They Quit Their Corporate Jobs to Build the Viral Hot Girl Pickles

(upbeat music) - Hey Movers, shakers, and the stuck bit curious. I'm Freya Gordon, and this is Good Shift. The podcast that helps you figure out what's next in your career and make a move with confidence. (upbeat music) They quit their corporate jobs to start a viral pickle company. Today we're talking to a seriously cool best friend duo, breaking the boundaries of the pickle category and making it hot in all senses of the word. Truly, just check out their social media. In studio with me today, I have Leia Marcus and Yasemin Bhaktia, co-founders of Good Girl Snacks and the viral Hot Girl Pickles here in the US. They quit their corporate jobs to start their viral pickle company just two and a half years ago, and they've already turned their idea into a national sensation. You may have seen their pickles blowing up on TikTok or sitting on the shelves of heroine or Whole Foods, but what you might not know is the story behind it all, and that's what we'll be digging into today. Inspired by the pickle trend, all over TikTok at the time and the energy of hot girl walks and girl dinners, they've built a brand that's more than just a snack. It's an entire personality, but they didn't start here and that's what we'll be talking about today. They built their foundations through more traditional routes before deciding that corporate life wasn't for them and going all in on building their own brand. So today, we're going to dig into how they made the leap, of course, how they built a cult community around pickles on social media and what it takes to start something from scratch with your best friend. Leia and Yasemin, welcome to GoodShift. I'm so excited to have you in the studio here today. - Thanks for having us. - Thanks for having us, yeah. Beautiful sunny day in LA for us all together and we have the exhibits of the very hot girl pickles here today. Let's get started with your career shifts. If I'd asked you both three years ago what you thought you'd be doing for work today, what would you have said? We can start with you, Yasemin. - I would probably be in the art business somewhere, either working in an art gallery or an auction house and that was really like my passion. I mean, I still love art and always try to kind of incorporate into my life in some ways but I never thought that. I would, first of all, have my own business or have a pickle company. I never thought that would happen. - And what about you, Leia? - I don't know. I always wanted to start a company but I don't know that I thought I would do it so early on if that makes sense. So I would have probably been still in my tech startup job that I was at or maybe I would have quit like a year later to start something else. But yeah, I didn't think I was gonna have a pickle company either. So, well, like you said, takes me to the shift moment. You sounded like you were pretty happy in what you were doing. So what made you think that your old job wasn't working or that wasn't the path for you? - I don't know. I think I'm a very creative person and it felt like I wasn't able to put my creativity to use and that wasn't necessarily something that I was frustrated by every single day. Like I was pretty happy. But then when we had this idea together, it just kind of clicked of like, this is what I should be doing and this is kind of the one thing that would allow me to be as creative as I can be and have so much freedom to play with that creativity. And yeah, I think it just made a lot of sense when we had the idea. It was just kind of like, wait, this is what we need to do. - Yeah, it was more like we saw an opportunity and we knew that if we didn't run after it, someone else would and so it was kind of like obvious that we needed to come in and do it now. And we had such a big push with the people around us and people in the industry that ultimately we just decided this was the best path for us to go down. And it was something that was so exciting to us both. Like we would get so giddy talking about it and we had so many ideas for what a hawk girl pickle world would look like and all the different flavors we would do. And so we just realized we were having so much fun with that on top of the fact that it was an amazing opportunity that yeah, it was just the right thing to do. So what made you to start exploring business ideas together? Was it a sort of feeling that your jobs weren't serving you or was it just that you started talking and things got really exciting and that all led to this? - I feel like every best friend duo kind of always, at least the people that were around, like we've seen it a lot. Whether it is a business or like, I don't know, an event that you do together or whatever, we were just always brainstorming like companies we would start together and like all these fun things we could do together. And so even when we weren't looking at leaving our jobs, it was just something that we always spoke about. And this was just again something that just clicked for us. But yeah, I don't know, it was just always something that we spoke about creating these worlds together. It was always something fun to do. - Yeah, I had gone admitted to a master's program and so I was debating going back to school. And I don't know, I just remember being like, am I about to sit in a classroom and like learn all this stuff again when I could just be like learning in such a brand new experience? Like starting a company is like the best education you could ever ask for. It's like no one could ever teach you those things in a classroom and I just remember being like, this would be a much more, like regardless of the outcome and whether it's successful or it fails, it would be like so much more fulfilling and way more of educational experience than just sitting in a classroom for another year. - And you've both proven that well? - Yeah. - And so what gave you both the confidence to leave your jobs? You obviously have this idea with your best friend, which is fun and exciting that you don't know if it's gonna work out. And how did you take that leap ultimately? - It was a mix of a couple of different things. Like I mentioned before, we did a ton of primary and secondary research, but we also spoke to a ton of people in the industry. So when we had the idea, we really got the push from those people and that gave us the confidence that we actually had a good idea and that we could actually make it successful. On top of the fact that there was so much social proof, like there was 9.5 billion views on the hashtag Pickle and Pickles compiled on TikTok. - Who are so pickles with these social training? - Insane. But then also we had a conversation and we were like, we're so young. Like we were 23 at the time and we were like, we are in a position where we won't have this opportunity to make mistakes. Once you're older, there's more stakes and we were just like, we need to do this now. And if it fails, we'll just go out and get another job like it's fine. And so the combination of all those things kind of gave us the courage to do it. - I feel like we also almost created a small network of mentors around us before we even actually started the business. And so I feel like I felt pretty well surrounded. Like I felt supported by the people that we had spoken to. And I felt like, you know, if there was ever anything that should go wrong, like we would have people that we'd be able to rely on for advice. And I felt that pretty young, like pretty early in the process I mean. And we even, we reached out to our friends at USC that started SAUS, the Marinerah SAUS company. And they obviously like graduated USC with us. And I think seeing them kind of build that company and have it be really successful really early on was kind of like inspiration to us. And we were like, okay, we know we can, you know, always go to these guys for advice. And if they've done it, like we can do it. And it kind of gave us that confidence, I feel like. - Yeah, so that's really cool. It sounds like you've not only had great mentors and people in the space, but you've surrounded yourselves by friends or peers who are doing the same thing. Which obviously has given you that confidence. 'Cause you've seen other people doing it. But also means that you know you've got them to go to. But obviously, there's a ton of people to listen to when it comes to the sort of things. So how do you choose who to tune out and who to really focus in on with all this advice? And I know so many people give advice for free, even when you don't ask for it. So what advice can you give people there? - I think at the end of the day, you have to listen to your good. And I think Leia and I are pretty savvy at the end of the day. And I think we were pretty good at listening to people's advice, but then thinking about our business and where we wanna go and how to get there. And kind of, I guess, tuning the stuff that was relevant to us and then tuning out the stuff that I think would stray us away from that goal. And obviously, when you start a business, everyone has an opinion. Like even people that are not in the industry or have no experience whatsoever will give you their opinion on how you should run things, which is really fun. But I think we were just like, we really had this gut feeling about where the company would be and what it should look like. And I think we were just like trying to be as in tune without feeling as we could. And obviously always take people's advice when it was needed, but just really listening to ourselves at the same time. - Yeah, and we always said we're gonna figure it out. - Yeah. - Like we don't have a choice. We could our jobs, we started this company. If we don't know what we're doing or if we don't know what advice to listen to, we'll just figure it out. And we have so far. So yeah, I think taking it with a grain of salt, but also your gut is your biggest instinct, especially as a founder. Like you have to listen to your gut above all. And I think we understood also that making mistakes would be inevitable. And that's something that we kind of had to come to terms with very early on is, we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna make bad decisions and that's okay. And we're gonna learn from them and we'll find ways to move past them, basically. - And did either of you have any co-limiting beliefs, all things that might have stopped you from leaving your jobs that almost did. And if you did, how did you push there those? - I think we were so young and we were only really in the like real world with a real job for a year, a year and a half. So we didn't have that much holding us down. We just knew like we didn't wanna be in a nine to five for the rest of eternity. And we had so much more to bring to the table and we had this idea. And so why not just go out and do it. What was keeping us from taking the leap was just that it was scary. And that also like explaining to your family that you're quitting your stable job to start a pickle company. It was a little terrifying. But at the end of the day, we had the marketing under our belt to be able to figure out how to make this blow up. We had complimentary skills to make sure that we were covering each part of the business to make it successful. And so we really had to look at everything like all the facts and all the information we had and all of our skills and just be like, it doesn't make sense to stay in this job. Like we should just go after this. And so we did. - And for someone who's feeling stuck in considering taking the leap themselves to start their own business, if you had to distill your advice to down to one to two points, what would each of you say to them? - I think that's the hardest part of starting a company is taking the leap. So it's really hard to give advice on that because genuinely like I've never felt more stuck in my life than like that moment where I was like, what do I do, what do I do? But I think again, it comes back to your gut. Like I know that's a terrible answer and like so cliche, but it's so true, like you'll know within you if you have an amazing idea or if you want to quit your job, like you'll know that you have to do it and like you won't be able to sleep and you won't be able to think about anything else unless you quit your job to do it. That being said, obviously it's really scary to quit your job and like you need to make sure that you have, you know, everything set up so that you can go and run a business and quit your job and like have money and whatever on the side. But yeah, you won't be able to sleep and you won't be able to do anything else unless you do it and that's really how you know to take the leap or not. - In my opinion. - Yeah, and I think also like surrounding yourself with a good community of people, whether they're also founders or like also in the industry that you want to be in, just for support because especially in the early days, it's very confusing. There's so many things that you won't know how to do or how things work and it's really helpful to have a community around you that can guide you when needed and I think it'll give you that confidence to also take the leap. - Those are both really powerful pieces of advice. Thank you both. And when you're saying you are finding people in the space, are we talking peckles specifically or the CPJ community? - CPG. - Yeah, CPG for us. I mean, we didn't really have like, there's no other small pickle company out there. So you know, unless we were gonna reach out to like, one of the biggest players like Grillos or like Mount Olive, like obviously, you know, competitors. - There are so many other more than anything. - But we know we found other people in other categories that were either starting out kind of at the same time as us or had already, you know, started and were a couple steps ahead. And I think we found so much support in the CPG community overall. And it's competitive, but at the same time, it's not. And people are really willing to help you out, especially for in different categories. And that was the biggest, I think, surprise for me entering this industry is the support from other founders and the way that everyone is so willing to help you out and everyone is so generous with their network and advice and all of that. - Yeah, I've certainly experienced that myself in the CPG space. I came from doing law when no one really shared anything to jumping into the marketing CPG space. And I was fascinated by the stuff people are willing to share on podcasts, connecting them with them on LinkedIn. People are so happy to jump on calls. So that's really good advice. - So it's something that I'm sure all of the listeners really resonate with is the process of trying to find the perfect idea. There's a lot of people sitting out there saying, "What's this idea for me?" And I'm thinking that neither of you spent the few years before thinking, "I want to start a pickle business." So can you talk us through the process of how you got from deciding that you wanted to do your own thing to running a pickle business? Because to me, it sort of sounds like you were talking about building a world together. So maybe it was the brand and the feeling that came first as opposed to the peckles that might be wrong. Talk me through it. - We just saw a trend on TikTok. So the story is, we are huge foodies. So obviously the TikTok algorithm knew that. And we found ourselves feeling a little bored or just unsatisfied with our day-to-day in our corporate jobs. So we were scrolling on TikTok. Again, algorithm knew we were foodies. So every other video we were seeing was a few related video. And within that, every video was a pickle-related video. And so we were like, this is crazy. We keep sending each other pickle videos. There's a pickle sweatshirt. That made millions of dollars on TikTok shop. There's so many views on the hashtag like, "What's going on?" And then we looked at the aisle and we saw there was no one organic. There was no flavor innovation. We asked our friends, "What's your favorite pickle company?" And they couldn't name one. And so I think for us, it wasn't just like, "Oh, let's think of an idea of what a company could be." Or like, "Oh, let's build a world." It was more so like, we saw a trend. It was undeniable that there was a gap in the market and that someone was gonna come and, you know, be the player unless we did it. And so with all of those points, we kind of realized that should be us. We love pickles, we grew up eating them. And so, yeah, it was less of like, brainstorming around what the company would be and more so like an aha moment, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And thank you, TikTok algorithm. That sounds like that one came to you. And you were talking about, obviously, you came across on TikTok. You did your research there. Sounds like you chatted to some friends about what they were sort of seeing in the pickle space, what pickles did they like, and you were scanning the grocery aisles. Is there any other research that you both did to figure out whether this was a valid idea? Well, I think we also did a lot of research on women's needs and women's snarking needs. And we found out, I mean, we knew this stuff, instinctually, because obviously we are women, we are consumers that are women. But we knew that women are way more likely to snark than men. We know that women are way more likely to look for and a healthy, ingredient list. They're way more likely to look at calories. They're way more likely to look at, you know, whether something is high in sodium or high in fat or high in sugar, and then also 70 to 80% of purchase consumer decisions are made up by women. So we knew that women are the number one grocery shopper. And all of this together, I think, helped consolidate the idea that we needed to target women specifically with this brand. And that's what we were seeing on our social media page. Like that's like women, the girls, the Gen Z girls that were eating pickles, like those are the girls that we were seeing every single day, eating pickles and not being spoken to with the brands that were currently being offered. And so I think that was validation that we needed to come in with a cool pickle brand, but on top of that, have it be targeted directly to those Gen Z girls. Also, we had to look obviously at how big the market was and like, what does it look like when we enter the space? You know, how much money can we make? Who's going to potentially acquire this? Like, we definitely worked backwards and definitely started the brand with, you know, the world and the branding and the marketing first, because that's our bread and butter, pun intended. But we did look at the business backwards. So where can we go with this? How big can we get this to be? And we realized like, let's not close any doors. Let's name the brand Good Girl Snacks and, you know, enable ourselves to eventually enter new categories of snacks, always with women's needs in mind. But yeah, everything we did was very intentional with this brand and how we started it, how we grew it, the name of it, and so all the research kind of tied back to each of those points. Yeah, really like the way that you're thinking about it and framing it and that you're saying you worked backwards. A lot of people, they start something and they start just by thinking about what's right in front of them and then they'll see how that goes and try and make it grow from there. But you guys have put the big picture first, where do you want to go like thinking as to how you can absolutely crush it, which I think is really good advice for people to think about. We know that pickles are an age-old household product and we also know that pickles are trending right now, but did you have any lack of confidence around the fact that pickles would continue to be a thing? Because with maybe an older audience, we know that, but Gen Z's, how did you guys think about the fact that this might be something that could just drop off? Well, we saw the trend on social media with Gen Z and millennials and we started understanding that people weren't eating them, how they used to be eating them, they weren't a condiment anymore, they were snack now. And we kind of saw it, similar to how avocado toast became a thing randomly out of nowhere in 2014. Same thing was happening with pickles. People today are still eating avocado toast and it's a very low calorie snack. It has health benefits. It's a brand that we're trying to make into a household brand because we have this community and because we have this fun branding that you're tapping into and you're purchasing the product because of the identity that you get in turn, if that makes sense. Like, we always say similar to how the clean girls purchase a road lip peptide, the chaotic, hawk girl identity is what you get when you purchase a hawk girl pickles jar. And so, that first and then the fact that we have one of the only organic pickle products on the market with unique flavor offerings, all of those things together we think will transcend through time, but really it's the community that we've built that'll keep the product sticky, we think. Cohen, can you talk to me a little bit about how you went from concepts to actually getting these pickles in these beautiful jars and how long did this take? So, from ID, ideation to commercialization, I think it was about like eight months. And once we had the idea and we were like, okay, we know these are gonna be our flavors. For some reason, when we were first talking about this business, we knew immediately what flavors we wanted. And so, we started making them at home. We had never pickled at home before and came to realize pretty quickly that it wasn't that simple. And there was actually a lot of science behind it, especially with like pH levels and like vinegar at the water ratios. And so, when it wasn't working out, we actually hired a food scientist who was also an operations consultant. And so, she, her and her partner joined our team pretty early on and helped us, first of all, develop the product and develop the formulas, make sure that they were formulas that we could scale with, but then also help us find like a co-packer and you know, place to make our labels and all those things that we had no idea how to approach. So, I think that was probably the best investment we could have made early on is having these two women help us throughout the process. And eventually, I think essentially, it's what made us come out with these so quickly. - Yeah, and in parallel, we were building in public. So, we started posting every single day on social media and showing the journey of what it was like to quit your job, to start a pickle company with your best friend. And that really captured people's attention and we actually ended up going viral and growing a really big community before we had even launched the product. So, working on the operational side and the marketing side in tandem is really what allowed us to be so successful right when we launched our pre-order, which was in March, 2024. And yeah, that's what we always tell people, like make sure you're doing kind of everything at once. Don't take it one step at a time, which sounds really overwhelming, but it's the best thing you can do for the launch of the business. And yeah, we ended up selling like thousands and thousands of jars within like two and a half to three months and selling out really quickly because we had built this community on top of creating the product and making sure we had a successful launch operationally on the side. So yeah. Talk to me about what that day-to-day look like because you said do everything all at once, which is great advice. What does that day-to-day look like with the two of you? And then obviously you got some support with building the product and things. What does that look like for you at that stage? How long are you working? How are you both splitting the responsibilities? How are you making sure that just the two of you plus a little bit of help can actually do all of this? Well, at the time, we were both doing everything. Whereas now I think we have more split up roles. But when we were first starting, it was like whoever can get something done should get it done kind of way. And I think we worked together a lot like and we would divide, divide and conquer basically. Like you take care of dealing with this legal thing that we need to take care of. And then you speak to our consultants and figure out how we can do this. And then the great part about building on social media at the same time was the fact that we got to show that entire process of building the company, which is how we built our community and how we brought people along onto this journey. And so our days were pretty chaotic. No day looked the same. There would be a day where we had a million meetings and working all day long. And then there was a day where there wasn't that much to do because we were just waiting on people to get back to us and you're not selling a product. You're not marketing a product. So you're just kind of like waiting around and not doing much. And you're like, oh, should we, what should we be doing? Is it normal that we're just waiting around? So yeah, no day looked the same, but it was fun. Yeah. Now obviously we've grown a lot. So we launched D2C originally in March, 2024. That whole year, which was last year, was really focused on building a community, fixing up the recipe, making sure we're listening to feedback from our customers to kind of switch up the way that it tasted. We switched to smaller cucumbers because we wanted to be crunchier. Now obviously we are so much busier. And our day to day is insane. I'm totally on the marketing side. Yes, someone is on the operational and sales side. We actually just made our first hire on the operational side. So yes, someone will be doing just sales now, which is so fun. And then marketing within the sales side of things as well. So yeah, now it's like, we don't have a life pretty much. And we're traveling all the time. We're spending half of our time in New York, half of our time in LA, and really just trying to get the product everywhere. This year has been really heavy with retail. So as you mentioned at the top of the conversation, we're in Aeroan, Whole Foods, Bristol Farms, Gopuff, nationally, we just soft-launched in Nordstroms with pop-up grocer. So exciting. Yeah, so many things are happening and it's so fun. But yeah, things get busier. So enjoy the building blocks part of the business because things definitely get harder and crazier over time. Yeah. And how are you both feeling about how chaotic things are at the moment? Does it feel like this amazing energy pushing you forward at their times when you're like, take me back to my job I had before? I could actually go to slave it like DM if I wanted to. Honestly, there's been so many days where Liya and I will have something go wrong and we look at each other and we're like, honestly, like a 9 to 5 sounds so nice right now. Like I wish I could just like clock out at 5 p.m. and like not have to think about the chaos. But honestly, I think it's so busy that I will say the one thing that tends to happen is that we don't get to celebrate our wins that much because we're always focused on the next thing. And there's not that much room to like sit and marinate in the positive moments because you're always trying to solve the next thing and trying to solve the next problem and put out the next fire. So that's the one chaotic aspect of being in it and always having so many things happen. But we try to-- I love the chaos. Makes the best out of it. I'm like, I love the chaos. I think it's so fun. It's hard because one day, one hour, you can have the worst thing ever happen and the best thing ever happen. And so you feel a little like schizophrenic sometimes because you're like, oh my god, this is so amazing. And like, oh my god, everything is going wrong. Like all in the same hour literally. But like I wouldn't have it any other way. Like it's so crazy all the opportunities we've had and like seeing our product at Whole Foods for the first time is like the craziest thing ever. Yeah, someone was like crying in the vitamin section. But like these moments and like all the hard work and all of the chaos makes all of these wins so much stronger, like even though we don't get to celebrate them and you know, take the time to be like, oh my god, let's go to dinner, yay, we're in Whole Foods. It's just so unreal that like, you know, it's just us two and it's been just us two this far. And like we built every stone to get here and that is so rewarding. And I think that's why we continue and that's why we love the chaos. And that's why we're really hungry to make it as big as possible. It's just like, it's almost kind of like a drug. Like it's so addictive seeing parts of it be so successful. Yeah, it's interesting what you say about the wins, how there's no time to celebrate. Like it completely resonates with the head. Like and my job and I think a lot of people will feel the same whatever sort of personal achievements they're going for, you know, whether it's in sport or whatever you have won milestone and you're just so focused on the next. Okay, I want to talk to you both about, you go through all these chaotic times together and being best friends, there's the highs and the lows. How does that work with your relationship? And with people who are thinking about co-founding something with their best friend, what's some advice that you would give them there? Because I feel like it could work for some people and possibly not for others. Totally. You need to be very real about your personality and how you operate and how your friend operates and you need to be very self-aware. And I think not every friendship, duo, can start a business together the same way that not every best friend, duo can live together. You just need to make sure it's like a marriage. Like you need to be very no ego. You need to know what you're good at, know what you're not good at, no one to admit that you're not good at something. And for Leia and I, I think we have a friendship that's almost like a sisterhood, but we're also, I think we have very complimentary skills. And I know that like the things that she's good at, I could never do and I think like vice versa. Like maybe we could if we really put our minds to it, but I know she's good at it. I know what I'm good at. And we just work really well because of that. And we also, I think, have a very similar vision. We have similar values. We have a similar idea of like where we want our life to be and what we want our life to look like eventually. And I think because of that, it kind of gives us that same drive and motivation to get things done the same way. And then yeah, and then obviously like beyond the technical stuff, like I think we have a very similar like vision for like aesthetics and, you know, branding and marketing and the stuff that we think is cool. And so all of that combined I think makes us good co-founders. - Yeah, and I think also, you know, we got a lot of hate at the beginning. People were like, you're never gonna be best friends. Like you guys are gonna have like a best friend break up because you're working together. Like this is the worst idea ever. Never do this, like business 101, whatever. But I actually think it's quite the opposite, especially for people who have like a no-ego relationship and exactly what Yasemin was saying, which is like if you have someone that's like, you're a left brain to your right brain, et cetera. Like for us, it's almost made us so intertwined where everything that we work towards is the same. And like our visions for the future is the same. And no one ever talks about how much stronger that can make a relationship. It's almost like we have a baby together. - Yeah. - You know? - You do. - We're co-parenting. - A little pickle baby. - Yeah. - So yeah, it's honestly on top of it being really fun and you know, celebrating all these, well, semi-celebrating all these wins. Like we get to travel together for our baby. We get to do all these things together. And it's really fun. And yeah, it's made us a lot closer obviously. - Yeah, and I think one thing also that I noticed lately because there's gonna be a lot of crash outs when you start a business. And I think one thing that Leia and I are good at is if we're usually crashing out together but there's always one person holding it down when the other is like freaking out even though we're both like really stressed. We're always stressed about the same thing. There's never been a time where like I'm freaking out about something and she's not. Like we're usually pretty like in sync. But if I'm texting Leia like, oh my God, I'm freaking out. Like this is so horrible, like blah, blah, blah. Like even though she's also freaking out, she's gonna be like, no, it's okay, we got this. She gives us the pep talk and I feel like we both kind of do that for each other. And yeah, I think we're good. Like you need to be like just great partners and like a great team essentially. - Yeah, and something we try to do although lately we've not been very good at it. Is separating our personal conversations and our work conversations. We yeah, we literally have not been doing this lately but work, slack, I message, slash WhatsApp, personal and that keeps like the friendship healthy as well. - You're putting some boundaries in place. - Yeah. - It's totally what you mean. So what is a hot take that you both have on marketing that you think has been instrumental to your success? - I don't think that you can have a successful brand today unless you're at the face of it. And then mine is more of like a food and beverage specific. You don't need to make food look delicious to sell it. - Oh, okay. I really like both of these. Let's quickly dig into them. Can you tell us a little bit more about being the face of a brand because obviously it's such a big thing at the moment, people building in public and founders doing that. And it's really fun to watch along and I actually think it's great for my audience and community because people who are wanting to start their own business can see sort of trials and tribulations of it and fill the realities of it. So I love that but why do you think it's so important? - I think in today's day and age, people buy into a brand and they won't buy the brand unless they know the face behind it. Your human, there's, okay, there's so much information out there, especially with social media, that if you're not humanizing a product, there's no reason why that your consumer, your demographic won't go out and buy another one. And so that's what makes you different at the end of the day. That's what gives your company its edge, its personality. And without us being the face of it, that's how we skipped a million different steps. We were actually one of the first people in the food and beverage space to vlog and to show, you know, our day to day. The only people that were doing it at the time were midday squares, that was it. And so we kind of realized that not only are we showing, you know, the building blocks and being the face of the brand and creating a community and this trust between us and the customer by being the face of the brand, but it's also allowing us to go viral a lot faster and in turn convert to sales. And so that's why, you know, I really think that that's how founders should be building their brands. Also, it's free. Like we didn't have a budget and we needed to market the product. So how are you gonna make your business successful with a zero dollar cap if you're not posting on social media every day and like being the face of it? And so that's really the conversation we had and we've still been able to maintain a zero dollar cap to this day with that strategy. So it's a great- - Very so, budgeting strategy as well. - Yeah. - And how do you decide what to share and what not to share at different points? - We share everything. Like genuinely everything. Unless it's like, oh, we got into whole foods and we obviously can't tell people until like six months from now and we just keep the content and post it later on. But we share absolutely everything and the downs especially, or like for example, we had 200 PR boxes break recently and we posted a video about it. And every time something bad happens, we create a content moment around it and it goes viral because people are like, oh my god, I've never heard a brand talk about this before. Like that's so real. And like thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing the struggles. So yeah, we share everything I would say. Yeah, we do. Yeah. And so if you're gonna be the face of the brand, do you believe that you have to be a really authentic self to make that valid and to make it resonate with people? I think if you're not authentic, then how can people relate to you, right? And the whole point of being the face of the brand is that you wanna make people relate to you. Obviously, there's highlight reals on the internet and you make things look a lot more exciting than they actually are or whatever else to get views. But it's important to be authentic because then you're also attracting the right audience. It's kinda like dating. If you're not yourself on the first date, you're never gonna meet the person or the right fit. So yeah, I think also we're our own target demographic. And so we were always thinking about what is the type of content that I would wanna see from a founder and that I would wanna see from like a cool brand that I wanna follow along with. And I think that also shaped a lot of the content we put out. And ultimately, I think made us connect with our demographic a lot more because we were putting ourselves in their shoes but we also are them. So it kinda helped us narrow down what we needed to do to make the brand succeed. - Yeah, that helps immensely. Not having to wonder what some random 60-year-old person thinking when you're making your content. Okay, I wanna dive into your point. Yes, and then a little bit more about a product not having to look good to be successful. - Yeah, I think because Leia and I don't come from a traditional food and beverage background where the conventional way of marketing food is to make it look very delicious. I think we knew that to make noise in this industry being so small and so new, we needed to get people talking about us and to do that, we thought the best way to do that would be to be provocative, to raise some eyebrows, to do things in a way that was very unusual and with food and with pickle specifically, it's such a boring commodity. Like it's literally a cucumber. And so we were like, how do we make people talk about like a marinated cucumber? And then obviously for us, part of our whole marketing strategy was just to do the weirdest things and to just make jokes about it be very, it was almost kind of like a lot of the stuff we put out was like satire and really like not serious at all. And that was partly because that was our way of making noise and getting people to talk about the product, whether it was positive things or negative things, our product's name was in their mouths. And also because I think that's what Gen Z is attracted to today. Like again, Gen Z is so flooded with so much information every single day, we spend our whole days on our phone. So how do you get someone's attention? That's by being weird and by doing things in a way that no one's done that before. And we were very inspired by brands like Liquid Death. Like I think they did that with water. Like water is literally the most basic commodity ever. Like you don't even need to sell water. But like they marketed water in such a fun, unconventional, crazy way and we were so inspired by that and kind of took some aspects of that into our identity as well. And we always think of shareability and reshareability because we don't want you to see a piece of content and engage with it, we want your friend to see it. And we want you to send it to a million group chats and things. And so one of the things we did was we put pickles in a cake or we put pickles in a condom or we put pickles on a stiletto. And all of these things were things that people were sharing on their social media or like sharing with their friends. The pickles in a cake photo did so well because everyone was putting on their story saying who's getting me this from my birthday. Or like, oh my god, this is disgusting. Same with the condom one. Yeah, I was sort of thinking of pickle and a kite sounding disgusting. Yes. They were replacing candles. And so anyway, that in itself created a ton of noise but it's always thinking backwards and always being so intentional with everything we do again too. Like, make people talk about it themselves but have their friends also start talking about it because of them, how do you do that? Used to both seem to have an amazing set of marketing skills and obviously not a huge amount of background in the marketing space given you started this company when you were 23, was it? And so are you continuing to upskill yourself now and learn these different things? And if so, how are you doing this by watching other brands do things, for example? As you said, like, with death, is it podcasts or just doing what you're doing? Marketing for us is doing what we're doing. Like, we didn't want to copy anyone. We wanted to do our own thing. And it's been cool to see people start doing what we're doing because that means what we did is working so well that now people are like, you know, go and viral for more than just pickles. Right. And they're using the same phrase. We're two best friends that quit their job to start a blank company. That has been used quite a bit since we started it and it's been really fun to see. And so we kind of see ourselves like not to our own horn but like as trendsetters in the marketing space, especially with food and beverage. So we always do like what we think is right and we just riff off of each other instead of looking at what everyone else is doing. Because if you're doing what everyone else is doing, you're not going to be successful. You're not going to be creating noise and you're not really creating your own brand at the end of the day. Yeah. I have a marketing minor. And so that's something that I studied at school and took so many classes. And honestly, nothing we've ever done, I think I could have ever learned in a textbook. It's so different than what you're taught, especially with food. And yeah, I think obviously like there's some aspects of marketing that we've learned from and that we apply to our business. But I think the biggest thing is, what can you do to stand out from the masses? And for us, that's just been like being very unconventional and weird and getting people to talk about your product. I also at my tech job like all I did was marketing and I kind of understood how to make things go viral quite quickly. And so I think that's also why we were like, we can do this in this context as well. And so you don't have to be an expert at whatever you do to be successful. Like you kind of figure it out a long way. Like we started posting trends first and we realized we're getting a ton of views, but no one's following us. How do we create content that makes people want to follow us and how do we create a community? And it's by creating this like type of TV show. It's by vlogging, it's by being authentic. And you figure that out in your own context by doing the thing. It's not by being the best at what you do when you're first starting off. You've obviously built this amazing community. You had to start at zero. How did you start at zero and get the confidence to do that? Did you have a video that went viral early that started to build your community really quickly or was it like dragging every sort of follower in until you hit a certain amount and then you saw it take off? It was the first vlog we ever posted and it literally was day one of starting a pickle company with my best friend after quitting our stable jobs in our early 20s. And then we just took that template and ran with it every single day and we showed people what it was like. And because that video went viral, people started following us because they wanted to see more and they wanted to see the journey. And now we still meet people today that are like, I've been following you since before you had a product and now you're in Whole Foods and we're like, yeah, that's so crazy. So yeah, I think it was really like that unlock of understanding that people want to see and are curious to see what it's actually like to start a company and people are so random. People are like, what are you doing with your life? I love it. And your line that I have seen going viral everywhere which is really cool so many other people using it about quitting your jobs to start a pickle company with your best friend. That's just awesome and it really sort of epitomizes what this podcast is about, you know, quitting something that you don't see a future in to go do something so fun. Like what is more fun than starting a pickle company with your best friend, it's just the whole spirit behind it as well. And you know, saying pickles could be boring like they are freaking boring on their own. But when you go and build this brand and this energy around it, like you guys have really created this world in this space. That's not only really fun for you and the people consuming the hot girl pickles but also for other people who are wanting to start their own thing. So it's really cool to see you building that community life. What advice would you give to someone who's scared to put themselves out there on social media because it seems like you girls have amazing confidence to do so. Did you start with that confidence? And how did you build that up? Because you know, there's thousands of people saying you and it's like your old colleagues and your family and your friends, all these people that people get worried about seeing them do something cringewer. Yeah, I think that might be. I'm very introverted. I mean, I don't know if I'm that introverted. You're not introverted. But I'm like pretty introverted. And I don't, like I never love to put myself out there. Like I'm not, like it's not like we started filming and I was in natural. Like I think we kind of had to like grow into it. But I think in business, overall, and whether that's when you're pitching your brand or making a social media video, you just need to know how to fake it till you make it. And when you speak about your brand, you need to be able to, like it's just such a necessary skill to being a business founder to be able to sell yourself and sell your product. And so to me and to us, I think like it was just a learning curve that we had to get past and that we knew we had to get past because no, like you just need to know how to do that. It's such such an intrinsic skill to having a business. And I think it's helped us, you know, put ourselves out there in front of other people as well, like putting yourself out in front of buyers, in front of investors. Like you need to know how to speak to your brand, speak about your brand and capture people's attention and walk into a room or walk into a meeting and like know how to get people to listen to you. And I think that's applicable, whether it's on social media or in person with people that you're pitching to. And so yeah, I think at the beginning, we were just kind of like let's fake having, like obviously I think we're also not very enthusiastic when we speak like naturally we have a pretty like monotone voice we're not like super peppy with our voice. And so we kind of had to put that on to get people to listen and to make the video not seem so boring and like we hated our life. Because like the first videos we were filming is like, we are two best friends and we quit our jobs to start a pickle company and we were like, okay, we need to redo that. But now it's obviously second nature to us. And we also had a conversation before and we were like, if we're not gonna, like this was before we even started like had an LLC. And we were like, if we don't post on social media every single day we're not gonna be successful and you have to put your face out there. Otherwise there's literally no point starting this. We saw the trend on social media, we have to be on social media. Yeah, it's where this lives. And again, how do you market your brand without any money if you're not on social media? And so those were all things that we were thinking about like day, you know, negative one. And we're really glad that we did it this way. And we tell everyone like it's just as important as investing or as getting an investor is posting on social media. And I will say if you don't have a delusional level of confidence, you will really struggle having a business. Yeah. And so, and you learned that though. It didn't, yeah. It doesn't come to you naturally at first because you have like imposter syndrome and all these things. But totally, yeah. Yeah, you just, you kind of get the game at a certain point and you start like playing. And they're like, you have to believe also that you're gonna be so successful and that you're the best at this. And that's why this is gonna be successful. And you're gonna eat the competition and blah, blah. Because if you don't think that way, then no one else is gonna believe in you. So, yeah, it's hard to do, but you gotta do it. Well, it's really nice for everyone to hear that you two have built up such great success and you know, such great faces of your brand didn't necessarily start by being super confident about going and putting yourselves out there. It definitely can be built. And that's something I've seen a lot as well. Just when you start doing it, you just start to building blocks in your confidence and then you really start to believe it yourself. Do you have any mindset hacks or tips and tricks for people who really need to become that sort of level of delusion about, you know, how successful you're gonna be or how much you're gonna put yourselves out on social media that would be helpful to people listening. - I kind of gaslight myself. So, I'm sorry, this is kind of dumb. - No, this sounds great. - But I tell myself like any successful founder that's been successful thus far, didn't get there by telling themselves that they were a loser, that they were bad at this, that they were gonna fail. They got there because they looked at themselves in the mirror and they said, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make this successful. I'm hungry to, you know, change this or to create this product for these people because they deserve it. Like, you don't get to that point unless, or you don't get to the success unless you really believe it and you put yourself in front of the mirror and you say, I'm confident, I'm gonna make this happen. Like doing the opposite is actually gonna lead you quite the opposite way. - It's hard to do. Again, you have to gaslight yourself. - I would say the same. - Yeah. - It's really helpful. Would you guys actually look at yourself in front of the mirror and tell yourself that are you just doing this and you're here? - I've had to look at myself in the mirror and actually talk to myself a couple of times and just be like snap out of it, stop. - Yeah. - But yeah, most of the time it's like in our heads and also to each other. Again, because we're best friends, like we're able to be like, let's just keep moving. Like we got this, like we're doing this for a reason. Like we're the best of this, we're gonna get it done. We're gonna figure it out. And yeah, just putting those words into the universe and making sure we're supporting ourselves. - And telling yourself like if it's not gonna be you, it's gonna be someone else. So like make it be you. Like that, and I feel like that's it. (laughs) That's like, I don't know, really silly to say. But it's true. - Yeah, like there's a million people with amazing ideas and really great skills. And like if you don't think you can do it, that's fine, like someone else will come along and do it. And you're either okay with that or you're not. - Yeah. - Know how shitty would it be? - Yeah. - Just thinking on this amazing sexy peckle idea and then seeing someone else go and smash it, yeah. - Wait, by the way, we have our first copycat brand. - Oh, do tell. - Yeah, we, we, we're not gonna spill names obviously, but we found this because we have friends that know the people who started it and yeah, snack shot, which is like the demo of the food and beverage industry, actually posted on our store and she was like, good girl, snacks finally made it because they got their first copycat brand. So yeah, it's gonna be interesting to deal with that and to see that happen. But when things like that happen again, it's like that's when you have to be the most confident and be like, no one's gonna replace us. Like we did this. This is why we're different. This is why we're gonna crush it. - And yeah, that's probably another piece to you bend the faces behind it. Like people actually believe in your mission and they feel really loyal to you. They're not just loyal to this very sexy jar of pickles that do the two of you. - Yeah. - And as I say, imitation is the highest form of flattery but it doesn't make it any less fricking annoying. - Yeah, I guess so. - Like, yeah. - Get in your own line. - What's something that you thought really mattered when you started the business that now you don't think that is so much? - That's a great question. We always led with the product and how that is the hero of the company. But now we understand that the community and the brand is the hero. And that's why we'll be successful at the end of the day. It's not because we have a pickle company. It's because we created this brand and this community. And I'm glad that we emphasized it from day zero. But it's important to understand your attributes and why you're gonna get acquired or why you're gonna have this amazing partnership or why you're gonna get to be at this event versus this other brand. And it's really the brand and the world we've built in the community, it's not the pickle product. If that makes sense. Obviously the pickle product is a driver of why all of this is happening, but yeah. - Yeah, I would agree. And then I think not being so set on having everything go perfectly all the time. And then for us in our case, whenever things have gone wrong, we've been able to make lemonade out of lemons and make really good content out of it. And sometimes it goes viral and we're like, okay, that wasn't so bad after all. But yeah, I think we're both huge perfectionists. And sometimes you have to let go of some of the control and just let things go because you need to keep things moving. Those are both great and especially that one that you were talking about, Leia really brings us back full circle to what you were saying at the start about how you've built the brand from the aspiration of what you both want it to be, as opposed to just starting with pickles and going from there. How has your definition of success changed over the past few years? And what's next for hot-go-peckles/good-go-snacks? - We're entering new products, new formats. - That's very exciting. - And new products. And then we're next year going to be much more accessible in the sense that we'll be in a lot more grocery stores and new chains. So a lot of exciting growth for us in that side of the business. I think the more you go through life with a business and being an entrepreneur, the more the success bar goes up. So when you first start, you're like, I want to get into all foods. What happens when you do that? That just keeps going up. What's the next thing? And so I think it's really hard to answer that question because I'll answer it now in two weeks. My definition of success will be different. I think not to be woo-woo, but success to me is we've built this to the largest it can be and we're really happy and proud of each other and the brand that we've built. And that'll be success to me. Like we look back in 20 years and we're like, holy shit, we did that. And like we're so happy with the way that it went. - Yeah. - Or the way that it is still going. - Yeah. - And yeah. And then in terms of like the everyday moments that make us feel successful, I think it's when people tell us that they tried the product and they love it. Or I think the biggest sign of success to us is also when we have pickle haters tell us that they love our product. And that actually happened on Saturday. We hosted an event in San Diego and we were passing along trades of pickles to everyone. And there's this group of girls and half of them were like pickle lovers. And then there was this one girl that was like, oh actually, I'm gonna like pass, I actually don't like pickles. And then later we came back to them. And the girl was like, wait, I actually tried the pickles and I love them and now I'm like converted. Like I love your product. And that to us was like such a sign of success. Like if you have a product that's good enough to convert the people that usually wouldn't like it, then I feel like that's really all you can ask for. - That's cool, that's an awesome success story. And is there a book podcast or other resource that either a both of you would recommend for people who are thinking about making a career shift or starting their own business or mindset tips? - Female founder world, love that podcast. And then how I built this and dream bigger podcast all three great podcasts. - And this one? - Awesome. - Yes, and good shift of course. - Yeah. - And then I think finding brands that you really resonate with and then just looking up the founders and see if they did any podcast and listening to those. Like I feel like we did that a lot with brands that we looked up to as well. - LinkedIn. - Yeah. - Everyone's trying to be a LinkedIn influencer, especially founders and so they're spilling the beans on everything to get views on their posts and to get engagement on their posts. And there's some gold nuggets in there. Like we found partners that we work with to this day from other founders sharing them on LinkedIn. So like connect with founders, follow them on LinkedIn. Yeah, get on calls with them even. - That's so what we were saying earlier is that people in like the marketing CPG space are so willing to share stuff. And I think that's to what you say. People are building their own brands and personal brands and one of the ways that they're getting engagement is by sharing stuff. But it's like, the stuff is so good. - Yeah. - Which is great advice. - We do that if you need anything. - Yeah, we're always sharing everything we do on LinkedIn. And obviously there are social media, so. - And so where can people find both the two of you and hot girl pickles? - At Good Girl Snacks everywhere for socials, LinkedIn, whatever. We have a store locator on our website, goodgirlsnacks.com if you want to find hot girl pickles in store near you. - Doesn't sound like you have to go too far. - No, or we're go puff nationally and in an online available online as well. - Yeah. - Okay, perfect. - Yeah. - Okay, well thank you both so much for coming on and sharing all these exciting developments just before we wrap up is that anything else exciting going on in the world of hot girl pickles that you both want to share. - I think new products coming out soon. New retailers and just overall more pickles. - Yeah. - accessible pickles. We have really fun partnerships coming up in 2025 too with like amazing brands, talent, et cetera. And I think people will have a lot of fun looking at those. So we'll be on the lookout. Thank you so much. It was so much great advice that you had to share with everyone and people who are starting out on their business journey. This is a one stop shot. So thank you so much. - Thanks for having me. - Thank you. - Have a nice day. - Okay.