DTC Launch Playbook: The Details Of Simple Modern's New Side Project transcript

are Corbin Wallace CEO of trevia advanced hydration what in the world is a $20 million brand simple modern very big N9 figure brand that is still growing at Double Digit percentage growth year-over-year at which you were an executive on the leadership team what in the world is a $200 million year brand starting a hydration electrolyte brand any brand from scratch I do not understand what in the world LED you guys to start a new brand and not just pour all of your resources and life into the simple modern monster yeah well it's a great question it's one that we actually asked ourselves um quite a bit in this process as we've um thought about created and now launched Trevy um when we first got started kind of in the electrolyte hydration space uh and started developing the actual product we were thinking well um in my old role at simple modern I was helping lead the growth team and one of those um kind of core Scopes that I had uh with simple modern was actually to help find ways for the company to grow and that included product expansion uh category expansion specifically and about a year ago we found the hydration um category just really interesting and specifically the electrolyte powder space within as like a subcategory of hydration we found it to be just an incredible category uh and it kind of checked all the boxes from a growth standpoint that simple Modern Love um but when we got down to it and we actually um created the product um and decided that we were going to launch this new brand we felt like it needed to be a different brand because while simple modern is an incredible brand an incredible company and doing a really wonderful work in the market and like you said still growing uh we felt like there was actually a strategic difference between a consumables company and uh a durable hard goods company and at the end of the day that was probably one of the major considerations that led us to a completely different brand was the fact that Trevy was going to live in the consumable space uh and that company that brand has to do a lot of different activities uh to to win in the market relative to a durable goods company and while simple modern um is doing really well on the market and we're really proud of the brand that we've built uh it actually has to do different activities than Trevy will have to do to succeed and while it would have given Trevy potentially a better start in the market we don't know if it actually would have helped Trevy over a course of a three five and 10 year time Horizon and when we looked at the electrolyte hydration category to get into we were not looking at it for a like 12 18 or 20 month um time Horizon we were looking at it over the course of decades okay all right decades wow okay that's interesting because I think of that category I'm I I'm a uh before you sent me Trevy I'm a daily Drinker of noon so uh yeah so like I I definitely am am am the customer in some way you know um and it and that was definitely my main comparison point I tried element at points as well um okay so but let's let's go back a little so okay really quickly so you're the CEO of Trevy right yes okay great so you're totally done with simple modern stuff yes it is uh Trevy is its own entity kind of like sister brother you know sibling subsidiary yeah yeah okay uh you were running growth uh at the executive level was your title VP of growth uh Chief growth officer Chief growth okay great okay so at simple modern that uh you were doing well I mean you guys were growing like gigantically simple modern big at this point big DTC business big bulk custom business big huge Amazon business one of the biggest Amazon business I've ever seen um uh Mass retail brick and mortar you know Walmart Target like just like the whole you're multi channel in every possible way um so let's talk about the trevia opportunity because your your answer to my first question answers some of it but it it doesn't answer other parts of it which is like what is the opportunity for Trevy in your view that makes it worth saying it is worth diverting I understand why you set it up as a separate brand that makes sense your answer explains that but why do you think this is a separate an opportunity that's big enough to divert energy away from simple modern to to that like what was that calculation yeah when it comes down to it when we were looking at growth opportunities for the company it's like um simple modern is playing in a very specific category within drink wear um you've got some bags some lunch bags some backpacks and some core categories that that's competing in um some adult kind of um women's bags beach bags totes uh and those addressable markets are certain sizes and when we kind of looked at what the opportunity was for the company to continue to grow um and we saw this adjacent product line um in this category that we wanted to get into we were trying to do this calculation of um what do we need do to to win in the market and as well as to just to succeed with what we wanted to do in kind of like our our lives right like we wanted to spend our time on um worthy Endeavors and when we got to this space within hydration and why it needs to be different and why we wanted to go after it in general it's like the addressable market for uh hydration in food and beverage is just massive and in a consumable space um it's huge and it's uh dramatically larger than um the durable goods um water bottle tumbler and kind of portable beverage wear space and so when we see um we kind of have this rubric right for new products new categories within simple modern and one of the things I was doing at simple modern was always working with the rest of the the team whether it's the executive team the sales team um everyone working on simple moderns like okay what are new categories we could get into and when we got to the point in seeing hydration about a year and a half ago uh we were just just like well it's a it's a massive Market um because it's in food and beverage uh just so happens that powdered electrolytes are one of the fastest growing subcategories of hydration of food and beverage and so when we're looking at how can we strategically win why are we going after this um that was really it it's like it's a large market and then the subcategory that we're going after is the fastest growing subcategory um of that market and we think that it's a lot U there's it's more advantageous to enter growing markets than stagnant or shrinking markets and so what we really wanted to do was put our resources in a market that was growing uh that we felt like we could really win in and so you know you want to be in categories that it's not necessarily win or take all U you want to be in categories where there are lots of winners for a variety of reasons I mean uh we're probably going to win some of the category U by the straty we are deploying but we are probably not going to win every customer right like you've named a couple competitors already in space and I would say that the hydration electrolyte powder space is full of um really good competition and each one of them is trying to kind of like serve the customer and like serve a purpose um that is different and unique and so the product that we've made we think is exceptional we've spent literally hundreds of hours uh in a lab um kind of working on the formula and working on the product kind of dialing it in uh and we know that we have a a five-star product uh we we know that through uh blind taste test we know that through hours and hours of work um but at the exact same time our products not going to be for everyone we're working to build a product for daily hydration uh because we know folks uh are just generally dehydrated uh people are not drinking enough water people are not putting enough vitamins and minerals um kind of in their body on a given day and so what we've tried to do is create a product that makes hydration just a little bit more fun enjoyable and easier for them um okay that's a there's a lot there uh when you talk about your new product sort of efforts um is this the Boston Consulting Group Square the like uh we have so we've taken the BCG Matrix and we've actually kind of like changed that a little bit simple mod yeah so we Brian talked about that on my podcast a long time ago and I I've always liked it but yeah so uh yeah okay so you sort of added your own twist on it even to that point it's interesting to hear as a chief growth officer at a company simple modern styles I think there's a lot of people who will probably listen to or watch this when they think of growth they will think of primarily of advertising tactics but you just talked a lot about product um and I'm just wondering if you can talk about that a little bit the that like is that how you guys think about growth at simple modern and now at Trevy like like sort of product-led growth or is that am I I mean or is it broader than that is that a little too narrow of a way of saying it it's a little bit too narrow I mean there were three kind of pillars that what I was doing within simple modern as the chief growth officer one of them was like helping um with the senior leadership team and others kind of create a product road map of new products new categories that we could be getting into and strategically looking externally in the market to see where we could grow um through core product lines that we were offering as well as adjacent product categories merchandising and making sure that we knew what we were selling when where and why um ornamentations configurations things like that and then our licensing uh portfolio in our external ownership so it's like those were the three pillars of work I was doing and so we called it growth most of the consumer space uh the growth like you said is advertising marketing and performance spend and that's not how we think about it at simple modern we've got that kind of core competency in another department but when we are expanding the role and when I took over that role about three and a half years ago um that's what we kind of tasked the growth role with so what you're telling me is you try to never deal with Chris oy if you can help it that's what I love Chris I sh my office is right next to Chris so no Chris is the best so but what I love Chris too but one of the things about marketing right is that like the best thing to Market is a great product uh the best and and so like it kind of goes hand inand right it's like no one wants to Market a product that's not any good and no want no one wants to build a product that No One's Gonna market and so it all works together but what we saw as growth is that like you know the durable good space and how we entered the drink wear category mainly through Amazon first as an Amazon first business and now growing into an omni Channel business it's like we made certain decisions over over time to win in the market and then as time expanded it's like okay there's only so much you can do so you have to bring new products to Market um and kind of like kind of grow that way because um yeah I mean when we entered that market um I joined it in 16 company was starting in 15 but um it's like very rarely do you see a category take over an entire aisle at Walmart and Target right it's like go to a Dick Sporting Goods go to an academy go to any retailer and a decade ago there was like maybe four you know linear feet in a retailer for stainless steel drink Weare and now it's aisles like multiple aisles it's in home categories it's in Sporting Goods it's everywhere and so very rarely do you you know take that same kind of approach but honestly uh the electrolyte hydration category is very similar to way the way drink wear was in 2015 2016 there were a couple National brands that had done an amazing job of like being the first mover in a lot of ways and then there are a lot of people entering the market and we'll see what happens with um the right hydration category but there are a lot of similarities to what we did about 10 years ago with simple modern yeah I I just wanted to put my finger on that product component because I think I think it's just like there just it's easy online and again the kind of people who are maybe going to watch or listen to this episode to think sort of tactics all the time when they think about growth and I I certainly talk about that stuff a lot I'm a huge fan I believe in it like I'm I'm I think there are real things but it just you know you've already talked a couple times about the existing market demand and how that shaped your guys' approach to Trevy and I've watched another brand recently that I'm working with you know really start to expand their volume fast grow really fast and it's just because of Tam it's just because and I mean that's way too simple it's not just because of Tam they've done all kinds of other stuff to to make that happen right um including hammered away at their margins and opened up 15 points of margin in their product which is a huge deal we've done a really good job on the advertising side like there's all of those things too but but in the end they are they are growing at the same sort of marketing efficiency numbers as a percentage as ratios they're growing those much faster than they were before and it's because there's a massive amount of demand in the category and they figured out how to tap into that using different tools and so when you're talking about product expansion ornamentations licensing and now all whole new category going into something like Trevy I mean when I saw this I I thought this makes sense like you know given your guys' awareness in the drink wear space it makes sense that why you split it off on a separate brand it makes sense why you want to tap into the Tailwinds that are happening in the category and that you already have these giant email lists that you can launch into and all that kind of stuff and and product list you can probably drop an insert for Trevy into every single simple modern water bottle like those people who by definition are drinking water theoretically um and so yeah and and so all of that stuff struck me as as a really smart play but it's just interesting I think people make a mistake very often of just not thinking about this really simple question which is like how do I just serve my customer better with product and then Val messaging the value that product what can I do next to offer them the things that they want to buy already and then also are there customers I'm not reaching that I could reach um that with complimentary products to what I'm already doing and so Trevy feels like this like really fascinating example of that to me because you did that you saw this opportunity that was so much in line with that with this and it is I think I think you're right it's a huge opportunity um for all the reasons you've said in fact so much that you're actually even willing to spin off a whole new brand um to the opportunity the best landing page and funnel building software in the world is fmat fmat is the Ferrari of landing page software it's really well beyond Just landing pages alone but if you are running ads in a way where you're um targeting really tight funnels like you have one product that applies to different kinds of customers in different ways think Beauty think skin care think uh think supplements any of those Cate ories where you're taking messages and doing lots of different problem Solutions lots of different angles there's no better way to extend the messaging of your advertising all the way through the funnel then with formont Vermont's incredible so um it starts with landing page software that's incredibly easy to use incredible user experience customer experience by far the fastest loading landing pages I've ever seen in my life far none no question and then from there you can actually extend your messaging into custom pdps that are easy easy easy to make including like custom built bundle without having to go build a bunch of different products in Shopify offer testing all those kinds of things um so that you can connect your PDP back to your ads so you can actually have custom pdps down to the level of ads this is the fundamental problem with pdps right is that they have to appeal to a very wide range of customers and it makes it harder to uh speak your message clearly uh and and uh and deliberately all the way through the funnel because they have to be generalized well you can build custom and you can even build custom cart upsells as well so that basically you end up up with an ad promoting one angle down to a landing page down to a custom PDP down to even cart with specific upsells off of that specific offers and test and analyze all of it right in Vermont it's just incredibly robust easy to use thoughtful at every solution really does allow you to do the thing they say you can do which is to um Pro create landing pages with like the speed and ease that you can currently create ads maybe not quite that fast not quite that scale but really close certainly better than any other software I've seen for it go take a look and see if it's right for you by going to formont commerce.com I use it with one of my clients right now has been extremely successful with them we're just going deeper with it all the time getting more value out of it all the time you're going to love it too verat commerce.com and focus right so it's not just like it's a new brand like some I've heard some people be like well this is a sub brand and it's like it's not it's its own brand and it's our own team it's like um I've you know I've got a colleague at simple modern that was on my growth team he joined me on this endeavor uh and we don't work on simple modern anymore we we have fully focused our attention on Trevy and that's for a few reasons why it's a big opportunity it's a large investment for our group uh and we want our Focus to be on the consumable space and I think that one of the things that people also need to know is that like durable goods and consumables are like radically different right it's like we have different vastly different uh economic structures we have to talk to customers in a drastically different way we have to think about subscription simp modern never thinks about subscription Trevy thinks about subscription every single day right and so it's like we can't have this be like a partial mind share of like 30 people within the simple modern organization and so it's like it has to be a way for us to really serve customers by making Trevy and the product and the brand as good and as strong as it can be and that requires um focus I read uh Johnny Ives book last year and it was actually a huge part of kind of my development in and uh there was this part in the book and and he said it in in interviews and Johnny Ives like the legendary designer for apple and worked closely with Steve Jobs yeah Steve would always ask him Johnny what what are you focusing on and Johnny would kind of list all the projects he's working on he's like okay what have you said no to recently and Johnny would think and he would kind of rattle off some um some projects He had said no to and Steve would just look at him and say Johnny you wanted to say no to those projects yeah focus is focus is saying no to things that you know in your bones is the right thing to do but you have to say no to it to like actually focus on the thing that uh you know is ultimately like number one in terms of like working on and that's how this decision was for me and this is what Trevy was for our company is that like I mean I know simple modern has just gone through like all the planning for the next 12 to 18 months there are some incredible things on that road map things that I get really excited about working on but I had to say no to that to focus on Trevy because ultimately we think that this is that big give an opportunity that we would take people working on simple modern stop working on it work on Trevy and build a brand and product lines um that deserve to be in the world honestly and that like we know the role we're trying to play for customers uh and we're going to uh work really hard to uh achieve that on a daily basis okay I I have a lot of questions about the way you guys handled product development the way you guys thought about that um but I'm actually going to see if we can get to the end because I want to talk a little bit of like um sort of launch strategy and and some of that so let's talk about the uh the sort of mechanics of this launch um what um let's start with like what do you think the primary channel for growth is going to be here at least first or if even the phrase primary channel is correct right I don't know if I'd say primary Channel um we're going to hopefully grow this as an omni Channel brand over time obviously you got to start somewhere digital is where we're starting um our D Toc website yeah D Toc drink try.com and on Amazon so it's like we've I that's what I figured I view e-commerce broadly um DC and Amazon together we're Amazon 3p um which is another difference than where simple modern is currently in the one piece space but like our launch strategy really is digital first um it's where we're best it's where we've cut our teeth and it's where our team has um just a lot of Competency and so what we're trying to do is enter the market do you do you think Amazon or DDC will be bigger right to start um I think Amazon will be bigger I think that like um one of the things you're going to try and tap into the existing demand for the category on Amazon yeah I mean honestly it's like that's one of the main ways that we like identify growth opportunities and growing Market opportunities is Trend research Trend analysis and keyword changes whether it's Google uh whether it's Amazon or a variety of other kind of like resources that we use and so digital uh is where we're going to cut our teeth we're going to definitely utilize um Amazon it's the it's the channel That We Believe can be the largest uh the fastest we also know that there is um a Channel with um our directed consumer business that is going to be able to provide a different experience and a lot of times I think I hear people in uh consumer just talk about Amazon and D Toc and the back and forth of all this it's like they're totally different channels that have different reasons for existing and we want to have a reason for each of those channels to succeed in our strategy so it's like our subscribe and save model is ultimately going to look a little bit different than Amazon is over the course of the next two to three months uh we've got a specific plan on delighting customers with our subscription model um indirect and consumer that Amazon just can't do but at the exact same time we're going to utilize a Amazon's you know daily customer um acquisition uh for that channel in and of itself and there are just people on Amazon every single day looking for uh hydration electrolytes and we're going to be there to serve them as well so okay uh so for both of those so on the Amazon side uh did you uh do anything with the pricing or uh product like a number of servings per bag any anything like that to to maximize the opportunity on Amazon because this is one of the things that has struck me as the most um I I didn't understand this until I talked with Brian one time a long time ago Brian Porter uh Chief e-commerce officer at simple modern um in one of the founders right like Brian I had him on my podcast a long time ago it's a great episode actually um just just for br on my podcast and in fact if you like this episode you should subscribe by the way I do lots of conversations like this all the time so don't forget to do that right now stop go do it go thank you um the uh the but if you go um I I always remember Brian saying this really was eye opening for me actually about how you guys um launched simple modern on Amazon which was that there was an attentiveness to price of the product to um actually at that time taking meaningfully less margin gross margin on water bottles than other PE than other brands were taking right so that you could price lower and also having more ornamentations being built for uh in color choices basically um being built for Amazon because it was it was product-based and price-based competitive advantages in the Amazon Marketplace so that you could capture large portions of a huge am of search that was happening which was like for you know water bottles or stainless steel water bottles or whatever it was or you know insulated water bottles so um so I I'm not an Amazon guy first and foremost and that struck me as really smart and um and I'm curious how you thought about that because this is a category that is growing exists has some major players and I assume has some amount of categorical search volume you know around terms like hydration pack or hydration powder or something like that you know so um how did you think about sort of packaging uh pricing and all those kinds of things to to maximize Amazon and then after that I want to move over to DDC and talk about that as well yeah so honestly the product that we built is specifically built for Amazon I me yeah like honestly like well when we talk about D package this one yeah yeah that right there it's a 20 that what you're holding is a variety pack it's a 28c count variety pack so you get seven products seven individual sticks of four different flavors uh we built that configuration of a product they delous by the way yeah they're very tasty uh super sweet zero sugar I think that that's the thing right is that like we built a product that we want to have and that's like first and foremost what we're always trying to do is that like um there there is no there's always a shortage of great operators and great producers of things right it's like the world is always going to be willing to accept another great um invention right and it's like this is not novel right this is not the first one of this these products but what we think we've done is we've done it really well and we may not be first but we think that we're going to be best um but honestly the configuration of that product is 100% tied uh to what we want to do from a channel perspective specifically with Amazon 28 sticks four weeks in a month seven days in a week on average I know it's 31 2830 but like so subscription so take One A Day y take one a day so that product is specifically built for uh if you want to stay hydrated if you want to take a stick and throw it in your purse throw it in your gym bag throw it in your work bag uh throw one stick in your bag and then you know put in your uh simple modern water bottle is the the best way we think it should be served um but at the exact same time it's like one stick a day um helps you stay a little bit more hydrated throughout the day and it helps with subscribe and save um and that you would just be getting your product on a monthly basis and so we built this product to be a dollar a stick these products are wildly expensive if you look at it from a um price per ser serving or price per stick um metric and so what we wanted to do was make it price point approachable um and so a dollar a STI how does that dollar a sick compared to let's call it let's say element or to I mean I don't know I mean yeah I mean I would just say this or to noon yeah like the average price per unit for other products competitors are somewhere between a135 and $1.75 a stick okay great yeah and so it's like we are in a incredible savings full price alone let alone subscribe and save and let alone other discount that will'll do um in strategic points throughout the year so um for that channel specifically we're at a dollar a stick and you are we're giving you a product you're you're purchasing a product that you can use once a day uh we also have a variety of frequencies at which you can sub subscribe so if you want to have two sticks a day or maybe you have more um people in your family that want to be drinking it at least once a day you can change um how often you're receiving the subscription or you can just buy more uh and have it delivered so we built product specifically in this current configuration on the pricing per stick and the volume at which you're receiving it we have a couple other different configurations and we're going to produce a few different kind of uh product packs uh that will roll out in March April May and June uh that are different quantities for different channels and for different use cases and reasons so um when you go into physical retail you're going to see uh folks in S 8 and N9 counts uh we're not in physical retail yet but we've already kind of mapped out what physical retail is going to look like and it's going to be um most likely eight sticks and it's because when you walk down an aisle you are purchasing for the week most of the time and so people are purchasing uh on weekly cadences when they go into physical retail and so we're going to offer them a reason to walk down our aisle on a weekly basis yeah yeah um okay so yeah that that's that's makes a lot of sense that you would think about that is so is the D Toc product different D Toc products the same as Amazon but Amazon and d2c have very similar um offerings with that in addition to a 28 count we have a 10 count uh which is a smaller um yeah pack in general but that's a single flavor offering it's not a variety pack and that's just if someone we're kind of incentivizing people to try it so one of the main differences between a durable goods company and a consumable company uh is that when you look at a listing whether it's on a d Toc site or on Amazon for a durable good you literally see what you're getting right it's like size is a little bit different and some of the actual features may be hard to kind of know digitally but you see what you're getting and the dimensions are there with a consumable company and a consumable product you have no idea what it tastes like right it's like you we you have a product and you did not know what the product was going to be like until you tried it like you literally have no idea the package looks good but anyone can make packaging look good right it's like the actual product itself you have to taste it so we have a 10c count product that is kind of incentivizing people to try it and then we have a try before you buy kind of um offer for customers as well because we think trying the product is so critical for the success of the product long term basically all of my clients use Billy to track the purchase behavior and all event behavior on their websites uh for their Facebook ads basically Billy is their pixel solution for Facebook instead of the Native Shopify integration they're using Billy because Billy has the best tracking in the game it's also the fastest and easiest to install tracking that you've seen the way I know this is that I've run Billy head-to-head against other tracking third-party tracking Solutions I've run Billy head-to-head against shopify's native Facebook ads integration and Billy has defeated it every time that I've run it uh and that has also included having better event match quality scores in event manager and so does that it's actually well beyond that Billy also has cross Channel attribution if you want to use that it also has um uh basically a One-Stop shop replacement for Google tag manager so you can track all of your ads across all of your uh different ad Channels with like the Click of a button and Billy it's incredibly fast easy to use includes Google enhanced conversion tracking all those things if you want a robust uh solution to get meta ads and all your other AD channels the best data possible from your store back to the dashboard back to machine machine learning all those things that you get the best performance possible by getting the most data possible back to those uh advertising platforms you should use Billy go to b.i billy. a the links in the show notes to get started with Billy today yeah so um I'll I'll just pull that up really fast because then that way people can see you can go to drink try.com to check it out of course buy ourself from Trevy while you're at it um and uh we let's see what your customer acquisition cost is on your time on this episode and see how many people we come from maybe we can create an AJF an Andrew Ferris podcast uh you know I love it or something you could track it we'll uh feris 25 is what we'll do okay all right all right there we go f RIS s like FIS with an f um all right so um so if you go uh try before your buy buy here um this is this is interesting so you got the free sixpack plus $1 doll shipping I mean that is you're literally giving it away basically um just getting that $1 um and I think this is interesting I've kind of wondered about this for a while because the classic classic playbook for food and Bev is to um sample sample products in different places and for all the reasons you said um especially in in a in a product like this where you know you could do one stick works as a sample really well um and if you just sort of think about that as CAC whatever your margin is on that plus that c of Distributing it to people um you know it's really good but that's still a bold move to do like a uh basically free plus shipping offer on that um you know I don't know how much you guys have like launched ads and and kind of really started to push on it um but have you have do you have any early results on how that's going yes we have some early results we haven't been pushing a lot of ads um at this point in time actually but in terms of like how we're getting the word out um through a combination of a diff a few different activities we're doing uh customer acquisition cost is a little bit higher than we want but it's improving kind of day over day uh we're changing the try before you buy offering we've changed it twice now and we'll probably change it another two times but I'll say this is that like we have seen um like kind of cost you know customer acquisition costs between um from other folks in the industry be50 to $120 and you know it's up there uh but the lifetime value of these customers is really strong because at the end of the day you're changing a behavior right it's like when you're buying a durable good the lifetime value of that customer and of that good if it's any good is years but for our product you may buy two to four of them in a three-month Horizon depending much you like it you may buy it six or seven times a year and so it's like we have to think about customer acquisition cost a little bit differently than what we have had to do in the past and so sampling is like man I'll give you um a couple dollars worth of product all day um if I can convert you so and a sample pack like that what was it a three- pack or a six-pack we said uh that was a six-pack we're giving you actually kind of like two of each uh flavor yeah okay yeah because if you've got that like it seems to me that like you um yeah I mean it allows somebody to to taste it but like I I think it's got to be really cheap to ship that too right because it's just such small little packs right so it's like you you can actually accomplish that for pretty cheap overall right and so it's like we actually are building the product for that the reason that we built the product that way is so that we can put it in a US mail yep yeah theal yeah when you put it in US mail as opposed to you know other shipping cost structures it's wildly uh affordable and price point approachable from a customer acquisition perspective and so what we're always trying to do is find a way to maximize the value that we're giving customers right it's like a dollar a stick um is wildly accessible relative to the rest of the market and then our try before you buy it's like we have a little bit of a barrier of one single dollar because we kind of saw you have to log in it's like we can't we're not just giving it away we're not going to have any hackers just kind of come in and Blitz it because it's like because you have to log in then you have some parameters of like only one purchase per customer so yes you can go through the effort of setting up um a lot of emails or Bots like you can do that I get I guess but it's like you're really not g to get that much it's a lot of work in the value is just not there for how fast you have to use how fast you want to use this product if you're going to use it a couple times a day or a couple times a week and so we have some barriers to entry but it's there's not really that much friction at all and the value is just incredible and the reason that we're giving you two sticks um or two two sticks per flavor and giving you six total sticks is that we want you to be able to kind of like make it how you want it and so it's like some people are like well I don't know how this is going to taste some of these are really salty some of them have no taste some of them are really diluted some of them are really sweet it's like on the on the kind of Arc of things we are sweet not salty but we have all of the electrolytes minerals and uh sodium that you want for the actual hydration part of it but we made a sweet product uh and then we allow you to dilute it so if you put this in 16 ounces of water it's going to be pretty sweet it's a strong flavor strong it's drastically it's a drastically stronger flavor than noon is I think um and it's and it's different flavor profile but closer I think to in terms of the strength of the flavor like how flavorful it is it to element and my that was my take on it it's and from a flavor perspective it's very similar to to um sports drinks with zero sugar okay so I want to talk about this so um so I was thinking about this like so I'm like a crossfit guy and sort of wear whoop like I'm like a little bit of a health Optimizer I'm not as crazy as some people are about this sort of thing like here's the here's the line of demarcation I've never taken a nice bath all right so that's like that's where like M thing stops okay um and so I I was thinking about your guys's positioning a little bit this is a little bit of detour but I think it's interesting question um do you do do you see your competitor in the space as like essentially do you want to be comped to Gatorade or do you want to be comped to element and noon you know like maybe both I don't know but like it it struck me exactly what you just said the flavors tastes more like traditional sports drinks Gatorade power whatever um as opposed to the flavors of like element and noon which are like noon is much milder like I said as a flavor like it's just it's just a less less strong flavor and then and then element has like got a lot of weird flavors like you know you get like chili mango and stuff like that you know it's like um and and also just like it it's so salty compared to other ones and you can really taste the sort of like chemical sweeteners and some of those kinds of things so um but your the flavor profile you guys have I mean I've got it here you know you've got Berry lemonade orange raspberry lemon lime those are like those are much more in the like Gatorade category so I mean I don't know are how are you think about that yeah so within the broader kind of perspective of this it's like there's hydration and there are a variety of different flavor kind of profiles that we want to go after and then when you get into the subcategory of electrolytes you have people that are taking this for Recovery either recovery for um working out and sweating a lot or recovery for maybe having drinking and too much to drink and so like there's a real medicinal use and then there's a real like kind of sport nutrition use and then if you kind of take it even a step kind of broader you start to look at um actually just like daily hydration and like having something that you just helps you drink more water and so this formula that's live right now which is just the only product you can buy from Trevy at this point in time is just a daily hydrator and so what we're trying to do is kind of have a we want to flavor your day and we don't necessarily want to help you recover from we want you to recover but it's like we don't have all of the ingredients to the level at which you would need them for your sport recovery we're actually going to come out with a sport formula um before the summertime we actually just finished product development on that right now in this past week and we're very happy with the flavor and very happy with the formula that we've come up with um we think it's going to do really well but we're actually going to have two different formulas to attack um two different sides of the market so the product that we have now is kind of everyday flavoring we want it to be sweet we want it to be a product that people want to consume multiple times a day um and so that's kind of the angle that we're taking it's actually a much healthier sports drink and because it's got zero sugar it's got a lot of great ingredients it's got premium ingredients um and so what we're trying to do on this is to make a really healthy um hydrator that encourage you to encourages you to drink a lot more water throughout the day yeah I think that that's that's really yeah that that's I mean it just seems seems to me that like the Gatorade crowd um is the larger audience you know for sure I you know but there's got like that's the thing right is like we saw the market growing within electrolyte powders but we all know that electrolyte powders is a subcategory of flavor in food and beverage and so when you're like okay where do you position this it's like well there's I drink coffee I drink water I drink a sports drink I drink you know kind of go down the list of all the different things people consume it's like electrolyte powders are so new in the market relative to everything else and so it's like not only are we trying to educate folks on what an electrolyte powder is we're trying to help convert them to Trevy it's like what we want to do is you know you've talked about some other brands they're kind of a range of flavor profiles a good number of them are diluted in terms of like taste and flavor and so there's no way for you to like increase the flavor profile right and so you know it's kind of like you think about it like right now it's snowing in Oklahoma it's like if I want to stay warm I'm going to just put on more layers right but it's like I can always put on more layers and if it's hot in the summer time you can always take off layers but it's like with flavor if I only give you a certain kind of flavor profile you can only dilute it right it's like if you want to put it in eight ounces of water that's as strong as it can be but if you want to put it in 30 ounces or 40 ounces of water it's going to be a lot more diluted um unless you just put a lot more powder in multiple sticks of powder in drink yeah right yeah speaking of which I can't dress appropriately I don't know if I got my Oak oklah my Oklahoma Dodgers tripa Dodgers hat today was going between that and the Big Friendly Brewing Company great both great hats both both great hat both great spots I agree um although I was feeling a little silly that I had my blunder bottle water bottle on this call I'm sorry was to say do you know do you know why I have this it's actually because I dropped my simple modern blender bottle which I use all the time and the top broke off which was my fault completely so I gotta get a new one um we should get now I feel foolish for having it yeah yeah I can I'll buy one it's all right there simple modern pricing is is approachable for me so I love it um yeah um all right so um so uh uh oh let's talk about uh margin I'm really curious about the margin profile on the product and sort of anything you can say about um landed margin uh you know I know like again simp modern guys have been really um upfront about being very low margin like sub 50% on the bottle or something like that landed to the customer even lower than that and uh and and having worked on the ad account there with simple modern like I remember sort of watching what that meant for what you had to do to acquire products without acquire customers without losing money um you know you're talking about trev's LTV which is clearly where the real money is here um and and subscription focused clearly where the real money is here I am curious to see how that plays out for you guys because it is a different muscle than the simple modern muscle and I think you guys will be fine developing it and I'm sure you guys have looked into it and brought smart people on all that stuff but um it'll be it'll be fun to watch that happen um but the um but yeah talk about the margin profile of the product if you can yeah so if you and if you and if you targeted it like uh if you if there was a Target profile and and how you thought about that you know there wasn't like a specific hay if it doesn't hit this profile we're not going to do it um we actually care more about the product that we're making than like the bottom line dollar to start something like this um it is definitely different than simple modern it has to be different um for this to work the way like it's like it's um there are larger margins than what simple modern has but the pricing structure changes that right so it's like you change that margin structure by what you're charging your customers and I've already kind of explained that um we're going to be price point approachable to customers and being at a dollar a stick um which is significant relative to the rest of the market we are going to have a smaller kind of margin profile to ourself most likely than how other people think about it and the other thing is we're putting really good ingredients in the product like we're not using table salt we're using pink Hima and sea salt like we're using quality products uh and ingredients in the product and so that kind of kind of shrinks that profile a little bit more but what we think is that great product uh is going to help us win right where it's like it's going to be impossible to Market a product that nobody wants and so we're going to make the best product we can and serve our customers that way and so the the margin profile um is expanded relative to simple modern but I don't think that that's actually like the fair comp really because it's so wildly different I would say that it's going to be um it's going to allow us to do the things we need to do to win in subscription and to win digitally and to went in store um over time um but like at the end of the day the margin structure it's obviously really important um but it's not you know it's not like what you would probably expect other companies to be at right it's like we we have the same motto right like um with with regards to how we're thinking about pricing it's like just because you're in a new category that has a little bit of a different pricing structure it's like customers don't care what your margins are right they care about the product and what they pay and it's our responsibility to make sure that it's profitable for us and so we've got a great manufacturer that we're working with um the product's made in America so we don't have to ship it across the world and tariffs aren't going to you know impact that product directly that way and so it's like there are a lot of advantages right it's like when I worked at simple modern and we had to set up a a shipment to come from overseas you'd see that product in 45 to 60 days and when we set up a shipment now it takes about 18 you know hours potentially depending on how fast uh we get things turned around it's like it's quick uh and so like that all that it goes into the margin structure but um I would definitely say that what we're trying to do here uh it allows us to be a little bit uh more aggressive and what we're going to be able to spend digitally um from an ad perspective and to acquire a customer like I said you know it may take $65 to $100 $125 to acquire a customer um and that's a lot different than a durable goods company that that we've been working on in the past so um the economics are different um but I think more than anything is that like what we're trying to do and how we're trying to serve the customer is actually pretty similar are you just delighted by that having so few skews to manage in this business after being a civil oh man so the funny thing is is that like I was probably the chief Center of skew expansion so um I don't know like I everyone would be like oh that's funny because Corbin was the guy that always added SKS did take away a lot of SKS but I was also very willing to try new things so managing this catalog is a lot easier right it's a it's a heck of a lot easier yeah um okay so um uh I want to talk a little also ask you about the the integration with simple modern's uh owned assets basically uh orders customers email lists SMS lists all those things and um you know I imagine you guys had some kind of vision for how to launch Trevy using those lists I also imagine that however you did it actually played out in some way different than expectations better worse I have no idea um so I'm just curious to talk here you talk about how you how you leverage simple moderns reach to launch Travy and I'm also curious if that is going to help you open up any retail doors at some point so that's kind of a second question but yeah yeah for sure I can I can address both of those I think that when we launch some when we launch Trevy and we kind of utilize simple modern is that one of the things we things we did is we constantly kind of told our customer what we were about to do uh teasing it out there and then introducing the new brand and Company uh to simple moderns customers and we are going to continue to kind of do that over time through emails through social posts through shared post through giveaways I mean there are lots of ways for us to really engage simple modern customers and introduce them to treby and simple modern customers have trusted uh simple modern with their kind of portable beverage wear needs water bottles tumblers coffee mugs and so it's like you are you know a qualified purchas at some level but you may not actually be a the qualified customer that we're going after that really wants an electrolyte powder yes everyone's drinking uh some sort of Beverage but not everyone is drinking an electrolyte powder which is another reason why we went with a different brand it allows us to actually do different activities and different things to go acquire new customers long term we think that Trevy can introduce a lot of folks to simple modern just as much as simple modern can introduce folks to Trevy so I mean simple modern has tens of millions of bottles that get uh sold to customers on an annual basis and so we're going to have some ways to talk to customers about um what we're doing at Trevy and we're going to find some ways to really leverage those um those email list and digital assets like you've talked about uh but more than anything on that it's introducing folks to it to Trevy and then trying to give them as many opportunities and on ramps as possible uh to have the product so did you are you are you including an insert in the bottles that simple modern cells are you including a sample pack in there anything like that yeah so we definitely uh we have some inserts that'll be going in bottles um we have uh kind of cross promotion products that go into directed consumer uh orders right now and then we will also have uh inserts and and all the water bottles and tlers going for have you thought about just dropping a stick into the bottle we have we've had lots of conversations about that what's the answer uh we'll see what happens over time I mean a consumable uh has a shelf life that a durable just doesn't have and so depending on what the offering is uh and what retailer we're in or what distribution Channel we're talking about that may or may not be on the table um simple modern customers have been receiving uh free uh samples and inserts um through a direct to Consumer channel uh and we've seen nice customer acquisition through it so okay so you have actually already included free samples straight to D Toc customers because that feels like the the one of those places where D Toc is sort of unparalleled and it's and and you can just test it at whatever scale you want without having to like rejigger a whole bunch of different things you know it's just like you can split test it you could send out you know A month's worth of orders half of them get this half of them get that like there's just stuff that you can do with DC there we have so much control over everything in a way that you just don't at Mass retail or Amazon or or whatever you know so um so yeah I'm I'm so you've actually dropped some some sample packs into simple modern orders yes if you purchased on simple modern from Black Friday um through the start of the year you've actually received uh a Trevy sample pack and so you got got it so that try before you buy is a six count we actually just took half of that and gave it to customers and so you got one of each of the top three flavors have you done the math on what the GAC was doing that um we're it's still rolling in right so it's like it's an interesting Dynamic January 9th when we're recording so yeah so it's interesting because you've got a window of time that is primarily gifting season and so uh you actually see people kind of rolling in at different levels so it's like if you purchased on Black Friday you probably received that product since it was a late kind of holiday season and kind of a condensed uh shopping period from Black Friday you probably were opening that actual directed consumer fulfilled product somewhere between December 2nd and December 5th if you were like me in my house you opened it on dece excuse me December 12th or December 13th because you just let boxes kind of stockpile and pile up and so we actually see these like really interesting like customer acquisition curves from the uh sample inserts um and there are different little spikes throughout the time and so um it's been an effective way to get customers we know that there are ways out there for it to be more efficient and more effective long term uh but we think that there is something just very valuable about letting the customer try the product okay uh well talk about the retail thing so are you is there any sort of extra inroad in just just by nature of even having the relationships I'm just assuming that there's at least an easier starting point at least I mean a retailer is not going to take on a new product just because you're Pals you know but like is there um is there how have you guys thought about that well I definitely think that there is I mean um some overlap with this right where it's like simple modern has grown into a great Omni Channel brand and that's because of the relationships and the selling uh Partnerships that we have with mass retail Wholesale Club grocery mid- tier I mean just kind of the categories of of channels we sell into um as extensive and so we definitely believe that there's going to be an opportunity to kind of help um get those conversations started I mean more than anything what we are trying to do is earn that right to sell right because it's like selling into physical retail kind of requires two transactions the first transaction is with the actual buyer the actual buyer has to see the value in your comp in your product and in your brand and then the second is actually the customer purchase seen that from the buyer and from the retailer itself and so it's like we want to earn that right and the best way to earn the first one is actually to earn the second one by selling well on digital yeah so it's like honestly like the the introductions are great uh we're going to have some amazing offerings to provide physical retail customers uh but we we earn that first purchase by delivering the second purchase really well uh digitally and so what we're trying to do is to have that digital story um with what we're doing and I'll just be honest like the first 45ish days or so I think we're on incredible kind of growth trajectory to tell that story to to retailers can you talk about that a little bit like uh just sort of where you guys are at any any any framework for sort of how it's gone so far relative to expectations I think that in some ways it's better and in some ways it's worse right it's like customer acquisition cost is kind of like all over the place some days you're like wow this is incredible and in other days you're like maybe this is not as good as we thought and maybe it's drastically worse than we thought uh but like you know because it's kind of this scatter plot of data points over the first 45 days I just say this we're really happy with what it is uh we think that the product is receiving we know the product's receiving incredible reviews um and that's the most important thing is that the product is getting out there and people love it and they give us positive reviews I think on the website right now we're at like somewhere between 65 and 100 reviews and it's like at a 485 49 um we got five star reviews on Amazon and so it's it's coming through just the way we want and then so what we're trying to do is continue to grow this story um we launched this product in the company on Black Friday um and so we are actually selling into the deadest period um for electroly yeah in your category that's yeah that's bad I mean it's the winter physically it's the winter and it's the winter for this product as well I mean this product most competitive times you're running any ads or anything like that yeah yeah so it's incredibly expensive to run ads it's incredibly noisy right we had a very noisy year for a lot of different reasons um digitally through ad ad spend and just kind of the news cycle in general and so it's like at the end of the year it's noisy it's gifting people are thinking about um their purchases one way we have a product that is really kind of uh seasonally peaking between May and August and so what we're trying to do is just get in a really solid position for that that time period by building out the product lines building out the flavor and then building out the offerings it's awesome um Corbin where should people follow the journey where should people follow up with you uh what's the best place for people to kind of see what's going on yeah so we would love for you to come to drink try.com uh to try the product U that we have uh for Trey hydration you can also find us on Amazon uh we're launching Tik Tok shop uh I think we're going to actually turn it on tomorrow uh so those are three retailers that you can start with right now and then you can also follow along on the journey digitally with us um you can go to Trevy hydration Trevy hydration on Instagram and then uh the same for um X as well yeah cool and then if they want to follow you you are at Corbin Wallace on X um and uh reasonably active there you get not only some Trevy and work updates and some inspiration there but some good Oklahoma City Thunder updates along the way too so you can see what's going on yeah if you follow me you're going to get a variety of posts uh and there's going to be some Thunder uh and OU football sprinkled in there along the way well that's it's part of the it's part of the brand of the S modern crew that you guys are the Oklahoma people so you know yeah we are I mean it's like it's a great place uh we're fantastic at basketball right now uh lost one last night for the first time in like 15 games which kind of stung but hey you know what Shay Jay dub ready for Chad to come back yeah all right man thanks for your time appreciate it yeah thank you I hope you like that episode if you did you should subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to this because I make all kinds of episodes just like that all the time a mix of solo episodes and interviews with really smart folks like Corbin appreciate so much the generosity of the information that Corbin and the simple modern team in general and now the Trevy team have uh done where they're really sharing all kinds of details about what's going on in their business with a lot of transparency um of course you should follow up with my sponsors in this episode that is fromont go to fromont commerce.com AF and go to billy. a b y. a um to go follow up with them and of course the links for those are in the show notes and you should also um follow up with me any ways that you would like to do that by going to AJF growth.com to see everything I'm doing you can also follow me on x.com andrewj Ferris uh and email me podcast a.com I'd love any of your thoughts any of your questions I'm always interested in doing mailbag type episodes so um podcast agf growth.com and I would love to hear from you thanks so much I'll see you next time [Music]