Today on the show we have Miki Agrawal, the serial founder behind some of the coolest companies you’ll definitely know; the first being WILD a gluten-free pizza restaurant concept she launched 18 years ago, Thinx, the period underwear company that totally disrupted how we think about our period care and Tushy, the modern day bidet.
This episode was so damn cool, and I know you’re going to get so much out of this. Miki is the queen of disruptive marketing, we talk through how she takes a product and applies her framework to create intrigue and mystery which then creates buzz and more eyeballs. We also talk about what she did to raise millions of dollars and her advice for founders. And if you hang around to the end, we were lucky enough to meet her beautiful dad! Go check out the YouTube video on our channel.
Miki is an absolute marketing genius, and her magic lies in pulling that intrigue and taboo element out of the products she is selling. Using that intrigue in a way that supports the clickbait or the interest of the conversation. You can really take anything and make it intriguing based on what you attach it to. It all comes back to creativity. Everyone is creative, we just don't necessarily spend the time taking the noise out of our brains to have time to think. People are so busy reacting to the world around them that they don't give themselves the space to be creative. Creativity requires spaciousness, time, and presence.
Tuning into your creativity goes hand-in-hand with the changes in the narrative around things not being presented so perfect and crisp anymore. We're leaning more into sincerity and authenticity in 2022. This links back to the big rise in UGC over traditional commercials, something important to keep in mind for marketing moving into the future. Authentic recommendations and user-generated content perform so much better, commercials have started to feel phony. Do things DIY, and even if it's not perfect, that's the whole point. We are built for imperfection, that's the beauty of being human.
I’m so grateful that you’re tuning in today and I hope you love this episode as much as I did recording it.
Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!
Hi, welcome to the female startup club podcast. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you. I'm super excited to be talking to you today and I want to just start by sharing a quick story for everyone listening to talk about the power of like good things, take time. I already shared this with you. But for everyone listening in 2019 female startup club was just a concept. It was just getting started. It was like, I think it was in October And I had a list of 10 women who were on my, like these are the people I'm gonna interview on female startup club and you were one of them. I just finished reading your book. I was living in Bali earlier that year, I'd read it by the pool and I basically was like, mickey is going to be on the show and now a few years later, here we are, I'm so pumped. Oh my God, what a beautiful thank you. I'm so funny. Is that Yeah, I've done 400 podcasts. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's been a lot, a lot, a lot of people, it's a lot of cool, I'm sure you've made a lot of friends. I met a lot of cool people, you know, that's, yeah, It's been just the joy of my life. I've had such a great time, but let's not talk about me. I want to talk about you, you are a serial entrepreneur. You've built multiple businesses, you've built to $200 million. Where do you like to start your journey and what was driving you towards entrepreneurship and social impact. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the first thing is just being, you know, born from immigrant parents, my father came to America from from India with $5 in his pocket and you know, I told the story a few times, but my mom came, you know, to America from Japan, barely speaking any english. And so I grew up in french Montreal and french Canada. And um, and so I think I just grew up with a lot of multicultural influences and just, you know, had the opportunity to see multiple perspectives really early on. And, and I think that really lent itself to looking at things differently and questioning things and being given permission to question everything around me. Um, and I think that permission to question, beg the question, what can this be done better? Can this be made better? Can I invent something in a different way? Like do I have the agency power and ability to do something even if I have no, no money, no experience in something. The answer is yes. And I think just the soup, the melange of exposure that I received early on and and receiving multiple perspectives about certain specific subjects just lent itself to being given the permission to question a lot. I love that. That's such a cool upbringing. And I know you're in nature at the moment and you're kind of having this beautiful lifestyle. That sounds so cool. And I'm sure that plays a big part in your kind of journey in business as well. You've started wild. I think it was like 16 years ago I read, you've started 18 years ago, my God, you've started things which is an amazing period underwear company and today we're going to be diving more into the journey of tushy and I'd love to kind of go back to that very beginning when you had this lightbulb moment and like how does tushy enter the group chat? How does it enter the room, How does it enter the conversation? How does it start? Well, the first thing is I'm again have Japanese, have Indian and the days are ubiquitous in pretty much most Asian countries, specifically in Japan, I think it's got 80-90% penetration, pretty much every household in Japan, including McDonald's and restaurants and fast food chains and so the days have been something I've known about for a really long time. The one thing I've learned about is that like, wow, it's so expensive, thousands of dollars requires plumbing, electrical and just super, super expensive and most people in this day and age millennials and gen z ers are actually like renting, you know, it's not going to like spend all this money time energy installing of the day on their toilet or replacing their toilet or you know, putting a fixture and of course those french today's like a group of french Montreal, so some of the homes had the days, but there were those weird, you know like contraptions next to the toilet over, it's like the shimmy over there poopy butt and like, and like clean it, it just sounds so busy with the shimmy back to what it just, the whole thing is just like what the heck is this? I've never been able to use one because I haven't like understood like what's the process here? So when I see them in europe I'm like but how Right exactly, it's just kind of a very light spritz, it's just the whole thing is gross and weird And then in India they have these things called the low tail which is basically a bucket of water that you just kind of splash onto your butt. And so I just grew up knowing about the days but never thinking that it's something that I can have in my own life, but then so cut to 2014, I had kind of developed a pretty intense hyper thyroid condition that was building my restaurant starting things and just there's just a lot of energy being put out and I was kind, of my body was on overdrive and so I kind of developed a pretty intense hyper thyroid condition which one of the side effects beyond like heart palpitations and like pretty scary stuff um was pooping a lot. That was one of the side effects and pooping like up to eight times a day, like I'm talking like big poops, like I don't even know where it's coming from because I'm this tiny person and yet it was just like, you know and I I got down to like £100 it was like really scary and so as part of the side effects of pooping a lot during that period of time luckily I'm totally fine now I'm 100% back from like no like you know dr mark is my best friends and he helped nurse me back to health and really took control of my diet and you know all the things and so um but during that period like one of the side effects of pooping a lot was like wiping a lot and I was like wiping and wiping and wiping and it just like made my butt raw and painful and I had to eventually start jumping the shower to wash myself after I went to the bathroom because it was just dry paper and then finally my husband got me this pretty crappy day thing that he found on like an asian site and you know it on my toilet and I was just like holy cow like this changed my life, it changed my experience and I started thinking about everyone who had I. B. S. Everyone G. I. Issues everyone who had any thyroid issues. One in seven women like everyone who had any kind of chronic U. T. I's hemorrhoids fissures issuing like all this stuff down there. That wiping is an exacerbation of like imagine the analogy I give is imagine if you took took dry toilet paper like you jumped in your shower and just took dry toilet paper and like wipe down your dirtiest bits with no water, you know, people will be like, you're not clean, like what are you doing? Like why are you, you know like this doesn't make any sense, like why are we doing that to the dirtiest part of our body? Like our our but it doesn't make any sense at all. So there was just such a bulb moment for me where it was just like, I am going to bring the days to America and make them affordable under $100 product, you can easily clip them onto your toilet in less than 10 minutes, it doesn't pull water from your toilet bowl or your tank, it pulls from the wall, the same one you brush your teeth with, it comes a little hose and a splitter, everything's including the box and it's like gonna change your life and at the same time you're gonna help save 15 million trees were getting flushed down the toilet, you're gonna help, you know, like, like, you know, social entrepreneurship is super important to me, so like we're gonna, we incorporated a give back model with some Agra which funds that build out of clean toilets in India and so we're gonna now for and with every purchase, we're gonna fund the build out of clean toilets in India, so the global sanitation prices and that's affecting three billion people on the planet is going to be supported by us in some small way, you know? And so, and so it just sort of kind of, that was a spark and then, you know, all this journey, which we'll talk about a bit came following that. Okay, so there's the spark, you've gone through this experience now, it's time to like actually practically bring it into the world. What are those early steps, what are you doing? Are you going straight out to raise? Are you bootstrapping? Are you you know, talking to people, what's the kind of early framework in getting this product ready in the lead up to a launch? Um Great question Yeah, I mean like there's, for me, it was started by just asking people like, would you, what do you think of the day? Like you, would you install it? No. Way too expensive. Way too expensive. I'm like, oh no, what if it's under 100 bucks under $100 a day? I've never seen that before. And so then it just like, but but if you did find when would you install it? Like, well I would be interested if it makes me cleaner, it's like a precise shower for my, but like why not? You know? And so there was just like, a lot of questions first asked around to my friends, family community and then from there, like started reaching out to like different the day manufacturers just to see like what it would take to just make a small run, you know? And I would just design it and work with a designer to kind of design the first box and the first iteration of it and then just kind of do a tiny run and then just see if there's some interest in it in that way. What's a tiny run like 100 like 100 units like that couple 100 Yeah, small, small, small 100 to 500 like 1st 100 maybe 500. Really small. And then yeah like start talking to potential funders just to say like, hey like would you help kind of build this thing with me? You come in at a very low valuation and um and I got very very lucky for tushy specifically because for things it raised $0 in six months and had to do a Kickstarter campaign and it was a huge struggle to get people to even think about period underwear as a product in the world. Like bleeding your underwear sounds disgusting. And so it was a very weird product and same thing with tushy, like, like poop water, poopy water will spread everywhere were like, no it's precise shower, it pulls it into the bowl, it's very clean, you know. Oh is it pulling from the water from the bowl or the tank? No, it's pulling from the wall, like people had all these like assumptions around what the day does and is meanwhile it's like you're showering every time you go to the bathroom, which is the cleanest thing you possibly do for yourself. Yeah, there's a huge education piece there for people who have never used one 100%. So like I feel like what I learned from the experience of things that previously to that building wild my restaurants, which was like gluten free farm to table pizza, which was completely new and innovative and it's in its time in 2005, no one was talking about gluten free organic farm to table, let alone in the world of pizza. And so it was a huge educational uphill battle to get people to even think about healthy pizza in a way that wasn't like you probably taste like cardboard, gross, I would never eat that, you know, like all the different stigmas associated with that as well. So I learned a lot about how to change culture, both in the restaurant industry and with thinks, so then when I started tushy it was like okay, like how do we use iconic education, how do we use, you know, I created kind of three pronged thesis around changing culture. The first is you know, a best in class product. The second is you know, accessible label language across every touch point of the brands, like funny copy and then the third is beautiful, artful design, you know, really gorgeous design and like through that you can educate people in an iconic way and from that, people be like more interested in leaning forward leaning in to be like, oh you're talking to me like my best friend. Oh your designs are gorgeous. Like what is this? Oh you're talking about periods, are you talking poop like, but I already leaned in so I'm already now, I'm not scared. So I'm open to actually learning more and so you know, I kind of learned early on how to talk to people and meet them where they are and then kind of like kind of like seduce them into the world of, you know, like this new taboo world but in a way that's really, really beautiful and artful and safe. Yeah, easy and exciting and fun and kind of engaging, wow. So in that early process, you know, to creating the prototypes, the 100 to 500 pieces and this beautiful iconic website and product design and um and language and copyrighting and things like that. What kind of capital did you need? Or did you think that you would need to get yourself to like a launch with like a full a full like whatever the M. O. QsR et cetera. Right? So my first meeting, I just got very lucky. Like I said, building Toshi building my restaurants and and and thinks was an extremely uphill battle to raise money. But for Toshi specifically, I got very lucky in my first meeting with an investor and gave a loan evaluation that he invested a pretty sizable check. He put $400,000 into the business right from the first meeting. And that was, I've never experienced that before and I was very lucky and ever since then I barely raised any money because we got really hard. But that was just a very lucky call which was a sign from the universe for me that was just like, okay, go, go do this. Even if you're still building things like you know, you can go and and and set up the business for Toshi and and put people in place and then let that slowly, slowly start building the background while you're still building things. So that's what, that's what I did. I got it right. So you're across two at the same time. Holy moly. That's a lot. Yeah. If you're a small business owner and you manage your own fulfillment, you've probably heard of the Dymo label printer. It's the gold star for e commerce store owners and they've just released their label writer five series with new software that's easy to install and use giving you more control over your printing than ever before. This printer will streamline your operations and print labels in precise quantities with ease and faster than ever. 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I want to talk about like for you, especially that first year of business in tushy and how you were kind of approaching your marketing and your creative like out of the box thinking I know that this is something you do really well and I've seen a few different campaigns that you've kind of rolled out and I was watching this video of you talking on Youtube about this kind of idea of winning with weirdness and I just thought that summed it up so perfectly. Could we talk about a few of your kind of initial campaigns to get the word out there and how you're approaching marketing in that first year of business specifically. We can talk about things too if you want to talk about things up to. I would say for specifically, you know, it's, it started off with like just deep education, but like education through comedy and so we kind of like put out this like really, I mean I I put a brown paper bag on my face and shot this commercial in my bathroom with my two first employees and we just sort like the brown paper bag, you put like a little smiley face on the brown paper paper bag and it was just like imagine if a bird sh it on your face, you know? And then we have like white paint just flew into my face on the paper bag and it's like would you take a piece of paper and wiped the poop off your face? And then we have sounds like or would you wash it with water? You know? And so then we like kind of like really like kind of leaned off camera, took the paper bag off and replaced it with another paper bag and it was like clean, you know, it was just like so lo fi, but it was just a really funny, just super low budget, like shot in our house video. And and that was the first moment of people being like, oh yeah, like why if a bird pooped on my arm, a bird pooped on my head, like I wouldn't take dry paper, I just near it off and call it clean, like that doesn't make any sense. I would wash it off with water, like that makes so much sense. And I think like just that light bulb moment that went off for people then as well was really important and and we were like, okay, like we can just come up with a bunch of creative funny weird content and put it out and just see if people will react and you know eventually we just kept doing like, you know, we sent our first event was held at my other house, my my my next apartment and we invited all the press and we just said it was gonna be like it's the year of the asshole we called it. You know where 20 yeah 20 I think it was like yeah forget I think at this point was like 2017 2017 was the year of the asshole. We coined it, the Yoda, the year of the asshole. We invited everyone new york times or post like the economist like literally every every and everyone said yes because they're like what is the year of the asshole? And it was just this like bizarre and then the invitation that we sent was like D. I. Y. Anal beads which was like kind of weird um And so it was just like all bizarre like normalizing anything but related like but play like but talk like that conversation like who cares, It's like you know why is that taboo? Like it's you know and then of course gut health. So we had a bunch of different parts of the experience. We walked into my apartment and there's like different little stations of things. You got a butt massage and the massage therapist there to get a butt massage Anyway and all the press showed up and they were just like what is the year of the asshole? You know, it's just so strange and um and then you know, we, we, we then did they know about tushie yet or two? She was, it hadn't even been kind of like launched at this point. It was still like launching. People were still like what's tushy? No one knew what it was. We, you know, like it was still very, very, very early. Like people were like, what, what is tushy? And so, but we came up with an event that got attention like the year of the asshole. Like what does that mean? Then it was like, oh put on by toshi that helps you keep it clean. You know, and it was just this like weird anything that gets people to thumb stop right or it's like you're reading your emails and your like subject having, it's the year of the asshole like what on earth. And so you want to click on that and then you, it's all about how do you like create mystery to bring people into your world. And I think most people are just like come to my event and they send you a press release and you're just like no one cares about you, your come company like an appliance feared toilet. Like no, like the whole thing is about intrigue mystery enrollment seduction like in a way that not seduction in the sex way, but seduction and just like getting you curious like, oh like this is, I'm, I'm interested, I'm leaning in like, I want to go to that thing because like you just piqued my interest. Like its mystery, its mysterious like the mystery. My mother always said she's japanese that comes from samurai lineage and she says the best way to maintain a long term relationship with your partner is always maintain a study, you know, always maintain a little mystery. Yeah. And I believe that's true in business. I believe that's true in building relationships. So yeah, we just want to maintain like get people to come and learn about something new and get educated about a completely new behavior requires more than just like try the day. People like, you know that's why that's why Toto never worked. That's why all these companies that came to America haven't really fully popularized in this country because it's too like get this thing is contraption, something that's wrong with you versus, oh, like a year. The asshole like how do I keep it clean? Like, oh, you know, just like a different way of thinking about like the problem and like all the solutions affordable. It makes, it saves me money long term, I'm saving thousands of dollars of toilet paper costs that I would have purchased every month over time by just buying a $99 a day one time. Like that's a huge, it saves money, saves my health, It saves the planet, we've saved 50 helped save 15 million trees are being flushed down the toilet and toilet paper. They're just like all the different value props, you're like, oh yeah, this makes so much sense. But how do you get people to in first peak? Their interest is not by saying save trees or like whatever, like most people care about themselves. So first it's like pique my interest interest, make me curious. So like first let me peek your interest in something by creating some mysterious experience. Then let me share with you the value proposition and how to support you first save your health. Like don't be gross. Like if you want to go on a date, don't be clean and sexy down there. Like don't you want to be like when you're on your period, don't wanna be nice and clean down there. When you're like when you have chronic issues, don't you want to be clean down there? Like let me give you the eye problems and step one is always, how do I enroll you into my world? And most people really miss that part. They want to tell you the product and the product but they miss the the introduction and that sort of that transition period and what was the impact of that like event? Like I feel like for you pr has been, you know, a big amplification tool for you and and spreading that message. Yeah, every single press came to the event, like, all the, all the press showed up, they were like, what is that new york times came, like, everyone went and whether or not it was good pieces, bad pieces, whatever. People, like once a year, they asked why I got these weird D I. Y anal beads in the mail, like, gross, like, whatever it was like, you know, it was just sort of like, cool, they paid attention and they guess what they came, they wanted to see what happened, right? And so I think it's, everything has to also be sincere and authentic, right? Like, if everything is too perfect and crisp, like, my very first video of my brand paper bag and splashing, it was like, oh my God, this is so homemade. It's like, even now, like, Tiktok videos are all UgC videos, user generated content, that's so much more actually real and actually converts better than like, a perfectly manicured commercial that feels just now phony almost, you know? And so I think we've always been very D I. Y having events at my apartment hosting things at home, like, doing things like very D I. Y. Like, that felt very, very like, you know, um personal. And and even if it's like, not perfect, that's actually like, the point, like, we are literally made to be imperfect, like, we are we are we are built for imperfection, and that's what that's the beauty about being human. And so let's just not hide that and let's be authentic in our truth. Like why are why is our but our nether regions considered something to be taboo. Like that's the part that creates life. That's the part that makes baby, that's the part that creates the parts of the things that our body that we don't need. That's the part that feels so much pleasure. Like why are we making that taboo the patriarchy? Like people who said 100 years ago, that's bad to talk about like why? Like it's time to shift that time to question that. And I, you know, I've gotten a lot of shit for like questioning things in my life, but I'm authentically myself, I'm in high integrity and I'm going to continue to speak about the things that I believe don't make sense anymore. Like why why is this stuff taboo? Like who gives a ship? Like, you know, so, so I think because of that press are always like, oh, what what what's what is this about? And I think, you know, cut to, we did an event called But khan as well, all things but related that also got, you know, billions of impressions and it was everything, but really we found like kim Kardashian's butt workout person that came and taught us a butt workout. We found the twerking champion of the world who came and taught people how to Twerk. We got it. We found the cake sitter who like, you know, dancing on top of the cake and then sits on the cake with their but it's like a butt dance on a cake and we're like, okay, you know, dr Mark Hyman came and did a whole thing on, you know, on gut health and how that relates to like, poop and how important, all gutted, but health are related. You know? We had like, you know, like people have but acne, apparently that's a real thing. And so like we had this woman esthetician that came in and did a whole butt acne thing, you know? And like we just, we had an anal porn star come and talk about what it's like to be an anal porn, which is usually you're like, I don't want to know, but you're kind of like, I kind of want to know like what I don't want to know, but I kind of actually do you want to know because everyone does want to know, like, and so like how do you keep clean? Like what do you do? Like it's a random, like just all the questions, right? Like we just create a spectacle and how people show up and it's, it's introduced it's like brought to you by tushy today and then people are just like, oh my God, she's just does these weird things, you know, like we we we tried to once again get on the subways and the subway said no, you can't put tushy on the subway because it's a sex product and we're like no, it's a big day, it's like toilet paper, like what are you talking about? So they didn't, they didn't put us on the subways and so then we then put out and we basically went to press and said like they're not letting us put these ads in the subway, kinda like we did with things which worked and it worked again with tushy and um and magically miraculously the universe gave us this beautiful gift where saturday night Live SnL like the biggest show comedy show ever. We didn't know but they read the dailies of so, so when we, when, when, when our, when our ads and get put on the subways, new york daily news ran a story like M ta flushes down this company's ads down the toilet, you know, and I was talking about two, she's ads not being allowed to be on the subways. So then we come to find out, cut to all of a sudden we find out that SNL is about to do a three minute rant about tushy and and the days and so so we found out that saturday live goes through all the new york dailies, like new york post new york magazine, new york times, like, you know, new york daily news to find like the most random things to talk about because they do a news segment and Michael che the lead writer of Snl loves, loves Sushi and basically was like wait, these ads were not allowing the M. T. A. He then does an entire weekend update on SNL a three minute rant about why, why too she should be allowed in the subways and how we have changed his life and how much he loves them. And it literally like overnight we were like, we are the multiples of our business, like we, we, we tripled our business, like it was an incredibly important moment in our business to learn. But the more spectacles we create, the more were top of mind, the more people will learn about us and ultimately come to our shop and buy our product because they learned that is also best for you, better for the planet, best for your best for all the things, you know, so it kind of, we just needed to like get as many people to learn about us and the best way to do that is through mystery and like intrigue and weirdness and like but cons and like you're the assholes and like, you know, like just creating Yeah, our video, our video called, I'm an asshole, the asshole character, right? Like we, we, I went to my costume designer for burning man and I was like, can you make me a weird but costume where the faces in the, in the whole, you know, and so we made this costume and we made this whole, you know, one of our writers that at Toshi wrote this hilarious script about like this asshole character who gets really mad, she becomes an asshole when she's not clean and so, and so whenever she's clean by Toshi, she's much nicer, but when she's like, when she's not clean, she's an asshole, you know, and it's just funny and so that video got like 25 million views and it's been like returning like people are buying still from that video, you know, I love that, that's amazing. And I love the video you just did of the fountain. So funny, so great with the composed music. I want to ask you like, what's your advice for people who are listening in right now who have a product, they've built a CPG brand, it might not be taboo or controversial or like, you know, they don't have that kind of hook factor that you do have with this product. What's your advice for those kind of brands who maybe they're in the beauty industry or they're in the beverage industry or something like that? How do they go about creating these moments of weirdness and kind of creating that hook and intrigue and campaigns that are out of the box, what's your advice? I mean you can say that, you can say that about anything right? You can say like, oh a bad day is like a toilet appliance, like there's nothing sexier intriguing and taboo about it. We made it intriguing in taboo like thinks was like period underwear. They bleed into like a tampon or a pad. Like how, how like why is that like taboo? Like I mean it I mean of course are taboo, but like technically they're like feminine care products, right? We just made the taboo of it. Cool. You pulled out that taboo element, pulled it out because it's true. It truly is a taboo. People don't want to talk about the people talk about poop and so it is, but we use that in a way that supported kind of the Clickbait nous of it and supported the intrigue of it that supported like, so like anything like people have beauty beauty products are like underwear companies are like, oh we're gonna bring in plus size models and make it not just skinny wavy models or we're gonna make bras in every shade of color and make it for everyone. And it's just like, yeah, it's a broad company but they made it interesting by making it interesting because they came up with a creative angle to make it interesting. So you can literally take anything and make intrigue out of it based on what you attach it to the association. You decide to bring it to like feed bags like this girl started this feedback, right? Like um what's your name? Lauren? You know like this girl who married um whatchamacallit um ralph Lauren's son right? Her her name is Lauren, I forget her last name. Lauren Bush and she she married anyway, so Lauren Bush started this, this company called feed bags and it's just sort of like a tote, you know, but back then this, but she made like every tote that I sell will feed one kid in need or something like that. And so all of a sudden same thing with tom shoes, like it's another another shoe out of a billion shoe companies. But he made it for every shuai you buy will give a shoe to somebody in need all of a sudden it's like interesting different story where the unique separate, right? How do you stand out? And it comes with creativity And people like, well I'm not creative and what everyone's creative, we're all creative. We just don't necessarily spend the time walking in nature and just taking the north boys out of our brains and just giving ourselves the space to think and to magically create and to just be like, oh let me look at this leaf and all this leaf just made me think about this or that that made me think about that. And I just kept my campaign. Like it just people are so busy reacting to the world around them that they don't give themselves the space to be creative and creativity requires spaciousness requires time requires presence, requires slowing it down, requires emptying the brain full of the to do list. And so um everyone's a creative and and I think it's so, so so important for everyone to give ourselves the time and space to be spacious and to be creative. And I think that's that's the key to all of it because we all have these ideas, we just don't give ourselves a space to let them download into us. You know, that's the magic. Everyone's weekend to do list, get outside, go for a long walk, take a hike, start putting that on your on your weekly to do list. Get into nature, look at the leaves. I love that. Yeah, I would say like one beautiful thing you know, besides reading disrupt her is to read um the artist's way, you know, I think the artist or ducal should as well. But like the artist's way I would say is such an important book to read because it helped me or it helps me. I mean I've been journaling for a really long time, but it reminded me the importance of journaling. Like how like journaling is especially morning pages like specifically, which is like you wake up and you just throw up on the page, whatever is in is in your head and just like that and like throw up on the page and what actually happens is when you're getting all the this that the to do list and oh my God think about that or this or that happened when the person said or that person did or oh my God, whatever just the junk that you read or saw on the news or whatever once you get it all out you're left with this spaciousness and when you get all about then you can actually spend the time like actually in your own space and to be like okay like what do I want to feel right now and like in this moment like how do I want to set up my day once all this junk is out and I think like doing just three pages of morning pages every day just to get the blah blah blah out to that and then you're left with like okay what's true, like what's the most, what's the most impactful thing for me that I can do today that supports me that supports what I'm I base my deepest needs are and by supporting me I can support those. I love you know much more effectively by supporting those. I love much more effectively. There's more love in my home you know and so it's just sort of like yeah oh I love that. So powerful. So cool, thank you so much for sharing that.
Question # one, What's your why? Why are you doing this every single day to elevate people planet and leave the world better for our kids. Absolutely. Question number two, what's been your favorite marketing moment across any of your business is so far? I would say um I mean there's just so many to be honest, but I would say I would say probably for two she was the saturday night live moment because it was so unexpected. Like it wasn't, we didn't pay for it like it was just sort of like we didn't plan it, we couldn't make it up, you know like to get that to happen to have like saturday night live, we can update to like promote to a three minute P. S. A. On it was crazy, crazy, crazy but I would say like yo Yoda and like doing our funeral for a tree, we host, we did the most insane, We held a funeral and judson memorial church with like 400 people sold out, you know like church and we literally held a literal funeral for a tree to show like millions of trees getting flushed down the toilet and we had like, you know Matthew Morrison who's you know, from Be the reverend. And we had like all these epic comedians, we had a 25 person chorus and choir and it was insane and it was just like, we again got tons of press for that as well and it was one of the most like beautiful marketing experiences. But it wasn't marketing, it was Seoul art piece that was just like truly magical. Gosh I love that. That's so awesome. Yeah. Ok. One minute question number three go to Business resource, go to Business Resource. My trusted friends love that part of the network question number four, how do you win the day? What are your rituals that keep you happy and successful? I'm very particular about massage and bodywork and so I now and I know most, you know, people don't prioritize that, but you know like even even seven years ago when I wasn't like, you know stole my company and I was still in the start up, you know, saving all the things, I still got two hours of massage every single week, you know 90 minutes of acupuncture every single week and prioritize that like bought less clothes, I don't have any handbags like I don't have, you know, but like I prioritized my boy body and my health, eating the right food, having enough sleep meditation, breathwork, bodywork, I see a coach every single week, two hours a week, kind of like really work through my own like business and life coach. Um and you can work out deals with coaches where in the beginning if you don't have any money, which I didn't, you know, I worked out like I'll give you a little piece of equity in my company if you're my coach once a week, you know, so I did that and that really. Yeah. Yeah, yeah like truly and, and and lucky me, lucky me like changed my life, like I probably wouldn't have made it sell my company but wasn't for that work, you know, so it was deeply mutually beneficial and I it was the best, I mean best money ever given ever. Um yeah, and I would say I do and I, and, and then spend quality time with my dearest and closest friends who fill me up and family who really, really, really fill up my tank. It's such a community, is everything. And if there's one piece of advice I would give any entrepreneur, anybody starting their their lives in this journey is to double down on your community and your friendships because when most people are like, sorry, I'm too busy, I started my company, I can't come to your thing, I'm starting a company, I can't do this, I started my company like I that a is a fast track to alienation actually being depressed faster. And then the second thing is like by me saying, yes, I'm coming to your event and I'll just work a little bit extra harder on different parts of the days and I just cut out all like any kind of the fluff and just show up for my friends, go to their things, come to the, you know, and like and build my community because when there's going to be tough times because there will be tough times, they will show up for you too, and you're not doing it for that, but the community rallying with you alongside you, championing you and you championing them, that that is a tank fuel fill up for for everyone, like we know that we are relational beings, humans are relational beings, we cannot do things on our own, we can't say I can't talk to you about my idea, don't tell you anything, like I share my idea with everyone, like I'm never keeping secrets about what I'm doing because they're gonna come in great, you want to come and compete with me, I love competition, bring it on, you know, but like, but like your friends are there, oh my friends every time I'm like, I'm doing this like what about this? What about that? They actually give me better ideas for my company versus like trying to hide it and keep it Yeah, like, most people, so many people are like so cagey about their ideas and so cagey about this and whatever, it's like more more is more and and more community more love the more love you give, the more you will receive and those that that that giving receiving of love is integral in entrepreneurship, Absolutely, and I love that you say that because actually, so many people say, you know, like go underground for six months and like, ignore everything and like you kind of got that contrarian view of like, no, like definitely don't do that question number five, what has been your worst money mistake and how much did it cost you? Oh wow. Yeah, I mean hiring, you know like hiring, You know the cheapest like people are the cheapest things and the cheapest equipment or the cheapest Blah Blah Blah, like anything that's like the cheapest is, you know, and and and I hate saying cheapest to people but like the least experienced, the cheap, I'm talking about cheapest like, like equipment, you know, a lot or things that you're like cutting corners to try and save a buck actually costs me 10 times more long term. And so I would say quality over the savings and like even if you have to like figure out how to like do a payment plan for the quality thing or like, you know, offer a little bit of equity equity to someone who's way more experienced, but you know, like not just someone out of college has no experience, you know? But like you need someone, you know, but then then they require even more time or energy and they're, they're not experienced, they don't like necessarily add, you know, as much about, you know, whatever, so like, and then ends up being more work for you. So it's like how do you incentivize someone with more experience with a little equity, like, you know, you find a way, but like don't cut corners if you can not do that because it does in the end make you do triple to work anyways and so might as well do it right the first time because otherwise it's just, it's gonna cost, gonna come back to bite you in the butt, that's right. Last question question number six, you've already shared so many, but what is just a crazy story, good or bad from your journey in entrepreneurship? Um wow, I mean I've had, I've had so many amazing, I've had some real doozies, I would say um the doozies are just like beautiful learning lessons, like what I've experienced from the really painful ones that I felt like deep betrayal and deep anger and deep, you know, now looking back there moments of, you know, like I see these people as angels in my life have come to like show me like, oh this is what betrayal looks like and feels like this is what depths of anger and frustration feels like and so now I can actually relate to other people in those moments, in such a deeper way, I can relate to people, I can meet people where they are in a much more pure, in a true authentic way. And so I feel like I've experienced the highs, the lows and I wouldn't change anything because of the deep learning that happened from those experiences mickey, this has been such joy, I am such a fan, you are such a badass founder, thank you so much for coming on the show, I'm so grateful. I'm gonna be cheering for you and for two, she No worries Daddy, come here one second. My dad, my dad. Oh come on in here, shout out to your dad. This is my daddy, a podcast London. He has actually an amazing book out. It's called Not for Sale. And the other page novel truly about climate change. Amazing. Just amazing page turning book about climate change, not for sale. And there's a new book coming out called reversal, which I'm so excited that we're going to link it in the show notes to you. I love, I love, I love it's my favorite thing. We're grateful to have you on the show here. We're listening to everybody. It was a pleasure to meet you. It was a pleasure to have you here, not for sale. We're going to link it in the show notes. Everyone run and buy it ASAP. Thank you so much. I have to go. Thanks mickey. Great day.