Running an 8-Figure Business with Four People

(upbeat music) - Hey, it's Andrew here and welcome to the Econ Fuel Podcast. These show dedicated to helping seven and eight figure brand owners build incredible businesses and amazing lives. And speaking of amazing lives, it was Mountain Biking right before ECF Live last year at the Enforcement. We had a good group of, I don't know, 14, 15 people came out, Mountain Biking for the afternoon before the opening party. It was a ton of fun. And among the crew of Ripper's was Reed Schmidt. He is one of the co-founders of guavafamily.com. They make highly intentional products for parents to reduce the pain and suffering of traveling with children from strollers to pack and plays and things like that. And the more I learned about his business, the more excited was to have him on. They have an eight figure business where they have four people in house. Eight figures, four people in house. Pretty phenomenal ratio there. And I'd say highly unusual. So I want to talk to him about how they do that, how they think about running their business. We get into some interesting AI models for creative assets. We talk about product design. And I think they went through like 40 different iterations and prototypes before they released it. Talk a little bit about marketing and working with a marketing agency. He's got a pretty unique perspective on how to increase the likelihood of success, which I have not heard before. Because as you know, trying to partner up with marketing agencies is always challenging the best of times. And just understanding more about his life business, which I have a mentorship as well. There's a really enjoyable conversation. So hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let's get into it. (upbeat music) Reed really excited to talk to you for a ton of reasons that I mentioned in the intro. And a lot of fun seeing you in Bozeman this year, getting to go out mountain bike and have you have you in town. So thank you for making the trip. It's always fun when you get to connect to people in person before you do the podcast. But I want to start with you, the business you guys are running a Guava family, it solves such a cute pain point for people. I've three kids. They're a little bit older at this point, but very vividly still remember when we were in the thick of it. And anytime we had to travel anywhere, I felt like we needed to like rent a U-Haul, buy like an entourage of movers. And I mean, just like pack and plays and strollers and car seats. And for a guy who values packing light and moving quickly, it was painful. And so when I saw your business, I remember when we were getting ready to go for the mountain biking, let's check it up and just kind of diving a little deeper into everyone's businesses. And I got to know yours better and I was like, this is amazing. So yeah, I just maybe I know you came in after the two founders initially started it, but would love to hear your thoughts just a little bit on that. And how much do you think solving your real, designing a product that just solves a very real pain point has been critical to the growth and success? Yeah, thanks, Andrew. Like I hear you talk about that. I mean, I'm a dad of a 10 year old now. So I very much remember. And I actually was a dad before I came in to Guava. And I think that helped confirm at like a gut level that the problem was real that Guava was trying to solve. But like here and you talk about, I think the key is just how much friction is there. Maybe that's the tell. You just talked about feeling like you need to rent a U-Haul and people talk about wanting to get a bigger car and they think about a bigger home and they think about where they are. And I mean, parenting just blows up our lives. At this point, I feel like in culture, we are prepping as parents to make that disruption as small as possible, but it still finds a way to disrupt it. And I think what's interesting about Guava and why I feel like there is a future to Guava, not only the success we found so far, but that there is more to do, is just that parents still are feeling that compression, that feeling that like their life is shrinking. They have a kiddo and it's like you get that baby jail where everything feels hard. It's like you try to get out the door. Just remember all the things, right? It's like you'd be like, I wanna go for a walk. Something simple. But then baby's crying. If it's just one, let alone more. You'll have to tell me what it's like with more, but even just with one, it's like, you're about to go out the door and there's a blowout. So then you change the blowout, you know, you get new clothes, you're like, okay, I'm fine. You walk out the door and you realize you forgot the milk or you forgot the fill in the blank. There's all these things, right? To like just getting out of the door. And so all that friction means that there is an opportunity, I think for business, there's an opportunity for change. And that can happen at the product level. And I think it can happen at the product level if there's enough difference between what you do, what you create as a product and what has existed. So you're changing the expectation. You know, so we have two core product categories. We've got a travel crib and that's really what gave us the means to then launch once we scale that, gave us the means to launch the Roam Stroller. So our second act and that took us, we thought it would just take us a year or so to launch. It took us four and a half years to find a way because product design is so tough. It's so tough when you are not trying to just take what a factory has and customize it, make it stylish for the American market. We sell just in the US right now. It's complex when you try to have a goal of like, for us it was capability and portability. And that's when product design is hard. 'Cause when you try to do two things, there's always a balance. One is that this sacrifice of the other. And so you have to prototype, you have to prototype, you have to prototype. I forget how many we physical prototypes we had, but it was crazy. - Research and you mentioned in the past, you had 40 prototypes. And when you were prototyped, what was your process? 'Cause how much of it was, for people who aren't in the trenches, product design, I think this is always interesting and we don't have to spend more than a couple of minutes on this, but were you going back and forth to the overseas suppliers? Did you have a 3D printer that you were printing stuff off of mocking it up? Were you making it? How did, what was your process for actually going from idea to ideation to prototype and iterating? - Well, first off, I think we're a bad model because I think the classic advice, like the best practice is go to market as quick as possible, find a way to have your, you know, this product that delivers on the value. That's what is always what I had been taught in the past with software. And software, you can make that minimal viable product, you know, that allow it delivers on the value, you get it out, you learn. I think that's the best, but with baby products, you can't really do that. And so for us, it was a matter of benchmarking first. What if we want capability, what does capability look like? What does it sound like in the market? What are people's expectations? How long does it need to last? What do they hate about the products right now? What do they love? - How did you actually do it though? I mean, if conceptually, that makes sense, but were you 3D printing stuff? Did you guys go on site in China? Like how are you actually iterating on this? - We have a factory in China that we work with and they have a team of engineers. And so early on, it was us sketching ideas and sending them to these engineers, having them make them. And then they have so many prototyping, different ways of prototyping at the factory. Sometimes it's machining apart from Raluunum, other times it's 3Printine. Yeah, early on, it was more of like a space constraint thing. So 3D printing is a great way, but then we're air frading it over to us to see it and play with it. And then we're making some tweaks and there's the language barrier and everything else and then it's onto the next iteration. Yeah, that's the more practical side of it. Got it, got it. When I was prepping for all this, the thing that I think that stood out to me most, and I mentioned this in the top, but you have yourself, the two other people, designers and co-founders that started the business and you've added a fourth person, but you have a four person team that runs an eight figure business, which is just extraordinary. And when I was looking into your thoughts and philosophy, it seems like you and your team advocate a lot for a lean team, automation, outsourcing, and focusing on the high leverage activities for growth. And I wanted to dive into each one of those 'cause I think as fastening as the design process is as much of a pain point as you solve with your incredible products, I think that's something that probably the way you've approached building this business is most interesting to me and also probably most applicable to people listening. And also you've kind of done it with this anti hustle culture and mentality, which I think is cool. Maybe we can take those one at a time, talk about lean teams and why you've stayed so lean as an organization. - Well, some of it is the culture that was set before I came in, the two other founders, I think they had started this way of thinking about building a business, one thing that I guess, I don't know if I shared in that original post, but Guava had a wholesale part to it that was almost equal to the DDC. And so before I came in, the team basically thought about, the two founders thought about like who they wanted to be when we grew up, one of the things we're really interested in, where can we be competitive? And even though the wholesale part was growing and there are all these pop shops and there are issues there, things like some of the early tells where our product was too big and so people wouldn't set it up so it wasn't merchandise well, the REIs and by babies, the big box. It was kind of we were in like a sea of competitors and we weren't known as well So we weren't always again set up or put in the right spot and so So they made a decision before I came in to cut the business in half basically and get rid of that whole part I mean that's it was it was a Seven-figure part of the business that was growing and so they were making decisions the reason I tell it stories They're making decisions before I came in that were already within that value set of How can we be competitive by focusing instead of just how can we be competitive and that that extra constraint? I think leads to yeah more creativity makes you realize that you're in control You're building the business that you want to not just what the market is telling you you have to build it like Yeah, and it's I'll sound like a broken record I say this probably every month, but and just recently shared this in the forums, but the thing On a data driven front that I've seen that has the biggest outsize impact on company performance Is overhead size and team size and like the company is that the company is a really perform Profitably while even maintaining some of the little growth One of their biggest attributes is their payroll is half as big right like their team size is half as big They're able to do more with fewer people What is your guys is Rough org chart look like you know because you've got any eight-figure business You're gonna have a lot of different rules to fill you've got four people. I'm sure you've got you know Some agencies and and outsource but just at a real quick high level What does that work chart look like on the staff on the four-person side and then also what do you outsource? Well, I think about it. I heard somebody describe it like a hub and spoke model And I think that actually is like a brilliant metaphor for how we've set it up And so we've got the four of us one person is dealing with customer service Another with procurement another founder. He's doing product design and you know essentially the CEO hat Then I'm on the marketing and gross side Meanwhile the two founders myself are still very product design focus. It's what I went to school for It's they're both engineers by trade they had already innovated and made products that changed categories in the wakeboard space Which is kind of random. I know but they had already launched products that had changed that area before they had even launched Guava so yeah, I think I think of it more like you know, there's a lot of Overlapped oddly even though we're so tiny But I think maybe the biggest threat is just a trust between us at this point. It's pretty galvanized at like What we're each good at and how we can play off each other To be more you said the word earlier leveraged how we can apply more leverage on the business So I wouldn't call them I mean they are probably lanes, but you know like there are Separate focuses that we each have that we're pushing for it and then in terms of the spokes. We've got Me specifically. I've got Digelat agency for meta and Google spend they also do Amazon And in that there are multiple teams with creatives and cont-are buyers And then we've got a web team and influencer Agency that comes in helps and then there are independent contractors as well that the managing that Help us get content help us come in I think of like a team of superheroes where like I pull them in when the task is needed You know where they're they're super power could help again apply leverage to the business and help us affect whatever change We're hoping you to have happen And what are those what are some of the things that those contractors do for you on a as needed basis? Yeah, like one is we have a content need just like any other business A.I. is kind of changing that how we think about that but It's just photo and video How do we create compelling imagery whether it's moving or static that sells that Freedom from that compression that I mentioned earlier that feeling of a shrinking life. What's the opposite of that? How do we show that? And that's hard in a static image as maybe even harder or with a video let alone the fact that it's you need to have a baby in there and Parents, so what we found actually is like we work with a couple. They're both professional photographers So instead of working with an agency We work with these two talented photographers that have a kiddo they just had a second and yeah, we work with them As on like an as needed basis so when they're traveling to cool places We kind of attached to that and we find a way to tell a story about it So it's there's an authenticity to it right like They're living a more expansive life and we're They're capturing that life for us to the and our product is within that and then we get a share of that Yeah, I mean the The branding and the photography and the visual aesthetic of your website's phenomenal They've done a really nice job with that. Yeah, and is this the and look at your homepage. You've got the guy running That guy running is he is he the son of dude? He's his name Eric something on Instagram like he's a I feel like he's a big fitness guy Is that the same guy that I'm seeing like with the wind swept hair right along the coast running with the That actually is a photographer from at that time we were working with an agency and we had a model that I don't remember There was something that happened we had some models hired for that shoot that was actually for a rebrand And so for that one we wanted to it was not the sauna guy that you're talking about it is Somebody else. I don't think he might own a sauna, but I don't think he is part of a sauna It looks exactly the sale looks exactly the same dude, but anyway He wasn't supposed to be on the shoot, but he's just a naturally stylish dude He just net randomly had exactly the outfits that I had hoped for so it was serendipity because it was a whole shoot that was planned that last minute Yeah, anybody that's been out there trying to shoot content with people know that pain. Oh, yeah last minute changes and it can Really derail things especially when you have a whole crew coming in So you've you've got this team of kind of contractors on the marketing side Sounds like you are the marketing lead and you'll oversee the agency and maybe a couple contractors here and there how has it worked outsourcing your marketing spend on those major platforms? I feel like in the forums and talking with other people probably one of the biggest beans of their existence and hardest things But like too really hard unlocks I think for a lot of people one is hiring a COO for their business like everyone wants one It's so hard to find a good one that's a great fit And then the other one is finding a great marketing agency that works with you for the long term Those are two of the you know kind of unicorns. I think a lot of people are trying to capture and few do or at least without You know few do without major difficulties. How's it been working with the marketing agency and any tips for making that go well if it has worked well This feels like two separate questions. You'll have to remind me about the second bit of like The operational side of it like how to do it well But the thing I think I want to get to first is just there is Anytime I think about working with a marketing agency I think about the success coming from us as a client not relying on them for success I'm hoping for them to help me execute But the vision about how we want to be competitive and the opportunity that we see and what we don't want to do Which is is equally and as important I think that strong point of view needs to come from us So I think from a strategic level I guess that would be my recommendation people or that's what we found is just that In moments when we've tried to outsource that it hasn't done gone well And I think that's something I've learned as I've been at guava early on we relied on Other market agencies whether it was web or it was Ad buying in creating the actual ads or it was photography I let other people kind of lead that I let I let them kind of tell me what we should do But I think as operators the the answer is often within us About how we can be competitive But it's tough sometimes they have the clarity To see how you know the truth of that Yeah, I love it such a such a good extreme ownership example I bet you've got you know at least a dozen marketing operators and agency owners right now just cheering in daylight This reek guy is amazing We gotta work with this dude Ideal client but I a lot of truth to that I think that makes it's it's very difficult to outsource strategy And it's tempting because it's a hard part, but I think you're spot on there What about automation another part of your big team and operations philosophy is automation What do you feel like you and your team of four Avengers have done an exceptionally good job of automating in the business? I think I might answer like with like a little tweak Instead of just calling out what we've automated that's helped us be competitive I think it's maybe a mindset Which you can tell me if I'm I'm like pushing into a realm that you want to go and don't go into but I think it's this mindset that What are the repeatable tasks that we're doing and how do we build some System around those and then once we see all the discrete tasks What are the the tasks that can be automated from that and that's rapidly changing But again, it's it's kind of the same answer as I said before with marketing. We're like if you don't have this ability to See things from a like a zoomed out perspective and see all the different intricacies and see how they're all related Then you don't understand then I found it tough and we've found it tough to understand how to automate from there and You know, so if the other two founders are on they could talk about some of the animations that we've done on the back end with fulfillment We've got kind of they've got their own superheroes They work with to help connect all the systems on the back end. I couldn't speak to that That well, but on the marketing front. I mean we're living in an amazing age right now where There are again weekend, week out tasks that need to be done, and that could even be creating new content. I mean, one of the recent things that posted on Ecommerce field was just around latest point of view about how to create new images for statics off of other images. And it's a lot of that is that used to take months for us to get a new image. And now that time horizon has shrunk to the time of being able to run multiple agents at various that standard operating procedure, there's different tasks that are done, but the compression in time is crazy. Chatchy BT handling some of the creative strategy, then AI may be CHive or Nana Banana or something else, and then you're pulling it together with Figma or Canva. At the end, and each one has agents that are accelerating your ability to execute stuff. Yeah, how much of your visual media has changed over to using AI versus just raw photography? Not a ton yet. We just finally got a full ad set before it was AI modifying statics or modifying video. And we just got some in recently for the first time in statics. We have a really complex product. And AI is changing rapidly. And I think one of the key changes was the ability to build a model and really like a finite model. So like the for our solar, for instance, it's three or four images at different height camera heights and angles of the product. So you're just building like a front three quarter with a medium camera height model that will allow you to then have fidelity on the back end because you know, one of the core things I'm doing is I have to be the arbiter of quality in my position. So as the hub and spoke, if that quality drops, then it pushes up against the principle of ours, which is like that we never want to mislead people. So AI sometimes, you know, early on was giving our solar four wheels. But more recently, it's things like the handle is suddenly different or the nose cap is different or the suspension looks bigger than it is and it won't work for us. So it has to be highly accurate. So we're not misleading our shoppers. So it's just not something at a principle level that I'm good with. Yeah. So maybe talk a little more. How do you do that? It's one of your taking a picture of a coffee mug, right? But for what you mentioned, it's much more important. How do you ensure quality of AI products in a very complex mechanical product like this? Do you do you feed it? Do you have a project where you drop, I don't know, 12 or 14 or 20 different pictures from all angles with project instructions and in chat CT or NANABEN or whatever it is that hey, you need to be hyper aware of all these different angles and make sure they're how do you do that? How do you maintain quality control? Well, I think some people who listen are going to be more experts than than we are. I mean, we are in the process of learning how to be an expert at this. I think that's the the path we're on. And AI is changing. I mean, I think practically it's about the same thing. It as I mentioned earlier, it's it's what are the what's the analog version of taking an image? You're thinking about camera height, you're thinking about camera type, you're thinking about what you want on the background, you want, you're thinking about the outfit, all these things, right? And so that step, if you want accuracy between what you are intending for in an ad and the output, then that input has to have that clarifying element. And so that was something I learned somewhat the hard way. I think and maybe this is almost like an e-commerce thing, but I feel like there's so much surface level stuff out there about how to do things. If you want to, you know, how do you create a great image, use nano-banana? That's kind of the thing I'm hearing, you know, and you describe your product. And I see somebody describe it and it's three lines raw long. Like the prompt that we end up using is so long it's almost not human readable before any image. And it's actually like a three step process where I've got an agent that helps me ask questions that I'm answering. Like I said before, how high is the camera? Is it UGC or is it more branded? Is it? And then there's all this stuff from that, like, is it long lens where there's a change or is it a short lens so that you're drawing the audience in? Like I'm trying to expose all the levers. What outfit? Are they smiling? Are they looking away? You know, all these different things. Is there a model? Is there not? Is it night? Is it day? Is the light from the left? Is it from the right? It's so long. But what you get out of it is AI is hungry for that. And so just from a prompting side, like I think if you-- if people just change one thing, it's that just become a prompt engineer. Think about all the different inputs and how they could impact the output. And then on the model side, there are some tools now that have their stacking models. Kive, K-I-V-E is a tool that we've started using recently. And I think they allow four or five images. And I've got an image, I've got like a white backdrop that rolls up. And I just have the stroller there. And if I want a-- like I mentioned earlier, a front three-quarter, I take four images, four to five images that are going to instruct and that literally build a model around those four or five. I wish it could be 16. It will be soon. But it isn't yet, at least for Kive. And then, yeah, often you get an image on the back end, and it's still not good enough. And so then again, I pull it back into ChatTet.et. And it's almost kind of like the double diamond in design where you're expanding, and then you're contracting. You're expanding, and then you're contracting. And that process leads to sharper results. So yeah, I put the image in, and I say, here's the reference image I was coming from. And here is the other one, run a gap analysis. What's different between these two? How can the prompt be sharpened to increase accuracy? And then the last part is that I've got a list of things that AI just likes to hallucinate. And it's random. It's like a label, sometimes instead of guava, it writes GAVA, and so I go through manually in Photoshop and change those. Or if it's video, you have to use other things. But yeah, I just look for those solutions as the last quality step. Because again, that's just kind of-- yeah, we're paying to distribute this ad. I want it to be as accurate as possible. So it's not misleading. Hey, Andrew here with a quick sidebar. I want to introduce you to Julia from abarabove.com, where she and her husband and co-founder sell premium mixology products. Julia's been incredible. She's one of our meet-up leaders in California, and just an amazing human. And here's what she has to say about her experience with the e-commerce field private community for seven and eight figure owners. I am one of those people that longs into the forms probably every day. It's kind of like my Facebook feed for business. I like the gossip. I'd like to hear about all the different challenges that people are running into. A lot of times things will pop up there on the forums that are worried about on my radar. It's just kind of like a more interesting social media for me. And I love to just continue to stay in touch with a lot of the friends and acquaintances I've met along the way. So I would definitely say the forums. I'm on there all the time, even if I don't post all the time. I just, I've learned so much. And I continue to just really enjoy being a part of that. After hearing literally hundreds of comments like this over the last decade our community has been around, it's easy to offer our 10x guarantee. If you don't get at least a 10x ROI on your membership in the first year, in terms of increased revenue, save time, and saved money, we'll give you a full refund plus an extra $1,000. So many of our members report seeing massive value in just the first month or two when applying it to their 7 or 8 figure business. You can learn more about the community and apply for membership at ecommercefuel.com. OK, back to the show. Yeah, it's amazing how AI can point out some of the differences you wouldn't notice. A lot of my content creation is written. And I always go from a podcast transcript. And then I've got kind of a project that helps me summarize that and write that with a lot of my own style. And then I'll go and edit that before I publish it. And one thing I have to try to reduce the amount of editing I need to do in my own voice, I've started saying, hey, Claude, here's this version from the transcript that we recorded. Here's the version I edited. Give me the framework and the concepts behind the edits that I made. Because sometimes you make them and you know it sounds better, but you're not quite sure why. And sometimes it's really good at being able to vocalize better than you can while you made a certain edit and then be able to put that into a repeatable process or a doc that can limit the editing in the future. So it seems like you're doing that with photography too, which is cool. Can you talk a little bit about Kive? I have heard-- I'm not familiar with Kive at all. Is it a general AI model? Is it focused on photography? Give me a sense. A little more of it. Yeah, Kive is-- I mean, I'm new to it too. It feels like with AI every week you wake up and there's a new tool. And I think that's kind of the adventure. It's kind of fun. It's growing rapidly. So it's that classic thing that like in 10 years, it's hard to imagine. We won't be able to imagine that Disney quote. Within a year, we can't start to picture how much you'd be able to get gun. But then in 10 years, like we're totally inaccurate as a species of meola. And AI, I think, is that way. The disruption that it's going to create in terms of static in videos is pretty profound. Yeah, so Kive is just a-- it's like a fashion. based, you know, it's really trying to disrupt the content generation for, yeah, fashion businesses. So high fidelity models, literally people models. That's how they thought of, I'm kind of hacking the tool to use it for product. They think of the product as the person, but down to like, you know, the model having pores and lemonishes and the things that, you know, break that uncanny valley. I think that's Kyves attempt that way they can decrease the cost to, yeah, fashion businesses to all the different, I mean, some fashion, she's can be outrageously expensive and take a lot of planning. And so they're, they're compressing that whole thing in terms of cost and time. Interesting. And it can do stills. It can do video generation on brand content. I'm just kind of scanning through the website here. Very visually. Oh, almost like, almost like a chat Gbt or nano banana, but really focused on on brand aesthetically driven content. Yeah, I think it just, the output is higher quality because of the way I understand it's built off a model, multiple models stacked. And so there's, there's more churning there. There's more intelligence that's being that stacked intelligence is is driving towards like a higher quality output. Yeah, they do video as well. I, you know, currently for us, the output isn't good enough at least for the time that I'm willing to spend on it for us to have it in the, in our ad sets, but things like it's still doing the thing where everything looks good other than the grass is not blowing or and then you try to get the the grass to be blown by the breeze and then now the the stroller wheels, the pushing, pushing it, the stroller wheels aren't rolling, you know, it gets to the annoying level and at that point, I'm out because like you mentioned, we are a four person company. So I can't be just churning through yeah, lots and lots of revisions that just aren't close. Yeah, is it something to where I'm looking at their features? It says it's got a pretty big library asset. Is this something where you can upload all of your or a lot of your creative assets and it can use those as inspiration for, for things, including like your product? I think the way they think about library is different. I haven't leveraged it heavily, but the way I understood it was more that it, it's like a stock image library where they are trying to instead of trying to help you interpret or reuse maybe a catalog you have, you're able to leverage their catalog to expand what you're able to do. Got it, that makes sense. And last thing on that kind of that kind of reverting back to where we started team and operations philosophy, you know, you've mentioned anti-hustle mentality. I saw that a few times in doing on my, you know, my sleuthing and stocking you before the show. Talk a bit about that. I think it's, like it's fascinating. You've been, you've been able to say stay so lean. My suspicions would be a team of four people who's able to build a brand like this in terms of the revenue scale, the quality of the product, what have to be just working like just wild, insane banshee's to get this stuff done. And yet, maybe that's the case, but it seems like at least from the ethos perspective, that's what you're not aspiring to. So give me a sense of how that fits into the, into your life, into your business, and to kind of the way you work together. Yeah, I mean, we're four parents. And so the hustle is there. It's just at a broader life level. Yeah. So I think I mentioned earlier, like the design of business and our need to own that. If Guava is going to be successful in the future, it needs us to be able to be successful. We need to be able to be impactful next year, not just today. And business is, I mean, I know it's kind of a corny analogy, but it is totally a marathon. And finding a way challenges just continue to pop up as you grow. And as you're, you know, as you add more products and you compete in new channels, and you try to bring people in. And then there's tariffs that come in and you write the challenges just stack. And so that's still at the philosophy level. I know you probably want to get more into the practical bit, but I think the practical side is, is understanding points of leverage. I think that's that they kind of go together. And the way I understand the way I think of that is as a team, I feel like we are really aware of the places that actually can move our business. What are the things that are going to create a step change in 26 or in 27? What are those, what are those big changes to the business? And what are all the initiatives that need, what are the, what's the like foundational thing that needs to be done? And then what are the things that need to be done along the way to make sure those those big points of leverage actually happen? And we change behavior with our shoppers or, you know, by launching new product or it could be competing in a new channel, it could be expanding in a current channel. And making sure that the time we do have, and the time that we, and how, and how we spend it is towards those initiatives and not towards all the other ones. Like, you know, Guava is a small business with four people and there are places that we definitely look, I feel like we are our own worst critics, but there are places that I'm embarrassed of. But we've left them that way because we have, we've done tests and we haven't found much impact. And so we focus on the places of impact with our time, with our resources, with our agencies, where, you know, and we're evaluating that over time. You know, sometimes we pause initiatives because we don't fight. We think it will, I mean, they're all bets. We don't, it's a, it's a future we're trying to manifest and we're trying to design the system that will allow us to see if it has any impact or not, right? So if it's a new channel, it's like, that's, that's a bet. They don't, they don't always work out. Last question here for, for we wrap up, I always ask people, you know, what they would love to either promote or talk about if there's anything that we can help get some visibility for when they come on it. And you had a, you had a unique answer that that's kind of cool. You mentioned mentorship in terms of the benefits of it and also, you know, how helpful it is. Anyway, talk a little bit more about that. Like it seemed like reading, reading a little bit through the T-Leaves, you may have found it a great mentor that unlocked some, some things for you the last couple of years. But if you will, talk a little more about the impact that's had and anything else is on your mind on that front. Well, I'm hoping you can help me out on this because you have built a whole business around this and I'm a part of that community now that you've created. And I'm still in my infancy with it. So putting that out there. But yeah, I think why I wanted to share it was I just as operators. And like I just mentioned that point earlier that business is changed. There are, there are new challenges all the time. And the lucky thing is is that there are contemporaries. There are people that have gone through similar challenges and had some response to them. Apparently positive. They found their way through them. The trouble for me has been finding a mentor that I, you know, just at a network level. And then once I did go out, I mean, through the years I've been meeting with people. But it's like finding somebody that you really click with where they help you feel that feeling of zooming out and almost seeing the path ahead of you with more clarity so that you can be more effective. And yeah, so like on the side of like seeking mentorship ourselves, I think it's like a very common thing. I hear people talk about it all the time. Oh yeah, go out and find a mentor. I found that incredibly hard. But now that I found some one person and actually hoping to stack that with more, I've heard a people paying for it. I've joined, you know, obviously, e-commerce fuel to meet more. But yeah, it's incredible. Kind of like with that feeling of like, why didn't I find this earlier? Yeah, it's, I think when it works, it works exceptionally. Well, I think one of the hard parts is being asked to be somebody's mentor is a very intimidating thing because often the people I think that are in positions to give a lot of great mentorship are very time constrained people. And I have a belief that the relationships that you have in life either need to be ones that you find kind of deeply reciprocal where you're both giving and taking it as mutually beneficial or it needs to be something you're doing in a charitable, not a charitable, charitable, charitable is the wrong word because you feel it's deeply worthwhile and you want to invest in something or someone else. And I think when you get into the middle of that when it's either it's not reciprocal, but I don't see necessarily it's being a good value of time. I think that's really difficult. I think that's where things fray. So yeah, I think that's one of the hard parts about mentorship. That being said, it's really cool when it does work well, when you can invest in people. And I think one of the best things you can do to be able to potentially get a mentor if you're trying to look for someone. It's fine someone you really admire. You look up to ask them for just like a piece of advice, get it, actually act on it and come back and let them know. And I think that's probably one of the best signals you can send to somebody is like, Hey, I'm taking your advice seriously. I'm valuing your time with follow through. And I think that's probably one of the best things you can do to up the chances that works long term. But yeah, incredibly powerful, but also a hard thing to be able to structure sometimes. Yeah. And like you said earlier, you know that the outreach and everything else, the way I found the person I've been working with was actually by mentoring, like putting my hat, my name and the hat to help out with a local accelerator. And these are people that, you know, they're either launching their business or it's up to seven figures and they're trying to get through the ceiling or some challenge ahead of them and they need some help with it. Yeah, joining that was how I met a group of mentors, other people that had already said, Hey, I have the time in a space in the desire to help. And then within that, there was somebody that had grown their business up to nine figures, started chatting with them. it was just such a great fit. So there's some irony I think there for me of like it was me finally getting over that feeling of imposter syndrome to say, yeah, I'd love to help out. And really kind of getting into that enough that it was actually through multiple cohorts in that accelerator before I met this other mentor. So I really didn't have any desire. I didn't have any realization at the time or any kind of thought that I would meet somebody. But yeah, I think that's the other bit of this whole thing is just like finding ways to give back what we've learned. And Andrew, this is what you've done by creating a community. But I guess that's the other thing I'd be curious to talk about is that I feel like as business owners, it's so easy to feel like this is the other piffney I've had is that when you're so leverage, when your time is so important, you put it all towards you and your business. But it is kind of amazing how refreshing and also how somehow you come back in a more energized way towards your business when you actually give away some of what you've learned. When you take away some time from your business and you give it to other people, maybe it's like the becoming the teacher like you learn more. But I'd be curious to hear you share a little bit about that because I feel like that's the mission of ECF. Yeah, I mean, I think it's always I think it's something I think there's always a time to focus on building something at the expense of other things and there's always a time to to try to invest in other people because if you can't have it, it's like that the old saying like if you if you are not on a good stable ground, you know, you're not going to be able to help other people and it's kind of a prerequisite. But yeah, I think it's it's really there's a few things that satisfying as seeing as being able to offer guidance or direction or help and see someone else benefit from that. I mean, you're talking about leverage points before, right? Like ultimately, what you're trying to do with mentorship and guidance is is save people a hundred hours of pain and agony and suffering because you can talk to him for 30 to 60 minutes about something, right? So yeah, and I think it's cool being able to come back with a different perspective. I think one of the things too that when you're mentoring people like this summer, I'm going to be going out and spending a week with a bunch of entrepreneurs that are much younger than I am, probably, you know, 15 to 15 years younger than I am, just to partially be able to to help and give some guidance on things, but also partially to be able to understand the world they're living in. I'm hoping to do something with ECF. We're working on it right now. That's kind of called the Young Box and OGs kind of live cast, you know, meet up. It'll be virtual event. We'll offer to our members and we're going to bring in a bunch of a bunch of our alumni, many who've exited for, you know, life changing amounts of money, maybe in their 40s, 50s, and then bring in a bunch of up and coming entrepreneurs that are in their late 20s because there's a lot of mutual benefit and exchange that can happen there, right? Like different things, different perspective, different ideas, and I also love occasionally going to events outside of the ECM world. I remember going to a WordPress event one time, you know, the thing that summer I'm going to is outside the ECM world for the most part because you get so in your lane and so used to looking at things the same way the longer you've been in it, that it's really refreshing to break out of that and see some different things. So a little bit of a stream of consciousness rant, but that's what came to mind when you mentioned everything. That thing you mentioned sounds so awesome. And I think it would have been something I would have been so desirous for early on in time at Guava and even just career wise, like just to talk to those people that have, yeah, grown something from where you are to where, you know, we've kind of as a community, I've just said, is a success, which is a big exit. But also maybe just found a way to live a great life, maybe even if they didn't have a great exit, like what did it look like to build a business in a thoughtful way over the years that provided for the family and the lifestyle they wanted. They're just having some people tell their stories. I think that'll be awesome. Yeah. And I think if you are younger and looking for a mentor, I think also, I think you want to try to think about it reciprocally. How can I offer value? But also don't underestimate like the perspective you bring. And also just the energy that youth and the optimism and energy and ambition that youth brings. I'm kind of mid-career, like 43, not young, not old, at least that's why I tell myself. And I've got a handful of younger guys that I've gotten to know and and mentored in various degrees over the last 10 or 10 years. Definitely there's a bit, you know, over when my component of wanting to try to pass things along and help their position. But it's also, you know, it's also, it also feels good to hang out with people that are younger than you and have more energy and kind of bring a little bit more of that. That energy of life and enthusiasm to things. You feel, I feel younger when I hang out with with some of my friends that are, you know, 10 or even sometimes even 15 years younger than me. It's a it's a cool thing. It injects life and energy and vitality into the relationship into your world. Maybe what you just talked about is what has been so energizing about being a part of that accelerator. It's just that these people are putting their lives on the line. They're, they're financial livelihood on the line. And they have this big idea. They have very little traction. And they're so enthusiastic. They're so excited about what's next. It's going to change their life. And it's just optimism and they're worried, but, but also excited. And yeah, it's just it's so cool to remember that feeling even after there is that safe, that big safety net that businesses get after they've grown profitably over the years. There's that energy that does not like the feeling that you could, the thing you have needs to be made because it's going to change a market. They're so clear-eyed. I'm unfamiliar with this safety net of which you speak of. I think 99% entrepreneurs are just, they could have 10 million dollars in the bank and be like, it's going to be gone tomorrow. It's all going to disappear. I know it. They come in every day. Just opening up the computer, waiting for the IRS audit or, you know, the abesement or, you know, the bank failure or the business collapse. Whatever it is, it's always I mean tariffs tariffs obviously were a huge disruption. I'm just saying more that the, I mean, a business is a machine and you get it running and it has all these inputs and outputs and they're all firing and there's a feeling of like a flywheel, right? That you have some control over that is spinning up. And I think that is at this point, I feel like it brings a sense of security. I hope to the to our team that that flywheel, even if it slows down a little bit, it's still efficient enough. Plus, I mean, as a business, we're our AOV almost matches our LTVs with be so thoughtful about acquiring people profitably, read the beginning so the whole business is built that way. So, you know, as you slow the flywheel, hopefully that profitability can can continue. So anyway, but yeah, I think it was worth you calling me out on that one. No, no, I was being tugged cheek. I just, I definitely, you know, there's definitely levels of safety and effort. Sure, but I just, I was like, I like to poke fun at the the boogeyman in the closet that always it can, you know, maybe the closet gets further away. Maybe you do a better job of locking the closet, but it always seems like it's there. At least a little bit. Reed, thank you. This has been amazing. If you are in the market, if you know someone in the market, anyone who has kids, young kids, you know, packing plays, strollers that don't love lugging around 80 pounds, 90, 150 pounds of equipment every time they, you know, they go for a weekend somewhere. Govofamily.com. Check them out. Beautifully designed products designed with intentionality to improve life, reduce friction and get you out or get people you love out with their kids more frequently and with less less pain and hassle. So, GUAVA family.com. And also, Reed, thank you for being in the community. I mean, you mentioned being a fairly new addition to it, but it was so good to see it in bozeman. I've really appreciated what you've added in the forms as a community member. So it's been amazing to have you. So congrats on building a final business. Thanks for being a part of the community and for being willing to do this. Thanks, Andrew. It's been, this has been fun and also I so appreciate the community you've built. Can't wait to bike together again. Or ski either. Or skate. Maybe skiing is looking less likely this year, but biking is definitely definitely more likely with the, you know, the 30 inch base we've got here in, you know, in early February. Maybe maybe some fat biking. We just want to take pictures of it. So I like it. I want to look forward to it. Thanks, man. Thank you. If you're an entrepreneur who wants to connect with other experienced owners who are working to build a financially vibrant business alongside a rich meaningful life, head on over to ecommerce fuel.com to learn more and connect with a thousand entrepreneurs just like you. Work hard, adventure often, and forge what matters. Look forward to seeing you again next Friday.