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Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
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 -433 -1298.
Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.
You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id .wunderi .com.
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It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs.
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And we'll put all this info in the podcast description.
All right. Let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Peter Ray Hall.
He's the co -founder of the energy bar brand RX bar, and a new protein bar called David.
Peter, it's great to have you back on the show.
Great to be here, Guy.
Thanks for having me.
So, of course, you were a guest on the show back in 2018.
and we did live taping in Chicago, super fun.
And if any of you missed that episode, the story of RX Bar, you gotta go back and check it out, it's a great story, and we'll put a link in the episode description.
Basically, Peter, you started RX Bar back in 2013 with your friend, Jared Smith, and the bar has had really simple ingredients, which is dates, and nuts, and like egg whites.
And as the story goes, you sold the brand to Kellogg's in 2017 for over $600 million.
It's an amazing story.
Thank you. Peter, before we get to some of the collar sales, I'm hoping to ask you just a couple questions about this story.
Is that okay? Yeah, of course.
So, alright, so in 2015, and we talked about this a little bit on the episode, you completely overhauled the packaging, right?
Which was, I think it was a game changer.
And a lot of brands kind of have gone on to copy it.
And basically, you focused on just like four things.
it was like four dates, two eggs, six pecans or whatever it was and no BS.
Tell me about the decision to do that and how that actually transformed the product.
Yeah, so we had a marketing problem.
We were really successful in our niche, CrossFit gyms, those were early adopters so they totally understood the product.
When we began to expand outside of that market into say conventional grocery or convenience store, It didn't sell, it didn't work, and it's a lesson in simplicity.
So when you designed a product like ours, you could claim gluten -free, dairy -free, soy -free.
And so sometimes you kind of think more is the merrier, and like you just want to lay out all your differentiations and communicate it, and actually it's confusing.
Right. Because on the package, you could've been like paleo -friendly.
But that doesn't ...
People who are paleo knew that.
they would know that it was paleo -friendly.
Exactly. And a couple of insights were in the bar market in general.
If you just study and observe the shopper, you'll see they reach out, grab the product and immediately flip it over.
And so that was the real differentiation.
It wasn't how much protein we had.
It was that we were clean minimal ingredient product.
And so that's what we led with.
But we've fundamentally knew that we had a communication problem and we need to really do something more bold to stand out in the competitive market." Yeah, and it was risky, right?
It's not like you and your co -founder sat there and you're like, we have all these, this data.
We know this is gonna work.
Like, it really was risky.
It could have failed.
Yeah, I mean, people thought we were different, a new company.
When you put them out, wow.
Yeah, yeah, they're like, wait, what happened?
Yeah, it's an amazing story.
And really just people who are interested in branding, marketing, and packaging design, this is like a great case study.
Um, Peter, your non -compete eventually ended with Kellogg's, and then you became free to re -enter the protein bar space, and you're doing it.
I've tried them. They're called David Protein Bars.
You launched it, I think last year, and these are bars high in protein, 28 grams of protein, a bunch of different flavors.
Tell me about the decision to re -enter the market.
Why? I mean, obviously you've got expertise, but tell me about starting a brand new bar especially in such a super saturated category.
Yeah. So, I basically saw a pretty big gap in the market to make sort of the optimal protein bar, which is if you're going to design a protein bar for first principles, you want as much protein as possible with as little, everything else.
And I guess the problem or maybe the opportunity in protein is a lot of protein bars are just stacked with sugar or carbs.
Yeah, exactly, and, you know, like protein is pretty, it's like unequivocal, the most important macronutrient.
It's not just for bodybuilders anymore.
It's for humans. And so it's just a delivery system of protein that tastes delicious.
One of the things that, I mean, obviously this is a different playbook now, because you've been through RXBAR and you're a better resource now to start DavidBAR.
One of the things that's interesting about it is I think it's only direct to consumer, right?
You're not selling in stores mainly.
We're just starting too, but yeah, most predominantly we're direct to consumer at Amazon.
Yeah. We wanted to start direct to consumer because you can service people directly.
You don't have to plan your innovation around a retailer.
Super interesting. A lot to talk about and I think probably a lot that will be useful for some of the callers.
Why don't we bring in our first caller?
Great, perfect. Hello and welcome to the Advice Line you were on with me and Peter Rahall.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.
Hi Guy, hi Peter. My name is Christy Stewart and I'm from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
And I'm the founder of Inner Wealth Supplements.
We are the first supplement line that's dedicated to both alleviating PMS and peri -menopause symptoms and increasingly muscle mass in women.
Well, thank you for calling in and welcome to the show.
So, Christy, tell me a little about, are these pills?
Are they, what's a form of the supplement?
Yeah, so they're powdered supplements.
You just put it in your water, shake it up, and drink it.
And tell me a bit about what they are, like what do they offer?
Absolutely, so one is a morning, one is an evening.
Yep. And the morning one has to do with energy and vitality, so it helps provide sustained energy, adrenal support, helps reduce hot flashes and brain fog, increases libido, and helps with bone health.
And then the evening formula, it's called sleep cycle.
So it contains ingredients that help with your sleep and help bring the ratio of estrogen to progesterone back in context to reduce the symptoms that women typically get in PMS and perimenopause.
Yup, and so these are basically, you're using different formulations of vitamins, minerals, other ingredients that I'm assuming as a proprietary blend that you came up with?
Absolutely. My background is in molecular biology and biochemistry, and so I came up with the formula.
I submitted it to Health Canada.
Canada and the US have very different supplement regulations.
It's very, very stringent and strict in Canada.
So submitted it to Health Canada, got the approval for the claims I wanted to make, found a manufacturer and launched in June, 2023.
Awesome. How is the business doing so far?
Phenomenal. So in our first full year of sales, we hit $500 ,000 in sales and just came off an incredible month in January.
And tell me, how are you getting, where are you selling?
Is this all direct to consumer?
It's all direct to consumer.
So, I've got my Shopify site like everybody else, and I post on my Instagram, I don't have very many followers, but we've grown through just organic social media and word -of -mouth, and I haven't invested into advertising at all yet.
Wow, this is a huge and exciting and growing category.
I actually led a panel at CES, Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, for AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, on this very issue and this very topic and all this cool technology that's being developed around para menopause because it is a massive, exploding business opportunity that has basically been ignored.
Well, if you think about it, every single women on the world, if she lives to a certain age is going to go through it.
And we, as women, all the research is done in men, everything is done in men.
And finally, women have just, I don't know what has happened in the zeitgeist, but it's finally come to fruition through some really great knowledgeable voices on social media.
And the reason I got into it was I started, I kind of hit that age, I'm 44.
When I hit 40, kind of everything went off the rails and I used to own a bunch of fitness studios.
and so I worked with a lot of clients on nutrition and fitness and everybody started saying the same thing that was, you know, I'm eating how I've always eaten, I'm doing all the workouts I've always done and I'm starting to gain weight and realizing that had to do with our hormones.
So, I dug into the research, I became a certified menopause support practitioner and just realized that by taking in certain vitamins, minerals, micronutrients, it can have a positive impact on the way your body metabolizes, detoxifies and excretes your hormones.
And if you optimize those functions, all your symptoms go away.
And increasingly we're hearing that experts around perimenopause are saying women need to increase their protein intake.
So Peter, we'll get to you on that in a sec.
Before we bring Peter in, Christy, tell us what your question is for us.
Absolutely. So I think I've reached my ceiling of organic growth and I'm ready to scale and for this time period I believe that online advertising is the best route for me to scale.
But if I'm going to scale online what are the benchmarks?
What's an appropriate span?
What is an expectation for ROI?
What do you ask agency?
Just all kind of the general, I know Peter you're advertising online now with your new company.
So what is your blueprint?
Yeah. I'll answer your question very directly how I recommend you think about it.
So one, you want to prioritize like high intent channels.
So Meta, Google and Amazon, those, those have been the most effective.
You can scale in them.
And then I would start with those like a very low budget, maybe like $200 a day, $250 a day.
And as you get some data and figure it out, You can scale but start super small.
You want to keep your acquisition costs below the gross margin per order.
You want to be first order profitable, so make sure your economics work.
That's what I would recommend.
In general, with anything, I would just stay really close to it and so you learn.
Christy, are you in the U .S. market yet or just in Canada?
I have literally a handful of clients in the U .S. I just figured out how to do really cost -effective shipping to the US.
So, I love, yeah, I'm very ready to enter the market there.
It's a growing, right, there's a lot of smart entrepreneurs getting into this space.
Absolutely. I think one of the advantages you have is that the Canadian rules are more and more stringent and that means something, especially to the kind of consumer that would be interested in this product.
Well, it's interesting that you say that Guy because absolutely.
So before we can sell in Canada, we have to get rigorous third -party testing.
Even the claims that we have to say have to be approved by Health Canada and we have to show science to show that.
So I think people can have a really good confidence that when you're buying a supplement from Canada that if it's making a claim that it's going to do something, it actually will.
Otherwise, we're not able to sell in Canada.
Yeah, Peter, you really leaned into a tribe with RX bar, CrossFitters, but now there's a new kind of tribe, a much bigger tribe, the protein tribe, and it's a growing tribe of people.
Again, especially, talking about women in their mid 40s and over, both women and men, but particularly talking about women now, we know that there's increasing evidence that they need to be consuming a lot more protein.
How would you sort of suggest, Chrissy, how should she be thinking about getting this out there?
I would say, one, you need to get to the U .S. market at some point, it's just so massive.
And then I think if your product's really good, I would just get it into the hands of the right people and I would start small.
So whether that's like mom bloggers, like, like find niche groups and get your brand and yourself in front of them and get into these communities.
And if you have a good product, people will repeat and then they will, they not only will repeat, they will share about it.
So, you want like viral word of mouth.
That's the best use of, of time and resources.
And then I think like on your products, like the protein thing.
So I look at, you know, AG1.
So what they did was like an all -in -one.
So if you have an opportunity to do like an all -in one with protein and some of these other benefits, I think that would be a great way because I think with your consumer, they're like facing a problem, you have the solution, and if you can make it really, really simple, That's like a very valuable thing because if I'm have to take a protein shake and then I have to take your supplement or other Things it's a lot of work.
So streamlining into one thing can be a real value unlock that could be valued Yeah, so when you said get it into the mommy bloggers influential women Would you recommend that we seed people first?
get that buzz going and then do the advertising because I've just you hear stories that people are pumping money into ads with not a great return because I don't have any brand awareness.
So it's like a chicken or the egg, right?
Do you get the brand awareness first through the ads or the influencers?
Yeah, it's a good question.
Like, my bias is to use the product and do it more in an organic way and then relying on an ad.
Because one, you're starting a relationship off in a very generous way.
You're introducing yourself.
They want to see, you know, you have some influence, you know what you're doing, you have credibility.
And that's what we did at Rx and that's David we're doing as well like we sample like crazy it's like trials so important so I that's where I would go versus going straight to advertising yet and that's the one question I had you said we've reached our ceiling and I want to go advertising and like my first thought was like are you actually how do you know you're at your ceiling like if your at your ceiling what would ads do to change that ceiling?
That's I guess I meant I'm at my ceiling for I think, my organic reach on social media.
But then, as I just said, we had an incredible month in January, like 30 % higher than we've ever had.
And so, that almost defeats that I'm at my ceiling, right?
So, yeah. Yeah. And I would follow that cohort.
Like, because if you have product, market fit, you know, that they should be sharing it.
You should see organic growth come from that, but at a high level, I think product over ads.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Christy Stewart, the brand is called Inner Wealth.
Thanks so much. Good luck.
Thank you guys very much. Thanks for having me.
And thanks, Peter. Thanks, Guy.
Guy, I love how I built this.
I've listened to every single episode.
I've learned so much and thank you for everything you do for entrepreneurs.
Thanks so much. Thank you both.
Bye. Thank you. Yeah, this is such an exciting category.
When I did this panel at the Consumer Electronics Show, they were like all these entrepreneurs working on technology and products for women going through a perimenopause.
It's such a fascinating area because there's so much opportunity.
It doesn't seem like the market's being addressed.
It's not. No, not at all.
It's just really starting to explode.
It's like where energy bars were in 2008.
Yeah, she's in a good place.
Yeah. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line, right here on How I Built this Lab.
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Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is RXBAR co -founder and David Bar founder Peter Rahal.
Peter, let's bring in our next caller.
Welcome to The Advice Line.
You're on with me and Peter Rahal.
Hello. Welcome. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your product.
Hey guy, I'm Peter my name's Eric Rokisky calling in from Los Angeles California I'm the founder of squat wedgies we build exercise products that enhance your lower body workout with our squat wedges and slant boards being our best sellers.
Nice welcome to the show Eric so the wedge is a wedge that you put under your feet for I'm assuming for squats right?
Yeah so the most common thing you'll use with the squat wedge or a slant board is to elevate the heel or elevate the whole foot to improve your squatting mechanics, make it easier to squat deeper, opens up those hips and the ankles.
But you can also use it to train your calf muscles from a toes -elevated position so your toes go up the ramp instead.
There's a lot more uses than just the squats.
And that's what we're trying to show people that.
They're not just for squatting, because our biggest competition is weight plates right now, because people just elevate the heels.
Oh, they're on weight plates.
I got you, yeah. On a weight plate, yeah.
So we're trying to show people that, one, it's more efficient to use a wedge or a slant board. And you can also do way more other exercises than just squats on them.
How did you how did you cut Tell me about the story because this is a you know, there are competitors here and we're gonna get into that in a sec.
But how did you come up with this business idea?
So I've been training for 13 years now I became a personal trainer at 19 years old, got my degree in exercise science from East Carolina University, did the strength and conditioning coach thing.
So I've been well versed in fitness.
And if you've in fitness for a while, you've known that there are squat wedges in the market.
But no one was ever really making them affordable.
A lot of the products were too expensive, too heavy to move around.
So in 2021, we launched a Kickstarter to create the first ever wedgie.
And you know, I figured it was a good time to jump into the market and not just build a product but build a brand around it and hopefully motivate people to exercise in general.
Awesome art had and how did you finance this?
Oh, you had the Kickstarter, I should say, right, you mentioned, so the Kickstarter, we raised about 12 ,000 1214 ,000 on the Kickstarter, but I just been self financing it my self using a little bit of debt for growth, not the best strategy.
So just using your money as a personal trainer to help finance it.
Yeah, I'm still working.
I still train. So I was able to make good amount of money and save up from there.
And I pretty much just put all that into the business to keep.
our advertising efforts up and finance all those purchase orders and stuff.
All right, so you've got this product, and tell me a little bit about how the business is doing right now.
We've been growing a ton over the last three years so it's been great to see that.
So last year we just had our best year to date.
We did $700 ,000 in revenue.
Years before that we did around 345 and then the year before that we did about $37 ,000.
What's your margin on 700 ,000?
So blended, it ends up probably being around like, by 33%.
That's my part of my question is today is the, you know, 400 ,000 that was from Amazon, or our margins around like 21%, 18 to 22%.
And then the rest of that was on Shopify, which is after advertising efforts, that goes down to around like 35 to 45%.
Just, you know, based on returns and website costs and affiliates and all that stuff.
All right, so not bad, pretty good actually.
Tell me what you're, before we bring Peter in, what's your question for us?
So my question here is, we've grown substantially through Amazon.
I don't love Amazon because I feel like it's limiting me in a way when it comes to talking to my customer and being able to potentially upsell them to our other good products and get them on my YouTube channel to see our free workout programs. But I love Amazon for the ability to drive a ton of revenue, drive growth for the company, and obviously cheaper advertising costs compared to Instagram and Facebook.
So my question is, at a certain point, as a growing company, can you step away from Amazon and just focus on your own website so you don't have to compete with others on Amazon with their lower cost options?
Awesome. Okay, let me bring Peter Rahal in.
Peter, something right up your alley, I know you like to go to the gym.
So he's got, you know, he's got Amazon, he's got Shopify.
He's trying to figure out, right?
Amazon, obviously great channel because it's Amazon, but the margins are lower.
What are your thoughts, Peter?
Yeah. So this is a common issue.
We have it at David of how do these channels co -exist?
How do we optimize them?
And Amazon's like a force of nature you can't avoid.
So it's not, it should never be a question, Are we on Amazon or not?
I think it should be how do we optimize it?
And I think you're right.
You do want to have a direct website with relationships with your customers and offer different things.
So one way to think about it is, all right, Amazon is for volume.
It's like your hero skews there.
It's got to be priced right.
But how do you differentiate, and how do you create value on your own website to bring customers there?
So that could be through bundling.
It could be through promotion.
And it could be through education.
But I would look at it as like a product strategy across the different channels.
But I just don't...Amazon's...everything.
It's such a powerful, powerful e -commerce platform.
You wanna lean into it and you don't wanna run away from it.
Yeah, I guess my question for you, Eric, is why is it one or the other?
I mean, Amazon...Yeah, I get it.
They're squeezing you, and you know, listen, it's a business.
But it's also a great channel.
On the other hand, I mean, I'm looking at your website here.
You've got YouTube channel, you've got all these free exercise routines that you're offering.
You've got other products here that you're selling.
So I guess my question is can't you do both?
Yeah, and we've been doing both for the last three years, part of it's come down to being able to keep up with the inventory, like on Prime Day, we kinda just ran out of inventory.
And one of the things has just been like trying keep up inventory from a financing perspective because I'm paying for everything upfront before it leaves.
We do build in China, before it leaves China.
And as of right now, we can only order around like 1000 or 2000 units at a time.
And the lead time on that is about three to four months from like building it to getting it here.
And the issue with Amazon is if you don't have enough inventory, you get charge fees.
If you have too much inventory, you get charge fees.
And Then the return issue as well.
And I just, I don't, as of right now, I don't have enough, I think, inventory to potentially do both.
Got it. Yeah, if you have inventory constraints, then you'd want to keep it on the more profitable channel.
And yeah, and just you have to accept that people are gonna be searching for your product on Amazon and just gonna buy.
You're gonna know, you're not gonna capture those sales.
But it sounds like it's more of a cashflow working capital issue.
I would focus on the profitable channel and building your platform.
I would spend more of my resources and energy in building Eric as an influential person in fitness.
And yeah, then you can create all the demand.
Eric, this is a little bit, I mean, going back to this idea of what you are giving your customers or your fans, your potential customers for free.
And I know that you're doing these videos.
I want to see more of that coming from you because I think that's when people see you as somebody who's a trusted voice, they're going to want to support your products.
I just say this as a focus group one here, but I do spend money on some of these influencers who I feel are giving me really great free advice and I have gone and purchased their courses or their products and they've been really helpful.
I agree with Guy. Okay.
I really appreciate that.
Also, Peter, I just want to say, I listened to the episode again and hearing about the dyslexia stuff and some of the speech issues.
Myself, I went to speech therapy for about six to seven years as a kid.
So it's pretty cool to see someone struggling with that as a kid to be so successful as you are now.
So I appreciate the inspiration and talking about that.
Thank you. Of course.
Awesome. Eric, thanks so much for calling in.
squat wedgies is the brand, good luck, man.
Great to meet you, Eric.
Yeah, squats are so healthy, it's such a great compound exercise.
Yeah, especially the full range of motion ones.
Yeah, I love to squat.
Yeah, and super important, Peter, you will start to discover this as you get closer to 50, that mobility is so key, man, it opens everything up.
If you're stuck, if you're tight, I've spent the last year and a half just focusing on stretching in addition to the other exercises and it just completely, it just opens all these doors.
It's the best. I'm not there yet.
Not there yet. You still have some grease in your joints and stuff.
Okay. We're gonna take another quick break but we'll be right back with another caller.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz.
And you're listening to the Advice Line right here on how I built this lab.
If you've been a long time listener to how I built this, you might remember the very first episode we aired back in 2016.
I sat down with Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, and we explored her journey from selling fax machines to starting her own company, that's now valued at over $700 million.
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Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Peter Rahall, the co -founder of RxBar and founder of DavidBars.
Peter, let's get back into it and bring in another caller.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hello, I'm April Wachtell and I am calling in from Brooklyn, New York.
And I'm the founder of Cheeki cocktails.
It's a line of bad -ass cocktail mixers for the home and bar that make labor intensive cocktails a breeze.
Welcome, welcome to the show.
Thanks for calling in.
Okay, so Cheeki, these are mixers.
Basically, like you add this to spirits and then you've got your drink.
Exactly. These are professional grade so they're shelf stable versions of what the pros use behind bars.
and they're non -alcoholic, so they can be mixed with spirits, non -elk spirits, seltzer tea, water, etc. And on your website now, I love the branding, and so I see espresso syrup, so presumably for like an espresso martini.
Exactly. You've got some agave syrup, cranberry lemon juice, so basically, are you covering the whole gamut of like 50 to 70 % of what people order at a bar?
Yeah. So that's part of the problem.
It's part of the opportunity.
It's part of the problem and part of
