Episode 188: Mozhgan Mizban- CEO of Moglow

[Music] This episode is brought to you by Vineyard Sun. Vineyard Sun is a local Austin company that makes quality sunglasses made from sustainable materials. You can see their styles on vineyardsun.com or follow them on Instagram @ Vineyard_SUN. Welcome back everybody to the Moon Tower Business Podcast. This is your host Joseph Olbel and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Moj Mizzbarn who is a CEO and co-founder of MoGlow. Moj, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's fun to be here. Yes, absolutely. I am excited to talk about your product with MoGlow. But before we do that, maybe you can kind of talk a little bit about your background and your experience in the legal world. I know you've been involved in different roles in the legal world as a consultant and a strategist and whatever you could just touch on that. Sure. Happy to. So I spent my entire career before MoGlow at law firms advising on strategy, business development, marketing. At for a long time, I worked as chief strategy officer or chief marketing officer internally before I became a consultant. But stayed in that field for 30 plus years. And the goal there for me was always help law firm partners shape their practice and excel in their careers. And I focused on getting them to really appreciate because they're practicing law. They're like you, they're hardworking, they're practicing law. And I wanted them to be visible in the market to articulate their value proposition, to go out and meet with their clients and understand their needs. But you know, these are universal principles. So they're not just for legal services. And I reached a point where I wanted to apply everything to building and growing my own company. It really, it was not running away from law firms because I still love them and work with them. But it was really to just do something different and have my own company. Very nice. Did you, did you experience when I guess working with different law firms that the strategies were different in trying to develop clients and get awareness out like for example, I know, you know, personal injury lawyers are heavy on advertising on TV and billboards in that nature. Other law firms don't advertise at all. And they write seminars and different things like that to develop their business. Did you kind of see a different like take on the way that law firms needed to raise awareness? Absolutely. It really depends as you said about the area of law. And the work I've done has always been kind of corporate, corporate litigation, global law firms. These are firms that are thousand plus lawyers. So my work was initially on the West Coast in California with the big firms and then in New York. And these types of firms are not advertising, right? They're usually it's through relationship building. It's through institutional relationships with clients over decades. And it's a very different method because these are kind of high stakes per mere law firms. And it's very relationship oriented as opposed to advertising oriented. Right. What would and you were working in New York City with law firms? Can you talk about just kind of a snapshot of what what the what the legal profession looks like in New York City? Sure. I mean, you know, the firms I've worked at typically represented the cases that you see in the New York times and in the Wall Street Journal. Right. They really are working with big organizations and they're dealing with high stakes matters, you know, reputation damaging or reputation, burnishing. Right. So they're doing some really exciting things. And for me, it was fun because, you know, I'd see, I'd see a particular case in the paper. And the next week, I'd be out doing what we called client meeting, a client service interview. And I'd go in as the independent because I don't practice law. I helped practice. I helped build the practice and on the business side. So I'd go in as an objective listener and talk to them about the case and not necessarily the merits of the case, but more how's it going? And what could we do differently? And how's the communication working? So some really fun work that I really enjoyed. That's great. And did you see that like lawyers at these big firms were kind of working like around the clock? Totally. Yes. You know, billable hours are north of 2,000 hours a year. And on top of that, they've got to do business development. They've got to do recruiting. They've got to do training. It's a grind. It really, they get paid a lot, but it is their life. They do work 24/7. So I'm sure you've learned a lot of business lessons and, you know, things related to the work you were doing. What kind of lessons do you think you took from that that that you are incorporating into MoGlow? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, what I believe is the biggest thing, the biggest piece of it was the vision for excellence, right? Like those firms, those premier firms are focused on delivering the best results, delivering the best team, delivering the best service. I believe when you develop a luxury product, it's exactly the same. You've got to deliver, you know, you've got to solve a problem and you've got to deliver at the highest level. Otherwise, it's too competitive. And, you know, you're, you're then focused on competing by price as opposed to by quality. So to me, this is very consistent. I feel those were the principles we applied when we invented MoGlow is we've got to be the best in the market. That makes a lot of sense. And when you, I guess, how did you come up with the concept for your product? Yeah. So this is, this is an interesting one. Joseph, I'd say that a lot of us have felt this, but I acted on it. So for years, I found myself hunching over a sink, leaning forward to see myself in a mirror. I kept asking like, why does it have to be this hard? And I remember being in a hotel room. This is when I didn't live in New York. I was in a hotel room in New York in the bedroom. And the lighting was so bad. And I took my mirror on from, from kind of the bathroom to the windows sill. And here I was kneeling on the floor, trying to get the mirror at the right height to put on my mascara. And I thought, this is ridiculous. You know, why are we settling for this uncomfortable experience? And I wanted to look into a mirror without bending or straining my neck. So I thought, you know what? I looked everywhere. I can't find one. I'm going to have to invent one. That's awesome. And so I guess when was that that you came up with the concept? And then how soon after that did you kind of get started on developing a design and the product? Durer, sure. So I would say that in 2018, a lot of this was starting to feel like not just an idea. Like I think you have the idea and you incubate. Like you sit with it for a long time thinking, can I actually do this? And we started. My husband's an engineer. So my co-founder is Glen Bohem. And Glen's an engineer. And what I kept saying is Glen, we've got to do this. Like it doesn't exist. And we started small. We started prototyping with 3D printing. You know, we kind of design things and 3D printed started with individual engineers design engineers, industrial engineers. I should say industrial designers really in the New York area. And it evolved to a point where I came to work and talked to a patent lawyer at the firm. And I'm talking to my friend and the firm gracefully, thankfully helped us looking to patents. And it started to become real. At that point, you're like, I'm really proceeding with this. And so it took us since 2018. I mean, I would say that it's been eight years. It's 20 prototypes later. The prototyping happened with in lots of different stages. I can get into that a little bit. But it just took forever to actually make it happen because it's a luxury It's not a set. Yeah, I mean, you know, when you think of a mirror, you don't think about designers and engineers and I could see it on the website and I looked at a few videos that you can tell that the quality of the material and the design is top notch and it's definitely a luxury item. Yes, in fact, it has, you know, if I break it down, you'd be shocked to know that it has about a hundred parts. Wow. And some of it, we have three patents on MoGlow. We invented the telescoping rod in the mirror has never been done before. There is a bracket in the back where you pull it out. I'm holding one up right now and you can hang it on a door. Oh, nice. And that's never been done in this combination. And of course, the telescoping rod extends three feet high. And we had to create a base that was not only substantial, but it has a lever where it sucks down to a smooth counter. And it gives you the ability to pull it up. It gives you that kind of, you know, leverage that you need to extend it as high as three feet and have it be stable. Interesting. How long did it take to obtain the patents? I know it typically takes a while to get accomplished. It took a couple years to just, you know, we had provisionals and we, it took a long time. But what surprised me, Joseph, was the maintenance of these patents. I didn't quite appreciate that at first. I thought you would just apply for one. And if your idea was unique, you'd get a patent. And as you know, there's utility patents and there's design patents. And we have a combination. We, the three patents we have, one is utility, the other tour design. And what's interesting is we've got to constantly work on them. And if we do anything new, because of course you iterate over years, you iterate and you iterate and every time we iterate it and modified a mechanism, we had to go back and file. And it's a constant maintenance to keep your patents current and accurate. And I suspect, you know, to keep others from trying to copy you, you've got to really stay on top of it. Absolutely. And I mean, what was that experience like iterating so many times, you know, was it what kind of things were you noticing they just didn't cut it for you. And you said, no, I got to change this or change that. Yes. Yes. So here's the thing. Our biggest challenge was building the right team. This goes to your point. We, we use several industrial designers and engineers that move the needle. But they move it up to a certain point. And then their expertise would plateau. At that point, we pivot. We try to find people or groups with a higher level of expertise. And there are no shortcuts and you just need to go through it. We were lucky to find highly experienced designers and engineers, ultimately right here in Austin. We moved to Austin in 2020. And it was not because of the pandemic. It was just coincidentally timed that way. And when we moved here, we started thinking about the various team members we had all over. And we really wanted to commit to Austin and look to find people here. And in fact, we did. We hired a firm. Can I name a couple firms? Sure. Absolutely. We hired Fahrenheit design, industrial designers. And then with their good guidance, we found pump studios. And they are mechanical engineers. And, and then ultimately because we've got things in store for the future, we've added M3 design. So these are all three industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and they pull in the right engineers, like lighting engineers, electrical engineers. Like there's so many people involved. They pull in the right people to help us refine. You know, you refine every piece, you do prototyping of the piece, and then you create a full prototype. And you want to make sure all the pieces work before you assemble. Right. Now the product looks great and congrats on that. The product is live now on your on your website. Is that right? We are. We're on our website. We actually went, we launched a week ago today. And we have done quite a bit of prep. We started doing going on meta of about a year and a half before we launched. We started advertising on meta and developing a mailing list. And our advertising would show the product. And it would say if you want to learn more, put your email in. And we received thousands of emails. I'm delighted to say. And what we're doing now is email marketing, email promoting to all the people who wanted to know more. And we've had a steady. I mean, we've only been live for a week, but we've had sales every day and certain days bigger than other days, because we're doing kind of a launch campaign right now. Very nice. And so, you know, the looks like the it's available for retail on your website. Yes. So, look, we believe because of the features of this mirror that particularly if you're into skincare, grooming, color makeup, any of those things, you're going to want to be able to see things clearly. And at a certain age, I'm going to say 40 plus you start needing a little bit more help. Right. So, this is kind of like three time magnification for a full face view. And then it's a 10 time magnification for precise detail. So, you know, if you're a guy, it's really funny because one of our good friends, he bought, they bought right away last week. They it got delivered. They're using it. And he said, I'm not exaggerating. I had the best shaving experience of my life, because I see what I was doing. And, you know, they're in their 50s. And I believe, you know, our key market is going to be people that use color makeup and skincare. Right. But I do believe that guys are going to find they didn't know they needed it, but they're going to steal it from their partner. Sounds about right. Are there any products that are similar that you've seen out there? We have. We have the one of the key points I made at the beginning is that if we really looked at competition and there are ton of mirrors that I would describe as plastic and commodity. You know, they're useful. They're low price, but they do one of the things this mere does. Right. They do. They may give you just a 10 time magnification. And you have to hold it. And you're usually in an uncomfortable position. And if they do come on a stand or have a base like Mo glow, they don't extend up. So you're bending. So all of this was, you know, looking at the competition, seeing what was good about it and what didn't work about it. And we tried to, and I believe achieved combining all the things you need in one mere. So like what are the things you need? Well, you certainly don't want to break your back to see your face. You don't want to be craning your neck. You want to be standing up straight. And this is the biggest value of this mere is it lets you stand up straight. The other key point is the three time magnification for everyday use, but the 10 time magnification and no other mere in the market provides that combination. They may provide a three time and a five time, but they're not providing a three time and a 10 time and these, these mirrors are distortion free. They're super high end glass. They're shatter proof or resistant, meaning if something happens, the glass doesn't blow up in your face. It just kind of stays together. And it has a light ring with 12 settings. And it's rechargeable so you can move it room to room. You can unplug it after you've charged it. The battery life in this mere. very long compared to others. And I'm worried about saying how long because if you use it all day and you got it on all day, you know, you're usually you're usually using it for 20 to 50 minutes. And if you do that, you're going to have a long lasting battery life. Nice. And it looks like the materials on it are just very durable like it lasted a long time. Absolutely. Yes, it's made at mostly made out of metal where other mirrors are made out of plastic. Gotcha. And so far for the company, it's been fully self-funded. It has been. It has been. We have funded it ourselves. And you know, that's kind of the other thing I wanted to mention. It's funny. I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs, right? And they talk about this notion of, you know, what are the key things? And you mentioned funding. So that's that's one of the key points. But what I tell them that it takes longer than you think, first of all, significantly longer. You know, I laugh when I see a crude prototype and someone says, oh, I'm going to do a Kickstarter campaign. Or I really want to get this out into the public. And I'm going to do, I'm going to deliver it in six months. And I, you know, I try to be kind about it. But when you're designing, engineering, prototyping, testing, tooling, manufacturing, this takes a long time. So that's kind of the number one. The second is the people aspect that we discussed, right? The, you know, the engineers and the right team are our journey's greatest hurdle was assembling this team. And then the third thing was cost. It'll cost way more than you think. So unless you're making something simple and and you're not concerned about it being the best in the market, which then I don't know how you're viable. Candidly, if you're not shooting for that excellence, I don't know how you're you're going to be viable. But if you're shooting for that, the costs add up quickly. There's so many steps. And we talked about some of it like the IP or, you know, we didn't talk about warehousing, you know, product insurance. You know, there's an a whole e-commerce infrastructure. You can, you can go on to Shopify, but to really do a high-end luxury e-commerce experience, you need tons of apps, you need tons of analytics, and you need to do a premier job even on Shopify designing it. So cost is a big factor. And I'm proud to say that we're self-funded. And I hope we can continue that way. That's awesome. That's great to hear. There was, you know, you see in the news a lot of stuff going on with the tariffs. Did that affect your development of the product at all? Yes. Yes. So we thought we, after all the prototyping, we thought last year we were ready to go, genuinely ready to go. And we were in the middle of the complete uncertainty about the tariffs, unfortunately. I think at one point, it was something like 145% of cost of goods. Something crazy that would have made it just not even viable. But luckily, we came to a point where it settled down. It settled down. It stabilized. It's been a moving target, right? But we now feel like it's here for the foreseeable future. And we count that as part of our cost. Now, we also understand that this is a luxury product at a high price point. And we can't just increase our price. So it definitely cuts into our margins as well, unfortunately. But, you know, what happens is once you get better at producing your product, hopefully you can drive the cost down. Gotcha. You just launched very recently, but for listeners, what's in store for the future for the company? What can we look out for? Yeah. We have, so I guess I say, I will say it this way. We're in full development mode on our second product that's coming out next year. It is in the same family. I'm being a little reluctant about spelling it up fully, but it's in the same family. I believe it will be kind of our biggest, biggest and best success. I say that because I think there's going to be even greater demand for that product because it has a wider appeal. It will be at a slightly different price point, and it will have a wider appeal in terms of usage. But really, I think what we're happy to stay focused on right now is getting MoGlow into the hands of everyone. It's this unique product that they haven't used. And our goal is to become a household name where clients are so happy that they recommend MoGlow to everyone they know. And we really want, we're not in it for, you know, a quick buck. This really isn't about the money, right? So I feel like we're in it for the long haul. We're going to make sure MoGlow is really grounded before we launch our next product. But we are going to launch our next product and it is fully developed. Very good. That's awesome. You can tell you're very passionate about your products and that's always important in success and hats off to you for that. How can listeners find your product online and purchase it? Well, it's the name. Literally go to MoGlowMoGLOW.com. And right now, as I mentioned, we're in the middle of our kind of launch promotion. So it will be, tell mid-March, it will be in this launch promotion phase. And then we will go to our regular retail price and people can go on to our website and just purchase it. The good news, it's in the US. We did in fact have to manufacture in China. There was no alternative, but it is already in the US in our warehouse in Ohio and it gets delivered between three to five days. It's pretty fast. Excellent. Well, I'll put your website in the show notes so folks can find it. And then before we wrap up, the final question for you is what's your favorite restaurant in Austin? Oh, it's so hard, but I've got one for you. Okay. You know the well on Second Street. Yes. I find the food and services excellent, really good quality but tasty. And the vibe is calm and cool for both lunch and dinner. So there are a lot of high-end fantastic restaurants in Austin, as you know. But when you say go to, I say the well. Fabulous. There's one on the West part of town where I'm at and I go there all the time. I love it. Yeah. Great restaurant. It's healthy food that you can eat every day. Let's put it that way. 100%. Moj, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story and the launch of your product. I wish you the most success in all your future business endeavors and I hope to have you on the podcast again when you launch your next product. Thank you so much, Joseph. Really appreciate your interest and great chatting with you today. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Vineyard Sun. You can see their styles on vineyardsun.com or follow them on Instagram @ Vineyard_Sund.