chill <laugh>.
And then I read like, I, I will try to read a, like a few pages of a book, but in, if I take a gummy, like within 30 minutes of taking the gummy, it's like, it's truly kicking in. And now I'm like, and then I have an eight sleep mattress, which cools me, which has been a game changer for like the temperature, which is number two. And then number three, um, what you eat, like I try not to eat after this sounds CRA I sound like a crazy person, but I try not to eat after like four or 5:00 PM because I like to have enough time to digest my food. And I don't drink caffeine after 8:00 AM because the halflife of caffeine is so long. People don't realize that like caffeine stays in your system so much longer. And so even if you have a CA like a coffee at 12, like it's still in your system when you're going to bed.

Rabah Rahil (20:47):

No wonder, okay. So I need my stress gummy. I need to read more and I need my eight sleep. I've heard about the eight sleep, so I need to, okay, done. I'm gonna ping you. You're gonna hook me up with your, your fancy discount code, and then I'm gonna get the house of wise going. Amazing. That makes so much sense though. Like you just totally broke it down for me. Incredible. You are such a woman of many talents. <laugh> um, okay. Last one for the main segment. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Amanda Goetz (21:16):

Oh my gosh. How much time do we have? I wanna say like the beginning of Twitter, like I just got on Twitter now. It's been like three years, but like the people that really, really lifted me up on Twitter and like would take my ideas and amplify them and, and really support like that community. There are amazing people on Twitter that truly, truly have the power to help, you know, clear the path for you. And so men and women, um, I, I will say like, there is an incredible community on there. Obviously Twitter comes with its own bag of like stuff, but, um, there there's some OG people from my first days of Twitter that really, really have, um, like bench, like they're out there working for house of wise without working for house of wise. Like they're helping find investors, they're helping champion the product. So I would say that, and honestly, my kids take care of me more than I probably take. Like, I, I don't know how, but I like have this the most empathetic, warm, loving children. And like, they will, like, if I'm working and they know I'm working, they like bring me water. And like, it's these like little things that I'm like, wow. Like they care about me. And so for me, it's like little things like that. That show me the nice things, but yeah.

Rabah Rahil (22:46):

Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. The kiddos making everything worthwhile. Um, yeah. Okay. This is why the people bought the ticket. You ready to jump in the value ad segment.

Amanda Goetz (22:56):

Okay.

Rabah Rahil (22:57):

All right. Game on. Okay. So before we go kind of too deep, give us kind of the elevator pitch of house of wise. We kind of talked about it a little bit, but if people aren't hip to it, kind of tell everybody what it is, what is kind of the, the gummies, the research behind it, all that stuff.

Amanda Goetz (23:11):

Yeah. So house of wise, we're changing the conversation around health and wellness. Um, we are a, a CBD business, but all of our products are original formulas. So we've worked with a team of researchers and chemists to design products for sleep, sex, stress, and strength and above anything else. I wanna remove the, the stigma around mental health. Yes. Um, but also sexual health and wellness, especially for women there. We're, we're just now entering a phase where women feel a little more comfortable talking about sexual health. Um, so anytime I, I hit something in my life that feels like I should be talking about it in like a corner in a dark corner. Like no one can hear me. That's when I like wanna tweet about it and talk about it or build

Rabah Rahil (24:02):

This

Amanda Goetz (24:03):

<inaudible> for, because I'm not the only one that's going through that. And so house of wise is truly, um, sitting at the intersection of commerce. We have products community we're backed by, uh, what we call our wise men and women who are our affiliates, they're our affiliate community. Um, and then content. So the founders of pop sugar, they led our seed round. We brought on an editor in chief from pop sugar who, um, literally manages our freelance writers. We produced so much content around each of these pillars of sleep, sex, stress, strength, um, mental health, sexual health, et cetera. And so we we're, we're sitting at this intersection of content, commerce and community where we, we value each of those pillars and growing each of those pillars equally.

Rabah Rahil (24:57):

That's a great pitch. I love the, the four SS. I don't think anything falls outside of that. That's sensational. Uh, why is it called house of wise?

Amanda Goetz (25:07):

So I was in India when COVID started for work. Um, I was on a work trip and I remember like getting on the plane and I was like, people are wearing masks. Should I be wearing a mask? Like I don't this COVID thing. Like, I don't know. Um, but anyway, I went and, um, I had been thinking about the company and, and removing the stigma around cannabis and, and building something for women like me who are like, you know, multi hyphenate women trying to like juggle work in life. And I went to the Taj ma hall one morning and came back and I was at my hotel. And I, I was like, you know what? I wanna research women who, for lack of better words, like have gotten fucked over by the patriarchy in life mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I, I was researching different women in this story of this woman, brownie wise, uh, came up on my radar and her, she was the, the, she worked for Tupperware and Earl Tupper was the CEO.
He created the little kitchen storage thing, but brand wise was the woman who realized that women are so fucking influential and powerful and have the buying power. And so she's the one who created the Tupperware party where women could come together, sell the stuff to their friends. Oh. So she took what was a very tiny business around kitchen storage and made it a massive business. And when she asked to, you know, have equity in the company, have an executive position, um, by that point, the company had already been huge. And so Earl Tupper actually fired her and then sold the company like three or four months later. And she got nothing. So I named the company after her, um, as kind of a, like, fuck the patriarchy, you know, little zinger in there.

Rabah Rahil (27:03):

That is one of the coolest naming stories ever. Normally somebody's like, yeah, I was drunk one night and this is kinda what we came up with in the URL was open. Like that was like the most meaningful founding name story ever. Oh, cool. Oh, wow. And then, so tell me a little bit about, cause you do have a really, really strong, uh, brand across multiple channels too. Your LinkedIn, your Instagram, your Twitters, how important is it to keep building your personal brand alongside of house of wise? Cause there is a bit of a halo effect, right from you your personal brand into, especially in some, in some sense like the, the sexuality angles, like you're very attractive, very fit in terms of the strength angles in terms of the stress stuff. Like you have the mom thing going and you're, you're seriously like one of the most motivated, like you do so much stuff. How, uh, how do you kind of see that balancing in terms of building your personal brand and then that halo effect that it has for house of wise?

Amanda Goetz (28:01):

Well, thank you. You're very kind. Um, I, I get this question a lot of like, do you need to have a personal brand to be a founder? And, and I always say like, the answer depends on what industry you're going into and who you're speaking to. And do you, are you the person that is the most equipped to speak to those people? Um, and for me, I was creating a, a, a company and a line of products that were literally created for me. Like I went out to, I had never touched cannabis before in my life. And when I went to explore the industry, I didn't feel like there were brands that were speaking to me, someone who I wasn't trying to get high, I was truly, truly looking to manage my anxiety. Um, and, and I was scared of like marijuana leaves and like all this stuff.
I was like, I, I have three toddlers and I, you know, this is my first step into cannabis. And so I was creating something that was truly, truly targeted at me. And so when, when you're solving your own problems, that becomes interesting. And then I did, um, as a marketer, like obviously I did a lot of market research and I, I surveyed about a hundred women and I said like one, can you name a CBD brand? And they couldn't like brand recall was very, very low, um, for any brand. This is prior to me launching house of wise. And then the second question I asked them was what are, what are the factors that are most important to you in choosing if you were going to try a CBD product? So the three things were trust, efficacy, and who's behind it. Like I had this whole list and they, they would rank each of them.
So trust, meaning, can I trust like the product, um, where it's coming from? And also like, I'm ingesting something efficacy, will it actually work? Will I feel something? And then who's behind it. And, and the cannabis industry is primarily still male dominated. And so I think that that was really, really important for me to show like, uh, these are products I use, I'm a single mom. I have three toddlers. Like I, I, I had a corporate job at the time, like, and I use all of these products. And so if you, if any of these things resonate with you, like increased anxiety over the age of 30, like hormonal issues, like libido dropping, because a variety of reasons, like, like there's so many things that women don't feel like they're equipped to, to learn about and talk about, and then the solutions for 'em. So I felt like it was really important for me to kind of be out there now. I don't wanna be the face of the brand forever, meaning mm-hmm, <affirmative> like house of wise will grow beyond me. And I cannot wait for that day because it will be an amazing milestone to have people be like, Amanda guts never heard of her house of wise love the gummies. Like that would be a great day in my book. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (31:02):

That is cool. What a really tactical approach too. I love that. And those, uh, three pillars make a ton of sense where you want the, the trust, the efficacy, but then there's also like, you're that linchpin that brings those two really important parts that these people are looking for. And you're kind of the manifestation of that. That's really awesome.

Amanda Goetz (31:21):

Women are, women are becoming way more sensitive to brands targeting at women, but led by men,

Rabah Rahil (31:30):

Right? Yeah, totally. Um, what are the best parts and hardest parts of running the house of wise?

Amanda Goetz (31:39):

Best parts are the, the connections, like the emotional connections. Like I know most of our wise men and women were still like around a thousand people selling the products and, um, like just like they're in my DMS telling me stories and like I know about their lives. And so for me, it's the like true emotional connection with the community. And I know them, like, they feel like, like they have access to me. Um, downs are just like, it's, it's fucking hard. Like, it's, it's really hard. Um, I have like 8,000 headwinds. Like I picked the hardest industry to build. <laugh> like,
You can't do Google and Facebook advertising, like in an efficient way, there's ways to work around it, but it's not necessarily, um, smart money. Um, and I can't do SMS marketing because the phone carriers don't allow cannabis. Uh, like you like literally everything going against you. Like, we, we tried doing a TikTok ad campaign and the girl, like the girl's TikTok got flagged for a week and she couldn't use it. And I was like, I don't want that to ever happen to someone who's like entire income stream comes from TikTok. Like I would feel horrible. So we have to like tiptoe around that. So there's a lot of headwinds. And, um, you know, when you take on VC capital, you have to keep growing. You have to, you have people to answer to. And so there, there is, it's just pressure and, and stress, but, you know, it's important to just remember that if you're a founder, having other founder friends is the most important thing you can do for yourself, because there are times where you're like sitting behind your computer and you're like, I am a failure.
Like how can I not, I didn't grow this fast enough and I, why is this so hard for me? And you just think that it's just you, but when you surround yourself with founders and you're all sitting around the table and you're like, this is really fucking hard. And everybody's sharing like, you know, their stories of somebody who made it to the end of diligence, they planned their entire fundraise around them. And then they pulled out at the last minute and they were like, had no capital left. And they were like, literally transferring money to pay, do payroll from their own personal, like, literally these stories are a dime a dozen. And once you remember that and you surround yourself with that, you're like, okay, I'm, I'm doing okay. Like this is just far for the course.

Rabah Rahil (34:11):

Yeah. I think you're spot on there where, uh, not that like, for lack of a better term, like misery loves company, but like, there's a certain aspect of like, you can get in this bubble, especially too, if you read kind of, I think people forget how hard it is and then you get the success and then they, it's almost like reading. Like reading's actually a really difficult skill. It takes you years and years and years to learn how to read as a child. But now you kind of like take it for granted. And I think like starting a business and making it successful, you have like all these cool things and the journalists and stuff like that, very rarely do they wanna write about, you know, stuff, bad stuff, quote unquote, that's not like super sex, like the bolts and the, the fast and stuff like that.
That's fun that those blow up, but like those people that are just trying to middle around and palpitate the elephant to figure it out and being around those people is just, I I've found that with myself as well. Cause I was originally used to run my own agency, but it was pretty much more of like an IC role where I was doing a lot building a lot. And now I'm in this executive role where there's just different value vectors. There's different stressors, there's politics, there's budgeting. There's just all these things that like, you, you just, it's hard, but then you get around, like to your point, people in the same realm and you're like, oh yeah, everybody's dealing with this shit. It's not just me. Like, there's just this kinda like, huh. Like you, you just, uh, take a deep breath from it. So yeah. I am a hundred percent with you on that. Um, speaking of, since you do have all these kind of headwinds in terms of acquisition, is content and affiliates kinda your biggest levers that you're pulling on or what, what does that look like?

Amanda Goetz (35:45):

Yeah, yeah. You nailed it. Content and our affiliate program. Um, it's a halo effect for both of them. They make every channel more efficient. Um, but, and we also went big on, uh, earned media in the first year to create brand trust. Cuz again, trust was really, really important. So, uh, luckily I've been a marketer for over 15 years and, and my head of comms from my last company followed me with me. Um, and so we understand like how, how to do earned media and she's incredible. And so we had 2 billion earned media impressions in our first year of, of business.

Rabah Rahil (36:24):

Woohoo, let's go

Amanda Goetz (36:27):

Insane. And so everything has this ripple effect and, and it, it, you have to have OKRs aligned with it so you can see the connections, but, um, yeah, content is huge because you are giving educational information, not just sales. Um, and so it gives somebody a reason to open your email and then email is a huge sales channel for us, but not our sales emails, it's the newsletters and things that we're writing about around sexual health, mental health, et cetera.

Rabah Rahil (37:02):

Yeah. I love that for us. That's our big pillars as well in terms of content, community education. Those are the three, three big vectors that we're gonna do. Are you gonna do any in real life stuff? We're actually leaning fairly heavily into events this year and there the little bit of capital intensive, but you can get some people to sponsor it so you can kind of, uh, you know, cushion the nut, but would you guys ever, are you guys thinking about that at all or not, not really

Amanda Goetz (37:26):

Down the line cuz we are a community backed. Um, I think where we're at this stage of the company, like we're only now 16 months old. We're still very early. Yeah. Um, we need to still, like I, I said year one was laying the foundation year two is kind of like plumbing and wiring. Like we need to make sure that everything's working efficiently before we, you know, do the things that are the like pretty window dressings and putting the, like whatever pool in the backyard. Like we need to like get our plumbing and stuff figured out. So right now we're doing all the kind of like boring stuff. That's not as flashy, which is making sure that all of our, like when we do paid, it's like going to the right landing pages. Those are efficient. Our emails are efficient. Like everything is like truly, truly set when you open the Bo the top of the funnel, it's the most efficient opening that you can have.

Rabah Rahil (38:22):

Yeah. I love that. Um, tell me how you think the next two to three years of eCommerce are gonna unfold. And then tell me how you think that is gonna impact, uh, house of wise

Amanda Goetz (38:34):

Couple predictions. Let's see here. Number one, I think we're gonna continue to see community as like the pillar and, and people really, really harnessing, like what does community mean? Because now everyone's saying you have to have a community. Well people's attention spans are so finite. Um, what does community mean? And I think that we're gonna kind of crystallize that a little bit more and you're gonna see people who are doing it well, um, come to the, the front, um, uh, I would say we are probably, this is my hot take. I think that we're gonna start to see more direct mail come back. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, because it's so hard to break through the noise of the digital landscape now. And if you can create an immersive experience that is offline, that is huge. Um, and so you ha it has to be done in the right way because we all, when you get a stack of mail and it's just like a bunch you're just flyers, bla like throwing them out as fast as humanly possible, but if it's done right.
I think that like having that, um, that kind of offline experience is gonna be big. Uh, and then I do think partnerships like go and push doing the candle together. Like we just saw it on like the Kardashians, but like seeing more intersection of major brands is I think is just like a no brainer because you have two sets of audiences that are share alignment on mission and values and, and whatnot. And so I have a feeling we'll see more of that just because CS are just continuing to increase and, and it's a lot harder, um, to widen the top of the funnel.

Rabah Rahil (40:21):

Yeah. I'm, I'm totally with you on that. I, I'm pretty bullish also on like, I'd open a letter from you. Of course. It's Amanda, why wouldn't I like, I, I, there's some really cool stuff you can do with post pilot, um, with Clavio, like there's, I I'm pretty bullish on and you can do it in a, in a, in a segmented manner that makes it, um, make the economics work, um, into your point. It's, it's a really intimate, medium, I think like podcasting and direct mail are kind of like these, these really intimate mediums where, um, I'll meet people and they're like, oh, I, I know you Rob, blah, blah, blah, blah. From just like, just randomly listening to podcast or videos or whatever. It's just such an intimate medium that you're in somebody's ears. You know, it's just a podcast podcast. I love those predictions. Yeah. Right. I,

Amanda Goetz (41:05):

The only reason I didn't put podcasts in is because I think it's like, I would think maybe marketers don't think this way, but like we, podcasts were huge for us for the year one we, we partnered with and we even have people on our cap table that have massive podcasts so that we can tap into their audiences, run efficient ads. Podcasts are huge because of everything you just said, you can truly, truly make something, have multiple touchpoints. Like you can, you can saturate an audience that you know, a lot about and what they're interested in. And the first thing you do is if you can be on that podcast and, and actually share your story and why this is so you're so passionate about this, et cetera, then you create an emotional connection then. Yep. If you can run paid ads for any podcast after, right?
So now they've created an emotional connection. They know who you are, and now you hear your ads. Then you have the podcast host, do organic posts about your pod so that they show that they're actually users of your product. Um, and then if you can run paid ads for yourself, white label, whitelist those and run performance markets, you can then hit that audience so many different times, even better if they have a newsletter and an email channel, and you can add that on, but you just truly, truly like go deep with an audience is so crucial for us. Like, we've done that a lot.

Rabah Rahil (42:33):

Yeah. Well said. So eloquently put, um, okay. One last question. And then we'll get into the rapid fire. Um, if you could do a collab with anybody, who would it be?

Amanda Goetz (42:46):

I might get hate for this.

Rabah Rahil (42:48):

Oh, you're gonna get in trouble. Give us the hot pace.

Amanda Goetz (42:52):

I think the Kardashians are genius. Marketers. Yeah. And everything that I like talk about with health and wellness. Like we, we obviously like we did something with the Kardashians and we're very friendly with the PO team and I've done stuff with Courtney, but like continuing to align with like them. Cause I think that they're brilliant marketers.

Rabah Rahil (43:13):

Yeah. Whatever, whatever judgment aside, like I think that's unequivocal like it. Yeah. They get it done. Yeah. A hundred percent, hundred percent. Um, oh my gosh. You made it to the rapid fire. Amanda, are you ready?

Amanda Goetz (43:26):

I'm nervous. Yes.

Rabah Rahil (43:28):

I know. Okay. I'll take it easy on or will I all right. Overrated, underrated Miami

Amanda Goetz (43:37):

Under.

Rabah Rahil (43:38):

Oh really? Okay. Yeah.

Amanda Goetz (43:41):

Over it's incredible.

Rabah Rahil (43:43):

You, you like it.

Amanda Goetz (43:46):

Yeah. Like I think that more and more people are realizing, like you can live in a really like warm, awesome place that feels like vacation and still be around really smart, like growth minded people like people, anybody that's still hating on Miami. Hasn't spent time here

Rabah Rahil (44:04):

And a D nice tax structure. Save you some money too. Can't can't forget that. Uh, or Urbano champagne, overrated. Underrated.

Amanda Goetz (44:15):

Oh

Rabah Rahil (44:16):

No.

Amanda Goetz (44:17):

Uh, I wanna say overrated, like, but it's just because I was in a sorority and I like, look back and like, are

Rabah Rahil (44:25):

You Greek? Oh, that's so amazing.

Amanda Goetz (44:27):

Greek. And like have Greek life just like ran the campus and like, looking back, I was like, that was so dumb. Like

Speaker 3 (44:37):

<laugh>,

Rabah Rahil (44:39):

I'm learning so much about you. Um, microdosing, overrated, underrated,

Amanda Goetz (44:44):

Underrated. It's gonna be the future of medicine.

Rabah Rahil (44:49):

I love bold, bold woman. I love strong woman. Um, fashion, overrated, underrated

Amanda Goetz (44:56):

Fashion is underrated. I think we it's taken to mean like one specific thing. Like you have to be fashion a bold, but I think fashion is true. Fashion is subjective. And like this girl that I worked with at the not, she was the most fashion person I've ever met my entire life. And she like put the most like thrift store shit together and it never matched, but she looked so cool all the time. And I, I was just like it's self-expression. And to me, like I being individualistic and being different is actually beautiful. So MIS,

Rabah Rahil (45:34):

Oh, I love that makes the world fun. I'm totally with you. Um, Netherlands, I know, uh, you were shopping your, your, your pseudo boyfriend around on the boat, the nether,

Speaker 3 (45:56):

Like what,

Amanda Goetz (45:57):

Um, he's literally driving the boat. Uh, Netherlands is underrated. Like everyone should go. It has, I, I just spent a week in Amsterdam and it's like, we were talking it's the most inclusive judgment, free city that I've ever experienced. It was the first, the place of the first gay marriage. Um, like it was so cool. And, and the people were just like, so kind and warm.

Rabah Rahil (46:23):

Yeah. I it's on the list for sure. For me. Um, starting the business, overrated, underrated,

Amanda Goetz (46:29):

Overrated. I think that we glorify entrepreneurship too much. And, um, not enough people talk about how hard it is, how much money you can lose. Like, I lost a lot of money with my first company and I, I was like, I'm never doing that again. Um, and, and truly, truly the toll on your mental health as a founder is real. And I think we, we, and maybe this is like just a Twitter, Twitter echo chamber, but I think we glorify it too much.

Rabah Rahil (47:01):

I couldn't agree with you more. I think there's a certain like honor in knowing what you wanna do with your life. And it's totally fine. If you just wanna be an employee and do great work and build out something, but you don't want the extracurriculars cuz like I'm not even, I mean obviously I have equity and yeah, yeah, yeah. But I didn't found this company. It was the first non founding executive, but like early stage startup life is really hard. Like I from October to February is basically a one man marketing team. And I just, I, my health took a hit. My wasn't showing up in the relationships that I cared about. Like there's a lot of sacrifice that to your point, like it does get glorified and all that stuff gets swept under the rug. And a lot of times too, you're gonna fail. So it's like, not that it's for nothing, but it's like, you, you do a lot of this stuff and like, you don't even make any money. You don't get your bag. And it's like, man, that's a challenge. So I, I love that take,

Amanda Goetz (47:50):

I, I think that you like, even just admitting that like your relationships took a hit, like, like my divorce came a year after my ex started a business because like of the toll and not that, that was like the reason. Right. But, um, it definitely like, I think more and more ex business executives and people who have made it really, really far should talk about the sacrifices they had. Because if your goals are to have a healthy relationship and have a family, then sometimes these pathways or this thing that we're glorifying, which is like, you have to be a multimillionaire, you have to do this, you have to do this, come at the expense of things that you maybe actually want in life

Rabah Rahil (48:33):

Perfectly put beautifully put, um, TikTok, overrated, underrated,

Amanda Goetz (48:38):

Underrated. Like I think that we're still just like figuring it out as a platform. Like I, I we're like early adopters are now. We're probably like almost to the peak, but I still say underrated.

Rabah Rahil (48:52):

Yeah. I'm with you on that too. Um, what's your favorite gummy sex drug strength. Stress. What's what's your go to,

Amanda Goetz (49:00):

Uh, it's like saying I have a favorite kid. Um <laugh> so I take the strength gummy every single day. It's the thing that gets me through like that afternoon workout because it's got a very small dose of caffeine and then the, the CBD kind of wipes away the effects of the caffeine. Um, and then the stress gummy is also like probably my daily. And then I actually do the sleep drops, not the sleep gummy.

Rabah Rahil (49:28):

Oh, pro tip people, hearing it, hearing it from the lady herself. Amazing, um, favorite meal and why you had that? Uh, I'll have to link in the show. Now my, that little mash up, you were such a ham. It's so funny. You and your, you had so many just funny meals and faces and oh my gosh. You're just the life of the party, but what's your favorite meal and why?

Amanda Goetz (49:50):

Oh, I love food. Um, <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (49:54):

I

Amanda Goetz (49:54):

Ate so much in Europe. Uh, my favorite meal is breakfast because I let myself eat sugar at breakfast. And so I wake up and I'm like craving. Like I love a sweet breakfast. Like if I can have a new TEUs something or, oh,

Rabah Rahil (50:12):

Naught a girl.

Amanda Goetz (50:15):

Yeah. I I'm I'm down for a breakfast and I just I'm happiest in the Mor I'm a morning person, so yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:22):

Amazing. Uh, favorite fashion brand or designer? Uh,

Amanda Goetz (50:30):

I am not a designer gal. Uh, I wish I was, but I have never been that. Um, like I literally shop at target in Zara and oh, I was like an OG bringing Abercrombie back just for the record. One of those people that like six years ago was like, I think Abercrombie is cool again. So I would say 70% of my wardrobe is Abercrombie.

Rabah Rahil (50:55):

Oh my God. It makes me so happy. I actually used to work there and, uh, a job my, where

Amanda Goetz (51:07):

I still have like fierce, the cologne, like is somewhere

Rabah Rahil (51:13):

And I used to rage in my younger years. And so that was like the worst job to go into hungover. Cause you have this like crazy cologne smell that you got the, um, um, some music like it was, oh my gosh. I remember the good old days to be young again. Um, favorite place travel to and why?

Amanda Goetz (51:34):

Um, I loved, I mean, I did love Switzerland going to the Alps and like hiking and being away from it all. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I don't know if that's just like selection bias. Cause I was just there. I also really love Costa Rica. Like I think that there's so much diversity in like what you can do. Like I went one time and like, like literally one day I'm like white water rafting and then the next day I'm like hiking with monkeys and the next day I'm in like the rain, like the cloud forest, like thing. Like I think that there's a lot you can do. And it's such a quick flight. Like you can literally from Miami, be there and like hour and a half.

Rabah Rahil (52:13):

Oh. So I, I have friends that have like a yoga compound in, uh, Costa Rica. And before it was actually, I was there when the world was falling apart when COVID started and it was the most awkward thing, cuz you're like in paradise, but you kind of wanna go no. So legit, like, so my buddy's dad is like a Buddhist monk and so he'd lead us through meditations and he, it was, he's a strength guy. You should come out next time for, but they had to stop him. Obviously. Now they're kind of back, but there's kind of still some weirdness of travel there and stuff like that. But it was my favorite because I'm so capitalistic, so plugged in and I would go back there and like just I'd lose like 10, 10, 15 pounds. Cause they would bring they'd cook all your food. And like, it was just this, he has an amazing gym and it was do yoga, gym meditate, talk about awesome stuff.
It was uh, there's certain places like this is gonna go hippy dippy, but Sedona in Costa Rica, there there's a, they live in a little bit outside of UTA, but there's certain places I think in the world that have like some natural healing, like capabilities just inert in them. And uh, Costa Rica is definitely, it's a really cool, yeah. Great pick. There are two P of the pod, the me and Amanda. Okay. Last one then we'll wrap it up. If you could have dinner with three people that are alive, who would it be? So you're sitting at a four person table. You're sitting at the head, who's getting the three invites.

Amanda Goetz (53:35):

Oh my God. Michelle Obama.

Rabah Rahil (53:39):

Okay.

Amanda Goetz (53:39):

I wanna know what it, what it was like, what it's like to like be, have a successful relationship, have your individuality, like all those things. Michelle Obama. Okay. I kind of want Oprah too, because I think one they'll have like an interesting dynamic cuz they know each other, but two, I just think like what Oprah has done with her life and she remains single like her whole life. Um, and, and like how she handled, like all the things that she had to be like had she had to go through like her resilience, um, who would I put in there? Dead or alive kind of want brownie wise? Like I wanna know. I'm

Rabah Rahil (54:31):

Just yeah.

Amanda Goetz (54:31):

Yeah. Like I would love to have her and, and also be able to be like, I, I built a company in your honor, like, because we needed more women. Like you like forging the path. Um, and I kind of would do it just so that way she knew that like it wasn't for not like cuz she went into hiding after that and she never, she kind of like died alone. And so I would want her to know that she, her legacy stayed on.

Rabah Rahil (54:54):

Oh, that's beautiful. Bunch of powerful women around the table. I love it. I love it. I love it. Amanda, you made it through that's it. That's the rapid fire. Congratulations. Amazing. Okay. Tell people how they can get more involved in the house of wise, how they can follow you this time is yours.

Amanda Goetz (55:08):

Um, yeah. So if you're interested in trying the products, you can head the house of wise.co, um, and happy to share with you like a discount code. We can drop it in the show notes or something like that. Perfect. Um, then, uh, you can follow me on Twitters where I share more of like my marketing stuff. I do lead a marketing master class with Maven once a quarter, um, where I talk about brand building community building, et cetera, our next cohorts July. So if anybody's listening to this and it's before July, um, we do have spots still available for that cohort. And then Instagram is a cluster fuck of like my, my personal,

Rabah Rahil (55:48):

The best

Amanda Goetz (55:49):

Mom life. Like you've been warmed

Rabah Rahil (55:53):

<laugh> Instagram is the must follow. And the Twitter is a must follow as well where your, your feed is fantastic. And it's definitely, uh, it's funny. It's almost like business entrepreneur, Amanda, and then like, I don't know how it, your Instagram is just a must follow it's so fun. Like it is just the quirkiest most like your captions, your stories. Like you're, you're a lunatic and I love every bit of it. Yeah. That's

Amanda Goetz (56:17):

Awesome. That's accurate.

Rabah Rahil (56:18):

<laugh> that is accurate. Um, amazing. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for taking the time you crushed this. Our listeners are gonna absolutely love it I'm actually gonna get my little house of wise package. I gotta get my health back together. And I know like the big thing for me, I like the idea too, of lining up my day with my body. It's it sounds, it sounds so silly that I've never thought of that before, but sometimes like the, the simplest advice is always the best where it's like, it's simple. Cause it's effective. Like I think sometimes people can overcomplicate things and me, me included, I I'm like the king of over complications. So thank you so much for taking the time. It was amazing. I really enjoyed it. Uh, if you wanna get more involved with triple well, we are try triple.com.
We are on the bird app at triple well. Um, and we also have a tested new newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday, uh, called whale mail. So you can subscribe right on our, uh, Twitter profile. So Amanda, thank you so much. It's glad to have you back in the state safe. And then, um, if you're ever out in Austin, gimme a shout. We're also having a DTC award show called the whales in September. So you gotta come visit, come out to Austin. It'll be fun. Yeah, it'll be a blast. Amazing. Amazing. I'm holding you to that. All right, Amanda. Thanks again for taking the time outta your schedule. Folks, go get you some gummies, go give Amanda a follow on the bird app. And if you are so adventurous, go hit the follow on her Instagram. You not regret it. Thanks Amanda. We'll talk soon.

ā€

Podcast

How Amanda Goetz Built House of Wise With NO PAID Media

March 18, 2024

57:50

Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Amanda Goetz
Founder & CEO, House of Wise

Episode Description

In this episode, we sit down with Amanda Goetz and discuss how she built such a successful brand with NO paid media.

Notes & Links

šŸ¦ Follow us on Twitter for Industry insights https://twitter.com/triplewhale

Follow the people featured in this episode here:

- Rabah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabahrahil
- Amanda's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmandaMGoetz

Transcription

Amanda Goetz (00:00):

If you're a founder, having other founder friends is the most important thing you can do for yourself, because there are times where you're like sitting behind your computer and you're like, I am a failure. Like how can I not, I didn't grow this fast enough. And I, why is this so hard for me? And you just think that it's just you, but when you surround yourself with founders and you're all sitting around the table and you're like, this is really fucking hard. And everybody's sharing like, you know, their stories of somebody who made it to the end of diligence, they planned their entire fundraise around them. And then they pulled out at the last minute and they were like had no capital left. And they were like, literally transferring money to pay, do payroll from their own personal, like, literally these stories are a dime a dozen. And once you remember that and you surround yourself with that, you're like, okay, I'm, I'm doing okay. Like this is just far for the course.

Rabah Rahil (01:03):

We are back for another episode of you and not your rose. And I am excited about this when we actually had a little bit of preamble in the, uh, Miami geek out. I got to meet her in person. And I gotta tell you, the hair is even more fab in person. Um, and she is the rock star, the queen behind house of wise, the gummy guru, Amanda goats. How are you?

Amanda Goetz (01:26):

I'm good. How's it going?

Rabah Rahil (01:28):

I am fantastic. You were just hot off a trip jet lag, but still looking fabulous. Um, how'd your talk go?

Amanda Goetz (01:38):

Um, yeah, every the trip was amazing. I spent a week in Switzerland and a week in Amsterdam just trying to unplug because I hadn't really done that in a very long time. And I realized how much I needed it. So it was amazing.

Rabah Rahil (01:55):

Oh, fantastic. Um, your recent Miami transplant, correct. How long have you been there?

Amanda Goetz (02:02):

Been here now? It'll be a one year anniversary coming up in August. I was in New York city for the last 11 years. Then COVID hit and I am a single mom with three kids. And at the time it was like three kids under the age of six, when COVID started. And New York city is not built for you to live in your home. Like you spend the majority of your time outside of your home. And so the inverse of that was not a reality I wanted to live in so left New York city during the pandemic with the kids and migrated south.

Rabah Rahil (02:38):

Amazing. Amazing. How did you, I guess let's kind of just jump into a little bit of your backstory. How did you get into entrepreneurship? Was, is it, uh, I can't even pronounce ITER or out your wedding tech company? Was that your first four? A or was it even

Amanda Goetz (02:54):

Oh, a

Rabah Rahil (02:54):

Vender Ader yeah. Oh

Amanda Goetz (02:56):

My gosh. A vender, um, yeah, availability, calendar available. Um, so interestingly enough, like I, so I grew up in a small town, 800 people, like in the middle of central Illinois. Um, neither of my parents went to college and so on paper, my dad is the town plumber and electrician, et cetera. But like he is an entrepreneur. He started that business, um, right out of high school and built it to successfully, you know, provide for our family while my mom took care of us. And I watched him go through the ups and downs of what it looks like to, to have a business, to, to balance his life. Like he never missed his golf on Thursday mornings. He never missed one of my basketball games. He was the high school golf coach for my brother. Like he was very, very like focused on making sure that he, he fulfilled all areas of his life that were important to him, but also it came with like the ups and downs of owning a business.
So I saw all of that kind of firsthand. Um, but then my first job, so I don't think I've ever shared this, but so my senior year of college, I was already married. Like I got married super young and oh, wow. I wanted to graduate early. So I, yeah. And so I wanted to graduate early cuz one, I was paying for college two. I now had a husband who lived in Chicago and so I wanted to get out of, out of college. And so I had to take 18 hours of credits, um, to, to graduate early. And I took them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, full like full days of class. Then on Wednesdays, I would take a bus up to Chicago to be with my husband at the time. And I worked at Ernston young, um, for 10 hours on Thursday, 10 hours on Friday as an internship. And so my first job after I graduated that December was I went full time to Ernston young and I helped manage their entrepreneur of the year program. So I was analyzing companies that were going through EOI and shepherding them through, through the program. So I guess actually like, you know, like Nell Kirby of Ulta and, and like big name founders and entrepreneurs who were, you know, nearing the, the I P potential. And so that was actually my, my first exposure really up front to what it was like to build a, a venture back business.

Rabah Rahil (05:30):

Oh, wow. That's, that's some hustle from some young age. That's incredible. I'm also a big 10 guy. Um, I went to Indiana. Yeah, really? Actually. Yeah. Indiana. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Goetz (05:43):

I I've been to, what is it called? Little five.

Rabah Rahil (05:46):

Oh my gosh. You know how to get down then? Yeah. That's a, uh, a unique experience to say the least,

Amanda Goetz (05:53):

Oh my God, I have some stories, but that's a different podcast.

Rabah Rahil (05:58):

<laugh> we could, we could swap 'em offline on, on the same. Uh, the urban champagne was cool though. I, I went out there for a few conferences, uh, when I was into some academic stuff, but that's awesome. So tell me a little bit more about kind of what it's like to, like you were at thenot. Are you still at teal? Are you house of wise full time?

Amanda Goetz (06:19):

So my, my journey to be an entrepreneur this time around was very different, cuz the stakes were higher. I had kids. Yep. My first job I was, I had a partner, I had a husband and it was a little easier. Um, so my first startup I did that, that was about back in 2011, 2012, when I was the new York's tech scene was just heating up. I did an accelerator, um, that was a wedding tech company that led me to thenot and I was at the, not for five and a half years or so. And I was working on house of wise about a year before I actually put some steam behind it and raised some capital for the idea. Um, but it was during the pandemic that I decided that now is the time that women actually, and men need products that are, are not alcohol, that they can like actually go towards for stress and anxiety and depression.
So I told my boss that I was gonna start working on this and I started talking about it publicly and I was still at, at the not. And, but I was very, very clear to everyone involved that I'm doing both. I'm gonna talk about both. I'm gonna everybody's clear. Then what happened was towards like September, October, I lo I raised around of capital in June, then towards September, October I realized that house of wise needed more of me. Mm-hmm <affirmative> not just nice weekends. And so it was very serendipitous. I'd been talking to Dave, Fano the founder of teal and loved what he was doing around career management. And there really wasn't something like there, like it out there. And so we started talking and he was like, Hey, if you would ever wanna be a fractional CMO and help us like figure out, go to market strategy, like I'm down.
I was like, let's do it. Let's time box it though. Cause I wanna manage expectations because I'm gonna go raise a round of true like seed round, um, Q1 of next year. So we did a six month fractional CMO, um, where I, I helped him think through kind of go to market strategy, set up like the, the idea around his marketing team, et cetera. And that was two days, two and a half days a week. And then two and a half days. I now had house of wise where I wasn't paying myself, but I had more time. Then fast forward to six months is over by then. That was my deadline to raise the round of capital and I did. And so I raised the 2 million seed round. And so now I could pay myself a little something, build out a team. And so at that moment I'm transitioned to advisor role of teal.

Rabah Rahil (08:52):

How cool you are, just what a rockstar you are

Amanda Goetz (08:57):

Or a masochist, like what are the

Rabah Rahil (08:59):

<laugh> tomato, tomato? Um, tell me a little bit about raising money was, uh, I mean 2 million. That's pretty substantial. That's pretty awesome. What was that like? Does that, was that pretty difficult? Is that like a road show? Like how was this just people you knew through your network? Like gimme a little bit of color there.

Amanda Goetz (09:20):

Oh, I mean, what I say now is not applicable to the market right now. Like it was raising 2 million Q1 of 20, 21 is like night and day from raising capital right now. Um, so a couple of things when I was raising at that time, like you have to remember a couple things were true. One, we were still in the thick of the pandemic and we clubhouse was still a thing and people were still very active on social media. Like they were spending a lot of time consuming and engaging. And so raising at that point and especially cuz I had built up a, you know, a pretty decent Twitter following. So I was kind of just sharing the story of what I was doing and why it was important and how it was different because we're, we're obviously different. I know this, I, I don't know if this is the podcast I can talk about not using performance marketing, but um, I'm in an industry where you can't, you know?
Yep. It's not, it's not a, uh, a true positive Roaz because you can't do direct to an ingestible cannabis product. So long story short, uh, it was intriguing to people who were really thinking about like the new next step of D TOC and, and how do you build brands through community? And so I, I was able to, to raise the 2 million pretty quickly, um, just because we got a lead investor, it just clicked. And he had known me from Twitter and so it clicked. And then, um, everyone followed on like literally raising capital is like, it's like, Laings like once one person that has, you know, some semblance of influence to other investors, once they jump on, they all everybody's like, oh, okay, this someone else legitimized it. I can go on now. And so it's really about finding that linchpin.

Rabah Rahil (11:17):

I love that that's first of all, congrats. And the other thing that I, uh, the analogy in terms of, uh, capital raising is throwing a party and like nobody wants to be the first person at the party. Like you invite, Hey Amanda, I'm gonna have this party. You should come. You're like, okay, cool. The first question everybody ask is, oh, who's coming. And so like the who's coming invite list is the cap table. And so like, all you need is like, if I tell people, Hey, I'm throwing a party and Amanda's coming everybody like, hell yeah, I'm coming. And then it's just that, uh, you need that like weds that breaks the dam. And then it's just this flood of awesomeness. Um, that's incredible. Have you always been so fashionable?

Amanda Goetz (11:55):

<laugh>

Rabah Rahil (11:56):

Kind of a random question, but I just, I just follow your stuff. I follow you on all your like on your Instas and everything. And you're just like, so hip and I don't know, is that like in, cause you coming from, I mean, I guess Chicago's kinda fashion of-ish I'm the Midwest, Midwest is not fascinating.

Amanda Goetz (12:12):

Cute. I will text you what I looked like. No, um, you wanna know something funny is I, well, one, I was a quote unquote tomboy. Like I was an athlete my whole life. So in high school, like I didn't wear makeup. I wore jerseys every day, either a football Jersey or like a Reggie Miller Jersey or whatever. Like I was, uh, like a through and through athlete, uh, then like, no, it wasn't until I got divorced. And something happens when you get divorced that you lose all sense of identity. You have no clue who you are. And you're kind of like, I have to start from scratch and figure out who I am independent of. And for me it was an 11 year marriage. And so that was like an interesting kind of like rebirth. I think of like who I am, who I want to be like, and, and I, and obviously then you're single and I was a single mom, so I was like, I gotta get back out on the dating world again. So I had to care what I looked like. Like there was so much to it, but no, I was not. This is like, and trust me, five minutes ago, I was wearing like the geek out hoodie. So I appreciate you.

Rabah Rahil (13:29):

That's amazing. Oh, I love it. Um, so kind of in that same vein of that rebirth, excuse me, you're super fit. You're super motivated. You're mentally super sharp. How do, and you have three kids? Like, how do you, like, do you use resources, frameworks? Like how do you stay so fit so happy, so motivated? Like what, is there any things that you can share with our listeners in terms of like secrets, routines, anything like that?

Amanda Goetz (13:58):

Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm a fun robot. Um, but I'll, I'll share a few things that I've learned. So the best thing about Ernston young starting my career there is they had a lot of focus on learning and development. And like I took like a course on the four day work week and a course on seven habits. And that was very early in my career, but, um, I've always done a lot. Like I told you, like, I, I, I graduated early and I was working at Ernston young and I had three jobs in college. Like I've always been a person that, um, had like a lot of Stokes in the fire, so to speak. But the things that I've learned, I'll say a few things. One habit is like habit loops are your friend when it comes to efficiency, like the less decisions I have to make in a day, the better.
And so I time block my days and they're pretty consistent every day. Like I know my flow state and my cortisol levels are higher in the morning. I can hit flow, state easier. That's like when I do all of my, what I call offensive work, meaning it's projects that matter to me and are aligned with like the goals I'm working on. And I, I never have more than three things that I wanna do in that like two hour time block, cuz three is manageable. If I, if I hit three and I could have more time, then I'll do something else. But like I will always tackle three things. And so imagine if you just got three things done a day, but they were the most important three things like you really, really chip away at like meaty projects. So that's number one. Um, I block my calendar before 11:00 AM and, and only until 11:00 AM is when I can take meetings at 3:00 PM is when my cortisol levels like truly, truly start to like nose dive.
And I hit that wall. And so I've efficiently like thought, found that working out at that time helps to restabilize. Cause most people like reach for the cup of coffee or sugar or something to like get through the afternoon. If you work out and not try to like push through till 5:00 PM, like work out when you start to feel that crash because you're, you'll naturally get your like adrenaline back up and, and, and restabilize your like it's called adrenal fatigue. But like you'll, you'll bring that back up. And so I'll do that in the afternoon. Come back, crank out a little bit more work then by five 30, 6:00 PM, I've now gotten the things I wanted to done. I've done the meetings. Um, I've gotten my workout in and, and now it's like phone away, kid time for the next three hours. And then I think the biggest secret of all that, like I feel like is unpopular is I don't work at night.
I truly shut off. And I, I read and then I go to bed and I go to bed every night before 9:00 PM. That's like, I may sound like an old lady, but for me sleep has always like, even in college, I was like the person that pretended to drink. And then like once everybody was hammered, I'd like go out of there. And then I would go to bed cuz I had to be up at six in the morning to like teach group fitness classes. But like for me, it's, it's about one understanding your body and, and aligning your work to when your body it's just like an athlete. Like if you don't think about your biomechanics and when you have energy and when you don't like really, really thinking about your work from a, how can I do my best work from a biological standpoint?

Rabah Rahil (17:33):

That's brilliant. I love the offensive kind of defensive type of thing. And that, do you have any cause I'm trying to get the bedtime thing down too. Cause I, I, I know when I sleep more like, or get to bed early, like when I win my morning, I win my day and when I lose my morning, it can be super challenging. And one of the things I'm in central time zone and my bosses are in Eastern and then we have people in Israel that are seven hours ahead. So you can wake up to just this de they lose of just stuff that you, you wanna touch and get on. How do you get to bed at 9:00 PM? Do you have like an alarm? Do you have like, how is there I'm trying to build a morning or an evening routine? Because I, I, I know that's what I need to do, but I can't like, I struggle with it. And then I wanna spend time with my partner and I feel bad going to bed early and like, so any, any like

Amanda Goetz (18:21):

Tips there? Yeah. So I'll say the first thing, like when you wake up and you see all that stuff coming from Israel and, and other people, like that's like the first issue because you can't look at it. Like you have to keep all your notifications off because all of a sudden then that's now in your brain and you think, well, that'll take two seconds. I'll let me just respond to that and respond to that. And now you're on their time and they're like, none of that's urgent, if it was urgent, they'd text you. And, and so I think like matching your, your todos with like the channel and making sure that you block out that so you can own your morning, but nighttime is okay. So the, because we have a sleep product, we've worked with sleep experts in sleep doctors, the two biggest things around sleep that affects sleep. The first one is stress.

Rabah Rahil (19:07):

Yeah.

Amanda Goetz (19:08):

That'll affect your sleep. The second one is temperature. And the third one is, you know, food, caffeine, et cetera, what you've ingested. Um, so if you, if you just focus on those three things, so, so stress, like, that's why I have a, I built a CBD business because it, it, you know, is directly correlated with reducing your cortisol levels and working with your endo cannabinoid system. Um, but so you have to bring down your stress, what increases stress, looking at work, looking at. So figure out what you're doing. That's increasing your, your brain to, to cycle through. I don't allow myself to look at social media after 8:00 PM. Like I I'm, it's brilliant. Luckily I have kids. So they're like the great, I, I will literally put them to bed and that's kind of my signal to myself that it's time to go, like, take a bath, turn on Dave Matthew's band, like chill <laugh>.
And then I read like, I, I will try to read a, like a few pages of a book, but in, if I take a gummy, like within 30 minutes of taking the gummy, it's like, it's truly kicking in. And now I'm like, and then I have an eight sleep mattress, which cools me, which has been a game changer for like the temperature, which is number two. And then number three, um, what you eat, like I try not to eat after this sounds CRA I sound like a crazy person, but I try not to eat after like four or 5:00 PM because I like to have enough time to digest my food. And I don't drink caffeine after 8:00 AM because the halflife of caffeine is so long. People don't realize that like caffeine stays in your system so much longer. And so even if you have a CA like a coffee at 12, like it's still in your system when you're going to bed.

Rabah Rahil (20:47):

No wonder, okay. So I need my stress gummy. I need to read more and I need my eight sleep. I've heard about the eight sleep, so I need to, okay, done. I'm gonna ping you. You're gonna hook me up with your, your fancy discount code, and then I'm gonna get the house of wise going. Amazing. That makes so much sense though. Like you just totally broke it down for me. Incredible. You are such a woman of many talents. <laugh> um, okay. Last one for the main segment. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Amanda Goetz (21:16):

Oh my gosh. How much time do we have? I wanna say like the beginning of Twitter, like I just got on Twitter now. It's been like three years, but like the people that really, really lifted me up on Twitter and like would take my ideas and amplify them and, and really support like that community. There are amazing people on Twitter that truly, truly have the power to help, you know, clear the path for you. And so men and women, um, I, I will say like, there is an incredible community on there. Obviously Twitter comes with its own bag of like stuff, but, um, there there's some OG people from my first days of Twitter that really, really have, um, like bench, like they're out there working for house of wise without working for house of wise. Like they're helping find investors, they're helping champion the product. So I would say that, and honestly, my kids take care of me more than I probably take. Like, I, I don't know how, but I like have this the most empathetic, warm, loving children. And like, they will, like, if I'm working and they know I'm working, they like bring me water. And like, it's these like little things that I'm like, wow. Like they care about me. And so for me, it's like little things like that. That show me the nice things, but yeah.

Rabah Rahil (22:46):

Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. The kiddos making everything worthwhile. Um, yeah. Okay. This is why the people bought the ticket. You ready to jump in the value ad segment.

Amanda Goetz (22:56):

Okay.

Rabah Rahil (22:57):

All right. Game on. Okay. So before we go kind of too deep, give us kind of the elevator pitch of house of wise. We kind of talked about it a little bit, but if people aren't hip to it, kind of tell everybody what it is, what is kind of the, the gummies, the research behind it, all that stuff.

Amanda Goetz (23:11):

Yeah. So house of wise, we're changing the conversation around health and wellness. Um, we are a, a CBD business, but all of our products are original formulas. So we've worked with a team of researchers and chemists to design products for sleep, sex, stress, and strength and above anything else. I wanna remove the, the stigma around mental health. Yes. Um, but also sexual health and wellness, especially for women there. We're, we're just now entering a phase where women feel a little more comfortable talking about sexual health. Um, so anytime I, I hit something in my life that feels like I should be talking about it in like a corner in a dark corner. Like no one can hear me. That's when I like wanna tweet about it and talk about it or build

Rabah Rahil (24:02):

This

Amanda Goetz (24:03):

<inaudible> for, because I'm not the only one that's going through that. And so house of wise is truly, um, sitting at the intersection of commerce. We have products community we're backed by, uh, what we call our wise men and women who are our affiliates, they're our affiliate community. Um, and then content. So the founders of pop sugar, they led our seed round. We brought on an editor in chief from pop sugar who, um, literally manages our freelance writers. We produced so much content around each of these pillars of sleep, sex, stress, strength, um, mental health, sexual health, et cetera. And so we we're, we're sitting at this intersection of content, commerce and community where we, we value each of those pillars and growing each of those pillars equally.

Rabah Rahil (24:57):

That's a great pitch. I love the, the four SS. I don't think anything falls outside of that. That's sensational. Uh, why is it called house of wise?

Amanda Goetz (25:07):

So I was in India when COVID started for work. Um, I was on a work trip and I remember like getting on the plane and I was like, people are wearing masks. Should I be wearing a mask? Like I don't this COVID thing. Like, I don't know. Um, but anyway, I went and, um, I had been thinking about the company and, and removing the stigma around cannabis and, and building something for women like me who are like, you know, multi hyphenate women trying to like juggle work in life. And I went to the Taj ma hall one morning and came back and I was at my hotel. And I, I was like, you know what? I wanna research women who, for lack of better words, like have gotten fucked over by the patriarchy in life mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I, I was researching different women in this story of this woman, brownie wise, uh, came up on my radar and her, she was the, the, she worked for Tupperware and Earl Tupper was the CEO.
He created the little kitchen storage thing, but brand wise was the woman who realized that women are so fucking influential and powerful and have the buying power. And so she's the one who created the Tupperware party where women could come together, sell the stuff to their friends. Oh. So she took what was a very tiny business around kitchen storage and made it a massive business. And when she asked to, you know, have equity in the company, have an executive position, um, by that point, the company had already been huge. And so Earl Tupper actually fired her and then sold the company like three or four months later. And she got nothing. So I named the company after her, um, as kind of a, like, fuck the patriarchy, you know, little zinger in there.

Rabah Rahil (27:03):

That is one of the coolest naming stories ever. Normally somebody's like, yeah, I was drunk one night and this is kinda what we came up with in the URL was open. Like that was like the most meaningful founding name story ever. Oh, cool. Oh, wow. And then, so tell me a little bit about, cause you do have a really, really strong, uh, brand across multiple channels too. Your LinkedIn, your Instagram, your Twitters, how important is it to keep building your personal brand alongside of house of wise? Cause there is a bit of a halo effect, right from you your personal brand into, especially in some, in some sense like the, the sexuality angles, like you're very attractive, very fit in terms of the strength angles in terms of the stress stuff. Like you have the mom thing going and you're, you're seriously like one of the most motivated, like you do so much stuff. How, uh, how do you kind of see that balancing in terms of building your personal brand and then that halo effect that it has for house of wise?

Amanda Goetz (28:01):

Well, thank you. You're very kind. Um, I, I get this question a lot of like, do you need to have a personal brand to be a founder? And, and I always say like, the answer depends on what industry you're going into and who you're speaking to. And do you, are you the person that is the most equipped to speak to those people? Um, and for me, I was creating a, a, a company and a line of products that were literally created for me. Like I went out to, I had never touched cannabis before in my life. And when I went to explore the industry, I didn't feel like there were brands that were speaking to me, someone who I wasn't trying to get high, I was truly, truly looking to manage my anxiety. Um, and, and I was scared of like marijuana leaves and like all this stuff.
I was like, I, I have three toddlers and I, you know, this is my first step into cannabis. And so I was creating something that was truly, truly targeted at me. And so when, when you're solving your own problems, that becomes interesting. And then I did, um, as a marketer, like obviously I did a lot of market research and I, I surveyed about a hundred women and I said like one, can you name a CBD brand? And they couldn't like brand recall was very, very low, um, for any brand. This is prior to me launching house of wise. And then the second question I asked them was what are, what are the factors that are most important to you in choosing if you were going to try a CBD product? So the three things were trust, efficacy, and who's behind it. Like I had this whole list and they, they would rank each of them.
So trust, meaning, can I trust like the product, um, where it's coming from? And also like, I'm ingesting something efficacy, will it actually work? Will I feel something? And then who's behind it. And, and the cannabis industry is primarily still male dominated. And so I think that that was really, really important for me to show like, uh, these are products I use, I'm a single mom. I have three toddlers. Like I, I, I had a corporate job at the time, like, and I use all of these products. And so if you, if any of these things resonate with you, like increased anxiety over the age of 30, like hormonal issues, like libido dropping, because a variety of reasons, like, like there's so many things that women don't feel like they're equipped to, to learn about and talk about, and then the solutions for 'em. So I felt like it was really important for me to kind of be out there now. I don't wanna be the face of the brand forever, meaning mm-hmm, <affirmative> like house of wise will grow beyond me. And I cannot wait for that day because it will be an amazing milestone to have people be like, Amanda guts never heard of her house of wise love the gummies. Like that would be a great day in my book. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (31:02):

That is cool. What a really tactical approach too. I love that. And those, uh, three pillars make a ton of sense where you want the, the trust, the efficacy, but then there's also like, you're that linchpin that brings those two really important parts that these people are looking for. And you're kind of the manifestation of that. That's really awesome.

Amanda Goetz (31:21):

Women are, women are becoming way more sensitive to brands targeting at women, but led by men,

Rabah Rahil (31:30):

Right? Yeah, totally. Um, what are the best parts and hardest parts of running the house of wise?

Amanda Goetz (31:39):

Best parts are the, the connections, like the emotional connections. Like I know most of our wise men and women were still like around a thousand people selling the products and, um, like just like they're in my DMS telling me stories and like I know about their lives. And so for me, it's the like true emotional connection with the community. And I know them, like, they feel like, like they have access to me. Um, downs are just like, it's, it's fucking hard. Like, it's, it's really hard. Um, I have like 8,000 headwinds. Like I picked the hardest industry to build. <laugh> like,
You can't do Google and Facebook advertising, like in an efficient way, there's ways to work around it, but it's not necessarily, um, smart money. Um, and I can't do SMS marketing because the phone carriers don't allow cannabis. Uh, like you like literally everything going against you. Like, we, we tried doing a TikTok ad campaign and the girl, like the girl's TikTok got flagged for a week and she couldn't use it. And I was like, I don't want that to ever happen to someone who's like entire income stream comes from TikTok. Like I would feel horrible. So we have to like tiptoe around that. So there's a lot of headwinds. And, um, you know, when you take on VC capital, you have to keep growing. You have to, you have people to answer to. And so there, there is, it's just pressure and, and stress, but, you know, it's important to just remember that if you're a founder, having other founder friends is the most important thing you can do for yourself, because there are times where you're like sitting behind your computer and you're like, I am a failure.
Like how can I not, I didn't grow this fast enough and I, why is this so hard for me? And you just think that it's just you, but when you surround yourself with founders and you're all sitting around the table and you're like, this is really fucking hard. And everybody's sharing like, you know, their stories of somebody who made it to the end of diligence, they planned their entire fundraise around them. And then they pulled out at the last minute and they were like, had no capital left. And they were like, literally transferring money to pay, do payroll from their own personal, like, literally these stories are a dime a dozen. And once you remember that and you surround yourself with that, you're like, okay, I'm, I'm doing okay. Like this is just far for the course.

Rabah Rahil (34:11):

Yeah. I think you're spot on there where, uh, not that like, for lack of a better term, like misery loves company, but like, there's a certain aspect of like, you can get in this bubble, especially too, if you read kind of, I think people forget how hard it is and then you get the success and then they, it's almost like reading. Like reading's actually a really difficult skill. It takes you years and years and years to learn how to read as a child. But now you kind of like take it for granted. And I think like starting a business and making it successful, you have like all these cool things and the journalists and stuff like that, very rarely do they wanna write about, you know, stuff, bad stuff, quote unquote, that's not like super sex, like the bolts and the, the fast and stuff like that.
That's fun that those blow up, but like those people that are just trying to middle around and palpitate the elephant to figure it out and being around those people is just, I I've found that with myself as well. Cause I was originally used to run my own agency, but it was pretty much more of like an IC role where I was doing a lot building a lot. And now I'm in this executive role where there's just different value vectors. There's different stressors, there's politics, there's budgeting. There's just all these things that like, you, you just, it's hard, but then you get around, like to your point, people in the same realm and you're like, oh yeah, everybody's dealing with this shit. It's not just me. Like, there's just this kinda like, huh. Like you, you just, uh, take a deep breath from it. So yeah. I am a hundred percent with you on that. Um, speaking of, since you do have all these kind of headwinds in terms of acquisition, is content and affiliates kinda your biggest levers that you're pulling on or what, what does that look like?

Amanda Goetz (35:45):

Yeah, yeah. You nailed it. Content and our affiliate program. Um, it's a halo effect for both of them. They make every channel more efficient. Um, but, and we also went big on, uh, earned media in the first year to create brand trust. Cuz again, trust was really, really important. So, uh, luckily I've been a marketer for over 15 years and, and my head of comms from my last company followed me with me. Um, and so we understand like how, how to do earned media and she's incredible. And so we had 2 billion earned media impressions in our first year of, of business.

Rabah Rahil (36:24):

Woohoo, let's go

Amanda Goetz (36:27):

Insane. And so everything has this ripple effect and, and it, it, you have to have OKRs aligned with it so you can see the connections, but, um, yeah, content is huge because you are giving educational information, not just sales. Um, and so it gives somebody a reason to open your email and then email is a huge sales channel for us, but not our sales emails, it's the newsletters and things that we're writing about around sexual health, mental health, et cetera.

Rabah Rahil (37:02):

Yeah. I love that for us. That's our big pillars as well in terms of content, community education. Those are the three, three big vectors that we're gonna do. Are you gonna do any in real life stuff? We're actually leaning fairly heavily into events this year and there the little bit of capital intensive, but you can get some people to sponsor it so you can kind of, uh, you know, cushion the nut, but would you guys ever, are you guys thinking about that at all or not, not really

Amanda Goetz (37:26):

Down the line cuz we are a community backed. Um, I think where we're at this stage of the company, like we're only now 16 months old. We're still very early. Yeah. Um, we need to still, like I, I said year one was laying the foundation year two is kind of like plumbing and wiring. Like we need to make sure that everything's working efficiently before we, you know, do the things that are the like pretty window dressings and putting the, like whatever pool in the backyard. Like we need to like get our plumbing and stuff figured out. So right now we're doing all the kind of like boring stuff. That's not as flashy, which is making sure that all of our, like when we do paid, it's like going to the right landing pages. Those are efficient. Our emails are efficient. Like everything is like truly, truly set when you open the Bo the top of the funnel, it's the most efficient opening that you can have.

Rabah Rahil (38:22):

Yeah. I love that. Um, tell me how you think the next two to three years of eCommerce are gonna unfold. And then tell me how you think that is gonna impact, uh, house of wise

Amanda Goetz (38:34):

Couple predictions. Let's see here. Number one, I think we're gonna continue to see community as like the pillar and, and people really, really harnessing, like what does community mean? Because now everyone's saying you have to have a community. Well people's attention spans are so finite. Um, what does community mean? And I think that we're gonna kind of crystallize that a little bit more and you're gonna see people who are doing it well, um, come to the, the front, um, uh, I would say we are probably, this is my hot take. I think that we're gonna start to see more direct mail come back. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, because it's so hard to break through the noise of the digital landscape now. And if you can create an immersive experience that is offline, that is huge. Um, and so you ha it has to be done in the right way because we all, when you get a stack of mail and it's just like a bunch you're just flyers, bla like throwing them out as fast as humanly possible, but if it's done right.
I think that like having that, um, that kind of offline experience is gonna be big. Uh, and then I do think partnerships like go and push doing the candle together. Like we just saw it on like the Kardashians, but like seeing more intersection of major brands is I think is just like a no brainer because you have two sets of audiences that are share alignment on mission and values and, and whatnot. And so I have a feeling we'll see more of that just because CS are just continuing to increase and, and it's a lot harder, um, to widen the top of the funnel.

Rabah Rahil (40:21):

Yeah. I'm, I'm totally with you on that. I, I'm pretty bullish also on like, I'd open a letter from you. Of course. It's Amanda, why wouldn't I like, I, I, there's some really cool stuff you can do with post pilot, um, with Clavio, like there's, I I'm pretty bullish on and you can do it in a, in a, in a segmented manner that makes it, um, make the economics work, um, into your point. It's, it's a really intimate, medium, I think like podcasting and direct mail are kind of like these, these really intimate mediums where, um, I'll meet people and they're like, oh, I, I know you Rob, blah, blah, blah, blah. From just like, just randomly listening to podcast or videos or whatever. It's just such an intimate medium that you're in somebody's ears. You know, it's just a podcast podcast. I love those predictions. Yeah. Right. I,

Amanda Goetz (41:05):

The only reason I didn't put podcasts in is because I think it's like, I would think maybe marketers don't think this way, but like we, podcasts were huge for us for the year one we, we partnered with and we even have people on our cap table that have massive podcasts so that we can tap into their audiences, run efficient ads. Podcasts are huge because of everything you just said, you can truly, truly make something, have multiple touchpoints. Like you can, you can saturate an audience that you know, a lot about and what they're interested in. And the first thing you do is if you can be on that podcast and, and actually share your story and why this is so you're so passionate about this, et cetera, then you create an emotional connection then. Yep. If you can run paid ads for any podcast after, right?
So now they've created an emotional connection. They know who you are, and now you hear your ads. Then you have the podcast host, do organic posts about your pod so that they show that they're actually users of your product. Um, and then if you can run paid ads for yourself, white label, whitelist those and run performance markets, you can then hit that audience so many different times, even better if they have a newsletter and an email channel, and you can add that on, but you just truly, truly like go deep with an audience is so crucial for us. Like, we've done that a lot.

Rabah Rahil (42:33):

Yeah. Well said. So eloquently put, um, okay. One last question. And then we'll get into the rapid fire. Um, if you could do a collab with anybody, who would it be?

Amanda Goetz (42:46):

I might get hate for this.

Rabah Rahil (42:48):

Oh, you're gonna get in trouble. Give us the hot pace.

Amanda Goetz (42:52):

I think the Kardashians are genius. Marketers. Yeah. And everything that I like talk about with health and wellness. Like we, we obviously like we did something with the Kardashians and we're very friendly with the PO team and I've done stuff with Courtney, but like continuing to align with like them. Cause I think that they're brilliant marketers.

Rabah Rahil (43:13):

Yeah. Whatever, whatever judgment aside, like I think that's unequivocal like it. Yeah. They get it done. Yeah. A hundred percent, hundred percent. Um, oh my gosh. You made it to the rapid fire. Amanda, are you ready?

Amanda Goetz (43:26):

I'm nervous. Yes.

Rabah Rahil (43:28):

I know. Okay. I'll take it easy on or will I all right. Overrated, underrated Miami

Amanda Goetz (43:37):

Under.

Rabah Rahil (43:38):

Oh really? Okay. Yeah.

Amanda Goetz (43:41):

Over it's incredible.

Rabah Rahil (43:43):

You, you like it.

Amanda Goetz (43:46):

Yeah. Like I think that more and more people are realizing, like you can live in a really like warm, awesome place that feels like vacation and still be around really smart, like growth minded people like people, anybody that's still hating on Miami. Hasn't spent time here

Rabah Rahil (44:04):

And a D nice tax structure. Save you some money too. Can't can't forget that. Uh, or Urbano champagne, overrated. Underrated.

Amanda Goetz (44:15):

Oh

Rabah Rahil (44:16):

No.

Amanda Goetz (44:17):

Uh, I wanna say overrated, like, but it's just because I was in a sorority and I like, look back and like, are

Rabah Rahil (44:25):

You Greek? Oh, that's so amazing.

Amanda Goetz (44:27):

Greek. And like have Greek life just like ran the campus and like, looking back, I was like, that was so dumb. Like

Speaker 3 (44:37):

<laugh>,

Rabah Rahil (44:39):

I'm learning so much about you. Um, microdosing, overrated, underrated,

Amanda Goetz (44:44):

Underrated. It's gonna be the future of medicine.

Rabah Rahil (44:49):

I love bold, bold woman. I love strong woman. Um, fashion, overrated, underrated

Amanda Goetz (44:56):

Fashion is underrated. I think we it's taken to mean like one specific thing. Like you have to be fashion a bold, but I think fashion is true. Fashion is subjective. And like this girl that I worked with at the not, she was the most fashion person I've ever met my entire life. And she like put the most like thrift store shit together and it never matched, but she looked so cool all the time. And I, I was just like it's self-expression. And to me, like I being individualistic and being different is actually beautiful. So MIS,

Rabah Rahil (45:34):

Oh, I love that makes the world fun. I'm totally with you. Um, Netherlands, I know, uh, you were shopping your, your, your pseudo boyfriend around on the boat, the nether,

Speaker 3 (45:56):

Like what,

Amanda Goetz (45:57):

Um, he's literally driving the boat. Uh, Netherlands is underrated. Like everyone should go. It has, I, I just spent a week in Amsterdam and it's like, we were talking it's the most inclusive judgment, free city that I've ever experienced. It was the first, the place of the first gay marriage. Um, like it was so cool. And, and the people were just like, so kind and warm.

Rabah Rahil (46:23):

Yeah. I it's on the list for sure. For me. Um, starting the business, overrated, underrated,

Amanda Goetz (46:29):

Overrated. I think that we glorify entrepreneurship too much. And, um, not enough people talk about how hard it is, how much money you can lose. Like, I lost a lot of money with my first company and I, I was like, I'm never doing that again. Um, and, and truly, truly the toll on your mental health as a founder is real. And I think we, we, and maybe this is like just a Twitter, Twitter echo chamber, but I think we glorify it too much.

Rabah Rahil (47:01):

I couldn't agree with you more. I think there's a certain like honor in knowing what you wanna do with your life. And it's totally fine. If you just wanna be an employee and do great work and build out something, but you don't want the extracurriculars cuz like I'm not even, I mean obviously I have equity and yeah, yeah, yeah. But I didn't found this company. It was the first non founding executive, but like early stage startup life is really hard. Like I from October to February is basically a one man marketing team. And I just, I, my health took a hit. My wasn't showing up in the relationships that I cared about. Like there's a lot of sacrifice that to your point, like it does get glorified and all that stuff gets swept under the rug. And a lot of times too, you're gonna fail. So it's like, not that it's for nothing, but it's like, you, you do a lot of this stuff and like, you don't even make any money. You don't get your bag. And it's like, man, that's a challenge. So I, I love that take,

Amanda Goetz (47:50):

I, I think that you like, even just admitting that like your relationships took a hit, like, like my divorce came a year after my ex started a business because like of the toll and not that, that was like the reason. Right. But, um, it definitely like, I think more and more ex business executives and people who have made it really, really far should talk about the sacrifices they had. Because if your goals are to have a healthy relationship and have a family, then sometimes these pathways or this thing that we're glorifying, which is like, you have to be a multimillionaire, you have to do this, you have to do this, come at the expense of things that you maybe actually want in life

Rabah Rahil (48:33):

Perfectly put beautifully put, um, TikTok, overrated, underrated,

Amanda Goetz (48:38):

Underrated. Like I think that we're still just like figuring it out as a platform. Like I, I we're like early adopters are now. We're probably like almost to the peak, but I still say underrated.

Rabah Rahil (48:52):

Yeah. I'm with you on that too. Um, what's your favorite gummy sex drug strength. Stress. What's what's your go to,

Amanda Goetz (49:00):

Uh, it's like saying I have a favorite kid. Um <laugh> so I take the strength gummy every single day. It's the thing that gets me through like that afternoon workout because it's got a very small dose of caffeine and then the, the CBD kind of wipes away the effects of the caffeine. Um, and then the stress gummy is also like probably my daily. And then I actually do the sleep drops, not the sleep gummy.

Rabah Rahil (49:28):

Oh, pro tip people, hearing it, hearing it from the lady herself. Amazing, um, favorite meal and why you had that? Uh, I'll have to link in the show. Now my, that little mash up, you were such a ham. It's so funny. You and your, you had so many just funny meals and faces and oh my gosh. You're just the life of the party, but what's your favorite meal and why?

Amanda Goetz (49:50):

Oh, I love food. Um, <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (49:54):

I

Amanda Goetz (49:54):

Ate so much in Europe. Uh, my favorite meal is breakfast because I let myself eat sugar at breakfast. And so I wake up and I'm like craving. Like I love a sweet breakfast. Like if I can have a new TEUs something or, oh,

Rabah Rahil (50:12):

Naught a girl.

Amanda Goetz (50:15):

Yeah. I I'm I'm down for a breakfast and I just I'm happiest in the Mor I'm a morning person, so yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:22):

Amazing. Uh, favorite fashion brand or designer? Uh,

Amanda Goetz (50:30):

I am not a designer gal. Uh, I wish I was, but I have never been that. Um, like I literally shop at target in Zara and oh, I was like an OG bringing Abercrombie back just for the record. One of those people that like six years ago was like, I think Abercrombie is cool again. So I would say 70% of my wardrobe is Abercrombie.

Rabah Rahil (50:55):

Oh my God. It makes me so happy. I actually used to work there and, uh, a job my, where

Amanda Goetz (51:07):

I still have like fierce, the cologne, like is somewhere

Rabah Rahil (51:13):

And I used to rage in my younger years. And so that was like the worst job to go into hungover. Cause you have this like crazy cologne smell that you got the, um, um, some music like it was, oh my gosh. I remember the good old days to be young again. Um, favorite place travel to and why?

Amanda Goetz (51:34):

Um, I loved, I mean, I did love Switzerland going to the Alps and like hiking and being away from it all. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I don't know if that's just like selection bias. Cause I was just there. I also really love Costa Rica. Like I think that there's so much diversity in like what you can do. Like I went one time and like, like literally one day I'm like white water rafting and then the next day I'm like hiking with monkeys and the next day I'm in like the rain, like the cloud forest, like thing. Like I think that there's a lot you can do. And it's such a quick flight. Like you can literally from Miami, be there and like hour and a half.

Rabah Rahil (52:13):

Oh. So I, I have friends that have like a yoga compound in, uh, Costa Rica. And before it was actually, I was there when the world was falling apart when COVID started and it was the most awkward thing, cuz you're like in paradise, but you kind of wanna go no. So legit, like, so my buddy's dad is like a Buddhist monk and so he'd lead us through meditations and he, it was, he's a strength guy. You should come out next time for, but they had to stop him. Obviously. Now they're kind of back, but there's kind of still some weirdness of travel there and stuff like that. But it was my favorite because I'm so capitalistic, so plugged in and I would go back there and like just I'd lose like 10, 10, 15 pounds. Cause they would bring they'd cook all your food. And like, it was just this, he has an amazing gym and it was do yoga, gym meditate, talk about awesome stuff.
It was uh, there's certain places like this is gonna go hippy dippy, but Sedona in Costa Rica, there there's a, they live in a little bit outside of UTA, but there's certain places I think in the world that have like some natural healing, like capabilities just inert in them. And uh, Costa Rica is definitely, it's a really cool, yeah. Great pick. There are two P of the pod, the me and Amanda. Okay. Last one then we'll wrap it up. If you could have dinner with three people that are alive, who would it be? So you're sitting at a four person table. You're sitting at the head, who's getting the three invites.

Amanda Goetz (53:35):

Oh my God. Michelle Obama.

Rabah Rahil (53:39):

Okay.

Amanda Goetz (53:39):

I wanna know what it, what it was like, what it's like to like be, have a successful relationship, have your individuality, like all those things. Michelle Obama. Okay. I kind of want Oprah too, because I think one they'll have like an interesting dynamic cuz they know each other, but two, I just think like what Oprah has done with her life and she remains single like her whole life. Um, and, and like how she handled, like all the things that she had to be like had she had to go through like her resilience, um, who would I put in there? Dead or alive kind of want brownie wise? Like I wanna know. I'm

Rabah Rahil (54:31):

Just yeah.

Amanda Goetz (54:31):

Yeah. Like I would love to have her and, and also be able to be like, I, I built a company in your honor, like, because we needed more women. Like you like forging the path. Um, and I kind of would do it just so that way she knew that like it wasn't for not like cuz she went into hiding after that and she never, she kind of like died alone. And so I would want her to know that she, her legacy stayed on.

Rabah Rahil (54:54):

Oh, that's beautiful. Bunch of powerful women around the table. I love it. I love it. I love it. Amanda, you made it through that's it. That's the rapid fire. Congratulations. Amazing. Okay. Tell people how they can get more involved in the house of wise, how they can follow you this time is yours.

Amanda Goetz (55:08):

Um, yeah. So if you're interested in trying the products, you can head the house of wise.co, um, and happy to share with you like a discount code. We can drop it in the show notes or something like that. Perfect. Um, then, uh, you can follow me on Twitters where I share more of like my marketing stuff. I do lead a marketing master class with Maven once a quarter, um, where I talk about brand building community building, et cetera, our next cohorts July. So if anybody's listening to this and it's before July, um, we do have spots still available for that cohort. And then Instagram is a cluster fuck of like my, my personal,

Rabah Rahil (55:48):

The best

Amanda Goetz (55:49):

Mom life. Like you've been warmed

Rabah Rahil (55:53):

<laugh> Instagram is the must follow. And the Twitter is a must follow as well where your, your feed is fantastic. And it's definitely, uh, it's funny. It's almost like business entrepreneur, Amanda, and then like, I don't know how it, your Instagram is just a must follow it's so fun. Like it is just the quirkiest most like your captions, your stories. Like you're, you're a lunatic and I love every bit of it. Yeah. That's

Amanda Goetz (56:17):

Awesome. That's accurate.

Rabah Rahil (56:18):

<laugh> that is accurate. Um, amazing. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for taking the time you crushed this. Our listeners are gonna absolutely love it I'm actually gonna get my little house of wise package. I gotta get my health back together. And I know like the big thing for me, I like the idea too, of lining up my day with my body. It's it sounds, it sounds so silly that I've never thought of that before, but sometimes like the, the simplest advice is always the best where it's like, it's simple. Cause it's effective. Like I think sometimes people can overcomplicate things and me, me included, I I'm like the king of over complications. So thank you so much for taking the time. It was amazing. I really enjoyed it. Uh, if you wanna get more involved with triple well, we are try triple.com.
We are on the bird app at triple well. Um, and we also have a tested new newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday, uh, called whale mail. So you can subscribe right on our, uh, Twitter profile. So Amanda, thank you so much. It's glad to have you back in the state safe. And then, um, if you're ever out in Austin, gimme a shout. We're also having a DTC award show called the whales in September. So you gotta come visit, come out to Austin. It'll be fun. Yeah, it'll be a blast. Amazing. Amazing. I'm holding you to that. All right, Amanda. Thanks again for taking the time outta your schedule. Folks, go get you some gummies, go give Amanda a follow on the bird app. And if you are so adventurous, go hit the follow on her Instagram. You not regret it. Thanks Amanda. We'll talk soon.

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