TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, supplements, influencer, brand, players, football, retention, people, product, learnings, money, acquire, customers, batteries, big, strategy, avatars, terms, educating, plays
SPEAKERS
Mariah Parsons, Matt Orlic
Mariah Parsons 00:04
Hi there, I'm Mariah Parsons, your host of retention Chronicles, ecommerce brands are starting to shift their strategy to focus on retention in the customer experience. And so we've decided to reach out to top DC brands and dive deeper into their tactics and challenges. But here's the thing, we love going on tangents. And so with our guests, you'll often find us talking about the latest trends, as well as any and all things in the Shopify ecosystem. So go ahead and start that workout or go on that walk and tune in as we chat with the leading minds in the space retention Chronicles is sponsored by Malomo. A shipment in order tracking platform, improving the post purchase experience, be sure to subscribe and check out all of our other episodes at go malomo.com. So hello, everyone. Today, we are joined by Matt, and I'm so excited to have you here on retention Chronicles. We're gonna get into a lot of amazing stuff. But before we do so now, I would love if you'd say hi, introduce yourself, give give your background and why you're on the podcast today.
Matt Orlic 01:17
So to give you a brief overview, I started business when I was 17. Since then, last few pennies and 33. Now I've had about 26 Different businesses across 10 different verticals. I think throughout my life, I optimize more for experience rather than I guess money, otherwise, I'm gonna stay on business. So that I've learned a lot, which hopefully I can share today.
Mariah Parsons 01:41
Yeah, no, that's awesome. I would love to go into your background because I think it's very interesting. And like when I saw that is are these the correct numbers like 26 Different companies? Yeah. Is that correct? Okay. Yeah, somebody's skulls. Yeah, crazy, crazy stuff. So like, tell us all about that kind of what background led you to founding 26 different companies and 10 brands? Like what have you always kind of been entrepreneurial? Like ever since you can remember?
Matt Orlic 02:10
Yeah, obviously, like, I remember I was young, I think I was. There's probably a story of my mom telling me when she gave me five Mills go get a drink or something to shops and I went to the shops I saw like this toys that I wanted, and went back and asked for more money. The toys were like 20 bucks. And you don't want to give it to me. So I went back to the shop. And then my mind just started rationalizing. How can I make the extra did they know delta? So I bought, I bought 10 pens and sold them door to door and they went to needles and bought the toys. So potentially something would have been amazing. Yes, I realize I don't know. But I think I was lucky enough at the age of 17 to start working in a business coaching firm consulting firm, I was doing the telemarketing. So I got to speak to like 100 businesses a day trying to sell them on business consulting, and prove that based business owners every single day I see a lot of businesses the numbers that we're doing employee size, their profit margins. So I think that can be a big advantage as to the elephant the business world. And what my first business was telemarketing went out and started as my own business in the same field that I was in. And ever since then it just kind of I guess compounded because like anything when become Ultra obsessed of something your mind just starts to see opportunities where the potentially not. And being young and flexible and having no risk. I didn't see disadvantage to really going and trying everything I could because I wasn't really in love with anyone business. And yet, so I just really optimized for experience and went against the grain of what everyone was telling me to stick with one and I just kept starting new businesses.
Mariah Parsons 03:41
Yeah, I think that's, that's very interesting that you chose to like, like, everyone was kind of saying, like, stick with one business. And that you're like, No, like, I know that I have to do this for my own fulfillment and my own value or like my new adventure, right like that. I think it's so fascinating to see someone who's founded so many, because usually it's like a founders like they're they, they with their brand. It's like their little baby, right? Like they're so in love with like the problem that their technology is solving or their products or whatnot, it'd be really hard to step away. So did you find like any of that it was difficult to step away or you were kind of excited and enticed by new projects.
Matt Orlic 04:22
Yeah, I think I was always excited at the thought of starting something new. And I've always always had different I guess, shackles on me with with existing businesses that didn't really maybe allow me to grow it to a certain point that I wanted to. That's why while elsewhere where there have been issued stakeholders in the business, whether the the market or the business. So I don't know how it would have been if I had a business with a potential wants to grow, say to a nine figure business if I would have stuck with it. A little business I started didn't have that. huge potential. So then why looked elsewhere? And yes, probably the main reason? Yeah,
Mariah Parsons 04:56
yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that's a very fair reason. So Is it a correct assumption that under the business consulting is when you worked with like the big wigs kind of like the like, UnderArmour? I know yatta yatta. That's not with them.
Matt Orlic 05:12
No, no, I want to know. So I was about seven years ago, I got the license but Umbro in Australia. So it's like the team apparel brand. So we do manufacturing for them and distribution for Australia. And under Amazon we're doing on a licensing model. And they've actually never done that before. And they were looking for similar models. So they approached us to see if we could do that for them. And we did for the first year or two. And that was just slightly difficult to work with and didn't make sense for us. So we just focused on the number of piece.
Mariah Parsons 05:42
Gotcha. Okay. Okay, cool. And then I remember as well, your, you worked with like Manchester United and Liverpool as well.
Matt Orlic 05:51
Yeah. So a couple of licenses. I mentioned United Liverpool. I did like Easter eggs for mass retailers. With like, mugs with like the team jersey every year, I did some, some goals. I also developed like the world's first flying Incubus toy, because a lot of my business was developing drones saying to mass retailers, and I saw the bottle of light, because then it's funny, because every one of my previous experiences led to me looking at a certain business differently, right? And that was grabbing from like one learnings and adding on to the next. So I didn't mention it. I did liberal license. And then a couple years, I've making drones. I was like, Hey, how can I use the licensing model and a Drone World? And then they got the Amiibos? License. That's how that
Mariah Parsons 06:34
came about. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's really cool. I think that's what like all smart business leaders are should be doing right is like taking their learnings from the previous company that they worked with, or worked for founded. And like they baking that into their new strategy. I think that makes a lot of sense. It's probably
Matt Orlic 06:52
good to say that my biggest backups were my biggest learnings, which I've profited the most from. So at times, we think you've lost the most, you've actually gained the most. And this happens to me, like, countless times, for example, you know, I had one issue where I was selling, I was like, the first ones, I had always had good knack of, like, spotting trends, right? So I was like, the first to sell powerbanks are the products, like when I saw this, like 10 years ago, when I was older, retails like, Nah, it's not gonna work. So I'm gonna work. And I had to take a risk. I'm like, I'm gonna pay for the stock put in your stores, you don't pay me to sell it obviously worked with something like 10,000 pieces a week. And then on each one of the Chinese suppliers put in a fake battery. And my luck, the one of the customers actually dropped it and started like catching on fire. And he returned it to, like 10 on product. So I don't know if I can return to hell. But anyway, so he returned that product. And then the QA collective asked, like, hey, in your reports, you have purple batteries, that this one's an orange battery, and like, what else do we have? So we have like 100. Now the pieces circulating for stores and the warehouse and stuff. And we found out the factory, or three 3000 units short of the certified battery, so they put in 3000 of the paid ones thinking these guys are gonna know I don't 100,000 pieces. Am I like the one that customer dropped was that one. So yeah, I hadn't like a national recall, when literally, I had to recall all the products that are sold. And a room I like relationship and obviously money wise, but then two years later, I like by then I like a PhD and batteries, right? For them.
Mariah Parsons 08:26
You know, the ins and outs and everything.
Matt Orlic 08:29
Yeah, the circuit boards if I can save to making these lives, I knew I had to know everything. But then two years later, the hoverboards came out. I'm like, this is a culture and I'm gonna get on this. And honestly, then we should catch on fire. Right? But mine didn't catch on fire because I there's like a PhD in batteries. So I went from zero to $2 million in like three months. Hoverboards for like a premium price is on the news. They're the old school, like the safest hold was on the market. And that business ran and we just I just thought this year for like, the next seven years and I made millions of dollars. So Jim and I we've had that previous fuckup I would never have understood the battery issue and never would have had that brand. So that that last there was a couple 100 grand 300 grand and they're being you know, millions of dollars in sales.
Mariah Parsons 09:14
Yeah, that's, that's I feel like is is that kind of unique that like you can see such a direct correlation with like, some area that obviously went awry and went wrong for reasons that weren't really your own but then like directly correlates to success with another product like I feel like most people wouldn't get that validation of like okay, yeah, you messed up with these batteries but then in this other product like you were ahead of the game because you knew XYZ you knew like everything that you had to know about batteries like I feel like that's a rare case where you get to see like the mess up and then the learnings from the mess up like pay off.
Matt Orlic 09:53
Yeah, it could be I think I'm also hyper wave. So I spend a lot of time learning that psychology just because I thought it would help me in business. Right. And even I'm always self analyzing myself and my journey. So I remember like, when I was 18, I had no money, I worked three jobs. I didn't himself the first three years, that whole normal narrative, like, I still want to go and pick up girls, but then I had no money to do so. So I learned the art of like picking up girls, I went for the whole system, I loved everything. I was interesting. I had stories, again, but it's always gonna stop. And then when it came to money, you're like my personality dissipated like advantage, because I'd go out and I wouldn't need to talk. And it was so funny. And I wouldn't say anything. So then I was like, what's happening to me, and I could see myself like my personality, slightly deteriorating as I went into money, right? Because the value system will mean totally was slight change in terms of my financial wealth, and people gravitating to me because of that, but they might my personality of sacrificing. So like, I don't even notice things like that. So I don't know, maybe it's in the work I've done for psychology allows me to self analyze different parts of a local machine.
Mariah Parsons 10:57
Yeah, no, I think that's great. I actually, I have a background in neuroscience. And so like psychology, and all that good stuff is that I love so I have no, I have no doubt that self awareness plays into that. And you're able to take those learnings on to the next venture. So with that, I want to get into football supplements of it. So preliminary question, can you give us like kind of elevator pitch or background on how then you use all these different ventures to then make your brand football supplements?
Matt Orlic 11:31
Sure, so probably important thing to notice is that over the years, I've found that money is slightly autistic when just around money, money, cars or services. And I felt that the different businesses I had the money carry different Sientra in terms of house making, and it felt different. And the clipboard authentic money versus non authentic money. So the more authenticity I had within a business, the more intrinsic value that I derived. The money meant more to me. So you know, an authentic, authentic business for me, is pretty much today's optimizer, something that I love doing so much that not only will I do for free, but I will actually pay the person to do it. If that makes sense. That's kind of like my mental model around paying business. So last years, I didn't work I'm like, How can I create a business where client fits that model. And for me, I was a semi professional footballer. I didn't make it because not because probably my technique is more because of my physicality, didn't read the standards, because I was always inflamed and had some issues internally. Our massive health journey couple years ago, and I kind of realized that if I knew today, back, then I probably would have made my dream of becoming a professional footballer. And I was like, I hope plays in my position. Do that, because I'm just so passionate about it. And I was having a bit of southern space, because I also have a supplement store in Australia, I was looking at the landscape. So I went to Manchester United, a little ball at the Umbra license, which works with soccer teams as well. So I'm looking at this one mark. And I'm thinking like, no one specializes in cream supplements for players and educating them on the nutrition side of things, right, which is like the most important thing. And that's where ICANN was born. And like no one's really doing this, I can do this, I helped my friends who are professional footballers for free and I love helping them and seeing that the positive feedback loops in terms of their playing career has been elevated from learning what I've learned. And that's when it was kind of formed.
Mariah Parsons 13:23
Yeah, that's great to have like such a direct correlation or like having in with the business, right you like, like your background, really, I'm sure we haven't talked about it, but I feel okay, making the assumption that your background very much influenced your knowledge around the space and the supplements that you know, the supplement space as well, like you said, your background so I think that piece like when I was just looking through your guys's website, because of course, I had to do my background, my research. So like one thing that really stuck out was the education around players and I was a collegiate athlete myself and so like I know the process of recovery and like trying to educate athletes in the space. Unfortunately sometimes it doesn't always happen where there's a huge initiative to do so. And so you know, with that background of like you know the importance of Oh these different supplements like this is going to help your performance and this why this is good what you need to excel in this area like all these different things, just like overall health very important but also very hard to get right Would you agree with that?
Matt Orlic 14:33
Yeah, for sure. Compete competing philosophies everywhere. So
Mariah Parsons 14:37
yeah, and one of the things that stuck out was like you guys have like science back to data back I forget what the actual messaging on the website was, but the important importance of making sure that what your your product is like a great it has a great standard but then that your consumer like actually knows what this supplement is going to be impact is, I think, more and more important as we continue to get into a world where the transparency of a product and what's going into it, what's going into the environment, what's going into your body, like, every single step of the way the consumer now cares about, do you would you say like that, you see that on the football seven inside, because we see that on Malomo. Side, like, that's one of the biggest things of the customer wants information, like all the information however, whatever information you can give a consumer there they want, you know, they want to lower that bill and want to know more.
Matt Orlic 15:37
Yeah, I think that is the case for most industries. I think the football market is it's an infancy stage of supplementation. Like what a carb is, it's extremely fun. And based on I said back then I haven't a psychologist about that. But what I try and stop analyze why that is and how I can get away with so much it seems to be in all parts of life, the more authentic your day to days, the more that authentic Your activities are, the more you get away with in life, like for them all became just become so easy, because they just love the game so much. So they can kind of afford to eat shit. And the body compromises you know, where in other walks like you will be able to have an office job and you know, eat the way they do and still perform at the highest level. So they've been able to get away with a lot more than they probably should have the game is becoming increasingly more demanding and plays catch you on that if you do it right. You know, it can join informants. So that's going to make a big difference. I think it needs to come when people start to realize how important it is.
Mariah Parsons 16:37
Yeah, I love that you drew that distinction of like, you can just because of your lifestyle, like get away with more in the health world. And it's super ironic, because obviously like athletes, you think they must know everything about nutrition and health and like maintaining your body, but because of their situation they like they might, you know, might be the first thing to go when you're stressed or tired or exhausted.
Matt Orlic 17:04
You think about it like rationally to do something that you'd like, love to do and flop over. Do you really have to feel great, go do it. If anything doing it makes me feel good, right? Yeah. So it's slightly different. Yeah. To people who can just go to the gym, I think everyone really enjoys going to lifting heavy weights. It's not a substitute bodybuilder. But for them. Yeah. becomes a lot easier.
Mariah Parsons 17:25
Yeah. Yeah, you've never had that. Or it's easier to generate the want to go and play a game. I would say then like, if it's always been there, yeah, that makes that makes a ton of sense. So then where so? The day to day, I'm always super interested with this for founders, because it looks so different. Yeah, whoever you ask, right. So like, where do you find most of your responsibilities kind of lie in? Like, what is the day to day look like before we really get into like, true, true shop talk about football supplements?
Matt Orlic 17:58
Sure. Well, I think for me, based on number of minutes I have, I kind of realized early on probably like six, seven years ago, that my role is best, as a founder like to have the vision for the company, you know, architect and design the business, find the right people and make sure there's money in the bank for them to run it. And I always give a portion away of every business to the team. So this is why more valuable to be outside of the business and think, boy, my experience, try and see I can strategically help the business when I'm in it on useless. But today for the football stops, because education piece is so important. And it's the part I'm so passionate about no one else can really, I guess run that department more so than me. So I'm right. At the moment, I'm just constructing content, I'm doing content strategy, creating a plan how to educate these kids, creating a master class, you know, speaking nutritionalist reading papers, this is probably my job for next couple years at all southern Sue just creating the most in depth, I guess easily consumable maths class and mobile nutrition areas in the market to try and help these players.
Mariah Parsons 19:04
Yeah, I really respect that. And I see the self awareness that you're talking about with like your work in your work to understand where you best fit in a company and knowing like, operationally, you don't want to be like boots on the ground and being the ones to actually execute like you much more prefer to sit on the higher level in the strategy and be like, okay, educating the customers like that is one of the reasons I'm sure you found it football supplements. That's what I'm getting from this conversation, right? Like, staying true to that rather than taking everything that you possibly can on your plate and doing it all right. Like it's it's I think I love the point that you made like hiring people to who are experts in the field and what they do to execute and I know as I like my own personal life, look at some of the best leaders like they know and they You sit better in the strategic level. And so like for them to be able to take their learnings and like employ the right people, I think it's all the more power to you, right? Like that self awareness of just knowing this is where I can do best and educating the customer, like we we've talked about is super, super important. Yeah, I admire that for sure.
Matt Orlic 20:24
Yeah, 100. And like the first time I did for for substance CEO, because I just have no, I'm not a good CEO. So I think it's actually important to know that, but it also, it's also privileged to be able to get to a stage where you have the resources to do as high as at the start, you have to do everything. And I think doing everything at the start also gives you a great foundation to be able to assess other people in the business and their roles. You know, I think I've seen a lot of founders that didn't do anything from day one, because they had the capital. And I just think I'm probably better founding now, because I did right.
Mariah Parsons 20:56
Right. So what would you what would you kind of say, as we've been, I want to get into the strategy, which we will in a second. But what would you say to anyone who's looking to found their own brand? I know you also. You also have inspire brands group, which is we haven't even touched upon yet. Because that's how much information you have. So what would you say like with the knowledge from that group? How would you advise someone who's maybe looking to start their own, like, DTC brand? Yeah, I think
Matt Orlic 21:26
the way I would look at it is, first of all, try and do something that you intrinsically enjoy, try and why because I think today, the most important thing is to acquire real estate online. And as a founder, if you have something you're passionate about, you're gonna be, it's gonna be easy for you to create content around that. And that's probably the most efficient way to start. And, and I'll also look in areas where the online real estate is cheap from influence perspective. The reason why I love football supplements is because it's like 70,000 official players, and none of them have brand deals, like supplements. So I know that that real estate, in terms of influencer in football space is extremely cheap compared to, you know, we have another brand called cure skincare, which is extremely expensive. So that I think it's a good play today, because you know, the facebook, instagram for new brands to try and crack that platform with all the issues around attribution, is becoming a challenge.
Mariah Parsons 22:23
Yeah, I definitely want to get into that influence of your marketing. It's one of the things that I also picked up on just from, like, your social presence and your website and whatnot. But you mentioned a little bit like, attribution with social and so like, privacy changes, also a huge issue in the marketing world. So what would you kind of say like, what marketing strategies do you love to use or love seeing like other brands use around like, trying to attribute like, higher raising acquisition costs? iOS changes all
Matt Orlic 22:53
of that? Yeah, more than ever, multi channel approach, I think is fundamental, you know, the old saying before, like, find one channel, one avatar, one product and crack it. I would disagree against that today, you know, I've always done well, you know, optimizing 80% on everything rather than 100%. One thing that's just been like, it's right or wrong, especially with the marketplace at the moment, Facebook's waiting for testing and everything else, but it's becoming increasingly hard. And I think people who want to go down that path on Facebook have to understand that the messaging is the new testing is the new interest test, new interest placements, meaning that the messaging that you crave has would dictate what audience it goes to more. So when before we rely a lot more on Facebook. Now, we have to be a lot more specific with our messaging, in terms of the creative so like, for verbal segments, we have three types of avatars, can we play our semi pro and a Sunday League person, they have to assess like, what stage of awareness is each of those plays out in terms of supplements, and it's a great messaging around each of those stages for each of those avatars like to fucking beat job, but like, it's the only way that we can get caught group and try to understand how to create content and really be able to scale that manipulators.
Mariah Parsons 24:13
Yeah, that's knowing your avatar is like your audience and where they're all at. It's a beast of a project, I guess.
Matt Orlic 24:26
So if you're going to start out like I said, if you try and pick a place where the inputs are market isn't saturated, so you know that real estate online is cheap, an industry where you can as a founder, create content and acquire an audience in the community for free just spending your time with sweat equity. And then third of all where you can just focus on one avatar and trying to dial that all in. That'd be ideal.
Mariah Parsons 24:47
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love that advice. Let's so let's talk about the influencer marketing as well because we've like circled around it and as you said, like there isn't there's a lot of opportunity in influencer in affiliate marketing in your category or your vertical. So I saw it just was from, you know, consuming the social presence, the influencer appeal, right? Because you have all these different players and you have people's favorites. And it correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there isn't as much like, if you're not in the football world, then you wouldn't necessarily know a ton about like different players. Right? And like if you're not like me, I like watching sports, but I'm not like, I couldn't rattle off the you know, like, let alone like NFL players, which America obviously like biggest sport but like, let alone any other sport, right? I might I might be able to get 10 across different teams. So with like the influencer marketing, I'm saying this even to build up to the point that even though I don't know, specifically who the best player is, or who the best team is, or any of that, I can still see, oh, you have an influencer? who really likes your brand that social proof still resonates even if you aren't a huge fan of football or are in like our in the weeds or in the niche. You don't know all the all the little all the details, right? So like, what kind of Did you always know that with your background in football, like semi pro? Did you always kind of see that opportunity there? Or is it really once you like started thinking about marketing strategy that you employ that?
Matt Orlic 26:40
Yeah, it's one of the sort of the marketing strategy within if I was going to start the business, because I knew that it'd be large acquisition channel for us. And yeah, as soon as I thought about it, like a somewhat a deep level, like we'll see that opportunity, because no, it's like an untouched market, these players that have the ability to monetize their audiences, they just haven't done it, you know, in America in a poor football and stuff like that Americans are amazing at that stuff. Where in Europe, they're very far beyond.
Mariah Parsons 27:09
Okay, cool. So and would you say so? The supplements brand just or supplements industry just in general? Would you say that's also kind of an underutilized market? Or would
Matt Orlic 27:22
Yeah, the molesting their market?
Mariah Parsons 27:25
Okay, that's what I was kind of understanding. But I was like, Maybe I need to check myself because I'm wrong. Because I was like, I feel like yeah, okay. So it is this interesting, like spot that you're in where it's supplements in general, really, really, really relies heavily on influencer marketing. And then football hasn't really caught up to that in the supplements industry. So that's correct, right? Yeah, correct. Exactly. Okay, cool. So what would you say then? Like, how has that helped football subs in general? Like, as far as the marketing plays? Like the customer? Do you get a lot of feedback from like customers, where it's like, oh, this is my favorite football player or my favorite? Like, this was the thing that convinced me.
Matt Orlic 28:08
Yeah, look, I think for us is certainly a blind spot. Because there's a number of ways we could we could acquire as influences relevant for team deals for agents from players direct. And what we didn't really, I guess, plan ahead with is the form of the team or the player before signing. And this ultimately depends on how well the ad works. So if we sign a team, and they're doing like, shit, like, the comments are all like, these guys are losers, they're losing. So if they're taking these supplements, then they're probably not working. You obviously we didn't realize how volatile that could be.
Mariah Parsons 28:49
Okay, that's super interesting. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how many was that?
Matt Orlic 28:58
We made some big learnings like we used to, we had one team for three years, which we probably wouldn't do unless, yeah, we like assigning a team is is a big gamble depend on the team's performance. So the one we're trying to do a lot shorter, sharper deals, to try and acquire customers rather than long term deals.
Mariah Parsons 29:18
Okay, interesting. So would it be less volatile than when in your opinion to like sign a player individually? Yeah. Would you say then, like a team? Yeah. Okay. That's really interesting. How are you? What? Like, how are you? Is it are you finding most of these their teams or players through ads, like you said, with the avatars that you're targeting, or how do you acquire them? Are you like using software?
Matt Orlic 29:46
No, the teams we just it's for network only. You can't really get those teams
Mariah Parsons 29:50
anywhere else. Okay, gotcha. super interesting. Okay, cool. So what's the process look like then for when you have these influencers we talked about like educating the consumer, right? So what is I'm just curious like, what does it look like when you say you got like a new team or a new player who is like I really like football supplements, I want to be an advocate be an affiliate for your brand. What does that kind of look like for like education? I know you mentioned a lot of your day to day is creating that content. So what have you found like the most success and what resonates with the influencers that you have on your team?
Matt Orlic 30:29
Yeah, I think it depends on who the influencer is the influences a coach or the player or if it's nutritionist, so different levels and different messaging for them, you know, the players, and other players want to see them routine and what they're using, there's not much education there. So instead of just timing, like, I take this at this time, that time intuitionism we're explaining why they're taking it. Right. And then the teams is also more of a story as to why the science and the benefits some places more frequency and timing and what they're taking, and the other ones are more educational in terms of what these actually supplements are doing.
Mariah Parsons 31:06
Okay, cool. So largely your market like your ICP is obviously, like you said, the three avatars have like ranging levels of professional football, do you ever see like, like non professional football players looking to get into supplements, like, I'm thinking like, I don't really know if collegiate football is like,
Matt Orlic 31:32
so like our advertisers, some amateur players, which is Sunday League us, then Sunday. And then Sunday Pro. So, you know, we have a pregame supplement that increase your energy, focus and endurance, which anyone can take, especially if you're not training during the weeks and got to adopt job is something that is obviously a stimulant, that it'd be fantastic for you to, I guess, yeah, raise a game. And then also recovery shakes, because there'll be more sore, potentially, then actual semi pro professionals and at the time to do all the other recovery practices that are necessary. So it's easily applicable to both. Okay,
Mariah Parsons 32:07
gotcha. I think those Sunday leaders like a little bit of myths on my part to be like, okay, Sunday leaders, what does that mean?
Matt Orlic 32:16
You're painting UK, so, and you post guys really cool amateur league?
Mariah Parsons 32:21
Yeah, yeah. I think that's where it is. Okay. Cool. So that's really interesting to see. Or to hear about. So I, with education, at least from Malomo, like post purchase, we see a lot of the need for educating obviously your customer, we talked about it a lot, your consumer. And so how do you actually roll out those strategies like after say, someone is buying from you like what is the post purchase journey look like for football steps?
Matt Orlic 32:55
Yeah, once they come into the funnel, we're trying to educate them also on the actual specific products and how to use them. And Watson timings that's probably the the main focus for us, and also the continual educational process as to new new findings, new science, in terms of the landscape of nutrition.
Mariah Parsons 33:14
Okay, so you're like, right, if you know, like, this comes in from the nutritional level. Yeah. So
Matt Orlic 33:21
like FIFA wrote a new the new paper, didn't you research document that stated, you know, players are not meeting elevated energy requirements, especially later in the last 30 minutes of the game? Because they are not talking about the top of the glycogen stores, etc. So, yeah.
Mariah Parsons 33:38
Interesting. Okay, cool. So yeah, you'll share that content, whether it's from like in house or, you know, other people or other, you know, organizations. Okay, so what, and we're a couple more questions for you. So in terms of retention and acquisition, I feel like a lot of the times they're pitted against each other. Because it's like, obviously, a lot of brands want to acquire new customers. Like there's That's right. Like, that's how you do business. Yeah, so. But there's also the rising costs of acquisition. And so with Malomo, which were much more and especially as podcasts were much more focused on retention. They can obviously they're obviously very tied. They're tied closely together. But what would you say like for your strategy, in terms of focusing on do you focus on acquisition more, or do you focus on retention more? Is it kind of even split? What would you what would you say there?
Matt Orlic 34:37
Well, it's a new business. So it's all acquisition at the moment. We're not invested heavily in retention until probably another 12 months time. Retention is part of the educational process. So I'm sure we will retain people for that. But it's not something we're focused on now. Because there's so much test and acquisition level. And I think that's what a lot of folks got
Mariah Parsons 34:57
in the moment. Okay, so great. I think but just
Matt Orlic 35:00
just on that as well like our main plan, I think this name like pure skincare, we'd like to have retention model where we're having the influencers help us retain the customers. So I think in influencer marketing to acquire customers with us to pasture, they want to acquire customers for us. But at the same time, if they came through their funnel, and they acquired our product for them, we also want to keep them via them. Meaning that, you know, let's say football sub said data recovery sheet and I bought a cover sheet because of you as a player. And I'm following you as a player, you'd want the player to consistently keep posting about the recovery shake, to remind the player the person on boarded to keep buying as well, right to keep the narrative. Here, we don't want to just be you work with the influencer once and they convince the person to buy it and then never hear from again, I think that's why I wouldn't want to keep a lot of our loyal customers if they keep saying that people have bought from a consistent using our products. I think that's where we're going.
Mariah Parsons 35:54
Yeah, I love that, that focus on retaining like a good relationship with your influencers? Because you're exactly right, where like, okay, so you, you already spent all this time and energy and money maybe into obviously, like acquiring teaching the influencer about your brand, getting all the like the logistics on the back end to, like, set them up for success. And so the retention play obviously is like, okay, you've done all that work, how can you continue just to like, iterate and make new relationships or keep bringing back customers who will be repeat customers? Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense with the, with the strategy behind that of like, you don't want just it to be like, one, one touch with an influencer or with an influencers, community, and then like them never hear from you again, because then like, it's, it's more transactional in that aspect and less relational.
Matt Orlic 36:51
Exactly.
Mariah Parsons 36:52
Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay, so a little bit of a pivot. But I want to ask, just because, you know, we're prepping for currently, we're recording this early November, holidays are coming up. Would you say in E commerce in general, there's a huge push with, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales, and with football stops being on the younger side? Is there? What is kind of like your prep for the holiday season? Is it? Is it a big thing? Are you feeling stress right now?
Matt Orlic 37:21
With the same promos? If no matter how old the businesses, we also have World Cup coming up, which is also big time in general. So we're still having bundles and special deals for players trying to increase the average order value. And yet we're still we're still employed doing the same Promotions we would in a year's time. Okay,
Mariah Parsons 37:42
cool. Yeah. So you so your strategy doesn't really shift like seasonally, like, even if like the
Matt Orlic 37:50
year is gonna shift, depending on our product mix up time. That's probably the biggest, yeah, lever for us changing. Anytime that strategy is what products we have in stock. what's new, what's old? This is what's going to dictate a lot of our strategy.
Mariah Parsons 38:07
Okay, cool. That's, that's interesting. I very much feel like that just based off of talking with like other other brands and other partners on this podcast. But also, like, outside of it, I feel like there's a lot of stress, obviously, like, everyone's feeling the pressure, but I respect that your strategy shifts based on the product, and not necessarily the season because they feel like changing with the season can sometimes lead to like, you know, things are rushed sometimes or there. You know, you get to like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and then you're like, Oh, my God, we had all this stuff to do. And it was just like, a little bit more chaotic. So that makes that makes a lot of sense to like plan around the product availability instead. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Um, one thing that I absolutely love on this podcast is that we like get personal and that we also do the professional side of things. So I want to go a little bit more personal and this can you can take this as like just general life advice or business or, like found from a founders perspective. But what's one piece of advice that you know, you've gotten or that you would like to impart on like, listeners? Just like, what what would you attribute your success to? Or your learnings to what's helped you along the way?
Matt Orlic 39:26
I think the words understand that stories are the operating system of the mind. And depending on the one narrative, your IPS fulfilling within yourself is going to depend on the energy your output is I can remember one time and this is consistent throughout my whole entrepreneurship. But there's one time where I lost five $6 million dollars overnight. When a mass retailer just collapsed, pretty much all retailers there's nothing that I really could foresee and at that time, obviously took me an hour probably to get over because As I just rationalized it as it is, either I lost five or 6 million, or did I need to lose that five or 6 million because everyone that loses a lot of money, and everyone has these massive downs always ends up making it. On the other side, German, like every massive story has a massive failure somewhere. And the fact that I had that massive failure meant that I was going to be a big success. So the worst I ended up feeling the best was like an indication to me like, if this should happen to me, like this means that I survived. Like, this means I'm actually going to do extremely well.
Mariah Parsons 40:36
So yeah, go ahead.
Matt Orlic 40:39
In the time of most uncertainty, if most people I was the most certain of my future. You can ever because you can never control what you what you look at be can control what you see.
Mariah Parsons 40:54
Right? Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's a great little, great little piece is kind of like the external. You can't change it. You can't influence like too many things are, like right there. But at least like you said, if you're in that spot, like you're affected by a major, you know, downswing are a major pitfall. You're there, right? That it that at least means you're playing the game, right? Like you have, in the same way that you have potential to fall back. Obviously, you also have, like you said, the potential to have things swing the other way and hat and have those huge successes. And I think that's a great way just to kind of look at, you know, there's always going to be ups and downs. But like you said, the perspective and how you're looking at it is what like how, what you can affect and how you can you can you can be the influence on how you're feeling? Yes, I love that. Yeah, this has been so fun, man. It's been great. Like just getting to talk to you, like ask questions. So thank you for making the time to like come on the podcast. We very much this is like our favorite thing to do. So,
Matt Orlic 41:59
yeah, I love it also, are you you're great. I think you asked the right questions and you listened and then you were able to, I guess add value as well to some of my stories and concepts. So that's good.
Mariah Parsons 42:09
Oh, thank you. I will say that with me that just made my day. Thank you.