Rabah Rahil (00:12):

All right, folks. We are back for another. You are not your ROAS. I am Raba, CMO and host. I am with my partner and crime COO president, and just overall gem of human max blank. And we are joined by a Titan and up and coming a dark horse on DT DTC, Twitter, Ash, Milani, Ash. How are you?

Ash Melwani (00:34):

Good, man. Thank you for having me.

Rabah Rahil (00:36):

Yeah, absolutely. I've been wanting to chat with you. I've been just enthralled with your feeds of late. Good. First off I'm in Austin as always, um, back home in the marketing HQ. Max is out killing it in Columbus at our proper HQ. Ash. Where does this podcast find you?

Ash Melwani (00:53):

Yeah, we're in, uh, New Jersey at the moment.

Rabah Rahil (00:56):

Oh, where in Jersey? That's Austin. Yeah.

Ash Melwani (00:59):

Uh, I dunno if you guys familiar with like Carney, New Jersey. Um, it's like right next to Jersey city, which is okay right next to New York city. So we're that close to the city. It's pretty much

Rabah Rahil (01:10):

New York city. I love that. Yeah. The, the city has so much energy, man. It's a really crazy, really crazy city. Um, speaking of a lot of energy. So you went to school in London? Yeah,

Ash Melwani (01:21):

Yeah. Yeah, I did.

Rabah Rahil (01:23):

How was that? Tell us a little bit about that going are, or I guess, give us a little bit of background too. So are you from London or

Ash Melwani (01:29):

So I'm actually, I was born and raised in New Jersey. Um, okay. My mom was actually kind of raised in London. She has, you know, her side of family there and we used to travel yearly, uh, to visit, you know, and, and uncles and, um, you know, right before my senior year, uh, went around, I kind of just like wanted to get a feel for like the schools over there. Cause it's a lot different. Right. And, um, my mom at that school there and she had said that, you know, it was the best years of her life and, you know, I, I always wanted to kind of do stuff that just made me stand out a little bit. Um, so instead of going to school here, um, you know, I applied school over there. I went, you know, walked around, did what I needed to do and, you know, I just fell in love with the city.

Ash Melwani (02:11):

Um, it's not as, you know, hustle and bust it is in New York. Um, I think it's like that perfect level of excitement for city. Um, so definitely really cool experience, you know, met a lot of people. The school itself was, um, mainly international students. So talking, you know, meeting people from all around the world, um, you know, Asia, Europe, you know, Africa, like you name it. Um, you know, I know somebody in another country, so if I'm ever traveling, I know who's couched to sleep on. Um, but, but yeah, no, it was really, it was really cool. And I think that's what kind of sparked, um, my interest in just becoming an entrepreneur because I was, um, hanging around with these like high net worth people. Yeah. Um, you know, whose parents had, you know, their own own businesses that they've scaled to million billion dollar businesses.

Ash Melwani (03:02):

And I'm hanging around with these guys with, you know, couple, couple bucks in my pocket while they're swiping left front and center at the shops and the clubs. And I'm like, I want that. So, you know, I think that's kind of what, uh, what, you know, projecting me into that direction of, okay, well I wanna have my own business. I don't wanna anybody else, if I'm gonna do it, I wanna do it on my own. And that's kind of why, you know, I stepped outta my comfort zone and went there and, um, you know, it kind of gave me a different perspective on life altogether.

Rabah Rahil (03:32):

I love that. That's fantastic. So when did you start your first business or like your first entrepreneurial adventure?

Ash Melwani (03:39):

Yeah, so it was actually around that time. We were in, uh, where I was in London and, um, I was really big into the, uh, sneaker reselling market. And what was really interesting is that, um, my brother was so into sneakers like Jordan's and all those types of shoes and I could care less. Right. I would, I would buy a pair of shoes and I would beat it out. Right. So basically he was saying, you know, obviously these shoes dropped they're limited edition and, um, you could sell it for 10 times more. Um, when I was in London, I realized the same shoes that were dropping in the us were dropping in the UK, but no one cared about it in the UK. So I would go around the shops over there, buy 'em up, sell 'em to the us, and we would make a ton of money. So we made a business outta that while I was there. And, um, it was really interesting to see how that was, was

Maxx Blank (04:26):

That like an

Ash Melwani (04:26):

EBay play, but, um, yeah, eBay. And then as we had, like just got into it and we were like talking to just store owners, like, like resale shops and we just built a network of buyers. We were like, okay, well, if this is coming out this weekend, we'll take 10 of them. And I would just go and fulfill the order before we would have orders fill before the shoe even drop. And it was like, it was just seamless. And, um, talk about,

Maxx Blank (04:52):

About international right there. Like that. Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (05:02):

That's amazing. Yeah, there was a really fascinating article about, uh, I think it was like Nike CMO or some chief executive at Nike and her son was, uh, just flipping just, he was just printing money. Um, another fascinating article too with, um, so do you, are you still a sneakerhead? Do you, are you really in that world now or

Ash Melwani (05:22):

Not really? I mean, if the, if a nice looking easy comes out and go by that, but you know, I'm not, I'm not a big, uh, big, quicker anymore.

Rabah Rahil (05:30):

Those worlds are always so fascinating to me because I'm actually, uh, dipping my toes into, uh, vintage t-shirts and it's just so odd what drives value. It's kind of similar to NFTs as well. Right. It's like, uh, it's, it's this local maximum, it's like, not what every, like a global maximum is kind of what everybody thinks about, but it's this local maximum, like if you're cool in that vertical or niche, it's like Yeezy is a perfect example, right? Like most people would look at at that shoe and be like, I don't know, that's not necessarily the most like aesthetically appealing shoe, but like there there's so much attached to owning that, that it kind of conveys this halo effect. That's awesome. Okay. So when did you start a and then how did you get into that and give us kind of that little growth evolution?

Ash Melwani (06:17):

Yeah. So, um, we started Avi two years ago. Um, but before that we actually had a digital marketing agency. Um,

Rabah Rahil (06:26):

Actually, sorry, let me, let me, let me stop you real quick there Ash, tell us actually what Avi is before we kind of go down that path cuz some people might not be familiar.

Ash Melwani (06:34):

Yeah, absolutely. So Avi is health and beauty brand that we started, uh, two years ago, basically we saw the market of collagen protein and, you know, came across as, you know, this medicinal like product, uh, the stigma was at, it was really for the older demographic, you know, more like reactive purpose to it. Right. So collagen protein, um, you know, collagen is basically what makes up your entire body, right? Your hair, skin and nails. Um, so that's why you kind of see hair thinning your, your skin wrinkles and hair nails after a certain age. Um, so you would typically take collagen protein, 45, 50 plus, um, or like a reactive measure. But, um, what we saw was that you literally have to start taking collagen your twenties because your body stops producing it, um, during that timeframe. So what better way to hit that target market than something that's Instagrammable tastes so much better than the rest of the market?

Ash Melwani (07:32):

And so what we did was we launched two flavors right off the bat. Um, you know, we, our branding is, you know, bright pink, the flavors are, we launched with two flavors, fruity cereal, which is like your, your fruit loops, um, and CNA cereal, which is like your cinnamon toast crunch. So got that, that feeling of nostalgia when you're actually drinking it, cause it's like the milk at the end of a bulk cereal. Right. So we launch that and we sold out in 12 days. Um, wow. And we're like, okay, cool. This is, um, this is definitely something that the market needed. So that's kind of where we started. And you know, in, in the two years we expanded that line into, you know, 20 plus flavors. Um, and then also adding different products that kind of tailored to different lifestyles, whether you're looking for something for weight loss, um, immunity, um, you know, hormonal balance or just, you know, energy that you need throughout the day. Um, that's kind of what we delve into and we just haven't looked back since.

Maxx Blank (08:30):

Wow. Can I, can I ask a question about the launch? Like was, was the launch built up around an existing audience you built or was it more like an app, like

Ash Melwani (08:40):

Question? So a really good question. Um, so prior to that, uh, we had worked on a lot of supplement brands, uh, but more in the sports nutrition space. So we did have an audience, but it wasn't something that was going to resonate. And, uh, essentially the way that we launched everything was we had a couple of influencers and we just ran, um, ads right off the bat. And, uh, it was it, I mean, obviously at that time it was, you know, we had run ads for the last six years prior to that. So we had the knowledge of, you know, the media buying on Facebook and how to basically scale. Um, so we launched ads, we had, you know, influence posting and we just blew it out 12, uh, 12 days. Wow.

Maxx Blank (09:21):

Isly show for like, I think obvious, you know, is that, was there something going on there?

Ash Melwani (09:25):

<laugh> yeah, so yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, obvious, obvious the, the, the name of the brand, but it's basically, we, we just wanna be the obvious choice in health and beauty and um, you know, hopefully, hopefully we're getting there

Rabah Rahil (09:37):

That's so on the nose. I love it. Um, so how did you get in the meat buying then? You, you just, it was just the nature of the beast. You start your business and then I don't have the money to hire somebody per ed. So I do it. Or how did you actually, I mean, that's how I learned pretty much all my skills was necessity.

Ash Melwani (09:54):

Um, so basically, uh, me and my two founders, we actually met, uh, when we were working for another company back back in the day and this company was called shreds. Um, I dunno, familiar with it, but, uh, no, they were, uh, supplement company, uh, especially tr protein,

Rabah Rahil (10:11):

Perfectly familiar. Yeah.

Ash Melwani (10:12):

I, um, if you were around during that time, this is when Instagram was just blowing up and, you know, at the time they were the ones who kind of pioneered the influencer marketing, right? Like the pay to post on Instagram when Instagram was chronological, you know, if you post it, everybody saw it. Um, so back in the day we all started there and we learned the business from the inside, working really closely with the CEO at the time. And, um, I had just actually graduated, you know, um, with a, with a finance degree, I wasn't even in marketing. And, um, I was kind of on the analytics side. So I was looking at the numbers the day to day and kind of reporting back, okay, well this is working, this isn't working, why I was in this working. And I was just learning the, the ideas of what marketing really was. And this was also at the same time, Facebook ads just launch. So I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna test it out. At some point, the algorithm is gonna kick in. There's no more chronological order. And, you know, we had to start adjusting. So I started learning ads from there. Um, you know, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom funnel. And like, back then, like it was so cheap. Like I missed those days. It's insane.

Rabah Rahil (11:21):

Oh man.

Ash Melwani (11:22):

But right after that we decided, okay, well, you know, we wanna do this. Um, you know, if we, if we're building it for one company, why can't we do it from multiple? Right. So we left, um, we left that, that company and we started our own agency. Um, I was a media buyer and my other partner was, uh, the, the main graphic designer. And then my other partner was all, uh, communications and overall strategy. And, um, it put three of us in the room and, you know, we took multiple businesses to seven, eight figures. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, in, you know, under a year with just, you know, had influencer marketing, email marketing, and so on, so on. Um, but then it's like, okay, well, why are we doing it for all of these people? Or we could just be doing it for ourselves. Right. And, uh, we took whatever we learned from, you know, those industries, the sports nutrition industry. And we really brought that over to the health and beauty, uh, because also at that time, the trend in sports nutrition was like the cereal flavors, the really cool flavors. Right. Um, for like weight protein. And we're like, well, collagen doesn't have that. Um, it's ma it's, um, it's mainly unflavored. Um, so let's bring over the cool flavors. It's knock it out with the packaging and let's just, let's just see what happens. And, you know, like I said, we, we sold out in, uh, in just under two weeks mom,

Rabah Rahil (12:37):

What a cool story. Okay. What are some of the resources that you used to gain all the mastery that you have now? Is there, was it like YouTube or like linda.com just to buying for friends? How, how did you kind of cut your teeth and, and then get to the place you are now?

Ash Melwani (12:54):

Um, no, that's a really good question. You know, thinking back on it. Um, I think YouTube was okay. I think at the time there was a lot of people who were in just trying to build the following and like the information was very general and it was all cookie cutter stuff. Um, I wanted to be like, okay, if I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna do it right. You learn by doing. And, um, just by doing that is kind of where I've learned, you know, I'm playing with other people's money here. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so I'm learning at the same time. And thankfully, you know, our initial clients trusted us to do so. And, um, you know, picking up kind of quickly is what happened, but in terms of resources, I mean, the Facebook groups at the time were, were massive, you know, Facebook buyers. Um, and then the premium one athletes, um, was such a huge thing.

Ash Melwani (13:40):

Um, huge fan of, you know, Tim bird, uh, Nick Shakur, you know, all these guys had, you know, put out so much value that you couldn't help, but just absorb it and want to absorb it, you know, attending some of these masterminds. Um, I was actually lucky enough to win a free attendance to Tim bird's mastermind, which was incredible. Um, and then watching some of these, you know, conferences that, you know, happen, you know, quarterly early, um, things like that. But I mean, between, between that, you know, the, uh, the Facebook groups, even not Twitter, man, I mean, any of these guys on Twitter, like they just know their stuff, they're just putting out value mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, sometimes I don't understand how some of this stuff is free, but for anybody who's trying to get into media buying Facebook groups or Twitter is where all the action is at right now.

Rabah Rahil (14:28):

Man. You, you read my mind. You, you must have snuck a look at the show notes, cuz that was, uh, my other question, but okay. We'll close with this on the men's segment. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Ash Melwani (14:39):

Whew. <laugh> that's a tough one, man. I mean, there's a lot of <laugh>. Um, the one thing that really comes to mind recently is, um, I, so I, I like we were talking about earlier, I'm trying to kind of get, uh, get more involved on the Twitter scene. Um, you know, I've been trying to put out value, like I'm, I'm, you know, in the office daily grinding trying to, you know, build this company to, you know, this eight figure brand that it's becoming. Um, and I just wanna like take people along for the ride. Like I wanna, you know, show them what's working, what's not working, you know, the successes of the failures and um, you know, I, I'm lucky enough to be able to talk to Nick, whatever you I shared be, what do you think about this? Um, so I was, you know, kind of excited about what was happening on Twitter and was bit, and you know, that man hit me with a retweet and then another retwe and I was like, I, that was it. And I mean, um, honestly you didn't have to do that. And I definitely appreciate him for that. Cause now it's like, okay, people actually want to hear what I have to say and it's crazy. So definitely wanna thank him for that.

Rabah Rahil (15:42):

Look at that. People having people it's powerful, you feel a lot, you baby,

Maxx Blank (15:47):

You know, you feel a lot.

Rabah Rahil (15:50):

Yeah. I, I think Twitter's one of those interesting networks where, um, there's a lot of buy-in costs to it, like kind of following the right people, aggregating stuff, cuz if not, you can get, I like, I tried Twitter out personally a few years ago and it was just, I'm such a curious kitty that my feed was useless. And then once I started using it specific for like DTC e-commerce marketing analytics, a little bit of finance, like it really, uh, to your point, Ash, there's like, you'll find some dudes or women with like 5,000 followers and they'll drop just like the threat of the year. And you're just like, who is this person? Like everything they're dropping? Is he like, Hey Alex PEs, one of my new favorite followers where she's just constantly, she actually did a whale mail, but, and you're just like how, yeah, there's so many uncovered gems.

Rabah Rahil (16:36):

And I love that idea about action because that, that was the same for me. I think there's a, there's a certain part where you need to be the general to set the strategy, but then at the same time you need to take that general hat off and be the soldier and be able to execute that. Cuz I think a lot of times people will have great strategy, but without execution, it doesn't really work. And then with execution and no strategy, you're just kind of a dummy hitting stuff up against the wall, which sounds like a pejorative. But at the same time, it's more productive than having this fancy strategy that you're not even doing. So I, I absolutely love that. Okay. Let's jump into the value add segment. Uh, so tell me now, how do you think of after post iOS 14, um, building your DTC brand? Like what, what are the big kind of opportunities you see and what are the big headwinds you are, think are approaching?

Ash Melwani (17:24):

Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that we're trying to focus on now is basically user experience, right? Um, we're talking about congruency from the a, to the landing page to check out post, check out that entire process. Right. Um, the truth of the matter is costs are going up and they'll continue to go up regardless of iOS 14 or this and that. Right. Um, if your CPA is gonna increase, then you have to increase your LTB. Um, you know, so people tend to stop focusing right after that initial sale. It's like, uh, like I got a man that bought and then that's that right? It's like, you have to have this whole thing lined up post checkout mm-hmm <affirmative> right. Someone's gonna use your product. You have to explain how they're gonna use it. How are they gonna fit that product into the, like, what are some of the other products that you offer that can benefit them as well?

Ash Melwani (18:11):

And then how do you get them to continuously use that so that it's become of their routine and they can't live without it. Right. So I think one of the biggest things that we've started focusing on, um, at least at the top of the funnel, right, is created just nonstop, creative. Um, you know, recently we hired new designers, new video editor, um, shout out to constant creative, you know, Nick's, um, you know, platform, those things are like so key right now to just pumping out creative weekly. Um, and, and right before the update, we, we were, we were being a little bit lazy about it. You know, um, things were working really smoothly. We had top performing creatives. We didn't make too many adjustments. We're like, you know what, if it's working, don't touch it. And then all of a sudden the algorithm can't find your buyers anymore.

Ash Melwani (18:56):

Well now you have to go out and get 'em yourself. Right. And, um, you know, we took a little bit of a dip, but as soon as we started introducing more creative and testing, um, you know, things like landing pages and we have like four different landing pages from just one product. Right. Um, you have to have different creative, that's gonna attract different pieces of the audience. You have to have different landing pages of different styles because different people, um, absorb information differently, right? Like people wanna read stuff. Maybe they just wanna look at stuff, they wanna watch something or they just wanna buy right away. Right. So definitely testing those pieces and makes them matching, um, is the only way that you can win right now. Um, and then, you know, figuring out the backend stuff, email marketing is huge. SMS is huge. Um, we're really big with Facebook messenger right now, really. And, um,

Maxx Blank (19:41):

I haven't heard anything about Joe in quite some time. Just, it's good to hear about it. You know,

Ash Melwani (19:46):

It's, it's definitely huge for retention. Wow. Not for top of the photo, but definitely for retention. Um, you know, and then, you know, building out that post purchase, um, you know, flow, like we have our, uh, Facebook group, the, a community, we have 45,000 members in there. Right. And basically a place where people can come talk about the product, ask questions with other customers, you know, this is not working for me. How do I make this? Right. Okay. Boom. I have a new recipe. I wanna try. How

Maxx Blank (20:14):

Do you moderate that group that size and like really keep people engaged.

Ash Melwani (20:17):

It's um, I mean, we have the best team in the world. Wow. Like I'm talking like these, these originally were, uh, diehard Avi customers and we're like, you guys are like, so passionate about the, the product. Do you guys wanna like be a part of the brand? Like, do you wanna help facilitate conversations? Do you wanna help change people's lives? And the answer was usually, yes. Like of course I wanna be a part of, you know, this company that's helped me so much. I wanna use the opportunity to help other people. So we have about, uh, 10 moderators, uh, two or three admins. And, you know, they're constantly in the group looking, um, for, for, they're helping people out with whatever. Do

Maxx Blank (20:56):

You, do you find that you can leverage this group to number one, launch new products and like build a pipe and like maybe even offer things exclusively for them. Have you guys found that to be a good play?

Ash Melwani (21:09):

No, it's a great question. And like the answer is like thousand percent. Yes. Um, basically we're using this group for insights into what our consumer wants and you know, basically needs. Right. Um, you know, they're the ones that are suggesting sometimes new flavors that were coming out with or products that they wanna see. Um, but basically everything starts with the group. Yeah. Um, we're coming out something we announce in me and my partner, Ryan will go live on Facebook. Um, whenever we have announcement people join in the group yeah. On the page. So cool. Um, and yeah, we have like 300, 400 viewers on a time, which is amazing. I don't know who wants to watch me, but 300, 400 viewers at a time and we're announcing these products and people are like, oh my God, I can't wait for this flavor, this and that. Yeah. And it blows up in the group. Right. And that's, that's, that's organic reach the fact that we're able to reach our entire group, um, organically instead of, you know, sending out SMS, which costs money, email, you know, open rates, aren't that great anymore, but be being able to reach your consumer like right there. And then without added cost is so huge for brands.

Maxx Blank (22:15):

Every time I speak to a founder and they have found out that this, this group is really secret sauce, I'm saying like, how would you rate this group? If you had to just one to three email list, SMS list group, like what would be number one for you?

Ash Melwani (22:32):

I mean, I would say, okay, SMS, right. In terms of just purely like revenue driven SMS, because you're reaching everyone mm-hmm <affirmative> right. You're reaching everyone of your customer list. I think group, um, I think I would say about 35 to 40% of our total customer base is in this group. Um, and so like, but even then when you start, you know, posting and things like that, um, the reach is insane. So I would put SMS group email at the

Maxx Blank (23:06):

Moment. Yeah. It it's, I that's unrated, you know, the, the groups, you know, there's not a lot of talk

Ash Melwani (23:12):

On hugely underrated.

Rabah Rahil (23:15):

Yeah. And you don't even need like a huge critical mass. So I have somebody who's is about six K seven K um, it's beard products and stuff, and it is popping like it's like, oh yeah, people love it. There there's tons of stuff. Like, and it, it, it's cool because there's a certain vector, um, of family like com camaraderie where it's like, sometimes it's not even like beer talk, people, post cars or people. And that's when I think, you know, your group has really taken the turn for like you've that flywheel of awesomeness has finally started up. Um, and to your point, Ash, you can throw in, you know, two or three moderators, maybe comp them with some product, um, and then have them kind of keep the, you know, the, the streets clean, if you will. And the, the porch dusted to make sure that, you know, there's not a lot of nonsense going on in there, but yeah, I I've found that to be, um, and you can actually start to do I think, some targeting to Facebook groups as well.

Rabah Rahil (24:10):

So there's some, some interesting things going on there. One thing I did want to touch on though, was, so for the messages, are you just doing sponsored messages then? Or how are you getting out to these people without like paying for 'em or do you just send an email with a link in there to have them start a flow? Or how are you? Cause I used to be a huge messenger guy and then there was just so much restriction in terms of how you can touch them when you can touch them. Or that sounds weird. <laugh> when you can message them how you can message them, um, that kind of thing. And then those kind of restrictions really started to, uh, blow things up. And then also cost started to become attached, right? Not, not at an SMS level, but whether you're using many chat chat field or something like that, there is some sort of cost in terms of running those, especially cuz there are a lot of times they're list size, um, list based in terms of pricing. So how, how do you deal with that? Or how do you capitalize on all that?

Ash Melwani (24:59):

Yeah. So the biggest strategy for messenger at the moment is, um, we're running ads for, uh, personalized product quiz, right? So we built out the whole flow of like, what's your goal? You know, like what do you, what's your age, wait, this and that, like, what do you wanna accomplish? And then the whole thing, it's like this massive flow that we built out. Um, and that's one of the entry ways to being part of the messenger. Um, then the second way is also, um, just kind of building out that list. So anytime we're about to launch something, it's like we're running, we're running sponsored, uh, message, ads where it's like notifying me when this is available. So it's just another additional touchpoint of you're gonna get a message or blast. You're gonna get an email blast. You're gonna get an SMS blast, um, push notification on our app as well. So like we're hailing people throughout the day. Uh, whenever we launch something and it's just it being able to reach your customer at giving you time is I think it's super invaluable at the moment. I remember messengers hugely

Maxx Blank (26:01):

Underrated. I remember like, I think we touched on this before, but I was doing messenger when it first launched, I'd say like six or seven years ago. And there was no rules yet. Like the only rule was like, oh, and it was just like an ATM machine <laugh> and you had, it did not last first of all, like you had, it was not good, but like before they were figured it what to do, it was wild stuff, wild stuff.

Ash Melwani (26:26):

Oh yeah. I agree. I remember there were days, man. You can literally hit anybody at any time and then

Rabah Rahil (26:33):

Oh, a hundred percent. And you can, once they're into that 24 hour window, you can technically like just touch all of it. Yeah. It got really wild really quick, but that's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. I might have to revisit that. Sure. Cause I have a bigger, bigger messenger list, but I haven't done any sponsored stuff. Um, okay. So how do you see the landscape of paid media kind of evolving into, uh, you know, in the next year or two, we kind of have a, a thesis about a mini CMO emerging where, uh, there's gonna be essentially a barbell effect where the agencies in the middle are kind of gonna have a really big challenge. You're still gonna have, you know, your big percent of spend agencies handling these big accounts. But I think there's gonna be a, uh, migration of value if you will, to kind of these micro shops where you can go there and they can actually track you all the way down to net profit level and they partner with you more so where, you know, you pay 'em a fixed retainer. It might be a little more, but um, you don't have to give up any of your profits and ad spend, but they're also very analytical versus right. There's a lot of, there's a lot of channel specific channel buyers that are fantastic. Fantastic. But it's hard for me to see, to see how channel specific buying kind of goes forward. Do you have any thoughts there or coloring the lines around that?

Ash Melwani (27:49):

Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of these bigger agencies will probably, I don't know. It might tell me, tell me anything I'm wrong, but I think the bigger agencies are mainly the, of what they're capable capable of. I think media buying is not just not just me buying anymore the creative. Um, so the landing page, that's right. You have to think about the whole flow. It's not about just getting that buyer in that, in that timeframe. Right. Um, you need, like I said, you need all those elements. You need somebody to look at the data as well and make actionable insights or create actionable items, looking at the insights, um, these like, you know, boutique agencies where it's like, alright, you're just hiring a media buyer. That's I don't think that's gonna be enough anymore. You need a whole team around. Right. Um, like myself, I'm handling all of our, our Facebook budget, um, where I was kind of getting the graphics, like requesting it from, you know, my partner and then, you know, making changes on the website myself.

Ash Melwani (28:56):

But like at this time is very difficult to do all of that. Um, just by yourself, right? So you need multiple designers, you need an editor, you need like somebody looking at the data and just the data and being like, okay, well this is what we're seeing. This is what we have to do. Cause if you have to that on yourself, one, you're gonna go crazy two. It's like, you're not gonna be efficient. You used to be. So I do think those bigger guys are probably going to end up kind of sticking around, but mainly because they're other services probably within their main, you know, offering, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Rabah Rahil (29:33):

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's similar to my thesis as well, where, um, the other thing is, I think there's a lot of agencies, um, and I'll get probably wrapped on Twitter, but right now they're overcompensated for the value they're generating. And if they don't move into that kind of analytics partnership, strategic role at the business level, not just at the Facebook channel level, right. It gets really challenging just because, um, you know, the economics just start to not work and those bigger agencies also have a bigger overhead, so they have, have to balance that out as well. But yeah, I, I see that kind of in the same place. Um, so you're talking about a lot of your creative velocity. I agree. Creative velocity is one of the life bloods to a, a Facebook account. Can you like, how do you do creative testing or how do you think about that? You say you launch on a weekly cadence, give us some more insight there.

Ash Melwani (30:23):

So, um, one of the biggest things that we started doing now is, uh, we have three, I guess, pieces of content that we collect weekly. Right. Um, we have a content team of over 20 women, uh, that we've kind of, you know, hand picked from the Facebook group. Um, people who are just, you know, VIP customers and, you know, and some influencers who we've reached out to, but are now like obsessed with the brand mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, basically we have this content team of 20 women who at any given time or like, all right, here's a brief, here's a product, give us, you know, we just, we need a video, we need to use the C style video, tell us how you've loved the product or how you take the product, the results you've seen, um, basically your routine with it. Um, and these aren't just random influencers who are seeding out, you know, packages do when you're doing on boxing, we're talking about women who actually use a product, right?

Ash Melwani (31:15):

So it's a little bit more organic than, you know, just, oh, I just got this in the mail. Like it takes really good, blah, blah, blah. Right. You know, that's like, that's not gonna cut it anymore. So 20 videos a week of, you know, specific content for whatever product that I'm trying to push. Um, so that's one set of it. And then two, uh, we have our graphic designers who are coming up with different, um, you know, static ads, uh, whether that be, you know, product, uh, images that are benefit focused, recipe focus, uh, different just ways to kind of showcase how the product works and, you know, um, the design elements of that cause different styles of, you know, graphics will appeal to different people. So that's the second type. Then we have the video editor, who's basically taking everything and just pumping out different variations of whether it's a match of the UGC stuff that we just got or, you know, slides shows between the static images that we got or, you know, taking stock footage and mix even in with whatever we have and just this plethora, just content that we're dumping and, you know, spitting out variations for us to try.

Ash Melwani (32:17):

So I ideally what I'm trying to do is weekly. Um, and I do this every Monday. I come in, I have a folder ready for me prepared by the team of all the pieces of content that I'm gonna test for that week. Um, you know, basically what I've been trying to do is figure out the best way to efficiently test all these creatives. And then obviously pull out the winners and put 'em into our scaling campaigns. But basically every Monday I'm testing every, every piece of creative, um, you know, I'm testing creative against what landing pages work versus product page, um, you know, trying to test different pieces of ad copies. Well, so there's a lot of testing that goes on on Monday and like 90% of it is not good, but like the 10% is all you need to just keep going for the next couple weeks. Um, so that, that's pretty much how we aim creative at the moment

Maxx Blank (33:09):

That

Rabah Rahil (33:09):

That's great. That's fantastic answer. That's that's wonderful, man. Um, okay. Just a few more questions before we get into rapid fire. Is Facebook still the best place to start buying ads? If you're a new business?

Ash Melwani (33:23):

It's, it's definitely, I think the, the cost to entry is very high right now. Um, because I even when we're testing new creative, like the cost is like insanely high. So I can only imagine what it would be for like new brands. Um, I, I wouldn't write it off at the moment. I would still, you know, if you have a budget, just know that you're gonna blow through it. Um, but you're, you're basically spending money to learn, but what I would, what I would suggest some brands do is, um, a lot of these platforms like TikTok, the organic reach is just unmatched the moment. Um, and we're trying to, we're trying to figure out our like niche in that, in that, in that platform right now. So, um, if you could figure out TikTok and get that organic, you know, uh, traffic, cause anytime we post organically, we get sales. Even if it's like a couple hundred views, we see sales coming, fromt TikTok. So we're just trying to, how do we, how do we go viral ONT, TikTok? That's what we're trying to figure out. But I think if you don't have that big of a budget, take off organic, just follow the trends, you know, make tos, not ads. And I think you could start seeing some type of traction where you could start allocating more budget to Facebook and, you know, spreading it out across the different channels,

Maxx Blank (34:32):

Ash.

Rabah Rahil (34:33):

Yeah. I love that. That's a, that's a social Savannah, right? Not make tos, not ads. I say that's a great

Maxx Blank (34:38):

Line. Yeah. What is your, uh, that's a great line. How much do you do in house versus agencies or outsourced? Like what's your team like your core team? I'm just curious.

Ash Melwani (34:49):

No, that's a great question. Um, so in house right now, um, in terms of like the marketing aspect, um, you know, our video editors in house, our designers in house, um, customer service and, you know, content team management is in-house, um, some of these and, and Facebook I'm I'm handling, but in terms of other channels like Google, um, TikTok, uh, Pinterest, we, we kind like the founders, like we don't necessarily, we're not experts in those in the field. Right. So I'm not even gonna try. Um, so, you know, kind of handing it off to those guys, but where, wherever oh, and email as well, that's

Maxx Blank (35:25):

In house,

Ash Melwani (35:25):

You know, those that, no, sorry, we haven't for email. Um, just mainly because like, those are the things where it's like, we're not the experts in those fields. Um, there are experts in those fields and those should be the, the ones that are, you know, tackling ourselves. So that's, that's how myself that

Maxx Blank (35:41):

Out. Okay.

Rabah Rahil (35:43):

Yeah. That's awesome. Um, okay. Let's see. Yeah. So that was my last question. So let's move on. Okay, cool. You've made it through the first two segments, Ash. Congratulations. Well done. Well done. Okay. Strap on your armor. And max is gonna take you through, um, the rapid fire. All right.

Maxx Blank (35:59):

Ran from this boy. Here we go. Okay. Facebook add overrated or underrated.

Ash Melwani (36:07):

I think it's properly.

Maxx Blank (36:09):

That's a fair answer. Dynamic. Creative overrated or underrated.

Ash Melwani (36:17):

I think it might be underrated. Okay.

Maxx Blank (36:20):

Interesting.

Ash Melwani (36:21):

Yeah.

Maxx Blank (36:22):

Uh,

Ash Melwani (36:22):

Do you wanna give, like, should I give you my like yeah.

Rabah Rahil (36:25):

Yeah. You can wrap about it if you, yeah.

Ash Melwani (36:27):

Okay. Yeah. I, I think at the beginning it was very difficult because it's like, you don't know the optimal like level of, okay. How many creatives should I test? How many pieces of coffee should I test? Right. Um, I think if you're trying to test one variable, I think it's very underrated because like you're not over lapping the audiences, you're not competing with yourself. So I think it's very underrated. And in fact, I just started to test last night, utilizing dynamic creative, um, soft thread earlier on Twitter, trying to test something out. But I think it's definitely underrated. Cause I don't see anybody talking about it.

Maxx Blank (36:58):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (36:59):

That, yeah. That's how I test

Maxx Blank (37:00):

As well. Oh, Indian food in London, overrated or underrated.

Ash Melwani (37:05):

Oh, underrated as hell. Like I miss that food so much. <laugh> I don't know what it is, but the British people don't make Indian food,

Rabah Rahil (37:15):

The rest of the cuisines trash over there. But the Indian is so good if this supposedly crazy. Yeah. I had a British

Maxx Blank (37:21):

Roommate for a while. Okay. Um, being the founder of a business overrated or underrated,

Ash Melwani (37:30):

I, I think it's overrated because it's like, I, like, I have my own business, like, like, and people are like, oh, you have your own business. Like it's not easy. No, like it's, it's really not easy. There's so many like you have to think about no, it's definitely something to be proud of because if you do, you know, find your, your way, I think it's very impressive. Um, but like anybody can say like, oh, like this is, you know, your Twitter buyer, IG buyer, like founder in this company, like you haven't made a sale yet, you know? Oh

Maxx Blank (37:58):

Sure. T-shirt before sale, right?

Rabah Rahil (38:03):

Yeah.

Maxx Blank (38:03):

VC, right.

Ash Melwani (38:07):

Yeah, exactly.

Maxx Blank (38:08):

Okay. Uh, LinkedIn overrated or underrated.

Ash Melwani (38:12):

I think it's underrated. Um, I think for a lot of people who are trying to grow their social presence, I think LinkedIn has that exposure where you can post something, um, and organically you'll start crossing by a lot of people in that, that

Maxx Blank (38:27):

Industry, the quality of the, I guess the leads you could generate from there in a sense or connections is, is high. Like, and just from, from triple whale's perspective, we've had a few, we don't focus on LinkedIn at all. It's been mostly Twitter back to our original conversation. The whole thing was like built off Twitter. We had some still over onto LinkedIn and we have like one or two posts and this generated like the most leads per post I've ever yeah. Ever seen.

Ash Melwani (38:51):

No, I agree. Yeah. I definitely agree. I think there's certain, there's a certain niche on there too. Like, like I, we were, we were talking about earlier where I think marketing Twitter is massive. Yeah. But I think like CEO, LinkedIn is even bigger. You know what I mean? Just the connections you can make, there are even better than the ones make on Twitter.

Rabah Rahil (39:10):

Yes.

Maxx Blank (39:11):

Well put favorite meal and why

Ash Melwani (39:15):

I love pizza. Okay. Like I just love pizza. That's it like any

Rabah Rahil (39:20):

Kinda configuration, any particular configuration?

Ash Melwani (39:23):

I mean Newark style configuration, you know what I mean? Like

Maxx Blank (39:27):

Never heard someone say configuration when comes to pizza. I like that dashboard a certain way.

Rabah Rahil (39:35):

Hey, where analytics company?

Maxx Blank (39:37):

That was good. It's good. I like it. Okay. Favorite newsletter.

Ash Melwani (39:42):

Oh, come on. Mail that go.

Maxx Blank (39:44):

Wow. Shout to there. Let's go. Shout.

Ash Melwani (39:49):

No, you guys are, you guys are actually killing it. I mean, I have you guys and D C did letter that I have, um, in my

Maxx Blank (39:56):

Appreciate your support actually like day one, I think course

Ash Melwani (40:00):

Of course, triple all

Maxx Blank (40:01):

Day. Favorite place travel to and why?

Ash Melwani (40:07):

Um, I got, um, I really well, um, used to go to London every year. Haven't been able to go back. I haven't been able to see my grandparents around and uncles. Um, but hopefully soon, you know, um, but usually I really love going to K food in Mexico. I just something about it. I just love

Maxx Blank (40:27):

Mexico's

Ash Melwani (40:27):

Love, you know, just chill doing absolutely nothing. That is just sometimes you need it.

Maxx Blank (40:33):

Yeah. Totally agree away. Spend your time.

Ash Melwani (40:38):

I'm a, I think when I'm out the office, like, which is rarely now, um, a big, uh, college duty player. <laugh>

Maxx Blank (40:47):

Fantastic.

Rabah Rahil (40:48):

Oh, what, what platform?

Ash Melwani (40:50):

Uh, I got a PlayStation five that you know

Maxx Blank (40:53):

That a,

Ash Melwani (40:54):

I just need to

Maxx Blank (40:57):

Five, five party. I'm like totally outta

Ash Melwani (41:00):

Game. Yeah. Five. Yeah. <laugh> it was so hard to get it, man. It was so hard to

Maxx Blank (41:04):

Get it.

Rabah Rahil (41:04):

That's amazing.

Maxx Blank (41:06):

Okay. Favorite follow on Twitter.

Ash Melwani (41:11):

Ooh.

Maxx Blank (41:12):

You could just say trip. Not of course.

Ash Melwani (41:17):

No, I, I can't, I can't put it down to just one because like there's so many good. Like there's, there's different people for different stuff, right? Yeah. So it's like, I, I can't even, I honestly, I can't even think of like a single person that I'm just like, oh, I can't wait for them to tweet. You know what I mean? There's just several people that like people who are just in general, you're putting out that value where it's like, where you can actually test the stuff that you're talking about. Those are the types of people that I love to follow. Cause it gives me inspiration to try different stuff as well.

Maxx Blank (41:46):

Yeah. Little nuggets of

Ash Melwani (41:47):

I'm sorry. That's great.

Maxx Blank (41:49):

It's the final question. If you could have dinner with any three people dead or alive, who would it be

Ash Melwani (42:00):

Love to have dinner with Drake? For sure. Um, I just feel like the guy, like, just when he goes after dinner, he just having a great time. Um, who love, I mean, would love to go out for, with Tim cook and maybe set him straight a little bit. Maybe. Um, honestly like maybe Zuckerberg too. I feel like just straight. See where he like down, see, see where his head is at. You know what I mean? I think I wanna get Tim cooks. I wanna get Zuck side. And then Drake, I just with that's it

Maxx Blank (42:47):

Maybe set those guys love, like, come on guys. You just, just,

Ash Melwani (42:50):

We bring it together. Let's

Maxx Blank (42:53):

Are, are basically controlling all the levers here. Like come on. This works. So exactly maybe a gift card. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (43:02):

Let me get some of them credits mark,

Maxx Blank (43:03):

Not the 60 cent refund. You know, you get that alert. There's your 33 cents back yesterday. Classic. They do that like classic. Yeah. There's definitely. Thank you.

Rabah Rahil (43:19):

Well, fantastic. I asked you made it through our rapid fire. You sound no worse for the wearer. What a champion you are over there. Um, so tell us a little bit more a guess about Avi. How can people get involved? Where, where can they buy it? What's the, give us the spiel there.

Ash Melwani (43:30):

Yeah, no. So Avi, I mean, we, we have our black Friday sale coming up next Monday. Yeah. Um, for the entire month, uh, you know, we're bringing back some flavors, very popular flavors that were seasonal, uh, back last year. Um, my ivy.com. Um, so if you're looking for, you know, beauty, weight, loss, energy immunity, you name it. Um, we had products for it and most of our pilots absolutely amazing. Um, to definitely try it out if you need to. But if you, you know, if you want to hear a little bit about, you know, marketing stuff from me, you follow me on Twitter at Ashman Malani um, I'm not big on LinkedIn. I tried it. Twitter's my thing. Or try making my thing. So definitely follow. Um, and I promise I won't disappoint you cuz whatever we're doing in house is not a secret. I wanna tweet it out. So definitely check it out, check out the brand. Um, you know, I'm you could send me a DM, whatever, you know, I'm, I'm open for anything. If you have any questions, I would love talking to anybody that I can and helping I, so yeah. Thank you so much.

Rabah Rahil (44:35):

Fantastic. Well Ash, thank you so much. Go follow him. Go get you some collagen and some energy in your life. Uh, that'll wrap it up for us. If you do wanna get more involved with triple well, we are tri triple whale.com. You can snag invite there or request access we're at tri whale on the Twitters. And then what else do we got? I think that's it. Oh, whale mail. Obviously you go sign up for, uh, whale mail and then I'll. I don't know when this is gonna drop, but we'll it could be after we have a really cool announcement. So, um, stay tuned there folks, but thanks so much again, Ash, max, it's always a pleasure and we'll see everyone on the flip.

Ash Melwani (45:09):

Thank you.

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