Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast How I Built This with Guy Raz

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Episode: Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024)

Author: Guy Raz | Wondery
Duration: 00:57:54

Episode Shownotes

Clif Bar founder Gary Erickson joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they answer questions from three early-stage founders about expanding their customer base.Today we meet James, who recycles water bottles into one of the most sustainable plastics on the market. Then Valerie, a leathercrafter with a co-op of artisans

born from a strike against Etsy. And finally, Elsie, who accidentally invented a pet hair remover while cleaning her dog’s muddy pawprints.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298.And check out Clif Bar’s founding story from Gary’s first appearance on the show in 2016.This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was James Willetts.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram, email us at [email protected], and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Summary

In this episode of "How I Built This," Gary Erickson, founder of Clif Bar, shares insights with early-stage entrepreneurs on strategies to expand their customer base. He emphasizes the critical role of community engagement in building a brand, highlights effective marketing strategies including aggressive tactics for product differentiation, and underscores the value of authentic athlete endorsements. The discussion also touches on how grassroots marketing helped Clif Bar succeed in a competitive energy bar market. Entrepreneurs from various backgrounds, including a leathercrafter and a pet hair product inventor, seek Gary's advice on navigating today's marketplace dominated by larger platforms like Etsy and fostering innovation in their offerings.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024)) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_05
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to how I built this early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo.

00:00:14 Speaker_05
Klaviyo helps you build smarter digital relationships with your customers with its unified data and marketing platform featuring email, SMS, reviews, and more. Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash B-F-C-M.

00:00:39 Speaker_05
Hey everyone, it's Guy here. So our team is taking a little time off for Thanksgiving, so we're bringing you one from the archives this week. It's the Advice Line with Clif Bar founder Gary Erickson.

00:00:48 Speaker_05
Gary was first on the show way back in 2016, and he told us about how he was trying to make a cookie without butter, sugar, or oil. And the result was Clif Bar, an energy bar named after his dad.

00:01:01 Speaker_05
and it became one of the most popular energy bars in the US. So popular, in fact, that Gary later sold Cliff Bar for nearly $3 billion in 2022.

00:01:12 Speaker_05
Gary came back to the show as one of our very first Advice Line guests earlier this year, and he was the perfect person for this episode. Be sure to stick around to the very end because we have a few updates about some of our callers.

00:01:25 Speaker_05
But for now, enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.

00:01:38 Speaker_05
Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will attempt with me to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.

00:01:52 Speaker_05
Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you.

00:02:11 Speaker_05
And also don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at gyras.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it.

00:02:27 Speaker_05
With me this week, one of our very first guests on the show, Gary Erickson, founder of Cliff Bar. Gary Erickson, welcome back to the show. It's so awesome to have you back.

00:02:38 Speaker_12
Thank you, Guy.

00:02:40 Speaker_05
So Gary, when you were on the show, you and your partner Kit were still the owners of Cliff Bar at the time, though your employees also owned a significant chunk. And in 2022, after 30 years, you sold it.

00:02:57 Speaker_05
And I know that in that time, over those 30 years, you guys fielded tons of acquisition offers. You even had to fight some of them off. And in fact, I think listeners who remember, who heard your episode will remember,

00:03:10 Speaker_05
quite an emotional moment in our conversation when you talked about walking away, the first time you had an acquisition offer and you had to come up with the money to buy out your first partner.

00:03:20 Speaker_12
Yeah, I still have now and then nightmares of what if I would have sold the company in 2000? Yeah, that was after only eight years in business, which is a long time. But I can't even describe the exponential

00:03:37 Speaker_12
growth and good things we were able to pull off over the next, what, 22 years. Yeah. And if we would have sold it, yeah, I'd probably, I'd be fine. I'm happy, anyway, I'm happy living in a garage like I- Basically do now.

00:03:53 Speaker_12
Which I do now, which I- With your bikes. That's right, which I did before I met my wife.

00:04:02 Speaker_12
I'm just so thankful that we escaped that moment and went with the gut reaction and the heart and both of us decided this is what we're going to do and we did it for 22 more years.

00:04:14 Speaker_05
And you turned it into one of the biggest energy bar brands on earth. One of the things that I love about— How you started Clif Bar was that initially you focused on a community of people that you were a part of, which in your case was cyclists.

00:04:30 Speaker_05
You are an avid cyclist. You go, I know you do these long cycling trips through Europe and Italy multiple times a year. You started by getting the product into their hands, into cyclists' hands.

00:04:43 Speaker_05
Was that critical, do you think, to Clif Bar's eventual success?

00:04:48 Speaker_12
It was the path to success, for sure. Many ways to say that, but that's how I feel right now. I think the two sports that I was deeply involved in were, well, three actually, cycling, I did some triathlons before that.

00:05:05 Speaker_12
And then I climbed since, at that point I was about into 20 years of climbing. And so I went to each of those groups and would just pass out bars.

00:05:15 Speaker_12
And I knew I had a tiger by the tail when I was able to go to multiple, like either climbing crags or bike races and just literally hand out the bars out of my car and for free. It's like, take this. And their reaction sold it to me.

00:05:31 Speaker_12
And then from there on, it was just, As I say, hang on to the reins from year one to – we never did not grow for 30 years.

00:05:47 Speaker_05
eventually became a mass consumer product with, you know, moms and kids and people on the go and people going to the gym and people just getting some energy.

00:05:56 Speaker_05
I mean, so — but it really — I mean, it's interesting because so — I think a lot of really great products start that way. They find a small, narrow group of people who love it.

00:06:10 Speaker_05
And then from there, they — that group helps to grow it out into something bigger.

00:06:16 Speaker_12
You have to have that foundation first, and then from there you go out. If you're gonna try to go mass market, you'd have to have so much funding to be able to do that, and chances are it's not gonna work, because you've gotta build that base.

00:06:28 Speaker_05
Yeah. Well, Gary, so you ready to take a call? Yes, let's go. All right, let's go. First caller on the line, I think it's James. James, are you there? I am here. James, introduce yourself.

00:06:39 Speaker_02
Tell us what the name of your business is and where you live. I'm calling in from L.A., Los Angeles, actually from the Techstars Accelerator Program podcast studio. I'm representing Stoke Plastics and Opolis Optics.

00:06:52 Speaker_02
We transform ocean waste plastic into sustainable performance plastic. And we're making everything from adventure gear to luxury hard goods.

00:07:03 Speaker_05
And tell me what your question is for us.

00:07:06 Speaker_02
Yeah, sure. How did you cut through the noise when building Clif Bar and effectively communicate your product's unique benefits in a way that resonated with consumers and made them choose your product over the competition?

00:07:19 Speaker_05
All right, we're gonna get to your question and to Gary's answers in a moment, but if you don't mind, indulge me, I have some questions for you first.

00:07:28 Speaker_05
So your company's called Stoked Plastics, and you basically use recycled plastics to make things like sunglasses and ski goggles, is that right?

00:07:39 Speaker_02
Yeah, so our specific or unique niche is that we use water bottles, ocean-bound and ocean-found.

00:07:47 Speaker_05
OK, so just to be clear, you've got Stoked Plastics, which is the technology company that makes this recycled material. And then you create a separate brand called Opolis, which makes sunglasses and ski goggles using the Stoked Plastics technology.

00:08:04 Speaker_02
Correct. And we started off making sunglasses and goggles, but now we're doing prototypes for buckles and trims and coolers and really anything that uses a high density of RPET or P-E-T in manufacturing.

00:08:21 Speaker_12
Yeah, now I'm understanding it a little bit more. So when you look 10 years from now, is Stoke Plastics the material supplier of this great plastic that you're providing?

00:08:32 Speaker_12
Is that going to be 98% of the business and OPLUS is there as a kind of grounding thing or signature or, you know, the other way around?

00:08:41 Speaker_02
So Opalys Optics at this point is almost our proof of concept for Stoke Plastic about the capabilities that we have through our IP. But essentially, we would love to replace all Virgin PET with our Stoke Plastic IP for us.

00:08:57 Speaker_02
And we want companies and brands to be able to use our Stoke Plastic in their manufacturing and have our icon right there. So when consumers are shopping, they know that it's affiliated with sustainability, circularity and performance.

00:09:11 Speaker_05
It's a really interesting idea because it's your vertically integrated business from the get-go. I mean, you manufacture your own material and then you make your own products.

00:09:22 Speaker_05
And essentially what you're saying is by showing how it can be used in your products, the hope is that other brands will just buy stoked plastics. You will continue to make sunglasses and ski goggles, but really it's stoked.

00:09:35 Speaker_05
It's the plastic material that you'd like everyone to use.

00:09:39 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's the impact. That's the change that we want to kind of motivate. When we first came up with the IP, you guys, no one wanted to touch us. I was a former U.S. government contractor.

00:09:51 Speaker_02
We didn't really have a foot in the door in the outdoor industry. So we're like, look, no one's going to buy it. Let's go create our own product and see how it resonates within the outdoor space and beyond.

00:10:05 Speaker_12
Uh, put on my finance hat, um, uh, cost of goods, a pound of, a pound of your, uh, stoke plastic versus your same use for same sunglasses or whatever.

00:10:19 Speaker_02
Sure, that's a great question and one we get a lot. So yeah, comparative to the ARPET that you can currently buy on the market, ours is about 10% more than that.

00:10:31 Speaker_02
But because of our high recyclability grade, you know, and economies of scale, we can hit ESG targets a lot quicker for companies that are trying to meet those targets. Yeah.

00:10:43 Speaker_12
Uh, here's a off the cuff idea. I'm thinking out loud idea.

00:10:47 Speaker_02
Pen and paper.

00:10:50 Speaker_12
So I think in food, organic is stoke plastics. Like, look, it's going to be a hard time sometimes to convince the CFO of company to buy, but if you could build this to be like the organic of plastic, then.

00:11:05 Speaker_12
That's where you can, you can justify the price point. Yeah. Cause you've got to justify the price point.

00:11:10 Speaker_02
No, I like that spin on just using organic because that makes people feel good and they know they're paying more money.

00:11:17 Speaker_12
Yeah, it's a certification.

00:11:19 Speaker_02
Oh, yeah, of course.

00:11:20 Speaker_05
Yeah. James, just out of curiosity, how have sales been so far?

00:11:27 Speaker_02
Well, I'll just say it this way. We've got enough sales where funds and investors are interested in us. I can't make a livelihood off of it.

00:11:38 Speaker_05
Not yet.

00:11:39 Speaker_02
Not yet. But after four years of spending a lot of money, and this kind of goes into my question to Gary, on educating the marketplace on the difference between what we're putting in our sunglasses and goggles and what others are not.

00:11:54 Speaker_02
And that is just, as you guys know, it's just been this huge PR and marketing effort that is time intensive and expensive.

00:12:02 Speaker_05
So your question was about breaking through, right? And your question for Gary is why should somebody eat a Clif Bar versus a competitor snack, you know, which. You're trying to figure out how do we get people to get educated on what we're offering.

00:12:16 Speaker_05
Gary, where do you – where would you even start?

00:12:18 Speaker_12
No, boy. It's a tough one. It's changed over the last 30 years. It's changed so much. I'll start with our story.

00:12:27 Speaker_12
In 1992, it was really only PowerBar and a few bars had come out during that time but they were kind of like – they took the PowerBar ingredients and they added

00:12:38 Speaker_12
you know, a little more vanilla or they, you know, a little more peanut butter or something. We created a completely different product. Okay.

00:12:45 Speaker_12
And you're, you're, you're kind of like that and you're kind of not like you're, you're, there's so many sunglass companies. I don't have to tell you.

00:12:53 Speaker_12
And there's some beautiful designs out there and all these companies, but you know, what is the difference? And we had this radically, we had to educate people that it is an energy bar. It just tastes better.

00:13:03 Speaker_12
And so we sampled a lot, which was, that was instant sale, but you can't get to everybody. So we did some print ads and we did a print ad called, It's Your Body, You Decide. And it was going directly after PowerBar.

00:13:15 Speaker_12
And in five days, we had a lawsuit against PowerBar.

00:13:18 Speaker_05
They sued you guys, but that lawsuit actually was a blessing in disguise, right, Gary? Because it got you all this attention.

00:13:26 Speaker_12
You took the words out of my story.

00:13:27 Speaker_05
Sorry, yeah. Sorry.

00:13:30 Speaker_12
No, I'm glad you did because it's so it's people don't realize that sometimes it might be what you want. And you know, so I and I think people are afraid to attack competition.

00:13:39 Speaker_12
So you know, my question back to you would be like, do you pick the number one competitor that you can grab? Or do you do them all together? And Um, you know, do you go after them and create a super aggressive campaign that gets you PR?

00:13:57 Speaker_12
Cause back then there was no PR as per se, but it was usually, oh, in, in a retail magazine or a trade magazine, you know, cliff bar gets sued by power bar. We're like, thank you. And guys, right.

00:14:08 Speaker_12
Like then all these bike shops were like, well, let's just try it. I mean, gosh, and they did. And we had 700 accounts in like months. And our goal, this sounds very aggressive, but our goal is to put them out of business.

00:14:20 Speaker_12
And for the first 10 to 15 years, our people were like, we are going to just go after their market share everywhere we could. And so that's how you tell people you're different.

00:14:32 Speaker_12
You've got to show the difference between what everybody's doing and you're not doing, and that you can't be bashful or shy about it. You got to, that's my opinion.

00:14:41 Speaker_05
Yeah. You know what's kind of cool is like you could have, you could basically take a competitor sunglasses and just show a pile of plastic and say, this becomes this. Yeah, I like that. Right? Something like that. Right? That's amazing.

00:14:54 Speaker_11
Yeah, guy, you just took the design right out of my head, our heads. We're looking for some marketing guy. That's exactly.

00:14:59 Speaker_05
Call my 800 number.

00:15:02 Speaker_02
And Gary, how important is athlete-influencer association with brand voice, brand identity?

00:15:12 Speaker_12
It was in our mix, always. And we still have world-class athletes with Clif Bar stickers on their helmets and ski racing. You're into skiing, because I saw your goggles.

00:15:24 Speaker_12
Bryce Bennett, who won a World Cup race this year, he gets in the start line, and you see this big red sticker, and then he crosses the finish line.

00:15:31 Speaker_12
And he wins, and he literally points to the Clif Bar sticker on his helmet, like, holy crap, that is worth so much. It doesn't get better than that, does it? It doesn't get better than that.

00:15:41 Speaker_12
And so I 100%, without having to go on and on about it, yes, we've always had athletes from day one endorsing our product. And they're super legit. They're not just celebrities who, you know, look good and, you know, they could choose anything.

00:15:55 Speaker_12
But these people used our product for function and for quality and for and believing in our story.

00:16:03 Speaker_05
I think that's a key point, Gary, is that There will be some consumers who are attracted to the story and the recycled aspect of it, but I think most people are going to want to know about the function.

00:16:15 Speaker_05
They're going to want to know why this is better.

00:16:17 Speaker_05
And I think this, that having an athlete, having a, you know, I think like an Alex Honnold or an outdoor person, you know, somebody, or Michaela Schifrin wearing the ski goggles, I'm not, you know, they're probably already,

00:16:30 Speaker_05
But, but, but you think about, you think about the shoe brand on, right, which we're going to tell that story in the show.

00:16:36 Speaker_05
I mean, that Roger Federer supercharged that brand because all of a sudden Roger Federer is wearing ons and people are like, what is that? Roger Federer, they must be amazing.

00:16:45 Speaker_06
Sure.

00:16:46 Speaker_05
People need to understand. Yeah. Cause the majority of people are going to buy it because they look good and they're functional, not because they're recycled.

00:16:53 Speaker_06
Yeah.

00:16:54 Speaker_12
And I, and I promised to do this. I'm going to get some, but I'm paying retail, buddy. I'm going online and that's my gig. I pay retail.

00:17:01 Speaker_13
That's fine with me. I pay retail. That's fine with me.

00:17:04 Speaker_05
Hey, Gary Erickson wearing Opolis, that's a big deal. That's a huge deal. That's a big milestone. A lot of people are going to be like, what is Gary wearing? Okay.

00:17:12 Speaker_12
I just resigned from the world cup, so I don't think.

00:17:16 Speaker_13
Yeah up there with how I built this and Gary Erickson wearing our eyewear. That would be cool James.

00:17:22 Speaker_05
Thank you so much for calling in good luck. We're gonna be following your progress and And we'll catch up with you. Maybe you'll be back on the show

00:17:30 Speaker_02
I hope so. You guys, Guy, I've been listening to you for four years. You've gotten me through a lot of ups and downs. And Gary, you've gotten me through a lot of hikes, snowboard trips, surf trips through your bars.

00:17:42 Speaker_02
I really appreciate the time and thoughts.

00:17:44 Speaker_12
James, thanks a lot. And I hope we get to catch up more. I'd like to catch up one-on-one if we can someday just to check it out.

00:17:51 Speaker_13
I'd love that.

00:17:52 Speaker_12
Thank you, guys. All right. Take care.

00:17:55 Speaker_05
Gary, I mean, this is a complex business, but I think the idea of producing the material and turning into products is a kind of a cool idea. It's super innovative. I mean, he's gone from zero to vertically integrating his business. like right away?

00:18:10 Speaker_12
Yeah.

00:18:11 Speaker_12
Um, there, there are a lot of ingredients and materials out there that are like what he's doing, but they're more purely functional, like a better plastic or a better, uh, Kevlar, for example, or carbon fiber, you know, radically changed the bike industry, but there's no patent on carbon fiber and everybody's doing carbon fiber.

00:18:33 Speaker_12
There's, so I think he's got the advantage if they can get the IP on that. And it's got to be functional. And it looks like it is very functional. At the same time, it's got that property that it's where everything is moving towards more sustainable.

00:18:49 Speaker_05
Yeah, totally. Gary, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, a co-op of artisans competing with giants like Etsy. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz. And you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

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00:22:15 Speaker_05
Hey, before we get back to the show, we want to share this call that we got from a listener about a pretty funny encounter with Cliff Bar and a competitor.

00:22:24 Speaker_08
Hi, my name is Brad Schiff, and I'm open to the interview right now with Gary from Cliff Bar, and I have a very relevant story that I just wanted to tell him very quickly. I was working in a bike shop in Malawi, Utah in 1990.

00:22:38 Speaker_08
two or three, and power bar was the only option really.

00:22:42 Speaker_08
And I remember all of a sudden Clif Bar showed up on the scene, and one guy walked in, and I thought he was a customer, and he goes and looks at our energy bar display, and I point him over to the Clif Bar, and I'm like, you gotta try these, they're so much better than power bars.

00:22:57 Speaker_08
And I started kind of even batting the house and power bar a little bit, and was raving about Clif Bar. And he just kind of like, oh, okay, takes it in.

00:23:06 Speaker_08
He walks out, and when I look out the window, he got into a power bar van and left, and he was the power bar rep.

00:23:11 Speaker_05
Brad, thanks so much for sharing your story, and thanks so much for listening to the show, and let's get back to the episode. Hey, welcome back to The Advice Line here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and I'm with Gary Erickson.

00:23:35 Speaker_05
So Gary, market share is obviously super important, right? Especially in a crowded space. And as more and more competitors started to get into the energy bar space, how were you able to fend off the competition and stay ahead?

00:23:51 Speaker_05
What were some of the strategies that worked?

00:23:54 Speaker_12
I would argue that we were built through grassroots marketing. You know, we didn't, we did some print ads at the beginning, which did put us on the map.

00:24:03 Speaker_12
Um, but Kit and I would fly all over the country and be cutting up bars and thousands of pieces of bars just at these marathons. And it was great. It's so hard, but, and then we started hiring people to do that for us.

00:24:16 Speaker_12
We had a team of 25 people around the country, and then they had local people that they would hire for the weekend events.

00:24:22 Speaker_12
And I really think that's what put us on the map, but where our product was inexpensive enough where we could actually give out whole bars and they could experience that. And then the next thing you know, they're buying 12, 24 and hundreds.

00:24:34 Speaker_12
And we built a lot of loyal. I mean, we have such loyalty with a small group of people that buy the majority of our product.

00:24:42 Speaker_05
Yeah. Okay. Let's get another call in. What do you think? What do you say? Another one. Okay. Valerie is on the line. Hello, Valerie. Hello. Hello. Welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself.

00:24:55 Speaker_05
Tell us your first and last name, what the name of your business is and where you live.

00:24:59 Speaker_09
My name is Valerie Franklin and I'm representing Artisans Cooperative and I'm calling in from the beautiful North Oregon coast.

00:25:07 Speaker_05
Nice. Oh, this is a beautiful place. Okay. And what's your question?

00:25:11 Speaker_09
So we have almost no funds, but a strong bottom-up community ownership. How do we break into a market space that is filled with giants like Etsy and Amazon?

00:25:23 Speaker_05
Those are giants. Okay, we've certainly told the Etsy story on the show. First of all, tell us a little bit about your business, about Artisans Cooperative. What is it? What do you do?

00:25:34 Speaker_09
Yeah, Artisans Cooperative is a co-op alternative to Etsy. We're growing an online handmade marketplace for crafters, makers and artists owned and managed by the people who love it as a cooperatively owned business.

00:25:48 Speaker_05
I'm looking at the website now. And so first of all, what what's the problem with Etsy? Why did you because it seems like you are really it is competing with Etsy. But what what prompted you to to start this?

00:26:01 Speaker_09
Well, it's easiest for me to answer in some ways from a personal point of view because I'm one half of a leather crafting business, a small husband and wife leather crafting business that we started on Etsy in 2009.

00:26:16 Speaker_09
So we know Etsy very well and we're still on Etsy. And they are a great option to have in your portfolio as a small artist or maker. But over the years, they've changed a lot. Starting in, I think, 2012, they started growing much bigger.

00:26:34 Speaker_09
2015, they went through an IPO. And Celery started becoming, I would say, the product as much as the offering, the way that Etsy's making revenue. So this all really got started when they increased their fees a second time by 30% in 2022.

00:26:53 Speaker_09
And they announced that fee increase in the same week that they announced record profits. And that was just something that struck a lot of small makers and artists who rely on this income, kind of struck a nerve.

00:27:07 Speaker_09
And so it kind of spontaneously organized into a protest online through social media, which is how I got involved. It was called the Etsy Strike, and thousands of shops took their listings off of the site for a week in protest.

00:27:23 Speaker_09
And it actually caught some pretty good mainstream attention, but didn't change the fact that the fees were going up again.

00:27:29 Speaker_09
It's at the point where a sales commission might vary anywhere from 10% to 40% per sale, and you won't really know what that is until the sale happens.

00:27:39 Speaker_05
And how do you differ from Etsy? Presumably you're charging much lower fees to your sellers.

00:27:46 Speaker_09
Not necessarily, no. The big difference is that we're owned and operated or owned by the members themselves. So a cooperative is a member-owned business that's organized on a principle of one member, one vote.

00:28:01 Speaker_09
So we have a multi-stakeholder cooperative, which means that the artisans themselves can be owners of the business and the shoppers or any general supporter can become an owner of the business, which means they get governance rights. They get a vote.

00:28:16 Speaker_09
And they get to have a say in how things are run. And they get financial rights so that when we have profits, the dividends are distributed among the people. Yeah.

00:28:24 Speaker_05
How many artisans do you now have involved?

00:28:28 Speaker_09
We have a little over 300 members now. Yeah. And we have about, I think, 200 shops on our marketplace.

00:28:35 Speaker_05
Okay, so, Valerie, you brought us this question about you've got, say, almost no funds, but you've got a strong bottom-up community. How do you break into a marketplace kind of dominated by Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and other massive retailers?

00:28:53 Speaker_05
Gary, you want to take the first crack at this one?

00:28:55 Speaker_12
Oh, man, this is a tough one. Well, you've got a real targeted competitor. You would call Etsy a competitor, is that correct?

00:29:03 Speaker_09
Yes, although we're not necessarily trying to replace Etsy. If we could get the 1% of artisans who are looking for alternatives and the consumers who are looking for ethical options, I think, you know, that's a great starting place.

00:29:19 Speaker_12
So the answer is yes, there's your competitor. You just don't want to say it. So yeah, we used to say that at the beginning when we were at Clif Bar, like if we could just get, 10% of their business or 20% of their business, I'll be set for life.

00:29:35 Speaker_12
And that would be like, we'd be revenue of a million dollars. And little did we know that we far surpassed that. So yeah, so you could target that. Don't be shy about that.

00:29:48 Speaker_12
Is there a place where you would feel like if we got here, then we've got momentum and we're able to sustain our business for the long haul? Like how far are you from there right now?

00:30:01 Speaker_09
That's a great question. And I think that's one of the special challenges we have in trying to build a marketplace is that we're in a bit of a chicken or an egg situation.

00:30:09 Speaker_09
We need enough artisans to provide good consumer choice for the shoppers who are coming on so they have things to sort through and to find what they're looking for. But we need enough customers to make it worthwhile for artisans to want to sign up.

00:30:24 Speaker_09
And so I hope that we're growing both in step with each other in a balanced way. We're not there yet. We just started. We launched our beta marketplace with existing tech in October of this year, so six months ago.

00:30:38 Speaker_09
And I would say we're probably at least half of where I'd want to be. I started feeling like we were getting there.

00:30:49 Speaker_05
And I think about, you know, it's really interesting because we've done a whole series on the show recently about content creators and the business of content creation.

00:30:57 Speaker_05
And, you know, 10 years ago, in order to reach mass scale in media, you had to be on CNN or, you know, be at a major media organization. Today, you can be some dude with a YouTube channel and reach 50 million subscribers, right?

00:31:10 Speaker_05
And so what's interesting about how social media platforms work now is that they want to attract all these creators, right?

00:31:17 Speaker_05
So for a long time, it was YouTube, or they were trying to get onto because YouTube paid the most, and then they went to TikTok. And now, a lot of people are migrating to Snapchat. Now they all use all of them.

00:31:28 Speaker_05
But these different platforms offer different incentives. And now it's getting me to my question for you, which is, is there a world where you could offer an incentive that is so good,

00:31:39 Speaker_05
you know, like, no, no fees for the first year or something radical, where that kind of message spreads among crafters, because there are, there are craft fairs all over the country, crafters talk to each other, you guys have a discord channel, I see.

00:31:57 Speaker_05
Is there some kind of incentive that you, you are able to offer to bring this critical mass in?

00:32:06 Speaker_09
That's a really good question. I absolutely think that we could come up with such an offer if we could find the right audience and the right moment to share it.

00:32:17 Speaker_09
But I do think one of the things we've had a challenge with being on a platform is that we don't have a lot of ways to connect with other artisans other than at craft fairs and things like that.

00:32:26 Speaker_09
Because places like Etsy control the narrative and control their forums.

00:32:31 Speaker_05
But you – right. That's right. But for you to control the narrative, you've got to give your members the tools. You're going to make it easy for them, right? You've got 300 members. each of those members is on social media.

00:32:44 Speaker_05
I mean, they're not they may not have hundreds of thousands of followers, but they might have hundreds or thousands on their social media.

00:32:51 Speaker_05
And, and I wonder whether you can leverage your community in a better way to have them promote what you're doing.

00:33:00 Speaker_09
I think our members are not only committed, they're literally invested. They're co-op member owners, they've invested in this company, and we're all equal owners of it together.

00:33:10 Speaker_09
It brings up an interesting point that I hadn't fully thought through, which is that artisans, we have people who are just starting their careers, people who are doing it just for fun, and then people like me and my partner who do this full-time for a living.

00:33:25 Speaker_09
And so everybody comes with it, with a different set of skills and a different background. And using everybody's strengths where they are makes a lot of sense.

00:33:37 Speaker_12
Valerie, once people come onto your site for the first time and maybe they buy something, do you got them? Do they come back? They're like, wow, I never thought this existed. This is really different.

00:33:51 Speaker_09
I think, I think we've had, uh, repeat. Customers, um, already. Yeah.

00:33:56 Speaker_09
I mean, in our six months of, of operating, I think one of the ways that we try to encourage that is, you know, through email campaigns and trying to make people aware of the variety of things on our platform, everything from wooden coasters to handwoven silk shawls, um, you know, there, there is such a wide variety of products and that's sort of the treasure hunt of it.

00:34:19 Speaker_05
You know, one of the things that I've noticed, I'm going to give you some feedback on this. I know the site's early, it's still in beta form, but there's too much. There's too much stuff.

00:34:28 Speaker_05
There's join the member, four artisans, handmade, this, there's all these drop down things. And what I think Etsy does well and what I think you could do really well is they just have pictures of different categories and you have some of that.

00:34:40 Speaker_05
But Gary, you know, I know Gary is a cyclist.

00:34:44 Speaker_05
And is there a world where you've got like people who love cycling or, you know, you've got clothing and accessories, arts and crafts, but could you break that down even further, like beanies or games instead of like personal care and leisure, like

00:34:59 Speaker_05
domino lovers. I mean, you don't have to get like super, super like micro niche, but you could get kind of niche. And, you know, I understand you guys don't have massive budgets, but you're working with artists.

00:35:12 Speaker_05
I mean, I know you have a lot of time you're in your group, to really kind of think a bit more intentionally about the design of the website to make it a little to make it pop a little bit more. You know what I mean, Gary? I like that a lot.

00:35:26 Speaker_12
And I like also that you're you're trying to move toward something that Etsy isn't doing on their website or with their product line or whatever is available.

00:35:38 Speaker_12
I mean, you know, there, okay, you could go to, if you want to differentiate, you know, it could be your headline, you know, you may not find this on Etsy. Yeah.

00:35:48 Speaker_12
You may not want to say, you won't find this, because maybe you will, but you could say, you may not find this on Etsy. That would give them like, well, maybe there's other stuff on here I won't find in Etsy.

00:35:59 Speaker_12
Because you've got to create, you can't be an Etsy with better values. You gotta be Etsy with a different product.

00:36:08 Speaker_05
I'm telling you, I agree. I'm just spitballing here, but maybe think of a different way of categorizing what you offer and you focus on the things that people love or might be attracted to.

00:36:18 Speaker_12
So here's a question that follows that, I hope perfectly, is how many people come to this and buy a gift versus buying something for themselves?

00:36:30 Speaker_09
That's a great question.

00:36:31 Speaker_09
I would say so far more purchases have been personal and yet that contradicts my own experience with my own business that when you make these niche things that are perfect for that one person you know, a higher percentage of them is gifts.

00:36:49 Speaker_09
I also know that Etsy is pushing gifts hard right now. Okay, that's interesting. That was their Super Bowl ad. Is that right?

00:36:57 Speaker_05
Yes. But gifts, Gary, you're right. I mean, gifts is the way to go.

00:37:02 Speaker_12
It's the way. I mean, if you push gifts, you might find something for yourself too. You know, like you're going for like, I go to wherever, wherever and buy a gift for my family or my wife or something.

00:37:11 Speaker_12
And then I ended up like, well, this looks, I think I want to get this for myself. Yeah.

00:37:15 Speaker_05
I mean, there's a lady here who's making knit beanies with like an octopus on it.

00:37:22 Speaker_11
I'm seeing that.

00:37:22 Speaker_05
I'm on the same page. And the chicken and the lemon. I mean, there's a, There's lots of people of octopuses or flamingos.

00:37:29 Speaker_11
I can't believe I'm on the same page. The yellow one?

00:37:31 Speaker_05
The yellow picture? Yeah. I'm looking for gifts. I'm looking for a gift for somebody. And I don't even know where to begin.

00:37:38 Speaker_12
You could have a revolving top gifts, top sold gifts. Yeah. And if you just had like a headline of like, first thing is top 50 gifts. And because if I'm looking for a gift, I wouldn't know where to start here.

00:37:51 Speaker_05
Yeah.

00:37:52 Speaker_12
And I would like to be led to something. I might come back here and be buying gifts all the time because I'm always searching for a gift for my friends and family.

00:38:01 Speaker_05
Valerie, I think we're onto something. I think we might be onto something.

00:38:07 Speaker_09
You have given me so many great ideas and feedback and direction, and I absolutely loved Gary's point, too, that gifts are a great add-on and a great way to increase our per-order amount. Look for yourself and also think about other gifts to add on.

00:38:23 Speaker_12
And back to trying to get that message out, is wherever you get, if you could just say a gift you may not find on Etsy. Yeah, yeah, try that. Try that. And you know, Etsy's not going out of business. They'll be fine.

00:38:38 Speaker_05
And we love Etsy, by the way. They've been on the show, big fans too, so no shade to Etsy. Valerie Franklin, Artisans Cooperative, thanks for calling in. Good luck. We'll be watching.

00:38:50 Speaker_09
Awesome. I was delighted to be here. Thank you so much.

00:38:53 Speaker_05
All the best, Valerie. Great job. Gary, I'm gonna get you a chicken hat, I think. Which one? I don't know, or the lemon, the big lemon on the side of that knit hat.

00:39:04 Speaker_05
I think that one's for- I think you'd look good cycling through Italy on your racing bike with that.

00:39:08 Speaker_12
Oh, that'd be sweet. I have to put it over the helmet if I can get it over the helmet.

00:39:11 Speaker_05
Put it over the helmet, yeah. All right, we're gonna take another quick break, Gary, but when we come back, an inventor whose fluffy dog gave her a great idea. Stay with us.

00:39:22 Speaker_05
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line here on How I Built This Lab.

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00:41:35 Speaker_05
Hello and welcome back to the Advice Line here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. Gary, what do you say? Should we go ahead and bring in our last caller? Let's go. All right. Hello, Elsie. Are you there?

00:41:48 Speaker_03
Can you hear me?

00:41:50 Speaker_05
Yes, we can.

00:41:51 Speaker_03
Hello, Elsie.

00:41:51 Speaker_05
Awesome.

00:41:52 Speaker_03
Hi.

00:41:52 Speaker_05
Please tell us your name, what your company's called, their business, and where you live.

00:41:57 Speaker_03
Hi, Guy. Hi, Gary. Hi, Elsie. I'm in Denver, Colorado. And I started my company Lily Brush 14 years ago after I invented a pet hair cleanup tool that's faster than vacuuming and better than sticky rollers without creating single-use waste.

00:42:24 Speaker_03
I've since invented four more pet hair cleanup products, and now we have this incredible core group of pet parents and professional cleaners who love our products, but I'm still struggling with how to scale up our marketing so more people can find us.

00:42:46 Speaker_05
Right. Okay. So before we — so you're looking to figure out how to scale up to get more people to find you, how to do it efficiently. Before we get there, let me ask you a couple questions.

00:42:57 Speaker_05
Lily Brush is the — so this is a pet hair remover for, like, furniture and whatever pet hair. I'm a beloved pet. I've got two cats and a dog. So this is a big problem in my house. We have a lot of pet hair. I have one cat that has particularly bushy hair.

00:43:15 Speaker_05
Morty, he's a great cat, but he sheds everywhere. How is it different than, I don't know, a roller or other pet brush removers?

00:43:26 Speaker_03
Oh, let me count the ways. Please, tell us, yes.

00:43:31 Speaker_12
Count them out loud.

00:43:32 Speaker_03
Okay, I will. So if you have pets that have that very heavy undercoat, that soft, fluffy stuff that sheds all year long. We make these fantastic bristled products that you just brush back and forth across the hair. It picks it all up.

00:43:57 Speaker_03
There's no sticky roll or waste. There's no peeling, and it's faster than vacuuming. And you just pull the hair out and you just toss it in the- It stays right on top of the bristles.

00:44:11 Speaker_03
And you just, I like to tell people, take the hair outside, because birds like to use it for nests. Wow, that's cool. It's like you're recycling like James in the plastics.

00:44:23 Speaker_05
You can build a nest for a bird, and then your cat can go in and eat the bird. How did you tell me how you started this business? Cause I, I see you started in 2010.

00:44:36 Speaker_05
What were you, I mean, did you have a different job or are you doing something different in your life at that point?

00:44:42 Speaker_03
I was, it's, it's kind of one of those crazy stories, but I, I used to be a painter. I was a portrait and still life artist.

00:44:58 Speaker_03
And in 2009, I was a single mom, and I shoveled a driveway full of snow, and it caused my widow-maker artery to dissect at the family dinner table.

00:45:18 Speaker_03
Uh, after I was, I was very lucky to wake up the next morning, but I, I went to reach for a water glass and my hands were shaking. They were like, they were like nervous parakeets. I'm sure you can hear it in my voice.

00:45:39 Speaker_03
I have now a pretty prominent tremor. And so, uh, I knew that morning that my painting career was over. Wow. So, you know, I've never looked back. I just, I knew I had to find a new career.

00:46:03 Speaker_05
I mean, it's an amazing story because you have this, of course, near-death experience with the heart attack, and it completely changes your trajectory. I mean, you're a painter, you need still hands, but you develop a tremor, and you have to pivot.

00:46:20 Speaker_05
But it's like, it's so, I mean, it's one of those weird things. It's like, that happened, and that, as a result of that, you started this thing. Right?

00:46:31 Speaker_05
Like this, none of this would have happened without that horrible tragedy, but it's an amazing kind of turn of events.

00:46:39 Speaker_03
I just, that's how my life has always been. I've had a lot of faith and just followed the lead. If something happens, you just keep going through it.

00:46:54 Speaker_05
I love, I love your website. It's really clear. It pops. I like the logo lily brush, the red it pops. How did you, how did you invent this thing?

00:47:04 Speaker_03
So I had to go to rehab for my heart and I always wear this polar fleece jacket. And this little dog, Lily, used to enjoy sitting on the couch with me. She's an Australian shepherd. Yeah. She's a very fluffy dog.

00:47:22 Speaker_03
And so I'd go to rehab with all the other 80 year olds and I was only 48 when it happened. So I'd go and I'd be covered in pet hair and it was embarrassing. But so I went to,

00:47:39 Speaker_03
to PetSmart, and I looked to see if there was anything that would take care of the pet hair, and all they had was a sticky roller. And I hate single-use products.

00:47:55 Speaker_03
But I wasn't allowed to lift a vacuum, so I took the sticky roller home, and I would carry it with me and roll my fleas. And I just thought, there's gotta be a better way. And then one day I was. scrubbing around the fixtures in my kitchen.

00:48:16 Speaker_03
And Lily happened to jump onto the couch in front of me and she had muddy paws. So I went over with a toothbrush and I went to wipe the mud off of the couch. And I noticed that her hair stuck to the bristles. And I was like, ah, I just, it was like, ah,

00:48:41 Speaker_03
So I ran upstairs. I have two sons. I took both their toothbrushes, cut the heads off of them, and I found this little palm-sized block of wood in the garage, and I superglued these three toothbrush heads onto mine as well.

00:49:04 Speaker_03
My kids came home and they found me cleaning the whole house with this little block of wood with toothbrush heads on it. And I'm sure they thought I'd had a stroke.

00:49:15 Speaker_12
So, Elsie, Guy has a question. I know this is in your head right now, Guy. Did you keep that prototype?

00:49:21 Speaker_03
Of course.

00:49:22 Speaker_12
That's a Smithsonian museum piece.

00:49:29 Speaker_11
That is so awesome.

00:49:32 Speaker_05
Yeah. So Elsie obviously is coming with the question of how can she scale this? How can she get the word out? How can she grow this thing? She's been doing it since 2010. Gary, what's your take?

00:49:47 Speaker_12
I'd need I've got a lot. This is I mean, I just got it. I'm so inspired by this story all of it So it's awareness and trial Now, how do you do trial? Question do you are you in like Petco or any of the you know Pet Mart or any of those retailers?

00:50:08 Speaker_03
So we're in This, I'm very proud of this. We're in a container store. That was our first big company. And it took me a long time to get there. We kill it on Amazon, even though

00:50:27 Speaker_03
After like the first year, Alibaba just started pumping out copies, but cheap copies of our products. And the thing I hate about the products that these guys are making that are copying ours is that they only last for a week or two.

00:50:52 Speaker_03
And I built our products to last for really the lifetime of your pet.

00:51:00 Speaker_05
I mean, that's that's the competitive advantage. Gary makes me think of an episode we did on TRX straps with Randy Hetrick several years ago, because that happened right away. All of a sudden, all these copycats and they were poor quality.

00:51:14 Speaker_05
But, you know, he spent and still spends a lot of money suing them. And I know you don't have those kinds of those resources and time and it's a pain. But I feel like a simple fix is is to

00:51:28 Speaker_05
emphasize what you just said, you know, the original and, you know, best, because I feel like that is, you know, the brand is what is your advantage here, right?

00:51:39 Speaker_03
Right. It's a tough one, Guy, because when I first started talking to buyers, they used to kind of laugh at me because they're like, why would you make something that lasts for years and years? We don't want that. We want the repurchase.

00:52:02 Speaker_03
But the fact that these things last so long has been kind of one of our problems.

00:52:09 Speaker_05
I wonder whether there – I think about partnerships, right? And increasingly you're seeing collaborations, right, with brands and certainly in apparel.

00:52:21 Speaker_05
Adidas and Gucci or Liquid Death does — that's not apparel, but they're doing partnerships with different kinds of brands like grooming, men's grooming, for example.

00:52:29 Speaker_05
I wonder if there's a way for you to partner with a product that is associated with cleaning cars. I mean, or carpets. Something like that where they get it, you know, they get it with that product.

00:52:48 Speaker_03
I think about that too, and like a different, a vacuum, like a Bissell or something like that. That's a great point, Guy.

00:53:00 Speaker_05
Yeah, especially a product like Bissell or like a brand like that that's not, that's probably a little easier to get to the right person there. It's not an Adidas where there's a bazillion people pitching them.

00:53:10 Speaker_05
I mean, I don't think a lot of people are pitching Bissell. for collaborations, you know, it could be kind of cool, right?

00:53:16 Speaker_05
Or like, you like, like, this to me seems like, you know, slim Jim is it like slim Jim is at the checkout counter of every convenience store, right?

00:53:25 Speaker_05
And like, that's basically, you know, how slim Jim and now five hour energy is there to, like, I see this as a product that's at the checkout of every car wash. Right?

00:53:36 Speaker_03
That would be ideal. And I do go to the Car Wash Trade Show.

00:53:43 Speaker_03
And the first year I went, I thought I'd made a terrible mistake, because I had this little 10-foot booth, and I'm in this hall with all these spinning brushes and bright lights, and I sort of timidly went and started doing demos.

00:54:03 Speaker_03
And the next thing I knew, my booth was three people deep, just mobbed. for three days. So that's when Gary talks about going and giving away product at bike events. That resonates with me because I knew I'd hit something that

00:54:33 Speaker_03
but we're still just a little tiny brand. We're still, you know, they talk on Shark Tank, they talk about the cockroach that people can stomp on. We're still that little guy. And it makes me nervous.

00:54:53 Speaker_03
It's 14 years in, you know, we're trying so hard and we're still that little guy.

00:55:03 Speaker_12
Well, first off, don't give up.

00:55:05 Speaker_03
Okay. I'll never give up.

00:55:07 Speaker_12
Because I think you've got, you have something here I wouldn't even.

00:55:11 Speaker_12
I'm embarrassed that I didn't know your brand before this because we've had You've I've got these sort of sayings about innovation So you've solved a problem cliff part to me solved a problem with a better tasting energy bar you're And you know, you're in its inventive.

00:55:27 Speaker_12
It's a totally original I mean, how can you get more original than using toothbrushes to the first product and it's it's transformative and You know, you're it for people that have this issue.

00:55:39 Speaker_12
We everybody has a dog and a cat pretty much has this issue and we all want to solve it. But we just are lazy and we just you know, and it's hard and you try to vacuum. Vacuum doesn't work. And the rolly thing doesn't work. So there's that.

00:55:52 Speaker_05
I feel like it's a matter of time in some ways. This is the kind of product that if you could get it into the hands of a couple of the celebrities who just have, you know, post with their pet all the time.

00:56:09 Speaker_05
Like I think, I don't know if Chrissy Teigen has pets, but I just think of somebody like that, you know, like Chrissy Teigen, who's like, associated with like cooking and a beautiful house and like, you just imagine her like, Oh my god, this like, you know, here I am.

00:56:21 Speaker_05
brushing this off with this thing, I think to get to some of those really high-end ones, you've got to incentivize them. You've got to say something like, look, we're trying to scale this, and we'd love to partner with you in some way.

00:56:35 Speaker_05
I don't know what that would look like. But to me, it's just a matter of getting it to a place where somebody like that, who's a real lifestyle influencer, gets people excited about it. Because as Gary said, it's a great product.

00:56:52 Speaker_05
It's just a matter of getting it, getting in front of the right eyeballs.

00:56:57 Speaker_12
Question, how many people are with you in your company?

00:57:01 Speaker_03
There are four of us.

00:57:04 Speaker_12
Four people is pretty lean.

00:57:08 Speaker_03
It's tough.

00:57:09 Speaker_12
Yeah. So I love Guy's idea of the retail thing, like at the counter. I mean, we've all bought stuff that when we're in a store, like, ah, never, I mean, what's that? Oh, okay, I'll buy that.

00:57:21 Speaker_12
And you may have to bring on a sales person that you've never thought of meeting before that can go to the drugstore.

00:57:28 Speaker_05
The car washes and yeah.

00:57:29 Speaker_12
The car wash and the Walgreens and the, you know.

00:57:31 Speaker_03
Yeah.

00:57:32 Speaker_12
Fridays, whatever. Yeah.

00:57:33 Speaker_03
You know, we bootstrapped it. So it's been slow growth. Yeah. But we've got money in the bank. That's awesome. So I just have to figure out who to hire.

00:57:50 Speaker_03
I'm really into giving people a shot, you know, show me what you got and, and do your best and let's see.

00:57:59 Speaker_03
So I get, you know, marketing people from University of Denver and they, it was cool, you know, two, three years watching someone develop, but I think it's time, that we go and we find someone who really knows what the heck they're doing.

00:58:20 Speaker_03
And we do have the money to do that. I just, honestly, I've done this whole thing. I've flown by the seat of my pants this whole time.

00:58:34 Speaker_12
It's super impressive, and for the record, I think if you can do it self-funded, then you control your destiny. Kit and I never took a dime from anybody over our 30 years of running Clif Bar. We never brought on an equity partner.

00:58:53 Speaker_05
I'm Elsie. We're gonna, we're gonna be following you and Lily brush and, and good luck. Thank you for calling in. I think you've got something there.

00:59:02 Speaker_05
And I think in about six months time from now, if we check in on you again, you will have hired somebody to take the load off and hopefully to start to really do some of that business expansion that you're not able to do because of the other stuff you have to focus on.

00:59:18 Speaker_03
I hope so. And Guy and Gary, thank you so much. You guys are my heroes. I'll take it.

00:59:29 Speaker_12
Well, you're so welcome and thank you. We're just starting to roll, so just keep this momentum going with other people and keep this conversation going with other people.

00:59:40 Speaker_12
that can support what we've talked about and take you, help you take it up a notch or two or more.

00:59:45 Speaker_05
Thank you. Thank you, Elsie, and we'll be in touch. All right. Great job.

00:59:49 Speaker_12
Thanks. So I'm ordering one tonight.

00:59:53 Speaker_05
You're going to be saddled with all these products after today, Gary.

00:59:56 Speaker_12
I'm solving all kinds of problems today. I'm going to get new sunglasses, goggles.

00:59:59 Speaker_05
What's up with all these packages coming to our house? I know. We're getting ski goggles. This is great. I got a brush. And now I've got all these crafts. What's going on?

01:00:09 Speaker_12
Well, you know, I have, like all of our friends have animals. I'm probably going to order a dozen of these and then pass them around and then tell them to, see, that's the other way to do it. This is a word of mouth product.

01:00:21 Speaker_05
It's a total word of mouth product.

01:00:23 Speaker_12
And you could have a brush in every vehicle you've got, in every room you've got. They're just sitting there because then you don't have to go, where's that brush? They're everywhere.

01:00:35 Speaker_05
Okay. Gary, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It was awesome having you. I'm honored.

01:00:41 Speaker_12
Thank you so much.

01:00:42 Speaker_05
That's Gary Erickson, founder of Cliff Bar. And by the way, if you haven't heard Gary's original How I Built This episode, you've got to go back and check it out. It's so fun. You can find a link to it in the podcast description.

01:00:53 Speaker_05
And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.

01:00:58 Speaker_12
You know, I remember setting up a little table and standing out there in the aisle with a tray of cut up bars. And as people walk by, I say, try to try this new energy bar. And they were like, No, no, no, I've had energy bar. I don't want to try.

01:01:10 Speaker_12
Oh, come on, just try it. And they would try it and then they would walk along and they wouldn't want to look back and it's like, because they were going to, you know, didn't want to embarrass me.

01:01:17 Speaker_12
And then they would be chewing and they would turn around and go, come right back and go, what is that?

01:01:22 Speaker_05
And by the way, since we first ran this episode, a few cool things have happened for the startup entrepreneurs we talked to.

01:01:29 Speaker_05
James's company actually collaborated with an eyewear brand on a pair of snow goggles made entirely with stoked plastics, and it's now available at REI. And Elsie, well, back in May, she underwent surgery to correct her tremor, and it was a success.

01:01:45 Speaker_05
Slowly but surely, she is regaining control of her hand and voice. Again, it's awesome news. Congrats, Elsie. Thank you, everybody, for listening to the show this week.

01:01:54 Speaker_05
If you are working on a business and you would like to be on this show, please send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions or problems that you would like help with.

01:02:05 Speaker_05
And please make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us that voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com, or you can call us 1-800- 433-1298 and leave a message there, and we'll put all of this in the podcast description on your smartphone.

01:02:22 Speaker_05
Thanks again. We will see you back here next time. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtine Arablui. It was edited by John Isabella, and our audio engineer was James Willits.

01:02:34 Speaker_05
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Chris Messini, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Neva Grant, Devin Schwartz, Katherine Seifer, and Kerry Thompson.

01:02:44 Speaker_05
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line, here on How I Built This Lab. If you like how I built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

01:03:04 Speaker_05
Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Did you know that after World War II, the U.S.

01:03:17 Speaker_05
government secretly brought former Nazi scientists to America in a covert operation to advance military technology? Or that in the 1950s, the U.S.

01:03:25 Speaker_05
Army conducted a secret experiment by releasing bacteria over San Francisco to test how a biological attack might spread without alerting the public? These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not.

01:03:37 Speaker_05
They're well-documented government actions that were hidden away in classified files for decades. Each week on the new podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, host Luke LaManna uncovers shocking truths that powerful forces never wanted you to know.

01:03:52 Speaker_05
Stories of covert experiments, secret operations and unsettling connections that have had lasting impacts on our world. The stories are real. The secrets are shocking.

01:04:02 Speaker_05
Follow redacted, declassified mysteries with Luke Lamanna on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free access, join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. Start your free trial today.