#387: How To BE A MAN ( ... with good skin) w/ Jake Rosenberg of Krete.club
Sweat Equity is chewing the cud with Krete's CEO Jake Rosenberg on the journey of a serial entrepreneur, why a specific 41% off Black Friday sale?, scaling a product business, going to an Ivy League like Penn with knuckleheads all around a city like Philadelphia, challenges and opportunities in the men’s beauty industry, skincare product development, building supply chains, eCommerce digital marketing, and bering a tinkerer while having a minimalistic approach.
Krete, men's 30 second skin serum, 🔗s:
https://www.instagram.com/krete.club/
https://www.instagram.com/jake_from_krete
About Jake Rosenberg
I would like to introduce you to the “Men’s 30-Second Skin Guy” and entrepreneur; Jake Rosenberg. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in economics and math, Jake has been a successful serial entrepreneur with ventures spanning software, investments, and fashion. Jake suffered a ski accident in 2017, leaving him with a scar on his face. At the time, he felt that there wasn’t a solution for him because the products found were either impractical, marketed to women, or didn’t address his needs.
From there, he learned every aspect of an e-commerce skincare business, product development, supply-chain management, and digital marketing to build a brand with performance at the core and with a simplistic design that would appeal to the modern man. Driven by the principle that everything they make should take less than 30 seconds to use, Krete quickly became profitable with only its flagship Hydrating Facial Serum. It now continues to innovate for its community, launching new products and integrating novel technologies into its male customer experience.
---
Episode sponsored by SQUARESPACE create a customizable website or online store with an all-in-one solution from Squarespace. Choose a website template and start your free trial today. https://squarespacecircleus.pxf.io/sweatequity
---
Sweat Equity 🔗s
Hosts’ Eric Readinger & Law Smith 🔗s
---
Wanna help Sweat Equity without spending a dime? Sure, we’re the #1 business comedy & comedy business podcast on earth, but we can always practice Kaizen, aka continuous improvement. Please? We’ll be your BFF! Hook us up by
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ REVIEW
WRITE a quick hitter sentence in the review
Smash SUBSCRIBE
SHARE with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, family members you love and the fam you don’t like talking to
#comedy #business #girthyroi #sweatequity💦 #69b2b #entrepreneur
Jake Rosenberg on Sweat Equity! The #1 Business/Comedy podcast on 🌎
Tue, Nov 22, 2022 . 5:15 PM42:39Owner: Law Smith
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, product, nice, ideas, call, skincare, friends, talking, serum, pretty, ads, business, linkedin, crete, big, brand, skin, manufacturing, fun, formulated
SPEAKERS
Speaker 2 (56%), Law (38%), Eric (4%), Speaker 1 (1%)
Law Smith
0:00
It's Tuesday before Thanksgiving season
0:07
nine
Law Smith
0:10
so look at that. That's how he said he wanted to make it like Elvis is comeback special role to the lady that was dying in the front row. What whether she at the first show put around on a stretcher and stuff. Hey Jake All right. Yeah. Can you hear us again? All right, we're rolling. We just we go live on tape man. Oh man. Why don't you because I don't want to fumble through people's you know. Call to action links or via What did you tell us? About yourself real quick, 30/32 elevator pitch and then where people can find the product?
2
Speaker 2
0:58
Sure. That's perfect. So I'm Jake I started Crete. It's 32nd skincare for guys. So it's a nice little 32nd intro. I started because I had a ski accident back in 2017. It forced me into understanding skincare. I was normal guy use bars of soap and things like that. And now I know the best products for guys to use takes 30 seconds or less to learn about them and use them and we sell online at Crete KR e t.cl UB Creek dot club.
Law Smith
1:25
I want to ask about the ski accident. Yeah. But we've reversed our order asking every guest the first time on the show this question.
Eric Readinger
1:37
First of all, how old were you when you had the accident?
1:39
27 Well, okay. 26 Yeah,
Law Smith
1:43
I want to get your origin story, right. That's why we're putting this up at the top of the interview instead of the end. What advice would you give your 13 year old self?
2
Speaker 2
1:54
I'm the same I got from my parents that when you do something and you build it yourself or you earn it yourself it's 1000 times sweeter and better and means more to you than if it's given you
Law Smith
2:03
100% correct on that. What's the what's the value of free? It's zero,
2
Speaker 2
2:11
right? Yeah. I'll take some free stuff here and there as long as I'm working hard, you know, but if you wanted to
Law Smith
2:17
go Pacino on that just really zero. And so all right, so it sounds like you grew up in a pretty good household for your parents.
2
Speaker 2
2:29
Discipline. Yeah, they were they raised me well, and they always you know, whether it was grades or other things, you know, they put pressure but not too much. And I could get I could do poorly on a test if I if I did, but as long as I studied and tried and I'm doing well in school, so it wasn't really a worry for them. But yeah, I mean, it felt good to get good grades. It felt good to make more money in a business. It's not you know,
Law Smith
2:52
so we're not it Yeah, Asian Americans strict level of getting all A's What are your
2
Speaker 2
3:00
you wish American level so it was pretty good. Pretty close. That's
Law Smith
3:05
more psychological. Yeah. Yeah. Long game sounds blunt. Yeah. Yeah. There's
2
Speaker 2
3:11
a lot of extracurriculars as piano lessons and singing and martial arts and chess and and all those things. Yeah. Now
Law Smith
3:17
we like to say on the show, we love our genetics. We'd love to the Jews. I don't know what Kanye is talking about. I don't know why people hate on Jewish people throughout history. I don't get it. But all my Jewish friends I love going to their houses, the dinners, I'd have a lot of conversation.
2
Speaker 2
3:36
Jewish food to be honest, I think that's the one thing we need to improve. That's why we Jews in New York because I'm from New York originally. We just ate Italian food. Like they did that better. We'll we'll go with theirs.
Law Smith
3:48
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like filter fish can only get you so far. And you know, it doesn't sound like you're orthodox.
2
Speaker 2
3:58
I'm reformed at a bar mitzvah, but you know, not not very religious.
Law Smith
4:02
So you're like the Catholic version of Jewish like most of my Catholic friends. I'm a Catholic.
2
Speaker 2
4:08
I've known in my life has been on the more religious side to be honest.
Law Smith
4:11
There's about it. I put that spread just like there's some devout Jews. I have friends I have, you know, they go they go every Friday night. I have those Catholic friends but for the most part of both. Most are like yeah. okay with it, and then don't do much
2
Speaker 2
4:30
cultural elements, all these things too. And there's community elements. So you don't necessarily have to believe in all the actual tenets of the religion to kind of be a part of the community.
Eric Readinger
4:38
Yeah, you're always going to sit in a quiet place and listen to a guy tell me stuff. Definitely, I think
2
Speaker 2
4:47
those guys for me are like Peter Thiel and podcasts and whoever you know, my business I have my business people, my business priests. I listen to more than anything else, you know, everything to check. No. I don't know. He's like he's pretty good at sounding very busy.
Law Smith
5:07
Right? Well, yeah, he makes he makes money off of the hustle culture. That he kind of makes fun of a lot. Yeah, yeah. Right music by the way. Great interview on the Tim Dylan podcast. Gary Vee. Gary Vee is actually got a pretty good sense of humor. About
2
Speaker 2
5:24
Yeah, he does. I mean, that's why you know, I don't hate him. It's just like, I don't get inspired from that. I want to know like the guy in the back room, building the things and talk to that guy, not the front facing guy who's going to tell you about the culture and spirits or whatever it is, you know, you know, to build the thing, not energy. And constant hustle and make it an NFT
Law Smith
5:44
I love the wrestler aspect to it. I love the showmanship. I don't want to do it. Personally.
Eric Readinger
5:50
I know we need to just start
5:51
you guys watching wrestling growing up. Yeah.
Law Smith
5:54
Yeah, example man. So all all the wrestlers have houses down here so we're kind of all around it at all times.
2
Speaker 2
6:04
I used to watch a lot I was a WCW guy Bill Goldberg and diamond DataStage my
Law Smith
6:09
for my people. You're a tad bit younger than us. I believe we're
Eric Readinger
6:13
or is it your skin but
6:17
I'm 32 so 32 minutes.
Law Smith
6:19
You look at your 21 Yeah, I'll
2
Speaker 2
6:22
take it man. It must be I mean, I grew up you're not that Bob Snickers someone's Snuka I had that my dad was big wrestling guy and I remember
Law Smith
6:31
I just found out my parents secretly watching wrestling every week. To this day. They never told me for 30 Are you joking around right? I swear to god they watched like Monday Night Raw or Smackdown and never told me never throughout my childhood, nary a wrestling on and my parents are like I was trapped. And my cousin's wedding. You shouldn't go wrestlers. And I was in a car and they're like, oh, yeah, we watch this. Every week. I was like,
Eric Readinger
6:58
I got the outfits down. Right? Yeah, well, so those are down. We're good.
Law Smith
7:03
We just tried to put a little juice on it for you. We felt we needed to be classier than our normal tank tops.
Eric Readinger
7:09
So you had to add on I was like you can't be mean. So I write to Justin's class,
2
Speaker 2
7:15
isn't it? This is the nicest white t shirt I have. I did it for you guys.
Law Smith
7:19
That's cool. So you went to Paris. You went to Penn your smart dating Oh, I got a bunch of friends that went there. All very everybody. I've met from Penn I can't say enough good things very smart meetings. But real like realistic IV kind of people Ivy League,
2
Speaker 2
7:38
all the social Ivy because it wasn't you know, people would work hard but we also go out hard you know Philly was an easy city was cheap and fake IDs work not that you should do that. But they worked time at least you know. And so you could just actually have a good time. You can go out and be social. If you're like Cornell, you're up in the middle of nowhere. Here at Harvard. It's a little too devoid of social, whatever. Not completely. You can have fun at those places. But Philly was just a lot more fun of the school. There are a lot more like normal people and other colleges around that we could have fun that so he ended up coming out of there studying hard, but also having had fun.
Law Smith
8:14
knuckleheads like Harvard is in Boston around a bunch of knuckleheads there you got, you want to go to Wawa get water. You know
2
Speaker 2
8:23
there's a blah blah like a block from me for a couple of years and filling in the Boston accent.
Law Smith
8:28
No, that's the Philly accent. That's a Philly Jersey border. Oh,
2
Speaker 2
8:32
my whole family returned to Boston. What he was trying to do Boston but then he said Wawa which is Philly jersey. Yeah,
Eric Readinger
8:39
but I was confused usually pack the cat and I was like, Are you trying to do that? No, I was just saying why and then not understanding
Law Smith
8:47
their to do I love schools like University of Chicago is right in the heart of Chicago like these really big academic tentpole schools that are in the middle of a bunch of knuckleheads. Yeah. You know,
2
Speaker 2
9:00
that school you know, they're their unofficial catchphrases where fun goes to die. So
Law Smith
9:06
what university should you go? Yeah, how dare you David booth, the Bruce school business. My dad actually went
2
Speaker 2
9:13
my dad got his MBA from from from University of Chicago.
Law Smith
9:16
So I'm gonna call booth up the namesake apparently it's
2
Speaker 2
9:20
not a fun school undergrad. I don't know. Your dad probably didn't crazy shit. He
Eric Readinger
9:25
doesn't want to tell you about
9:29
me guy ladies, but I don't Oh, I don't think he
Eric Readinger
9:34
ever I might.
2
Speaker 2
9:37
I don't. In the 80s Yeah, he's like a pretty buttoned up guy. I don't
Law Smith
9:42
know how he is when he got home. Yeah.
2
Speaker 2
9:47
I've asked him bluntly. He said he's seen a lot but I don't know. We'll see. I'll ask him a little
Law Smith
9:52
closer stuff. I guess. In those places. Yeah.
9:55
They still a business has had to operate. Yeah.
Law Smith
9:59
I find those environments. Yeah, you got to pray and dad for more of those stories because he's holding back like my dad will tell me absolutely wants to be on a podcast. Yeah. Let's get father son on here and just really flush everything out. So 2017 You said you got to see accident. Were we talking how know how er is this? Yeah,
2
Speaker 2
10:20
um, I've been a good skier my whole life. So when you you know you do crazy day and then the trees, whatever, but like I was actually coming in. I was like the last one out there. It's just a blue. I'm like, you know, hauling ass and just cruising down it. Pretty easy run. I hit some ice and my ski pops off and hits me in the face while I'm standing like a sword. So right there cuts my nose open. Like I'm terrible around the ground. But I don't know how graphic I'm supposed to. Get but it was graphic.
Law Smith
10:49
Only fans you can do whatever you want. Oh,
2
Speaker 2
10:51
well it broke my nose in a couple places including in the back of it. So I was choking on my own blog, which is pretty terrible. Yeah, I had I had my headphone and so I said hey Siri, call 911 and it worked because at that time I was holding snow on my hands. My hands are getting like frostbite because I couldn't move them. I couldn't like touch my phone. Because it was they were they're wet. So ski patrol came I got them to take a picture of me with a thumbs down. There's like blood all over the place. It's it was pretty absurd situation to bogging down emergency stitches fly back to LA more cosmetic stitches. lasering microneedling for a year and a half have to stay out of the sun.
Law Smith
11:29
What are you doing workwise at the time, um,
2
Speaker 2
11:32
I was running a software company so I've always had my own company has never actually been employed, which is
Law Smith
11:38
your serial entrepreneur. I know it's in your bio I got but you know take them with a grain of salt. Some people are like I have an Etsy store that sells you know turquoise jewelry you're like
2
Speaker 2
11:50
yeah, no, I've got multiple actual businesses. So serial entrepreneur, you know, it's It either is like oh, wow, that's awesome. You've probably done a couple cool things. Or it's, oh, you can't actually execute anything. You just keep bouncing around and you can make a nice pitch deck, but nothing ever gets done. And there's more of the ladder than there is of the former. I've actually had a couple of companies that were successful and you know, you know, and like I said 32 I started stuff in college so I've been doing this for 12 1314 years.
Law Smith
12:19
Yeah. Software investments and fashion. Any investment tips you got for us or fashion, fashion or software to
2
Speaker 2
12:30
keep it simple with fashion. I don't know. Like I agree on Chase trends and nice I don't wear suits a lot but like, nice suit, a nice shirt that fits you. It's like I've got my hair crazy color, you know, whatever. Whatever.
Law Smith
12:45
Your mom's your net. What is that you're wearing? I don't know. It's I don't know what this thing. It's like oh,
2
Speaker 2
12:52
I actually wear a hairnet because I learned chemistry and producer stuff. So it was like in our some of our emails as being a hairnet actually. Oh,
Law Smith
12:58
really? Yeah. So you're in it. You're a tinkerer? You're Oh, absolutely.
2
Speaker 2
13:02
I'm on there from the second we have a new idea. Let's build it together. Let's get in the lab. Let's do whatever and then once it gets big enough and we have processed I'll outsource it because I know I can manage that thing because I know about it.
Law Smith
13:18
Yeah, interesting. What would what advice would you give to someone that has a product and trying to get off the ground like Cree you know, products are a little tricky, right? You know, there's a lot of ways you can go about making them. You can get your way which seems like r&d, probably a lot of frustrating but creative, creative and the ability to create a solution and figure out this product that you know, I can you can make it work as cost constraints, but like you can go another route you can get it kind of just labeled and to be a branded Yeah.
2
Speaker 2
13:53
I mean, look, if you are like I get approached by a lot of influencers who want to white label our stuff, and I'm like, no, no, thank you like we're doing great. You don't get to basically co opt our all of our r&d for now. What do you think co branding things later? But
Law Smith
14:08
sweat equity talk? Yeah, I do. Yeah, but this gently,
2
Speaker 2
14:12
essentially, it's like if you're an influencer, you should go and white label stuff. Because you have a following. you've conquered the marketing element of the funnel, right? So you should just go to somebody that has a product that you like, that'll be your customers will probably like, slap your name on it and get it fulfilled. Because you can just tweet you can post on Instagram, you can do a tick tock video. Let's say you have millions of followers or a YouTube video or whatever. And you have the marketing done. If you have to do the marketing yourself. You have to start thinking a lot more serious about unit economics in the funnel and actually running a profitable business, which requires significantly more skills. And the biggest piece of advice that I give to everybody is that you can learn anything on the internet. Yeah, free everything. You know, there's a lot of entrepreneur classes like maybe founder has a good one. It was like 1500 bucks. That was still very good, and I think worth the money and there's a lot of audiobooks. But for the most part, I taught myself chemistry at a professional level on Google and YouTube. What it took was two months of me watching videos and taking notes and learning it initiative myself. So it took the resource of time and dedication it didn't take money. So for people starting companies like if you want to learn how to market go watch some free videos on email marketing and go set up Klaviyo or MailChimp or something and build an email flow. It's not rocket science, and then I'll get
Eric Readinger
15:32
certified there's so many little certification things you can get. Yeah,
2
Speaker 2
15:35
you don't even necessarily need that certificate. It's just the knowledge right?
Law Smith
15:38
If you have a little badge, though, I
Eric Readinger
15:40
know I like to be a little bad thing.
Law Smith
15:43
I want my gold star. I want people
2
Speaker 2
15:45
in LinkedIn and all that shit so much like I can't do LinkedIn, because everyone's just like, Oh, look at me. I'm certified in this and I'll like attempt to hire them I'll tell them like this person that I want to talk they're talking about.
Law Smith
15:57
Yeah, we we we enjoy LinkedIn for expects fakeness
Eric Readinger
16:02
right? Yeah, like a third party observer.
Law Smith
16:06
I get a lot of shit for my close family and friends and like you're gonna post them your stand up jokes on there like yeah, that's one job I do. It's being a fucking comedian. It's just another place to put it in a fucking feed of nothing.
Eric Readinger
16:19
It's a thing where I say yes to everybody.
Law Smith
16:22
Say oh to all the gory
2
Speaker 2
16:26
chat jerk without that. I remember there was a guy on LinkedIn. Who masks to like cold message me a year or two ago and he's a marketing guy and he had this top hat on and he kept saying tip of the hat or top of the hat or something like that. I was just like, that was his beginning, middle and ending of like every message he sent me. And I was so curious that I actually clicked in and he was just like a crazy guy. And I was like, what? Yeah, is so fascinating. That was like two, three years ago. I was like, I'm done using LinkedIn, because we have some advisors and people who are like pretty, pretty big in the skincare space. To me.
Law Smith
17:03
It seems like you're at a different stratosphere. But most I would say, you know, like,
2
Speaker 2
17:10
our advisors was a former chief people officer at Dollar Shave Club. So if I need to find someone, I'm just like, Hey, dude, can you we need a new email person he goes and finds him I'm not about to go search on LinkedIn and spend my time in my whatever. It's just it's too much.
Law Smith
17:25
Well, time is a commodity. It seems like you value that very much in you go I'm good over in these sectors. I need to delegate this out to the people that are either going to gobble up that time that I don't want to waste you know, you probably know the value of your time versus Absolutely we're outsourcing
2
Speaker 2
17:43
a lot of things that we previously were doing all of our manufacturing in house it's taking too much of my time. So earlier today, we figured out a place to outsource we outsource some products and we kept some in house. So we're doing that customer service is getting more automated that staying in house we do our ads in house but I'm hiring more people to do it. Yeah, you were service in house I'd say service has to stay in house because it just you need to know what your customers are doing. It's just we need to automate it. We need to have better emails that answer your questions so it doesn't end up meeting a person to actually answer it
Law Smith
18:15
was most that all your marketing funnel if you want to just talk shit about it. That's our favorite thing to do.
18:22
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean we do
Law Smith
18:26
a conversation for off air conversation. Okay, I like it. We can do it here but we don't care. Fine. We'll do it all
Eric Readinger
18:36
buttoned up.
Law Smith
18:40
promote ourselves to be able to like let us just audit it. We'll do it for fun. Yeah, just because I think it makes us better at strategy overall. And you're doing these exercises that people?
2
Speaker 2
18:51
Yeah, I mean, we do all our ads in house and everything because that way if we know a message is working two days later, we have five, five versions of that message in a new in a new format. Yeah, new first two seconds. So people see a different visual and they think it's a new ad those kinds of things. There's a lot of simple strategies. But yeah, I mean, it's just a grind. You know, you do it one day. At a time and then you have like over a week, make your email flows better. And then the next week you make your ads better and the next week you start focusing on a new product and a year passes and you're like, Oh my God, we are a completely different company. We kind of have that experience every two months. We look back and we think holy shit like our sales are up and our products are more and like it's it's every two months. We really see like a monumental shift forward. Yes, but it's a lot. It's a lot more
Law Smith
19:40
listening as this episode comes out with a Black Friday sale 41% off that's an odd number of all products.
19:48
We do that on purpose. That's That's by design. Yeah.
Law Smith
19:51
Yeah, I figured as much. We need to know the reasoning sticks in your head a little bit differently.
2
Speaker 2
19:57
The average for Black Friday sales is 37%. And we have great margin. So we said let's do 40 And then I said no let's do 41 Because it's one more than 40 So if someone else is doing a 40% discount will be one more than them.
Eric Readinger
20:12
Three just thought that
2
Speaker 2
20:16
was that was pretty straightforward. Yeah. It's it's funny and it's weird. And if we give a weird discount, it makes you think and it makes you remember it you know, everyone gives nice round discounts. It's like well, let's not do that because 11 We give 22 We give 33 And now we get 41 Those are like for various things.
Law Smith
20:33
And you have you have three product lines, I'd say right is that hydrating facial serum dehydrating body serum and that head to toe Bondo which
Eric Readinger
20:43
I guess is both?
2
Speaker 2
20:45
Yeah, it is both we just launched this as the body serum yesterday. We were actually a one product company until yesterday. Now we're two. We have concealer coming out in probably March could be a little it could be earlier it depends Chinese New Year slows things down and we get the components from Taiwan. So it depends on if they are, you know, shipping or not because we gotta get some more.
Eric Readinger
21:09
We're literally talking about this before the podcast started.
Law Smith
21:13
Well, you were saying, I think we're Mako. I did. We have a new camera setup in here and it's real zoomed in and I was looking at a video
2
Speaker 2
21:23
I'll tell you this word de feminizing the whole thing it's just a performance skinned part like if you have a pimple or dark circles, you just do this and it disappears. We're not doing makeup like lipstick and other beauty products.
Law Smith
21:35
Okay, that was my dealer. That's what I needed. I can raise her bumps. Is this gonna help me?
2
Speaker 2
21:41
I have I have one right here. I didn't do it because I thought it'd be at a camera now I'm calling it out but I have a couple of like red spots around you can't see him because maybe three seconds before I turn the camera on. I just did this with it on and they disappear. It's just it's great. It works if you're on a date and have a pimple if you're going to work and you've dark circles or if you're on zoom all day it's like it's a no brainer it's there's certain of these products that like women use but guys should use. Women should use the eyelash thing that says no need for guys to use them and guys can use it they want but I'm saying it's not it doesn't form an actual function. You know doing this and not looking as tired is is you'll have a different reaction from people that will be more positive that that had the scar on my nose. So that's how I learned about that. Judging by the branding
Law Smith
22:25
website kind of the 20 minutes we've been talking to you you're kind of minimalist horse, you know you want to keep things simple, it seems
2
Speaker 2
22:36
it's kind of just the general catch all phrase for it. Yeah, I mean our tagline is 32nd skincare. We want to tell you what our products do and we want you to use them in 30 seconds or less. Because we know that the value proposition equation to our customers is what's this product going to do. It's going to make you look younger, better, healthier skin, more confidence, but everyone can say that everyone has ads, the denominator, the numerator, denominator, the denominator is how long and how hard is it going to take for me to get there? It's like great, you're gonna look good, but it's gonna take you six months at a million dollars. Like that's not really compelling. It was gonna take you 30 seconds and 30 bucks, like, Okay, that's pretty compelling. And then the other part of the equation is how likely are you to actually achieve that and that's where our before and after images and reviews and all those things come in.
1
Speaker 1
23:22
It sounds like you have a foundation of a great product so you can kind of you can kind of rest on that for everything right? And then from there on he you know the persona you're talking to you guys don't want to do anything.
Eric Readinger
23:35
Now. It's very guy friendly.
23:38
Yeah, they find it we do.
Eric Readinger
23:39
Your one line on the decoration. One line yeah when they were loyal.
2
Speaker 2
23:47
I don't know about you would like your toothpaste whose last time you change brands of toothpaste.
Law Smith
23:54
On purpose. We got kids both of my stuff together. But But ya know, my channel between
24:06
the blue one
2
Speaker 2
24:08
is is usually when guys find the toothpaste and when they think about that question. They're like, I've been using the same toothpaste for 10 years lifetime value. That's the thing the lifetime value of skincare for guys is like we have people we launched our subscriptions in January. We've gotten one bottle a month every single month since January so they're on bottle 11 I can't even use it that fast. I mean I and it's free from all free. It's a couple cents you know,
Eric Readinger
24:33
but it's amazing. Such
2
Speaker 2
24:37
loyalty we get no returns because when I formulated these products and made them the best they could possibly be in this product category. I didn't stop formulating until they were there. And so now you know the marketing gets it in your hands, then the product itself that sells the second, third fourth bottle because like you don't need to see an ad you've used it on your face. You've felt a tightening you've see your skin looks better. Okay, great. We're done. We've won you just got to keep ordering from us. So
Law Smith
25:05
if it's really good like an Apple product or a something that actually works in a snake oil kind of industry, right? I mean, that is health and personal care. Yeah, like I haven't gone to your phases. You go to a chicks shower, and just how many just fucking different bottles they shop
2
Speaker 2
25:27
entirely different different exfoliators? Really, two, it's the number of serums that like even my girlfriend she has, I don't know, multiple and by the way, they're not even all like BS that like she does research and she knows a little bit of retinol serum or retinoids vitamin C hyaluronic acid. It's like those are three serums USQ serum, I don't know. And other people have three, four or five. It's like it's too much. We're gonna have one moisturizer for your face, one for your body. One sunscreen for your face, one chapstick, one deodorant. We're not trying to have like six products per skin issue. If you want to solve a problem, here's the one product and then you know we'll probably end up solving when it's all said and done 90 to 95% of skin issues. You know whether it's cleaning your face with a facial cleanser that works for most people or body washes something like that. And we're gonna have we're not going to have 50 products we'll have like eight and you know that when you come if you have a skin issue or you want something you'll just okay, you know, I'm gonna buy one of each and I'll just be taken care of and it's it's, I don't have to use six of them in a row. There's none of that. And that's powerful because it's like Twitter when it first launched. The 140 character limitation was actually very freeing because it meant you didn't have to write all these paragraphs and whenever you could just like today send what kind of like that for skincare. It's like you call me love a problem. Find the one maybe two products and see you later. It's not Sephora where they're going to sell you 50 things.
Law Smith
26:55
Yeah, I so I'm just gonna put this on my my package area the body sternum. I won't put the face there. Well I just shaved it down. Real nice. manscape to have like a one. Make it look bigger when it's a little younger. Yeah, I went to look I can paint me day No I
2
Speaker 2
27:19
did is what is the phrase this hack neither confirm nor deny us any reason why it wouldn't work but also I don't know from I'm trying to think from like a PR you know perspective. I don't know what I do. You are you run
Law Smith
27:33
the show man you dictate the message. I mean, what how
Eric Readinger
27:38
do we not put it?
2
Speaker 2
27:42
I'll say yes, if you're trying to use it for another purpose, it dries pretty quickly by design. So it's not it's not it's not let's say a lubrication. i My friends and I joke
Law Smith
27:54
lubrication more presentation stocking
Eric Readinger
27:58
it works it works yeah, yeah, no,
Law Smith
28:00
no, no, I don't want it for Luo Man. I don't need the camp KY jelly. I got a lady she likes to me to keep it tight. So I go Alright. And then I noticed a little because I'm pretty pale downstairs. You don't need a little bronzer. Yeah, you need I need a little bronzer really? No, but I'm saying like, I get the red bumps just like what I'm shaping upstairs. Ah,
2
Speaker 2
28:24
I see. I would say that it will probably work. I don't see why. Wouldn't although I haven't actually tried that.
Law Smith
28:31
All right, I will report back once you as soon as the free schwag
2
Speaker 2
28:35
might make the area there and younger looking so you'll have to let me know.
Law Smith
28:41
You know um, so are you said you making the product in USA right now?
2
Speaker 2
28:46
Yes, you make it on Southern California. So when I started this, I didn't realize that Southern California is like the hub of skincare in America. I didn't think many things were made in Southern California other than like movies and just about Tustin. Yeah. But like I didn't think there was manufacturing in California. It's not a very business friendly state. High regulations high labor costs high cost of living in general like it's good for business like tech or Hollywood where you have multibillion dollar company yeah and and and software like Google, that's global powerhouses. But for actual manufacturing of than like the Tesla plant being here, I didn't think it was so much skincare is made here because the margins are pretty good. And you can automate a lot of the manufacturing so we make it here. Even the places we're looking to outsource and scale to they're all an hour from here. Yeah,
Law Smith
29:36
well now we got to put the USA and all this stuff if I would just do my old boss correct if I didn't throw that out there.
2
Speaker 2
29:44
We just added proudly formulated and filled in the USA. So we
Law Smith
29:49
need some red white, blue.
2
Speaker 2
29:52
Green, we got green and for our holidays, you know,
Law Smith
29:56
Irish these colorful Brian.
2
Speaker 2
29:59
Military you got some? Yeah, it's almost but we didn't really want it to be we do call the pen. The concealer pen the camo pen because that tested the best for guys because we didn't want to call it concealer.
Law Smith
30:10
It was pretty badass. Yeah, I know. I'd like the whole the whole the whole brand world the brand story leveraging a need a nice little thing. Don't get confused with your vape pen does it all
2
Speaker 2
30:21
line up by the way. So like all our products so if you have them in a row. They look really nice. Like when sitting in your bathroom.
Law Smith
30:29
Little tinctures.
Eric Readinger
30:30
I'm trying to do this by the camera. Okay, I see if I got you.
2
Speaker 2
30:33
Yeah, and then you know this one comes in on this side and same kind of thing I liked I liked a couple of other brands did similar kinds of foods like we call it a through line because that's like what it is. I just thought if you can have your products looking really nice in a row is your photography more shareable influencers will want to do whatever more ads will sell more and you know, so we went a to z what can we do to make it a little nicer? We put embossing on the side of the box so it's like dry rough skin to dry skin we do like a lot a little elements like that that we think elevate it to adding value the way you think
Law Smith
31:11
you know, we were a little worried about this. This interview before we got on because it's like, oh, we don't we don't participate much in this sector. Yeah, I'd say but, you know, I I'm more interested in you as an entrepreneur. And you're kind of whole milieu if you will is like keep it very simple. Make good product, have the have the high quality customer service aspect. You know, are you perfection? Yeah, but simply learning chemistry. I mean, that was autodidactic and
2
Speaker 2
31:46
earnest Yes, but I also know how to hit send, you know, okay, it's important you you just do what you're never gonna get to perfect so just get as close to it. But you know, it's been ground and to me that like you also just got to get stuff out there because that's the only way to get the feedback in order to I hate the word circle back but the circle back to improve it and constantly do it. So you know, we will launch a product like this. You know, am I happy with the this heat seal? No, but it was the only one we could get in time to launch it on time. So you know what, in a month we make another 1000 or 2000 more of this we'll have a better heat seal by that time and will have probably like a box that says, you know, probably a slightly better message or there'll be you know, there'll be just tweaks here and there, our fulfillment will get a little better. We'll have figured out a rate to negotiate with USPS will save 30 cents or something per unit. It's just you're always improving but you do have to ship stuff.
Law Smith
32:41
People think of creative in the product world like Steve Jobs. I was just thinking it'd be funny in 10 years. If you're that Steve Jobs kind of guy. It's like the angle needs to be 90.5
32:54
That's, you know,
Law Smith
32:55
that's a good thing I think
32:59
successfully one degrees. Yeah, like,
Law Smith
33:02
successful then, like you've already you already had three huge businesses run well, right. And so 32
Eric Readinger
33:14
we just listened to me it was shut up. Well,
Law Smith
33:17
it'll have to say enough. Just um
2
Speaker 2
33:22
when it comes to business ideas, I'm right 65 to 70% of the time and the other 30% I'm an idiot, like my ideas, you know, they make no sense. And so I empower my whole team to just be like, Yeah, let's not do that. Or maybe this instead, like my whole team tells me because that's the way we win. It's like, I can't just have my ideas when, you know, I still own the company. So someone comes up with a great idea. We implement their idea. So the one that owns it,
Law Smith
33:45
situationally could collaborate, right? Yeah, so it's like, in 65% would be better if you know all the decisions you made, or that not
2
Speaker 2
33:56
all of the decisions. It's is a process that you do because like, you know, a lot of people think being an entrepreneur is you just wake up and you can make your own schedule. I can start working at noon, it's like yeah, and then you will have missed four hours of stuff you could have gotten done would have helped yourself. So it's like you trade the nine to five for 24/7. But yeah, great. You get to decide what to do in that. 24/7 like, okay,
Law Smith
34:20
yeah, what about that autonomy is really what everybody wants to get to in a professional career. Usually, like, I'm not talking to entry level people that want to do that forever. I'm talking about like, people have ambition. Eventually, it really breaks down to autonomy. When you get to the thing. Everybody, I think wants to do, right, like, look at the podcasting world. The reason it's so interesting is because you have the autonomy to get whatever show you want out there. Right? And so, you know, if people will try to come at us in like a you need to make your show PG 13 But we'll have Unilever as a sponsor to be like, it's gonna be tough on Italy ever. It's gonna be tough, but I'm like, we can still be poor. That's fine. Yeah. We can't
Eric Readinger
35:07
I don't think we can do that.
2
Speaker 2
35:10
To you guys. It's like for me, it's like the same thing. It's like I only have one speed and that's do everything. I can all the time to try to improve this. And so I'll send slack or email messages that are like two pages of dense ideas in details and my team at first when I hire someone, they're like, What the fuck is going on? Then they start realizing, Oh, you sent me enough work to do for a week with details. So like, we don't have to have calls. We don't have to. I don't have to ask you. I mean, they can always but so we skipped five meetings. And it's like, Oh, great. This is actually easy. You know, you have your speed and it makes you guys successful what you do and if you changed it, it would. I wouldn't be you. You couldn't carry that on for long.
Law Smith
35:53
Yeah, and that's a good way to was it a synchronistically kind of manage away in a bit, but, you know, your ideas are easy. Ideas are like everybody's pitched you app. IDX right. It's like,
2
Speaker 2
36:08
more than I more than I can even possibly imagine. Yes.
Law Smith
36:13
tutions what makes the difference? Like it's what's done, Vincent? It's a Hi dear. Oh, hi idea. It's just a stir. I deal with that execution stone thinking.
2
Speaker 2
36:24
I worked with people Oh, hi idea. I like I worked with people in the past who thought that ideas were everything like, Oh, I thought of an app. What if there was an app that made you a million dollars a day? It's like, okay, great. Build it. And so I always said that apps are like two to 3%. Or sorry, ideas are like two to 3% of a company. You need good ideas. But the execution of them is so much more important, exactly what you said. It's like, you know, and the problem is if you work with someone who values ideas a little bit not execution. The company's not gonna go so well. So I've seen with companies I've consulted for where there's an ideas guy and an execution guy and the execution guys way more important, but the idea guy acts like he's the guy. So
Law Smith
37:09
that's where you get the mock turtleneck, the black mock turtleneck and you know, ideas. Look, it doesn't I don't devalue them with if someone wants to pitch an idea to me, but it's like, what the app want especially because if it died down, but I go yes. Does it exist already? Did you do a simple Google search before talking? If it does exist? Why isn't it working? If it doesn't exist, why doesn't it exist? And then that conversation gets me out of all of all these pitch ideas. I'm like, Yeah, that sounds great. Why don't why why? Does it or does it exist? And they're like, oh, because if
Eric Readinger
37:51
they search that it might ruin their dopamine. Here's
2
Speaker 2
37:56
the thing. There's a dopamine hit or serotonin combination of like, Oh, my God, this business idea. At this point. I'm so jaded when I'm around a group of friends and someone was like, Oh, my God, this idea. I just go like, no, no. No, you know that if you want to do this, it will be three years before you'll see $1 and have fun like, you know, and someone will say I have one friend from college who just throws out like he's half baked ideas. He thinks they're genius. And I'm like, what you're saying would require like manufacturing and a special facility with like FDA approval and what you if you want to sell international I'm just like, I know edible advances
Eric Readinger
38:36
in quantum computing. Okay, cool, dude, what
Law Smith
38:40
there's a bagel refill in the hole, get more data for you. But it's there's actually an idea I had when I was like, eight. But I'm just like using that as my stoner go to?
2
Speaker 2
38:53
Is that the big Oh, I used to come up with because when I had my software company, and I used to go to San Francisco to try to like recruit Stanford kids and all that, whatever stuff. Ah, I would just get so annoyed by that, like tech pretentiousness and the culture there that I would just make up a bunch of apps and one of my favorites was what was it Airbnb was new at the time so I made up cram share you like have your car parked in the street and you like rent it out for people to sleep in it at night.
Law Smith
39:24
I kind of little man you were ahead of your time.
2
Speaker 2
39:27
And I was like, This is great. And I was and I tried to make him stupid. Um, one one of Oh yeah. I told people that my my family owned the airspace for the internet in the in the outer space. I can't remember the exact phrasing. So it was the Outernet my family on the space right to the Internet called the Outernet. And people believe me and I was like,
Law Smith
39:46
I've got one that the fragment in this interview. It's it's like the food service apps you know, the delivery ones. Books for hooking up, you know, for submissive guys. It's called Uber Eats policy. Nice. Know that? There's some effect not that. Damn, I thought you had the damn. All right. Well, we gotta leave on that note. We'll cut that out and post it I love that we leave that by the way briefly. I say I stand by that joke. But go to Crete k r e TV dot club. You gotta if you're listening on Black Friday weekend as this episode comes out 41% of all products. Thanks for coming on. You're ever in Florida hit us up. You said we're in Tampa. Yeah.
40:36
Ah other than Portland the strip club capital of the world.
Law Smith
40:39
They somehow took our title but we got the sleeves. Right we're more strip club
Eric Readinger
40:44
even they are way more wide.
Law Smith
40:46
Yeah, maybe you want to steam punk stripper. What do you want like
2
Speaker 2
40:51
vegan they're vegan when they're called like El Diablo or my friend at a bachelor party. They're walking in nerdy bachelor party. So we didn't even go to any as years ago. But we found out that that was the case. So they have a vegan strip club there.
Law Smith
41:03
You know when you grow up here to get it out of your system before we get the college so it becomes passe. What's that seven C's at 14 years old.
Eric Readinger
41:12
Like you shouldn't display you're
2
Speaker 2
41:15
like one of the nice West Philly ones that we you know college situation
Law Smith
41:20
walked in. There's a pregnant lady in the shower,
Eric Readinger
41:22
called it seven diseases.
Law Smith
41:25
I have a cast and braces and umbrellas on I couldn't look more like a child. Right. But I had a swish of sleeping. Wow. All right. Well, thanks for coming on and we'll have to have you back on once you make some some more two month leaps.
2
Speaker 2
41:41
Take a day. Yeah. Hi, buddy. I see guys.
Law Smith
41:51
Rob in Peace.
