How Co-founders turned a possible mistake into a $25M brand

Sun Home Saunas co-founders Tyler Fish and Adam Fisher explain how they transformed a disastrous initial business acquisition into a $25 million premium at-home wellness brand.

Video Transcript

0:00 spk_0

I like sold my car and we our life savings into helping like buy this business and now we're stuck with this, and now all these sauna reviewers and experts are picking it up and saying, you know, this company are, you know, scam artists, beware, we're all over the internet, and so we're like, what the heck did we do? We're screwed before we even got started.

0:27 spk_1

Howdy y'all. I'm Elizabeth Gore. Welcome to the Big Idea from Yahoo Finance presented by Block Advisors, built by H&R Block. As a co-founder of the small business funding platform, Hello, Alice, it has always been my mission to help entrepreneurs have the tools they need to succeed. So let's cowboy up.Today's big idea question is, what does it take to build a premium wellness brand from the ground up? Our industry focus will be at-home wellness and recovery technology. Now, y'all cold plunges are transitioning from elite athlete recovery tools to everyday wellness products. All I can think of is Roy, um,And Coach Lasso and his giant trash tub. So I think things are changing since then. Residential adoption is accelerating as consumers build daily ritual wellness routines at home. The core sauna user demographic now is 30 to 65, and it's growing among young customers. So what is your wellness routine? Mine, um, I'm a big runner.I like to pray. I love time alone, but I tell you what, it's gonna take me a little bit more to get into these cold plunges. But joining me to talk about this today are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Sun Home Saunas, Tyler Fish and Adam Fisher. What started as a passion for heat and cold therapy has now grown into one of the fastest growing brands in at-home wellness, boasting almost 25 million in their first year.They have high performance recovery and longevity tools and use cutting edge design to go directly in people's homes. Today, we're diving into their journey as founders, how they built Sun Home from the ground up. They even threw them on their backs and loaded them into your own homes. It is a crazy, crazy story. And now they're standing out as one of the most competitive and fastest growing brands in wellness. So let's get to it.All right, Adam and Tyler, welcome to the Big Idea. I'm so glad to have y'all.

2:24 spk_2

Thanks for having us.We are here.

2:26 spk_1

I mean, do you two finish each other's sentences at this point?

2:30 spk_2

We talk that often pretty bad. You're literally doing you can actually can we can communicate without words too. It'spretty crazy.

2:38 spk_1

I picture you in your saunas with those old school, um, uh, phones that have the 10 can strings in between business planning and figuring things out.Now how'd y'all meet?

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We met at our first job outside of college. Um, we're both in tech sales.Um, selling software, so we were tag teaming deals and, um, kind of working together, learning about businesses, learning about the e-commerce world and digital marketing, um, we became fast friends and, um, the rest is history.

3:12 spk_1

Right on, andI need to know who made the first phone call to who on, hey, I have this insane idea, or was it a mind meld together.

3:22 spk_0

Well, this was one of many insane ideas that we've had together, and we always knew that we wanted to found a company together and really marry like our, our, our passions and talents for e-commerce, which is what we did for 10 years at our last job.Uh, and then our own personal interests, um, and so we had some really funny small businesses slash, I'll call them a hobby because it's not a business until you make or lose money and we can't do.

3:53 spk_1

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I love that till you make or lose money. That is so true. I love that.

3:59 spk_0

Uh, our first business was, was bike accessoriesnow.com andThat was, you can get this little mount to put on your, your bike handle or you can obviously mount your phone to it, and we thought it was like the coolest thing ever, and so we set up a little Shopify store and we like drop shipped it from China, we set up an automation where we'd serve like ads on Google. Someone would find our site they'd purchase, and then we'd automatically send the order to a drop shipper in China, and then they would snail mail it to the customer and so it would take like.3 weeks so we'd make like $3 on it and we, we had like 11 order and we're like right this isn't like sustainable or scalable so we're gonna call it quits, um, so we've done a few things.

4:46 spk_2

The funniest part about that story is the first order. I think we got it before we were even ready and we didn't even have the drop shipper set up, so we were like, we finally have a sale, we need to get this guy an order. We just bought it on Amazon and sent it to him. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

5:02 spk_0

we just Amazon and just.20/20 hindsight, we shouldn't have named it bike accessories now. It needed to be bike accessories, wait,

5:10 spk_1

wait just a minute. Well, interestingly though, your entire model now with home sauna is, is direct to consumer. I mean, it's, it's incredible what you built. Tell me about the model itself.

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Yeah, well, historically and previous to Sunhome, the most common method to purchase a sauna.Um, was really you, you had to call like a sales line or submit a lead and go through this rigorous, tedious process. Um, there was no really easy e-commerce environment to someone to that to really easily view the sauna and multiple, um, angles, look at the specs, um, look at a 3D rendering in your room, and then just be able to click purchase and have it show up on your door. And so we really wanted to remove that.friction because the space was still in the 90s dominated by just a few players that haven't really innovated and so our thought was, what if we could introduce, um, you know, a better designed, you know, better performance product, but remove that friction and bring a more modern experience to somewhat of an antiquated, you know, buying journey. And so now, obviously like the space is flooded with various Shopify stores and e-commerce providers for saunas, but back then it wasIt was, it was somewhat new, so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for someone to find a great sauna and have it showup at their doorstep quickly.

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And contrary to bike accessories now, or I guess bike accessories later, whatever you wanna call it, we, uh, we pride ourselves in, um, good lead times and actually having uh our products inventoried and warehoused, um, in multiple locations across the US because in today's world, as you know, with Amazon and everything else, people expect their products to be there yesterday.It's not the same for sauna, right? These are 1000, over 1000 pounds. Some of them, they come on pallets, they need special trucks. Um, it is, you know, a journey to get this to your door, but we take all of that responsibility and all of that cost and offer free shipping to all of our customers nationwide, um, and.Work every day to make sure that we're as in stock as possible and have the best lead times possible.

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Well, and also what a, what an awesome way to get to know your customers, right, to be the ones staying engaged with them through that whole process.

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Yeah, exactly, and Tyler and I were originally the ones.Customer facing sales and service, you called, it was, it was Adam and Tyler.

7:46 spk_0

Thank God it was like that movie where, you know, someone like someone's, you know, sink broke and the plumber came out and they called to have their, their lawn mowed, and then the lawnmower was the same guy that fixed the sink. Like that was us for like the first like 3

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years.

8:00 spk_1

I love it. I, I picture y'all like those little cartoons where you have the piano strapped to your back trying to get it up the stairs, right, except for the sauna.

8:10 spk_2

It honestly felt like a cartoon, but back then those conversations were kind of what fueled our growth because we could hear from the customer firsthand, um, from sales, you know, what are they seeing in the industry, what are they lacking, where, what products do we need to innovate and provide them, Service, um, what's most important to them if something breaks.How quickly do they need their parts, should that happen. Um, so, Tyler and I hearing that firsthand, we were able to, you know, fuel our product, um, roadmap and innovation roadmap, as well as our whole business model around what do the customers want and need.

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Well, and having your hands in every part of the business means that you really learn every part of the business, right? I think that's the benefit of having to get your hands dirty because you're not like a company that starts and you and you hire from day one, you know, you hire someone for finance, for marketing, for sales, for CES. We did it ourselves, and so now when we have calls with our department leaders, right, we can get into like really in-depth.Strategic conversations because we know more about the individual, you know, department of business.

9:18 spk_1

Well, and you're your own best user. You just showed me right behind you is cold plunge right outside your window. So that, that makes me feel even better about your product. Hey, first of all, congrats on In 5000. Um, 25 million in your 1st, 1st months in business is not a, not a bad gig, right?

9:36 spk_2

Yeah, I don't know. Thank you.

9:38 spk_0

Yeah, and we, and we, we had no idea that we were gonna get named number 20th on the Inc 5000 list. That was quite a surprise. We're like, oh, you know what, if we make top 1000, that would be huge. We'll have to bring the whole family out. And then we started doing all these interviews and I got outreach from Inc. and we're like, all right, maybe it's a little bit higher than 1000, and, and then we got the word we're like, holy crap. So this.It wasn't as big as a rocket ship, or it was bigger than a than of a rocket ship than we actually thought it was, it was a pretty wild experience.

10:09 spk_1

Why, why health and wellness? I mean, what y'all, y'all were at impact, um, and then a couple of things in between. What, what made you pick this industry specifically?

10:20 spk_0

Yeah, there's a, there's a fun story and then like a technical story, um.That that the fun, well, I mean, the truth is like Adam and I, we knew we wanted to launch an e-commerce business, um, because we spoke to e-commerce innovators and leaders ofThe coolest brands doing, you know, the best things like Uber, uh, at the time, Airbnb, Instacart, Target, Williams-Sonoma, um, DoorDash, like you'd name it, we were talking to like the head of digital marketing for years, and so we knew a lot more than the average person that just wanted to start, you know, a Shopify store, uh, and then Adam and I are big wellness junkies, right? Um.We really got to know each other from going to the gym every day at lunch. Um, we really care about what we eat, what goes in our body, and exercising, um, you know, we think movement is one of the most important things in life, and so we really wanted to marry those, those two passions together, right, for, for digital and, and fitness, um, and bridge that gap with saunas, and we thought saunas, this is getting more on the technical side of things, was a really great fit because, um, they're, they're high AOV, meaning high order value.Um, so you don't have to, our theory was, well, you don't have to sell a lot of volume, right, to make a lot of revenue, and then if the product's great, there's gonna be a, you know, not a lot of returns, not a lot of headaches you're gonna have to deal with, um, in this whole wellness space in general is kind of, kind of starting to boom, and we thought it was just like a really interesting category, and then we ended up finding this little site that was for sale that was selling saunas already.Um, through a different company, um, and so we hit them up, and that is a really crazy story that we can walk you through, but long story short is we acquired that website, rebranded, got a new dealer agreement, and we started Sunhome by actually selling another manufacturer's products.Um, because we didn't have to front load any payments for inventory, cause it was on a drop ship model. They were a proven leader at the time in the space, and so, you know, we didn't have to worry about, you know, uh, you know, basically selling for quality products, um, and then, you know, we can spend the small working capital we did save on marketing and growing the store versus inventory and and design.So that was our strategy and that's really why we got in the silence.

12:37 spk_1

Brilliant. I gotta jump back to, um, I love businesses that, uh, launch either in partnership or they pull in an existing entity. Um, was that a risk, or, or were you all like, yeah, this is the way to do it when you purchase the other company?

12:54 spk_2

Well, we thought.We thought it was gonna be like a walk in the park. There's a company that already has their proven business model. They're selling saunas, or so we thought, um, and the web, the website was built. The marketing agency partnerships were cultivated. We thought, OK, we, we pay 300, um, and we have this website, and now we can launch our, you know, our first real business. Um, turns out.It is the opposite of a walk in the park. Uh, it's, it's like a walk through Jurassic Park.

13:31 spk_1

It was, it was a park, but just the wrong one,

13:33 spk_2

the wrong one, yeah, and it turned out, you know, in the long, in the long run, um.There was debt that we took on. There were angry customers we didn't know about. There was a dealer agreement that wasn't actually valid upon, uh, exchange of assets. So we basically bought,

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I

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could tell

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actually, I'm quite quick, a few of these stories. So we, we, we bought this company and you know, Adam and I obviously don't know what we're doing, so we didn't do our due diligence properly, and we come to find out that after the assets were transferred and the money was sent.We got people calling in saying, hey, you know, we put our deposit down a few weeks ago. Where's our sauna? We have no record of any of these customers that bought from this website, and it was more and more calls. Turns out the guy who sold it to us, um, he took everyone's money.Sold the business, didn't submit the orders of the manufacturer, and then leftit on us.And we're here with like, I like sold my car and we put our life savings into helping like buy this business, and now we're stuck with this, and now all these sawno viewers and experts are picking it up and saying, you know, this company are, you know, scam artists, beware, we're all over the internet.And so we're like, what the heck did we do? We're screwed before we even got started. And so we, uh, we had to completely rebrand, change the website, change the company name, and, and, and start from scratch. And then we also figured out that the dealer agreement, which means the agreement between us and the manufacturer who makes the saunas, is non-transferable, meaning if he sold us the business, we can't, they can't transfer the agreement to us, and so it was dead upon arrival.But the crazy part is we were in Mexico with my mom, is me, Adam, and my mom, and she's like, wait, my boyfriend golfs with the CEO of the Canadian division, let me call him.And so she called him, he pulled some strings and got us a fresh dealer agreement.Um, from scratch, even though they weren't allowing the dealer, so we could go back to that original, the guy who sold us the business because we didn't transfer the assets or funds yet and say you have to give us a better deal because no one is gonna buy your business because you can't transfer that dealer agreement, so we use that negotiation lever to get a far, you know, lesser.Price even now he's it was, it was such a rollercoaster

15:58 spk_2

for we even got us for the record, that, uh, Tyler's mom's connection, which was crazy coincidence that got us a meeting that didn't get us the dealer agreement. There were still a lot of hoops and I

16:10 spk_1

can justimagine

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itwas not, they were not trying to take on any new dealers, um.Not only that, they were on the way of getting rid of all their dealers, and so we were, we were, it was an uphill battle from the beginning, and then.Um, I think it was 1.5 to 2 years later, they finally told us, all right, you have 30 days, you can't sell our saunas anymore. It might have even been less than 30 days.

16:35 spk_0

I think it waslike, I think it was like 10 days, and we were doing like millions of dollars of revenue, and they're like in 10 days you have to take all of the products off your website, and we were like, or we're gonna collapse. We have like nothing to sell at that point, and so we had to scramble.And find another alternative which we luckily did and got got lucky there. But

16:53 spk_1

you know, I always find all y'all's headlines say, you know, Sonic Company 25 million in year one, you know this, these are the stories that I'm just glad other business owners hear them because it's always hard, you know, it's always, even when you think it's gonna be easy, by the way, super random.Our family, we got a, a new phone a couple of years back, and it was a former taxidermist who took all these people's animals to stuff and then he ran away with both the animals and the money. So we kept getting all these phone calls are very angry, either hunter.Or people whose pet they were doing whatever with. So, uh, that was my weird

17:32 spk_0

don't wannapiss off or hunt.

17:34 spk_1

I know it was so bizarre, but I can't imagine y'all as founders building this great company and suddenly all this anger. Um, I have one question. How did you convince, uh, the Canadian folks to help you because you said it wasn't a yes write-off to basically bet on y'all and give you that contract.

17:54 spk_2

That was a good, that's a good question. That's kind of where I think our history and sales, uh, came into play. And so, yes, Tyler's mom got us the meeting, but then, you know, we had to convince the COO of this company who was already figuring out his plan to remove all their dealers that they could take on one more, um, so I think it really just, it came to the our, our, our,

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ourstrategy was also besides like having the sales chop was.Our pitch was, we're going to sell your saunas to a new demographic profile that you're not already sending to, so we're gonna bring incremental value and new customers to the table that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten, because in their eyes they thought these dealers are just cannibalizing their existing sales sales. So we're like, we're gonna bring a whole another avenue.

18:44 spk_2

And then that that that is actually very true with Sunholm, which is different from the other dealers because the other dealers were leveraging traditional marketing channels, I guess not traditional, you know, traditional in the last 5 to 10 to 20 years like Google Ads and um metamarketing, we were leveraging new channels, influencer partnerships, celebrity endorsements, um.And cultivating relationships with prominent figures in the space and so that's really um why we were different and why we were able to reach these new audiences. We also um started selling, you know, this was a little bit later, but we started selling black uh saunas so we changed the whole look and.Um, you know, what's been traditional kind of these wooden looking saunas that get stuffed in the basement. Now we made the saunas a centerpiece of this new, um, maybe, um, more like hip or, uh, more, um, you know, I would say just like a new demographic that we're now reaching. Also the whole wellness buzz was at the same time, saunas and infrared saunas started to become very trendy on social and on, um, TV.So the, it was kind of this, this big storm of.You know, what was happening in the world, but also, um, us kind of finding that niche and figuring out how to target those audiences.

20:08 spk_1

How did you step into, um, I, I, it's such a unique story how y'all used influencer marketing. Tell me, tell me your path within that because I think a lot of our small business owners could learn from you, um, that you went that route and it was quite successful. But how did you even get started in it?

20:28 spk_0

Rolling up our our sleeves and, and basically prospecting and cold calling, uh, and so we, well, my strategy first was, what if we align ourselves with bigger brands that are still in the wellness category, but don't compete with us, so we can kind of ride up the coattails of their legitimacy and tap into their large audience and customer base. And so I would cold call brands, um, you know, like Rogue Fitness and Gym Shark and Lululemon.And ended up calling um Joe Rogan's supplement brand called uh Onit.And I cold called the CMO of on it to pitch him uh some type of collab that we could talk about, and he was like, I'm actually looking for a sauna. Let me go on your website, and he loved like the look of our saunas, and he's like, I'll buy one. And then I was like, sure, like I'll also give you a discount if you can connect us with your social team. So he's like, boom, done. He bought a sauna. I got an intro to his social team, and his social team was saying, um,We could do a giveaway if you're interested where you'll give a sauna away, which is a massive investment for us right the money in the I

21:35 spk_1

see that's a big capital investment.

21:37 spk_0

Yeah, I know, like we'll donate a bunch of, you know, on it, uh, you know, supplement and workout gear, and they're like, let's see if we can get Joe Rogan involved, cause at the time that's when Rogan started talking about saunas on this podcast, right? That was just when that wave was starting.And so we got crazy lucky. He was interested and he's like, let's call it Joe Rogan's favorites, and we're like, what? We have like 300, 300 Instagram followers at the time, which are just like friends and family, right? And so we're like, all right, let's make the investment. Let's do it. Um, they're like, Rogan has no, there's no guarantee he's gonna post, right? We're just, he just letting us use his name for the name of the giveaway. We're gonna host it on, on, on its Instagram account, which obviously isn't as valuable. And so they post the giveaway that morning.Um, and we got maybe like 20 followers in a few hours, so we're like really disappointed and kind of sweating.And at the time I had Instagram notifications on where you can see if you get a follower, right, you get a ping on your phone, right? So I started randomly I heard my phone going off and it was like

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ping

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ping then it finally ping ping finally froze and like wigged out and had to like shut down and Joe Rogan saw the giveaway and he reposted it to his story so for like an hour straight it was like.We gained 30,000 followers in like 5 hours and then it would die down and then like dinner time comes around, he'd do it again and the phone would go and so that was our first huge like, um, you know, introduction to influencer marketing and it was big for us because it like it grew our account substantially. So out of the more like a lot more legitimacy enabled us to really punch above our weight, it made us look like a much bigger company than it was just Adam and I.And then we started having all these other influencers and brands reach out, and then when we reach out to influencers, we could link that giveaway that has Joe Rogan attached to it, and that kind of started our whole methodology for doing these big Instagram sauna giveaways, which we're known for now, um, we've done it with like Mike Tyson and Sabrina Carpenter and Paul George, um, you know, all these huge celebrities, personalities and athletes.And now we have like 580,000, you know, real followers, which is more than double the amount of the leading global sauna cold plunge brand, and so influencer has been huge for us from like a branding perspective, an authoritarian perspective, um, and really just helping us scale.

23:57 spk_1

Well, and I want people to hear that, you know, you didn't go pay a couple million dollars to a celebrity, you cold called.Right? I mean, that's the scrappy things you do when you get started. You cold called and then y'all had to make a really tough decision on a capital expense to make this happen, and then it rolls from there.

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And that's the benefit of, of being scrappy and small with no large capital infusion is again, Adam and I had to be service, we had to be sales, we had to be all the hats.And then for, you know, marketing strategies, we had to be, you know, really scrappy and, and be budget conscious, and so we were able to negotiate trade deals because our saunas were our products were amazing, where normally like to do a deal with Mike Tyson for Instagram feed posts would be, you know, 200,000, we were able to sus send products for it, and he reached out to us at that point, so we were able to unlock a lot more ROI than we were if we just hit people up and said we have a budget and we have to

24:53 spk_1

post it.So I'm gonna, I, I wanna ask you, um, I, I love the notion of co-founders. Um, Carolyn Rose is my, my lifetime co-founder at Hello Wallace. Tell me that, what you focus on, um, in, in kind of your lane versus Tyler's.

25:11 spk_2

Yeah, sure. So, um, great question. Uh, a lot of the things that we do, we, we make decisions together, pretty much every big decision we make together, and I think that helps a lot with checks and balances, you know, sometimes I'm 100% sure that I'm right about something and very adamant about it, and then, you know, Tyler pushes back and I'm like, wait a second, you know, so we find out, OK, well, there's two sides to every decision, so yes, it makes some some decisions slower and harder to make, butIn the long run, it really helps us make sure we're making the right decision, um, but in terms of day to day operations, Tyler's more focused on growth and strategic initiatives with those big partnerships, some of the ones we talked about. I'm more on the operations side, so building the machine behind.This growth and how to, how to fuel it, um, and how to have all the plumbing in place. So, for example, um, starting out, you know, we wanted to warehouse our own products and have an automated, uh, 3PL system whereUm, when the order is placed, the products get shipped out. So, you know, I set that up, uh, in the beginning myself, and then now we've been able to build out a team of, um, we have a VP of ops, she was our first strategic hire, um, we have, uh, operations managers under her that help.You know, run these tools, we have automated returns tools, um, building out a lot of automation in the beginning, uh, was a big part of my job, and which is great back to Tyler's point, because now if Kayla or Marissa, one of, um, the people on that team has a question, you know, I set up those integrations so I can easily help guide them.Um, we also, you know, have tools, we brought on tools like Gorgeous, um, and, uh, Loop, and these just help, um, automate our day to day tasks and make things more efficient. Gorgeous is more focused on the customer service side. We now have, I think, 8 customer service people, so 4 on.Day to day, uh, tier one support. Where's my sauna? What are lead times? Um, you know, what's the difference between X, Y, Z, Tier two is more, hey, this heater went out, um, how do I fix that? or how do I connect my Bluetooth? Things that are a little.More technical, um, so we've really built out that team all in the US to make sure people are, uh, customers are taken care of. Um, that's really important to us. Since the beginning, customer service has been our number one, goal and value as a company because, you know, Tyler and I are shoppers. We know how important that is to have that quick responsiveness and that US based customer service where they actually know what you're talking about, um, and help you and so that, um.Along with, uh, yeah, growing the team and then now building out an ERP tool, um, we have our, our, uh, operations team bringing that on, which is a big project. I think, uh, leveraging technology and trying to build out automations so that we can stay efficient. I mean, it's crazy to think that when we hit 25 million, we only had about 10 employees. Uh, we're a very lean team and that's always been our model.Um, that helps us be agile, and that helps us focus on, like I said, building automation and, um, repeatable processes, standard operating procedures, um, so that we canStreamline things and you know be able to operate a 40+ million dollars dollar business with a lean teen.

28:50 spk_1

Yeah, well, I think lean's the way to go because things change and you have to be able to pivot, um, so on our show we talk about the dirty unicorn, the, the biggest mistake you've made in your business thus far that we can all learn from.

29:04 spk_0

I think one of the bigger mistakes that we've made wasWe are really just ordering too much inventory and over forecasting and then tying up all of our capital. Um, we had this issue where we were selling so much our suppliers couldn't keep up.And so we're like, let's just front load a lot of our inventory, and we ordered like probably 10x the amount that we needed, um, and we were very bullish on projections, um, and then we had to raise prices because of things like the tariffs and shipping costs went up and so, um, the amount, the volume that we sold went down. We had all of our money tied up in inventory which caused a lot of constraints for other areas of the business. We couldn't hire as fast, we couldn't marketing as fast, we had to.external funding sources. So that, that was a tough one. And then I would say our product focus, um, you know, deviated away from our North Star and we did some testing and we just wanted in the beginning, we're like, let's focus on these smaller, uh, ancillary products like our infrared blankets, they're only 400 bucks, and so we were like, we could probably sling thousands of these, um, let's, so let's spend a lot of money on a marketing agency and, you know, getting these out the door.Um, and then we kind of lost

30:17 spk_2

focus on

30:17 spk_0

saunas, on the full size saunas, which is really the money maker, and so I think that, uh, kind of delayed us from hitting, hitting goals, and, you know, we just shift priorities there,

30:28 spk_2

um,

30:28 spk_0

but again,

30:29 spk_2

all these mistakes

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are, we're able to, you know, kind of get back on

30:32 spk_2

track. Yeah, I'll, I'll add to that, um, Tyler re-sparked my memory. So, uh, Tyler studied communications in college, I studied mechanical engineering, and we both went into sales, neither of us have any finance or accounting background.So when we first bought that website, Tyler mentioned, we didn't know what we were doing. I remember his brother asked us, so, uh, did you look at their P&L and balance sheet? And we looked at each other and we're like, what's that? We had never even heard those words before. And then when we first started Sunhome, we started seeing volume and making sales, and it was just us two, and my sister-in-law, who's our, who, who is an accountant and controller, said,Um, hey, uh, are you, are you guys managing your QuickBooks OK? Do you need any help? And we're like, what's QuickBooks? So she said, oh wow, I need to jump in. You guys are making way too much money to be not doing any accounting. And so we kind of just thought we didn't really need to look at the numbers at first. We're like, if we're selling, we're making money, everything's good, right?But you always need to have accounting and bookkeeping in place and so my sister-in-law was helping us for free for the first year, um, catching up. We had a lot of different products and channels, and she was doing a lot of work for us until finally we said, hey, you're, you're, you're work, this is a full-time job. Let's pay you, um, and actually use your, your accounting agency for us. Um, so shout out to Geneva. Thank you for all that help before we even paid you. And then I also, uh,We'll say that, yeah, like Tyler said, we, we didn't understand how important uh cash flow, um,I, and, and looking at the P&L, looking at the balance sheet, so, um, we, you know, like I said, we were like, OK, we're selling these products, let's buy as many as we can, we'll be in stock. And we thought, looking at, you know, you spend $1000 here, $10,000 there, that doesn't really add up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in POs, right?It's not really, it's negli it's negligible unless it's the last 1000,

32:41 spk_1

right,

32:43 spk_2

that's, that's when it becomes

32:45 spk_1

more

32:45 spk_2

valuable.

32:46 spk_1

I've been down to the last 1000 a few times and you sweat it, uh, pun intended, right?

32:51 spk_2

Exactly, and cash does not grow on trees and we've learned that,

32:54 spk_1

so.Yes, yes, uh, well, y'all are amazing. Um, we need, I think, a lot more folks monetizing health and wellness. I think it's just so important to all of us, and we're finally waking up to it. So if there's two leaders we need in the world, it's the two of you, and congratulations and thank you for coming on the Big Idea, and I can't wait to see what's next.

33:18 spk_0

Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, it's beena pleasure

33:21 spk_1

and keep, keep finishing each other's sentences. Y'all are a good team.At the end of each episode, I'd like to give a shout out to a small business who is doing amazing work. Today, I'd like to shout out one of Tyler and Adam's favorites, Blemish Babes. Blemish Babes is a community-driven platform focused on supporting people dealing with acne through shared experiences, advice, and emotional connection. The brand positions itself as a safe, relatable space where users can vent, learn, and be less alone, combining blogs, peer support, and education.At its core, Blemish Babes normalize imperfections and build confidence and love with their products and resources. You can support them at blemishbabes.com. Thank you to Tyler and Adam for coming on the show and thank all of you for joining us. We hope you've learned a lot. This has been the big idea from Yahoo Finance.You can come say howdy to me at any of my social channels at Elizabeth Gore USA. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast or check us out at the Big Idea wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Elizabeth Gore, and as my grandma always used to say, hold your head up high and give them hell. See you next time.

34:40 spk_3

This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.

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