1 00:00:00,690 --> 00:00:13,690 Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, a podcast that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product designers, and other industry professionals. This podcast is run by Mako Design + Invent and hosted by Filip Valica. 2 00:00:13,910 --> 00:00:24,930 Filip Valica: Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to putting your product on the shelf. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Now onto the show. 3 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:41,620 Filip Valica: The humanness in what we do, just the vulnerability, just the genuineness that we give. to that very first customer that makes them want to go out and say, you know, you should really try this. Like, I felt like these people are my friends. And we do sign it that way. 4 00:00:41,740 --> 00:00:51,960 Filip Valica: You know, your pals are mental happy because it's really the truth. So I think that's what makes that second person really impacted by the first person's experience. The Product Startup, Episode 23. 5 00:00:52,840 --> 00:01:01,240 Filip Valica: Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step. with your host, 6 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:17,000 Filip Valica: Filip Valica. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the product startup podcast. In the last episode, we spoke with Chloë Thomas, the author and creator of eCommerce MasterPlan, which is a business that helps e-commerce entrepreneurs make better decisions. 7 00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:29,280 Filip Valica: She's the host of the eCommerce MasterPlan podcast, which is the number one e-commerce podcast in the UK. And we dove into a lot of social media and marketing tips and tricks that I think we can all 8 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:40,500 Filip Valica: using our business. So make sure to check out episode 22 if you haven't heard it already. And now on to today's episode. So today I'm joined by Tamara Lucien. She's one of the founders of 9 00:01:40,500 --> 00:01:53,020 Filip Valica: Mental Happy. Mental Happy is a service that sends a personalized cheerbox with an assortment of tools, treats, handmade crafts, and a personal note that's curated for the recipient to help that 10 00:01:53,020 --> 00:02:02,340 Filip Valica: person feel better. Tomorrow was inspired to help others feel good with Mental Happy through her own moment with life's lows, a failing business, and a failed relationship. 11 00:02:02,820 --> 00:02:05,880 Tamar Lucien: So let's get started. Hi, Tamara. Thanks for coming on the show. 12 00:02:06,830 --> 00:02:08,370 Filip Valica: Thank you so much for having me. 13 00:02:08,790 --> 00:02:22,610 Tamar Lucien: So please tell everyone a little bit about your brand Mental Happy and your product Cheerbox. Yeah, absolutely. So we launched Mental Happy about over a year ago. 14 00:02:23,230 --> 00:02:35,330 Tamar Lucien: And the Cheerbox concept is something I used to do for myself. just a very alchemy box of motivational things that I would do to kind of encourage myself, keep myself uplifted, 15 00:02:36,310 --> 00:02:47,110 Tamar Lucien: just during the hardest times of my life with other startup ventures. I was in relationship issues, just normal life stuff that we all are not immune to, right? Sure. 16 00:02:47,550 --> 00:02:57,810 Tamar Lucien: So I started doing the cheerbox for myself. I told one of my business partners about it that it really helped me kind of get through some low point. 17 00:02:58,570 --> 00:03:13,250 Tamar Lucien: and he encouraged me to make a prototype to just send it to someone, a friend. I totally didn't want to do it because I had so many other startups, small businesses on my plate at the same time. 18 00:03:13,790 --> 00:03:18,630 Tamar Lucien: But I did. I was like, okay, fine, just to prove that no one will buy it, it won't be a thing. 19 00:03:19,770 --> 00:03:33,910 Tamar Lucien: I created just a very basic website on Lodge Rock. I didn't even do anything manual as far as creating the website and just coding. it a very simple PayPal button on that launch rock website and gave it to four women in tech 20 00:03:33,910 --> 00:03:47,330 Tamar Lucien: whom I admire. I didn't know them from a can of paint. I just thought they were cool and I'm sure they were going through some of the same stuff that I was going through as an entrepreneur. You know, you have so many highs and so many lows. 21 00:03:47,950 --> 00:03:52,630 Tamar Lucien: And I just wanted to encourage them. So made the chairbox, sent it to them. 22 00:03:54,200 --> 00:04:08,620 Tamar Lucien: Two of them loved it. posted it on Instagram and Twitter one person is actually pretty famous on Twitter she's like a check by her name and I didn't realize that at the time and what she also shared it on her Instagram and she's a huge advocate 23 00:04:08,620 --> 00:04:19,180 Tamar Lucien: for mental health and mental well-being so it really hit home for her personally because she lost a friend to suicide due to like depression things of that nature so 24 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:27,480 Tamar Lucien: the moment she posted it I think in the first 48 hours we got like nearly 60 pre-orders of the box. So, 25 00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:42,000 Tamar Lucien: and we had no product to send to anyone. So, and we've just been really, um, it's been a homegrown made with love type effort, um, So yeah, it, it has amazing products on the inside, 26 00:04:42,820 --> 00:04:54,140 Tamar Lucien: um, inside the chairbox is a gratitude jar. That's pretty standard. Um, my favorite product is the notebook of positive aspects. Um, that's really great for coping with like anxiety. 27 00:04:54,140 --> 00:05:02,840 Tamar Lucien: you know sometimes we think of all the things that could go wrong in life versus what's already going right so it's just a way a good way to journal every day on all 28 00:05:02,840 --> 00:05:14,020 Tamar Lucien: the positive things that you already have going on in your life and the other products in the chairbox promote like relaxation leisure creativity just really taking 29 00:05:14,020 --> 00:05:23,740 Filip Valica: things light in life and it also has a handwritten motivational note for every single person plus your name is personalized and put on your box so 30 00:05:23,740 --> 00:05:35,100 Filip Valica: it's almost like we know you and we've never met you before that's a really awesome story especially considering that you had basically a 50% conversion on your first four customers 31 00:05:35,100 --> 00:05:45,180 Tamar Lucien: I mean that's so true especially for someone that's just so high level to be able to get somebody to retweet or to even look at a link from somebody that they might not even know 32 00:05:45,180 --> 00:05:58,500 Filip Valica: was challenging that's pretty daunting yeah exactly it really is tough to get people's attention and it just got a lot of attention very, very fast. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not so good. 33 00:05:59,380 --> 00:06:11,960 Tamar Lucien: You talked a little bit about how you got the idea for it, and you obviously validated the market by putting a page up and that kind of gave you some pre-orders. Did you have to do any type of refining after you got those pre-orders to say, maybe we need to kind of tweak this? 34 00:06:12,280 --> 00:06:20,200 Tamar Lucien: Oh, yeah, in a major way, mainly because in the very beginning, we had no idea what exactly, exactly, 35 00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:25,860 Filip Valica: we were going to put in the chairbox it was just kind of those you know i i've studied this person 36 00:06:25,860 --> 00:06:36,720 Tamar Lucien: online enough to kind of figure out what they might like but how do you do that a hundred times a thousand times 10 000 times over right oh so even the first four boxes that you sent were personalized 37 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:50,180 Tamar Lucien: for each of those four people yep they sure are and even the hundreds of four to the thousand orders we get now are still personalized for those people wow with the exception of the gratitude jar the notebook and the hand even the handwritten note is unique to that person but um 38 00:06:50,200 --> 00:07:01,560 Tamar Lucien: The other items are, you know, just depending on what they're going through. So, yeah, we iterated a lot with the logo. Since those people, we've added color to it, the first logo was just black and white. Yeah, yeah. 39 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:16,440 Filip Valica: But what I learned from my other businesses is that, you know, it's just important to start versus getting too lost in the details. Those details are going to come over time with feedback, good feedback, bad feedback, whatever it is. 40 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:20,560 Filip Valica: The bad feedback is more valuable. So, yeah, we just kept on iterating. 41 00:07:21,390 --> 00:07:36,150 Tamar Lucien: It's a very good advice for anybody that's looking to build almost any type of product. You were able to kind of narrow down some of the things. When you were testing the logo or maybe the packaging and things like that, did you have a core group of users or testers that you relied on to give you that feedback? 42 00:07:37,300 --> 00:07:51,420 Tamar Lucien: We monitor the site a lot. So the site is always our first indicator as to what people are doing, especially if they get there, if they bounce, they don't, you know, don't click anywhere else. Maybe just the message is not clear. Sure. For us in the beginning, 43 00:07:52,180 --> 00:07:59,020 Tamar Lucien: the biggest fails were we didn't really know a lot of what we wanted to put in the chairbox because it's such a personalized item. 44 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:10,760 Tamar Lucien: We just kind of just said, okay, it'll have some motivational things. It'll have some inspirational things. You know, you could send this to someone dealing with depression or maybe just 45 00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:15,600 Tamar Lucien: suffered a breakup, but it was very vague as to what the specific items were. 46 00:08:16,500 --> 00:08:27,880 Tamar Lucien: so we used the page to kind of see it at what point people were following following off and then from there we just kind of took advice from our following you 47 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:36,280 Filip Valica: know someone was like well if you could tell me give me even if I don't know what the item looks like give me a little bit more of a descriptive of what could 48 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:50,220 Tamar Lucien: be considered motivational or what could be considered you know something healing that I could send to someone so we started doing that okay so at the at the at the time were you allowing customers to pick from a list of things that could be put in the box, 49 00:08:50,360 --> 00:09:05,220 Tamar Lucien: or was it just like a free response type thing? We did both so we can test it. It was a free response so that they can tell us what that person's about. At first, I didn't think anyone would fill out that free response box. And, you know, we get novels. 50 00:09:06,260 --> 00:09:20,600 Tamar Lucien: So our customers always give us plenty of information. And, you know, it can be colors, what they're going through, what their mental status, what stage of life, you know, the person's going through before so they just got diagnosed with cancer or they're trying to heal cancer. So things of that nature. 51 00:09:21,580 --> 00:09:28,320 Tamar Lucien: Now we're very, very descriptive on, you know, what these items could do and the science 52 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:40,420 Filip Valica: of happiness behind them, the science of positivity. So yeah, we do both still. Our next iteration is to hopefully add some images for people, but it's a mix of me loving to hang on to the element 53 00:09:40,420 --> 00:09:51,000 Filip Valica: of surprise and still giving the customer a little bit of what they're looking for. Right. You want some mystery in that yeah now as you're you're growing the site and you have the ability to like 54 00:09:51,000 --> 00:10:01,100 Tamar Lucien: you said add a little bit more detail are you seeing any trends where you can maybe customize the product or niche down a little bit for a certain segment for example you mentioned people that 55 00:10:01,100 --> 00:10:15,480 Tamar Lucien: are battling cancer or do you find that you maybe you could have like a starting box for somebody and then that could be customized to maybe make the process a bit easier yeah so um that's something I've been heavy kind of thinking of through meditation and really working 56 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:29,400 Tamar Lucien: through, I'm blown away at all the ways people want to use the chairbox. Like, this is like a dream come true for me. I could have never of imagine this. So it's amazing when customers find us and they say, hey, 57 00:10:29,620 --> 00:10:43,200 Tamar Lucien: you know, I have someone close to me who is, and I try to refrain from saying have cancer. At mental happy, we like to use words of affirmation. So we like to say healing cancer, you know, because they're going to eventually get rid of it. So, um, 58 00:10:44,140 --> 00:10:58,340 Tamar Lucien: so when someone is trying to heal cancer, we, we really, because that's such a huge customer segment for us right now, um, it's pretty much been a great deal of our market segment. Um, and we've just been working a lot, 59 00:10:58,460 --> 00:11:11,280 Tamar Lucien: trying to reach back out to people like, what was their feedback? Are they, you know, are they kind of using the affirmations? What was their favorite part? Um, and everyone always says, um, the handwritten note and the positive affirmations have just been. 60 00:11:11,300 --> 00:11:21,460 Filip Valica: the best part because they can put those affirmations everywhere you know and even if it's just seeing you know the words i am healthy and i'm strong um everywhere so we're like well how can we 61 00:11:21,460 --> 00:11:32,180 Filip Valica: incorporate those words like right on the box and make it their very first experience so yeah we're we're definitely um kind of niching down a bit in what people are looking for no that's very 62 00:11:32,180 --> 00:11:37,580 Filip Valica: exciting too and in this day there's so much ability to customize products now where you have 63 00:11:37,580 --> 00:11:47,340 Tamar Lucien: much lower minimum order quantities and things like that to where it gives you that flexibility as a business owner can you go into a little bit about when you were looking for 64 00:11:47,340 --> 00:11:58,800 Tamar Lucien: some suppliers and manufacturers how that process went for you because it must you must have had all sorts of product that you wanted to include in the box i too everything including me just 65 00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:10,880 Tamar Lucien: showing up and saying let me just tell you why you're going to get through this um so in the beginning it's it's always tough right because it's kind of like you know you you want to get the 66 00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:19,780 Tamar Lucien: cheapest product. You want to get the most affordable product so you can kind of keep your margin down or high for you, but, you know, good for the customer as well. But it's really tough, 67 00:12:19,940 --> 00:12:26,980 Tamar Lucien: you know. So for us, of course, we worked with, we went to retail stores. We went to like local vendors. 68 00:12:27,840 --> 00:12:39,620 Tamar Lucien: The thing about retail stores with a very niche market is because you don't really want someone to see that item, you know what I mean, in a store and be able to find it. So that lasted about like three weeks for us. 69 00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:51,840 Tamar Lucien: And so I started, I love going to craft shows and seeing the local people and supporting them. So I'm always at craft shows. I'm always at like food markets and stuff like that. 70 00:12:51,980 --> 00:13:06,500 Tamar Lucien: And I thought for a minute, I was like, you know, some of these crafters like sit here for hours and they may sell just a few items. They might sell out, but, you know, they might sell a few items. So I started looking at some of the things that I love that relaxes me and helps me. 71 00:13:06,980 --> 00:13:13,700 Tamar Lucien: and I just, you know, started offering an opportunity to some of these local crafters in Florida at the time when we were there. 72 00:13:15,300 --> 00:13:28,180 Tamar Lucien: Hey, you know, I'd love to, if you can supply, you know, a minimum of 500 or even if you have 100, you know, we'll provide an opportunity for you that your box could be a vehicle to spread your product out to other people. 73 00:13:28,360 --> 00:13:39,680 Tamar Lucien: If they're willing to make a sample size for us, then that will be it. So for us to solve the inventory problem for a long time is just kind of growing our network-based of crafters. 74 00:13:39,820 --> 00:13:47,380 Tamar Lucien: But I would tell anyone, if you get it from a local store and you can kind of rebrand it a little bit or change it a bit until you can find like a 75 00:13:47,380 --> 00:13:49,320 Filip Valica: bigger supplier on, you know, 76 00:13:50,420 --> 00:13:52,900 Filip Valica: we find people on Etsy. We find people on Alibaba. 77 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:57,460 Filip Valica: But we mainly find people through like our followers on Facebook. 78 00:13:58,740 --> 00:14:01,170 Filip Valica: So I would say just use what you've got. 79 00:14:01,170 --> 00:14:11,510 Tamar Lucien: it is a little tough really just focus on getting your volume up and then you'll naturally be exposed to bigger and larger vendors all very good points and also i guess for you 80 00:14:11,510 --> 00:14:20,950 Tamar Lucien: maybe you didn't have some of the feedback to see how the customers would receive some of those items either they might be really amazing for you but maybe they wouldn't resonate with them 81 00:14:20,950 --> 00:14:29,590 Filip Valica: so it was kind of nice maybe to work with lower quantities in the beginning to to kind of test that out yeah it it is it is good to kind of work with 82 00:14:29,590 --> 00:14:30,730 Tamar Lucien: lower quantities um 83 00:14:30,730 --> 00:14:38,390 Filip Valica: Not so much, yeah, from the customer side, but you don't want to get stuck with the inventory that you can't send back, right? 84 00:14:38,710 --> 00:14:53,170 Filip Valica: Or resell or, you know, the customer doesn't like it as much and you thought you were going to sell and then it's not moving. So, yeah, for sure. Then you're ending up at the craft fair yourself trying to get rid of your excess inventory. Yes, exactly. Exactly. 85 00:14:53,730 --> 00:14:55,130 Filip Valica: So it works out. 86 00:14:55,310 --> 00:14:58,730 Tamar Lucien: Plus it gave us a chance to really support our local economy. 87 00:14:59,830 --> 00:15:11,730 Tamar Lucien: Very good ideas for anybody that's kind of looking to tap into the, you know, the trend of using kind of customer handmade items as well. You've gone through and selected some of your manufacturers now and we talked a little bit about marketing. 88 00:15:12,350 --> 00:15:24,130 Tamar Lucien: You've changed some of the packaging around to make it speak to the customer a bit more. Can you elaborate on that? Like maybe what you started with and what you ended up with and why? Yeah. So in the beginning, 89 00:15:25,450 --> 00:15:36,770 Tamar Lucien: when I did the boxes just for myself, it was always like this place where I helped myself become mentally happy, right? So that's how I got the name. And when we used to put that name on the box, 90 00:15:38,150 --> 00:15:41,190 Tamar Lucien: it kind of resonated with people, but not really. 91 00:15:42,150 --> 00:15:56,390 Tamar Lucien: So we decided to go with the physical product being called to your box because it just, I don't know, customers just took to it better. you know, sometimes you put something out there and, and you think that's what people are going to like. 92 00:15:57,210 --> 00:16:03,010 Filip Valica: But then, you know, through testing and just feedback and everything like that, people just love that name, CheerBoss. 93 00:16:03,250 --> 00:16:09,610 Tamar Lucien: So we had to iterate that a bit. We actually had to create a logo called Cheerbox and Trademark it and do all this other stuff to it. 94 00:16:10,830 --> 00:16:17,150 Tamar Lucien: So, yeah, in the beginning, you just, you kind of can't be too stuck on what you want and kind of just go for what the customer wants. 95 00:16:17,150 --> 00:16:26,270 Filip Valica: But yeah, we learned that very quickly. Probably in the first four weeks, we changed to just putting the cheerbox logo on the box versus mental happy. That's very interesting. 96 00:16:26,430 --> 00:16:38,650 Tamar Lucien: I wonder if people are used to seeing blank box as a brand name or as a service now because of all the other subscription services now that mail boxes every month? Right, right. So maybe they just kind of felt like, oh, okay, yeah, it's in a box. 97 00:16:38,770 --> 00:16:50,250 Tamar Lucien: We always tell people it's just the box is just the easiest way for us to get you the stuff, right? It has nothing to do with the box itself. Do you find that you're having to do a lot of customer education about what the box is? 98 00:16:50,410 --> 00:17:05,130 Tamar Lucien: Or is it something that is instant where people see the first page of your website and then under 10 seconds, they know exactly what they're getting? Yeah. So in the beginning, it was a lot of that explaining, right? Oh, you could send it to somebody for this. You can send it to somebody for that. 99 00:17:06,110 --> 00:17:09,690 Tamar Lucien: And you're going to run into that, you know, because you're constantly honing your message. 100 00:17:11,010 --> 00:17:20,730 Tamar Lucien: But now we're able to see, you know, the bounce rate is less. You know, if your bounce rate is, you know, 70-something percent, then probably people don't get it and they run away very fast. 101 00:17:20,850 --> 00:17:33,670 Filip Valica: Right. But now we see that people just kind of get there and they're like, oh, this is, this is great. And we see that because our secondary measurement of like how did they hear from us is from a friend. 102 00:17:34,740 --> 00:17:49,560 Filip Valica: So that first medium is usually like Facebook or some type of social media platform. But that second customer, that third customer, which is really what you want to make those sales keep going. is, oh, I heard it from a friend. Oh, I heard it from a friend, which means they understood the 103 00:17:49,560 --> 00:18:04,060 Filip Valica: message clear enough to repeat it to someone else. And that's the true measure of, are you communicating it correctly? That's really great metric to have. And it congrats on actually having that type of business because really, I think referrals are the number one best way of getting business 104 00:18:04,060 --> 00:18:14,560 Tamar Lucien: because no one is going to be as convincing to your target customer than maybe some of their friends or family or people that are close to them. They trust those people way more than you or I 105 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:28,640 Tamar Lucien: market a new product. That's so true, no matter how many dollars you spend. That's amazing. And that's really what you want to get to. Can you maybe talk a little bit about why you think that people trust you enough to do that? Usually people say, well, we have a really quality product, then we 106 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:39,320 Tamar Lucien: have good customer service. And we, you know, we sell it for a good price. And that's, I guess, everyone's goal to get there. But actually making that happen is challenging. Yeah, it is. 107 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:53,880 Tamar Lucien: You know, you're not going to please every single customer. So, I mean, I'm sure. sure there's a customer out there. It's like, oh, no, that's your box thing just wasn't for me. And that's fine. The great thing is if they actually tell you that, too, because then you can do 108 00:18:53,880 --> 00:19:00,220 Tamar Lucien: something about it. But the people that kind of go on and, you know, tell someone else, I think they just, 109 00:19:01,900 --> 00:19:14,260 Tamar Lucien: I think it's more of the emotion based in it, you know. It's this product made that other person really look at life differently. You know, it really brightened their day. 110 00:19:15,700 --> 00:19:27,920 Tamar Lucien: And what we do differently is that nothing is is personalized anymore, right? So the fact that not only did the box say your name on it through the mail, that's kind of standard. It has to say your name on it through the mail, right? 111 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:38,300 Tamar Lucien: But when you remove the mail packaging, that UPS label on it, it actually says your name, you know? And that's a wow factor then and there. 112 00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:44,160 Tamar Lucien: And then like a human being actually wrote you with their own hands, a note, you know? 113 00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:50,420 Filip Valica: And I think people resonate with that. And in the beginning, we used to write, you know, please excuse the typos, was written by a human. 114 00:19:51,320 --> 00:20:05,760 Filip Valica: And people loved it. So I think it's just the humanness in what we do, just the vulnerability, just the genuineness that we give to that very first customer that makes them want to go out and say, you know, you should really try this. 115 00:20:05,860 --> 00:20:19,020 Filip Valica: Like I felt like these people are my friends, you know, and we do sign it that way. You know, your pals are mental happy because it's really the truth. So I think that's what makes that second person really impacted by the first person's experience. 116 00:20:19,180 --> 00:20:24,960 Filip Valica: Well, and like you said that your experience is really genuine and it makes them feel something. 117 00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:37,820 Tamar Lucien: And that is so difficult to do now because there's so much marketing and advertising and other companies that are trying to connect with people online and through maybe a false sense of connection. 118 00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:52,720 Tamar Lucien: They're following the mechanics, but they're not really emoting properly or they're not making. making that connection to the customer. So congratulations on finding out how that works. I could see how you could have customers for life where, you know, they're really happy with 119 00:20:52,720 --> 00:21:07,680 Tamar Lucien: the first box and they just, now they make it a habit and they start shipping boxes to other people that they think could benefit from it. And you just never lose a customer if you can stay true to that message. Yeah, absolutely. And that's really tough because, you know, you, the bigger your company gets, 120 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:22,800 Tamar Lucien: the more you'll have just different people and things competing with that, right? Sure, metrics. Yeah, exactly, because it's like you have investors and, you know, you have advisors, you just, you have a lot of people. 121 00:21:23,100 --> 00:21:36,580 Filip Valica: So it's really, it could be really tough to, to stay true to that. So if anybody is in that, you know, that phase where you're just making your product from home, like we once were enjoy it. 122 00:21:37,940 --> 00:21:47,940 Filip Valica: You know, I know it doesn't totally pay the bills or anything like that, like, you know, take it easy with that process because, you know, once people start handing you checks for it 123 00:21:47,940 --> 00:21:54,200 Filip Valica: and the bigger you get for it, you could sometimes lose the just the funnest. Is that a word, funnest? 124 00:21:55,120 --> 00:22:07,540 Tamar Lucien: You could lose it's not a word, but it'll be today, the funnest part of what you do. And that's what people should resonate in your customer's. should resonate with. Yeah, it makes me think a lot about how I do business for sure. 125 00:22:08,220 --> 00:22:20,040 Tamar Lucien: Make sure that you focus on the personal part of it, which is really hard, especially if you're maybe a sole proprietor or you're a small business owner with no employees and you're having 126 00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:31,520 Tamar Lucien: to make those personal connections, which are time consuming. Yeah, yeah, it really is. Can you talk a little bit about how you fulfill orders? So someone will place an order on your website. 127 00:22:32,380 --> 00:22:36,080 Tamar Lucien: What's the next thing that happens? So they'll go to Mental Happy. 128 00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:41,640 Tamar Lucien: They'll fill out the form. They can browse a row, kind of see what we're about, make sure we're legit. 129 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:48,500 Tamar Lucien: And then once they fill out the form, they will get a confirmation email of the order. 130 00:22:49,500 --> 00:23:02,660 Tamar Lucien: And the confirmation email always changes because, you know, we're always just iterating, you know, kind of that person's first experience with that so the first email is hey you know we got your order we're 131 00:23:02,660 --> 00:23:10,820 Tamar Lucien: working on it um and then the second email is um you know your your shipment is ready to go and so and so 132 00:23:10,820 --> 00:23:15,400 Filip Valica: because we use the person's name that they're sending it to whether it's themselves or you know 133 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:27,660 Tamar Lucien: if you're sending it to sherry hey sherry's cheerbox is on its way um because we just want to keep it personalized every step of the way um in a couple of weeks we're actually going to add one more 134 00:23:27,660 --> 00:23:38,780 Tamar Lucien: step to that email because people always want to know like where the cheerbox is in the process because it's so handmade. So I'm flattered that they want to know that much about what we do. 135 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:47,300 Tamar Lucien: So we're actually going to include that step like, you know, hey, we just put our name on the box or we just filled it with love, something like that. 136 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:58,440 Filip Valica: And then once they get that email confirmation that it's shipped, they should get it in two to three days after that. Cool. So do you use a fulfillment service for that at all? Or is it? We don't. 137 00:23:59,520 --> 00:23:59,940 Filip Valica: We don't. 138 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:14,340 Tamar Lucien: And that's one of those things. It's like, are you going to stay true to what you want to do? Or you're going to kind of, because you have metrics and, you know, investors and stuff like that, that just want more and more to get out the door as quickly as it can. And customers that want to get out the door as quickly as it can. Absolutely. 139 00:24:14,740 --> 00:24:20,500 Tamar Lucien: You know, my goal is hopefully we can hang on to that, to that human process as much as we can. 140 00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:33,360 Filip Valica: So that we can create real jobs for people versus, you know, just being in a factory. So we do have a production room. We do have like a warehouse type set up, but, you know, it touches a human hand, like, every step of the way. 141 00:24:33,540 --> 00:24:37,960 Filip Valica: So you touched on having a production room that everything seems to be done in-house. 142 00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:47,480 Tamar Lucien: Do you outsource anything? No, I don't. So you've got a team of employees that work with you to get this out? Yeah, that's important. 143 00:24:47,820 --> 00:24:58,760 Tamar Lucien: Like, it was my highest priority with this particular startup is to team up, as they say. to really get a good group of people around you that could help you because it is frustrating. 144 00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:03,520 Tamar Lucien: I mean, even if all you have in the beginning is family, which that's all I had in the beginning. Sure. 145 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:17,780 Tamar Lucien: Definitely try to get one other person to help you out. Yeah, because it'll just take a load off your hands and you'll be able to focus on maybe other parts of the business and scale it a lot faster without doing the day-to -day tasks. Yeah. 146 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:24,400 Tamar Lucien: Can you talk a little bit about how you made that decision to hire somebody and maybe what role that you filled first? and why? 147 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:27,680 Tamar Lucien: What role did I feel first? That's a great question. 148 00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:44,280 Tamar Lucien: So looking back, I don't know that this was the best role to fill first. I kind of felt like, gosh, I should have held on for that process a little bit more. When I was doing it, like, just by myself manually, we were getting like a lot of shares and people were posting it on Instagram. Like, they loved it. 149 00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:51,400 Tamar Lucien: And then once we got a little bit bigger, we got a lot of investment money, I hired people to fulfill it, like train them on what I did. Sure. 150 00:25:53,190 --> 00:26:04,670 Tamar Lucien: it wasn't as great we weren't getting you know as much feedback we weren't getting um we weren't getting the interaction that we once were on social media we weren't getting the oh i love this so much you 151 00:26:04,670 --> 00:26:16,430 Tamar Lucien: know um so i really had to kind of pull back the onion i actually let every single person in the production department go wow um and i had to make that tough decision because you know we were 152 00:26:16,430 --> 00:26:26,610 Tamar Lucien: burning money and it wasn't great um so you know i i wish i didn't let that part go so so fast um and 153 00:26:26,610 --> 00:26:40,070 Tamar Lucien: still kind of made the time to possibly do it myself or alongside them um as like a second or third hand but yeah i i trained the production people first and then i got um well my very first 154 00:26:40,070 --> 00:26:52,910 Tamar Lucien: person that's actually the very first person um my business partner he does all the engineering and the website and stuff like that. So that was the first thing. Then the production. And then who did I hire next? 155 00:26:53,050 --> 00:27:02,930 Tamar Lucien: Oh, the third person we hired, fantastic team. He's our designer. And then we do all our own creatives and marketing and stuff like that. 156 00:27:03,110 --> 00:27:16,310 Filip Valica: So we hired another designer who also does a lot of our social stuff. But then once I let everyone go, I really just had to kind of peel back the onion because we were, it's so close. 157 00:27:16,390 --> 00:27:23,490 Filip Valica: to our hearts, you know, and what we do, um, people trust us with their, just most horrific moments 158 00:27:23,490 --> 00:27:38,410 Tamar Lucien: of their life, you know, that vulnerability is so courageous. And I don't want to take it for granted. I don't want to cheapen it. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't want to cheapen it at all. So I had to let them go because, you know, these are people coming to us saying, you know, they, they lost someone. They're 159 00:27:38,410 --> 00:27:51,790 Tamar Lucien: trying to heal from something, you know, um, you know, my husband of 26 years left me kind of type stories you know so um i i just really had to restructure that that department that product um and 160 00:27:51,790 --> 00:28:05,490 Tamar Lucien: really make it a little bit more niche for what they were looking for so um so yeah my my first hire was production but i probably should it would seem on the surface that if you gave somebody instructions to say hey pack these four things into a box and it's going to go to this person and 161 00:28:05,490 --> 00:28:17,730 Tamar Lucien: make sure that you hand write a note that that seems pretty straightforward on the surface right Why do you think that there were some issues with that? Were people just not attentive enough to that or didn't put the same amount of love or care into it as you would? 162 00:28:18,190 --> 00:28:26,010 Tamar Lucien: Yeah, I think energy is really real, right? Energy is the same people can feel. You know, it may not see it, may not understand it, but it's there. 163 00:28:26,970 --> 00:28:36,070 Filip Valica: And I just think the energy and that positive effort wasn't translating on the other end to the customer. So I think that empathy just wasn't there. 164 00:28:37,050 --> 00:28:40,370 Filip Valica: And that's what I thought. I thought, I told you how to do this. 165 00:28:40,590 --> 00:28:47,010 Tamar Lucien: You know, it should be very, you know, able to just execute. So the other issue that we had is like, 166 00:28:47,950 --> 00:29:00,690 Tamar Lucien: and it's funny because you can oftentimes not realize, you know, how big and how fast your product is moving across, you know, people, right? So people were starting to notice that their notes were similar. 167 00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:13,200 Tamar Lucien: And that's one of the things that, and this is like maybe two or three, not, you know, a friend told me and I bought, this is like two or three people. down from each other. So not the exact friend of a friend of a friend, but the friend of a friend of a friend. 168 00:29:14,060 --> 00:29:25,060 Tamar Lucien: And people talk. So that's not supposed to happen at all. It's something we promise doesn't happen. And we weren't really taking the time to do that. Orders were coming in very 169 00:29:25,060 --> 00:29:34,360 Filip Valica: fast. And I think they were just, you know, pushing through the process. Sure. And that's easy to do. Like you said, if you're not monitoring everything that goes out, people will kind of cut 170 00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:40,420 Tamar Lucien: corners because they're under the gun to get orders out and you're just going to use a template or something like that. Yeah, 171 00:29:41,340 --> 00:29:43,100 Tamar Lucien: exactly. And it's, and, you know, to their, 172 00:29:44,180 --> 00:29:45,680 Tamar Lucien: to their, I don't know, 173 00:29:45,780 --> 00:29:50,780 Filip Valica: I guess just to be on their side a little bit, it's, it's partly my fault as a leader because, 174 00:29:51,040 --> 00:30:01,740 Tamar Lucien: you know, I had to really kind of slow things down and figure out a better way. You know, the shipping process was so cumbersome. It took so long because we were kind of doing data 175 00:30:01,740 --> 00:30:09,140 Tamar Lucien: entry of the names when we were using the postal service, and that's why we moved to a bigger parcel service. 176 00:30:09,420 --> 00:30:23,140 Filip Valica: So, yeah, it's just there were a lot of things on the tech side that, you know, we could have been doing. But if I hung on to that process a lot longer, I would have felt that pain and been able to mitigate 177 00:30:23,140 --> 00:30:36,380 Filip Valica: it even better and even faster. It would almost seem like you want one person to write the personalized note and another the person to do the packing because maybe the skill set isn't right it's not the same so um we had to 178 00:30:36,380 --> 00:30:40,260 Filip Valica: like really i thought it was good enough to being just like maybe two or three jobs we actually 179 00:30:40,260 --> 00:30:54,760 Tamar Lucien: had to break it down to like four or five jobs because it just has to work like a factory like everybody has to focus on their main thing right wow so the person writing the note was how writers cramp when they go home at the end of the day you know what's the fun part we actually as a team take turns 180 00:30:54,760 --> 00:31:09,280 Tamar Lucien: writing the note like so that doesn't mean that you know um leslie who he worked at and, you know, design doesn't mean he can't come down to production and write a few notes. You know, the CTO does it. I do it oftentimes. So, yeah, we make it fun. 181 00:31:09,420 --> 00:31:22,800 Tamar Lucien: That's parallel to what some tech companies do where they will have the engineers, you know, speaking as an engineer, they'll have you sit and take customer support calls or go in on sales calls so you feel what the customer's feeling. 182 00:31:23,220 --> 00:31:35,940 Tamar Lucien: And you can translate that back into your job. And some of the best companies, I think, will rotate their engineers or the people that are created. the product through the final stage so they can get some of that feedback so they don't they're 183 00:31:35,940 --> 00:31:49,320 Tamar Lucien: not so isolated and thinking well my job is only to move from C to D instead of you know worrying about what the customer thinks yeah our CTO till this day even though we have um we do from time to time 184 00:31:49,320 --> 00:32:00,200 Tamar Lucien: when the customer service emails get overwhelming um have someone come in um just maybe as a temp or work seasonal to help us deal with it we actually all handle our own customer 185 00:32:00,220 --> 00:32:12,280 Tamar Lucien: service inquiries. I'm not sure that's the best. I'm not sure that's the best method, but the method to his madness is that we just, we're not out of the learning phase by a long 186 00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:19,580 Tamar Lucien: shot. So we all have to like really answer the questions. And some of the most unique things 187 00:32:19,580 --> 00:32:31,940 Tamar Lucien: that I've come out of the experience, I remember when it was my turn one weekend to kind of go something to us so we can add it to the cheerbox. Oh, nice. 188 00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:37,220 Tamar Lucien: And I thought, well, I'm the boss and I don't even know. How do I handle this? Yeah. 189 00:32:39,180 --> 00:32:44,960 Tamar Lucien: So, you know, I was like, well, I don't know. We've never had someone ask that. 190 00:32:45,140 --> 00:32:55,600 Filip Valica: And I think that honesty is what people appreciate. I didn't fake it. Like, oh, yeah, you know, I didn't know. I honestly didn't know. So I was like, yeah, you can send it and, you know, we'll review it. 191 00:32:56,540 --> 00:33:06,100 Filip Valica: And then we'll let you know if it's something we can. include in the box. It was actually a family photo and they all signed it and he wanted it to be included in the box. It was a family member 192 00:33:06,100 --> 00:33:11,120 Tamar Lucien: who she lost, it was his cousin who lost a mother. Yeah. 193 00:33:12,780 --> 00:33:25,180 Tamar Lucien: So they were pretty close and just the whole family just kind of wanted to support her and they just wanted to give a photo that included the mother. It was like their last family reunion. So, but they all had to sign it first. 194 00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:33,820 Tamar Lucien: So we weren't, I wasn't really sure, but had I not been close to that customer service process, I would have never, you know, 195 00:33:33,900 --> 00:33:39,800 Filip Valica: I would have never have known how to deal with it. So now it's like in our privacy policy that you can send us something, you know, 196 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:45,140 Filip Valica: at a cost to you. And it has to be of this size to fit 197 00:33:45,140 --> 00:33:57,780 Tamar Lucien: at the box or this weight to fit in the box. But yeah, we'll look at it and we'll be willing to include it. A lot of its personal memento. So we're very open to that. That's nice. And that definitely personalizes service. I would think that most people, 198 00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:12,260 Tamar Lucien: would have said no to that or automatically would have said no because it doesn't fall into our process. It's going to slow us down. That's a fringe thing. If we're getting that, you know, a question one out of 10 times, it's easy to say no to 199 00:34:12,260 --> 00:34:22,660 Tamar Lucien: those types of orders because it's only, you know, 10% of your orders or 5% of your orders that want that. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, we always tell people that cheerbox is a very cool experience. 200 00:34:22,780 --> 00:34:35,480 Tamar Lucien: Like you have no idea what it's going to be and how cool it's going to be until you get one or you actually are someone's happiness hero and you send one to them. So, you know, people just, people just want to be a part of what feels good. 201 00:34:36,060 --> 00:34:40,340 Tamar Lucien: So I just, I don't want to turn them down and say, no. If it gets out of control, we may have to shut down. 202 00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:53,540 Tamar Lucien: But, you know, for right now, you know, let's just try it and see how it goes. So you talked about that early on you started by yourself and at some point you had some help from investors to come in and give you some seed money. 203 00:34:53,600 --> 00:35:02,680 Tamar Lucien: Can you kind of talk about how you were able to manage? your finances and how it kind of grew? Oh my gosh. The finances are so important. 204 00:35:03,900 --> 00:35:12,520 Tamar Lucien: Make sure you have someone to help you out with that in the very beginning because it's really tough. And I do a lot of the CEO work type stuff. 205 00:35:14,100 --> 00:35:28,160 Tamar Lucien: But because we don't have a CFO yet, I'm still the CFO and the accounting person and the bookkeeper and all that. So, but my favorite job is the product. So, you know, I tend to do that more than I do, guess what, books. 206 00:35:29,060 --> 00:35:38,700 Tamar Lucien: And so, you know, in the beginning, I just kind of manage it through QuickBooks. I reached out to a few friends that I know, like lawyers or people in that 207 00:35:38,700 --> 00:35:47,280 Filip Valica: accounting field to ask them, hey, do you know of anybody willing to do pro bono hours for, you know, small business or a startup? 208 00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:58,860 Filip Valica: They were like, yeah, I do. That's nice. And so I interviewed with a couple of CFOs that kind of help businesses, smaller business out, just in their free time. 209 00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:06,940 Filip Valica: And I found someone, he was great. And he helped me kind of set up my quick books, how to reconcile, things that I know because 210 00:36:06,940 --> 00:36:21,780 Tamar Lucien: I went to school for this, but I've never had to practice it in my real life. I mean, you get an MBA, but, you know, most people don't do what an MBA is supposed to do. So once I did that, then I was a bit better. 211 00:36:21,820 --> 00:36:35,700 Tamar Lucien: But again, you know, you still have to take the time. time to, you know, reconcile those books and things of that nature. But the easiest way, I would say, to get started with a lot of your accounting stuff is, except payments maybe through PayPal. 212 00:36:36,620 --> 00:36:43,860 Tamar Lucien: It's a fantastic management tool. We did that in the beginning. And then as we grew, we got Stripe. Right. 213 00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:58,920 Tamar Lucien: And I think we're moving to something else now. Oh, we're moving to Brain Tree. Okay. So, you know, just kind of as you grow, just kind of let the software grow. with you. But QuickBooks, it plugs into anything. They have an amazing API. So yeah. That's a good 214 00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:08,780 Filip Valica: idea. And I've also heard that you want to automate as much of that as you can. And so if there's services that maybe you have to pay for in the beginning that are monthly services, but it's going 215 00:37:08,780 --> 00:37:22,060 Tamar Lucien: to keep you from making expensive mistakes or losing invoices and things like that. You might as just start doing it. You know, the Excel sheet might work in the first month or two, but after that, it's 216 00:37:22,060 --> 00:37:34,800 Tamar Lucien: just you're having to keep it up. Right. You become a data entry person. Yeah, I would say, yeah, just find something that's just very easy to use. QuickBooks Online's 18 bucks. They always have a sale. 217 00:37:34,980 --> 00:37:45,440 Tamar Lucien: It's always 50% off or something like that. So definitely get that. PayPal's amazing. Some people are like, well, I got to pay to accept the money. You're going to have to do that anyways, long as you're accepting credit cards. 218 00:37:45,980 --> 00:37:59,700 Tamar Lucien: right um stripe is great because it pours right into quickbooks so does PayPal um so yeah just get something that's very um easily easily manageable for you so that it's very low touch um and then always do 219 00:37:59,700 --> 00:38:14,080 Tamar Lucien: research on other products as you grow along because you you want your um your products to grow with you know and make sure their capabilities are there as well but definitely always have a medium as to how you're able to track it because it's only in that tracking that you're going to if you're 220 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:29,080 Tamar Lucien: interested investors to be able to say, well, you know, this is, you know, what, how much I've made or how much I've lost or anything like that. And that leads into the next question. You started maybe with your own funds. Can you talk a little bit about how much you put in and then maybe at what point did you 221 00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:30,240 Tamar Lucien: solicit outside investment? 222 00:38:31,220 --> 00:38:36,340 Tamar Lucien: Yeah. So at the time that I started mental happy, I had like, 223 00:38:37,330 --> 00:38:40,790 Tamar Lucien: I don't know how much in my bank account, maybe like $23. I had like nothing. 224 00:38:42,090 --> 00:38:43,890 Tamar Lucien: And I had maybe. 225 00:38:45,010 --> 00:38:49,310 Tamar Lucien: $250 of available credit left on my MX card on my American Express. 226 00:38:50,830 --> 00:39:03,430 Tamar Lucien: I was, I just went through like a horrible breakup and we were actually going to merge our lives together. So my apartment that I owned wasn't available because I had already rented it out. 227 00:39:03,870 --> 00:39:10,750 Tamar Lucien: So I was just in this crazy place when I started it. So I took the American Express card and I was like, you know what? 228 00:39:10,750 --> 00:39:24,430 Tamar Lucien: I am just going to spend the last little bit that's on here to just figure out these products and, you know, make these four, you know, prototype boxes to send out. 229 00:39:24,490 --> 00:39:32,270 Tamar Lucien: I don't know if it's going to go well. I don't know if it's going to go bad. I hope it goes good because it's all I've got. Wow. And I did. 230 00:39:32,650 --> 00:39:37,490 Filip Valica: I just, I spent my last 250 on my credit card to start mental happy. 231 00:39:38,770 --> 00:39:50,230 Tamar Lucien: and when after that because orders were coming in it brought in more income had some cool opportunities come up where we could do bulk orders for people 232 00:39:50,230 --> 00:40:01,680 Tamar Lucien: for different customers and businesses and stuff like that right so that brought in good revenue and I was telling the person who encouraged me to do it in the first time like you 233 00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:15,800 Tamar Lucien: know I think this is going to work like people are actually signing up and paying through PayPal through the launch rock page now I Obviously, I wasn't charging enough or tax or shipping or any of that important logistical stuff, but it still was earning, it was still generating money. 234 00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:30,980 Filip Valica: So he then invested and we were doing good, just kind of bootstrapping it for a while. And then a friend, a mutual friend of ours mentioned that an investor kind of heard about the product. 235 00:40:31,140 --> 00:40:44,260 Tamar Lucien: She was interested in what we're doing. It was two female VCs based in Vegas. They're interested in a female founder who would be willing to kind of base the business and be part of the Vegas ecosystem. 236 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:50,160 Tamar Lucien: So I was like, well, I have nothing to lose. So I rented out the place again. 237 00:40:52,240 --> 00:41:05,920 Tamar Lucien: So and I just moved. So yeah, I literally just started this business that is now worth a little over half a mill just on $250. 238 00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:09,920 Tamar Lucien: $50 on my credit card. It's an amazing inspirational story. 239 00:41:11,020 --> 00:41:23,080 Tamar Lucien: Yeah, there's just always a way. There's always a way, you know. And the biggest thing is not getting caught in the details, you know, because you 240 00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,940 Tamar Lucien: could really easily talk yourself out of spending that money by saying, well, I got 241 00:41:26,940 --> 00:41:33,060 Filip Valica: to pay this and that's going to be due. And what if it doesn't work out? And I made a lot of those mistakes with my other startups. 242 00:41:33,100 --> 00:41:46,200 Tamar Lucien: This one, I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to wing it. I'm just going to admit that I don't always know what the heck is going on and I'm going to figure it out and answers are going to show up at the right time and I'm just going to have 243 00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:59,740 Tamar Lucien: fun, you know, like we just really had fun with it and it worked out. You were living on your own, I imagine, or, you know, you were responsible for just me, feeding and clothing yourself. Yeah, and the dog. And the dog. 244 00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:09,520 Tamar Lucien: How did you make that work or did you have some savings left over from your last job to kind of out you until you were able to draw a salary um you know what i was really successful in my last 245 00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:22,380 Filip Valica: job this is true um and i owned my own home i own my own car um you know startup is just a very different lifestyle sure um than the last then the last uh place that i was and working i was actually 246 00:42:22,380 --> 00:42:30,340 Tamar Lucien: a staffing um operations manager okay i ran like a three million dollar branch operation in one location. I also had another location. Um, 247 00:42:32,380 --> 00:42:43,760 Tamar Lucien: so yeah, it, you know, I, I saved a lot. And that's how I got through the really hard years of startup. But I mean, I, that year was like nothing was left. Wow. Nothing was left. 248 00:42:44,660 --> 00:42:57,800 Tamar Lucien: And, um, you know, even still, I, I think you can make a lot of excuses, you know, to kind of maybe go back and get a job or say, you know, this, this is just not working. But I knew for me, with everything in my heart, I'm just, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, 249 00:42:57,820 --> 00:43:11,040 Tamar Lucien: just born to do this. I'm just born to be a creative person. So there was no other, there was no other option. By that point, you've already had all this positive feedback from other people that also wanted it too, and it must have at least helped fuel you to get you 250 00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:20,860 Tamar Lucien: to that next step. Yeah, it does, because then it's like, okay, people like it, what's happening here? And I was stuck between that. Should we fundraise? Should we just keep bootstrapping? And then 251 00:43:20,860 --> 00:43:30,360 Tamar Lucien: the opportunity found us. And even while we're here in Vegas, another opportunity found us. And another opportunity found us. So, so tedious. I know. 252 00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:40,540 Tamar Lucien: So, you know, I just, yeah, you can sit and say, well, you know, reality is, you know, we're running out of money or reality is we're doing this, 253 00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:51,580 Filip Valica: we're doing that. But it's just a journey and you just kind of have to buckle up and just go with it. Well, and you mentioned that you had worked on some startups before. Do you feel like you have some 254 00:43:51,580 --> 00:43:56,560 Filip Valica: sort of a unique skill set or I like to use the word superpower that maybe nobody else has? 255 00:43:56,620 --> 00:44:07,540 Tamar Lucien: that helps you be successful in what you're doing now? Yeah, you know, and I wish I would have realized my superpower as a kid. Right, because I'm super creative. 256 00:44:09,060 --> 00:44:09,980 Tamar Lucien: I really am. 257 00:44:11,420 --> 00:44:21,320 Tamar Lucien: And I just, I really wish that I knew that and I was able to tap into that as a kid or had the resources or my parents had the resources to explore that more. 258 00:44:22,940 --> 00:44:35,400 Filip Valica: I love starting businesses, like even in college, The best papers that I ever wrote and got, like, even more points than the teacher was going to give were papers that I wrote where you had to be entrepreneurial. 259 00:44:35,940 --> 00:44:44,540 Filip Valica: And I remember in high school, we had to do this whole project where you pick a business and you have to talk about your finances for the business, the commercial, like what the business is. 260 00:44:45,060 --> 00:44:47,480 Tamar Lucien: And I got like 200 points out of 200 points. 261 00:44:48,480 --> 00:45:00,240 Tamar Lucien: And in college, and actually in grad school, I did the same thing. And the teacher actually gave everyone else in the class an extension. to rewrite their papers because I was the only person who did it correctly. Wow. 262 00:45:00,580 --> 00:45:03,820 Tamar Lucien: So, and I started a bank. 263 00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:15,900 Tamar Lucien: And the first business was like a restaurant with an entertainment type thing. So I think that's my superpower. I'm really good at just creating, just creating stuff out of nothing. 264 00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:27,540 Tamar Lucien: Mental happy is probably the best one because it's so niche, because it really doesn't exist out in the world anymore. You know, no one does it or no one is doing anything. like that. 265 00:45:28,580 --> 00:45:31,460 Tamar Lucien: Yeah, I've seen care packages for college students and things like that. 266 00:45:32,380 --> 00:45:42,460 Tamar Lucien: And sometimes booster clubs will put together things where they have drives. But I definitely haven't seen it applied to where you're at and not at that scale. Right. Yeah. 267 00:45:42,860 --> 00:45:55,840 Tamar Lucien: So, I mean, people do things for like people in the military or college students or just something personal on their own that's filled with like snacks or candy or stuff like that. But even I hadn't seen it. 268 00:45:55,840 --> 00:46:07,420 Tamar Lucien: So even when my business partner was like, oh, you should consider giving it someone. I'm like, how? I've never like, how do you send something to someone to help them cope or heal from life's traumatic issues? So, yeah. 269 00:46:07,740 --> 00:46:21,700 Tamar Lucien: As we talk about this product, it seems like it's dying for a complimentary product or a service that follows up with people. Because part of mental happiness is just having that consistent touch after they get the first hit. 270 00:46:22,100 --> 00:46:34,860 Tamar Lucien: So, hey, just checking in, making sure everything is okay. let me know if you need anything or just thinking of you today. Here's something smaller. It's almost begging to me for a subscription type service. Yeah, and that's where we're headed. 271 00:46:36,100 --> 00:46:47,140 Tamar Lucien: So I didn't want to go the subscription route because I'm like, man, like, how do you? I mean, especially so much of our customers are gifting this to someone else. 272 00:46:47,220 --> 00:47:00,860 Tamar Lucien: And a good bit of our customers are gifting it anonymously, which is very interesting. Like, they don't want to be known. So it's just, I figured, like, how do you gift a subscription to someone? So that's something I'm always thinking about. 273 00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:11,880 Tamar Lucien: But I actually had a really good idea come from a customer. They said, what if she was like, well, what if I could get this four times out of the year at random? 274 00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:23,740 Filip Valica: And I thought, that is a really, that's the best subscription idea I have heard yet. Because we've been asking, yeah, we've been asking customers like, how would you want to get this as a subscription? 275 00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:38,500 Tamar Lucien: The other thing that they said that they'd love to subscribe to is some type of community. As long as it's private, there are no jerks. People can kind of, you know, come in and just be as vulnerable or, you know, encourage others as much as they can. 276 00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:46,400 Tamar Lucien: So we're working on that. And we do this thing called like Motivational Mondays where, and it usually comes from me. 277 00:47:47,380 --> 00:47:56,380 Filip Valica: I'll write like an email, like I'll write something on blogger. and it's just just encouraging words you know and it could be about money it could be about 278 00:47:56,380 --> 00:48:10,060 Filip Valica: relationships it could just be about you know trying not to cry today right um or just anything that you're going through um or it could be funny and i'll email blast it out and someone was like 279 00:48:10,060 --> 00:48:19,340 Filip Valica: if i could get you know just even a sentence of your encouraging words in a text message every day, I think I could really be able to cope. You know, 280 00:48:21,380 --> 00:48:25,400 Filip Valica: I, I wrote one, I wrote one that talked about, you know, trying not to be a, 281 00:48:26,190 --> 00:48:38,110 Tamar Lucien: you know, just really, really, if someone just jumps in front of you at the line at Starbucks, it is okay. Like, you don't have to let that snowball and ruin your day and then you get to work and 282 00:48:38,110 --> 00:48:46,090 Tamar Lucien: then you ruin everybody else's day, you know, so a lot of it is just kind of emotional responsibility type stuff and little reminders. 283 00:48:47,150 --> 00:48:57,990 Tamar Lucien: And I think people are looking for more of that, okay, yeah, I got through this one major horrible thing that happened to me in life, but how do I keep functioning in this mindfulness, right? 284 00:48:58,510 --> 00:49:05,850 Tamar Lucien: So, yeah, I think the follow up for mental happy and what I envision is really just kind of more community, more education, 285 00:49:06,750 --> 00:49:18,030 Tamar Lucien: and just, you know, more laughs and good time. Yeah, absolutely. You could even have an app that kind of syncs with your community and has notification that kind of pop up based on maybe the type of box that they got. Right. Yeah. 286 00:49:18,230 --> 00:49:29,490 Tamar Lucien: So that's the stuff we're doing, just kind of playing around with it, testing it out, outside of the box is really fun. And the other thing is just what we're learning about people and how they feel 287 00:49:29,490 --> 00:49:41,770 Tamar Lucien: and at what stage and age that they're going through emotional things. You know, could we better diagnose? Could we better perceive? Could we, you know, maybe administer less medicine, you know, things of that nature. 288 00:49:41,770 --> 00:49:50,990 Tamar Lucien: Man, that must be exhausting because running the business is, you know, one job, and now you've got this other job where you're trying to connect to people at a genuine level, 289 00:49:52,110 --> 00:49:57,150 Tamar Lucien: not just to get more data for your business, but because you genuinely care, which is exhausting by itself. 290 00:49:57,450 --> 00:50:08,770 Tamar Lucien: People that work in that industry in hospitals, and my wife is a physical therapist that works with the geriatric population, and she totally commits herself and she loves her patients, but mentally it 291 00:50:08,770 --> 00:50:21,870 Filip Valica: can be draining on you because you become so invested. Yeah. So you mentioned early on in the interview that you do some meditation. Is that maybe one of the ways that you used to relieve some of that stress and to keep on your center? Oh, my gosh. Yes, 292 00:50:22,990 --> 00:50:24,370 Tamar Lucien: including my own cheerbox. 293 00:50:25,430 --> 00:50:36,660 Tamar Lucien: Yeah. So I started meditating about, I think I really got into it like heavy like six months ago. But I've been doing it off and on for like a couple years. 294 00:50:38,020 --> 00:50:52,600 Tamar Lucien: And everyone's always like, well, how do you get started? Like, what do you think about? You know, and I think a lot of people focus too much on not think about anything, and that'll drive you nuts because it's really hard. Right. Like, you've never not thought about anything in your entire life. Right. 295 00:50:53,120 --> 00:51:08,000 Tamar Lucien: So what I would say with meditation is let the thoughts come to you. And they get kind of crazy because a lot of our thoughts are negative, right? A negative about ourselves, negative about other people. Sure. And just I try to just always like replace it with something else. 296 00:51:08,180 --> 00:51:11,660 Tamar Lucien: You know, I try to change the narrative of what's happening in my head. 297 00:51:13,220 --> 00:51:27,040 Tamar Lucien: And then chanting is a very good way to kind of start silencing your mind because you're focused on one thing, whether it's an om or, you know, whatever chant. Positive affirmation or whatever positive affirmation. Sure. 298 00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:41,060 Tamar Lucien: Sometimes people are like, the alms are a little weird. But whatever positive affirmation you want to say, you know, just kind of make that your focal point. So for me, I'm a bit of an impasse. I'm really sensitive to people's energy. 299 00:51:41,060 --> 00:51:44,220 Tamar Lucien: and that's why I do this job because I do care so much. 300 00:51:44,980 --> 00:51:54,460 Filip Valica: And our customers who are like, you know, doctors and nurses and stuff like that, we really love those people so much because, you know, just what they do is incredible. 301 00:51:55,100 --> 00:52:02,820 Filip Valica: The other thing I do to kind of clear out other people's energy from me and just kind of stay balanced is I take Epson salt fats. 302 00:52:03,240 --> 00:52:16,720 Tamar Lucien: And it's an amazing product. It's really good for clearing energy. It's really good for, like, healing wounds and stuff. like that, detoxifying your body. So that's another thing that I do to kind of stay balanced. 303 00:52:16,860 --> 00:52:19,860 Tamar Lucien: And I recently, because I live out here in Nevada, I started hiking. 304 00:52:21,900 --> 00:52:35,100 Tamar Lucien: There's like no sound up there. Well, the physical activity, right? You've got your endorphins that are firing off and you feel really good about yourself when you hit a certain point or you can go out there and a lookout. And like you said, it's just so quiet. It's just so quiet. 305 00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:46,640 Tamar Lucien: So, you know, I do little things like I have, I had this rock. I mean, there's rocks everywhere here. So you can pick up any rock in Nevada. But I have this rock. It's like, I call it my walking rock. 306 00:52:47,340 --> 00:53:01,700 Tamar Lucien: And like when I get really overwhelmed or just, I'm like, okay, this anxiousness means I'm thinking way too far out in the future. So I'll take my rock and I'll just kind of pass it back and forth and just kind of walk until this, until my mind is silence, right? 307 00:53:02,540 --> 00:53:05,500 Tamar Lucien: And if I'm not silence, if I'm not calm, I'll just keep going. 308 00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:13,980 Tamar Lucien: And you got to be careful with that because like I'm in a new neighborhood. So I had like no idea where I ended up. You're like, where am I? Yeah. So, 309 00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:29,100 Tamar Lucien: but yeah, I do stuff like that. And I mentioned that to someone. They're like, oh, you should incorporate that as a like a leisure cheer activity for the chairbox. That's cool. Because one of the leisure cheer activities, it's such a fun toy. It's like two little metal prongs. 310 00:53:29,340 --> 00:53:43,720 Tamar Lucien: And guys love it because it's metal, right? And it's not as girly as everything else in the box. And so, and you have to like figure out how to unhook it and rehook it. like unhook it rehug it and it looks easy but it's kind of not so just anything you can do to 311 00:53:43,720 --> 00:53:50,440 Tamar Lucien: kind of redirect your focus i think we spent so many years teaching people that distractions are a bad 312 00:53:50,440 --> 00:54:00,120 Filip Valica: thing you know stay focused don't get distraction but sometimes distraction really kind of gives your mind a moment to not think about the problem and then the solution will show up in that free 313 00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:05,680 Tamar Lucien: moment very good advice for anyone that just feels like they're overwhelmed with daily life 314 00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:21,200 Tamar Lucien: If you were talking to your younger self or maybe a younger brother or sister or a friend in a coffee shop and you had to give them maybe one piece of advice, you know, they're struggling, they've got maybe a product-based business that they're trying to launch and they just can't get to that next step. 315 00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:22,400 Tamar Lucien: What would you tell them? 316 00:54:23,700 --> 00:54:32,840 Tamar Lucien: I would say, even to myself, I would say just be really honest about the product and where you are. 317 00:54:33,580 --> 00:54:46,520 Filip Valica: you know sometimes as entrepreneurs or small business owners creative people um i like to call us all creatives we were so optimistic right we're like we love life this is going to work i believe in 318 00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:55,740 Filip Valica: it so much that that optimism kind of rolls into delusion a little bit um you know and for me i wasn't 319 00:54:55,740 --> 00:55:01,220 Tamar Lucien: honest with like my other products like okay this is not really going anywhere um you know people 320 00:55:01,220 --> 00:55:12,480 Filip Valica: aren't really passing it on people aren't really talking about it um you know i don't have a higher demand than you know product um people are not really signing up so i think you have to like really 321 00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:26,920 Filip Valica: just be really really honest about it um if you if it's something that you're doing for you and you're like i don't care if people buy it if they don't buy it this is just about me learning how to do 322 00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:41,880 Filip Valica: something new that's great you know um but if you're doing it for a goal, a reason, you know, like you have, you have these milestones in your mind, then you have to kind of be really honest about, you know, where you are in the product. 323 00:55:44,970 --> 00:55:46,890 Filip Valica: And other piece of advice, 324 00:55:50,010 --> 00:55:50,870 Filip Valica: I would say, 325 00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,480 Filip Valica: you know, take your time in what you're doing. 326 00:55:56,420 --> 00:56:10,180 Filip Valica: Sometimes we drive ourselves crazy because we're like rushing to a goal or a finish line or to exit or to sell it or you know whatever but what you have to remember is when it's over it's over you know like you're 327 00:56:10,180 --> 00:56:20,720 Filip Valica: you're rushing to the end so um yeah i would just say you know kind of kind of take your time enjoy each stage and phase that you're at live in the present yeah just live in the present moment 328 00:56:20,720 --> 00:56:34,320 Filip Valica: you know great advice tomorrow so if people wanted to get a cheerbox for somebody or find out more about you how can they do that um well if they want to get a cheerbox they can go to 329 00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:42,660 Filip Valica: mental happy.com and click on, send a cheerbox. I encourage you to join our community. Log in. It's free to join. 330 00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:56,100 Filip Valica: And if they want to follow us, we're all over social media. You can like us on Facebook and on Instagram. It's at Mental Happy as well. If you want to ask me questions, 331 00:56:57,460 --> 00:57:03,380 Filip Valica: you can message me, direct message me through Twitter or Instagram at Find Tamar. 332 00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:16,180 Filip Valica: I'm all happy to kind of, you know, guide you as much as I can there. Thanks again for coming on the show. You're super transparent. And I really loved how you explained your emotions and thought process behind everything. 333 00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:30,940 Filip Valica: It's obvious that you're really connected to what you're doing. So congratulations on finding that, number one. And number two, for even making that successful. So that's huge. It's something I certainly aspire to get to at some point. Thank you. So thanks again for coming on the show. 334 00:57:31,100 --> 00:57:35,740 Filip Valica: No, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity greatly. 335 00:57:36,670 --> 00:57:49,910 Filip Valica: And that's all I've got for today. Thanks for listening, everybody. I put all the links that we've covered under the show notes posted on the product startup.com slash episode 23. Join me next time as I speak with Terry Lynn. 336 00:57:50,190 --> 00:58:03,610 Filip Valica: He's the founder of Forever Home Blankets. The company sells high-quality blankets to people for use at their house around the office or on the road. And for every blanket sold, one is donated to an animal shelter in need. 337 00:58:03,630 --> 00:58:14,970 Filip Valica: Terry also raised $3,500 on Kickstarter to get the first batch of inventory in Vietnam, and we'll get to all that detail about raising money and sourcing manufacturing. So 338 00:58:14,970 --> 00:58:25,010 Filip Valica: stay tuned next week to hear that episode. Thanks again for listening to the show. I really appreciate your support. I appreciate the emails and comments that you guys sent to me each week. 339 00:58:25,070 --> 00:58:37,110 Filip Valica: Please keep them coming because I definitely use them to make the show better. So thanks again for your support, and I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast with your host, Filip Valica. 340 00:58:37,310 --> 00:58:41,570 Filip Valica: For more great content and to stay up today, visit theproductstartup.com. 341 00:58:42,790 --> 00:58:44,550 Filip Valica: Your guide to getting there. 342 00:58:50,010 --> 00:59:02,690 Filip Valica: Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, 343 00:59:03,110 --> 00:59:15,490 Filip Valica: the first firm in North America to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product businesses. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to macawdesign.com. 344 00:59:15,750 --> 00:59:25,430 Filip Valica: That's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Maca-Design for design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.