Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Ash Melwani
Co-Founder & CMO of MyObvi
Cody Plofker
Director of E-Commerce Jones Road Beauty

Revealing the BIGGEST Secrets in Media Buying

Welcome to Adspend, a podcast brought to you by Triple Whale! Join our fantastic hosts Rabah Rahil, Ash Melwani, and Cody Plofker as they dive into all things media buying and ecommerce marketing.#Adspend

Notes & Links

Subscribe to Whale Mail for exclusive industry insights and in-depth marketing breakdowns: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tripl...

- Follow Ash on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ashvinmelwani
- Follow Cody on Twitter - https://twitter.com/codyplof
- Follow Rabah on Twitter - https://twitter.com/rabahrahil

Transcription

Cody Plofker (00:00:00):

I really am so bullish on white listing. And it's part of why I'm so bullish on TikTok. It's these same principles, right? It's like literally principles of influence. If you've, if you've read that book, it's like, you're really taking those, those principles and we're just amplifying them with paid.

Rabah Rahil (00:00:25):

Welcome. Welcome everyone. We have the maiden voyage of a brainchild of Twitter actually, where, um, Cody Ash, and I just kind of kept bantering back and forth and kind of the requests from the people as we are men of the people, um, we wanted to give you a podcast. So today's gonna be the first episode of ad spend. I am, co-hosting it with Cody P and Ashmani of my Avi fame. And we're just basically gonna riff around marketing DTC life. And hopefully it'll be the most value you get out of your week, um, in a podcast. So basically just jumping in, unless you guys wanna give any color or background or say hello to the, the fans

Ash Melwani (00:01:04):

<laugh> with up guys, um, you know, super excited to do this. You know, a lot of people have always been like, you know, how are you doing this? Or how are you doing that? I think this is a good way for all of us to kind of just get everything from the community and just address it all at once. Um, you know, so excited to do that. <laugh>

Cody Plofker (00:01:22):

Yeah, yeah. Echo that. I mean, there's so many, you know, obviously mostly from Twitter, I feel like Twitter is like the, the, the, the, you know, center of everything, but like just networking and, and chatting with other people. There's so many great insights. And so, so many people are so willing to learn. And at so many times I've just been on a zoom being like, I wish like everyone could hear this, you know, so I'm sure we'll probably have some guests when one of us can't make it. But, you know, I think all of us are probably, you know, doing, doing pretty similar things and we've had some pretty good conversations. So I'm excited to just kind of learn from each other debate a little bit and hopefully let other people, you know, benefit and just get some ideas from, from us kind of spitball and

Rabah Rahil (00:02:00):

Absolutely. And, and maybe talk some crypto, we got, we got a crypto maxi over here. <laugh> all right. So just jumping in, right. So, uh, Cody was talking with a friend and they were asking kind of beginner level or not beginner level questions, but kind of the million dollar question is what do you think the biggest secret in meat buying is to which Cody replies, uh, brand awareness. Do you wanna expand on that?

Cody Plofker (00:02:25):

Yeah, not, not brand awareness specifically, but I mean, organic traffic, I only am gonna say it, cuz I, when you mention the word brand on marketing Twitter, a little bit, things get a little bit heated and it's also one of those words that's so nebulous, you know, um, but organic traffic, like I personally have, I used to have problems with scaling. You know, obviously a lot of, a lot of people do and a lot of talk about account structure and whatnot. But anecdotally, what I have found is that scaling is really easy when your organic traffic is scaling. Um, there's, there's just, I love media buying. I love Facebook ads. I love TikTok ads now it's, it's what makes me, you know, more passionate, anything but media buyers are so myopic sometimes. And it's like, we don't understand how things exist together in a holistic ecosystem to make up a brand.

Cody Plofker (00:03:20):

And you know, it's so important to keep, obviously everyone's talking about Mer and your marketing efficiency. It's not just about your ROAS and how your ads are performing. It's about how your marketing is doing together. And Facebook is trying to find you buyers at the lowest cost and Facebook. It's like, it's not even when you have exclusions on, it's not really targeting cold prospects exclusively. So the more organic traffic you have filling your funnel, the more data you're gonna get on your pixel, the more signal it's gonna get, the better, all of your numbers are gonna be the more you're gonna be able to scale. So rant over long story short. Um, if you're struggling with, with paid, think about what you are doing organically paid should be amplifying. What is already working well, it shouldn't be your thing.

Speaker 4 (00:04:13):

So Cody real quick. Sorry. No, go go

Cody Plofker (00:04:17):

Guys. Are we debating already? You already

Speaker 4 (00:04:19):

Disagree? No, no, no. I, I think it's, I think a hundred percent I've seen the same, I guess, sentiment where organic needs to be in place. Right. But there's a lot of brands don't have the capability to really nail that part. Right. It's like when you first start a brand you're, you're like immediately paid, right. And I think nowadays TikTok can really help you on the organic side. But prior to that, I mean the, the organic side is, is very tough where I think brands can utilize and leverage, um, is probably influencers. Right. And I think this is what we were kind of discussing last week where, you know, and, and the question I asked you was like, okay, when you guys went viral right on TikTok, does that help everything else? Right. And, and the answer is yes, because so much it, it bring in this awareness at the top of the funnel and it's like, all right, everything just checks out.

Speaker 4 (00:05:11):

Right. So how do other brands figure out how to do that? Because going viral on TikTok is it can either happen a strategy, right? It's not a strategy, right? Like there's no, there's no set strategy there. Um, you can do what you can possibly do to do it, but like, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, I think at least from what I've seen and, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but like when we have some pretty engaging influencers, right? I'm not talking about just content creators. I'm talking about actual influencers who have built the following of very loyal following. And they're promoting actively during their lifestyle, whatever it is in their everyday life. Right. That kind of content. Yeah. The content might be good and it it'll sell the product, but because they're getting organic traffic and like views on like Facebook and Instagram that fuels the top.

Speaker 4 (00:05:59):

So when brands are like searching for like influencers, yeah. Engagement is such a huge factor. Like how they like create content, but it's like, you know, are people going to actually like, like when the influencers post, do they actually get like breach right. Then it's like, I think people are now forgetting that part where it's like, ah, forget it. I don't want the influencer. I don't care if they post, right. I just want a white list. You should care about the engagement because half of the battle is just getting that like organic top of the funnel, you know, audience. And that's what makes everything a little bit better. So I think my question is, you know, at least for us, we've used influencers, but how do you guys think organic should be approached for people with like, you know, lower budgets?

Cody Plofker (00:06:44):

That's a great question. So a hundred percent agree with you. Uh, I'm hoping we get some debates later on, but agree with you for now. I think that, that a few ways to look at it and obviously with tip talk, I think everything has changed and made it so much easier. I think PR is the press is the ultimate litmus test, a having organic traffic, third party, credibility, social proof is, is great for you. But if, if an, if a publication doesn't want to talk about your stuff, your brand, your product, it's probably not that unique. And that's why your Facebook ads are not gonna do well. It's because there's marketing behind Facebook ads. Right. And like a lot of people will tell me, cuz like, you know, we get a ton of press and they'll tell me, well, we just can't get that for our brand.

Cody Plofker (00:07:26):

And like, they kind of say that in this excuse, but I kind of like give them kind of a harsh reality, which is like, if press doesn't wanna write about it, like why should somebody on Facebook care about it? Like how are you? You know, a lot of people talk about like the, the sea of sameness in DTC and like being the 15 skincare brand people. That's uh, that's Jake, the nerd. So that's not, that's not me. Oh, we love Jake. Yeah. Um, but you know, it's like if you're the 15 skincare brand to launch, like why should people care? Like people have seen it so much and you don't, you know, I'm huge on, you know, you don't want to be better. You don't wanna be an improvement offer. You want to be a new opportunity. You, you want to do something. That's organically getting people to talk about.

Cody Plofker (00:08:08):

Cuz that's just good marketing, so that's press. And now if you want to take it like kind of more recently, like web 2.0 version of press is influencers, right? It's a little bit more of a social, slightly decentralized version of, of content, right? Like before social media, the press was only TV. You had, it was very, very centralized. Now obviously you're on Facebook and stuff like that, but still like influencers have voices. So if you're seating to these people and they don't want to talk about it, they don't want to post about it. There's probably a problem. Like that should be your like alpha testing for your Facebook ads. If, if they're not wanting to do it organically, why are people gonna stop when they see your ad and want to wanna scroll? Like that's kind of the litmus test. What do you guys for that?

Rabah Rahil (00:08:55):

I, I like that a lot. I think there's a little bit or to roll back. I think I, I love exactly what you're you guys are saying. I'm totally in alignment that, uh, this is a, a John Coyle shot out, but uh, paid is a, uh, fuel, not a fire. And so like paid augments. It doesn't create. Um, and I also think just mental model wise, I see organic as a foundation. Can you still build a skyscraper on sand? Absolutely. But the chance of that skyscraper being really unstable is really high. Whereas if you're building a really strong foundation of people that really actually care about the brand without really any economic incentive or you P pounding them with ads. And I think those are the true customers that you have and that's kind of the product market fit. And I think a lot of people get into a case where, and this is also another John Cole shot.

Rabah Rahil (00:09:48):

I was like, they understand what their biggest lever is. The pull on, they are pulling on it in a effective manner and it's just not working. And there're just sometimes where people have great products and bad businesses, man, where it's just like the economics just don't work. And so, um, I think that's a big challenge where it's hard to, you know, say your baby's ugly kind of stuff. And so in that case, you can either pivot kill it or, um, you know, maybe switch business models, shorten the sales cycle, you have to change the economics because what you're doing now just isn't netting out. Um, so that would be that aspect. And then ultimately the way I think of kind of getting through, I think what you guys were talking about is, again, that tension of economics where at the beginning content has basically zero short term benefit.

Rabah Rahil (00:10:32):

And so you're putting all these resources into this content where competent compounds, right? Like we, we, at the beginning, you're just screaming into the ether. No, but you might, you know, your mom and your sister are liking the post hoo, this is awesome. But eventually you compound the pavement, you'll find an inflection point. And then you'll just kind of keep gaining that traction. I think that's the challenge that S is talking about. Whereas if I'm coming to you as the CMO and I only have X or Y or Z resources and I have to hit a quarterly goal, you know, can this content get me to that quarterly goal yet? And that could also be short term thinking where it's like, maybe you should be planning into the year goal or in, uh, buy yearly goals. I mean,

Cody Plofker (00:11:11):

I've never got cash to burn now with, with, you know, how hard it is to get launched on Facebook now with like a brand new brand like

Rabah Rahil (00:11:18):

Exactly. But then

Cody Plofker (00:11:19):

You better be prepared somehow you either better have time an existing audience or, or pockets on your side. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:11:26):

Precisely. And again, that's kind of think where a lot of these tensions come out of is that, um, you have a mismatch in either the cash conversion cycle or there's just cash flow issues where like it's a solvent business, but it's just misaligned in the timing. But anyways, I think in a weird way, you're both right. And it's just kind of, I think the foundation of organic, the stronger and bigger that is the higher, you can build a paid skyscraper. Whereas if not, you can still build a paid skyscraper, but then you're gonna have some sort of weird thing come down the pike that just changes the game. And then all of a sudden you have a hurricane and your whole skyscraper that you built is basically useless. And now you have to build another one where you build hurricane proof stuff. AKA organic led, um, growth augmented by paid, I think is a lot more robust than in the long run.

Cody Plofker (00:12:12):

That's a business

Rabah Rahil (00:12:15):

Business people.

Cody Plofker (00:12:16):

When did business, when did you guys launch, how long ago was that

Speaker 4 (00:12:19):

We launched, uh, June, 2000,

Cody Plofker (00:12:22):

19, 20 19 paid primarily you launched on Facebook.

Speaker 4 (00:12:26):

Yeah, no, I, I mean just straight up, like we had one influencer, like nothing crazy, um, posts, we ran ads through their page and then we ran, you know, just branded ads through the page. Um, very tough, honestly,

Cody Plofker (00:12:39):

Pro profitable from the get go or not

Speaker 4 (00:12:42):

We were acquiring no, definitely not profitable. Um, like probably just break even. And, um, I forgot where I was. I was talking about it, but the, we were like, we were just breaking even the entire time. Right. I think our, our niche in our industry is like super competitive. Right. There's so many supplements out there. Right. So we understood this, right. We were, we were bouncing around from other sports nutrition companies, just, you know, handling their ads and stuff. And we knew the name of the game was acquisition. Right. So what we had planned in advance was like, alright, half of the inventory is gonna be for D TOC and the other half, we have to sling it in mom and pop shops, uh, you know, uh, B2B. Right. Because that was where the cash was gonna be. Um, for a while up until like March 20, 20 B2B is what fueled our D TOC. And then once mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, retention kicked in that is when we're like, all right, we can now put the, you know, pedal to the, you know, pedal to the floor on, um, on bid. And we can like DC ended up being 90% of the business where I would say 2019, it was 50 50. Then it became 90 10. Cuz we were like, all right, let's just, we have cash flow now to fuel. Um,

Cody Plofker (00:13:54):

What would you do if you were starting today? 20, 22 same business? What would you

Speaker 4 (00:13:59):

Do? I think,

Cody Plofker (00:14:00):

I mean, just for your like go to market strategy.

Speaker 4 (00:14:03):

Absolutely. I mean go to here's the, here's the thing, right. Are, are you, it's tough to answer that question because it's like, do you have, do I still have the resources that I have now or I don't.

Cody Plofker (00:14:15):

You have what you had then you had what you had in 2019. Okay. Okay. And

Rabah Rahil (00:14:19):

I would also add it matters what the goal is, right? Like is the goal in exit, is the goal to build a profitable company? Is it no,

Cody Plofker (00:14:24):

No, no. Get that context. Get that context outta here. Okay. I'm just trying to prove a point.

Speaker 4 (00:14:29):

Yeah. So I think, no, I, I get where you're going here and you know what my answer is going to be. You have the ability to utilize platforms like TikTok right now to really test a product and see if you can do something with it without having to spend a dime. And that is probably if we were to launch a new brand that for sure, uh, coupled with Amazon and maybe affiliates

Cody Plofker (00:14:56):

You go Amazon. Interesting affiliate. I love that's. Affiliate's a great one. I guess my point though is like the playbook used to be, let's just launch on Facebook, right? Like I remember talking to, uh, a VC probably like, you know, a year or two ago, like, like in the pandemic. And this was when Facebook was super cheap, it was getting like $8 purchases. And like he told me he doesn't invest in any business that that is not fueled organically. And then like they bring the capital yeah. For paid media it's because he wants to, again, like be the fuel, not the fire. That that's what your quote was, right?

Rabah Rahil (00:15:30):

Correct. Or no, that's a yes,

Cody Plofker (00:15:32):

Yes. Right. That's a good one. Right. And to me, I, I was so dumb and ignorant and arrogant at the time. I was like, why? Like I'm getting like $12 tax. Like, like why would you, you know what I mean? Like, Facebook's everything. Like if I was to launch a brand, like Facebook's all you need and you just can't do that. I don't care how good you are at media to succeed on Facebook yet. You just can't do that. I don't think at least

Rabah Rahil (00:15:56):

Not anymore. In my opinion. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. You could no, no. Like there was some nice exits, but that is not the same time.

Cody Plofker (00:16:03):

Sorry, that's what I'm saying. Like 20, 20, 19, 20, 20, you can do that.

Speaker 4 (00:16:07):

It's not profit generation anymore. Like, I mean, even, even for us, right? Like our AOV is like $77. Like our CAC is like 50, like we're losing money on acquisition, but all the, you know, media that we're running, you know, translates to Amazon sales, it translates to retail sales, you know, retention. That is where your profit is gonna be. Um, but I mean, back in the day, you know, like 20, 20, 19 prior to that, you know, AOVs of a hundred dollars, you could get $20 C and you're like laughing all the way to the

Rabah Rahil (00:16:41):

Bank. That's good.

Cody Plofker (00:16:42):

Five bucks.

Speaker 4 (00:16:43):

Yeah.

Cody Plofker (00:16:43):

That's what I mean. So that, that's my only point. Yeah. You're focused. Like you have a good business. You're focused on building a robust business where you've, you're building a retention. I know you do a ton on community. You're optimizing your post click experience. You're doing influencer stuff. You know, you're getting going on TikTok. Like you've got a business and that's why your Facebook ads are doing well in succeeding.

Speaker 4 (00:17:04):

Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, I, I think that's the other part of it too. I mean, retention, a lot of people stop after the first sale. Right. Um, you know, I think on Twitter, I've talked a lot about community building and like, I won't stop talking about it because that is such a core element to your business that like, it's I forgot who said this, or maybe I said, I don't know, it's literally a cheat code. I think you said it, but I like, it's literally a cheat code to like planning the rest of your business. Right. And like, if that, if, if ads stopped today, right. We would still have retention cuz people are still active in that group. Right. And like if somebody posted the group like, oh, I just took this today. And like they see and somebody else sees that post on their feet, that's organic. Right. That's reach. Totally. Um, so I think that aspect of it is like, it's, it helps with, like you said, organic helps with the top of the funnel, but then also increases that retention cuz it's constantly top of mind.

Rabah Rahil (00:18:05):

Yeah. I totally agree with that. The, the other thing I would add in there as well, is that the way you do retention is so clever just with my a cuz it's not really, it never feels silly. Right? It's like, you're a part of going back to that community thing where it's like, you're a part of a community and like you're not, it, it's not this transactional relationship. And I think it goes to something that Cody talks about a lot where there's been this, like since the pixel came out and it was so, so good, there was this huge pendulum swing into a lot of quants getting into media buying, or just kind of quant thinking where everything could just be optimized and reduced to these stats. And then if you can hit these stats almost like trading equities or something like that, then okay, you're doing great. And that worked up to a point. But at the same time, like once you lose that empathy, um, I forget how Cody puts it. He has the great para. I have to remember the paraphrase, but ultimately

Cody Plofker (00:18:57):

I don't remember either

Rabah Rahil (00:18:58):

You, me talking about though, right? The Lulu thing where it's like, you were a custom Lulu, but I'm not really like mono.

Cody Plofker (00:19:04):

I was loyal. I was a high, I was a high LTV customer, but I, I bought the products, not the brand,

Rabah Rahil (00:19:11):

That's it. Right. And so there was no unity. There was no like actual emotional buy-in where, especially with, uh, clothing, it's very, um, intimate, right. Cuz you're actually signaling, you're actually putting this on your body. Um, so I think that, and then the other thing that I would touch on as well is a lot of people are finding, and this is us included, um, like organic channel fit, but not necessarily paid channel fit yet. And so that's, that's a big challenge there where like we, triple's amazing on Twitter, but put Twitter ads are just kind of trash. So it's really hard to throw a bunch of money in there. And so now we're exploring more of Facebook paid and it's actually doing fairly well, but it's still not to the, the, the brand equity from Twitter has not yet carried over to Facebook nor I don't know how much it will.

Rabah Rahil (00:19:54):

Like that's something I'll do kind of trying to link the constellation of, of content together. But, um, that's something that I think people need to be really cognizant of is like, can you find a really awesome product channel fit for paid because then you can really start to scale. Um, and then if you don't, then that's a real challenge and you need to, I think go back to what Cody and Ash are suggesting in kind of building these first principle fundamentals. Like, do people even want your product? Are people excited about your product? Why is your product unique and how can you get them into the essence or the excitement of being part of this community. Right. And even if it's a local

Cody Plofker (00:20:28):

Accident and then throw some fire on that, but get, get the fire burn in, right. Get people talking about it on Twitter, get people, sharing it, like get all the foundations strong. And then, and like, I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite. Like these were hard lessons for me. I was a paid guy only until pretty recently. You know, I, I sold a bit business with my wife who was a physical therapy business, but we ran it very differently. So it was cash based and Facebook was our primarily acquisition channel. And if we turned off Facebook, like we didn't really have like that much else going. Like if I was to do it, like we had a super high LTV. We, we optimized for that. Like we got like average client was like $8,000 to us. It was, it was pretty crazy. But like east coast money, a referral.

Cody Plofker (00:21:12):

Yeah. A referral like stuff never really totally took off. Like, you know, I, I think our customer experience could have been better. Like all that kind of shit. That is part of a business. And we could never really hit like the critical mass that we needed because it was always just getting new people in getting new people in, you know, and it, to me, like that's not a business. If you have a leaky bucket, whatever you wanna call it, like that's not a business and it's gonna be really hard versus like triple oil, what you guys have done so well is like, you know, you, you put out con first of all, you have a differentiated product. It's yes. It's something that exists, but it's, it's different. It's a much better, but it's, it also is different than a lot that, that exists. You get people talking about it because it's, it's, you know, you just have unique value props and there's a lot of excitement about it. So people are like, you know, I get hit up every week. Like, oh, I see this everywhere. I see this everywhere. Like it's crazy. And, and now you go, and now once you guys realize you have something there and you can now invest in it, then you can go and spend on paid and, and test stuff. But it's not, it's not your go to market strategy.

Rabah Rahil (00:22:18):

A hundred percent. Our, our, the going back to, uh, the, what we started with was exactly that brand awareness. We started a newsletter right off the bat and we started a podcast right off the back and we just started printing content, just content, content, content. How can I create value for people? How can people, you know, get value from this that are on different parts of their marketing journey? And, you know, it's, it's manifested, but again, it, it's hard to make that, um, if you're in some cash flow constrained areas, because it doesn't feel like there's value being generated. Right.

Cody Plofker (00:22:50):

So how, that's a good point? Like how long did it take, like to where you really felt like you had momentum? Cause I think that'll be good for some people listening is like, that's one reason I was, I was not very good at it when I owned my business is like, I don't have the patience and it's, it can be really difficult. Like, did you feel like there were times where you were like, I don't really know if this was doing anything

Rabah Rahil (00:23:10):

A hundred percent, but that's why in the beginning. So I'll go a little philosophical on you. But I like to look at leading indicators rather than lagging indicators. And so a lagging indicator would be, I want to have X amount of Twitter followers or, um, I want to get a tweet to go viral or something like that. I really can't control that like explicitly, but what I can control is posting X times of a day, um, writing a newsletter that's of high value and publishing it at the same time, on the same day to build a contract with that person, I can control these things. And so that's how we were basically measuring our success. Like, are we hitting our numbers? It's almost kind of like when you're were working out, right? Like just check the boxes, man. Just check. Cuz at the beginning, there's no reason to measure success.

Rabah Rahil (00:23:50):

Like there there's there that's it man, that again, because content compounds content, isn't like paid media where like paid media, you can hit pockets of success and just spend up in those content. Is this, this compounding thing it's very resource intensive. It needs all this thing. But if you do it right, it's kind of that reap what you sew, where it is very ecosystem. And then to your point, Cody, like now that ecosystem is ready to handle way more things. And so these little plots of land can now sustain a way bigger village than before. If I was just trying to have this mercenary of page strategy. So that that's kind of, but to your point, the inflection didn't happen for two to three months and we were didn't like, you just gotta go, man. You just have to

Cody Plofker (00:24:28):

A little bit uncertain. You just gotta have conviction. Is that kind of

Rabah Rahil (00:24:31):

Not necessarily uncertain, but there was just not enough data to really see. And then we did see things catching on, but it wasn't like, it's not this like, you know, you're going viral thing. And we did do some really good things in terms of seating with some influencers or stuff like that to kind of do some Twitter swarms and get, get things moving. And the other thing that I think we did really well is even though Twitter's really small, the influencer there is so like inordinate to the actual people. And so like, uh, political kind of analogy, like the electoral votes, there are so much higher on Twitter than they are in terms of Facebook or whatever. Like, and so we were influencing kind of those top tier people, such as yourselves. And then that kind of just has second, third, fourth order effects. People it's like fast and the furious stuff like people wanna drive what the winners are driving. People want to use what the winners are using. And so mm-hmm, that was, we weren't trying to satisfy a hundred percent of people. We were trying to satisfy basically our superfan users and then move into our early adopters and then kind of slowly expand that kind of radius of, uh, value. But it was never kind of paid for

Speaker 4 (00:25:38):

See all of that really doesn't like happen unless you have an insane product. Right. I think

Cody Plofker (00:25:44):

When, and that's the foundation, that's what fair point.

Speaker 4 (00:25:47):

You're marketing always be the foundation. Right? Like for example, when, when, um, I first maybe spoke to like AJ, right? We ourselves were trying to build out something very similar just in house. Right. And I had this meeting, like I literally hired a data analyst that day. He came in as an intern and we both sat on this meeting and I'm like, shit, <laugh> like, I just hired this kid to do this and now it's done. <laugh>. Um, but the, but the, the whole point,

Cody Plofker (00:26:14):

But the guy pack his bags and go home.

Speaker 4 (00:26:15):

Yeah. <laugh> no, I was like, you, you set this up for us. You tell us how it works in sleep. But the, the main point, and I think even like Cody, you can probably attest to this, is that the experience you have? Let's just say triple oil is the, the product, right. The experience you have with the brand and the product. Like the fact that we were talking about it before, like anybody else. And it's like, guys, like this tool is amazing, right. That organic, like we were like sharing, we were talking about like, oh shit, I can see the numbers that I've never been able to see before. Right. Or like, you know, you're, you're basically asking us, what do we want out of the platform, right. As what we do within Avi in the community, like what flavors do you wanna see? Right.

Cody Plofker (00:26:55):

That's a growth strategy by the way. Underrated growth strategy.

Speaker 4 (00:26:58):

Yep. No, a hundred percent is that you, once you, like you said, create your like super fan base and it just kind of like disperses out and people start to see like, oh, you're like a die hard, like triple, you know, like Avi Jones road, like you're die hard fan. Like I gotta check this out. Right. And that is where like, people are underestimate like a good product, like, like that to me just blows my mind.

Cody Plofker (00:27:23):

And, and, and so to, to piggyback off of that, like that is, I know we've probably talked about it several. Like that's my approach I'm paid right now. Like I really am so bullish on white listing. And it's part of why I'm so bullish on TikTok. It's these same principles, right? It's like literally principles of influence. If you've, if you've read that book, it's like, you're really taking those, those principles. And we're just amplifying them with paid and you're, you're white listing and it's, I've run shitty white listing too. It's not white listing is like a perfect fix for anything. It's the principles that like, you, you see influencers and you're like, I'm seeing this everywhere. And I'm seeing it from people, even if I don't know who they are. Like, they, they seem credible. They have followings or they just look like it. And like, it's those same principles that like you can leverage and paid once you've gotten it going organically.

Speaker 4 (00:28:13):

There's two brands that come to mind. Right. That like, absolutely nailed that. And I think it's athletic greens and golly, right. As soon as you get into their funnel, you don't leave until you buy. Right. <laugh> I think that's like one of the things where it's like, you need to have this like, alright, yeah, you might have heard of athletic greens, not TikTok. Right. They crush on TikTok. And then you're like, okay, I went to the website, whatever. And then all of a sudden, your feed is just, this is all I take every day, athletic greens, athletic greens. And it's like, shit, like obviously as a marketer, you realize it's retargeting. But like to the, to the consumer, it's like, oh shit, like everyone's taking that.

Cody Plofker (00:28:50):

Well, well, and then, so you get that right. You get everyone's taking it. And then Rava what did you do when you were considering getting athletic greens? Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (00:28:57):

The only reason I got it was because you posted quite

Cody Plofker (00:28:59):

Frankly, like everybody, and then you asked me, but you texted me. Yeah. So you're still skeptical. So you see something on Twitter and tech doc, you see a company saying, buy my shit. My shit is good. Can we curse on here or not? Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:29:11):

We can beep it up.

Cody Plofker (00:29:11):

Uh, you can buy my stuff. Right. And then you're skeptic like, oh, this seems intriguing, but I've heard this from a lot of people before. Is it really good? So I go to the website, I bounce. Then I get in, well, Asher's talking about the whitelisting retargeting funnel. Oh, everyone is taking this. I keep seeing it all over the place. And you're, you're now in consideration phase. Right. You're aware now you're consideration phase. And then you still sometimes need more social proof. Yes. A lot of people buy there and then that's when you actually go to somebody, you know, Hey, what is this, this, you know,

Rabah Rahil (00:29:43):

I'd

Speaker 4 (00:29:43):

Love. Did you do that because you are a marketer yourself. And you're like, okay, I see all the ads or

Rabah Rahil (00:29:48):

No, I know Cody's a health nut. And so I, I, I respect his advice on kind of being healthy. Um, and so that I've been looking for a greens thing, but to be fair, it's probably a confluence of all that, right? Like it's a cool hip DTC brand. I want be hit with the cool kids. Cody's posting. Chris is posting

Cody Plofker (00:30:04):

That's brand Joel posting that's that's brand that's brand

Rabah Rahil (00:30:07):

Brand.

Cody Plofker (00:30:07):

Um, you know, like Ash about that, you know who this is when I first got bullish on, uh, eight sleep. I, I was considering getting an eight sleep. And again, I'm a marketer, so I know what whitelisting is. And I still got the sense of like, everyone is talking about this. And I'm like, wait, I'm a market. Like I should know this. And it's still working on me. Like, that's how powerful the strategy is. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:30:32):

You know what I mean, a really great example of this, cuz it's not even like, not that it's not a great product, but it is in the seas. Sames is liquid death, like liquid death brand. And they're following dude, the, the videos they get in terms of UGC, just the brand, just everything there. They literally sell F and water. It's literally, it's good water. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big liquid death fan, but I've bought more merch water than I have the actual company product of water. And not only that, the economics are horrible. Guess what water is really, really heavy gets. What's really expensive to ship. <laugh> really heavy things. And so it's just like this really. And E they make it work. I mean, I don't know what their financials are, but in terms of like the brand perception of community engagement, it's, it is top tier man and, and it's, um, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, they do a really good job of, I think, cultivating a sincere representation of the brand. I think there's something to be said about that, where you wanna have cohesiveness across, like what you're portraying and what you actually are. If you have that disjointed, it can be kind of all

Cody Plofker (00:31:28):

Right. So then that's a, I have a question for you guys before we, we move on is, so we've talked about like, Facebook is kind of like the, the top, right? If we're gonna do like a hierarchy of, of DTC success, Facebook is the top. It's not the thing we've talked about. Brand and product being really important. We've we've, you know, liquid death is one that's brand and not product. There's obviously some great product. One. You can only pick one. What do you put on the bottom? What's the most important product or brand?

Rabah Rahil (00:31:55):

Explain that. Hi hierarchy to me again. I wasn't try,

Cody Plofker (00:31:58):

Like, yeah, sorry. Sorry. If I didn't explain it, like, so what is most important? Right? Like we've established that brand and product are super important, are more important than Facebook ads, right? So they, they live below it. Facebook ads is up top. That's the icing on a cake, but you just gave us an example about how maybe product is not always that important maybe brand you can crush it with just brand. I bet we could come up with some examples of great products that have shitty brand

Rabah Rahil (00:32:23):

A hundred percent, but

Cody Plofker (00:32:25):

Do you, think's more important. You only get one, you only get one.

Rabah Rahil (00:32:27):

Okay. You want me to go first or you Ash? Yeah, no, go for it. Okay. I think, uh, what's it called my, my thesis cold, hard hill I'll die on is that, um, you cannot have a great brand with a bad product. You can have a great brand with a mediocre product, but the product can't be bad. And so,

Cody Plofker (00:32:43):

So like liquid death is okay.

Rabah Rahil (00:32:44):

Yeah. Not crapping on liquid death, but it's literally water. It's nice. It's fancy, you know, the, the can, but it's the ambiance. It's like going to a really nice restaurant and like, the drinks are great. The ambiance is great. The servers quick, you get like the

Cody Plofker (00:32:57):

Well time,

Rabah Rahil (00:32:58):

Time, perfectly, or like a medium, the food. Yeah. The food's like a seven and eight. Right. And so that's kind of liquid death and it's not on them because there's no movement in how do you improve water? Um, but if the product was bad, like if the water tastes like tap water, then I don't think you can elevate anything. And I've personally like, can you guys name a bad or a great brand with a bad product? It's hard. Right. I can't be

Speaker 4 (00:33:22):

Honest. Honestly mean I can, if I'm gonna be completely honest, like I think liquid Ivy is a great brand. I hate the product. I don't like the taste really. Yeah. Like I prefer, I, and I, I, I really like H right. I like the brand. I like the product again. It's a taste thing. It's, it's not anything other than that. Sure, sure. But like, I know liquid Ivy is a great brand, but I'm not gonna buy it over and over again. Cause I just genuinely don't like the taste. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so that's like, so to answer the question for you, uh, Cody, I would probably prioritize product because it's like, you're spending all this cash to acquire customers. If they're not coming back, like, what's the, what's the point? Like you can have a dope as brand. Like, what is that gonna do? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it'll probably help acquisition. Right. But it's not gonna help retention, which is where money is Uhhuh

Cody Plofker (00:34:08):

<affirmative>.

Rabah Rahil (00:34:09):

Yeah, that, that that'd be my thesis. What would you go with brand or product. Okay.

Cody Plofker (00:34:14):

I think I'm gonna go product. I'm trying to think if there's other examples like that, like, like you said, like of great brands with bad products, I don't think so. I don't think they last for long.

Rabah Rahil (00:34:25):

That's the problem

Cody Plofker (00:34:27):

It's it's called at least like I come from like direct response marketing, like true direct pro direct response. They call it the, the O yuck. Yep. Uh, phenomenon. When you over promise something, it's like, so you can have a super, super strong headline, but then your lead into that sales letter or whatever it is, has to live up to that. If you capture somebody's attention with click bait, and then you're like, well, now that I got your attention, that's kind of, you get the O yuck response. And then that turns people away. So that would be like, if liquid death was like a terrible product or athletic tasted terrible

Rabah Rahil (00:35:00):

Precisely. And so that there's a, you know, uh, argument to make that athletic greens might be a mediocre product, but it's not bad. And so kind of to your point, Ash, I think there's a difference between preferences versus like objectively bad, where it's like, you just don't like liquid death versus like there's some objectively bad athletic or greens powders out there, athletic greens

Speaker 4 (00:35:20):

In general. Like it's a,

Rabah Rahil (00:35:22):

It's mediocre. It's

Speaker 4 (00:35:23):

Better than that. It's bad. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:35:25):

Yeah, exactly. And so I, I think that, and, and the reason I think that happens is to your point, Ash, is the economics just start to degrade where it's all those people that you thought you were kind of, of their LTVs were literally their AOVs like they, ain't never coming again. And furthermore, they're probably gonna tell people, never to buy from you either because the, the, yeah. Pendulum swings both ways. So if you delight people fantastic, if you piss people off, it is not a good place to be. That can start to impact your Facebook page rating. That page rating can then start to impact your CPM. Like there's just a whole bunch

Cody Plofker (00:35:58):

Of, and then you're like, why are my not working well? Like, it must be my creative. It must be my, my, uh, I need a 4% of the, instead of a 10%,

Rabah Rahil (00:36:08):

A hundred percent. Uh, I love it.

Cody Plofker (00:36:11):

Can I say one, one quick pet peeve about brand before we move

Rabah Rahil (00:36:13):

On? Yes. Wrap

Cody Plofker (00:36:15):

It. One thing that drives me crazy, like, we're talk like we're talking about it and we're marketers. We're like, you know what? I buy this stuff. Like, you know, you're like, I, I love what liquid death brand I'm obsessed with it. Like the product's not even that good. I can't stand when people refuse to admit that they buy stuff for, because of brand. Some people are like that. Like I got on a debate on Twitter the other day and you know, it was like, ah, I don't care what brand it is. I do do it for the product. And it's like, they say that while they're like packing up their $2,000 map book pro into their like fancy ass bag and walk out to their Tesla. And it's like, so unaware. I'm like, fuck it. Like, dude, I, I have a nice watch. I literally don't even know how to tell an analog watch. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:36:57):

That's

Cody Plofker (00:36:57):

Amazing of the product

Rabah Rahil (00:36:59):

That is complains and rich kind of stuff there. Yeah. I got, I got a helicopter. I don't even know how to fly it, but I got a helicopter. No, no. That's, that's amazing.

Cody Plofker (00:37:06):

Like saying like so many of the purchases that we do and that we make, we make because of the brand. And it's like, we can either lie to ourselves as marketers and, and say we don't, or we can say we do and understand that's how people buy. And people are, are seeking connection in every purchase that they make,

Rabah Rahil (00:37:23):

Uh, a hundred percent. And furthermore, I'm a big believer that every purchase is already made in the mind. And so there's just a certain timeframe of like you getting enough, uh, evidence or enough basically stories to tell yourself or your significant other or somebody else why you're so smart for getting this or why you're so smart for getting that. And that's also, if you dive into jobs to be done theory, when people start asking friends or, uh, people in their network about something that's exactly when the switch from passive looking to active looking happens where it's like, you are so committed now to put money down that you're checking with people, um, versus before you're just kind of like window shopping. You're in fantasy land. You're like, oh, that's a cool Porsche. Oh, that's a nice range Rover, but you really haven't committed. And then you're like, oh cool, Ash, you like your Porsche. Oh, cool. Let's talk like you're now switching the active looking. So it's a kind of interesting tidbit there, but

Cody Plofker (00:38:11):

What, what's something that you are going to buy that, you know, you're going to buy that you're just not there yet. Like, what's an example of that for you. The, those

Speaker 4 (00:38:20):

Philip Hughes lights.

Rabah Rahil (00:38:22):

Oh gosh. Yes. I have a million

Speaker 4 (00:38:24):

Of them. The ones where like, where you attach it to your TV. Right. And it like sinks. Yep. I've I've been trying to get it right. And it's like sold out everywhere. And then I think it was in stock for like black Friday. And I was like, I gotta go buy a TV first. So then I bought the TV and then it was outta stock. So now I'm like, shit, I gotta get this. But as soon as it's back in stock, I gotta get this. But like, I've, I've like I had a rodeo of mine. Who's set it up in his house and like will go, he'll play music. All the lights are syncing. Every I'm like, I fucking need this shit. And it's outta stock and now I can't get it, but like, I'm, I'm there, but I need to get it. That

Cody Plofker (00:39:01):

Is so funny. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:39:03):

I did, uh, it's a, it's a trip. So it's a little bit different of a purchase, but I was, I bond to my VIP tickets. There's a big UOC in Houston. And so like, my fiance told me about it and it's always right. Like I had no idea. I wasn't gonna think about it. The fiance kind of dropped it in the ear. And then she shows me the tickets. And then I sometimes like to go a little bougie. So I'm looking at like, what's the craziest thing we can do. We haven't been on a trip in a while and then it was too much money. So I'm like, no way, I'm not gonna do it, not gonna do it. And then two and a half months, like I just pulled the trigger a week ago. And this was like, in November of like the, a new, like Derek Lewis just came on the car. There was all these things that like, just a little bit, just a little bit, then it's just like, ah, you know what? And then you get into kind of epic where it's just like, you know what? Throw the Amex on there. Let's light this thing up. <laugh> I

Speaker 4 (00:39:49):

Deserve it

Rabah Rahil (00:39:50):

Exactly is once you can remove that inertia and just get into the, I deserve it face. I love it. All right. Let's take some listener questions. What do you guys say?

Cody Plofker (00:39:59):

Yeah, let's do

Rabah Rahil (00:40:00):

It. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. This let's jump into this. One's for you, Cody, I think. And then Ashley, I'd love to hear your perspective as well. So this is from, uh, lady name, Hannah Jerome Evans. Okay. Scenario colon. They're starting one DTC brand in 2022. And they can only acquire customers through one single method paid or organic on one single platform. What do they choose and how would they approach it? Okay. So

Cody Plofker (00:40:28):

I'm so excited for this one.

Rabah Rahil (00:40:29):

Okay. So one let's nail down a DTC brand. So we can at least have a little bit of context of what we would

Cody Plofker (00:40:34):

Do. Like what's the brand are doing that.

Rabah Rahil (00:40:36):

Oh, we're starting one. Sorry. Sorry. We're starting one. I didn't get that. Yep. Okay. Tracking. Okay. So we just started one. Okay. So we just started a brand it's 20, 22. We can only acquire customers through one single method, paid organic on one single platform. What do they choose? Okay. You wanna go Cody?

Cody Plofker (00:40:52):

Yeah. And then I got a good story too, about it. Okay. That'll that'll share so TikTok, if you can't tell, if you haven't filed me on Twitter at all, uh, at Cody bluff, I, I, I am one track minded. So once I get going on something, you know, it's all I think about. And right now it's TikTok. I, I really think it's amazing. And I was one of those people that was like, this is the dumbest thing in the world. It's just dancing. Like fought it hard. I truly think you can build a really good business on TikTok alone. Not that you wanna be single channel, but here's what I would do. Let's let's assume. I mean, do we want to say hypothetically, it's probably bootstrapped. Probably no existence, no money. Oh, no money. So, so we're not gonna run paid right away, right? Nope.

Cody Plofker (00:41:36):

Everything we we're talking about, I'm hoping it's a product. That's gonna get people excited. Want to talk about it? So I'm doing two things. First of all, I'm seating, TikTok, finding people that make great contact content talk marketplace, not even saying anything, just getting them posted, just getting the word out there, getting people, seeing it. If I wanna speed that up a little bit, what I'm going to do, I don't have cash. Right? What I'm going to do is I'm gonna give equity to a content creator with an audience. They are gonna be a brand ambassador. I'm gonna give them whatever percent of my brand that I'm comfortable with. We're gonna work with them. They're gonna post on their own. They're gonna create content for us. We'll probably make some bundles and skews around them. Like, we're gonna go, like, they're gonna be like our macro influencer.

Cody Plofker (00:42:24):

Um, we're gonna use them for, for strategy. You know, their network who they know that's who I'm looking at. They're gonna, they're gonna make all of our content that should get you to a reasonable level of sales. If that doesn't get you at least off the ground, getting some cash in the bank, getting some data back about, again, building a customer list a little bit, building an email list. Again, like, you know, you, you, you gotta be thinking about how you're gonna build that list. If that doesn't give you some learnings and some cash, I wouldn't start with paid, cuz there's a problem there. The foundation's fucked, you know? Good. And then what I'm gonna do is exactly all I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna amplify that. What I would do is I would test that's like your alpha or beta testing of, of your ads, of your creative, right?

Cody Plofker (00:43:11):

Everyone talks about creative testing. You gotta test your angles. You gotta test your hooks. I'm gonna test that organically on TikTok. I don't think a a social team, a organic social team should be running TikTok. I think your growth team should be running TikTok. I that you're, you're testing your, and again, I'm all about testing. Big things like angles and concepts, more than tiny things like this color or this font I'm testing out. Once you get something that's hitting, that's above your KPI and, and above your averages, I'm gonna create three dark posts from that angle. So let's say we're selling a supplement and it's a weight loss angle, right? You could go a weight loss. You could go, uh, better skin. If we're talking about collagen, you could go bones. I'm gonna test those angles. See what's resonating best. Let's say weight loss is working best. I'm gonna take that content, throw three different hooks on it. I'm gonna launch them on the creator's TikTok as dark posts. So they're organic posts, but they're dark. You can't see 'em and then I'll launch them on paid. But I'm not just randomly throwing money behind things. I'm getting traction. I'm getting people talking about it. I'm getting some learning. And then once that stuff is working, that's how I'm starting to test paid. And I'm just amplifying. What's what I've already found to work organically. I love it. That's my thought

Speaker 5 (00:44:28):

That wait, Cody, I'm going eight and a half outta 10, maybe

Rabah Rahil (00:44:31):

A nine strong

Speaker 4 (00:44:32):

Post on the dark post. Are, are you still getting like, you're not getting views on that, right? Or are you

Cody Plofker (00:44:40):

No, no. That's that's only paid.

Speaker 4 (00:44:42):

So are you okay? So what you're saying is, all right, now you've tested these angles, right? You found that waste loss is the one, right. Then you're tossing up three different angles, dark post it, and then you're running them as that.

Cody Plofker (00:44:54):

Yeah. I mean you could, if, if you don't mind that like the same content in very similar ways appears on your page,

Speaker 4 (00:45:01):

That's probably

Cody Plofker (00:45:02):

Then you could just

Speaker 4 (00:45:03):

Not have the dark. Yeah, no, that makes sense. But that would be stage two, right after the organic approach, you start getting a little bit of sales coming in and stuff. No, I agree. The only thing I would add to that is I would have retargeting running on Facebook.

Rabah Rahil (00:45:18):

Okay. You broke the two, hold on. But you broke the two channel. There's a single channel. Covenant. Oh, single

Speaker 4 (00:45:22):

Channel. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.

Rabah Rahil (00:45:24):

So you can only pick one.

Cody Plofker (00:45:25):

I mean, I mean, so let's, let's get some email and SMS go and somehow then

Rabah Rahil (00:45:29):

Yeah, well that, I would consider that another channel though, as well.

Cody Plofker (00:45:32):

Oh, is that a channel? I mean, that's not a paid channel.

Rabah Rahil (00:45:34):

I consider own media, but definitely a channel.

Cody Plofker (00:45:37):

That's a channel. All, I guess it depends.

Speaker 4 (00:45:40):

Then the other thing is, is that I feel like all these other channels don't work without those as well. I mean, the question is pick a channel, right? That's fine. That that would be your top of the problem. But I think also like fine, even if it's not paid, I think you'd still need the, the back end. Like that should always be like set up otherwise like yeah.

Cody Plofker (00:46:00):

Personally. Yeah. I don't consider that a channel.

Speaker 4 (00:46:03):

Yeah.

Cody Plofker (00:46:03):

I don't know. Like I know it is a channel, but it's not like when I think channel, I think you're like a paid channel or like a organic, like,

Speaker 4 (00:46:09):

It's not like you don't, you don't choose whether or not to use it. Like you, you have to use it. Yeah. It's like, okay, who take TikTok

Rabah Rahil (00:46:17):

Or staff? Jersey, boys emails, a channel. He savages emails a channel. Get over it.

Cody Plofker (00:46:21):

No, but I think in the context of this question, it's not, cause it's like, you're gonna set up email, all things being, it doesn't cost.

Rabah Rahil (00:46:27):

You can have that, that aside. So that's already set up if it gives you more, you

Cody Plofker (00:46:31):

Can't retarget on Facebook.

Rabah Rahil (00:46:32):

So you're be, yeah. You cannot retarget on Facebook though. I'm I'm holding my ground there. So Cody you're in, on all in, on TikTok, organic Ash, where do you start building?

Speaker 4 (00:46:41):

Um, not honestly. Like I think a lot of people have asked me this question, like, oh, I don't have that much budget. Right. Like where do I start? I can't tell somebody to dive into Facebook anymore. Like, whereas like maybe two years ago you could have been like, all right, start with a hundred bucks a day and see where it goes. TikTok. Like the power and the like last night, uh, the girls, right. We started a podcast with them. They just, you know, every day they're they're, you know, in their mid twenties, they just talk about most random shit. And they're hilarious. Right. So they started a TikTok account. Okay. They posted this random video and I got 300,000 views overnight. And I'm just like, what the hell just happened. Right. And

Cody Plofker (00:47:19):

Any revenue bump?

Speaker 4 (00:47:21):

Well, no, cause it's completely, it's not, it's not linked to,

Cody Plofker (00:47:23):

Oh, not at yours.

Speaker 4 (00:47:24):

Okay. Purely based on the, on the podcast. Right. But the thing is that somebody, somebody like context wise right within the video or like, it was basically like, oh, I spend all this money, blah, blah, blah. But I'm still broke. Right. It's like relatable to these girls. Right. <laugh> and somebody commented. It's like, you got your, you get your nails done three times a month. And uh, they commented back like, yeah, I take college and protein, I use AFI. Right. And you just plug it into the comments and pin it. And it's like,

Speaker 4 (00:47:51):

You know, that is how you kind of start getting things like rolling where it's like, you're putting out relatable content. Right. It's not like, okay guys, I've just tried this collagen protein, blah, blah. Like it may or may not do well. Right. But like the fact that something's relatable and it'll, it'll actually go viral, then you have that like link it right. To like the product and things. I think that's what my approach would've been because for us, and I've told you this Cody, like, um, we haven't been able to kind of utilize TikTok just cuz of supplements. Right? Um, it's I think we're for other brands, like maybe makeup, right? You can literally show the effects, right? Yeah. Or food, you can prepare something, right. Colleges. It's like, you gotta trust beyond this. It works, you know? So <laugh> so that's, I think, I think that's my approach, you know, I, I think if you have a product that you can show, right. Um, that TikTok would probably would probably crush, I mean, organic wise, like, you know, seeding influencers, but then also having, you know, um, the organic strategy just from the brand itself,

Cody Plofker (00:48:51):

Is there a product? Cause I know everyone's always like, well that won't work for me. That won't work for my product. Like my, my customers are not on TikTok. Is there a product or an audience that you guys would, would change it and say, don't go tick TikTok first. I'm curious. Wait, what you think?

Rabah Rahil (00:49:08):

Well, so I'm actually gonna give you my answer first, cuz it is my bad, my bad to give, to give a little heat. Um, cuz it's kind of walking down this path, honestly, if I was starting a DTC brand and again, depending on the business model, um, I would actually lean into a YouTube channel and slack. I would start really heavily building a community and smashing videos on either how to use the product, why to use the product, all this stuff through my YouTube channel and try and have those video touch points and then have some

Cody Plofker (00:49:35):

Why YouTube over TikTok though.

Rabah Rahil (00:49:37):

Cause it's longer form and I can get, I, I think I totally agree with you in terms of one playing devil's advocate. But two, I agree with you like tos are actual lottery tickets, but um, YouTube is a better place to build a community. And so you can get somebody subscribed to your channel. You can do lives where I think TikTok is a better place to create a community, but that community lives elsewhere.

Cody Plofker (00:49:59):

You just can't beat the distribution on TikTok right now. It's not always gonna live like this. Yeah. Yeah. You just can't beat that. You don't get that anywhere else right now.

Speaker 4 (00:50:08):

No, but totally. I'm curious. How, how would you approach like the discovery, like you're saying like you get people to subscribe, is it like, like what is that process?

Cody Plofker (00:50:16):

You got zero people, right? Like brand new YouTube page. Yeah. Yeah. How are you doing that? You got zero people.

Rabah Rahil (00:50:24):

I mean that's a fair point, but again, I think there is an aspect of building a community around that and what I would do would be ultimately do we have customers or we don't have any customers,

Speaker 4 (00:50:33):

No brand new

Rabah Rahil (00:50:35):

Yeah. Customers. Yeah. I mean it would then again kind of be a marketing play as well, or as I can go out and pimp my product to people, I can be like, oh, and here's just a new video. Check it out. Oh you have problems. I can do something. Where are you pimping your product to them? Oh, I can't go outta channels. So I guess I have to do some YouTube searching and go through. So

Speaker 4 (00:50:52):

You're going SEO is your distribution strategy?

Rabah Rahil (00:50:55):

No, I'm going

Speaker 4 (00:50:56):

Influencers on YouTube.

Rabah Rahil (00:50:58):

Yeah. So do I get an influencer cuz that's something that I would do. I would build a, a co community with that influencer or have somebody lead up that community. But the too long didn't read, I'm super bullish on TikTok. But the thing about TikTok is, um, talk's kind of like the club, which is fantastic. You meet 'em at the club, but then you need to get 'em back to the church. Like what what's the church. And so I think that YouTube can be, uh, a church, uh, a slack as well. And so that, that's kind of my thinking there agreed that you could, I would be hard pressed to say that you guys are wrong. I just wanted to give a different perspective where I think the, the too long didn't read is you wanna build in a place where you can, uh, quickly aggregate community Goodwill and give people a really easy way to evangelize the product and, or, um, give you feedback and tighten up that feedback loop. And I think YouTube and, um, slack or two ways.

Speaker 4 (00:51:49):

I mean it slack a channel. Facebook is slack a channel. Well, you guys took email back on that one. Well, you guys took, well, you took

Rabah Rahil (00:51:55):

Emails, you taking slack.

Speaker 4 (00:51:56):

Slack is slack channel.

Rabah Rahil (00:52:00):

Great question. So I think again, this goes back into

Speaker 4 (00:52:04):

You can't do slack or Facebook group. It brings rules. They're both. If you guys are you

Rabah Rahil (00:52:10):

Email, I'm getting slack. I'm not taking

Speaker 4 (00:52:12):

My no, no, that's fine. That's fine's like fantasy draft. I'm I'm just curious. It's a flex receiver slack in general, right? Like aside from the question, how would you slack in, like why would you use slack instead of Facebook? This is outside of the question.

Rabah Rahil (00:52:24):

Yeah. So I think it's a fantastic, uh, question one, because slack is more of an owned media where Facebook, you're still renting Facebook. You're not paying with anything, but other than your information, whereas your slack channel is your own fem that you can control and do pretty much whatever you want in it. Um, and so I think that is why I would do it in there. And then you can also segment a little cleaner where Facebook again is more and we have a Facebook group too, that we're gonna lead lean heavily into. I was just the too long didn't read is I was trying to take a really hard information, um, showing off how to use the product, unboxing the product kind of, uh, attitude towards it versus going TikTok first. And to be fair, you know, you could use that same strategy on TikTok. You just, um, restricted to three minutes. So, um, maybe if this is a higher LTV product where I could really go into the, the, um, the story a little more, but um,

Speaker 4 (00:53:21):

I dunno, last question. So do you, have you seen anybody do slack? Well,

Rabah Rahil (00:53:28):

Great point. Not, no. I've seen people do slack really well in groups. I have not seen it work really well. So we're actually, uh, doing this, but again, it's not necessarily open group cuz it's Nawa nation, which is actually closed off to only triple well users. So it's a little different where well sanctuary would be kind of more akin to what you're talking about. But no, the reason why I think is slack. Isn't great. When you get into the economics, like if you want to go to a paid plan, it's actually really, really prohibitive. And the other thing is like, if your group does go viral, like you're actually, there's marginal cost to your group growing, I would say,

Speaker 4 (00:54:03):

So there's some his cord then if you wanna go

Rabah Rahil (00:54:06):

Route I disc I, I, so I love discord. The problem with discord is it's not as good as slack in terms of archiving. And like, discords like just this little brain dump of people and it's like, it's hard to asynchronously go in there. And so the way I see slack is kind of an epicenter of high level content that people can drive into. And so like for example, on the NARAL nation, we'll have Cody watching the attribution ch or not Cody Corey watching the attribution channel. We'll have you guys come in and do talks in these other little channels in terms of performance, TikTok, Facebook, and so more. So this knowledge sharing and gathering to empower people with education. I think slack does a really good job of that and it's easy to segment it and profile or not profile, but um, you know, permission, sharings and that kind of thing. I think it's great. But I do think it's incredibly prohibitive in terms of the economics. So I do take your point on the Facebook.

Speaker 4 (00:54:54):

No fair. No. I

Cody Plofker (00:54:55):

Mean, I'm all, I'm all in on community. I just think you you're cheating cuz slack is a channel,

Rabah Rahil (00:55:01):

But you took so if Slack's a channel and email's not a channel, the cognitive exist and there I can Chuck through it.

Cody Plofker (00:55:08):

I wasn't even gonna say email and SMS or, or retargeting. I was gonna say TikTok only I wasn't. So I don't need,

Rabah Rahil (00:55:15):

I'll go YouTube only. I'll go YouTube

Cody Plofker (00:55:17):

Only. You're on YouTube only. Okay.

Speaker 4 (00:55:18):

Yeah. Rob has him figure out how he's gonna subscribers first before you figure out the slack channel.

Cody Plofker (00:55:23):

Yeah. True. True. But you know you, but that's a good point. You have to think distribution first when you're launching.

Rabah Rahil (00:55:30):

Yes. Distribution's king. I would a hundred percent agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. And, and

Cody Plofker (00:55:33):

I'm trying to think, go ahead. Sorry.

Rabah Rahil (00:55:36):

Oh, I was just, I think you guys are spot on that if you bought, uh, like you buy lottery ticket on Instagram, no way you're pulling it. You bought like, even if you're big, it's hard to surface and Explorer. Whereas back in the day you had a video, you could, you could definitely get some reach Facebook. Yeah. Right. Paid another incumbent platform.

Speaker 4 (00:55:50):

Chronological order literally just paid an account to post game

Rabah Rahil (00:55:54):

More dun Z um, Twitter, you can still hit some things here or there. The thing is, Twitter has a high bar for bullshit and things can get toxic really quick, so it can be challenging to make it nice. Um, and then TikTok really is pulling a lottery ticket where it's not really based on your social graph, it's just basically performance and engagement and it just surfaces the coolest shit to you. And um, so yeah, you guys are spot on in terms of the bets. I'm just, I'm just giving a different perspective. I'm just trying

Cody Plofker (00:56:19):

To like test my bullishness. Like I'm trying to think, like, let's say I was, was launching like eight sleep today. Like I'm trying to think of like a high AOV item. If I would do TikTok,

Rabah Rahil (00:56:28):

I would, because again, you guys can get somebody to the club and then from the club to some sort of destination and then, then that destination there in your marketing ecosystem. And if you have a $3,000 product, $2,000 product, you can, you can spend pretty heavily, not only directly like explicitly on them, but also like ancillary where, you know, you might buy email subscribers and see, see how much it costs. You know, email subscriber might cost 20 bucks takes two or three months to convert, but they convert it $3,000. It's like, you'll buy as many of those as they're selling. Yeah. Okay, cool. We wrapped that one up. So, so we went to TikTok, TikTok, YouTube, and I think the, the, the talkers will prevail, but we should, we should try. But it's hard. It would be hard to, it'd be hard to experiment this though. Right? Cuz you'd have to normalize it and I don't know how you would do that. There's too many confounding variables. Maybe a brand anyways. <laugh>

Speaker 4 (00:57:18):

Maybe that'll be your best

Rabah Rahil (00:57:19):

<laugh> yeah, exactly. Oh, this is a good one. This is a classic. This is actually, you're not your Roha so you guys should be ready for this cuz you've been asked this already. Um, which three people dead or alive would you have to dinner and why? And then they can be fictional non-fictional and it's a four person dinner everybody's eating at the same time. Who wants to go first?

Speaker 4 (00:57:37):

Let me go. Cuz it was really real quick. Right? Drake, wanna party Zuckerberg and Tim cook. And when you go to fight it out, we're gonna figure it out.

Cody Plofker (00:57:46):

<laugh> that's so funny.

Rabah Rahil (00:57:47):

That's amazing. That's pretty good. That's pretty amazing. <laugh> Cody, who do you got?

Cody Plofker (00:57:53):

Oh man. I know who I said it would probably be a little bit different just depending on the mood. I am definitely Jay-Z he's always the first person that comes to mind. Um, I'm gonna go Elon Musk.

Rabah Rahil (00:58:04):

Ooh love.

Cody Plofker (00:58:05):

And I'm gonna go Sasha bear and Cohen dressed as Bo at

Rabah Rahil (00:58:08):

Oh is he in the boar at uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like demeanor as well. Like that's his personality.

Cody Plofker (00:58:13):

Oh, that's what I mean, like yeah. Oh

Rabah Rahil (00:58:14):

Yeah. That's beautiful.

Cody Plofker (00:58:15):

It would just be so funny.

Rabah Rahil (00:58:17):

Oh, I love it. I think I'm gone. Carl Sagan cosmos. He's like one of my idols. Um, Alexander, the great just cuz he was crazy. Um, and then who else? Marcus? Aures big stoic. I like, I

Cody Plofker (00:58:30):

Like that. It shows like what you spend your time doing and content versus mine. <laugh> I'm over here. I'm I'm TikTok and, and Bo at and your Marcus Aures

Rabah Rahil (00:58:40):

To be fair. I think your Aus golf is playing off. There's there's some ripples going around that you're actually pretty formidable. So I, I might have to take some practice swings before I jump into the, um, okay. Let's see. What's another good one we got here. Oh this is a fun one. Or let's go through berries real quick and then cuz we're kind of pushing up against it. Okay, cool. So one, okay. We'll start with you Ash. Favorite life hacks. Favorite mistake in the past year and favorite berries. And this is from uh, a good friend Barry hot on the Twitters.

Speaker 4 (00:59:09):

I mean favorite Barry has gotta be very hot <laugh> boom. Um, checked. Um, and then what was the own? Um, my

Rabah Rahil (00:59:17):

Favorite life hacks.

Speaker 4 (00:59:19):

Favorite life hack. And then favorite mistake, right?

Rabah Rahil (00:59:21):

Mistake in the past year. Yep.

Speaker 4 (00:59:23):

Favorite mistake in the past year. Damn. I have to think about Cody. Do you have yours

Cody Plofker (00:59:30):

Favorite? I, nah, I don't have a mistake yet. What do I

Rabah Rahil (00:59:33):

Do? You need me to fill time? You guys that's the waitress comes up. Are you guys ready to order? Yes. We're ready to order.

Speaker 4 (00:59:40):

Start

Rabah Rahil (00:59:40):

With him Cody. Oh no, no. Can you order RA? He sends a bit. Okay. Um, let's see. So definitely Barry Sanders is my favorite. Barry. Second is Barry hot for sure. Uh, my favorite life hack is this is gonna kind of sound cheesy. Um, but when the morning when the day, like I find that when my mornings are hectic and frantic, um, I feel behind my day it really just makes me feel unsteady. So I try and I'm back on the workout train. Um, and then I, I basically just have, try and have some sacred time in the morning from like six to 7 38, 8:00 AM to kind of just stay out of the, the craziness cuz I, I find I lose myself in the day sometimes and it it's challenging. So I think really for me when you're morning, when you're day and stack, um, I would say also do less things, but do, um, them better. Um, so pretty much my day is structured around three to five big milestones. Um, and I ultimately run basically like two sprints through the day where I'll run like a nine to 12, nine to one sprint. Um, then I'll either go for a walk or have a lunch and then I'll run like a two to six, um, sprint. And I just basically have those things cuz if not, uh, I get pulled in so many different directions and the, the biggest superpower you can have, I think is focus. Uh, favorite mistake in the past year.

Cody Plofker (01:00:53):

It's such a funny way to say it. Favorite mistake.

Rabah Rahil (01:00:57):

Well, I'll go. I guess my biggest, my financial one was probably just not, uh, I had a bunch of in the money options and it was cocaine and champagne in November and I ate a bunch of money. Lost, lost those. So that wasn't a fun one, but let's see my favorite mistake. Oh, maybe like a delightful mistake. Maybe, maybe something that you thought was gonna be bad that turned out great. Mm-hmm <affirmative> maybe that yeah. However

Cody Plofker (01:01:18):

You interpret it. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (01:01:19):

Um, what would that be for me? Um, not D in Hawaii. Um, we went and hiked this really, really dangerous trail called the kow and I ended up having to get medivaced out. So it was kinda crazy. Oh my God. Yeah, crazy. Right. And I'm oh my shape. I've done back country before and I just got super dehydrated and yeah. Could have went scary, really tits up pretty quickly. So yeah, it was a driving, a lot of gratitude. So not being dead is my favorite mistake.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):

<laugh> um, I think I got mine, um, very similar to yours dude. Um, I think my favorite life hack is, um, I started, I just started doing it this year. Right. But literally like a half hour before I go to bed. Cause I had just races. Right. It's like, what am I doing tomorrow? Like what what's going on? Literally write it down. Right? Like here's the top three things that I'm gonna do as soon as I get into the office tomorrow. And it just like, it helps calm me down. Cause it's like, I know what I have to do now. So that I think has been super helpful. Like just getting a todo list, ready to go the day before so that you can actually sleep. But like those thoughts are outta your head. Um, favorite mistake? I don't know. I, I don't know if this is a favorite mistake, but like this is the one thing that I, I would, I think during 2020 during like pandemic and things like that, I really wish we realized what trajectory E eCom was gonna go in at that time. And I really wish we doubled down then compared to, you know, post iOS, oppo apocalypse. Um, but yeah, I think that's one of, one of the things I wish I do.

Rabah Rahil (01:02:54):

Great answers. Cody.

Cody Plofker (01:02:56):

Did you say a favorite Barry? I don't know if I heard

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):

That, uh, very hot man that over Barry. I know it was my favorite. He

Rabah Rahil (01:03:01):

Went very hot.

Cody Plofker (01:03:03):

All all right. I'm up. So favorite life hack. I hate to sound like a Silicon valley tech bro, but cold showers, like legitimately changed my life. Um, I'm saving up for a cold plunge right now.

Rabah Rahil (01:03:14):

Warm finish and a house or cold the whole way.

Cody Plofker (01:03:17):

No, no, I think it's it's most effective if you just end on cold.

Rabah Rahil (01:03:21):

So just stay cold the whole time podcast.

Cody Plofker (01:03:23):

Yeah. I'm on a podcast. What?

Rabah Rahil (01:03:26):

Oh, look at this. We have a guest. The guest speaking. Yeah, no it's good. The wifey

Cody Plofker (01:03:30):

Telling you. No, no. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you gotta, you gotta end cold. I don't think it's it's as good if you end warm. So that's honestly a game changer it

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):

Hot and go cold.

Cody Plofker (01:03:44):

Uh, you you're supposed to like, I, I, you know, watch some like whim ho stuff. So you can like go warm and then go cold for like two months.

Rabah Rahil (01:03:50):

Oh really?

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):

That I could do.

Cody Plofker (01:03:52):

I, I think so, but I'm just trying to go straight in, but yeah. So I want the cold plunge, but um, reduce stress, reduce tightness. It's it's been really great. Um, I'm a huge fan. Um, favorite mistakes this past year. That's such a hard one. Favorite mistakes.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):

Cody's perfect guys.

Rabah Rahil (01:04:14):

<laugh> I know he no,

Cody Plofker (01:04:15):

No, no buy buying Bitcoin in one was that, that was probably like

Rabah Rahil (01:04:22):

In the,

Cody Plofker (01:04:23):

In, in the high sixties.

Rabah Rahil (01:04:25):

Woo that's spike. What's it floating around mid thirties, 30,

Cody Plofker (01:04:31):

30 thirties, thirties

Rabah Rahil (01:04:32):

37 thirties. Oh my gosh. What's the sailor probably going crazy right now.

Cody Plofker (01:04:38):

No, no, I'm I, I bought one yesterday. I bought one today. Uh, so I it's still gonna be whatever, this is not a Bitcoin podcast. So

Rabah Rahil (01:04:46):

I knew I'd get some crypto outta you.

Cody Plofker (01:04:48):

Yeah. And then, uh, favorite Barry Obama.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):

Ooh,

Cody Plofker (01:04:53):

That count, right?

Rabah Rahil (01:04:55):

Yeah. Barry Obama. Who's that?

Cody Plofker (01:04:57):

Like they call him Barry

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):

Barry.

Rabah Rahil (01:04:59):

Oh really? I didn't know that. Yeah.

Cody Plofker (01:05:00):

I think it's a good nickname. You know?

Rabah Rahil (01:05:02):

I didn't know that that was a Nick. I love it. Uh, okay. Let's wrap up on there's two more. If you guys don't mind, I know we're kind of pushing it along, but I'm just having so, so much fun with you guys. Okay. First things you do if given the keys to each other's businesses. Ooh, this is, this is spicy. Do you need me? You guys need me to order first again?

Cody Plofker (01:05:25):

I mean, I don't know Ashley's business as well, so I don't know if I have enough to say there, but I I'll. I'll go

Rabah Rahil (01:05:32):

Pontificate.

Cody Plofker (01:05:33):

Uh, I'm trying to help Ash get approved on TikTok. So I would say I would just go full bore, you know, set up calls with reps, doing whatever you have to do to get your TikTok account up and running. That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):

I mean, I would love that. <laugh> um, <laugh> no, I, I mean maybe even for you, I don't, again, I, you might be already doing this, but I would fully just go hard on the Facebook communities, honestly. Like just set up that. Not at all. Yeah, no, just setting up that bridge from, you know, post checkout or straight into a community where people could be, you know, sharing tips and stuff. Cause I feel like makeup is such a very like tutorial space. Right. And think

Cody Plofker (01:06:13):

That's a big community

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):

Space yeah. To share what's going on. And like, you know, oh, I tried this with this and that, that I think is where I would fully spend my time right off the

Cody Plofker (01:06:22):

Bat. Smart. Smart. Totally. Yeah. We gotta do that. What, what do you recommend for triple and then I'll go

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):

Trip. Oh, I mean guys are just killing it. <laugh> um, no, I think for triple I would probably, I, I don't know if you guys are already doing this, but like some type of educational like library, right? Yeah. Where it's like, cause a lot of people like, oh, why, why do you like triple well, right. And like, why I like triple well is different from everyone else. Right. But being able to be like, okay, here's how you use this for this or this, for this. Right. So I think that is probably where I would utilize or add, you know, some type of benefit or yeah,

Rabah Rahil (01:07:12):

Yeah. Totally tracking.

Cody Plofker (01:07:16):

Um, yeah. I think triple has the opportunity to be the best direct to consumer educational resource that, that exists on the, on the internet. I would think it's like, you know, again, I'm, I'm huge on linear commerce, right? Like building content alongside

Rabah Rahil (01:07:33):

A web.

Cody Plofker (01:07:34):

How can you be the masterclass, the direct to consumer masterclass masterclass for direct to consumer. Yeah. But probably give that away for free cuz your product is so good.

Rabah Rahil (01:07:45):

Yeah. So you guys are spot on um, big brand.

Cody Plofker (01:07:48):

Like I would, I would start a podcast with like, you know, maybe two other dudes,

Rabah Rahil (01:07:51):

Two hitters. Right?

Cody Plofker (01:07:52):

Good

Rabah Rahil (01:07:53):

Looking guy guys. Well spoken in DTC. Yeah. Um, no that you guys are absolutely right. I don't

Cody Plofker (01:07:57):

Know why you're not doing that. Come on man.

Rabah Rahil (01:07:59):

<laugh> um, we have triple well university, we're just finalizing the curriculum and then that's ultimately kind of what we're gonna do. And to your point, coding will have, uh, a thousand dollars entry price. But if you are using triple well, you'll have access to all the curriculum. So just kind of to put a little quantification on that, but yeah, that's absolutely the, I, I think that's absolutely the right call and um, right now we're we have some Q1 goals we need to check off and we probably wouldn't be able to get that live by Q1. So it's gonna be probably a Q2 launch, but um, huge, huge there. And not only that, it can be kind of this living doctrine of, you know, kind of just how to run a business profitably and some ways to get started. And I think there's just a lot of people at different points in their business journey.

Rabah Rahil (01:08:39):

And so it's just really helpful to have some place to start where there's really no incentive to lie to you. There's, you know what I mean? It's just like, here's the best stuff from how we've scaled and how we've talked to other DTC owners that have scaled. And you know, obviously there's gonna be context, but just understanding the P and L just understanding some broad things about Facebook or just paid media in general. So you can talk to maybe if you do higher channel experts, um, or paid media people at a higher level and just not get your shirt taken. So, um, yeah, I'm spot on with that one. I love it. So let's see let's let's dish some out now. Uh, so I think both of your guys are just crushing in terms of brand. I think from my a, this is gonna sound weird because you know, there's definitely some, you know, health implications with COVID, but I would work into like starting like actual conferences and throw a little conference together and put people, bring a bunch of people together, have a little party suss it up and then see what that does to kind of everything.

Rabah Rahil (01:09:31):

Almost like a, not a Mary Kay makeup party, but a little bit of that, you know what I mean? Like you can have some, yeah, but host, you know, a couple day conference in Miami or something like that, bring a bunch of people out, have some fun, get integrated with the brand, get some special swag. Um, you can invite, you know, your top LTV customers. You can, you can figure out how to do that. You could stream some stuff, you could have some beauty tips, you could have some health tips you could do. You know, basically all the things that you have around your brand have some extras coming and just throw, throw a party and have a bunch of people come in and see what happens. And then you can also, you know, throw some sauce on subscription plans where you can build out kind of almost a subscription package where it's like, Hey, do you want your whole health covered, um, click this button and we'll send everything to you every month.

Rabah Rahil (01:10:12):

Here's how you use it. Here's how people are getting value out of it. And then, um, you can kind of, uh, have that in terms of that. I think, cuz you just have such a fun community that I think in person stuff would be a really cool, interesting expansion and you know, there's, there can be some ways where you, you make it economically viable as well for Jones. That's a good one. What would I do for John's? You guys are just you guys hitting also there's I think maybe piggyback it. You could, you don't have a strong YouTube presence yet, correct? No, not yet. I would smash that. I would cuz you can, I basically piggyback a lot of your TikTok content into YouTube reels and then I would just hire influencers, having different looks I'd have like a look of the week or something like that and just have people and then, oh how do you replicate this look?

Rabah Rahil (01:10:56):

Okay. And then you can have different women with different skin tones or I don't, I'm not sure in like the machinations of how you match all that stuff. I'm sure you are, but um, basically just have these people on like, Hey, here's some avatars that you can look like here's, what's awesome. Here's some tips and just really build a huge community around YouTube. Um, you could even do some bigger giveaways on there. You could do YouTube lives on there to really engage the community. What's really cool too. There's something called stream yard where you can actually run lives across your social channels. And so that's what we do for state of the whale. And if somebody comments on the Facebook page or the YouTube page, it'll actually show the comment in your dashboard and you can kind of just go through things. So you could just do an AMA with makeup experts or an AMA with fashion and you can kind of touch these ancillary products of like, oh cool. What shade, what outfits go well with this shade to really understand, you know what I mean? Like that that's the end game of how can I, um, create a, uh, way for people to use this product in a way that makes them happier and more excited about their appearance? I think that's the biggest sell with Jones where it's like, it's incredible, incredible makeup. And the, the things that you can do, it's not about changing how you look, it's about giving yourself more confidence. Um, so I think, yeah,

Cody Plofker (01:12:06):

Somebody's been watching our talks

Rabah Rahil (01:12:07):

Shabo you see? You see? Um, so that, that, but again though, I think that's why I would smash into YouTube cuz you can go into some longer form stuff that, um, can sometimes be a little more impactful where um, TikTok is fantastic though. Don't get me wrong with there's a three minute. No, no, no. Yeah. Kind of thing where you can do some more stuff where like a makeup tutorial might not take three minutes or Hey, how do you organize your bathroom or Hey, how like again, just getting in the people's lives, right? Like, Hey, here's some great organiz or here's some great ways to organize your makeup. Here's some cases for makeup here's um, different, uh, exfoliating creams and stuff that we recommend. Here's our favorite kind of like all these things that are ancillary. You're not selling them product, but you're selling again. Like we're gonna give you better skin. We're gonna give you help. Boom, boom, boom web. So that, that would be my, my kind of two things that YouTube. And then, um, for Ash, I would start throwing parties. Peop

Cody Plofker (01:12:57):

I don't know if we talked about this. Um, people go to gold belly.com whenever you get a second go to gold belly TV. Okay. That's our 2023 plans. It's essentially it's it's masterclass for X, but it's non gated masterclass. It's it's just teach something again all alongside linear commerce.

Rabah Rahil (01:13:18):

Yeah. Why don't you just do it on YouTube? You get, you get all the same benefits and you get the, um, exposure of YouTube. Cause we're actually starting to get surfaced. And actually, uh, both of your podcasts are starting to surface in recommendation feeds now. Um, and so why, why would you get, remember aren't you the one about distribution doctor distribution over there? Why, why are you going in a gated community when you get, listen,

Cody Plofker (01:13:42):

Listen, we got, this is a 20, 23 plan we'll we'll we will talk about, we will talk about

Rabah Rahil (01:13:50):

This is figure that out. This is exactly what I would recommend. This is sick. This is, this is really cool.

Cody Plofker (01:13:55):

And, and I think its, it applies for every business, like the linear commerce strategy. Like I Tru I truthfully think it applies. If anybody like doesn't know, I know we're running out of time and we could talk about it more, but like linear Commerce's web Smith's term, uh, 2:00 PM. Um,

Rabah Rahil (01:14:08):

It's

Cody Plofker (01:14:09):

Essentially great news building pub building, uh, publishing competency alongside, you know, physical product. So you're always having an audience and you're, you're having a digital supply chain to go alongside your, your physical products. That's, you know, his, his thesis is that it's, you know, it's it's as important of a skill for, uh, DTC brand as is products as publishing, whether what, whatever kind of content that is.

Rabah Rahil (01:14:34):

Yeah. Strong thesis watch I'll link the, uh, essay, the linear com essay. It's really good. He has a few of 'em but yeah, it's a really interesting mental model. Okay. Boys we've came to the end of it. I got one last question. We'll do some plugs and then we'll get on our ways. All right. This is and shout out to, um, Brendan Bonnell for the first things question Barry hot, and then RO will get your question next week. Um, let's do this one. This is from Ibrahim MASU. I hope I didn't butcher that. Okay. If they rather had to work in a different startup as an entry level, which startup would it be and why? Ooh, I love this. I have two

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):

Go for it.

Rabah Rahil (01:15:16):

Um,

Cody Plofker (01:15:16):

I'm not ready to order yet.

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):

<laugh> jeez,

Rabah Rahil (01:15:20):

Killing me. Small. It's killing. Um, I think Stripe and kava are doing some pretty, pretty incredible things. Um, and I, I would definitely, I mean, obviously I would never leave. This is my dream to be, you know, chief at a startup, but the, if I did have to go back entry level, I think strip and Canver to the, uh, private companies that are gonna be just massive.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):

I think I would, I, I think I would probably work for some type of de toy brand that is honestly killing it. Like whether that be like an athletic greeds or like, you know, a golly, but something along those lines where like I can really learn what strategies are propelling these guys to, you know, billion dollar valuation. So definitely, definitely that I think,

Rabah Rahil (01:16:16):

Yeah, I love it Cody,

Cody Plofker (01:16:20):

If I'm not where I am right now, um, different start as an entry level entry level. All right. So we're starting all over,

Rabah Rahil (01:16:30):

Starting back on the bottom of the totem.

Cody Plofker (01:16:35):

I guess I'm gonna pick D to C I'll stay in direct consumer. I think if there was a brand that, you know, I was looking for a rollout, probably go eight sleep, um, you know, a health, not huge into it. It's interesting. Kind of combining, you know, se several of my passions. I'm a huge fan, um, dope company. So I think that's probably what I would go with.

Rabah Rahil (01:16:56):

Fascinating hate sleep. Wow. Interesting. All right, boys, we reached the end of the train. I hope you guys enjoyed your ride to profits. Uh, Cody, do you have anything to plug? Do you wanna toss your Twitter handle will plug your newsletter. What do you got Jones?

Cody Plofker (01:17:11):

Yeah, I got, got a, got a few plugs. So, uh, at Cody plot on Twitter, um, write a newsletter, trying to do one, one a week, you know, uh, that's really good. Gotten some pretty good feedback on it. Uh, triple will shared some of it. So definitely subscribe to that and then we are staffing the hell up. So if you're, if you're looking for a role, hopefully I can plug that pretty much. You name the role, whether that's marketing, um, supply chain CX, every role you can think of, just, just get in touch.

Rabah Rahil (01:17:42):

What's the best way to get in touch with you on the Twitters,

Cody Plofker (01:17:45):

Uh, DME on Twitter.

Rabah Rahil (01:17:46):

Okay, cool. Beautiful

Speaker 4 (01:17:48):

Ash. Yeah. I mean, if you wanna, you know, chat or see some of the stuff that we're putting out, um, Ash, Finn, Melani on Twitter, uh, posted pretty much everything that's going on at Avi. Um, you know, we're, we're trying to figure out TikTok. We we're, we're figuring out Facebook as we go along. So definitely, um, check me out there, but you being collagen, my a.com.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:13):

That's what I was waiting for. You. You're not even gonna plug the bars. Those things are

Speaker 4 (01:18:17):

Amazing. Oh, so

Rabah Rahil (01:18:18):

Those were so dope. The, uh, I think it was the fruity pebble. What's the, that, that flavor.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):

The fruit cereal. Yeah. Fruity cereal

Rabah Rahil (01:18:25):

Strong. They were actually they're delicious.

Speaker 4 (01:18:27):

Yeah. If you're looking for protein bar, definitely check out the bars that we got because they're addictive.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:33):

Strong. Yeah. The pretty serial ones are strong. I,

Cody Plofker (01:18:35):

I found I'm gonna come and raid the office one day.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:37):

Exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):

Come by man. Come by. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:41):

All right, fellas, that's it. The first one in the books, how exciting the crowd goes? Wild. Um, well thanks again, everyone stop for stopping in for her first episode of ad spend. If you do wanna get more involved with triple whale, it is tri triple well.com. Go ahead and sign up. No invite code needed. Um, we do have a newsletter called whale mail. You can grab a subscription on our Twitter page was, is at tri triple whale. Uh, yeah. And then reach out to me on at Rob Ray hill on the bird app. And then this is it. We need, I need to think of a cool little sign off. I don't. I D know how to, how thank you, San Diego. Good morning to be, to, to be determined, but, uh, for now Roba Cody. Ash. Thank you guys. And then, uh, we'll see everyone on the flip

Speaker 4 (01:19:22):

Til next time.

Rabah Rahil (01:19:24):

Bye.

ā€

Podcast

Revealing the BIGGEST Secrets in Media Buying

March 18, 2024

1:19:43

Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Ash Melwani
Co-Founder & CMO of MyObvi
Cody Plofker
Director of E-Commerce Jones Road Beauty

Episode Description

Welcome to Adspend, a podcast brought to you by Triple Whale! Join our fantastic hosts Rabah Rahil, Ash Melwani, and Cody Plofker as they dive into all things media buying and ecommerce marketing.#Adspend

Notes & Links

Subscribe to Whale Mail for exclusive industry insights and in-depth marketing breakdowns: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tripl...

- Follow Ash on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ashvinmelwani
- Follow Cody on Twitter - https://twitter.com/codyplof
- Follow Rabah on Twitter - https://twitter.com/rabahrahil

Transcription

Cody Plofker (00:00:00):

I really am so bullish on white listing. And it's part of why I'm so bullish on TikTok. It's these same principles, right? It's like literally principles of influence. If you've, if you've read that book, it's like, you're really taking those, those principles and we're just amplifying them with paid.

Rabah Rahil (00:00:25):

Welcome. Welcome everyone. We have the maiden voyage of a brainchild of Twitter actually, where, um, Cody Ash, and I just kind of kept bantering back and forth and kind of the requests from the people as we are men of the people, um, we wanted to give you a podcast. So today's gonna be the first episode of ad spend. I am, co-hosting it with Cody P and Ashmani of my Avi fame. And we're just basically gonna riff around marketing DTC life. And hopefully it'll be the most value you get out of your week, um, in a podcast. So basically just jumping in, unless you guys wanna give any color or background or say hello to the, the fans

Ash Melwani (00:01:04):

<laugh> with up guys, um, you know, super excited to do this. You know, a lot of people have always been like, you know, how are you doing this? Or how are you doing that? I think this is a good way for all of us to kind of just get everything from the community and just address it all at once. Um, you know, so excited to do that. <laugh>

Cody Plofker (00:01:22):

Yeah, yeah. Echo that. I mean, there's so many, you know, obviously mostly from Twitter, I feel like Twitter is like the, the, the, the, you know, center of everything, but like just networking and, and chatting with other people. There's so many great insights. And so, so many people are so willing to learn. And at so many times I've just been on a zoom being like, I wish like everyone could hear this, you know, so I'm sure we'll probably have some guests when one of us can't make it. But, you know, I think all of us are probably, you know, doing, doing pretty similar things and we've had some pretty good conversations. So I'm excited to just kind of learn from each other debate a little bit and hopefully let other people, you know, benefit and just get some ideas from, from us kind of spitball and

Rabah Rahil (00:02:00):

Absolutely. And, and maybe talk some crypto, we got, we got a crypto maxi over here. <laugh> all right. So just jumping in, right. So, uh, Cody was talking with a friend and they were asking kind of beginner level or not beginner level questions, but kind of the million dollar question is what do you think the biggest secret in meat buying is to which Cody replies, uh, brand awareness. Do you wanna expand on that?

Cody Plofker (00:02:25):

Yeah, not, not brand awareness specifically, but I mean, organic traffic, I only am gonna say it, cuz I, when you mention the word brand on marketing Twitter, a little bit, things get a little bit heated and it's also one of those words that's so nebulous, you know, um, but organic traffic, like I personally have, I used to have problems with scaling. You know, obviously a lot of, a lot of people do and a lot of talk about account structure and whatnot. But anecdotally, what I have found is that scaling is really easy when your organic traffic is scaling. Um, there's, there's just, I love media buying. I love Facebook ads. I love TikTok ads now it's, it's what makes me, you know, more passionate, anything but media buyers are so myopic sometimes. And it's like, we don't understand how things exist together in a holistic ecosystem to make up a brand.

Cody Plofker (00:03:20):

And you know, it's so important to keep, obviously everyone's talking about Mer and your marketing efficiency. It's not just about your ROAS and how your ads are performing. It's about how your marketing is doing together. And Facebook is trying to find you buyers at the lowest cost and Facebook. It's like, it's not even when you have exclusions on, it's not really targeting cold prospects exclusively. So the more organic traffic you have filling your funnel, the more data you're gonna get on your pixel, the more signal it's gonna get, the better, all of your numbers are gonna be the more you're gonna be able to scale. So rant over long story short. Um, if you're struggling with, with paid, think about what you are doing organically paid should be amplifying. What is already working well, it shouldn't be your thing.

Speaker 4 (00:04:13):

So Cody real quick. Sorry. No, go go

Cody Plofker (00:04:17):

Guys. Are we debating already? You already

Speaker 4 (00:04:19):

Disagree? No, no, no. I, I think it's, I think a hundred percent I've seen the same, I guess, sentiment where organic needs to be in place. Right. But there's a lot of brands don't have the capability to really nail that part. Right. It's like when you first start a brand you're, you're like immediately paid, right. And I think nowadays TikTok can really help you on the organic side. But prior to that, I mean the, the organic side is, is very tough where I think brands can utilize and leverage, um, is probably influencers. Right. And I think this is what we were kind of discussing last week where, you know, and, and the question I asked you was like, okay, when you guys went viral right on TikTok, does that help everything else? Right. And, and the answer is yes, because so much it, it bring in this awareness at the top of the funnel and it's like, all right, everything just checks out.

Speaker 4 (00:05:11):

Right. So how do other brands figure out how to do that? Because going viral on TikTok is it can either happen a strategy, right? It's not a strategy, right? Like there's no, there's no set strategy there. Um, you can do what you can possibly do to do it, but like, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, I think at least from what I've seen and, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but like when we have some pretty engaging influencers, right? I'm not talking about just content creators. I'm talking about actual influencers who have built the following of very loyal following. And they're promoting actively during their lifestyle, whatever it is in their everyday life. Right. That kind of content. Yeah. The content might be good and it it'll sell the product, but because they're getting organic traffic and like views on like Facebook and Instagram that fuels the top.

Speaker 4 (00:05:59):

So when brands are like searching for like influencers, yeah. Engagement is such a huge factor. Like how they like create content, but it's like, you know, are people going to actually like, like when the influencers post, do they actually get like breach right. Then it's like, I think people are now forgetting that part where it's like, ah, forget it. I don't want the influencer. I don't care if they post, right. I just want a white list. You should care about the engagement because half of the battle is just getting that like organic top of the funnel, you know, audience. And that's what makes everything a little bit better. So I think my question is, you know, at least for us, we've used influencers, but how do you guys think organic should be approached for people with like, you know, lower budgets?

Cody Plofker (00:06:44):

That's a great question. So a hundred percent agree with you. Uh, I'm hoping we get some debates later on, but agree with you for now. I think that, that a few ways to look at it and obviously with tip talk, I think everything has changed and made it so much easier. I think PR is the press is the ultimate litmus test, a having organic traffic, third party, credibility, social proof is, is great for you. But if, if an, if a publication doesn't want to talk about your stuff, your brand, your product, it's probably not that unique. And that's why your Facebook ads are not gonna do well. It's because there's marketing behind Facebook ads. Right. And like a lot of people will tell me, cuz like, you know, we get a ton of press and they'll tell me, well, we just can't get that for our brand.

Cody Plofker (00:07:26):

And like, they kind of say that in this excuse, but I kind of like give them kind of a harsh reality, which is like, if press doesn't wanna write about it, like why should somebody on Facebook care about it? Like how are you? You know, a lot of people talk about like the, the sea of sameness in DTC and like being the 15 skincare brand people. That's uh, that's Jake, the nerd. So that's not, that's not me. Oh, we love Jake. Yeah. Um, but you know, it's like if you're the 15 skincare brand to launch, like why should people care? Like people have seen it so much and you don't, you know, I'm huge on, you know, you don't want to be better. You don't wanna be an improvement offer. You want to be a new opportunity. You, you want to do something. That's organically getting people to talk about.

Cody Plofker (00:08:08):

Cuz that's just good marketing, so that's press. And now if you want to take it like kind of more recently, like web 2.0 version of press is influencers, right? It's a little bit more of a social, slightly decentralized version of, of content, right? Like before social media, the press was only TV. You had, it was very, very centralized. Now obviously you're on Facebook and stuff like that, but still like influencers have voices. So if you're seating to these people and they don't want to talk about it, they don't want to post about it. There's probably a problem. Like that should be your like alpha testing for your Facebook ads. If, if they're not wanting to do it organically, why are people gonna stop when they see your ad and want to wanna scroll? Like that's kind of the litmus test. What do you guys for that?

Rabah Rahil (00:08:55):

I, I like that a lot. I think there's a little bit or to roll back. I think I, I love exactly what you're you guys are saying. I'm totally in alignment that, uh, this is a, a John Coyle shot out, but uh, paid is a, uh, fuel, not a fire. And so like paid augments. It doesn't create. Um, and I also think just mental model wise, I see organic as a foundation. Can you still build a skyscraper on sand? Absolutely. But the chance of that skyscraper being really unstable is really high. Whereas if you're building a really strong foundation of people that really actually care about the brand without really any economic incentive or you P pounding them with ads. And I think those are the true customers that you have and that's kind of the product market fit. And I think a lot of people get into a case where, and this is also another John Cole shot.

Rabah Rahil (00:09:48):

I was like, they understand what their biggest lever is. The pull on, they are pulling on it in a effective manner and it's just not working. And there're just sometimes where people have great products and bad businesses, man, where it's just like the economics just don't work. And so, um, I think that's a big challenge where it's hard to, you know, say your baby's ugly kind of stuff. And so in that case, you can either pivot kill it or, um, you know, maybe switch business models, shorten the sales cycle, you have to change the economics because what you're doing now just isn't netting out. Um, so that would be that aspect. And then ultimately the way I think of kind of getting through, I think what you guys were talking about is, again, that tension of economics where at the beginning content has basically zero short term benefit.

Rabah Rahil (00:10:32):

And so you're putting all these resources into this content where competent compounds, right? Like we, we, at the beginning, you're just screaming into the ether. No, but you might, you know, your mom and your sister are liking the post hoo, this is awesome. But eventually you compound the pavement, you'll find an inflection point. And then you'll just kind of keep gaining that traction. I think that's the challenge that S is talking about. Whereas if I'm coming to you as the CMO and I only have X or Y or Z resources and I have to hit a quarterly goal, you know, can this content get me to that quarterly goal yet? And that could also be short term thinking where it's like, maybe you should be planning into the year goal or in, uh, buy yearly goals. I mean,

Cody Plofker (00:11:11):

I've never got cash to burn now with, with, you know, how hard it is to get launched on Facebook now with like a brand new brand like

Rabah Rahil (00:11:18):

Exactly. But then

Cody Plofker (00:11:19):

You better be prepared somehow you either better have time an existing audience or, or pockets on your side. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:11:26):

Precisely. And again, that's kind of think where a lot of these tensions come out of is that, um, you have a mismatch in either the cash conversion cycle or there's just cash flow issues where like it's a solvent business, but it's just misaligned in the timing. But anyways, I think in a weird way, you're both right. And it's just kind of, I think the foundation of organic, the stronger and bigger that is the higher, you can build a paid skyscraper. Whereas if not, you can still build a paid skyscraper, but then you're gonna have some sort of weird thing come down the pike that just changes the game. And then all of a sudden you have a hurricane and your whole skyscraper that you built is basically useless. And now you have to build another one where you build hurricane proof stuff. AKA organic led, um, growth augmented by paid, I think is a lot more robust than in the long run.

Cody Plofker (00:12:12):

That's a business

Rabah Rahil (00:12:15):

Business people.

Cody Plofker (00:12:16):

When did business, when did you guys launch, how long ago was that

Speaker 4 (00:12:19):

We launched, uh, June, 2000,

Cody Plofker (00:12:22):

19, 20 19 paid primarily you launched on Facebook.

Speaker 4 (00:12:26):

Yeah, no, I, I mean just straight up, like we had one influencer, like nothing crazy, um, posts, we ran ads through their page and then we ran, you know, just branded ads through the page. Um, very tough, honestly,

Cody Plofker (00:12:39):

Pro profitable from the get go or not

Speaker 4 (00:12:42):

We were acquiring no, definitely not profitable. Um, like probably just break even. And, um, I forgot where I was. I was talking about it, but the, we were like, we were just breaking even the entire time. Right. I think our, our niche in our industry is like super competitive. Right. There's so many supplements out there. Right. So we understood this, right. We were, we were bouncing around from other sports nutrition companies, just, you know, handling their ads and stuff. And we knew the name of the game was acquisition. Right. So what we had planned in advance was like, alright, half of the inventory is gonna be for D TOC and the other half, we have to sling it in mom and pop shops, uh, you know, uh, B2B. Right. Because that was where the cash was gonna be. Um, for a while up until like March 20, 20 B2B is what fueled our D TOC. And then once mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, retention kicked in that is when we're like, all right, we can now put the, you know, pedal to the, you know, pedal to the floor on, um, on bid. And we can like DC ended up being 90% of the business where I would say 2019, it was 50 50. Then it became 90 10. Cuz we were like, all right, let's just, we have cash flow now to fuel. Um,

Cody Plofker (00:13:54):

What would you do if you were starting today? 20, 22 same business? What would you

Speaker 4 (00:13:59):

Do? I think,

Cody Plofker (00:14:00):

I mean, just for your like go to market strategy.

Speaker 4 (00:14:03):

Absolutely. I mean go to here's the, here's the thing, right. Are, are you, it's tough to answer that question because it's like, do you have, do I still have the resources that I have now or I don't.

Cody Plofker (00:14:15):

You have what you had then you had what you had in 2019. Okay. Okay. And

Rabah Rahil (00:14:19):

I would also add it matters what the goal is, right? Like is the goal in exit, is the goal to build a profitable company? Is it no,

Cody Plofker (00:14:24):

No, no. Get that context. Get that context outta here. Okay. I'm just trying to prove a point.

Speaker 4 (00:14:29):

Yeah. So I think, no, I, I get where you're going here and you know what my answer is going to be. You have the ability to utilize platforms like TikTok right now to really test a product and see if you can do something with it without having to spend a dime. And that is probably if we were to launch a new brand that for sure, uh, coupled with Amazon and maybe affiliates

Cody Plofker (00:14:56):

You go Amazon. Interesting affiliate. I love that's. Affiliate's a great one. I guess my point though is like the playbook used to be, let's just launch on Facebook, right? Like I remember talking to, uh, a VC probably like, you know, a year or two ago, like, like in the pandemic. And this was when Facebook was super cheap, it was getting like $8 purchases. And like he told me he doesn't invest in any business that that is not fueled organically. And then like they bring the capital yeah. For paid media it's because he wants to, again, like be the fuel, not the fire. That that's what your quote was, right?

Rabah Rahil (00:15:30):

Correct. Or no, that's a yes,

Cody Plofker (00:15:32):

Yes. Right. That's a good one. Right. And to me, I, I was so dumb and ignorant and arrogant at the time. I was like, why? Like I'm getting like $12 tax. Like, like why would you, you know what I mean? Like, Facebook's everything. Like if I was to launch a brand, like Facebook's all you need and you just can't do that. I don't care how good you are at media to succeed on Facebook yet. You just can't do that. I don't think at least

Rabah Rahil (00:15:56):

Not anymore. In my opinion. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. You could no, no. Like there was some nice exits, but that is not the same time.

Cody Plofker (00:16:03):

Sorry, that's what I'm saying. Like 20, 20, 19, 20, 20, you can do that.

Speaker 4 (00:16:07):

It's not profit generation anymore. Like, I mean, even, even for us, right? Like our AOV is like $77. Like our CAC is like 50, like we're losing money on acquisition, but all the, you know, media that we're running, you know, translates to Amazon sales, it translates to retail sales, you know, retention. That is where your profit is gonna be. Um, but I mean, back in the day, you know, like 20, 20, 19 prior to that, you know, AOVs of a hundred dollars, you could get $20 C and you're like laughing all the way to the

Rabah Rahil (00:16:41):

Bank. That's good.

Cody Plofker (00:16:42):

Five bucks.

Speaker 4 (00:16:43):

Yeah.

Cody Plofker (00:16:43):

That's what I mean. So that, that's my only point. Yeah. You're focused. Like you have a good business. You're focused on building a robust business where you've, you're building a retention. I know you do a ton on community. You're optimizing your post click experience. You're doing influencer stuff. You know, you're getting going on TikTok. Like you've got a business and that's why your Facebook ads are doing well in succeeding.

Speaker 4 (00:17:04):

Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, I, I think that's the other part of it too. I mean, retention, a lot of people stop after the first sale. Right. Um, you know, I think on Twitter, I've talked a lot about community building and like, I won't stop talking about it because that is such a core element to your business that like, it's I forgot who said this, or maybe I said, I don't know, it's literally a cheat code. I think you said it, but I like, it's literally a cheat code to like planning the rest of your business. Right. And like, if that, if, if ads stopped today, right. We would still have retention cuz people are still active in that group. Right. And like if somebody posted the group like, oh, I just took this today. And like they see and somebody else sees that post on their feet, that's organic. Right. That's reach. Totally. Um, so I think that aspect of it is like, it's, it helps with, like you said, organic helps with the top of the funnel, but then also increases that retention cuz it's constantly top of mind.

Rabah Rahil (00:18:05):

Yeah. I totally agree with that. The, the other thing I would add in there as well, is that the way you do retention is so clever just with my a cuz it's not really, it never feels silly. Right? It's like, you're a part of going back to that community thing where it's like, you're a part of a community and like you're not, it, it's not this transactional relationship. And I think it goes to something that Cody talks about a lot where there's been this, like since the pixel came out and it was so, so good, there was this huge pendulum swing into a lot of quants getting into media buying, or just kind of quant thinking where everything could just be optimized and reduced to these stats. And then if you can hit these stats almost like trading equities or something like that, then okay, you're doing great. And that worked up to a point. But at the same time, like once you lose that empathy, um, I forget how Cody puts it. He has the great para. I have to remember the paraphrase, but ultimately

Cody Plofker (00:18:57):

I don't remember either

Rabah Rahil (00:18:58):

You, me talking about though, right? The Lulu thing where it's like, you were a custom Lulu, but I'm not really like mono.

Cody Plofker (00:19:04):

I was loyal. I was a high, I was a high LTV customer, but I, I bought the products, not the brand,

Rabah Rahil (00:19:11):

That's it. Right. And so there was no unity. There was no like actual emotional buy-in where, especially with, uh, clothing, it's very, um, intimate, right. Cuz you're actually signaling, you're actually putting this on your body. Um, so I think that, and then the other thing that I would touch on as well is a lot of people are finding, and this is us included, um, like organic channel fit, but not necessarily paid channel fit yet. And so that's, that's a big challenge there where like we, triple's amazing on Twitter, but put Twitter ads are just kind of trash. So it's really hard to throw a bunch of money in there. And so now we're exploring more of Facebook paid and it's actually doing fairly well, but it's still not to the, the, the brand equity from Twitter has not yet carried over to Facebook nor I don't know how much it will.

Rabah Rahil (00:19:54):

Like that's something I'll do kind of trying to link the constellation of, of content together. But, um, that's something that I think people need to be really cognizant of is like, can you find a really awesome product channel fit for paid because then you can really start to scale. Um, and then if you don't, then that's a real challenge and you need to, I think go back to what Cody and Ash are suggesting in kind of building these first principle fundamentals. Like, do people even want your product? Are people excited about your product? Why is your product unique and how can you get them into the essence or the excitement of being part of this community. Right. And even if it's a local

Cody Plofker (00:20:28):

Accident and then throw some fire on that, but get, get the fire burn in, right. Get people talking about it on Twitter, get people, sharing it, like get all the foundations strong. And then, and like, I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite. Like these were hard lessons for me. I was a paid guy only until pretty recently. You know, I, I sold a bit business with my wife who was a physical therapy business, but we ran it very differently. So it was cash based and Facebook was our primarily acquisition channel. And if we turned off Facebook, like we didn't really have like that much else going. Like if I was to do it, like we had a super high LTV. We, we optimized for that. Like we got like average client was like $8,000 to us. It was, it was pretty crazy. But like east coast money, a referral.

Cody Plofker (00:21:12):

Yeah. A referral like stuff never really totally took off. Like, you know, I, I think our customer experience could have been better. Like all that kind of shit. That is part of a business. And we could never really hit like the critical mass that we needed because it was always just getting new people in getting new people in, you know, and it, to me, like that's not a business. If you have a leaky bucket, whatever you wanna call it, like that's not a business and it's gonna be really hard versus like triple oil, what you guys have done so well is like, you know, you, you put out con first of all, you have a differentiated product. It's yes. It's something that exists, but it's, it's different. It's a much better, but it's, it also is different than a lot that, that exists. You get people talking about it because it's, it's, you know, you just have unique value props and there's a lot of excitement about it. So people are like, you know, I get hit up every week. Like, oh, I see this everywhere. I see this everywhere. Like it's crazy. And, and now you go, and now once you guys realize you have something there and you can now invest in it, then you can go and spend on paid and, and test stuff. But it's not, it's not your go to market strategy.

Rabah Rahil (00:22:18):

A hundred percent. Our, our, the going back to, uh, the, what we started with was exactly that brand awareness. We started a newsletter right off the bat and we started a podcast right off the back and we just started printing content, just content, content, content. How can I create value for people? How can people, you know, get value from this that are on different parts of their marketing journey? And, you know, it's, it's manifested, but again, it, it's hard to make that, um, if you're in some cash flow constrained areas, because it doesn't feel like there's value being generated. Right.

Cody Plofker (00:22:50):

So how, that's a good point? Like how long did it take, like to where you really felt like you had momentum? Cause I think that'll be good for some people listening is like, that's one reason I was, I was not very good at it when I owned my business is like, I don't have the patience and it's, it can be really difficult. Like, did you feel like there were times where you were like, I don't really know if this was doing anything

Rabah Rahil (00:23:10):

A hundred percent, but that's why in the beginning. So I'll go a little philosophical on you. But I like to look at leading indicators rather than lagging indicators. And so a lagging indicator would be, I want to have X amount of Twitter followers or, um, I want to get a tweet to go viral or something like that. I really can't control that like explicitly, but what I can control is posting X times of a day, um, writing a newsletter that's of high value and publishing it at the same time, on the same day to build a contract with that person, I can control these things. And so that's how we were basically measuring our success. Like, are we hitting our numbers? It's almost kind of like when you're were working out, right? Like just check the boxes, man. Just check. Cuz at the beginning, there's no reason to measure success.

Rabah Rahil (00:23:50):

Like there there's there that's it man, that again, because content compounds content, isn't like paid media where like paid media, you can hit pockets of success and just spend up in those content. Is this, this compounding thing it's very resource intensive. It needs all this thing. But if you do it right, it's kind of that reap what you sew, where it is very ecosystem. And then to your point, Cody, like now that ecosystem is ready to handle way more things. And so these little plots of land can now sustain a way bigger village than before. If I was just trying to have this mercenary of page strategy. So that that's kind of, but to your point, the inflection didn't happen for two to three months and we were didn't like, you just gotta go, man. You just have to

Cody Plofker (00:24:28):

A little bit uncertain. You just gotta have conviction. Is that kind of

Rabah Rahil (00:24:31):

Not necessarily uncertain, but there was just not enough data to really see. And then we did see things catching on, but it wasn't like, it's not this like, you know, you're going viral thing. And we did do some really good things in terms of seating with some influencers or stuff like that to kind of do some Twitter swarms and get, get things moving. And the other thing that I think we did really well is even though Twitter's really small, the influencer there is so like inordinate to the actual people. And so like, uh, political kind of analogy, like the electoral votes, there are so much higher on Twitter than they are in terms of Facebook or whatever. Like, and so we were influencing kind of those top tier people, such as yourselves. And then that kind of just has second, third, fourth order effects. People it's like fast and the furious stuff like people wanna drive what the winners are driving. People want to use what the winners are using. And so mm-hmm, that was, we weren't trying to satisfy a hundred percent of people. We were trying to satisfy basically our superfan users and then move into our early adopters and then kind of slowly expand that kind of radius of, uh, value. But it was never kind of paid for

Speaker 4 (00:25:38):

See all of that really doesn't like happen unless you have an insane product. Right. I think

Cody Plofker (00:25:44):

When, and that's the foundation, that's what fair point.

Speaker 4 (00:25:47):

You're marketing always be the foundation. Right? Like for example, when, when, um, I first maybe spoke to like AJ, right? We ourselves were trying to build out something very similar just in house. Right. And I had this meeting, like I literally hired a data analyst that day. He came in as an intern and we both sat on this meeting and I'm like, shit, <laugh> like, I just hired this kid to do this and now it's done. <laugh>. Um, but the, but the, the whole point,

Cody Plofker (00:26:14):

But the guy pack his bags and go home.

Speaker 4 (00:26:15):

Yeah. <laugh> no, I was like, you, you set this up for us. You tell us how it works in sleep. But the, the main point, and I think even like Cody, you can probably attest to this, is that the experience you have? Let's just say triple oil is the, the product, right. The experience you have with the brand and the product. Like the fact that we were talking about it before, like anybody else. And it's like, guys, like this tool is amazing, right. That organic, like we were like sharing, we were talking about like, oh shit, I can see the numbers that I've never been able to see before. Right. Or like, you know, you're, you're basically asking us, what do we want out of the platform, right. As what we do within Avi in the community, like what flavors do you wanna see? Right.

Cody Plofker (00:26:55):

That's a growth strategy by the way. Underrated growth strategy.

Speaker 4 (00:26:58):

Yep. No, a hundred percent is that you, once you, like you said, create your like super fan base and it just kind of like disperses out and people start to see like, oh, you're like a die hard, like triple, you know, like Avi Jones road, like you're die hard fan. Like I gotta check this out. Right. And that is where like, people are underestimate like a good product, like, like that to me just blows my mind.

Cody Plofker (00:27:23):

And, and, and so to, to piggyback off of that, like that is, I know we've probably talked about it several. Like that's my approach I'm paid right now. Like I really am so bullish on white listing. And it's part of why I'm so bullish on TikTok. It's these same principles, right? It's like literally principles of influence. If you've, if you've read that book, it's like, you're really taking those, those principles. And we're just amplifying them with paid and you're, you're white listing and it's, I've run shitty white listing too. It's not white listing is like a perfect fix for anything. It's the principles that like, you, you see influencers and you're like, I'm seeing this everywhere. And I'm seeing it from people, even if I don't know who they are. Like, they, they seem credible. They have followings or they just look like it. And like, it's those same principles that like you can leverage and paid once you've gotten it going organically.

Speaker 4 (00:28:13):

There's two brands that come to mind. Right. That like, absolutely nailed that. And I think it's athletic greens and golly, right. As soon as you get into their funnel, you don't leave until you buy. Right. <laugh> I think that's like one of the things where it's like, you need to have this like, alright, yeah, you might have heard of athletic greens, not TikTok. Right. They crush on TikTok. And then you're like, okay, I went to the website, whatever. And then all of a sudden, your feed is just, this is all I take every day, athletic greens, athletic greens. And it's like, shit, like obviously as a marketer, you realize it's retargeting. But like to the, to the consumer, it's like, oh shit, like everyone's taking that.

Cody Plofker (00:28:50):

Well, well, and then, so you get that right. You get everyone's taking it. And then Rava what did you do when you were considering getting athletic greens? Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (00:28:57):

The only reason I got it was because you posted quite

Cody Plofker (00:28:59):

Frankly, like everybody, and then you asked me, but you texted me. Yeah. So you're still skeptical. So you see something on Twitter and tech doc, you see a company saying, buy my shit. My shit is good. Can we curse on here or not? Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:29:11):

We can beep it up.

Cody Plofker (00:29:11):

Uh, you can buy my stuff. Right. And then you're skeptic like, oh, this seems intriguing, but I've heard this from a lot of people before. Is it really good? So I go to the website, I bounce. Then I get in, well, Asher's talking about the whitelisting retargeting funnel. Oh, everyone is taking this. I keep seeing it all over the place. And you're, you're now in consideration phase. Right. You're aware now you're consideration phase. And then you still sometimes need more social proof. Yes. A lot of people buy there and then that's when you actually go to somebody, you know, Hey, what is this, this, you know,

Rabah Rahil (00:29:43):

I'd

Speaker 4 (00:29:43):

Love. Did you do that because you are a marketer yourself. And you're like, okay, I see all the ads or

Rabah Rahil (00:29:48):

No, I know Cody's a health nut. And so I, I, I respect his advice on kind of being healthy. Um, and so that I've been looking for a greens thing, but to be fair, it's probably a confluence of all that, right? Like it's a cool hip DTC brand. I want be hit with the cool kids. Cody's posting. Chris is posting

Cody Plofker (00:30:04):

That's brand Joel posting that's that's brand that's brand

Rabah Rahil (00:30:07):

Brand.

Cody Plofker (00:30:07):

Um, you know, like Ash about that, you know who this is when I first got bullish on, uh, eight sleep. I, I was considering getting an eight sleep. And again, I'm a marketer, so I know what whitelisting is. And I still got the sense of like, everyone is talking about this. And I'm like, wait, I'm a market. Like I should know this. And it's still working on me. Like, that's how powerful the strategy is. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:30:32):

You know what I mean, a really great example of this, cuz it's not even like, not that it's not a great product, but it is in the seas. Sames is liquid death, like liquid death brand. And they're following dude, the, the videos they get in terms of UGC, just the brand, just everything there. They literally sell F and water. It's literally, it's good water. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big liquid death fan, but I've bought more merch water than I have the actual company product of water. And not only that, the economics are horrible. Guess what water is really, really heavy gets. What's really expensive to ship. <laugh> really heavy things. And so it's just like this really. And E they make it work. I mean, I don't know what their financials are, but in terms of like the brand perception of community engagement, it's, it is top tier man and, and it's, um, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, they do a really good job of, I think, cultivating a sincere representation of the brand. I think there's something to be said about that, where you wanna have cohesiveness across, like what you're portraying and what you actually are. If you have that disjointed, it can be kind of all

Cody Plofker (00:31:28):

Right. So then that's a, I have a question for you guys before we, we move on is, so we've talked about like, Facebook is kind of like the, the top, right? If we're gonna do like a hierarchy of, of DTC success, Facebook is the top. It's not the thing we've talked about. Brand and product being really important. We've we've, you know, liquid death is one that's brand and not product. There's obviously some great product. One. You can only pick one. What do you put on the bottom? What's the most important product or brand?

Rabah Rahil (00:31:55):

Explain that. Hi hierarchy to me again. I wasn't try,

Cody Plofker (00:31:58):

Like, yeah, sorry. Sorry. If I didn't explain it, like, so what is most important? Right? Like we've established that brand and product are super important, are more important than Facebook ads, right? So they, they live below it. Facebook ads is up top. That's the icing on a cake, but you just gave us an example about how maybe product is not always that important maybe brand you can crush it with just brand. I bet we could come up with some examples of great products that have shitty brand

Rabah Rahil (00:32:23):

A hundred percent, but

Cody Plofker (00:32:25):

Do you, think's more important. You only get one, you only get one.

Rabah Rahil (00:32:27):

Okay. You want me to go first or you Ash? Yeah, no, go for it. Okay. I think, uh, what's it called my, my thesis cold, hard hill I'll die on is that, um, you cannot have a great brand with a bad product. You can have a great brand with a mediocre product, but the product can't be bad. And so,

Cody Plofker (00:32:43):

So like liquid death is okay.

Rabah Rahil (00:32:44):

Yeah. Not crapping on liquid death, but it's literally water. It's nice. It's fancy, you know, the, the can, but it's the ambiance. It's like going to a really nice restaurant and like, the drinks are great. The ambiance is great. The servers quick, you get like the

Cody Plofker (00:32:57):

Well time,

Rabah Rahil (00:32:58):

Time, perfectly, or like a medium, the food. Yeah. The food's like a seven and eight. Right. And so that's kind of liquid death and it's not on them because there's no movement in how do you improve water? Um, but if the product was bad, like if the water tastes like tap water, then I don't think you can elevate anything. And I've personally like, can you guys name a bad or a great brand with a bad product? It's hard. Right. I can't be

Speaker 4 (00:33:22):

Honest. Honestly mean I can, if I'm gonna be completely honest, like I think liquid Ivy is a great brand. I hate the product. I don't like the taste really. Yeah. Like I prefer, I, and I, I, I really like H right. I like the brand. I like the product again. It's a taste thing. It's, it's not anything other than that. Sure, sure. But like, I know liquid Ivy is a great brand, but I'm not gonna buy it over and over again. Cause I just genuinely don't like the taste. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so that's like, so to answer the question for you, uh, Cody, I would probably prioritize product because it's like, you're spending all this cash to acquire customers. If they're not coming back, like, what's the, what's the point? Like you can have a dope as brand. Like, what is that gonna do? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it'll probably help acquisition. Right. But it's not gonna help retention, which is where money is Uhhuh

Cody Plofker (00:34:08):

<affirmative>.

Rabah Rahil (00:34:09):

Yeah, that, that that'd be my thesis. What would you go with brand or product. Okay.

Cody Plofker (00:34:14):

I think I'm gonna go product. I'm trying to think if there's other examples like that, like, like you said, like of great brands with bad products, I don't think so. I don't think they last for long.

Rabah Rahil (00:34:25):

That's the problem

Cody Plofker (00:34:27):

It's it's called at least like I come from like direct response marketing, like true direct pro direct response. They call it the, the O yuck. Yep. Uh, phenomenon. When you over promise something, it's like, so you can have a super, super strong headline, but then your lead into that sales letter or whatever it is, has to live up to that. If you capture somebody's attention with click bait, and then you're like, well, now that I got your attention, that's kind of, you get the O yuck response. And then that turns people away. So that would be like, if liquid death was like a terrible product or athletic tasted terrible

Rabah Rahil (00:35:00):

Precisely. And so that there's a, you know, uh, argument to make that athletic greens might be a mediocre product, but it's not bad. And so kind of to your point, Ash, I think there's a difference between preferences versus like objectively bad, where it's like, you just don't like liquid death versus like there's some objectively bad athletic or greens powders out there, athletic greens

Speaker 4 (00:35:20):

In general. Like it's a,

Rabah Rahil (00:35:22):

It's mediocre. It's

Speaker 4 (00:35:23):

Better than that. It's bad. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:35:25):

Yeah, exactly. And so I, I think that, and, and the reason I think that happens is to your point, Ash, is the economics just start to degrade where it's all those people that you thought you were kind of, of their LTVs were literally their AOVs like they, ain't never coming again. And furthermore, they're probably gonna tell people, never to buy from you either because the, the, yeah. Pendulum swings both ways. So if you delight people fantastic, if you piss people off, it is not a good place to be. That can start to impact your Facebook page rating. That page rating can then start to impact your CPM. Like there's just a whole bunch

Cody Plofker (00:35:58):

Of, and then you're like, why are my not working well? Like, it must be my creative. It must be my, my, uh, I need a 4% of the, instead of a 10%,

Rabah Rahil (00:36:08):

A hundred percent. Uh, I love it.

Cody Plofker (00:36:11):

Can I say one, one quick pet peeve about brand before we move

Rabah Rahil (00:36:13):

On? Yes. Wrap

Cody Plofker (00:36:15):

It. One thing that drives me crazy, like, we're talk like we're talking about it and we're marketers. We're like, you know what? I buy this stuff. Like, you know, you're like, I, I love what liquid death brand I'm obsessed with it. Like the product's not even that good. I can't stand when people refuse to admit that they buy stuff for, because of brand. Some people are like that. Like I got on a debate on Twitter the other day and you know, it was like, ah, I don't care what brand it is. I do do it for the product. And it's like, they say that while they're like packing up their $2,000 map book pro into their like fancy ass bag and walk out to their Tesla. And it's like, so unaware. I'm like, fuck it. Like, dude, I, I have a nice watch. I literally don't even know how to tell an analog watch. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:36:57):

That's

Cody Plofker (00:36:57):

Amazing of the product

Rabah Rahil (00:36:59):

That is complains and rich kind of stuff there. Yeah. I got, I got a helicopter. I don't even know how to fly it, but I got a helicopter. No, no. That's, that's amazing.

Cody Plofker (00:37:06):

Like saying like so many of the purchases that we do and that we make, we make because of the brand. And it's like, we can either lie to ourselves as marketers and, and say we don't, or we can say we do and understand that's how people buy. And people are, are seeking connection in every purchase that they make,

Rabah Rahil (00:37:23):

Uh, a hundred percent. And furthermore, I'm a big believer that every purchase is already made in the mind. And so there's just a certain timeframe of like you getting enough, uh, evidence or enough basically stories to tell yourself or your significant other or somebody else why you're so smart for getting this or why you're so smart for getting that. And that's also, if you dive into jobs to be done theory, when people start asking friends or, uh, people in their network about something that's exactly when the switch from passive looking to active looking happens where it's like, you are so committed now to put money down that you're checking with people, um, versus before you're just kind of like window shopping. You're in fantasy land. You're like, oh, that's a cool Porsche. Oh, that's a nice range Rover, but you really haven't committed. And then you're like, oh cool, Ash, you like your Porsche. Oh, cool. Let's talk like you're now switching the active looking. So it's a kind of interesting tidbit there, but

Cody Plofker (00:38:11):

What, what's something that you are going to buy that, you know, you're going to buy that you're just not there yet. Like, what's an example of that for you. The, those

Speaker 4 (00:38:20):

Philip Hughes lights.

Rabah Rahil (00:38:22):

Oh gosh. Yes. I have a million

Speaker 4 (00:38:24):

Of them. The ones where like, where you attach it to your TV. Right. And it like sinks. Yep. I've I've been trying to get it right. And it's like sold out everywhere. And then I think it was in stock for like black Friday. And I was like, I gotta go buy a TV first. So then I bought the TV and then it was outta stock. So now I'm like, shit, I gotta get this. But as soon as it's back in stock, I gotta get this. But like, I've, I've like I had a rodeo of mine. Who's set it up in his house and like will go, he'll play music. All the lights are syncing. Every I'm like, I fucking need this shit. And it's outta stock and now I can't get it, but like, I'm, I'm there, but I need to get it. That

Cody Plofker (00:39:01):

Is so funny. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:39:03):

I did, uh, it's a, it's a trip. So it's a little bit different of a purchase, but I was, I bond to my VIP tickets. There's a big UOC in Houston. And so like, my fiance told me about it and it's always right. Like I had no idea. I wasn't gonna think about it. The fiance kind of dropped it in the ear. And then she shows me the tickets. And then I sometimes like to go a little bougie. So I'm looking at like, what's the craziest thing we can do. We haven't been on a trip in a while and then it was too much money. So I'm like, no way, I'm not gonna do it, not gonna do it. And then two and a half months, like I just pulled the trigger a week ago. And this was like, in November of like the, a new, like Derek Lewis just came on the car. There was all these things that like, just a little bit, just a little bit, then it's just like, ah, you know what? And then you get into kind of epic where it's just like, you know what? Throw the Amex on there. Let's light this thing up. <laugh> I

Speaker 4 (00:39:49):

Deserve it

Rabah Rahil (00:39:50):

Exactly is once you can remove that inertia and just get into the, I deserve it face. I love it. All right. Let's take some listener questions. What do you guys say?

Cody Plofker (00:39:59):

Yeah, let's do

Rabah Rahil (00:40:00):

It. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. This let's jump into this. One's for you, Cody, I think. And then Ashley, I'd love to hear your perspective as well. So this is from, uh, lady name, Hannah Jerome Evans. Okay. Scenario colon. They're starting one DTC brand in 2022. And they can only acquire customers through one single method paid or organic on one single platform. What do they choose and how would they approach it? Okay. So

Cody Plofker (00:40:28):

I'm so excited for this one.

Rabah Rahil (00:40:29):

Okay. So one let's nail down a DTC brand. So we can at least have a little bit of context of what we would

Cody Plofker (00:40:34):

Do. Like what's the brand are doing that.

Rabah Rahil (00:40:36):

Oh, we're starting one. Sorry. Sorry. We're starting one. I didn't get that. Yep. Okay. Tracking. Okay. So we just started one. Okay. So we just started a brand it's 20, 22. We can only acquire customers through one single method, paid organic on one single platform. What do they choose? Okay. You wanna go Cody?

Cody Plofker (00:40:52):

Yeah. And then I got a good story too, about it. Okay. That'll that'll share so TikTok, if you can't tell, if you haven't filed me on Twitter at all, uh, at Cody bluff, I, I, I am one track minded. So once I get going on something, you know, it's all I think about. And right now it's TikTok. I, I really think it's amazing. And I was one of those people that was like, this is the dumbest thing in the world. It's just dancing. Like fought it hard. I truly think you can build a really good business on TikTok alone. Not that you wanna be single channel, but here's what I would do. Let's let's assume. I mean, do we want to say hypothetically, it's probably bootstrapped. Probably no existence, no money. Oh, no money. So, so we're not gonna run paid right away, right? Nope.

Cody Plofker (00:41:36):

Everything we we're talking about, I'm hoping it's a product. That's gonna get people excited. Want to talk about it? So I'm doing two things. First of all, I'm seating, TikTok, finding people that make great contact content talk marketplace, not even saying anything, just getting them posted, just getting the word out there, getting people, seeing it. If I wanna speed that up a little bit, what I'm going to do, I don't have cash. Right? What I'm going to do is I'm gonna give equity to a content creator with an audience. They are gonna be a brand ambassador. I'm gonna give them whatever percent of my brand that I'm comfortable with. We're gonna work with them. They're gonna post on their own. They're gonna create content for us. We'll probably make some bundles and skews around them. Like, we're gonna go, like, they're gonna be like our macro influencer.

Cody Plofker (00:42:24):

Um, we're gonna use them for, for strategy. You know, their network who they know that's who I'm looking at. They're gonna, they're gonna make all of our content that should get you to a reasonable level of sales. If that doesn't get you at least off the ground, getting some cash in the bank, getting some data back about, again, building a customer list a little bit, building an email list. Again, like, you know, you, you, you gotta be thinking about how you're gonna build that list. If that doesn't give you some learnings and some cash, I wouldn't start with paid, cuz there's a problem there. The foundation's fucked, you know? Good. And then what I'm gonna do is exactly all I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna amplify that. What I would do is I would test that's like your alpha or beta testing of, of your ads, of your creative, right?

Cody Plofker (00:43:11):

Everyone talks about creative testing. You gotta test your angles. You gotta test your hooks. I'm gonna test that organically on TikTok. I don't think a a social team, a organic social team should be running TikTok. I think your growth team should be running TikTok. I that you're, you're testing your, and again, I'm all about testing. Big things like angles and concepts, more than tiny things like this color or this font I'm testing out. Once you get something that's hitting, that's above your KPI and, and above your averages, I'm gonna create three dark posts from that angle. So let's say we're selling a supplement and it's a weight loss angle, right? You could go a weight loss. You could go, uh, better skin. If we're talking about collagen, you could go bones. I'm gonna test those angles. See what's resonating best. Let's say weight loss is working best. I'm gonna take that content, throw three different hooks on it. I'm gonna launch them on the creator's TikTok as dark posts. So they're organic posts, but they're dark. You can't see 'em and then I'll launch them on paid. But I'm not just randomly throwing money behind things. I'm getting traction. I'm getting people talking about it. I'm getting some learning. And then once that stuff is working, that's how I'm starting to test paid. And I'm just amplifying. What's what I've already found to work organically. I love it. That's my thought

Speaker 5 (00:44:28):

That wait, Cody, I'm going eight and a half outta 10, maybe

Rabah Rahil (00:44:31):

A nine strong

Speaker 4 (00:44:32):

Post on the dark post. Are, are you still getting like, you're not getting views on that, right? Or are you

Cody Plofker (00:44:40):

No, no. That's that's only paid.

Speaker 4 (00:44:42):

So are you okay? So what you're saying is, all right, now you've tested these angles, right? You found that waste loss is the one, right. Then you're tossing up three different angles, dark post it, and then you're running them as that.

Cody Plofker (00:44:54):

Yeah. I mean you could, if, if you don't mind that like the same content in very similar ways appears on your page,

Speaker 4 (00:45:01):

That's probably

Cody Plofker (00:45:02):

Then you could just

Speaker 4 (00:45:03):

Not have the dark. Yeah, no, that makes sense. But that would be stage two, right after the organic approach, you start getting a little bit of sales coming in and stuff. No, I agree. The only thing I would add to that is I would have retargeting running on Facebook.

Rabah Rahil (00:45:18):

Okay. You broke the two, hold on. But you broke the two channel. There's a single channel. Covenant. Oh, single

Speaker 4 (00:45:22):

Channel. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.

Rabah Rahil (00:45:24):

So you can only pick one.

Cody Plofker (00:45:25):

I mean, I mean, so let's, let's get some email and SMS go and somehow then

Rabah Rahil (00:45:29):

Yeah, well that, I would consider that another channel though, as well.

Cody Plofker (00:45:32):

Oh, is that a channel? I mean, that's not a paid channel.

Rabah Rahil (00:45:34):

I consider own media, but definitely a channel.

Cody Plofker (00:45:37):

That's a channel. All, I guess it depends.

Speaker 4 (00:45:40):

Then the other thing is, is that I feel like all these other channels don't work without those as well. I mean, the question is pick a channel, right? That's fine. That that would be your top of the problem. But I think also like fine, even if it's not paid, I think you'd still need the, the back end. Like that should always be like set up otherwise like yeah.

Cody Plofker (00:46:00):

Personally. Yeah. I don't consider that a channel.

Speaker 4 (00:46:03):

Yeah.

Cody Plofker (00:46:03):

I don't know. Like I know it is a channel, but it's not like when I think channel, I think you're like a paid channel or like a organic, like,

Speaker 4 (00:46:09):

It's not like you don't, you don't choose whether or not to use it. Like you, you have to use it. Yeah. It's like, okay, who take TikTok

Rabah Rahil (00:46:17):

Or staff? Jersey, boys emails, a channel. He savages emails a channel. Get over it.

Cody Plofker (00:46:21):

No, but I think in the context of this question, it's not, cause it's like, you're gonna set up email, all things being, it doesn't cost.

Rabah Rahil (00:46:27):

You can have that, that aside. So that's already set up if it gives you more, you

Cody Plofker (00:46:31):

Can't retarget on Facebook.

Rabah Rahil (00:46:32):

So you're be, yeah. You cannot retarget on Facebook though. I'm I'm holding my ground there. So Cody you're in, on all in, on TikTok, organic Ash, where do you start building?

Speaker 4 (00:46:41):

Um, not honestly. Like I think a lot of people have asked me this question, like, oh, I don't have that much budget. Right. Like where do I start? I can't tell somebody to dive into Facebook anymore. Like, whereas like maybe two years ago you could have been like, all right, start with a hundred bucks a day and see where it goes. TikTok. Like the power and the like last night, uh, the girls, right. We started a podcast with them. They just, you know, every day they're they're, you know, in their mid twenties, they just talk about most random shit. And they're hilarious. Right. So they started a TikTok account. Okay. They posted this random video and I got 300,000 views overnight. And I'm just like, what the hell just happened. Right. And

Cody Plofker (00:47:19):

Any revenue bump?

Speaker 4 (00:47:21):

Well, no, cause it's completely, it's not, it's not linked to,

Cody Plofker (00:47:23):

Oh, not at yours.

Speaker 4 (00:47:24):

Okay. Purely based on the, on the podcast. Right. But the thing is that somebody, somebody like context wise right within the video or like, it was basically like, oh, I spend all this money, blah, blah, blah. But I'm still broke. Right. It's like relatable to these girls. Right. <laugh> and somebody commented. It's like, you got your, you get your nails done three times a month. And uh, they commented back like, yeah, I take college and protein, I use AFI. Right. And you just plug it into the comments and pin it. And it's like,

Speaker 4 (00:47:51):

You know, that is how you kind of start getting things like rolling where it's like, you're putting out relatable content. Right. It's not like, okay guys, I've just tried this collagen protein, blah, blah. Like it may or may not do well. Right. But like the fact that something's relatable and it'll, it'll actually go viral, then you have that like link it right. To like the product and things. I think that's what my approach would've been because for us, and I've told you this Cody, like, um, we haven't been able to kind of utilize TikTok just cuz of supplements. Right? Um, it's I think we're for other brands, like maybe makeup, right? You can literally show the effects, right? Yeah. Or food, you can prepare something, right. Colleges. It's like, you gotta trust beyond this. It works, you know? So <laugh> so that's, I think, I think that's my approach, you know, I, I think if you have a product that you can show, right. Um, that TikTok would probably would probably crush, I mean, organic wise, like, you know, seeding influencers, but then also having, you know, um, the organic strategy just from the brand itself,

Cody Plofker (00:48:51):

Is there a product? Cause I know everyone's always like, well that won't work for me. That won't work for my product. Like my, my customers are not on TikTok. Is there a product or an audience that you guys would, would change it and say, don't go tick TikTok first. I'm curious. Wait, what you think?

Rabah Rahil (00:49:08):

Well, so I'm actually gonna give you my answer first, cuz it is my bad, my bad to give, to give a little heat. Um, cuz it's kind of walking down this path, honestly, if I was starting a DTC brand and again, depending on the business model, um, I would actually lean into a YouTube channel and slack. I would start really heavily building a community and smashing videos on either how to use the product, why to use the product, all this stuff through my YouTube channel and try and have those video touch points and then have some

Cody Plofker (00:49:35):

Why YouTube over TikTok though.

Rabah Rahil (00:49:37):

Cause it's longer form and I can get, I, I think I totally agree with you in terms of one playing devil's advocate. But two, I agree with you like tos are actual lottery tickets, but um, YouTube is a better place to build a community. And so you can get somebody subscribed to your channel. You can do lives where I think TikTok is a better place to create a community, but that community lives elsewhere.

Cody Plofker (00:49:59):

You just can't beat the distribution on TikTok right now. It's not always gonna live like this. Yeah. Yeah. You just can't beat that. You don't get that anywhere else right now.

Speaker 4 (00:50:08):

No, but totally. I'm curious. How, how would you approach like the discovery, like you're saying like you get people to subscribe, is it like, like what is that process?

Cody Plofker (00:50:16):

You got zero people, right? Like brand new YouTube page. Yeah. Yeah. How are you doing that? You got zero people.

Rabah Rahil (00:50:24):

I mean that's a fair point, but again, I think there is an aspect of building a community around that and what I would do would be ultimately do we have customers or we don't have any customers,

Speaker 4 (00:50:33):

No brand new

Rabah Rahil (00:50:35):

Yeah. Customers. Yeah. I mean it would then again kind of be a marketing play as well, or as I can go out and pimp my product to people, I can be like, oh, and here's just a new video. Check it out. Oh you have problems. I can do something. Where are you pimping your product to them? Oh, I can't go outta channels. So I guess I have to do some YouTube searching and go through. So

Speaker 4 (00:50:52):

You're going SEO is your distribution strategy?

Rabah Rahil (00:50:55):

No, I'm going

Speaker 4 (00:50:56):

Influencers on YouTube.

Rabah Rahil (00:50:58):

Yeah. So do I get an influencer cuz that's something that I would do. I would build a, a co community with that influencer or have somebody lead up that community. But the too long didn't read, I'm super bullish on TikTok. But the thing about TikTok is, um, talk's kind of like the club, which is fantastic. You meet 'em at the club, but then you need to get 'em back to the church. Like what what's the church. And so I think that YouTube can be, uh, a church, uh, a slack as well. And so that, that's kind of my thinking there agreed that you could, I would be hard pressed to say that you guys are wrong. I just wanted to give a different perspective where I think the, the too long didn't read is you wanna build in a place where you can, uh, quickly aggregate community Goodwill and give people a really easy way to evangelize the product and, or, um, give you feedback and tighten up that feedback loop. And I think YouTube and, um, slack or two ways.

Speaker 4 (00:51:49):

I mean it slack a channel. Facebook is slack a channel. Well, you guys took email back on that one. Well, you guys took, well, you took

Rabah Rahil (00:51:55):

Emails, you taking slack.

Speaker 4 (00:51:56):

Slack is slack channel.

Rabah Rahil (00:52:00):

Great question. So I think again, this goes back into

Speaker 4 (00:52:04):

You can't do slack or Facebook group. It brings rules. They're both. If you guys are you

Rabah Rahil (00:52:10):

Email, I'm getting slack. I'm not taking

Speaker 4 (00:52:12):

My no, no, that's fine. That's fine's like fantasy draft. I'm I'm just curious. It's a flex receiver slack in general, right? Like aside from the question, how would you slack in, like why would you use slack instead of Facebook? This is outside of the question.

Rabah Rahil (00:52:24):

Yeah. So I think it's a fantastic, uh, question one, because slack is more of an owned media where Facebook, you're still renting Facebook. You're not paying with anything, but other than your information, whereas your slack channel is your own fem that you can control and do pretty much whatever you want in it. Um, and so I think that is why I would do it in there. And then you can also segment a little cleaner where Facebook again is more and we have a Facebook group too, that we're gonna lead lean heavily into. I was just the too long didn't read is I was trying to take a really hard information, um, showing off how to use the product, unboxing the product kind of, uh, attitude towards it versus going TikTok first. And to be fair, you know, you could use that same strategy on TikTok. You just, um, restricted to three minutes. So, um, maybe if this is a higher LTV product where I could really go into the, the, um, the story a little more, but um,

Speaker 4 (00:53:21):

I dunno, last question. So do you, have you seen anybody do slack? Well,

Rabah Rahil (00:53:28):

Great point. Not, no. I've seen people do slack really well in groups. I have not seen it work really well. So we're actually, uh, doing this, but again, it's not necessarily open group cuz it's Nawa nation, which is actually closed off to only triple well users. So it's a little different where well sanctuary would be kind of more akin to what you're talking about. But no, the reason why I think is slack. Isn't great. When you get into the economics, like if you want to go to a paid plan, it's actually really, really prohibitive. And the other thing is like, if your group does go viral, like you're actually, there's marginal cost to your group growing, I would say,

Speaker 4 (00:54:03):

So there's some his cord then if you wanna go

Rabah Rahil (00:54:06):

Route I disc I, I, so I love discord. The problem with discord is it's not as good as slack in terms of archiving. And like, discords like just this little brain dump of people and it's like, it's hard to asynchronously go in there. And so the way I see slack is kind of an epicenter of high level content that people can drive into. And so like for example, on the NARAL nation, we'll have Cody watching the attribution ch or not Cody Corey watching the attribution channel. We'll have you guys come in and do talks in these other little channels in terms of performance, TikTok, Facebook, and so more. So this knowledge sharing and gathering to empower people with education. I think slack does a really good job of that and it's easy to segment it and profile or not profile, but um, you know, permission, sharings and that kind of thing. I think it's great. But I do think it's incredibly prohibitive in terms of the economics. So I do take your point on the Facebook.

Speaker 4 (00:54:54):

No fair. No. I

Cody Plofker (00:54:55):

Mean, I'm all, I'm all in on community. I just think you you're cheating cuz slack is a channel,

Rabah Rahil (00:55:01):

But you took so if Slack's a channel and email's not a channel, the cognitive exist and there I can Chuck through it.

Cody Plofker (00:55:08):

I wasn't even gonna say email and SMS or, or retargeting. I was gonna say TikTok only I wasn't. So I don't need,

Rabah Rahil (00:55:15):

I'll go YouTube only. I'll go YouTube

Cody Plofker (00:55:17):

Only. You're on YouTube only. Okay.

Speaker 4 (00:55:18):

Yeah. Rob has him figure out how he's gonna subscribers first before you figure out the slack channel.

Cody Plofker (00:55:23):

Yeah. True. True. But you know you, but that's a good point. You have to think distribution first when you're launching.

Rabah Rahil (00:55:30):

Yes. Distribution's king. I would a hundred percent agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. And, and

Cody Plofker (00:55:33):

I'm trying to think, go ahead. Sorry.

Rabah Rahil (00:55:36):

Oh, I was just, I think you guys are spot on that if you bought, uh, like you buy lottery ticket on Instagram, no way you're pulling it. You bought like, even if you're big, it's hard to surface and Explorer. Whereas back in the day you had a video, you could, you could definitely get some reach Facebook. Yeah. Right. Paid another incumbent platform.

Speaker 4 (00:55:50):

Chronological order literally just paid an account to post game

Rabah Rahil (00:55:54):

More dun Z um, Twitter, you can still hit some things here or there. The thing is, Twitter has a high bar for bullshit and things can get toxic really quick, so it can be challenging to make it nice. Um, and then TikTok really is pulling a lottery ticket where it's not really based on your social graph, it's just basically performance and engagement and it just surfaces the coolest shit to you. And um, so yeah, you guys are spot on in terms of the bets. I'm just, I'm just giving a different perspective. I'm just trying

Cody Plofker (00:56:19):

To like test my bullishness. Like I'm trying to think, like, let's say I was, was launching like eight sleep today. Like I'm trying to think of like a high AOV item. If I would do TikTok,

Rabah Rahil (00:56:28):

I would, because again, you guys can get somebody to the club and then from the club to some sort of destination and then, then that destination there in your marketing ecosystem. And if you have a $3,000 product, $2,000 product, you can, you can spend pretty heavily, not only directly like explicitly on them, but also like ancillary where, you know, you might buy email subscribers and see, see how much it costs. You know, email subscriber might cost 20 bucks takes two or three months to convert, but they convert it $3,000. It's like, you'll buy as many of those as they're selling. Yeah. Okay, cool. We wrapped that one up. So, so we went to TikTok, TikTok, YouTube, and I think the, the, the talkers will prevail, but we should, we should try. But it's hard. It would be hard to, it'd be hard to experiment this though. Right? Cuz you'd have to normalize it and I don't know how you would do that. There's too many confounding variables. Maybe a brand anyways. <laugh>

Speaker 4 (00:57:18):

Maybe that'll be your best

Rabah Rahil (00:57:19):

<laugh> yeah, exactly. Oh, this is a good one. This is a classic. This is actually, you're not your Roha so you guys should be ready for this cuz you've been asked this already. Um, which three people dead or alive would you have to dinner and why? And then they can be fictional non-fictional and it's a four person dinner everybody's eating at the same time. Who wants to go first?

Speaker 4 (00:57:37):

Let me go. Cuz it was really real quick. Right? Drake, wanna party Zuckerberg and Tim cook. And when you go to fight it out, we're gonna figure it out.

Cody Plofker (00:57:46):

<laugh> that's so funny.

Rabah Rahil (00:57:47):

That's amazing. That's pretty good. That's pretty amazing. <laugh> Cody, who do you got?

Cody Plofker (00:57:53):

Oh man. I know who I said it would probably be a little bit different just depending on the mood. I am definitely Jay-Z he's always the first person that comes to mind. Um, I'm gonna go Elon Musk.

Rabah Rahil (00:58:04):

Ooh love.

Cody Plofker (00:58:05):

And I'm gonna go Sasha bear and Cohen dressed as Bo at

Rabah Rahil (00:58:08):

Oh is he in the boar at uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like demeanor as well. Like that's his personality.

Cody Plofker (00:58:13):

Oh, that's what I mean, like yeah. Oh

Rabah Rahil (00:58:14):

Yeah. That's beautiful.

Cody Plofker (00:58:15):

It would just be so funny.

Rabah Rahil (00:58:17):

Oh, I love it. I think I'm gone. Carl Sagan cosmos. He's like one of my idols. Um, Alexander, the great just cuz he was crazy. Um, and then who else? Marcus? Aures big stoic. I like, I

Cody Plofker (00:58:30):

Like that. It shows like what you spend your time doing and content versus mine. <laugh> I'm over here. I'm I'm TikTok and, and Bo at and your Marcus Aures

Rabah Rahil (00:58:40):

To be fair. I think your Aus golf is playing off. There's there's some ripples going around that you're actually pretty formidable. So I, I might have to take some practice swings before I jump into the, um, okay. Let's see. What's another good one we got here. Oh this is a fun one. Or let's go through berries real quick and then cuz we're kind of pushing up against it. Okay, cool. So one, okay. We'll start with you Ash. Favorite life hacks. Favorite mistake in the past year and favorite berries. And this is from uh, a good friend Barry hot on the Twitters.

Speaker 4 (00:59:09):

I mean favorite Barry has gotta be very hot <laugh> boom. Um, checked. Um, and then what was the own? Um, my

Rabah Rahil (00:59:17):

Favorite life hacks.

Speaker 4 (00:59:19):

Favorite life hack. And then favorite mistake, right?

Rabah Rahil (00:59:21):

Mistake in the past year. Yep.

Speaker 4 (00:59:23):

Favorite mistake in the past year. Damn. I have to think about Cody. Do you have yours

Cody Plofker (00:59:30):

Favorite? I, nah, I don't have a mistake yet. What do I

Rabah Rahil (00:59:33):

Do? You need me to fill time? You guys that's the waitress comes up. Are you guys ready to order? Yes. We're ready to order.

Speaker 4 (00:59:40):

Start

Rabah Rahil (00:59:40):

With him Cody. Oh no, no. Can you order RA? He sends a bit. Okay. Um, let's see. So definitely Barry Sanders is my favorite. Barry. Second is Barry hot for sure. Uh, my favorite life hack is this is gonna kind of sound cheesy. Um, but when the morning when the day, like I find that when my mornings are hectic and frantic, um, I feel behind my day it really just makes me feel unsteady. So I try and I'm back on the workout train. Um, and then I, I basically just have, try and have some sacred time in the morning from like six to 7 38, 8:00 AM to kind of just stay out of the, the craziness cuz I, I find I lose myself in the day sometimes and it it's challenging. So I think really for me when you're morning, when you're day and stack, um, I would say also do less things, but do, um, them better. Um, so pretty much my day is structured around three to five big milestones. Um, and I ultimately run basically like two sprints through the day where I'll run like a nine to 12, nine to one sprint. Um, then I'll either go for a walk or have a lunch and then I'll run like a two to six, um, sprint. And I just basically have those things cuz if not, uh, I get pulled in so many different directions and the, the biggest superpower you can have, I think is focus. Uh, favorite mistake in the past year.

Cody Plofker (01:00:53):

It's such a funny way to say it. Favorite mistake.

Rabah Rahil (01:00:57):

Well, I'll go. I guess my biggest, my financial one was probably just not, uh, I had a bunch of in the money options and it was cocaine and champagne in November and I ate a bunch of money. Lost, lost those. So that wasn't a fun one, but let's see my favorite mistake. Oh, maybe like a delightful mistake. Maybe, maybe something that you thought was gonna be bad that turned out great. Mm-hmm <affirmative> maybe that yeah. However

Cody Plofker (01:01:18):

You interpret it. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (01:01:19):

Um, what would that be for me? Um, not D in Hawaii. Um, we went and hiked this really, really dangerous trail called the kow and I ended up having to get medivaced out. So it was kinda crazy. Oh my God. Yeah, crazy. Right. And I'm oh my shape. I've done back country before and I just got super dehydrated and yeah. Could have went scary, really tits up pretty quickly. So yeah, it was a driving, a lot of gratitude. So not being dead is my favorite mistake.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):

<laugh> um, I think I got mine, um, very similar to yours dude. Um, I think my favorite life hack is, um, I started, I just started doing it this year. Right. But literally like a half hour before I go to bed. Cause I had just races. Right. It's like, what am I doing tomorrow? Like what what's going on? Literally write it down. Right? Like here's the top three things that I'm gonna do as soon as I get into the office tomorrow. And it just like, it helps calm me down. Cause it's like, I know what I have to do now. So that I think has been super helpful. Like just getting a todo list, ready to go the day before so that you can actually sleep. But like those thoughts are outta your head. Um, favorite mistake? I don't know. I, I don't know if this is a favorite mistake, but like this is the one thing that I, I would, I think during 2020 during like pandemic and things like that, I really wish we realized what trajectory E eCom was gonna go in at that time. And I really wish we doubled down then compared to, you know, post iOS, oppo apocalypse. Um, but yeah, I think that's one of, one of the things I wish I do.

Rabah Rahil (01:02:54):

Great answers. Cody.

Cody Plofker (01:02:56):

Did you say a favorite Barry? I don't know if I heard

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):

That, uh, very hot man that over Barry. I know it was my favorite. He

Rabah Rahil (01:03:01):

Went very hot.

Cody Plofker (01:03:03):

All all right. I'm up. So favorite life hack. I hate to sound like a Silicon valley tech bro, but cold showers, like legitimately changed my life. Um, I'm saving up for a cold plunge right now.

Rabah Rahil (01:03:14):

Warm finish and a house or cold the whole way.

Cody Plofker (01:03:17):

No, no, I think it's it's most effective if you just end on cold.

Rabah Rahil (01:03:21):

So just stay cold the whole time podcast.

Cody Plofker (01:03:23):

Yeah. I'm on a podcast. What?

Rabah Rahil (01:03:26):

Oh, look at this. We have a guest. The guest speaking. Yeah, no it's good. The wifey

Cody Plofker (01:03:30):

Telling you. No, no. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you gotta, you gotta end cold. I don't think it's it's as good if you end warm. So that's honestly a game changer it

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):

Hot and go cold.

Cody Plofker (01:03:44):

Uh, you you're supposed to like, I, I, you know, watch some like whim ho stuff. So you can like go warm and then go cold for like two months.

Rabah Rahil (01:03:50):

Oh really?

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):

That I could do.

Cody Plofker (01:03:52):

I, I think so, but I'm just trying to go straight in, but yeah. So I want the cold plunge, but um, reduce stress, reduce tightness. It's it's been really great. Um, I'm a huge fan. Um, favorite mistakes this past year. That's such a hard one. Favorite mistakes.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):

Cody's perfect guys.

Rabah Rahil (01:04:14):

<laugh> I know he no,

Cody Plofker (01:04:15):

No, no buy buying Bitcoin in one was that, that was probably like

Rabah Rahil (01:04:22):

In the,

Cody Plofker (01:04:23):

In, in the high sixties.

Rabah Rahil (01:04:25):

Woo that's spike. What's it floating around mid thirties, 30,

Cody Plofker (01:04:31):

30 thirties, thirties

Rabah Rahil (01:04:32):

37 thirties. Oh my gosh. What's the sailor probably going crazy right now.

Cody Plofker (01:04:38):

No, no, I'm I, I bought one yesterday. I bought one today. Uh, so I it's still gonna be whatever, this is not a Bitcoin podcast. So

Rabah Rahil (01:04:46):

I knew I'd get some crypto outta you.

Cody Plofker (01:04:48):

Yeah. And then, uh, favorite Barry Obama.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):

Ooh,

Cody Plofker (01:04:53):

That count, right?

Rabah Rahil (01:04:55):

Yeah. Barry Obama. Who's that?

Cody Plofker (01:04:57):

Like they call him Barry

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):

Barry.

Rabah Rahil (01:04:59):

Oh really? I didn't know that. Yeah.

Cody Plofker (01:05:00):

I think it's a good nickname. You know?

Rabah Rahil (01:05:02):

I didn't know that that was a Nick. I love it. Uh, okay. Let's wrap up on there's two more. If you guys don't mind, I know we're kind of pushing it along, but I'm just having so, so much fun with you guys. Okay. First things you do if given the keys to each other's businesses. Ooh, this is, this is spicy. Do you need me? You guys need me to order first again?

Cody Plofker (01:05:25):

I mean, I don't know Ashley's business as well, so I don't know if I have enough to say there, but I I'll. I'll go

Rabah Rahil (01:05:32):

Pontificate.

Cody Plofker (01:05:33):

Uh, I'm trying to help Ash get approved on TikTok. So I would say I would just go full bore, you know, set up calls with reps, doing whatever you have to do to get your TikTok account up and running. That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):

I mean, I would love that. <laugh> um, <laugh> no, I, I mean maybe even for you, I don't, again, I, you might be already doing this, but I would fully just go hard on the Facebook communities, honestly. Like just set up that. Not at all. Yeah, no, just setting up that bridge from, you know, post checkout or straight into a community where people could be, you know, sharing tips and stuff. Cause I feel like makeup is such a very like tutorial space. Right. And think

Cody Plofker (01:06:13):

That's a big community

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):

Space yeah. To share what's going on. And like, you know, oh, I tried this with this and that, that I think is where I would fully spend my time right off the

Cody Plofker (01:06:22):

Bat. Smart. Smart. Totally. Yeah. We gotta do that. What, what do you recommend for triple and then I'll go

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):

Trip. Oh, I mean guys are just killing it. <laugh> um, no, I think for triple I would probably, I, I don't know if you guys are already doing this, but like some type of educational like library, right? Yeah. Where it's like, cause a lot of people like, oh, why, why do you like triple well, right. And like, why I like triple well is different from everyone else. Right. But being able to be like, okay, here's how you use this for this or this, for this. Right. So I think that is probably where I would utilize or add, you know, some type of benefit or yeah,

Rabah Rahil (01:07:12):

Yeah. Totally tracking.

Cody Plofker (01:07:16):

Um, yeah. I think triple has the opportunity to be the best direct to consumer educational resource that, that exists on the, on the internet. I would think it's like, you know, again, I'm, I'm huge on linear commerce, right? Like building content alongside

Rabah Rahil (01:07:33):

A web.

Cody Plofker (01:07:34):

How can you be the masterclass, the direct to consumer masterclass masterclass for direct to consumer. Yeah. But probably give that away for free cuz your product is so good.

Rabah Rahil (01:07:45):

Yeah. So you guys are spot on um, big brand.

Cody Plofker (01:07:48):

Like I would, I would start a podcast with like, you know, maybe two other dudes,

Rabah Rahil (01:07:51):

Two hitters. Right?

Cody Plofker (01:07:52):

Good

Rabah Rahil (01:07:53):

Looking guy guys. Well spoken in DTC. Yeah. Um, no that you guys are absolutely right. I don't

Cody Plofker (01:07:57):

Know why you're not doing that. Come on man.

Rabah Rahil (01:07:59):

<laugh> um, we have triple well university, we're just finalizing the curriculum and then that's ultimately kind of what we're gonna do. And to your point, coding will have, uh, a thousand dollars entry price. But if you are using triple well, you'll have access to all the curriculum. So just kind of to put a little quantification on that, but yeah, that's absolutely the, I, I think that's absolutely the right call and um, right now we're we have some Q1 goals we need to check off and we probably wouldn't be able to get that live by Q1. So it's gonna be probably a Q2 launch, but um, huge, huge there. And not only that, it can be kind of this living doctrine of, you know, kind of just how to run a business profitably and some ways to get started. And I think there's just a lot of people at different points in their business journey.

Rabah Rahil (01:08:39):

And so it's just really helpful to have some place to start where there's really no incentive to lie to you. There's, you know what I mean? It's just like, here's the best stuff from how we've scaled and how we've talked to other DTC owners that have scaled. And you know, obviously there's gonna be context, but just understanding the P and L just understanding some broad things about Facebook or just paid media in general. So you can talk to maybe if you do higher channel experts, um, or paid media people at a higher level and just not get your shirt taken. So, um, yeah, I'm spot on with that one. I love it. So let's see let's let's dish some out now. Uh, so I think both of your guys are just crushing in terms of brand. I think from my a, this is gonna sound weird because you know, there's definitely some, you know, health implications with COVID, but I would work into like starting like actual conferences and throw a little conference together and put people, bring a bunch of people together, have a little party suss it up and then see what that does to kind of everything.

Rabah Rahil (01:09:31):

Almost like a, not a Mary Kay makeup party, but a little bit of that, you know what I mean? Like you can have some, yeah, but host, you know, a couple day conference in Miami or something like that, bring a bunch of people out, have some fun, get integrated with the brand, get some special swag. Um, you can invite, you know, your top LTV customers. You can, you can figure out how to do that. You could stream some stuff, you could have some beauty tips, you could have some health tips you could do. You know, basically all the things that you have around your brand have some extras coming and just throw, throw a party and have a bunch of people come in and see what happens. And then you can also, you know, throw some sauce on subscription plans where you can build out kind of almost a subscription package where it's like, Hey, do you want your whole health covered, um, click this button and we'll send everything to you every month.

Rabah Rahil (01:10:12):

Here's how you use it. Here's how people are getting value out of it. And then, um, you can kind of, uh, have that in terms of that. I think, cuz you just have such a fun community that I think in person stuff would be a really cool, interesting expansion and you know, there's, there can be some ways where you, you make it economically viable as well for Jones. That's a good one. What would I do for John's? You guys are just you guys hitting also there's I think maybe piggyback it. You could, you don't have a strong YouTube presence yet, correct? No, not yet. I would smash that. I would cuz you can, I basically piggyback a lot of your TikTok content into YouTube reels and then I would just hire influencers, having different looks I'd have like a look of the week or something like that and just have people and then, oh how do you replicate this look?

Rabah Rahil (01:10:56):

Okay. And then you can have different women with different skin tones or I don't, I'm not sure in like the machinations of how you match all that stuff. I'm sure you are, but um, basically just have these people on like, Hey, here's some avatars that you can look like here's, what's awesome. Here's some tips and just really build a huge community around YouTube. Um, you could even do some bigger giveaways on there. You could do YouTube lives on there to really engage the community. What's really cool too. There's something called stream yard where you can actually run lives across your social channels. And so that's what we do for state of the whale. And if somebody comments on the Facebook page or the YouTube page, it'll actually show the comment in your dashboard and you can kind of just go through things. So you could just do an AMA with makeup experts or an AMA with fashion and you can kind of touch these ancillary products of like, oh cool. What shade, what outfits go well with this shade to really understand, you know what I mean? Like that that's the end game of how can I, um, create a, uh, way for people to use this product in a way that makes them happier and more excited about their appearance? I think that's the biggest sell with Jones where it's like, it's incredible, incredible makeup. And the, the things that you can do, it's not about changing how you look, it's about giving yourself more confidence. Um, so I think, yeah,

Cody Plofker (01:12:06):

Somebody's been watching our talks

Rabah Rahil (01:12:07):

Shabo you see? You see? Um, so that, that, but again though, I think that's why I would smash into YouTube cuz you can go into some longer form stuff that, um, can sometimes be a little more impactful where um, TikTok is fantastic though. Don't get me wrong with there's a three minute. No, no, no. Yeah. Kind of thing where you can do some more stuff where like a makeup tutorial might not take three minutes or Hey, how do you organize your bathroom or Hey, how like again, just getting in the people's lives, right? Like, Hey, here's some great organiz or here's some great ways to organize your makeup. Here's some cases for makeup here's um, different, uh, exfoliating creams and stuff that we recommend. Here's our favorite kind of like all these things that are ancillary. You're not selling them product, but you're selling again. Like we're gonna give you better skin. We're gonna give you help. Boom, boom, boom web. So that, that would be my, my kind of two things that YouTube. And then, um, for Ash, I would start throwing parties. Peop

Cody Plofker (01:12:57):

I don't know if we talked about this. Um, people go to gold belly.com whenever you get a second go to gold belly TV. Okay. That's our 2023 plans. It's essentially it's it's masterclass for X, but it's non gated masterclass. It's it's just teach something again all alongside linear commerce.

Rabah Rahil (01:13:18):

Yeah. Why don't you just do it on YouTube? You get, you get all the same benefits and you get the, um, exposure of YouTube. Cause we're actually starting to get surfaced. And actually, uh, both of your podcasts are starting to surface in recommendation feeds now. Um, and so why, why would you get, remember aren't you the one about distribution doctor distribution over there? Why, why are you going in a gated community when you get, listen,

Cody Plofker (01:13:42):

Listen, we got, this is a 20, 23 plan we'll we'll we will talk about, we will talk about

Rabah Rahil (01:13:50):

This is figure that out. This is exactly what I would recommend. This is sick. This is, this is really cool.

Cody Plofker (01:13:55):

And, and I think its, it applies for every business, like the linear commerce strategy. Like I Tru I truthfully think it applies. If anybody like doesn't know, I know we're running out of time and we could talk about it more, but like linear Commerce's web Smith's term, uh, 2:00 PM. Um,

Rabah Rahil (01:14:08):

It's

Cody Plofker (01:14:09):

Essentially great news building pub building, uh, publishing competency alongside, you know, physical product. So you're always having an audience and you're, you're having a digital supply chain to go alongside your, your physical products. That's, you know, his, his thesis is that it's, you know, it's it's as important of a skill for, uh, DTC brand as is products as publishing, whether what, whatever kind of content that is.

Rabah Rahil (01:14:34):

Yeah. Strong thesis watch I'll link the, uh, essay, the linear com essay. It's really good. He has a few of 'em but yeah, it's a really interesting mental model. Okay. Boys we've came to the end of it. I got one last question. We'll do some plugs and then we'll get on our ways. All right. This is and shout out to, um, Brendan Bonnell for the first things question Barry hot, and then RO will get your question next week. Um, let's do this one. This is from Ibrahim MASU. I hope I didn't butcher that. Okay. If they rather had to work in a different startup as an entry level, which startup would it be and why? Ooh, I love this. I have two

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):

Go for it.

Rabah Rahil (01:15:16):

Um,

Cody Plofker (01:15:16):

I'm not ready to order yet.

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):

<laugh> jeez,

Rabah Rahil (01:15:20):

Killing me. Small. It's killing. Um, I think Stripe and kava are doing some pretty, pretty incredible things. Um, and I, I would definitely, I mean, obviously I would never leave. This is my dream to be, you know, chief at a startup, but the, if I did have to go back entry level, I think strip and Canver to the, uh, private companies that are gonna be just massive.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):

I think I would, I, I think I would probably work for some type of de toy brand that is honestly killing it. Like whether that be like an athletic greeds or like, you know, a golly, but something along those lines where like I can really learn what strategies are propelling these guys to, you know, billion dollar valuation. So definitely, definitely that I think,

Rabah Rahil (01:16:16):

Yeah, I love it Cody,

Cody Plofker (01:16:20):

If I'm not where I am right now, um, different start as an entry level entry level. All right. So we're starting all over,

Rabah Rahil (01:16:30):

Starting back on the bottom of the totem.

Cody Plofker (01:16:35):

I guess I'm gonna pick D to C I'll stay in direct consumer. I think if there was a brand that, you know, I was looking for a rollout, probably go eight sleep, um, you know, a health, not huge into it. It's interesting. Kind of combining, you know, se several of my passions. I'm a huge fan, um, dope company. So I think that's probably what I would go with.

Rabah Rahil (01:16:56):

Fascinating hate sleep. Wow. Interesting. All right, boys, we reached the end of the train. I hope you guys enjoyed your ride to profits. Uh, Cody, do you have anything to plug? Do you wanna toss your Twitter handle will plug your newsletter. What do you got Jones?

Cody Plofker (01:17:11):

Yeah, I got, got a, got a few plugs. So, uh, at Cody plot on Twitter, um, write a newsletter, trying to do one, one a week, you know, uh, that's really good. Gotten some pretty good feedback on it. Uh, triple will shared some of it. So definitely subscribe to that and then we are staffing the hell up. So if you're, if you're looking for a role, hopefully I can plug that pretty much. You name the role, whether that's marketing, um, supply chain CX, every role you can think of, just, just get in touch.

Rabah Rahil (01:17:42):

What's the best way to get in touch with you on the Twitters,

Cody Plofker (01:17:45):

Uh, DME on Twitter.

Rabah Rahil (01:17:46):

Okay, cool. Beautiful

Speaker 4 (01:17:48):

Ash. Yeah. I mean, if you wanna, you know, chat or see some of the stuff that we're putting out, um, Ash, Finn, Melani on Twitter, uh, posted pretty much everything that's going on at Avi. Um, you know, we're, we're trying to figure out TikTok. We we're, we're figuring out Facebook as we go along. So definitely, um, check me out there, but you being collagen, my a.com.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:13):

That's what I was waiting for. You. You're not even gonna plug the bars. Those things are

Speaker 4 (01:18:17):

Amazing. Oh, so

Rabah Rahil (01:18:18):

Those were so dope. The, uh, I think it was the fruity pebble. What's the, that, that flavor.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):

The fruit cereal. Yeah. Fruity cereal

Rabah Rahil (01:18:25):

Strong. They were actually they're delicious.

Speaker 4 (01:18:27):

Yeah. If you're looking for protein bar, definitely check out the bars that we got because they're addictive.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:33):

Strong. Yeah. The pretty serial ones are strong. I,

Cody Plofker (01:18:35):

I found I'm gonna come and raid the office one day.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:37):

Exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):

Come by man. Come by. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (01:18:41):

All right, fellas, that's it. The first one in the books, how exciting the crowd goes? Wild. Um, well thanks again, everyone stop for stopping in for her first episode of ad spend. If you do wanna get more involved with triple whale, it is tri triple well.com. Go ahead and sign up. No invite code needed. Um, we do have a newsletter called whale mail. You can grab a subscription on our Twitter page was, is at tri triple whale. Uh, yeah. And then reach out to me on at Rob Ray hill on the bird app. And then this is it. We need, I need to think of a cool little sign off. I don't. I D know how to, how thank you, San Diego. Good morning to be, to, to be determined, but, uh, for now Roba Cody. Ash. Thank you guys. And then, uh, we'll see everyone on the flip

Speaker 4 (01:19:22):

Til next time.

Rabah Rahil (01:19:24):

Bye.

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