From Zero to $156k/Month - Here's How She Did It

One year ago today, Haley Duncan was thinking about filing bankruptcy. Today, Haley has a business that is pacing between two and five million dollars this year. Yes, that transformation happened in just one year. Not only that, but Haley overcame two failures in her past to have a multi-million dollar business that she thinks can scale to a hundred million dollar exit. In this episode, you're going to hear how Haley started over after multiple failures, how she launched a high margin consumable product that went viral on social media, how she used one-on-one outreach in order to create connections with her customers, and how she won on every platform where she launched, even though she did not have a large budget to build the business. This is one of our standout successes from the 1% in the last year. This is how Haley Duncan went from near bankruptcy in 2025 to having a multi-million dollar business just 12 months later. Haley, congratulations. You have a million dollar business. I have a multi-million dollar business. Yeah, you do. Yes. But it didn't come without its failures. So let's back up a little bit because the headline will read, you went from zero to $156,000 a month and a year or so. But before that, there were some failures. Tell me about some of them. Well, I got the e-commerce bug in 2020, and I launched a mindset journal. It was a print on demand, KDP, had no idea what I was doing, and we got 100 copies, because you can buy them for like $3. We sent them out, and it went crazy. We had $20,000 that month in royalties on KDP, print on demand. Okay, the first month. The first month. So I got bit by the buck. I was like, this is so exciting. This is so cool. This is a print on demand. We're getting royalties. And then everyone was like, you need to start a brand. Like, this is crazy. Everyone, some crazy dude on the internet, they drive a brand, okay. Yeah. Everyone's like my uncle, my cousin, you know, and I had two partners that we started this mindset journal with. It's actually a great journal. It's called 90 day habits. And we were like, we're all in, right? We're going to start this brand. We get our Shopify website, and we have no clue what we're doing. So of course, we're going to hire someone who knows more than us. So we take that $20,000 royalties, and we start hiring. So we hire an agency, and they're going to do our ads for us. Oh, boy. I've seen this episode before. We have no, we have no email list. We have no, we just have this, you know, great product on Amazon that's print on demand. So we order from Amazon, the copies, and you get them at, you know, $3. So I'm shipping things out now from Shopify. I'm getting it from Amazon, shipping it out, and we are paying agency like 10 grand a month, because they know way more than us. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, you don't even have a foundation. You don't have this. You need us. Like, we're going to do everything for you. And we're like, oh, we've got to do everything for us, you know, because we don't know what we're doing. So this is great. And the promises. And we're going to turn this into, you know, this great brand. And so we were paying everything. So my partners, they got a credit card like right away. We open a bank account, we get a credit card. And they're starting putting the med ads on the credit card. And I'm clueless to all of this. Is there a Shopify notification? Are you making a bunch of money right now? It is actually. And so we are, you know, spending all this money and money is coming in, but I don't know what was going out. I don't know what we're making on what, because I'm trusting other people. And I just don't know what I'm doing. So in two years into this, we haven't paid ourselves anything. We've reinvested because that is what I thought you did in a business, right? You don't pay yourself. You just work for free. You pay everyone else. Welcome to Entrepreneurship. Yes. So that was one of my identities around being an entrepreneur is that you work for free, which we don't need to be. We don't need to tell ourselves that story. This is a lie. So you're, you're giving this agency $10,000 in my plus, you're running ads and you're doing this for two years. Yes. Two years. And my partners are, are finally like, we don't want to do this anymore. Like, this isn't worth our time. And I think they're so dumb. I'm like, this is huge. Like, you're going to walk away from this. Of course, you know, I'm the dumb one. But I don't even know how to read a financial statement. And I think, you know, we're doing great. I have no clue. So I actually buy them out. And it's not a lot of money. I think it was like 14,000 or something. So to me, that was like a great deal. Because now I have all the, I mean, the Amazon listing has like a thousand reviews on this Amazon listing. So I think I'm getting something that's like residual, right? So I buy them out. And then he's like, and you have to pay off this credit card debt, which was like 30,000. And I didn't really realize that. So then I am paying off the credit card debt. But then I have to get credit cards because this business is not making any money, right? So now I'm getting credit cards. And my thing is like the next person I hire is going to make all this up. And I'll pay this down. And the next, you know, now it's this gimmick and that gimmick. And then I get to the point where, and I have a 800 Frico score, like I'm doing good in life, you know? And getting these credit cards and next thing, you know, I'm up to like 100,000 in credit cards. And I'm out of credit cards. Like no one's going to give me any more credit cards. And I'm not telling anyone, like I'm not telling my husband, I'm not embarrassed, but I'm also, I have so much faith that like it's going to turn around. It's more like I just don't need to like let people in on this part. Like I'll let them in when it's like doing well, right? I don't need to put my problems on anyone. So I put the reality of the situation is you've got a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Right. You're spending money for a business that I'm not paying myself. And isn't yeah, making profit or you're not sure if it's making profit because you're not really analyzing the PNL. Oh, I have no clue how to read a balanced sheet or anything. And I don't know what's coming in and what's going out. Yeah. So I'm I'm just basically I'm the mindset girl. So I'm just like putting on my vision board. And I'm going to build this multi-million dollar business. And I just believe it. And I don't know how, but it's happening. And then this is the good part. Haley just shared that she spent $10,000 a month hiring a marketing agency hoping to grow her sales. Unfortunately, this is a very common mistake that I see entrepreneurs make. When you are below $100,000 a month or so, it can be tempting to throw more money at the problem to try to fix your sales. And that's usually not a good idea. The way that you invest money from your business to grow your business is to amplify what is working. My rule of advertising is you don't use ads to get attention to things that aren't working. You use ad money to amplify what is working. In the early stages of your business, sometimes it feels like nothing's working. And that's why it's so important to pick one channel, one product, one strategy and go as deep as possible. And as you'll hear, Haley started to find those little nuggets that she could amplify. And that's what helped her build a million dollar business. I get an ad. And it's you. And it's probably in the studio. And you're talking about your book. And I don't even know that you did ads. Like I don't even know how I got that. I was not following you. We don't run many. Yeah, I never heard your name. It found you. So I am, I see this Instagram ad and it's 12 months to a million. And I immediately got on my, my iPad and I download the book immediately. And I read the book in like a week. Like I'm just like oh, I'm g, like this is my eyes are like wide open. And I just, it was my first real like, this is could be simple. This doesn't need to be hard. It doesn't, in my mind, I had to hire someone because they knew about ads and they knew about this. And I could never learn that. And this book taught me like I can learn this. And I can do this. And of course, we don't you always say like people find you when they're desperate. I may have said that once. Oh, well, yeah, actually a lot of people do find me when they start something that's not working out. And then they'll like help me fix this business. Yeah, basically we're at rock bottom. We find you. We're like, oh, hi Ryan, we're at rock bottom. Please help us get out of this. And so I read your book and I'm just, I have hope that I can get out of this mess. You actually talk about someone in your book that has a journal. And that did really well. And so now I have hope again, I have vision and I'm determined to build a business, a million dollar business. Like I'm putting a hundred thousand dollars everywhere. I'm visualizing a hundred thousand dollar months. And so I'm trying to get out of this debt. And I was talking to someone and she was like, there's no way you're going to have a profitable bit business with 10,000 a month and like credit card bills. Like it's just not going to happen. You still paying the agency at this point? I couldn't pay anyone else anymore. So at this point, I'm betting on myself. And I need to learn. And I actually always pick a word for every single year. And my word for that year was learn. And I was like, I need to learn what I'm doing. I need to know my finances. I need to know quick books. And so I was paying someone 500 a month to do our books. I took all that on. I learned balance sheets, I learned budgeting, I learned what was going in and what was going out. I had no more money, I had no choice. And now I'm at a point where this business, I can't keep paying. So I need to look at options. And also I'm an entrepreneur, right? So I'm already, I'm always thinking about new business opportunities, I'm sure you can relate. And my sister and I start thinking about starting a business together called the Spice Sisters, because she makes these incredible superfood spice blends. She adds superfoods into them, ranch, taco, and she would make them and give them as Christmas gifts. And like we need to make a business out of this. So at the same time I'm trying to bring this 90 day habits business, just to get breaking even, you know, to get out of debt, I'm starting a new business. And-- That didn't work so well, so let me start. Exactly. I have plenty of time to start a new business. And now-- Very common in an entrepreneurial space. Yes, this thing isn't working, so let me try this other thing. Exactly. And I'm listening to your podcast. I'm reading your book, and I know I want to join the 1%. I know I do. But I have no credit cards to put the money, to pay for it. But I know like that is what I need, because I know that I can't rely on an agency anymore. I've learned that, but I can rely on myself. And so I need to invest in myself. And I knew that. So I start a business, the Spicesters. And we don't have-- I don't have any more money to borrow. So I get $10,000. And this is like coming from our family at this point. And we both have $10,000 into this. I have learned my lesson. We were not going to get a credit card. Not like we could. And I was going to do things differently. I knew a little bit more at this point with this business. And this business is when I joined the 1%. And I love looking back at the text messages to your team, because I had to give them three different cards, because I had to split it up. And one was MacStow, and it was a little embarrassing. But I was ready to bet on myself. You found a way to make it work. I found a way. This wasn't going to be putting my money into someone else's hands. And I joined. And it was just incredible, because I learned so much. But I think the biggest thing was really surrounding yourself with people that are having success. I saw people-- so the stories I was telling myself was-- which was a big wake-up call, because I'm like so into mindset. And telling other people is that businesses aren't profitable. You have to go into debt. And the minute I saw people in your community, their first month, second month, third month, 30,000 dollar months, I just knew it was possible. And I knew the story I was telling myself wasn't serving me, and it was made up. Do you remember any of the people that you met or the stories that you saw that started to shift that? I think the biggest impact, which I don't even remember his name. It was actually on one of your podcasts. He had mentioned they had some medical, basically, file bankruptcy. This is generally new. Yeah. And I was going to file bankruptcy. I mean, that's where I was a year ago. I was talking to a bankruptcy attorney. I was giving him all the paperwork. I had no idea what that looked like. A year ago, as we sit here a year ago? Yes, a year ago. Wow. I was talking to a bankruptcy attorney, getting him everything he needed, learning about what this impact would have on my personal, because this is all business debt. This is not me going shopping. This is literally meta ads. That I'm going to now is going to affect me personally. And I'm still not telling my husband any of this. Yeah. I'm not. He's got-- Yeah. He's-- I'm not telling anyone. Oh, right. He's not listening to this. Well, there's a lot of things a lot of people don't know, because-- and they might listen to this and be freaking out. Because I didn't want to share what was happening. Because one, I didn't want to put any problems on anyone else and stress anyone else out. But two, I just always knew it would work out. Was it relentless optimism or did you feel some shame? I definitely felt-- I guess I don't know if shame is the word, but I definitely felt embarrassed. Because I did have this faith and this belief, and it wasn't working out the way I thought. But I also surrendered to that. Knowing I was meant, I know that I had to-- almost file for bankruptcy to get where I'm at right now. I know I had to max out all the credit cards to start investing in myself and learning. I know that whole journey was to put me where I'm at now, which is I can't wait to share where I'm at now. Because it's insane. Well, before we go there, I know at some point, your family encouraged you to quit. At some point, your family was like, "Haley, please stop this." The turning point for me was when the Spice Sisters I was doing farmers markets. And I was gone from my family every weekend. Farmers markets. Have you ever done a farmers market? Well, I go to farmers markets. I've never sold a farmers market. Well, you need to appreciate those people with those booths because it is so laborious. It is mentally draining, physically draining. It's like 80 degrees. You're putting up to pop-ups and setting up and you're talking to people. And I was doing that every single week. I feel like we need to give a shout out to Jordan and the 1% who is still doing farmers markets and selling out every weekend. She's doing a great job. But please continue. Oh, yeah, I love Jordan, too. I have a lot of great friendships from the 1% still. I love-- So your family, at some point, sees you doing this. So I'm doing the-- my husband is in the morning 7 a.m. helping me do the pop-ups. And I just have always thought hard work will pay off. And I knew I was working hard, but it wasn't paid off. I was making $300 at these farmers markets. And my whole day was spent. And I knew that this wasn't the businesses that I thought were going to get me to a million. These weren't the businesses. Because I had another business-- Third business. A third business. And I would tell people about this business. And they would tell me, you have two other businesses that you need to focus on. And that's part of your problem. It's like you are ADHD, you are all over the place, you're not focused. But I could not let this go. And I was like, you're right, I can't do this business. And I need to focus on what I have. I need to get those up and running. Until I realized there's a reason why things are put on you. And you've got to go for it. So this third business was a thing that's floating around in your head, keeping you up at night, kind of lingering at you. But you have these other two businesses that are taking up all your time and all your capital. So how do you manage that tug between this is something most of us entrepreneurs deal with? It sounds like this was the business you really wanted to do. But the other ones were the ones that you had already given all your energy to. Exactly. At some point, they needed my energy. At some point, did you just cut the cord? What happened? The 90 day habits journal, I'm almost, you know, I'm filing for bankruptcy in my mind. There's no way out. And that's what I'm doing. And that's where I'm moving with that. So that is almost a doors shutting there. The Spicesters, I'm realizing there's no money to be made. And when I heard myself in 2024 talking about my businesses, how, you know, you don't make money, you can't pay yourself, I was like, why am I having businesses where you can't pay yourself? And I switched the story. And I switched, 'cause that was my identity, right? I have these businesses that I can't pay myself. And your identity becomes a reality and your thoughts and everything that you attract. So I switched my story. And my story was, and I started telling people this, I, in 2025, I will have a successful profitable business, profitable. That is what I wanted. All I wanted was profit. I wanted to, I didn't care about anything else, but profit. And that's what I started saying. I said, 2025 is all about the profitable business. I didn't know what that business was. Was it the Spicesters? Was 90 day habits gonna come back alive? I didn't know, but I had this other idea. And this idea came from me going to the dentist and the dentist telling me that I had like a ton of cavities, which I had never had cavities before. And he said, do you mouth breathe? And I said, I don't, I don't think so. And he's like, we'll do your mouth tape. And I said, I've never heard of mouth taping. And he's like, you need a mouth tape because you're letting your oral microbiome is off. And so I go on Amazon and I can't really find anything on Amazon. Everything is like ripping your skin. It's not skincare friendly. And so that's kind of the idea I had that I wanted to create something that was you could use skin care with. You could put your lip cream on and you could use a comfortable mouth tape. And it also, it was kind of expensive for the brand I was purchasing and it didn't need to be that expensive. And the cool thing is I had this manufacturer since 2020. So for the journal and for the Spicesters, I had a great relationship with the manufacturer. And so I just asked her, like, can you get me something like this And find a material that would be, you know, use where you could put skin care underneath it and it could still stick stick. And so we found boob tape material, which I don't know if you know a boob tape material is I have an idea, but I don't I confess I've never used boob tape material, Hailey. Yes, well boob tape material is great because it's nontoxic, it's great for sensitive skin, but it also if like you sweat, it's got a stick, right? So they've created adhesive that can stick even with sweat. And we were just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It's flexible, it's breathable. And you can use your skin care with this. So we order. So I have two girlfriends and they also melt tape. And we've been working together for a while. And these are different partners than who you had in 98 journal. Oh, 90 day journal. Yes. And these are different partners than you had in places. Yeah, the 90 day habits journal. They left. They got paid out. They're very happy. My sister is totally fine. We were sober now on Spicesters. We are we're like we're done with Spicesters. So you find some new partners. Yes. For boob tape on your mouth. Right, we're talking and they they're like we we we love we want to start a business, but we don't know the logistic part. They want to be front and center. I love the behind the scenes. I want to be logistic. So it works out perfect. And these are two of my really good friends. And we I tell them, okay, I can get our first set up. We've tested samples. We really like it. We need to come in with $700 each and they're like $700. Okay, we'll see. Let me ask my husband. And so we each put in $700 and we get our first round. And because they don't really sometimes when you've been burned in businesses, you're you have some walls up, but they didn't have any of that. So they were really pushing me. They're like, let's just get let's just do this. Like let's just get it out there. I was like overthinking, but that's really that's really interesting because I was going to ask you, did you have any of this rumination around the failures that you just had? And it sounds like you actually benefited from having partners who had fresh legs and and no baggage. Exactly. And they had none of that negative thought train. They were running on pure optimism. And when you've had a few failures, you're often being run pessimism. So is it fair to say that their naivete was beneficial as a compliment to your running list of mental failures? Oh, there was so many things that they brought to the table that because they just didn't know. Which it was so good for me, because it made me rethink everything. And so we we launched and and I and I'm doing exactly what you teach like to a tea. I'm a walking billboard for you because now I've had two businesses. And I'm starting one from scratch. And even talking about the product, you know, talk a lot about how to come up with the product. And I I'm thinking about that in my head every, every, you know, every part of this business is because you're in my head. And you're, you know, the great thing about sealed, which sealed wellness is the business name, the brand name, is that there's so many things that you talk about a product as far as, you know, it's a subscription. It's lightweight. It's, um, you know, people reuse it every 30 days. So there's so many things that when you're coming up with a product, you want to think about the journal is heavy. It's, it's toss a lot to ship, you know, the spices you have to deal with the FDA and food and different licenses. And so this was something very simple. It was cotton and spandex. Light. It's consumable. It's high margin. Right. It's easy to brand. It's easy to ship. Yes. It's perfect. Right. Do you know I use the product every day? I know. I love that. Like I freaked out. You, I saw you tagged us. I was like, oh my gosh. So I, so I use the product. And every time he's part of like, this is a great, freaking product. Like she just got it right. The branding is good. The margins are great. It, it's just you, you obviously listened. Oh, yeah. It's just perfectly done. So you have two co-founders who are riding high on optimism. You get to be the, the logistics person who, who now has the experience of how to bring a product to market, how to take the first sale. Don't run things up on credit cards. Don't hire marketing agencies first out of the gate. So what was the launch plan? What did you do? You knew what not to do. Right. But what did you do in the launch? In the launch, we, and I, I would feed them information from all of your courses and stuff. And in the launch, we started sharing on our social media that's that they could join our email list. We made a very simple email list link. You started building the launch list essentially. Yeah. About a month before. And we created an Instagram account and we just started saying something's coming. We were, you know, tagging our Instagram. And we just had a link on our Instagram. How to join. And it was a pre sale. So they got it for 20% off. And the pre sale was going to last a week. And on launch day, and I kept wanting to push out like, we need more people on our list. Like I was overthinking everything. They're like, we have the product. Let's freaking launch. Like, let's just put it out there. So they kind of did it without even me. Really realizing I'm like, we launched today. And they were like, yeah. We, we made it live today. We made our own website. Because now I know I was forced to learn, you know, Shopify. And so we were able to do our own website. We didn't hire anyone. We still haven't hired anyone. And we launched and we had 55 sales. And I was kind of like, wow, that's pretty cool. Because before you even had the product ready, right? You're pre selling this. No, we did a pre sale with the product. Okay. So they were going to get it in their hands. But the pre sale was 20% off. Got it. So if you want 20% off, get on our email list. If you want to find out what it is, get on our, we weren't telling anyone what it was. So we were telling anybody what the product was. No, we were just saying get on the email list. And our Instagram just had like people, it was mouth tape, right? So it was just like aesthetic, like in bed and, you know, self-care and that kind of thing. But it was going to be, you were going to find out what it was. And you're going to get the pre sale price. Okay. And so people wanted to know people are like, I want to know what these girls are launching. I want to get on their list. That's the only way they could find out. So they got on our list. I think we probably only got like, I think it was like 500 people on our list. But we sold 55. We had 55 sales that day, $1,500. And then we had the products. So now we're sending it out to friends and people that we know have some influence on TikTok and Instagram. And I know that you're super big on TikTok, which made me, well, we both had a big vision for TikTok, right? Like last year. And TikTok is interesting. But at the same time, I knew this would be a great product on TikTok. And I knew there was a lot of opportunity on TikTok. So I wasn't really looking on Amazon at this point. I really wanted to build the brand to where when we went launch on Amazon, it was already going to be sold. We didn't need to do, we didn't need to build the brand on Amazon. And we wanted people to find us and search for us. So we launch on TikTok, shop, and people are posting for us because we've sent them free samples. And we have had a couple posts of the mount tape, you know, hit 30, 50,000 views and grinds them ahead. If it has organic, promote it, put money behind it. If it doesn't, don't, right? They only spend money on things that are working, the things that are broken. And, you know, we, of course, like, if we made a video and we like it, we want to make up, you know, I'm like, no, let's see if it works before we put any money behind it because of Ryan. And so we're seeing that these, you know, they're getting views and they're getting sales on TikTok, shop. So we promote it, which TikTok makes it so easy. You just go on to the, the actual post on your phone and you hit promote, which is so crazy how easy it is. So we would put a couple hundred dollars behind these, you know, these influencers, I guess. So these are connections that you had that you sent product to and they made a video about them. We basically asked on Instagram and TikTok, like, we'll send you product and we want you to share about it and people reached out to us and said, I'll, I'll share it. So we started with that. We didn't know how it would work out, but we obviously know that that's, you know, a great starting point, right? So we started putting money, promoting those on TikTok and a couple hundred dollars, now they have 500,000 views. And now we're going viral on TikTok just from doing that. So that was really eye-opening because we're seeing sales. We have now spent nothing. We didn't pay anyone, right? We're, they're only making money when they sell something. So we're not having to come up with money to pay anyone. So let me, let me, let me just make sure I understand. So you launch on your own website and do $1,500 in sales. Like, great, okay, starting point. Like, didn't set the world on fire, but we got 55 sales. Yeah. Cool. Now we're going to send this out to people in our network, whether that is the people who are following us on Instagram or people that we have some relationship with. Please just make a piece of content about it. some people make a piece of content about it. Some of them do pretty well. And I say, if you've got 100 customers, 80% of them, maybe 90% of them are gonna say thanks for what I bought and never contact you. And then 10 people are gonna become fans. One of those people is gonna become a super fan that leaves a piece of content that might get some visibility. You get a few of those and you start putting money behind those and this is on TikTok Shop. - This is on TikTok Shop. - So now our focus is less on Instagram and more on TikTok because I just, I know this is a viral product on TikTok. - Yeah, you see momentum happening. - I see momentum. And this is where positioning it as the first skincare friendly maltape. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, I've been wanting something that's skincare friendly. This is amazing. And it's aesthetic. And so we're doing great on TikTok. Then we see on TikTok Shop, big people are, like Charlie Demilio is ordering our maltape. That comes through. Like it's crazy, all of these people are seeing these viral TikTok posts that we're putting money behind. And it's going, and now they're sharing about it. These influencers, we're not, they're buying it from us. We're not paying them. And then it's going into Instagram now because now they're buying it on TikTok Shop and now they're sharing it on Instagram. - And what were sales like at this point? I mean, where are we at in this part post launch and what's happening sales wise? So that first month we hit 15,000. And that was my whole identity shift was, if I'm a multi-million dollar business owner and that is my identity, then we're making money right off the bat. Like we are profitable right off the bat and I'm doing the things at a multi-million dollar with that identity versus the identity I had before that yeah, you just work away for free, you know? I can't believe that was my identity for so long and I think that's what a lot of people think. - I do too. - And that's your reality. You, your RIS will track things to make you not profitable. It's just, it's science. - Okay, I want to interrupt here and talk a little bit about TikTok Shop because you might hear Haley's story and say, oh, all the money is in TikTok Shop. And in some cases, it is. It's a wonderful platform, but there are benefits and drawbacks to using TikTok Shop. One of them is that it can be really spiky. As you'll hear Haley explain throughout the rest of this conversation, she would have a piece of content go bananas and get a ton of sales and then it would die off. So it's not a place where there's a lot of predictable growth. It also requires a lot of manual effort to create those outreaches and build the relationships with the people who are going to talk about your product. Now it's fine, I love TikTok Shop. It's usually not where I recommend people start. Amazon is the consistent channel that will build over a long period of time and compound, but it's not as fast. So again, there are benefits and there are drawbacks to both approaches or even running ads first. All I care about is that you pick one channel in one direction and you go as deep as possible for at least a few months because that's what's going to take you to at least that $25,000 per month run rate and then you'll have some profit where you can invest into other channels and other initiatives. - So what were the different activities or behaviors that you were doing while operating with a business where you're not making any profit versus first month, 15 can sales and were profitable? What were the different behaviors? - I think when you have that identity of a multi-million dollar business owner, you start thinking about profitability differently and you start taking action. So what is instead of spinning my wheels or trying to make the best creative, I'm thinking about profit. I'm thinking about sales. I'm thinking about what's going to move the needle and I'm taking action on that versus ADHD. I'm going to go over here and I'm going to do this and I'm all over the place and I'm going to see what's working. I'm going to try this for a day. It's consistency and it's taking action to those that move the needle needle. What do you talk about all the time? Which a lot of entrepreneurs don't do that and it's simple, but do you also say all the time? Like you have, I'm like, we don't need to over complicate this. Like just send out product, get people to share and give them a commission when they share. So when we started seeing that that was working, so now a lot of our sales are TikTok now. Our Shopify, our website is really not much. Maybe 10 sales a day that first month. TikTok is doing 50, we're maxing out. They max you out at like 50 sales in your first month. So we're maxing out everything. You're maxing out the platform. Yes, maxing out at 50 sales. We're like, why, why are you shut, they just shut it off? Like at like 8 p.m. I'm like, no. And I have to ask, why do you think that the product was so viral friendly? It's not like mouth tape hasn't been done before. There were, there have been mouth tape companies for years. So what is it about what you did or how you did it that made it so shareable on a platform like TikTok? Well, I think I, I go back to what you always say is like, look at reviews. And when you're looking at to create another product, like I'm not trying to create a duplicate of what's out there. I'm trying to create something better. And that also comes from you. See, I'm walking about. You're checks in the mail. And you know, and you've never met me. And I have like, know everything about you. That's kind of creepy. But you would be the first to say that. I always said, I'm like, Ryan will know my name one day. And here we are. Who would have known even a year ago? Apparently, you did, Hayley. I did know. I did know. But if I were to tell myself a year ago, when I was talking to my bankruptcy attorney that I'd be here today, talking about my multi-million dollar business, you know what, why don't we go there for a second? So like, we keep kind of dancing around this, which is how much, how much in sales are you doing now? A year ago, you were almost bankrupt. My bank, yeah, I took a screenshot of my bank account a year ago, my business bank account, and it was negative. It was in the red. And I took a screenshot yesterday of our business bank account, and we're at 97,000. Like, we always have close to 100,000 in the bank. 97,000 dollars in the bank. In the bank, yeah. In the bank. And-- And what were your sales last month? Our sales were 180,000 last month. 180. Yes. And we're tracking to hit 500,000 by June. We had a couple things happen. Learning experiences happen. And in sealed wellness last month. But we are back on track. What happened last month? Last month, we had an issue with quality. And we actually had a lot of people that were loved our product reaching out to us saying, this isn't the same product. Like, it's-- You had a manufacturing issue. We had a manufacturing issue. And we're like, what's happening? So we had to pull all of our product. We had to cut our ads spent in half, because we didn't have any inventory. We couldn't get it in time, because of-- there was a holiday that our manufacturer takes five weeks off, which is like, what? Yes. And so we-- they knew of the problem. We knew of the problem. We knew how to fix it, but they were gone. They weren't able to. Otherwise, we could have-- any other time, we could have gotten more inventory in like a week. A great thing about our product is we can air get it by air. It's very lightweight. So we had this product that we couldn't sell. We had to throw it away. We literally took our product and we went to the dumpster. And we dumped it in the dump. It was bad. It was bad. It was something that could really affect our brand. And first time customer would not have a good experience. I hope you documented that and shared that with your customers. We did. Yes. Because most brands would just sell through the defective product. Yeah. And there's actually nothing wrong with that. There's something I believe in called the Scratch and Dent Sale, where you run a big discount to Blitz inventory that doesn't match your standard of quality. Totally fine to do that. But it takes a real commitment to brand to say this doesn't match the type of quality you want to bring. So we're going to destroy it. And we're going to, we might have to start over at zero next month with no inventory and work our way back. But when you're honest about that with your customers, it is amazing what happened. Well, I've learned that from you, the transparency and the honesty. And we made a real of us dumping it in the dumpster and put it on our Instagram. And it had tons of views. And people were like, wow, this is amazing. And we said, this is what we expect a certain quality. And we're not going to settle for anything less. And so we threw away all this inventory. That's amazing. It's us like getting a ladder and dumping it in the dumpster. So you did $180,000 after cutting ad spend in half. Yes. And having inventory issues. Right. So if you hadn't had those issues, we're looking at a multi six figure per month business. Yes. OK, so one to skip a few $990, $180,000 a month. Right. What the heck is happening between February of last year and this past month where you probably would have done $300,000 in sales? Like, some things had to happen along that growth. Well, when we realized that when someone posted, they could make us a lot of money, basically. We decided to go to the dumpster. that we were gonna go all in on that. And Bree is loves reaching out to people. I don't love it. I'm not into it. But she really likes it. That's a great thing about having partners. So she basically sets a goal for herself to reach out to 400 people a week. And that's on Instagram and TikTok. So she's reaching out to people with a simple message, which also you teach. You're basically just saying can we send you our product? Like no strings attached. Like just we think you love it. And we believe in our product. And if you believe in your product so much, like you know people are gonna love it. And they're gonna share something they love. We also have an affiliate program. So we offer 20% commission and they get 15% off whoever uses their link. So we have a great incentive for them to share. So people, when we send them the sample, which is great, we have high margin. So it's not costing us a lot to send a sample. It costs us with shipping like eight bucks or something. Like that. So we send them a sample. And then we immediately set them up with their link. And so that way it's in their, their DMs, their link. And we let them know if you love it, then use this link. And your audience will get 15% off and you'll get 20% commission. Everyone sharing their link. If someone tags us, if they're not, if we didn't reach out to them and they, they purchase from us and they tag us. They just tag at sealed wellness. There's no link. We don't get any sales. So anyone that tags us, we're reaching out to them. And we are saying we'd love to have an affiliate link for you. Can you reshare that? And then once they share that link, even if it's two or three sales, it's better than no sales. And that has worked really well for us. We also reached out, you know, you got to be a little bit delusional and just reach out to everyone. So we reached out to big names, like really big names. There was no, there's no one off limits for us. And Melissa Wood, I don't know if you know Melissa Wood. She is a really big wellness influencer. She's got a podcast and a workout. She's right, our demographic, like perfect. So we reached out to her and her team said, like, sure, here's the address to send it to, but there's no guarantees. Next thing you know, she's made a real about it. She's posted a story about it. She linked us and the day she linked us we did 15,000. Wow. So we, and that was third month into our business. We had that and every three months in and you have a $15,000 day. Yes. And now from one person, now your brain is going holy crap. We all were like, we got something. We got something. You run the numbers of, oh my goodness, if this was every day, this is a $5 million business. We ran the numbers, but we also started to get into that mindset of, is Melissa going to post today? You know, please Melissa post. I'm going to pray tonight for Melissa to post. And we didn't like that. Honestly, we thought we can't rely on one person to build our business. But what if we have like 50 or 100 people that equal one Melissa? We can do that. And so that is where we started to think of how many people can reach out to, send these samples to, make sure, and you know, there's mini chat. There's ways to automate. But we decided not to do that. We have a couple mini chat automations on our Instagram, like they can comment five off on anything and they get $5 off coupon and they'll get on our email list. But we don't automate, we build like relationships with our customers. I think way too many people are trying to automate their way into relationships. And it just doesn't work that way. If you're going to build a group of ambassadors. If you're going to build affiliates. If you're going to build real relationships with your customers that want to buy from you, you've actually got to be relational. You can't do that with AI. You can't do that with automations. You actually have to build real relationships. And nobody wants to do it at first, but the compounding returns on that. I built my whole career on that. I built my whole career on these types of relationships of going deep with people who will support you longterm. So I'm really glad that you did that. Yes, and that is what we hear over and over again from our customers. They, we respond. I mean, I have my phone number on our website. I get texts. We have the chat on our website where they can chat with us. And it comes right to all three of our phones. And we have our DMs re-is in our DMs all the time. And I think that was the other thing with my other businesses. I wasn't in our DMs all the time. I wasn't posting consistently. I wasn't reaching out consistently. And it is that consistency. And it is doing the things that you always say they're not scalable, but it's the way that you build a brand. And you build those customers that, what do you call them, the Raven fan base, right? You're Raven fan base. I had a team member bring up just this past week. Well, we, we can't do this because it won't scale. And I said, I have got, you've got to forget the word scale. Right. You scale when you've earned the right to scale. And it comes from doing it the long, hard, stupid way for a while. It means actually building real camaraderie with people that are going to support you. It does not come from building the system that is going to be automated and perfect. How are you going to know what that is if you're not in there doing it the long, hard, stupid way for a while? So you're doing it the long, hard, stupid way, building relationships with people. And what do you know? Those people are buying from you. And they're posting about you. And some of those are giving you exposure, which is allowing you to get more sales and building the snowball. Notice here how the unscalable activity becomes a scalable result. It is not scalable to reach out to 400 people a week. It is not scalable to reply to every DM. But the things that happen out of those activities are the scalable results. Why? Because that 1DM that you respond to becomes the raving fan who creates a video about you that gets you a bunch of sales that becomes your best converting ad that brings in 1,000 new customers who also reach out and have a great experience with you. And that's how we build the snowball. So I will get resistance from clients or members of the 1% who don't want to do the minimum required three outreaches a day, which is what we have people do. At least three touch points with customers or stakeholders. But it's not about just the number of touches. It is about the depth of connection that you create with a core group of people. Because those great experiences, those great reviews, that great piece of user-generated content is what comes out of those engagements. This is why we have people do three outreaches a day. And this is how we start planting the seeds for building up an ambassador list. Because once you have a small passionate group of ambassadors, you can launch any product you want, on any platform you want, and you're going to start to get sales from people who already love you. So at like six months in, where are you in sales? When did you realize, oh my goodness, I have a million dollar business here? We were, it was month three that we did 30,000. And we started paying ourselves month three. And that was another thing that my co-founders, they're like, we have money, why aren't we paying ourselves? And I had to fight my mindset so bad. Because I was like, we don't pay ourselves. In my mind, I'm like, what are they thinking? We have to put all this back in the business. And I had to stop myself and say, why can't we pay ourselves? Why can't we have such an abundant business that we keep making more money? And we keep being able to pay ourselves and put money in the business. Like why can't we think like that? Like I was just like blown away that it took these girls that didn't know any better, you know, to kind of push me into that. 'Cause I would have probably been like, we're three months in. Like why would we pay ourselves? You know, and I'm like, why wouldn't we pay ourselves? So we paid ourselves three months in. And that was another thing that I was really saying in 2025, like I'm gonna have a profitable business and I'm not gonna work for free anymore. Like I'm done working for free. And we, I think we paid ourselves our first thing was like $3,000, which I think is freaking cool, right? Three months in. - I would normally not recommend that an entrepreneur pay themselves this aggressively, this early in the process. But Haley's able to do it because she's got a high margin product that has a high reorder rate with low cost of goods and she's got repeat customers. This is kind of the magic formula I think for being successful in e-commerce in 2026 and beyond. I would not start a brand today unless I was a premium high margin brand. And because Haley has done that, she is able to both reinvest the profits and pay herself a really healthy amount this early in the process. You can't do that if you are selling low margin stuff. You can only do it if you're going premium top of market and you have high margin. If you want to launch a high margin consumable business and you want to build the foundation of a business that can grow to seven figures and maybe be in a position to exit one day, I'm inviting you to get on the waiting list for our next cohort over at capitalism.com/bootcamp. It's here that you will learn how to launch and grow a high margin consumable brand with subscription customers that will grow month over month and maybe be in a position to exit one day. And again, you can get on the waiting list over at capitalism.com/bootcamp. We then decide we're going to get even though I'm scared of agencies, we're going to look into an advertising agency because we see the momentum and we just know we need more exposure. If one person can post about us on a story and we can get that much, those sales, because the product is $24.99, so this isn't a product that people need to think about. Like, they're going to click the link and they're going to buy it. And so we started, we got a great agency, luckily, we love them and they started doing meta for us. And we went to $75,000. That's crazy with running ads. We're doing like a four-row ads. You went from $30,000 to $75,000, the next month. Yes, with ads, with not even spending that much on ads. That wild. And that was not TikTok ads. No, we were doing TikTok on our, yeah, we were doing TikTok. So TikTok was our main source. And then with TikTok, it's very up and down. And it's not something reliable. It's very swinging. It can be gasoline on a fire, but it is spikes and valleys. Right. And we were realizing that that's not going to build our foundation. That's TikTok. Hopefully someone will post something that goes viral. So we knew the ads were the way, getting on our email list, building those relationships were the way. And the ads were getting great return. People were dying for these wrinkles, smoothing batches. They wanted them so bad. You just skipped over something here, which is that at some point you launched a second product. I did skip over that. Because you were not just selling mouth tape. Yeah. You started launching additional products from here. So at what point in the process did you say, okay, it's time for another product. And then you launched that kind of a different way with an agency almost from the beginning, I think. So help me walk through that process. So we had the mouth tape and then rinds in my head, okay, when you get to 25 sales 25,000 a month or 25 sales a day. 25 sales a day, you're going to launch your next product. So we were already looking into our next product. And that was our face tape. So we launched in May. So not that long after would you explain what face tape is for people who are not familiar. Yeah. So I wanted to stop doing Botox essentially. I am for I'm going to be 46 next month. So I'm old. I'm old. I could be your mom. That's creepy because you would have been nine. Okay. That is creepy. And I was loving the mouth tape. I love that it was skincare friendly. And I started using the mouth tape on my forehead. Because I'm like, well, this I can put my night creams on. And it's like keeping my forehead flat at night. And so then I realized like this is, you know, this is the next. I mean, this is a multimillion dollar idea. Like when it worked, I was like, holy crap. The reason why I was I understood your product was because I was familiar with frownies, which is a big brand that is like this gluey tape that you put on your wrinkles. So were you already using products like that. And then you said, wait, let me try the let me try my mouth tape as a replacement. So yeah, I was trying everything out there. So I had tried frownies. And that was, well, you know, it's just like very difficult. You can't put any kind of skin. And underneath it just it was an extra step that I didn't want to do. It was very cumbersome. And I wanted something easy, something people could easily put into their nighttime routine that that worked. And you see results with and you wake up in the morning, you see results, which I think everyone wants that instant gratification. And I just knew we had something. So we launched that in May, we launched the forehead tape, which you put on your night cream and your serums, and then you put it on your forehead. And you wake up with less more hydrated skin. It smooths out your lines, but it also is working to relax your muscles. So during the day, you're not making as many like I can hardly move my face right now, which is cool. I used to have the same result of Botox, the same thing that you are going forward. Yeah. So I'm wearing this 12 hours a day every day. And it's basically making my muscles life flat and not be, you know, making wrinkles. And then the face tape is actually great for anywhere on your face. And I use it like on my crow's feet. And it also works with your skin care. And it's made from the same material, breathable, flexible, hyperallergenic, non-toxic. There's silicone out there. Silicone is something people don't want to put on their skin. It's not breathable. It's like a plastic, you know, I think people are getting away from that, those kind of things. So we are something new and innovative. And it came from like knowing that this is a product that I want. And it's not on the market. And there are products out there, but let me read the reviews and see what people are saying. So that's kind of how it came about. And you launched that in May, which is four months in to sealed wellness, even existing. So did you launch that differently than you launched the mouth tape? Now we have, when we launch, we have some raving customers with the mouth tape. And we have an email list. And so we're doing the same thing. We're not, we're keeping it simple. We're sending, you know, them out. And we're doing the same thing we did. We're just letting people experience it. People were so pumped. I don't remember what the launch was that day. But it was definitely like, you know, five, $5,000 a day or, you know, around there probably. And a lot, it was a complimentary product, right? It wasn't one of the products that was going to take away from our mouth tape, which I think that that I learned from you too. Because I know before I would launch something that would. So it wouldn't be a supplement in other words. And it would be like another type of spice, right? Or it would be, or it would be a different color journal. That's what I was doing. I was doing different color journals. And it would just, you know, sabotage from the primary skewer that was moving. But in this case, somebody will buy mouth tape and they will buy a face tape and they will buy the forehead catches. Now we have a duo. We have a trio. And we have a subscription where they save 20% off if they do the subscription. So people that were on the mouth tape subscription added the forehead tape and the face tape. So we've just like tripled, you know, what we're bringing in what Haley has described up into this point is what I call the highway to 25 sales a day. I wish I had a better name for it. But basically it works like this. It takes a lot of work to build a road. It takes a lot of effort and time and planning and money to build one road just to get one car on the road. But once you've got the highway built, you can put a second car and a third car and a fourth car. And that's exactly what Haley is describing. It took her a lot of effort and planning and timing in order to build that road that got her to 25 sales a day. But now that she's got there, she can launch product after product after product. And now she's got a multi-million dollar business. If you want some help launching your first brand and your first product and getting it to that first 25 sales a day, then I'd like to invite you to get on the waiting list for our next cohort. You can do that over at Capitalism.com/bootcamp. And you'll follow the same pathway and strategy that Haley went through to launch her first product and get it to 25 sales a day. It looks a lot like work, but it works. And you can get on the waiting list for the next cohort over at Capitalism.com/bootcamp. And now the ads are working. We actually started, started the ads after we launched because I knew with a 1999 price point, like that's not really worth it to run ads. But now we can get, you know, our average order value up to like close to $50. So now it's worth it to run ads all from you. I'll learn all this from you. Can you explain what the funnel process looked like? You're running meta ads, but you're not sending them a TikTok. You're not even on Amazon yet at this point. So what was the flow of the traffic? Because again, you're not, your background is not in copywriting or in funnel optimization. So, but it worked. So what did you do that worked? I think we just got those what the organic, you know, story posts, we would ask them for the video. And you would, so you would take this that was working well organically, even on TikTok. And then you were starting to use them as your ads and your meta ads, smart. We're using everything. We're just asking people. And we have, we don't pay people still. We don't, we think like if people are going to like us, they're going to share. And I think it takes away. If you're paying, I think that's like, I'm just so glad you said that because so often, so often entrepreneurs will run and do a bunch of different things, hoping that something works. And, and what you focused on was creating really good relationships and experiences for your customers. And you started to amplify it. And you amplified it on their pages. And then you ran ads, bought it. And then you took that and you amplified it more with ads to other platforms. And you would have never been able to do that if you weren't present with the customer serving the customer focus on that core group of people. Yes, you don't know who's going to post. You don't know who's going to go viral, but you treat every single person with that same level of presence. And there's going to be some good stuff that happens. And then you amplify it. So I love that you were taking these nuggets. that we're working and amplifying them. Were you sending them to a video sales letter to a checkout page? Where did they go after they saw the ad? - The ad would go direct to the product. So if it was an ad on, we started really focusing on the face tape because that became our hero product, the forehead tape. So we would send people to the forehead tape or the duo or the trio. We'd like to send them to a duo or a trio, which would be all three of our products. And that's it. We would just send them directly to whatever product that was for. - And how much split testing and copywriting magic did you have in there? - It was really basic. We didn't overthink it. We basically just what was working, we put money behind it. And we did the same on TikTok. Like this worked well. This affiliate got a lot of sales from this story. So let's just put it up there. And our ad's team is really great. They're coming up with things. They know our brand. And they've taken a lot of weight off our shoulders. We're not having to think about that. We're just giving them the material, basically. - In the form of the positive videos from your customers? - The positives, yeah. The videos we know are working. And so now we're getting, they're like, even their surprise. They're like, wow, we're getting like four return on this. Let's bump up. Let's keep bumping. So we bumped up our ads. We're now doing about 900 a day, which I know there's like so much room for growth because we're seeing that we're keeping our same rules. And we just know more eyes are gonna just make us, that's why I feel like we're on track for like a half a million and then a million. But in addition to the ads, which we started about, you know, May or June, we started to think about Amazon at this point because now we have influencers sharing. People are seeing us on TikTok. They're seeing their favorite influencer share. They're seeing Ryan share. - I did share it a couple of times, yes. - And they are seeing our ads. A lot of people are seeing our ads with like $900 spend a day. It's getting some exposure. And so we send inventory to Amazon. They don't do the malt tape, but they do the face tape and the forehead tape because malt tape is not allowed on Amazon. If you didn't know that. - I did not know that. I have questions about that, but that's fine. - Yeah. - So you didn't watch on Amazon until like six months in. You've got TikTok, you've got ads running and now you're looking at Amazon. - And that was the other thing I had you in my head. It's like you don't need to do everything. Like just focus and that's what I wanted. I wanted to get our business up and running on one platform. And in my mind, it was TikTok. But then when TikTok was like so up and down, then we started focusing more. We started getting more sales. And now the most of our sales are website now. But it wasn't always like that. So we send in product to Amazon. We create the listing where previous Haley not multi-million dollar identity Haley would have hired an agency to put the listing. I'm like, I can do this. We have chat to BT. It can tell us how to do this. We'll be okay. And I think so many entrepreneurs are scared to do things. I don't know why. Like we think we need to hire someone that knows more that's going to make it better. - We think we're going to break something. - Right. - And-- - And-- - Spoiler, you're going to break things. You're going to break lots and lots of things. - Yes. So at this point, we're just doing things on our own because I even with my girl, my partners, I want them to learn. So they're in the trenches. Like they're learning, they're doing the reach outs. They're, you know, every month we're going over our books. We all know how to read balance sheets. I do our books, which is crazy because 2022, Hayley did not know how to read a balance sheet. And I do our books every month and we go through and we know exactly what we're spending. We know what's working, what's not working, where our money is going. And I think that's so important for business owners because I think the money basically-- - Especially over a million. When you and you cross 100k a month, one of the first things we do with clients is we go look at the books because the books don't lie. And that is where there's a lot of surprises. And you can't really invest to go beyond a million until you really know your numbers. You can kind of three step your way to $100,000 a month sometimes. But until you get a really clear picture of what's going on, it's vital that you do that once you're at 100k a month. I want you to stay on Amazon here because it's pretty rare that I see people launch on multiple platforms and see success. But you've got three people who are all working in the business and you've also got momentum on each channel. So you're not starting at zero in each one. You've got things that are moving. So you're trying to amplify what works. With Amazon, you don't launch until what, eight months in? - Yeah. - Eight months in. - And so what happened when you did that? - We launch an Amazon, we create the listing and we did, I think, close to 50,000 that first month. Either we did it on Amazon or totally. - On Amazon, in one month. I don't know if it was that first month, 30,000 and the second month was 50,000. With, you know, no, nothing. Just literally listing it. And that's when I reached out to you, I was like, oh my gosh, we're like hitting, you know, $2,000 a day on Amazon. - I remember that email. I remember you said that and were right on the brink of a million dollars, like it's going to happen. - I know, it just was like, I'm telling Ryan, I'm emailing him this success, like I had to share, it was just so cool. So we are still getting, even we had to pull our inventory from Amazon. So we're not for our forehead tape. We're not like prime right now because we had to send inventory in and processing it. We had to pull inventory because of the bad batch. - Ah, okay. - And we definitely didn't want bad reviews on Amazon. - Yeah. - For sure. - That'll kill you. - So we haven't focused a lot on Amazon yet, but imagine when we do because we're doing $2,000 a day without anything. All they're doing right now is they're seeing us on TikTok, they're seeing us on Instagram. They got to add and they're going to Amazon and they're searching for us. That's why we're getting that because we built a brand and then went into Amazon. And you can do it the other way around, but I kind of like that, I kind of like that people are searching for us. - You have to build the brand. Even if that brand is just doing content and building up an audience of a few hundred people, you've got to do, you cannot live, man does not live on Amazon alone. I believe that was Jesus who said that. You cannot live on Amazon alone. In today's world, you have to have some audience somewhere. And it can be content, it can be ads, it can be TikTok shop, but you've got to have something before they hit the Amazon page. So when did you cross the magical $100,000 per month mark? - Okay, this was super exciting. We were hitting $75,000 once we got our ads up and running. And you know, I had written since 2022. Like in my journals, on my vision boards, $100,000. And I would tell everyone, I would be like, I'm gonna have a business that makes $100,000 and they were just like, that's crazy. Luckily my partners believed me, they were like, of course we are. You got to get partners with that mindset too. They're like, yeah, duh, we're gonna do that. So we kept getting so close and we would have our meetings. I'm like, this is the month and this is the strategy and this is where we're gonna hit it and then it would be like $85,000, $75,000, $85,000. And then November happens and we were all together and our Shopify hit $100,000. And we still had like a week left of the month. So we ended up at like, that's when I emailed you like $150,000 in November, which was- - I believe it was $156,000 in sales. - Yeah, you know what I mean, sales. - Yeah, between, that was, now we're on Amazon. So between Amazon and Shopify, that was our number. So we hit like $100,000 on Shopify and then the rest was on Amazon and a little bit from TikTok. We kind of started pulling away from TikTok a little bit and now we're going back into TikTok. But that is, it was just so surreal because it wasn't a straight journey. And a year ago, I was had a bank account in the red and I was, you know, going through the process of bankruptcy, like it was almost a done deal. And now we're profitable. I'm paying off all that debt that I had built with the other business. That I call that like my college education. - Yeah, it's fine, 100K to go to college, it's fine. And I don't have to fail for bankruptcy, which is such a big relief. I don't have to put that on all my applications or whatever. And it's just so exciting. It's fun, it's exciting. And of course, you know, there's still the bad batch and there's so many things that happen, but everything has been a learning experience. And now I know that. I know that everything you go through is just if you keep going, you'll know why. And I'm just so proud of myself that I kept going and I kept plugging in and, you know, joined your community and just kept believing in myself and my dream and my goal. And now it's just, you know, it's just the beginning for this brand. - If you were to not grow at all, but stay at this level, you'd have about a $2.5 million of your business. Have you had that sink in yet? that you're a millionaire. Yeah. The cool thing is when you first start thinking about $100,000 of business, it seems so far out there, right? It's like you're doing $1,000 a month or $5,000 a month. You're like, how? But then you hit $100,000 and you're like, that's not very much. We're, let's do $500,000. And so now it's just the normal to hit that. And so I don't, I know that I don't take anything for granted. And my two partners were the same. Like, we are just so grateful. But at the same time, we just, our expectations are so much higher now. And what we believe is possible. And I know even talking to you, you're like, you say numbers, I'm like, oh, no, we're going to do way more than that. Like, there's no reason why we, by the end of the year, we can't be doing million dollar months. There's just no reason. It's not, it's not hard. It's just doing the same things over and over again. It seems like mindset is very important to you and how you show up in this business. So how do you take inventory of and change your mindset? My mindset, I always say activity plus mindset equals unstoppable. Like, that is the formula I see because you can be in so much activity, like with my other businesses, like I'm doing the do. But I have no faith. I have fear. And my mindset isn't there. Or I could be doing like I was doing the vision board. And I'm saying my affirmations every day. And I'm just going to manifest a hundred thousand dollar business. Your mindset is there. Your belief is there. But you're not doing the activity that's going to get you there. So it really is my, it's both. And that's where like you come in because you teach a lot of the action items, a simple to do's. But your mindset is really looking at what stories you're telling yourself all the time. Like even though I'm sure you are telling, it could be like I'm not a morning person. Why are you telling yourself that? You know, that's a story you made up. You can be a morning person or I don't like, I don't like working out. I'm not, I'm not athletic. Like these are stories that don't, if they don't serve you, then it's time to change them. And it's really easy to change a story. You just decide, this is a story I'm going to tell myself. And then you start believing it and your beliefs become your thoughts and your thoughts become your actions. And now you're a morning person, right? Now you're a, you know, a million dollar business owner because now you're acting like one and your thoughts are, and then you're attracting those opportunities and you're seeing those opportunities. So mindset is huge. And it really comes down to I, oh, I, I think that the number one thing for all people, especially entrepreneurs that stops them is like between your ears. That is the number one thing is just our brain. It's stories. It's thoughts. It's what's holding us back. And, and that's so cool because we are in control of that. It's obviously, there was a moment for you when you partnered with your two co-founders where they kind of served as a mirror for some of your own thoughts. I can't pay myself. That's a story running in your head. Do you think that you could have identified and changed that without having the mirror of someone else? And what I'm trying to find is how do you personally find the stories in your head that you want to change and then start to move in a different direction? Yeah. Well, it started with what I was telling other people when I heard myself explain my business to people that I have a lot of debt. And what you speak out loud, which you know is very powerful. What you're telling people will come true. Like it will. So what do you want to come true? Tell people what you want to come true. So I started saying I'm going to build a profitable business. But when the time came and I had a profitable business, that's a whole other story, right? Because now I have to fight other mindset beliefs around that. And that's where they came in and they, you know, really showed me like, why am I resisting this? Why am I resisting paying myself? That's so crazy to me. That's not like me. You know, but I was my initial reaction was like, you can't pay yourself. And, uh, and I'm happy to report too. Not only are we paying ourselves, we are paying ourselves. I love numbers. Like I'm into the numbers when I hear people on your podcast share, um, we're paying ourselves like between 10 and $12,000 a month. And we still each, each. Let me sell plenty to put back in the business. We have, um, I read a book called Profit First. Yes, I love it. Yes, I love it. So it's not arbitrary. Like we do 25% of our sales. And so whatever is in that bucket is what we get paid every week. So, um, I love Profit First. It's so good. If you are an entrepreneur, you need to read that book. It's completely changed our, our business. And we started that way with those buckets and the different accounts. And so not only that, and if you would have told like 2022, Haley, this when I first read your book, but I just opened up our ira's and putting in $11,000 each. Um, these girls don't even have retirement accounts. Set up that while. So this will be their first. You're paying yourself a six-figure salary. Yes. And you're investing for the long term for the first time in some of your lives. Yes. And I'm doing this. And a year ago, you were filing bankruptcy. Right. So we have, yeah, we're building like a legit business. And legit and legit wealth because you're putting money away. Right. For the next several decades that compound. Yes. And it's so cool to be able to have a business that is is giving us. It's filling the fulfillment piece. It's filling the identity piece. It's filling the financial piece like you can have it all. And it is about what your thoughts are and what your beliefs are. And also not being afraid to, you know, learn and do the things that we want. I always think the things that you're avoiding are the things that you need to do for your next level of success. And there's so many versions of myself. I had to literally kill off, like kill, to be where I'm out today. Like they just didn't serve me. Like they needed to go. And it's kind of sad in a way, but it's so it's so good when you come out of that, you know, and you can look back at it and just be like, wow, there's so many versions of me that we're holding me back. I didn't even know. A year ago, you had to convince yourself that you were going to have a profitable business. Yes. Now you have a multimillion dollar business. So what are you trying to convince yourself off now? Now I think the next version level of me is realizing that I can do a million dollar business. And meaning a million dollars a month. A month. Yeah. That's the next level. And making sure that my subconscious isn't trying to sabotage that. Like no more bad batches, you know, like no more inconvenience things. Like let's just go. Haley, I'm so incredibly happy for you and proud of you. Call me when you need capital. Yes. And what would you say to the Haley sitting there a year ago, who was freaking out about money, wondering if you were going to make it? I would say good job for joining the 1% community, honestly, because I could easily have just given up. And this isn't for me. And filed for bankruptcy, but I kept going and knowing that I needed to be surrounded by a community of people that were having success. And that is why I wanted to be here sitting here right now because I wanted that story to share that would help someone. We need entrepreneurs to keep going, right? We need that in the world. And so I wanted to share that story. So I'm just would say keep going and you're doing all the right things. Keep learning and you know, just believe in yourself. I remember writing in my own journal before I ever started sheer strength. I got into e-commerce. I wrote myself a letter. And in the letter, it said, I know you worry about X, Y and Z. I promise you it's coming. I promise you it's going to happen. It's going to just just rest in the knowing that it's going to happen. Right. The surrender, the surrender experiment, right? Haley. It's all on the plan. I'm so proud of you. Congratulations. You, you've become a millionaire in the last year. And I can't wait to see what do next. Wild. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I hope you watched or listened to that conversation and said, I want to be like Haley. Because Haley saw the case studies here at Capitalism.com and said, I want to be like that. She was in one of our classes seeing all the people who are being successful and said, I want to be one of those people that is talking about my success. And guess what? I want you here. I love to document and brag on the people who do the work and build million dollar businesses. So please see this as permission for you to go all in. I really am rooting for you. I really do connect with people who watch on YouTube, listen to the podcast, read the book, follow their journeys and they end up in the chair while we're bragging about their business and their success and promoting their products. I hope Haley lets me invest in her business. I run a fund that invests in the businesses that come from my community. She hasn't said yes yet. I've asked her, but I hope she says yes and let me put money and time and advice into her business. Because I think she's sitting on a possible eight-figure exit. If you are an entrepreneur and you're early in your journey, would you please let me help you on this journey? Subscribe to the channel and if you want some more help, you can find out what we do over at Capitalism.com and for most of you watching, you'd probably like to go through a similar journey that Haley went through of launching a business that has high margin, that is consumable, that is scalable, that might be in a position to have a really big exit one day. And if you want to go through that experience, you can get on the waiting list for the next time we're open at capitalism.com/bootcamp. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with Capitalism.com. I really hope to see you in this chair one day. And I'll see you on the next episode. Take care.