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Welcome back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your why? Why do you wake up every day and build Behave? Oh, man. My why is...
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Honestly, it's feeling that there's something broken in our food system. And on this journey, I really have met a lot of families with children with diabetes. And that has really stuck with me. My father was diabetic, but he got it later in life. Being a child with diabetes is such an... It's just awful.
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And it's not to say they're, you know, of course, like, and there are some of the most empowered children that I've met and have interact, we've been, you know, built relationships with through social media and stuff like that. It's not to feel sorry for them or to pity them, but it's, it's, you know, children are suffering and people are suffering. It's not just children because of the food system that we've built are the food system in America and globally, but especially in America, we have so little regulation to even combat it. It's built on.
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making people develop a sugar addiction from a very young age so we can sell them sugar until the day that they die. And I think I feel really passionate about breaking that. Yeah. Wow. Question number two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far? Oh my gosh, there have been a lot. I think
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I don't know if this is controversial. I love the Kardashians and Kourtney Kardashian posted the product once. I don't think she even realized she did. She had these little gift baskets in the guest rooms of her house and she was just taking photos. And I don't know if it was like an assistant of hers or someone who put Behave in there. And yeah, that was a really exciting one.
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That's a huge one. Love that for you. Question number three is where are you going to learn? Where are you reading or consuming content or listening to podcasts? Where are you learning at the moment?
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I'm definitely in a bit of a spiritual moment. So I'm reading a lot of maybe more like spiritually guided books. I just watched the, I don't know if this answers your question. I just watched the Beckham documentary. And then it kind of got me down this rabbit hole of just like watching documentaries of inspiring people. And what I loved about the Beckham documentary, it's, and I sense it, I love the Jay Shetty podcast too. There are just people, you know, who else I've become obsessed with is Rick Rubin. If you've read the book, he just put out the creative act.
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Anyways, when you can sense that someone is in their purpose, it's like, that's what David Beckham was to me. Someone who just loves whatever they're doing and they're obsessed with it and they could wake up and if they had paid him one penny, he still would have wanted to play soccer every single day until his body gave out. That's a beautiful thing. I feel that with certain people and that's the content I'm really gravitating towards right now because I'm trying to feel...
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anxiety filled. I was filled with so much fear. I was just stressed out and needing it to be perfect and having my identity wrapped up in the brand. Now I'm just really looking to feel very grounded in the purpose and the mission of why I'm doing this. And so watching other people who are living that way and their work and their passion are intertwined is giving me a lot of inspiration.
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I loved the Beckham documentary. I thought it was so good. Loved. Oh my gosh. I want the like Victoria perspective. I want like the Victoria documentary next. And who's also built amazing businesses. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated?
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Yes, I've finally gotten into meditation. I've been one of those people who felt like I should for so long. I mean, not every day, obviously. I miss days here and there, but I got into the Joe Dispenza meditation process. So I'll do a meditation of his in the evening, and then I'll usually just pick, or sorry, in the morning, and then I'll just pick something from Insight Timer, like a sleep or a yoga nidra or something for the evening. Other thing that has really been life-changing for me is breath work.
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very deep. The teacher that I see, he's more rooted in kind of ancient Latin American tradition, but it's, I think what people will be more familiar with is it's kind of similar to like a Wim Hof process. So like very intense oxygen kind of intake to the brain. You really feel high and you, and I've had a lot of really great realizations, emotional release through that process. And it's really been helping me just like see things clearly. So yeah.
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meditation and breathwork have become staples for me. I was talking at a conference like a week, a couple of weeks ago, and I was so unbelievably nervous. It was the biggest conference I'd spoken at before. There was 550 people there. I was a keynote speaker and it was 30 minutes by myself. And I was so nervous. And so I was nervous in the weeks leading up. I was just constantly stressed. And then I did Wim Hof breathing like that afternoon before I went to like kind of half an
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When I tell you that I really calmed down, I was calm. Like I was still kind of nervous and things like that, of course. But like it was a different kind. I'd really, I was able to just slow my system down and change my nervous system. And it was really powerful. And it takes 10 minutes. You know, like everyone has that at their disposal. It's free. Like you just
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go online and watch the tutorial on YouTube. Loved it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
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Question number five, we're nearly done. What is the worst money mistake you've ever made in the business and how much did it cost you?
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I'm going to say, I'm going to give you the answer that is not fair. It's like my biggest weakness is that I'm a perfectionist or something. But I just will say, I just don't think I have regrets because at the end of the day, every dollar we've spent, we either gain something or learn something. And I think that was the phase of the business that we were in. And frankly, we've raised a very small amount of money for the stage that we're at. We've been super efficient. Again, like...
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Despite kind of taking this past year and this rebuild period, our investors remain steadfast in standing behind us and in their belief in the business. And I think that's because we've been very responsible. And then even where we've maybe spent money and it didn't pan out the way we thought it's happened, we've hired...
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you know, paid marketing agencies. And, you know, we've spent money on Facebook ads and the Facebook ad space has been all over the map lately. So we didn't always know what the outcomes were going to be. But then we learned and then we learned that our money is better spent in the retail space, or our money is better spent on Amazon. And we wouldn't know that if we hadn't spent those dollars. And
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I think I've always been of the mind of like, make any mistake as cost effective as possible. If it's something you're testing, don't ever make it more than whatever it is for your business. For us, it's probably been like 5,000, maybe 10,000 on the really high end. Don't make a mistake bigger than $10,000. If something is going to cost $50,000, we'll find a way to test it at a smaller scale before we kind of would move forward. Yeah, I like that. Don't make a mistake more than $10,000. That's key. Find your boundary.
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And stick to it. Yeah, right. Whatever it is, it could be $500. But I mean, in the early days, for me, that's what it was. Yeah, absolutely. Last question. What is just a crazy story, good or bad from building Behave? I just have to go back to this one, because it really is what ignited this whole thing. So when I had had the idea, I was like,
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Someone needs to make low sugar candy without using aspartame or artificial sweeteners. No one's doing it. But Ken, maybe you can't do it. And I'm not a chef. I'm not. I don't know how to make anything. I can barely make pasta. So I was like, okay, I need to find someone to help me make this.
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And I cold emailed celebrity chefs. I had this idea. I spoke with a couple of these big food R&D companies. They charge $50,000 or up to $100,000 per SKU to develop a product for you. There was no chance. And I thought, if I can find a celebrity chef,
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and convince them that this is a good idea. I can maybe pay them like the way that we ended up doing it was like, paid a small amount out of pocket from me. I think it was like a couple thousand dollars that I used my bonus from my last job to pay. And then I'll promise them a larger payment once we raise money from investors, and then I'll give them equity in the company.
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And then they'll be invested. And I cold emailed. I think I cold emailed probably 15 or 20 female celebrity chefs who work in pastry because I figured pastry, sugar, confection, it all goes hand in hand. I actually heard back. I mean, I say this also to really encourage people to reach out cold. Probably heard back from six or seven people. But Elizabeth in particular got back to me within a few hours of my email and she said,
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we were on the phone within a day, we were getting coffee in person within two days. And it was like, just very kismet. Like she was so excited by the idea. She had opened a restaurant, she had just left that project. She had some time on her hands. She lived in Brooklyn, just
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across the river from me. So I was able to just go and we, she was very chill. She was like, let's just start working on it and see what happens. I think we signed like a very much back of the envelope type of agreement. We trusted each other and we've, you know, she's still involved in the business and she's still just an incredible partner to this day. Send the cold email is the point.
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Send the cold email. I love that. I love that. Gosh, Mesa, thank you so much for coming on the show. Love your story. Loved this chat. Yeah, me too. I am your hype girl. Can't wait to see your expansion next year. Thank you so much. No, thanks for having me. This was really fun.
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Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
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