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This show is in partnership with Airbnb. This past summer, I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries, visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb.
It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better.
Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com. Hello, and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Build This Lab. I'm Guy Ros.
This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges each week. I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try 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. Our number is 1-800-43-1298.
Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues your questions and you'd like help with. Alright, let's get to it. Joining me this week from Minneapolis is Monica Nastif, the founder of Mrs. Myers-Glean-Day.
Monica, welcome back to the show. Glad to be back, guy. So, it's great to have you as you were, I think, on the show almost a year ago. And you told us the amazing story of building Mrs.
Myers' cleaning products. And for people who haven't heard it, we'll drop a link into the show notes. You basically had this, I mean, it came about during Epiphany when you were in the middle of anything like a Target or something. And you looked at the shelves of soaps and cleansers and you thought, you know, I can probably do this better.
This was, I think, late 90s. Right. And you did go on to launch a line of cleaning products in 2000. It was called CalDrea.
You eventually got that to Williams and Sonoma. And then Monica was worried other brands would knock off CalDrea. So you would create your own knockoff version of your own brand. And you called it Mrs.
Myers. And then that brand, of course, grew really fast. And it was sold to Essie Johnson in 2008. Mrs.
Myers is a real human. Mrs. Myers is named after your mother. She's still alive.
She's still alive. 93. She still reps, right? She still goes and like reps the brand.
Even though she's not on the case, she still reps. Yeah. Did your mom hear your episode of How I Build This? She did.
She really liked it. And she knows I'm doing this advice line thing. And she's very excited. We should have had her on with you.
She would think about that. Think about that. Oh, man. Maybe we're going to figure that out.
Before we bring on our callers, I wanted to ask you a question. This relates to your mom, right? Because a lot of the companies that we have on the advice line and some that will come on today are focused on trying to figure out how to build like an authentic brand voice. And from the very beginning, you guys had such a strong voice and identity, right?
I mean, maybe the copy on the product works like the Dickens on dirt. And your mom is the brand inspiration. She is Mrs. Myers.
What advice do you have? And do you give founders who are trying to figure out how to build the voice of their company and their brand? I think it has to be true to the founders mission. You know, you have to be authentic.
You can't fake it anymore. You know, this consumer is way too savvy. There's so many brands to pick from. I mean, if you don't resonate emotionally with the consumer, you're just going to have a really hard time.
Yeah. And also, I mean, in your case, your mascot was real. Like your mom would go like there was this was a real human who really did the cleaning in the house of nine kids in Iowa. And now you can get the cleaning products inspired by her.
Oh, yeah. She was the real deal. In fact, when we first started doing media interviews in New York, every time we had a new product launch, I tried to coach her with three key messages. That was a disaster.
So I just let her rip. And she just talked honestly about raising nine kids. She was an original Earth muffin. She had a garden.
She recycled, repurposed, made every meal from scratch. You know, she was kind of the original eco-friendly mother, if you will. Yeah. Did you ever have to say, and don't say this, please?
Yes. Don't say this. Yes. Did I ever tell you the story guy?
Maybe. Can I tell you the story? Yeah. She wrote a cleaning book, right?
It was a marketing tool for us. We're in New York. We go around trying to find a publisher. We've got an agent.
We've got six meetings. We go into our first meeting. And this woman just immediately hugs my mother. She's from Texas.
And she's tall. Buckson's got the big old draw. I was running home in the market and figure it out. And the Racey and just one quick line about your business.
My name is Alison Ombres, calling in from San Diego, and I'm the founder of Insilia Hair. Insilia is putting an end to subpar wigs, wigs are itchy, hot, fit women poorly, inspired by my own journey with hair loss. I set out to bring the same comfort and flexibility of yoga pants to the wig industry. Awesome, Alison, thanks for calling in.
And Celia Hair, okay, so you make wigs, tell me how did you start a wig business? I was eight months pregnant with my son, second pregnancy, and I had one patch of balls about top of my head, and within 20 days, I lost 80% of my hair. Wow, which is a lot more common than people realize. Alopecia, right?
Yeah, I have Alopecia universalis, which is the most aggressive form. I have no hair anywhere, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. And it's just happened while you were pregnant? Yeah, no, total fluke.
The doctors, we really didn't understand. I got sick, it's sort of a long story, but I lost 15 pounds in the eighth month of my second pregnancy, so it was stressful and all that, so. And I'm sure it was really traumatic, right? Because you all of a sudden have to figure out, okay, how am I going, what do I do?
Yeah, I had to go shop for wigs with a newborn. I lived in San Francisco at the time, and so just, I mean, awful experience, wig shopping. I went into one shop in the mission, and the guy looked at me with my baby, he was a car seat, and was like, you have 30 minutes to try on five wigs. Wow.
And had no private room. I just, I had a terrible go with wigs. It crushed my self-esteem. My first wig was too size, it's too big.
It was itchy, it wasn't my style. Everything about it just wasn't me, and you're super self-conscious in the wig to begin with. And so I became obsessed with wigs. I started learning about wigs online, and I went to a week training program.
And so I ended up starting a wig consulting business that I operated for two years. And so I learned a lot about the industry, what women like, and a lot of the frustrations. And then you decided to start your own brand. Yeah, the wig industry is to put it really simple, is you have a handful of legacy brands that have been around forever.
You can get affordable wig, and your wig life is not all that great. Or if you want something that fits well, and something that's comfortable, you're spending up to $10,000 to $10,000. Wow. And I just got tired of that story.
It's so interesting, because it's, I'm sure it's a larger market than most of all. What is it, do you know what the total adjustable market is for wigs in the United States? So the total wigs in extension is $8 billion, and then for just wigs, it's about $6 billion. $6 billion, you say?
Yes, yeah. That's massive. That's an amazing opportunity. Well, thank you.
I'm trying my best, and that's why I'm in Monica, you're a genius when it comes to marketing, creating brands, and you as well. I'm such a huge fan of you. Your show, that's fine here, because I have a strong sales background, but marketing for me is, I'm not my specialty. Yeah.
So you're trying to figure this out, and just before I bring Monica in, what makes your wigs different? Yeah, so wigs are traditionally made out of lace. The material is stiff, rigid. It's itchy on your head.
Itchy, not breathable, heavy, bulky, and I'm just taking everything, the complete opposite approach. So think of the power mesh material, and then the seamless flexible stitching that you get in your athletic clothing. That's what the wig feels like. But it's hidden, it's on scene, you can't see it from a picture, and so I'm having a hard time figuring out how to reach more women, and how to educate them on the unseen aspects of the wig, that are actually the most important aspects.
Okay, Monica, I want to bring you in here. A really cool story. Thoughts, questions for Allison? Well, I think the most exciting thing about your story is Allison.
This is an unbranded category. Yes. And $6 billion in revenue, and no one's building a brand, and you have a really differentiated story. I was listening to you talk going, oh my gosh, it sounds like Nike, fashion and fit.
Hey, tell me this, that market that you mentioned, the women that you want to go after. How do they find you? I mean, do they find you how? From they have cancer, they've lost their hair, they ask a friend, and how does that work?
So right now, I haven't done any advertising, I actually just started advertising on meta in Google this past month, but it's just been organic. So through just purely ranking on Google, organically, and then on my little lonely Instagram page that I've worked really hard on. I did have a wholesale side of my business that I've kind of ended, so I got some real business from that. At one point, I was working with 20 wholesale wig boutiques across the US, but I just got overlooked and overshadowed by some of the leading brands.
It's hard to get people to change what products they recommend. I don't know anything about this market, but if you are a woman looking for a wig, clearly, you've dealt with these pain points, the itchiness, they don't fit well, they're heavy, they're not working for me. And so, is there a world where you literally make videos, short videos, you're showing people what the inside looks like and why you are making, let's say, like a lululemon performance wear, like literally targeting inside out, stretching it, and then comparing it to what's available on the market and why this one is very different. Yeah, I agree.
I think the visual, it's exciting in terms of what guys say, and especially you, you're the real deal, right? You don't have any hair, now you have gorgeous wigs. Yeah, yeah. That's compelling.
And you are the model in a lot of these photos, right? Yeah, right now I am because I don't have the funds to outsource that, and it's hard, I'm sort of a big believer in having models who have hair loss, and it's hard to find them, so it's hard to get the right photos from the right people sort of thing. I think you're just a compelling personality that you should be doing these videos, bald, inside out, showing how it fits. Yeah, I agree, Monica, I mean, you are the brand.
You are. Are you putting yourself out there in any way, besides on the website? Yeah, I mean, I've been very quiet with the brand. On purpose, manufacturing has been a huge hurdle that the industry is very opaque and hard to break into, so it's only within the last actually six months that I have diversified my manufacturing, and I work with some of the largest wig manufacturers in the world now, and I have very strong relationships with them, and so I haven't had the confidence that I could keep up with demand, and so I didn't want to like shout out to the world like, here's this amazing wig that's just groundbreaking, and then not be able to deliver on it.
Yeah, how are you doing with sales, by the way? So last year I did, and again, it's just myself, a bit strapping, so entrepreneur, no advertising. Last year I did 90,000, I only did one product, which was the Sport Headband Wig, Active Wig, and then this year I introduced my full wig, which I'm wearing, and a few other accessory products, and I'm doing a hit above 200 this month. Amazing.
Good for you. If you're gonna bring in 200K this year in sales, you gotta think about how much of that you can put into marketing advertising, usually it's about 10%, it's a lot of money, it's 20 grand, but you wanna think about what you could spend that, what you could do with that money. I mean, it seems like you have an opportunity to really, you need to get in front of the camera, really dive into what you can do for free, which is you and social media, and then think strategically about how you wanna spend some money on targeted ads, and... Where would you spend it if you were me?
I have some thoughts, Monica. I mean, that was social media is where I would spend it. Okay, I think about a TikTok store. It's tougher.
These days, customer acquisition is tougher on social media, but you gotta try, I wouldn't put all of your eggs in that basket way, and I would try different, small experiments, start with $100,000, and then maybe 500,000, and see where that goes. Small micro-influencers for a category like this, critical, I mean, if you can find somebody with 1,000 or 5,000 followers, you could probably work with them for a few hundred bucks. Yeah, yeah, and it works. I mean, I've done some micro-influencers before, just people that I love that I've seen over the years, and as soon as I've done the product, I usually get revenue back, I usually make sense from it.
That's great. I would also think about investing in a video about you, in your story, a two minute video telling your story. You know, liquid death launched its brand with a $1,500 video. I mean, really, that is the story.
And so, your story is so compelling. Like, this happened to me, I didn't expect it, my life changed, and all of a sudden, I'm a young mom trying to find wigs, and it sucks. And so, I decided to start the company to do this. Like, that is a simple, clear, compelling story that you should, you know, turn into a two minute clip and put it on every social media site you can't.
Totally agree. Do you think it needs to be, like, super professionally done, or just kind of all? Not think it needs to be real, and you're real. I think it needs to be authentic, you need to show, look, I'm bald, now I'm not, and tell the story guy just said.
Yeah. All right, you've got your marching orders. Alison Ombre and Celia Hare, good luck. Yeah, thank you guys, such a big fan.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next up, after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your business questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I guess today is Monica Nasef. She's the founder of Mrs. Myers, and we are taking your calls, and let's bring in our next caller.
Hi, Guy, Monica. I'm in Spina Dream to be on your show, so thanks for this opportunity. My name is Nick Harman. I'm the co-founder of Randomels.
I'm originally from the UK, but I've lived for the last 32 years in Sun Valley, Idaho. Randomels are combination animal plush, figures, beanies, and two award-winning books with a simple message. What makes us different? Makes all the difference in the world.
All right, next we're calling it Nick. So, Randomels like random animals? Is that that Portland too here? That's right, that's where it came from.
All right, I'm looking at your website. So, I see a frame of framel, which is a frog camel. So, like as a frog arms and legs and a frog head, but a camel like the camel humps, and there's a hawk. So, a shark on a horse, a girdle, which is a giraffe with a turtle back.
Tell, this is super interesting, very, very unique. How did this come about? Tell me the story behind this. Oh, thank you, Guy.
There's two inspirations. The first inspiration, this was a pandemic company back in 2021, and I had a dog, a basse door, a pop basset and part lab. He had all the lovingness of the lab and the stubbornness of the basset, and that's where the idea came from. But more importantly, the book and the origin story of the Randomels, that inspiration came from my wife's daughter's love of Toy Story, and specifically the inspiration of the little boy next door, Sid, that used to like to destroy his toys.
She always thought that he needed a redemption story. And so, in the book, Ollie the Basse door, she was all the little girl's toys. She's devastated, she finds bits and pieces everywhere, but she finds a way to put them back together and create the Randomels. I love it, yeah.
Imagine if you could crossbreed a gorilla and an elephant. You would have an L-A-Rilla, as you have, in your cast of plush toys. Okay, so you start this business, you make, and I'm assuming these are mainly sold online, or do you also sell these in shops? Probably 90% of the business is online, but we just recently had a really successful story through an unlikely place.
The company called Ripley's Believe It or Not, and Ripley's Aquarium, they've seen one of our viral videos and they did a test in a couple of stores. They bought 10 cases to start with, and a few weeks later they called back and said we're gonna need some pallets, so they ordered 10 pallets, and then within three months they went national, and they now ordered by the 40-foot container, and the manager of the retail department said they've never seen anything that's brand new, fly off the shelf so fast. What do you expect to do in sales this year? Last year we did just under a million, and this year we're hoping to do just over a million.
All right, that's great. Okay, so before we dive in further, what's your question for us? The question is, we think that Randomels is an important inflection point. We wanna capitalize on our momentum, but we think our strategies become a little scattershot, we've launched in a couple of other countries, we've dabbled in rep groups, we're meeting with animation companies and toy companies, and we often talk about bringing on investment and hiring some real marketing and expertise in e-commerce, and we'd love any advice that you have regarding where you think we should focus our attention, and what path do you think we should take to scale the business to the next level?
All right, Monica, I wanna bring you in here. Randomels, definitely, and just a fresh take on the stuffed animal category. Yeah, I mean, they're really funny, and odd, and lovable, all at the same time. Just listening to you, I really think you have to focus, in terms of I would just focus on the US market, and how many toy stores are in the US?
Could there even be 10,000? Yes. So if you're going to go wholesale, you really have to work smartly with your rep groups to make it happen. Never, ever leave rep groups alone, never.
You've gotta do ride-alongs, you've gotta do training, you've gotta get them excited with incentives, because they're walking into a toy store with 20 brands, and why is your brand at the top of their bag? That's one thing for sure, I would not go to other countries. Right now, right now. Oh, I'm just gonna say, I agree, I agree, the one good thing, we did go to the London Toy Fair back in January, and the happiest of accidents happened.
A guy with hardly any followers did a video of me telling the random old story, and within a couple of weeks, it hit 36 million views, and that really got the attention of not only people calling from producers, and also retail stores. So that was a really true blessing in disguise, but I agree with you that we're focusing on the US, because I'm sure we haven't scratched the surface of it. Yeah, it's probably the way to go. And then that's not even target Walmart Toys R Us, we're talking specialty and then you're gonna move to mass, so you have a huge opportunity here in the US.
Yeah, tell me a little bit about your supply. I mean, how are you financing? Are you having problems financing purchase orders? With our success that we've had, and some of the viral videos, yes, that's been a very frustrating aspect.
To begin with, we started with $100,000. We haven't taken any money out of the business for the last five years. Everything goes back into keeping up with inventory, because I'm sure as you both know, running out of inventory is criminal. And it's happened to us on Northern One occasion, especially when these videos pop up online, that we have no idea about.
Just within the first couple of weeks of us launching, I thought that it was our killer marketing and social media posts that had blown up our store, but it turns out it was a toy designer in Chicago that just saw the brand online, ordered all the products, did a unboxing, and we sold out everything, and it essentially broke the store. And obviously, it takes two or three months for the product to get over here. Tariffs have been a bit of an issue. So yes, keeping up with inventory is definitely a challenge.
Nick, how many skills do you have? How many products do you have? We have 16 plush toys, 11 hard toys, 10 beanies, and three books. Okay, so you're not over assorted, really?
That's good, so you can really control, do a better job of controlling your inventory. I'm always wanting to create more. I've got lots in the pipeline, yes, my other partner tells me to slow down. So really, and so the question is, many questions you expand outside of the US, and again, I agree with Monica on this, I wouldn't do that right now, I'd really focus on fixing your supply chain, right?
Because, and this happens, you get an order from a toy store or a toy company, and then you go and manufacture it and then they cancel it. And so you're left with all this product, right? And there are ways around that. You can create some mechanisms to protect yourself, but at the end of the day, you want to find the cheapest and most efficient way to make this at the highest quality.
And so the Ripley's thing is interesting, right? Do you know how many shops they have? I think we're in about 21. It's the Ripley's believe it or not, which is the oddities and then there's also the Ripley's Aquariums.
So they really like the ones, the random ones that have an aquatic theme and they had a brilliant merchandiser and that has been a key to our success in retail, I think having a merchandiser. Yeah, I mean, it seems like you want to follow the pull, right? And the Ripley's to me seems like that's sort of the clearest, the clearest sign of a product market fit right now. I think you want to give that more time and really use the time to focus on operations before you really push out further.
Just maybe take a step back and maybe a little frustrating because it's exciting. But you want to focus on having an efficient supply chain and you want to focus on having a strong relationship with that customer and then maybe even building out in the cities where those Ripley's are located, right? And targeting independent toy stores. That's where I think you want to really kind of build out the brand, you know, in other stores around there.
I would agree and get a good sales group to really pound away, let's just say San Francisco, other major markets where they're just strong, independent toy stores. We've had quite a bit of interest from different sort of animation studios and producers as a result of that video that went viral. Do you think that we should pursue that part? Obviously, that would be a tremendous exposure for the brand if we were to be able to get anything like a TV show or just YouTube shorts.
I think it would be a great way of telling the story and bringing it out to life. It's tempting, isn't it? Because it's so sexy, right? So you have to ask yourself what business are you in?
And you're so small, you have to pick a path right now. I'm not saying forever, but for right now, you got to pick a path in terms of way to grow. I agree, I think you're being stretched and already being stretched in too many directions right now. I think you need discipline.
I think you need operational strength. I think you want to focus on, as I say, supply chain. I'm not saying for a year or two, I'm saying for like three or four months, really get that down, right? Because if you are doing too many things, that turns into chaos and not strategy, right?
It sounds like you've got a good brand. The IP is gaining traction. You've got this Ripley thing that's going pretty well. I would look at that as an opportunity to really lean into and then try and build out geographically based on those locations.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. The brand is called Randomables. Nick Harmon, good luck. Thanks for calling in.
Thank you guys. Thank you. All right, awesome. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice.
I'm Guy Ross, stick around, you're listening to the Vice Line on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the Vice Line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross, and today I'm taking calls with Mrs. Myers founder, Monica Nassif.
So Monica, are you ready? I am ready. I'm thrilled to be here, Guy. Let's do it.
Let's do it. Hey, Monica. Hey, Guy. My name is Ben, Ruth, and Hafer.
And my company is Chandelier Cleaning, VA. I'm based out of Richmond, Virginia, and service the surrounding states. We specialize in cleaning and the restoration of antique and modern lighting. Our work preserves the integrity in historic architecture while bringing a new brilliance to the spaces we serve.
Ben, thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. So you have a Chandelier Cleaning Business. This is a highly specialized job I imagined.
Tell me, how did you get into it? Well, it was my destiny, Guy, you know? I started about four years ago in Washington, D.C. And it is my way of serving the community, and I get a lot out of it.
And we're in a new place all the time. We're in beautiful spaces, historic buildings, hotels. And you probably are dealing with really complex, like a lot of glass, a lot of crystal, that you've got to be taking it down very slowly. How do you clean a chandelier?
Do you dip it into something? I don't know where to begin. We touch every piece by hand twice. And sometimes we do undress the chandelier and put it back together just to reach certain areas.
How much does it cost to clean a chandelier? Like a elaborate chandelier? I mean, if I look at a piece in a half days, you know, $500, or if it's a full day's work, maybe a thousand. Got it.
All right, cool. So you've got this business. And you're in, you said Virginia, D.C. Maryland area.
And what are you looking to do? There's a lot of opportunity to grow this business. And I service a large territory, but it's a lot to take on. But I'm in a growth stage of two years of owning the business and we want to expand, and we're ready to pay for more marketing, get in bigger magazines.
My question is, I want to scale, am I ready to scale? Monica, I'm gonna bring you in here. Questions for Ben? Well, one thing I always think, am I ready for scale?
I always say it's research and math. Meaning, okay, how big is your market? I mean, you're okay, you're in hotels, you're in homes, you're in lighting showrooms. Where are you?
All these, how many are there? And how many markets? And if you think really big, frequency of service, I mean, are you cleaning chandeliers for someone's home twice a year, four times a year, once a year, once figure that out, write that down? Okay.
The cost per service, you said $1,000 for full day. That doesn't seem like enough, but I don't know the category. I mean, I kind of think of you as a high-end car detailer. You're going after this very sophisticated, very high-end service, white glove, all of the above.
Yes, it's luxury. And then, yeah, and then you can project your revenues. Once you answer all those questions on a spreadsheet, then you go, okay, that's the Richmond market, then I'm gonna move close at hand. You're not gonna go running off to Austin, Texas, for example.
So that's the way you answer the question. Am I ready to scale? Is to do the math? Yeah.
Do you have any employees right now? We have two that help me with the labor. Yes. Got it.
Okay. And how comfortable do you feel bringing on additional employees? That's a really good question, because I still show up to every job. And I'm, you know, this is a high-risk job, and I want to be there for it.
So over the past year and a half, I have been really putting time, energy, money into training. These associates to hopefully be able to do the labor, because I still do show up to every job site. I think a big part of this is education. I mean, and it's also just kind of a glamorous business when you think about it.
You know, I would think social media, anything visual, but it'd be super exciting to show chandeliers. I mean, the whole process, getting up on a ladder, how you clean it, I mean, people love to watch that stuff. And I would think if you were the expert, like the top of the line car detailer, that's kind of what you are with these chandeliers. Thanks.
You know, there's a few other businesses out there. And to be really short, I got really lucky. When I moved to Richmond, a guy had recently retired from chandelier cleaning, and was started as a gentleman's handshake turned into a letter of agreement where I've serviced his clients over 30 years now. And in DC, something similar is happening.
Do you think it's a business worth, you know, taking over the market like you're saying, Monica, and purchasing these other businesses? Well, I think you have to do the math. That's what I was saying earlier. You really got to figure out how big is this?
How can I serve this guy was going there with how many employees do you know your expense structure? But you got to really sit down and invest time in figuring out is it big enough? Ben, what are you doing in sales this year? What do you expect to do in 2025?
75,000. Okay, so $75,000. So, and you're thinking about expanding, which means you've got to hire more people or hire more people and charge more money or do both. And so what you mentioned buying another business, what opportunities are there to buy other businesses like yours?
My former employer who taught me how to do all of this in Washington, DC, 20 plus years of clients, she's moved away to Florida. So, there's been discussion. She's a dear friend of mine. And currently she does send me some clients for a referral fee.
I mean, I'm just kind of curious, what do you think the valuation of her business would be that you would acquire versus just plugging away? Yeah, I would only buy part of her business and perhaps her client list. That to me seems like the most interesting thing, right? The client list.
Maybe you could just buy that or negotiate some kind of, you know, rev share. Because really, you know how to do the work, you probably have a truck, you probably have the tools. Really, it's just about the client list. I agree, yeah.
Yeah, and then you have opportunity to build your own brand of level of expertise, service, et cetera. Absolutely. My clients mean everything to me. Yeah.
I mean, it seems to me like you could run a great business as you're doing, right? You could do 80, 90, 100 grand a year, maybe more and have some part-time employees who help you out. And you could do that for the rest of your life and grow, you know, slowly and have a really great, robust, profitable business. Or you can try and sell it, which, you know, really requires another, at least one more tech, like you, who can be autonomous, who you don't have to supervise.
And until you get there, I don't think that it's, it makes sense to try to think about scaling yet. I think you want to focus on really developing somebody who is going to work with you and who has an incentive to continue to work with you. I would agree. Is this the difficult business to scale?
It's all talent driven. Guy, do you think that person should have stock in the business? Well, maybe, I mean, or maybe you come up with some kind of five-year plan that over time they get some, you know, bits of equity, you know, that vest over a five or six-year period or more. And that incentivizes that person to stay with you and help you grow the business.
So they don't even start a competitor, right? You want to, your goal is to take over the chandelier cleaning business in this part of the country and maybe expand more. You're talking about a limited number of people who have chandeliers, but you want to capture all those customers. To do that, you need additional people who can also be cleaning chandeliers in one part of the state while you're doing it in another part of the state.
Yes, to the same quality. Yeah, thanks for your insights. For sure. All right, Ben, thanks for calling in.
The company is called Chandelier Cleaning VA and thanks for joining us. Good luck. Thanks, guy. Bye bye.
Thank you. You know, Monica, when you think about, when you start at this brand, right, the instinct is to just do a million things. It's actually really hard to stop and say we're going to get disciplined and we're going to, do you remember that feeling when you started like just wanting to be everywhere and do everything and do every partnership and activation? Oh, yeah, because especially if you're a creative person, which a lot of brand people are, you can already see five years ahead and you just have to be to your point, you have to be disciplined.
That's why when we started Mrs. Myers, we just went after market after market and we just chipped away. We tried the Midwest, that was a disaster. So we just chipped away New York, Atlanta, a big major markets that would be so much more accepting and we did exactly what you said.
We had one store, let's say the whole food store in Columbus Circle in New York and then we went after all the other stores in the city to generate, you know, a lot of awareness in a particular market. It's hard to be disciplined, but it really pays off big time. It really does and I think I've learned the hard way, frankly. Yeah, for sure.
Monica, when you, you know, if you could go back to when you were starting your business and you had done, you know, you didn't work for Target. You had experience, but you started a consumer brand and you know, you also went through some challenges at home and we'll talk about it here, but people should listen to the episode. If you could go back to when you were starting and knowing what you eventually discovered and how what you know as a mentor and an investor, what kind of advice would have been helpful for you at that time? You know, I think ignorance in some ways is bliss.
I knew so little about the promotional dollars required to sit on the shelf of a Target or a Walmart or a Groger and yet we went after it. And I think if I knew that, oh my gosh, those promotional dollars were, you know, I don't know what the math is, let's say 100,000. I may have been a little more scared, but I didn't know. So I just kept chipping away and they really, you know, a lot of retailers were like, okay, you're a young brand, we'll give you this space and then as you grow, you gotta pay.
So there is a benefit of being ignorant, but at the same time passionate and focused and persevering through it all. I think if I had to go back and look, I often wondered, should I have created all these brands? Should there have been Calgary, a private label and Mrs. Myers?
Because we eventually got to Mrs. Myers. So at the end, it was right, but sometimes I go, did we need to do all that? It was learning, figuring it out.
Yeah, for sure. It's a good point, yeah. That's Mark, an asset founder of Mrs. Myers.
Monica, thank you so much for coming on to the advice line. Delighted to be here, Guy. And by the way, if you haven't heard Monica's original high-built this episode, you've got to go back and check it out. You can find a link to it in the podcast description in the show notes and here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.
All of a sudden, you've got your mom in the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle, New York and it's called Mrs. Myers. And she's like, I'm Mrs. Myers, but it wasn't like the Charmin Squeeze Guy.
No. She's like the real deal. Yeah, and we would bring her to trade shows and people just like, love seeing her and she just embraced this whole thing. And I'm like, oh.
But would they ask her like, how did you invent this? How did you start this business? What would she say? She would act like she did it.
And you know, at first thing, I thought I always wanted to interrupt and I thought, uh-uh, just let her rip. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on sub-stack.
And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on the show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and questions issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with the music composed by Romtina and Louis.
It was edited by Andrea Bruce and John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cina LaFrayo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Sneba Grant, Casey Herman, Jaycee Howard, Chris Messini, Katherine Seifert, Carrie Thompson and Ramel Wood. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to The Advice Line on how I built this lab.