Today on the Winning with Shopify podcast.
We are really testing marketing. People asked me like, what's it
like running the company? My normal response is like no
one warned me about. This but we figured that out.
Tell me more. We still wanted to make a
collection of the usable items that we were like, we're on a
mission. And now I still, after so many
years, have so much. Stuff.
There's a whole like archive of strategies of how to get rid of
some of that old stuff. We've had some products where
they're good and we can sell them out, but like, just like
don't order them again. We will learn lessons.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Winning with
Shopify podcast. My name is Nick.
Welcome to the show. It's been such a pleasure having
so many of you guys. TuneIn.
I got inundated by messages last week about e-mail AI.
Someone even said where do I buy my jumpers, which I told my wife
and she laughed and was like you, someone's asking you for
fashion advice and but welcome to the show.
It's so good to have you guys tuning in.
If you haven't already, go and check out Growth Vault.
Let's not live yet. You can join the waiting list.
We've had nearly 1000 people sign up to growth.
Always insane seeing the numbers.
Growth Vault is going to be a bit like an Expo, a show, a
conference, a summit. We can be live all year.
The whole thing's going to go live in one single moment, 1st
of September this year and it's going to be live for a full
year. So if you want to speak, you're
a brand with a cool story, you want to come on the show and or
do that as well. Do reach out to us.
We're always looking for amazing guests like somebody I'm going
to introduce very, very shortly. And yeah, do reach out to us.
Hello at winning with shopify.com or go to
wwspodcast.com and check out Growth Vault.
It's the second link top left. If you're on mobile, be the
mobile now and B go and check that out on our website.
If you're on a bright pink website and need your
sunglasses, you're in the right place.
So welcome to our website. Anyway, without further ado, I
want to say a massive welcome to my guest, Isabel, who's Co
founder of last Object. Isabel, welcome back to the
show. How are you?
I'm good and thank you for having me back.
Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. And I, I was just saying before
we hit record, I remember some of the conversations we had last
time and you said, oh, there's been some changes.
So I'm so excited to hear about the journey you guys have been
on. And it's such a unique business,
which I think is why it stayed so strong in my mind as to how
you manufacture your products. And I don't want to give too
many spoilers. We will come on to all of that
very, very shortly. But anyway, like we do with all
of our guests now, we're going to give you some quick fire
questions. We can modify these a little bit
every every week. First question is about to get
to know you a little bit. What is your favorite chocolate
bar? Hershey's.
Hershey's nice. No one said that yet.
That is. That is a very, very good show.
And what's your favorite song or playlist at the moment, What
you're listening to? Oh, right now I'm listening to
like Ibiza Lounge. Oh, really?
Still playing in my living room. Dragon here.
I can't hear it, no, but we've been listening to, I think it's
called Lo Fi. We've just been asking our Alexa
at home, like play Lo Fi and we've got a little 10 month old
baby who loves it. It's a similar stuff like kind
of lounge, almost like kind of house stuff.
And all right, I love this one and this one, some of the
stories people, you're going on a desert island and you've got
to survive as long as possible and you can take 3 items.
What 3 items are you taking with you?
I. Guess you could always take
three of your products. Couldn't you take 3 last object
products? True, true.
OK. I would take a water bottle.
I don't know why and and and then I would take.
You can't take a person. I don't know why I want.
I would want to take my oldest son, not because I don't want
the others, but he's so resourceful.
Oh, that's good. Yeah, I like that.
I like that and 3rd item. And for third item, OK, that
would probably be my phone that's very not unique if you've
got. Starlink Internet access, then
that's quite good. I mean, you can literally just
message like a government and be like, can you send a ship?
Like I'm straight, not quite unique.
Thank you. That is quite unique.
I like that. And then a couple of questions
about last object then. So #1 when, when were you guys
founded? What year did you guys start?
2019. 2019 nice you're coming seven years old, which is cool
and and what is at the moment, what is your best selling
product? Right now our best selling
product is laundry detergent sheets.
Nice and what do they what do you laundry detergent sheets
what do they do like what and how are they different to normal
products why are people buying so many of them so we.
Did like a whole collection. So we're based, our first
products were all, you know, reusable items that wanted to
eliminate single use products. And then we did a whole
collection afterwards, which was like taking water out of
products. Like we're shipping all these
different soaps and detergents and then and, and they're filled
with like 9070% water and that's just very wonderful.
So we did a whole collection of different soaps and detergents
that are waterless. So it's like a it's a sheet of
paper that you put into your washing machine and then BAM,
you, yeah, you wash with them. So it's just very simple and
it's really good for the environment.
And then on top of that, it's really easy to use.
So everybody just jumped on that, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, amazing.
I, I, I've been, I've been watching this kind of movement.
I think we got, I think it was Groom GRUUM.
And we, we we're going to try and get them on the show soon as
well. We do actually have a connection
into, into Groom, but they might be called Grum.
I assume it's Groom because it's 2 U's, but they do the same kind
of thing like a refillable deodorant.
It's got no water in it. Like you run it under the tap
and then use it because yeah, as you say, there's no point
shipping water everywhere. And actually I think it's the
same with detergent. Yeah, if you just have like
almost like a block of something or as you guys say, with sheets
and putting it in the washing machine.
Otherwise we're just, I mean how much carbon is is actually being
burnt in put in the atmosphere from shipping either from
flights or ships. I was reading and and don't
quote me on this, I'm not an engineer, but a friend of mine
is. He works in plane design and
satellite design. They literally design satellites
are going to space. He was saying that crude oil
they put in ships is the worst thing for the environment.
He said 'cause they literally just pour it in and all the
stuff that doesn't burn properly just comes out the exhaust.
Whereas at least planes do burn very refined fuels.
There's very little fume from them compared to that and same
with cars. But it's still not good for the
environment. That's cool.
That is, that is a really, really cool product.
And it would you say it's your best selling because it's a
repeatable product as well as you, you kind of hinted unlike
your initial products that were like this is the last one of
these you'll ever need. Exactly.
It's not a very good business model.
So yeah, so so we did some that yeah, the line of products with
soaps are something that you have, you know, monthly and now
we actually sell them and like for a whole year of supply
because a whole year of supply of detergent in my house and I
have two small kids is it doesn't it's not more than like
a little box, like a shoe box. So you can really store a lot of
the amounts. So yeah, but it but yeah, it's
very much repeat customer thing. Yeah, yeah, I like bulk buying.
We have a garage at home and I'm like, I'm like honey, like
that's on discount. Let's just fill the garage with
it. And she's like, no, I don't want
clutter. She's like, there'll be a
discount again soon, just buy one and don't clutter the house.
And I'm like, she's probably right and OK, amazing.
Like, well, let's get into my normal questions then and let's,
let's start right at the beginning.
I'm obviously we've had you on the show before.
It's a few years ago. I remember what office I was in,
which is why I think it was about 3 years ago.
I remember when I was sitting when we, when we spoke.
Why did you guys start the business?
For anyone that didn't hear that initial episode or hasn't heard
of you guys before, like what was the reason you started the
business initially? Well, the reason was very dear
to us all three where we're three designers that had done a
lot of different designing throughout our lives and in
different areas like working for people, not working for people.
And, and I think at the end we kind of got together because we
wanted to make sustainable products.
And that was really like everybody's doing that now, but
it was really something seven years ago or very different.
It was actually very hard to get into, like we had to educate a
lot around our products. Yeah, yeah, of course.
Oh, it's why it's sustainable and in what way.
And but now people are getting it very easily.
But so, so that was just very dear to our hearts.
We wanted to do something and then we wanted to do it.
That has a massive impact. And that's why we went to a
single use as single use items. So that was what we were kind of
fighting against. We have to figure out how to
solve this problem. Where are we buying all this,
all these products that we literally use for a second and
then throw out? Yeah, yeah.
And I remember when we spoke before about where you get your
materials from. Tell us more about how you get
material to make your products because I found this fascinating
and it takes so many eco boxes like of helping the planet in
the process. Yeah, yeah, cuz we ended up
actually designing a lot of things in plastic and that was
kind of a OK, we have to do it in a really good way.
So not using virgin plastic and and we researched a lot of
things. We actually ended up doing a
corn based boxes in the beginning.
So they were made of corn, but it was a plastic and and we just
found out how hard it actually is to get rid of that plastic
again because it needs like a specific bacteria and a specific
temperature. And so we ended up doing ocean
bound plastic. So we changed the whole
collection and then we buy up ocean bound plastic and we also
use a lot of our profits to cleaning up the ocean.
So it's kind of just like a circular really amazing, yeah
moment that kind of happened in that in doing this, so is all of
our plastics are ocean bound plastic.
Which I love because a lot of people use recycled plastics.
Yours is like, well, we've also hoovered it out the ocean
initially. Sorry, I, I, I crack myself on
this all the time. Hoover's a brand we vacuumed.
We vacuumed it out of the ocean and and then reuse the plastic
that otherwise was just going to end up in a, the stomach of a
fish or on a beach somewhere. And like it we send means any
animal could be endangered or hurt by it and it and all the
things they let out into the water as well.
So I thought that was absolutely amazing.
And it's also doing something amazing because it's also
putting it could money into these little areas where they
actually have a lot of this ocean mounted plastic.
So you're also putting a currency on trash and that's
amazing. So you're having all the locals
like gather everything out, clean it sorted in colors and
then we buy it up. So it's it's really a win win
thing. And and it we've had a really
good collaboration and with the company that we are using for
it. And I just, I've done a lot of
things throughout the years and the research and adult different
materials and I think this is really something that made a
huge difference. Amazing, amazing.
And again I think the. The.
One of the issues I find with charities and like I'm a
trustee, trustee of a charity and we're always pitching to get
more funding and it's a, it's a local charity to where we are,
it's local businesses and we're always trying to pitch.
It's one of the reasons I got involved was like that I do
sales and marketing, like I'm sure I can raise some money for
a charity, but we're always having to pitch to get more
money. If you create like an economy
off the back of the thing that that you're trying to solve with
the charity now it's like every time somebody buys one of your
products, there's more funding to get plastic out the ocean.
Like it's, it's a really, really and that's a kind of full circle
economy of this thing rather than the way we're doing it,
which is like we need to keep getting funding to do what we
do. So yeah, yeah.
So I think, yeah, some really, really exciting, really exciting
things around that you you're doing.
You mentioned you're you're one of three Co founders.
And who are the other founders? Like how did that come about?
Why did you decide to run the business with those guys?
Well, one of them is my brother. So, so we were, yeah, born into
the same family. So I kind of knew him from the
get go. And, and we ended up, weirdly
enough, actually on the same, in the same university.
And, and we had, he'd done another study and I had two.
And then he, he met one of his somebody, a call, who he made a
business with and sold a lot of different designs.
And we ended up just having like a shared office because we were
all working freelance. And that's how we kind of
started working together. But and call is also kind of a
brother to me, but not by blood. Nice, nice.
I think, I think we've certainly we're Co founders.
I, I've learned that I'm terrible at sharing my toys.
So I don't have a Co founder and I, I've had business partners or
we've had partnerships over the years and I know it's a me
problem, but I obviously don't feel like people aren't pulling
their weight. I don't know if I'm a workaholic
or I'm just a perfectionist. I certainly don't do things that
are perfect. But how do you keep that
cohesion between Co founders? You know, how do you keep it
healthy? I guess is the you know, is the
right word for it. Like how do you keep it fair and
even and, and divvy out like you're doing this, I'm doing
this, you're doing this. I think, well, we're all three
very aware of each other and we're all very different.
So nobody really sticks on each other.
And then I think we, we talk about things.
So if sometimes something is not going so well, we need to shift
or something. It's never like in the seven
years that we've been together, we've never really had, OK,
we've had a fight actually once, 2 times, but sometimes.
You need to get it in the open sometimes I find, as long as
it's healthy. Because sometimes.
You need to just say this is on my chest and I just need to say
it so you guys are aware and you're not going to like this,
but it needs to be said like, yeah.
I remember especially when we got investors on board and and
we kind of became a cropper company, we got, we had to hire
in a lot of people. That was a bit not difficult,
but that was really a point where we had to like look at
each other and be like, OK, I'm just going to trust that you go
with that and you figure it out. And, and especially when so much
money is between US and time and energy and it's our baby
together. It's definitely been a little
bit heated to times, but I think that in general, we had a good
we had a good exercise, me and my brother especially because we
have to go to Sunday brunch together with our family.
Yeah, Yeah. And if we've been like fighting
all Friday and then we have to also have the weekend together
with our family, we really have to like, yeah, be nice and play
nice. But we've kind of also grown up
in a family where you do play nice.
So, yeah, I just got, yeah, that's very important.
But but we've just all been very lucky, I think.
I don't think I could work with that many people, and those two
I can. Yeah, yeah.
And I, I completely get that. And I mean we, we've worked with
lots of like husband, wife run businesses or sometimes like,
you know, mother and son or father and daughter kind of
thing businesses. And it's, it's really
interesting seeing the family dynamic.
And normally when we're face to face with them sometimes asking
like you guys obviously family like do you just have a cut off
at like 5:00 PM? We do not talk about work at
all, almost like we're different, different people
outside of work. And sometimes we get the
response of like we actually avoid each other during the day.
Like it's I do this bit on the business, you do that.
And it doesn't matter that we're family.
We just kind of crack on. Other families are much more
kind of close knit. And it's like, yeah, every.
And normally when it's husband and wife, I think, or partners,
it's like, yeah, every night it's like talking about the day
at work. And then it's like, you know,
let's kind of go to bed with all of that kind of out of our
heads. And it's just fascinating the
way different brains work and different people kind of
operate, which I find fantastic. The question I want to ask you,
and I love the response as we get to this, I'm really, really
keen to especially for like a sort of sustainable business or
business trying to support the world or people or some sort of
cause. What are some of the biggest
challenges you guys have faced whilst trying?
Like trying to be sustainable whilst turning a profit at the
same time? I think turning a profit in
being sustainable, it's we also we kind of develop a line of
products that we all really and designed well and, and we used a
lot of energy on materials and sourcing and and that whole part
of the business and ended and actually ending up finding out
that it's actually, yeah, we're not selling enough.
And it's not because the products are not good or people
don't understand or they don't want it.
It's because they buy one and then they don't come back
because that's the whole point. It's, it's not buying, you know,
thousands of cotton swabs and thousands of menstrual pads.
It's, it's very much, you know, so the whole business model, the
whole idea is not very flourishing for, Yeah, for the
economic state of the company. Do you ever find that in your
warehouse you have dead stock, You can't sell it, no one wants
to buy it, and you can't get a refund on it.
Or alternatively, you're missing inventory in your warehouse that
you need, you've got sales coming in and you're low on
stock and you haven't ordered more stock in time.
All these things hit profit. And I've been there.
I've run my own Shopify store and had exactly that problem.
But we've partnered up with Inventory Planner who have the
most incredible app to help you manage that and forecast exactly
what products, what skews even down to what colour of products
you need to order in advance to make sure stock levels remain
consistent throughout. They're also running a seven day
boot camp and if you want to go and sign up to that, it's 7
emails every seven days and it takes the same amount of time as
your morning coffee. And in seven days, like me, you
can become an inventory management.
Pro. Both links are in the
description. Enjoy.
Yeah, yeah. And So what have you done?
I mean, you mentioned the sheets earlier, Do you have more
reusable products then? Like have you guys like almost
like set a metric on it to say every customer now needs to buy
X times from us or X products rather than before?
We were, you know, I, I think I asked you before, so I can't
remember the answer, but I asked you, you're like, how do you
grow this business? Because like surely every
customer comes in once that's a success.
Remember you said it is a challenge, but you've obviously
pivoted since we last spoke. So do you have quite a quite a
big range now of these are products that as you said like
maybe it's once a year, but these are products that will run
out that you will need to replace in a year or two years
or six months, whatever that time frame is?
We have, you know, we have seen a boost in in our reusables
being having been on the market for seven years now that people
are coming back and then they're buying and they're also buying
for other people and all that. And then we have this new line
that was talking about with the slopes that is much more, you
know, every turn customer focused.
But I think for us at least, it's been really hard to figure
out how to or kind of business we want it because you can
always, you know, develop a line of products.
I feel like with the usable products, we're kind of like
we're not going to put more into that collection.
Like we did all of the things, something, maybe if something
comes up, but we really researched our way through
having the collection that we want it.
It's about 8 products. And, and this is like this is
the reusable products that we'll have that replace single use
plastics or single use products. And then, and then we have the
whole soap collection. And and then actually what
happened after the soap collection, we got a lot of
investors and we built up the company and was like, is this
going to be, you know, a lot of money?
And a lot of people have put a lot of money into our company
and we were growing it with, you know, all of these people, all
of this. Yeah, these amazing, amazing,
very, very. I think that's where we talked
last time, which is about 3 years ago, where we were
building something that we thought was going to be huge and
we were burning money. We're doing everything right,
you know, in that sense and building that kind of.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then simply finding out that
we're not going to be able to sell enough reusable cotton
swaps like the retail that buys in bulks.
And that was like really, they, they bought in and they, they
didn't sell enough for it. And then we've got into a new
chain. They didn't sell enough.
They got into a new chain. You know, we tried to do
everything we could, and we had built like this amazing company
with these amazing people that were so strong.
And there was like, not a finger you could put on the team, but
the product itself, which was very, yeah, we was going to save
the world, but it was really just not sustainable to
actually, yeah, get enough people to sell or to buy.
Yeah, yeah. And for it to grow at that size,
so we had to downsize, it could definitely like the collection.
Everything we've done could, could, yeah, sustainably be run
by a smaller company, but not the $1,000,000 company that we
were building. Yeah, Yeah.
And I think it's so hard with investment, isn't it?
Because you, you look at the investment and go, great, if we
had that investment, we can then produce more products, wider
range and then put it in more places.
The hard thing, and I've helped clients before, like create a
deck to get investment and, and try and put in some of their
like kind of economic numbers for them.
And I always think there's this gap missing of like you're
asking for investment to do something you've not done
before. And the investors are asking the
good question, which is how do we know it's going to work?
And you kind of don't. We feel like it's almost like
saying we'll give us some money and then we'll pay it back
through this medium. I'm I, which is where like
investment models, I think can get much, much smarter.
And I'm certainly no expert on this.
I'm just speaking from where I've seen clients do this.
But like one of one of the clients who worked with one of
the investors is a retail outlet online.
So they said, we're going to invest in your business.
We'll take a small percentage, we'll give you a lot of cash and
then we will sell your product through our store.
And no one kind of asked the question of like, what if it
doesn't sell in your store? You now own a bit of our
company. You've given us some investment
which is going to cover the cost of getting product to your store
and then nobody buys it. You know, what if it's the wrong
target market, wrong audience. And yeah, in, in those
situations. Now the obvious answer is like,
well, we'll just give you some stock for free and only pay us
if it sells or send it back and let's see if it sells and it
doesn't sell. Well, this whole thing's kind of
on on ice now. Like it's, you know, we've got
to find another way to do this. How do you, I mean, it sounds
like you've not got the investors anymore in the same
sense like you've kind of changed direction a lot.
But how do you manage those relationships with the investors
whilst the you know, the Co founders plus all of you know,
all of the team? How do you keep like kind of
everybody on the same same wavelength when it comes to like
this is the strategy of the business.
This is where we're going because they've all got slightly
different, you know, it's different mentality for each
person isn't there? It's different targets,
different goals. Yeah, I think, well, at that
point in the company, we had ACEO and who's also a childhood
friend and he is like, I think he's the best person in the
world to actually be able to manage that kind of thing.
And she was so good at being a good stakeholder.
He was like, you know, calming us.
We all have the same goal, like the investors and us and him and
all, everybody in the team just wanted this company to succeed.
So everybody was putting in the hours, we're putting in the
creativity and, you know, getting down packing if that was
necessary, like everybody was on board and was really giving it
all. And he was very good.
That's again like the team, the people, everything.
There was nothing. It was actually the wrong
product, but everything there made sense and it was amazing
investors, we also got in. So I think, yeah, no, I, I feel
like the goal, I feel like everything else made sense and,
and actually was very point on. And but it is just like you
said, like if you just, if you make a whole machine and you put
all of this effort and you build this company and then you put in
the products and we could show, you know, oh, look at this
little tiny store. They're selling so much.
Like why can a giant huge mall not sell, you know, the
equivalent? So I think it's just very it
there's, it was a very, it is a very niche market that we were
in and we simply just found out too late.
Yeah, yeah. Which I mean, you live and
learn. I've made some horrendous
decisions over the years, which which I won't talk about today
because we've not got long enough.
But what I guess what, given where you are now, what was one
of the biggest lessons you learned?
Was it, would you say it was about that product?
Was it the the product was the wrong fit?
We had the whole machine, but the products we put forward was
the wrong one. We should have gone with
something else. We're definitely we're testing a
lot now and not just testing, you know the design and how to
make it and what how functions should be or something like
that. But we are really testing
marketing and getting really sharp at at Meta really sharp
and how and, and not just not just, you know, resting on
figures of like, oh, this looked like this, like this is going to
be huge, but more resting on actual facts and and being very
critical on our own products. So, yeah, so we kind of did a
shift actually I'll just jump in and just that's kind of our our
main, the main shift that's happened now is that we we had
to downsize the company. We were actually we went from 35
employees down to like us 3 again, the three Co founders and
and we moved down. We moved from like a office
building down into the basement. And so we did like the whole
like physical shift and like mental shift and it was just us
three. And then we started cleaning up
in the company, you know, making sure that all the processes were
so smooth as possible and everything made sense so that we
could so that we actually made a profit.
And when we turned a profit, then we looked at each other and
we were like, OK, what now? Does anybody want to like have
this business? Like, what do you actually
dream? We've been using the last six
years of our lives on running so fast on, you know, also having
families at home and, and, and really want, you know, that when
you're like, yeah, a workaholic or a person that's very driven
to what they're doing, like it's just, you are, yeah, you're
missing other things. So we looked at, we were like,
right now we could just close up and we could, or we could sell
it and we could just like, not that we would make a lot or
anything, but we could like get out and then we could actually
just do whatever we wanted to do again.
And then we went home to our families and we thought about it
and then we met up and we just ended up saying we want to
design again. All of us.
Yeah, we've been like producing and shipping and and selling and
all these things. So we we went back to having our
business and just like running our our sales and running the
company as as it is now. And then we started for the
first time in four years. It was absolutely amazing
designing again and creating amazing products in the way that
we're actually that's actually what we can.
That's actually where we are best.
I'm not best and in the in trying to figure out what the
cheapest shipping to Germany is, I'm actually passed in, you
know, figuring out what the next product is.
So we made for very few months, we made like 5 amazing products
and then we put them all up and then we let ads decide which one
we actually wanted to go further with.
So it's nice. Yeah.
So we're doing so we're kind of like a design incubator of new
products and it's in all different ranges, music,
cooking, plants. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
And I think the note I've just written down and I've said this
loads of times on the show and when people ask me like what's
it like running a company, my normal response is like, no one
warned me about this. Like you, you mentioned the
shipping rates to Germany that there must be 1000.
I'm not and I'm not exaggerating.
There's at least 1000. Things like that.
You have to learn. Nobody warns you because no,
there's no, there's no one who could warn you because every
business is so unique. So like, you find yourself in
these situations going like, I mean, even I won't say what
because it's obviously HR and confidential, but even even
yesterday I got 2 messages from my team and it was Sunday, 2
messages from my team saying like, oh, this is going on or
that's going on. It affects work.
And it's like, how did I end up in this situation?
Like, I don't know if I just just get to work.
Like, you know, I love my team and yeah, and I'd always look
after them, but there are these moments going like nobody warned
me about like what this is actually going to involve.
I want to go the total opposite end of the scale.
So that's something you mentioned and I want to dig more
into this because I think this is fascinating.
Let's let the ads decide. I think that is the catch phrase
for any business. I, I, I love that.
Talk me more through that process.
What metrics you're looking at, what kind of ads you're actually
running. You mentioned meta.
Is it meta ads? How does that process then
unfold into you doing what you want to do, which is designing?
So we get really fast at getting.
Doesn't even have to be a working prototype, it just has
to be like an idea and then designing it so that we can hold
it in our hands and have like, so and then we do videos like
UGC videos, I just make them like in my kitchen, like, oh,
I've done this and I put this in and now this is working.
And then you kind of like we got to fake it.
So you make it so we're like we're as we're designing an app,
I'm just like showing something that looks like an app and it's
just a screen dump, you know so yeah, so it's it's really all
about like creating as much as we can to explain the product
and then making, you know, 5 images.
It can also be renders and visualizations and then we just
put them into settings so people kind of feel like it is a real
product. And and then we make it yeah, 5
videos, 5 image ads and we typically just do the same text
bit, but you could start AB testing that too.
But and then we just run them all in the same, in the same ad
or one app, but like in the same group so that we kind of know
exactly like it's and then the algorithm starts understanding
what is actually being clicked on.
What are people looking at? And then we built it up in the
beginning. It was just like, you know, it
was actually three products. I think we ended up launching
and then we showed the three products in these like, you
know, different ads and and then we started just looking at
people that just clicked just subscribed, OK, when it's live,
I'll put in my e-mail. And then when we got a layer
more that was like, do you want to put in a dollar?
And then you get even more discount when it comes out, then
you can kind of really see what people actually are ready their
money on. And then we just ran it and
actually we had put up like, OK, this, this is going to run like
a week. And after 1 1/2 day, my brother
called me and said, you know, I hate you.
We're closing all the other products and yours 1.
So it was very, it actually really told us very quickly what
people. And it wasn't the product that
we thought was going to work. Even I I even made the one that
one, but the one that the other ones, or at least one of them I
thought was going to be huge. And like that is, and a lot of
people afterwards who heard about all the different designs
have been like, why didn't you go with BB is much better.
Like I know that's also how I feel, but this is what they're
telling us. It's a trend.
It's something is happening here.
I think what you've done though, which I think is really, really
powerful, is when you had your investors and you were trying to
sell through wholesale and through other retailers, you
lose control of the process. I think it's no surprise.
I don't think that there's that one store there, one little shop
you mentioned. It's like these guys are selling
tons of these things. And actually, if you could go
back and you know, hindsight's a lovely thing, but if you go
back, you'd probably go, well, let's find 1000 of those.
Like that's the business model. It works and it's the same what
you think you're doing with testing now.
I, it, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest now how businesses
don't understand their data enough.
And I think what you guys and I think, correct me if I'm wrong.
And I, and I, I mean this in a, in a really kind of healthy way
as to where you've landed. Like you guys are now, like
you're listening to the data and doing it for the customer rather
than what a lot of businesses do.
We come along and says they, they, they're like, look, we're
God's gift. We're amazing.
Like, you know, we're sent from the gods and we just need to be
in front of more people. So we come in and we start
telling the advertising budget up and it's like, it's not
selling, like we're not getting more sales here.
And then we have a look and go, the only people buying from you
are people looking for your name on Google.
So we, we, we probably would have discovered that as part of,
you know, the kind of research process initially.
And you realise what's actually making this business tick is
repeat customers. But it, they look new because
they're coming through Meta and Google and actually, but it's
repeat orders and you start to look into the data.
We, we saw a business a couple of weeks ago where we, we said
to them, what are your top selling brands?
And they listed them all. And I think they listed about 6
or 7 and two of them, we were like, no, they're not, they're
not on any of your data. Like, no one's buying those.
So like, but we've got tons of it.
And then someone else in the room said, yeah, yeah, you,
you're the buyer. I'm the one who's got to send
all that stock back when we haven't sold it back to that
brand. Like they're not a big selling
brand for us. And they're like, really was
like, why are we spending so much?
Like, well, I don't know, but we do need to stop.
I did mention it the other day. And it's like just this kind of
feedback loop of data going on. And I'm kind of sitting there in
the middle of the room saying, well, look, if you hire us, we
can put that on a live dashboard for you.
I can tell you what stock you've got, what's actually selling.
They're like, really? And I'm like, yeah, because if
it's not selling, I don't want to put it in the ads.
I don't want to SEO optimize it because this is a waste of time
because no one's buying it. Like we just sell the stuff that
people are buying. And you're 5th on Google for
that, or you're selling loads of this, but you're not spending
enough on it. Quick pivot and bang, we're #1
and we're selling more of that. We're advertising these products
because they're selling. And I think I love the fact that
you guys have have got that kind of clarification now with that,
that feedback loop. And you make it sound so simple.
But as a founder, I'm, you know, a Co founder, I'm sure you would
agree with me that like, it's a lot of soul searching to finally
admit like that's the thing that's making the business tick.
And I can't argue with it anymore.
So actually I'm going to double down and and kind of move into
that space, even though I wanted to go down a different Rd.
Like that's where we're going to go.
And I love the fact your Co founder said I hate you.
I'm sure he meant putting putting emoji with the text.
But but if it's that whole process, isn't it, I mean, how
different would you guys say you are as a business now that you
use that data and you take that approach rather than just there,
this product's amazing, like all the thousands of them and double
down on it. We've always actually, I feel
like we've always done this in the company.
We've like always, you know, had questionnaires like, oh, what
colour do you like what? But I think what we're doing now
is it's not just like it's not just changing different things
and the products are like pivoting or trying to figure out
how to sell it. In different words.
This is like this is our main thing.
This is like somebody else or I've designed it, but like
somebody else is deciding what we are going to do the next
three years of our lives. Yeah, yeah.
That's what's like very interesting.
I think that. And it's the buyer as well,
isn't it? It's the buyers deciding which I
love. Exactly.
Yeah. And we don't really, we're
sitting here in our basement like thinking that we know what
is going on in the world and what people actually want to do.
And, and it's kind of like sometimes you can really, really
fall in love with a product that, well, we figured that out
where you could really fall in love with a product that is just
not going to make that company that you want or yeah.
And then I would rather go back. This doesn't happen to have to
sell that much. I love this process.
And if we can actually keep doing this, then we can keep
designing and not have this huge sales team because we're just
going to do it from like product to product.
Then we'll do a huge Kickstarter and then and we can supply
afterwards, of course. But like this really opens up
for us actually having our dream company without too many people
involved and with the flexibility of being able to do
what we do best, design. I just want to interrupt today's
episode talk about some big news for Shopify merchants.
Yopo, which you might be using is Sun setting as e-mail and SMS
products. You may have got an e-mail from
them and if you haven't, this might be the first time you
hearing about this. So if you have been using them,
then you might be wondering what's next?
Well, our sponsor Saguno has you covered.
Saguno is the most deeply integrated e-mail marketing
platform for Shopify and make switching really, really simple
with hands on onboarding, migration help and
deliverability expertise. Right now with code WWS 20, you
get 20% of your first three months with Saguno.
So don't let your marketing skip a beat.
Switch to Saguno today at saguno.com/winning with Shopify.
Yeah, Yeah. And you mentioned Kickstarter,
Tell me more like, is that every time you've got a new product,
is that where you push it initially to get those
pre-orders and start getting some cash in and awareness on
it? Yeah, Yeah, I think awareness
bit is really, really big. And also I think it's a really
good process actually. Like As for us, like we're
sitting now doing I'm doing a Kickstarter, I'm actually
filming right now in my living room of a dough that's like
rising so I can use that into the.
So we're like, we're we're doing a video where we're really
explaining the product into detail, but also having it
catchy enough for it to be a meta ad afterwards.
And and then we're also doing a page explaining that you're
doing Kickstarter. Like, what is this product?
What why is it amazing? And then doing different and
pledges or like, you know, yeah, how we're going to sell this
off. And it's such a good way to also
show like, OK, this is a product, this is what we're
doing. Then we have a sales channel,
but what you also have, you're going to have other people look
at it, feel like I can sell this in my store, but I can sell this
and this and this. And then before we even push the
button on production, we of course have a number of how many
people, but we maybe also have some kind of retail order that
will go into that bunch. So it's, it's just a really good
way of not having, yeah, of putting too much cash into
something that you don't really know it's going to fly or not.
And then suddenly you're sitting down with stock or you're paying
for all this stock that is sitting in a warehouse
somewhere, and you're just like, OK, I'll have 10 years to like,
get through this. Yeah.
And there's again, just for the time we won't talk about today,
but there's a whole, there's a whole like archive of strategies
of how to get rid of some of that old stock.
But it is it's discounts, it's giving some of it away like in
if it was going to drive profit, it would have done that in the
1st place. Well, I love the fact you guys
are using Kickstarter to pre empt that.
I think one of the interesting things you mentioned as well
when it comes to stockists. So doing wholesale with some of
the products is the better you position.
Well, the better. Firstly, like this is a product
people want and we check the data and people do want this
product. They're engaging with this
thing. So we're going to make some of
them. And then running a Kickstarter
with good content that helps the next person along in the chain
who's going to sell it to the end customer in through
wholesale or retail. It gives them so much more to go
after because you've got to think how many products they're
finding, seeing, being pitched to all the time, saying you
should stop this because you know you're going to get a big
order if you stock my product. They're getting that all the
time. So the better the content and
positioning and hey, look, people are buying this like
crazy from us and you can stock it in your shop as well.
It starts to build such a better profile to make that a success,
doesn't it? Which also helps you long term.
Then if even if you guys struggle to sell it, having at
least one stock is selling it. Well, you could say no, we're
happy to give you a bit more of a discount on that.
We're struggling to sell them, but you're selling loads of
these things, so why don't you just take all of them?
Yeah, yeah, fine. Especially if there's a better,
better margin because I know I'm selling them.
So I think that it gives you so many more opportunities on that.
Do do you find it's better then to design with a better brief of
we know people are interested or going to buy this product or or
we know people bought lots of that product and were close
enough to the data and the customers on the ground.
So now designing actually I've got a better brief going the
next version or the next thing I'm designing, it's going to
really help people and I've got data to support that does that.
Would you say as a designer that helps you kind of narrow
yourself down into, yeah, this is, this is, this is a good.
Thing and therefore it's easier to design rather than just a
blank piece of paper. Definitely, definitely, yeah.
Cuz we're always, we have new ideas constantly.
And I think what is actually what I've seen the last couple
of months is that now when we're back in our designing phase and
we're figuring out we could also do like a land mower that could
do this and this and you could grab the snails.
And we have all these weird, weird design ideas.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that all of this,
all these ideas, they just like, they make us figure out a find
new ideas new. So it's such a good way for
actually, you know, people to say, OK, stop.
No, actually that one I would buy like these are really funny,
but no, you know, so I think it's a really good way to as a
designer to be a little bit restricted.
And now we're of course, we're finalizing this this product so
that we're really, really sharp when we launch.
And this is also now we have, you know, I have 5000 emails
signed up to get this product when it goes live.
And we've emailed them like have a questionnaire.
What is the most important thing in the app?
Is it to know how your dough is rising?
Is it to know data about all the dough that you've had?
Like, so we're also really refining our now product with
this customer group that's ready to buy.
Plus, they're really engaged and they've.
Helped you make it. I mean, that's, that's amazing,
yeah. Completely.
And we're really in doubt sometimes like I we were talking
about we should have like a glass bowl or like a plastic
bowl to have the fermenting of a sourdough.
And we asked them, we put in a questionnaire and said like OK,
glass or plastic. And of course I didn't put
plastic. I said it's making me.
Hungry on something blah blah. Yep.
I mean that that, yeah, I mean, that's amazing.
And so many businesses, successful businesses we've
spoken to, they have that in, in the earlier days, they have that
community, that focus group, that one to one relationship.
And then long term it's how do you do that with brands and
actually having a brand that people feel connected to, even
though you're 1 of like 20 million people that have bought,
bought a product from them, It's like having that connection long
term. I'm going to ask you one more
last question to come in to land now and you might have already
covered a bit of this, but I'm really keen to see what you say
to this. If you could go back and change
one thing, only one one thing in your journey as a business, what
one thing would you change or do differently or just totally
different mindset with the knowledge you've got now?
I know hindsight is a lovely thing and you can't change the
past, but what would you go back and change if someone else's
starting a similar journey to to where you guys have been?
I would, I would. I know there's.
Probably 10 things we will learn lessons, but yeah.
I would, no, I would definitely cut my darlings earlier.
Yeah, OK. And so in, in the like in the
beginning of some of our designs and our reusable line, there
were some indications of some of our products being too expensive
or, or not or like it was hard to find like a market for them.
And, and we were like, so we so wanted to make a collection of
reusable items that we were like, we're on a mission.
And now I still after so many years have so much stock with of
some of the products because they're just price wise and
they're maybe just a bit, some of them are some of my favorite
products. So like I like a lot of stock
for them. I think they're amazing and we
will like it gets through. It's not that, but it's just
that it's so important to actually when you get that maybe
this is maybe this should be a bit, maybe we should drop this
product then you should have dropped it 5 weeks ago.
So killing your darlings. I think that's, that's something
that we should have done faster. And Sunset, we've had some
products where, where they're good and we can sell them out,
but like just like don't order them again sets like sell them
out and then do something new. And so I think that's been
really, really good for us to sunset also mentally.
So you don't suddenly have a company that has like 1 billion
products. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I, I think from a customer point of view as well, you guys
having like 80%, these are products you're already looking
for already one. We've just got a much better
version. It's well priced, it's well
positioned and all the kind of boxes of tick for customer.
And then 20% kind of here's something you should be
interested in, but it relates to all your previous things.
It's not as you say, it's not too expensive.
It's in the right space, it does the right thing.
I think it's amazing. Well, thank you so much, Isabel
for coming on the show again. We'll get you back on in three
years and find out what's been going on then.
I'm I'm quite excited to see through the journey now I
deliberately don't look up what's going on when we get
people back on because I want to see what what's been happening
for you. If people are listening to this
going, this sounds incredible. All my problems like you're one
step ahead of where we are like what's the website?
What are the social handles? How can people reach out?
How can people follow you guys? How can people buy the products?
Well, all of our products are on lastobject.com and we're now
also better objects.com and which is gonna be where we
launch all our new products that aren't necessarily in the
sustainability and yeah, area, but can be all different kinds
of products. But on Instagram Last Object and
better Objects Instagram, it's going to be where we launch
everything. So that's that's.
Going to be the fun stuff. Is it there, the wacky ideas?
I love that. I love that.
Well, thank you so much as well. It's been great to have you.
Appreciate you being so honest, so open, telling us about the
journey you guys have been on. So yeah, thank you so much.
Thank you. Have a good day.
For everybody listening at home, I'll be back again on Tuesday
with another. I've been doing these little
rants recently. Not really rants, but I've been
talking about random elements from my experience of things I
don't generally really do. And I've had so much response
from you guys being like, that's my problem.
Like can you find me someone to help with this from design to
e-mail to what AI is doing at the moment stuff as well.
So if you want to check any of those out and they're called
Tuesday Tea Break talks. I'm British and I drink tea and
Christie Atlantic love it. So that's why we named it that.
But we'll be back again on next Friday with another guest as
well. Thank you so much for tuning in.
If you haven't already, leave us a review on whatever platform
you listened to this on. Leave us a comment on Spotify if
you're listening on Spotify and also click subscribe as well.
So many of you guys are not subscribed, but you listen every
single week. If you hit subscribe, it helps
more people find the show helps us grow what we're doing get
more feedback and we can have even better content for all of
you guys as well. Thanks for tuning in, hope you
can join us again next time. Yost have just.
Launched something that is absolutely game changing.
Their new AI Brand Insights tool is now in beta, and it's built
to help you track your brand's visibility, sentiment and
credibility across AI platforms like Chatter GBT.
As search expands from Google to AI Answers, this tool gives you
a clearview of how your brand shows up, combining sentiment,
visibility. And it's designed for marketers
who want enterprise level insight without the enterprise
price less than $400.00 per year.
And here's the best bit. Yost Black Friday sale is now
on, so starting November 27th, you'll get a 30% discount off
all annual plans, including the new Yost SEOAI Plus.
Head to yost.com to learn more and grab your discount.