She Turned $200 and an Idea Into a $300K/Month Business

39:36

She Turned $200 and an Idea Into a $300K/Month Business

UpFlip 11.05.2026 41 255 просмотров 1 296 лайков

Machine-readable: Markdown · JSON API · Site index

Смотреть на YouTube

Поделиться Telegram VK Бот

Транскрипт Скачать .md

Анализ с AI

Описание видео

I'm proud to have Bizee sponsor this video. #ad Their platform makes launching and managing an LLC straightforward, and it’s a service I genuinely believe in and recommend to anyone ready to start their business. https://bizee.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=content_sponsorship&utm_campaign=upflip Food opened a door Lindzi Shanks never expected. She was working toward a PhD in psychology when a small holiday pop-up changed everything. One of her part-time helpers brought homemade marshmallow treats to sell alongside mugs, and customers kept coming back for more. That moment stuck with Lindzi. If people were this excited about something so simple, maybe it could become a real food business. She and her co-founder started with just $100 each, packing orders themselves and selling at every pop-up they could find. What began as a side project grew into the world’s first marshmallow café and a thriving food business doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly sales. But getting there wasn’t easy. Lindzi worked 70 to 80 hours a week and pushed herself until her health and relationships suffered. In this episode, she shares how listening closely to customers, staying focused, and protecting your well-being can help turn a small idea into a food business that brings joy to people all over the world. 💥 Most New Businesses Fail From Guessing 💥 UpFlip Accelerator gives you the system to launch faster and get clients sooner. 👉 https://www.upflip.com/accelerator Or start FREE with our quick-start trainings ↓ 🧽 How to start a $140k/month cleaning business - https://learn.upflip.com/cleaning-business-masterclass 🥤 How to start a $50K/month vending business - https://learn.upflip.com/the-vending-bootcamp-masterclass 🖌️ How to start a million-dollar painting business for under $1K - https://learn.upflip.com/how-to-start-a-painting-business-masterclass 🚛 How to start a $10k/month moving and junk removal business - https://learn.upflip.com/moving-and-junk-removal-masterclass 🔑 How to start a $8K/month mid-term rental business - https://learn.upflip.com/the-mid-term-rental-blueprint-masterclass 🏠 How to make $248K in tax-free profit from building and selling homes - https://learn.upflip.com/the-builders-blueprint-masterclass 🗺️ How to make $25K in one deal buying and selling land - https://learn.upflip.com/land-flipping-blueprint-masterclass OR… 🎓 Join UpFlip Academy to “copy-paste” the top million-dollar service businesses you can start in weeks and profit from in months - https://links.upflip.com/academy-yt More UpFlip Official Resources: 📕 FREE access to 137 Most Profitable Businesses - https://next.upflip.com/137-biz-ideas-276 🎙️ Follow the UpFlip Podcast - https://links.upflip.com/podcast-yt 📩 Join the UpFlip Newsletter - https://links.upflip.com/newsletter-yt 👉 Check out Lindzi’s business - https://www.xomarshmallow.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 - Start 00:50 - Ultimate marshmallow glow-up 02:09 - Sugar, spice, and everything nice! 03:23 - From mallows to millions 04:58 - The world’s FIRST marshmallow cafe 06:21 - Pivot behind the hockey stick 06:56 - The first step 07:45 - Two types of founders 08:40 - More than just mixers 09:31 - What 80-hour weeks really cost 11:20 - Spreading joy, one mallow at a time 12:14 - Not all rainbows and pastel 13:12 - Surprisingly simple to make 14:05 - Time to whip up a signature flavor! 15:01 - Flavor comes first 15:44 - And then, we wait… 16:48 - Crying EVERY Christmas?! 17:28 - Fan blitz 18:45 - Work is NOT family 19:47 - The second step 21:23 - The “flop” everyone talks about 22:20 - SOPs save time AND sanity 23:10 - “What’s the best that could happen?” 24:15 - Revenue streams 25:23 - Bread and butter 26:22 - Film everything (literally!) 26:56 - When virality hits too soon 28:13 - Introducing new products 29:19 - Keeping things fresh 31:15 - Marshmallows for vegetarians 32:04 - Who’s faster?! 32:59 - Ready to pack! 33:53 - Outsmarting the melt 34:49 - Shipping nightmares 36:36 - Moment of truth 39:14 - Outro #food #marshmallow #foodbusiness

Оглавление (36 сегментов)

Start

Her gourmet marshmallow business brings in $300,000 a month. And it's something you can start today from home. — We literally sell marshmallows while we sleep. — But who's buying all these marshmallows? — The demand shocked me. We got a ton of customers just by — What does it actually cost to start a business like this? — We launched with just 200 bucks. — What? How do you turn that into this? If you don't do this one thing, it'll be impossible for you to scale. I'm going to show your viewers exactly how I started this business and how they can start their own right from home. — And with Lindsay's help, I'm creating a brand new marshmallow flavor and we're putting it on our website to see how many of you will get a chance to buy it. — The most difficult thing working here is not to eat them straight off the tray. — That was really great.

Ultimate marshmallow glow-up

— You must be Lindsay. — Oh, yeah. Hi. — Good to meet you. I'm Paul. — Nice to meet you. Before we head in there and show our audience kind of what we need to make some delicious marshmallows, tell us a little bit about yourself and about Exo Marshmallow, your business. — Yeah, so Exo Marshmallow is a gourmet marshmallow company. We make marshmallows and marshmallow related treats and a variety of different flavors. January was 10 years that we've been in business. — So, what are some typical examples of products that you offer and what are the price points? — Yeah, so obviously we make marshmallows. That's kind of our bread and butter, but marshmallows, if you will. So, we make them in boxes of 12 in a variety of different flavors. So, those are $12. We also make our OMG, which is our version of marshmallow fluff. That's also $12. And then we have a range of products we call treats. So, they're essentially chocolate covered marshmallows mixed with things like cookie dough or uh brownies that are meant to be more standalone snacks. Um, and those are about $14. — I'm excited to see how all this is made cuz I never heard of OMG. I mean, marshmallows, everybody knows, right? — Yeah. — What's OMG? Don't give us too many details yet. — So, we call it OMG or ooey marshmallow goodness. And when we were trying to come up with a name of it, we noticed every time somebody ate a spoonful of it, they said, — "That is so freaking good. Oh my god. " — So, we had to figure out a way to incorporate that in it. So, we're going

Sugar, spice, and everything nice!

to need some sugar. — Yeah. — It's on sale. We love sugar on sale. — Now, are you picky about what kind of sugar or — granulated sugar? — You want to grab this one? Yeah. So, we're going to grab some pure granulated sugar. We also need a little bit of powdered sugar. So, we're going to need light corn syrup. — All right. Jell-O, I think, is all we have left. I know we have to get flavor, right? — Yes. So, we need unflavored gelatin. — Just down here. — Yes. All right. Now, we need — four ingredients so far. — Flavor. We could do something sweet. We could go get some strawberries and actually muddle some strawberries to put in the marshmallows. We could get Oreos and do a cookies and cream. — Uh, let's do strawberries. — Let's do strawberries. Let's go over and find some fruit. — Sorry, Oreo. I didn't know you can actually get fresh strawberries and integrate them into marshmallows. — Yeah. So, you can actually take any fresh fruit and sort of muddle it down and turn it into a syrup. So, marshmallows are made with a few different types of liquid. You've got your corn syrup, — your sugar, and your water. So, in this case, if we're going to make a strawberry marshmallow, in order to make sure it's not too wet, we would reduce the amount of water and make it a strawberry syrup instead. — Okay. How much product are you selling

From mallows to millions

today? I know we'll get into the numbers later, but just give us a general overview. And what does that translate to revenue range? — So, we sell anywhere from 2 to 3 million marshmallows a year, and that translates to between 200 and $300,000 a month. — Okay. A month? I was like, wait, a year? Okay, not bad. And then she's like, a month. — A month. — Okay, so we're talking some serious numbers. And how many of those customers are repeat versus just one-timers? — Yeah. So, we actually have a really high reorder rate. We've got a reorder rate of 45%. And part of that is because one, they're delicious, right? So, once you get them and try them, you want to get some more. And two, we have a marshmallow of the month. So, we are dropping a new flavor every single month. So, it incentivizes people to come back and try something new. — That's incredible. 45%. Let's scan all these things. Yeah. — Under 20 bucks. Wow. — All right. 1979. So, here's a receipt. You guys saw it. We're only $20 in. Yep. — For a really decent batch if you were doing this at home, right? — Yeah. So, if you were to do like a small craft show for starting out your business, this would probably get you about half the product you needed to sell. — Well, you guys, Lindsay built this incredible business by turning marshmallows into something people have never heard of or seen before. And today with her help and her team, they're actually gonna allow me to create my own flavor. Yeah. Right. With your help. — So, we've got a few ingredients for you to try from. What are you feeling? — Well, I'm thinking upflip orange, yellow, citrus, maybe. And they're going to post it on their website to see how much we can sell in the first week. So, come with us and get the inside scoop. Let's go. — Let's go.

The world’s FIRST marshmallow cafe

— Why marshmallows? What's the origin story? — Yeah. So, my former business partner was in law school and she needed an inexpensive gift that she could give to her family. She's from a large family on an inexpensive budget. She found this Pinterest recipe for marshmallows, started experimenting with different flavors, and after graduation promptly told her parents, "I don't want to be a lawyer. I'm going to mess with this marshmallow thing. " — Interesting. — I was on the other side of Chicago going through something very similar. I had gotten my mers in psychology and decided not to pursue a PhD because I had actually started a clothing store while I was in undergrad. Spent my entire master's program answering customer service emails, not paying attention in class, and realized, "Oh, I might actually want to be an entrepreneur instead. " So, we would negotiate with different uh farmers markets and popups of like, "Hey, did you just have somebody cancel a table? We'll be there tomorrow as long as we don't have to pay for a booth. " Again, people kept saying, "Where can I come get these all the time? " So, we said, "Oh, do you guys want a cafe? " They said, "Yeah. " Like, "Well, put your money where your mouth is. We're going to start a Kickstarter, and if you guys fund a cafe, we'll open one. " Well, we were fully funded in less than 3 weeks. We're like, "Well, I guess we have to make a cafe now. " Ended up opening the world's first marshmallow cafe and have grown our e-commerce for the last 10 years.

Pivot behind the hockey stick

— Okay. And where's the business at today, Lindsay? As far as brick and mortar retail, how did you change it? — Yeah, so after uh 8 years of having our cafe at the end of 2024, we did decide to close and focus on e-commerce only. During COVID, like a lot of people experienced, cafe sales went to here. E-commerce sales grew 350% in 2020, 2021, 2022. Just saw hockey stick growth. Actually, our goal for 2026 is retail and CPG. So, we are trying to get into hopefully lovely grocery stores like this.

The first step

— All right, Lindsay, what's happening here? Is this a what stage of marshmallow making are we looking at? — So, we are right at the beginning here. We've got multiple pots of sugar going on so that our team can make multiple flavors at once. And then we've got two mixers. It allows them to turn over the product very quickly. So, they can make up to five trays at once. So, marshmallows have to be made at 240 degrees. Not 239, not 241. Really, — 240. So, now that it's beeping, it means it's time to pour the sugar into the mixer, which already contained gelatin and the extracts we need to make the marshmallows. We're going to turn it on. And from here, it's just about time. — How long is it going to be? It can take anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to get it the consistency it needs to pour into the tray.

Two types of founders

— Take us to the early days with your business partner. How much was it you guys trying to figure out trial and error? — Yeah. — A lot of batches in the garbage, etc. — I'm going to be honest, at the beginning, she did everything in terms of trial and error. The original recipe that she found on Pinterest was so convoluted and so labor intensive that we would have never been able to run a business from that particular recipe. Interesting. — She spent a lot of time tweaking and perfecting recipes in order to scale that recipe in a way that made more sense to make it at home. And then once we continued to grow the business, our first hire was actually a professional chef who had worked in manufacturing kitchens who was able to take our at home recipe and scale it up to the point that it is now. — Right. So, we're getting ready to pour in another flavor. Right. — This is Yeah, this is our sour blue

More than just mixers

raspberry. — What else does somebody just getting started need besides a good mixer to not only make good marshmallows, but sell them? How? Where? — Yeah. Part of it is your licensing, right? So, depending on your city or your state, some places allow cottage law, which means you can make them inside of your home and still be able to sell them. You need packaging. You need packaging that can be completely sealed. Then you need a website. Oh, what? Go ahead. — Let's pause for a sec. — What did you just pour in there? — Gelatin. — So, the gelatin, — it's very hot. — Do you ever have anybody burn themselves with this stuff or — Yes. I can imagine. 240°. That's all I got. How do I do? — Good. — All right. I'm excited to make the flavor you and I are going to come up with. — I'm curious to see what flavors you're going to gravitate towards and whether or not people are interested in them. — I'm going to take a scoot.

What 80-hour weeks really cost

— Let's dig deeper into some of the personal sacrifices that — you've had to endure from 10 years ago to now. Can you share anything and open up a little bit? — Sure. As I mentioned earlier, when we first opened the cafe and started getting the business running, I was also still running my other business and I actually had volunteered to run another pop-up shop. So, I was running — taking on a lot — three companies working anywhere from 70 80 hours a week. And my mental health was in the gutter. My physical I barely got to see my husband. I spent all of my honeymoon working. I spent my wedding day morning working. Yes, the business was doing well because I was grinding it out, but I also can't help but wonder how much the better business would have been doing if I was in a better mental state. And actually, since I started making the decision to put myself first, the business has thrived more than it ever has before. — Thank you for sharing. Even if you're starting your business from home, like Lindsay recommends, you still need to set up your business legally and properly right from the start. That's where Bizzy comes in. Busy helps you launch your business the smart way, forming your LLC, filing with the state and making sure you're official with just a few clicks. And unlike a lot of companies in this space, Busy keeps it straightforward. No hidden fees, no confusing fine print, and no sneaky subscriptions renewing year after year. Just clear upfront pricing, and you only pay for what you need when you need it. Busy even gives you a professional business address with digital mail scanning, helping you stay organized and look legit from day one. Bottom line, starting a business is exciting enough without having to be buried in the paperwork. So, let Busy handle the boring stuff so that you can get to the fun part. Click the link below to get started with Busy today.

Spreading joy, one mallow at a time

— All right, you guys. So, this is the Exo Marshmallow headquarters. — This is it. — Okay. I mean, it's quite a colorful welcome. — Yeah. Uh, is there any specific thought process behind the personality of the space? I know we haven't seen most of it yet, but — Yeah, of course. So, we ended up settling on this very pastel, very rainbow experience because our company mission statement is to spread joy into the world through marshmallows. Marshmallows are fun. They're exciting. I think the world right now could use more joy, right? — And so, we have this mural when you first come in. It's about making sure that everything we do for our customers is with joy in mind. And if we're not having fun here, a great time creating that experience, it's not going to translate to the customers. What we're really selling is joy. It's nostalgia. And marshmallows just happen to be the vehicle in which we sell that through.

Not all rainbows and pastel

— I would imagine you didn't start in this place, right? No. — What was the original place like? Not this colorful, not this. — Colorful. So, when we first started, we actually were working um at the back of a cafe that was on top of a Metra platform in Evston. It was teeny tiny space. — Tiny um and definitely not as nice as this one is. — I mean, you have everything you need here, right? How many square feet are we talking about? — It's just shy of 10,000 square ft. And this whole space was customuilt for us. — Well, tell us what's happening here. I see you've got a couple stations. Everyone's doing their thing. — So, this is our production facilities. We've got a station for making marshmallows, our OMG, treats, and then we are just finishing up the packaging process of our OMG. They go through this heat sealer here to make sure that they're completely food safe

Surprisingly simple to make

and sealed. — I'm sure everyone's curious, how are marshmallows made in terms of what are they made up of with? Is that your uh — Let's go check out our pantry. — Not too much going on here other than the key ingredients. — Oh, exactly. So, you know, we were at the grocery store earlier. You guys saw the small ways in which we were able to make marshmallows, right? This is at scale. So, this is lots of corn syrup, lots of sugar, uh giant boxes over here, gelatin. We've got different seasonal ingredients. — Mini marshmallows. — We got mini marshmallows cuz we did a rocky road. OMG. Um, these were sprinkles that were from our Valentine's Day product. And then you have flavors that do really well for us. Like this is from um a collab we did with uh Seattle's Best Coffee. This one gallon extract will make two to 300 batches of marshmallow.

Time to whip up a signature flavor!

marshmallow. — So we're here. We need to come up with our own flavor. — Yeah. So we've got a few ingredients for you to try from. What are you feeling? — Well, I'm thinking up flip orange, yellow, citrus, maybe. So, lemon vanilla with cake batter. — You kind of already know your quantities, so you prepped it for me. — So, first? — Yep. — Oh, there's the corn syrup. — Yeah. — Yep. So, you want to scoop all that good stuff out. — And again, what are we calling ourh flavor? How would you call it? — Lemon pound cake. Just one of those. — That's all we need for vanilla, huh? need. It's a very — It's very, very strong. Great. And this is just regular vanilla extract. — So that's it as far as — the base of the flavor we've got nailed down. — You got everything you need. You just need to put the mixing bowl on the mixer.

Flavor comes first

mixer. — So out of 10,000 square ft, what does your production look like on a daily basis? I'm curious. — Yeah. So, usually we're focused on making one marshmallow flavor per person per day so that we can get it as scalable as possible. So, each station, usually one person is making between 30 to 35 of those trays you guys saw a day by themselves in a single flavor. — And for somebody just getting started in their kitchen, what would you tell them is the most important thing they have to get right before they even think about scaling? — Flavor. Right. You got to make sure you've got a really delicious product that people actually want to eat before you start scaling it. And are you using ingredients that are scalable?

And then, we wait…

— All right. So, now that everything's in the mixer, what happens next? — We wait. So, while this aspect is really quick, the actual getting to packaging part is what takes a really long time. So, marshmallows are really a 3-day process. — Oh, wow. — Yeah. So, they're being made here, right? Then they have to sit overnight to get to that marshmallow consistency before we cut them tomorrow. Once we cut them tomorrow, we coat them in that powdered sugar and cornstarch like we were talking about at the grocery store. — And then that has to sit overnight to make sure we're getting as much moisture out of the marshmallows as possible. — And you have amazingly clean ingredients. So question is, what's the shelf life on everything that's coming out of this? — Yeah, 4 months. — I hear the mixers sped up, right? So that means the consistency is different. — Yep. Now it's a whole different consistency. — This is the blueberry raspberry source. — Sour blue raspberry marshmallow. Started as a marshmallow of the month before it went viral and became a fulltime flavor. — What would be the proudest

Crying EVERY Christmas?!

entrepreneurial moment that you still get chills from today? — Yeah. So this happens every holiday season. The entire team laughs at me because I always start crying every Christmas. So, I love watching our social media videos of people opening our marshmallows and eating them on Christmas morning. And there's just something about knowing that something we made here in this room is then the thing that somebody's opening and enjoying on Christmas morning and putting marshmallows on a hot chocolate and enjoying time with that family and feeling like we had even see I'm going to cry out even we had a small Yeah. We're there with them and that we got to help bring a little bit of that joy. I love it.

Fan blitz

— All right, Lindsay, you ready for Bliss Time? — Yeah, let's go. — All right. What's something that would surprise people about you? — I think people see the colorful brand and think that's my personality, but actually I'm into like heavy metal music. — Okay, that is surprising. Is there a marshmallow flavor you loved, but customers didn't? — Matcha. The matcha marshmallow was so good. — Okay. What's the most important quality you look for in an employee? — Good attitude. I know I said it earlier, but I can teach a lot of skills. I can't teach good attitude. — What product would you want to make if you couldn't make marshmallows? — Roller skates. — Nice. Okay, now we vibing. What's your favorite thing about working for yourself? — Setting my own schedule. — And your least favorite thing about it? — Being responsible for everything. — Would you say you're more creative or strategic? I'm — a little bit of both. But lean where? — I think I've always said I leaned creative. And as I've gotten older, I realize I actually lean strategic. — What's the biggest misconception about your business? — I think the biggest misconception is that it's really easy. — Best piece of a business advice you ever got? — Get a mentor and get a mentor early. — And the worst, — try to do everything yourself.

Work is NOT family

— Can you talk to us about your company culture? Anything you want to share that we can learn from you as well and implement in our business? I didn't traditionally come from a food background. So, I didn't understand restaurant culture and the toxic culture that unfortunately kind of surrounds it. And as we started to hire people and hire people from restaurants, we would get people to start have a little bit of that behavior or expect it from us. And I'd say absolutely not. We're not doing that behavior here. Like, did you take a break today? No, I don't need a break. Girl, take a break. — Did you have lunch today? No. No. go eat lunch, right? I was shocked by how much I had to explain to people that like this was a comfortable, safe space for them to work. And the idea that like your work is a family. It's not a family. This is your job. Come enjoy your job and then go home and be with your family, right? I learned what it was like when you weren't seeing your family. I'm not going to do that to my uncle now. — You've been in the trenches. — I've You ready? — Yeah.

The second step

— Go. So, these are the trays that have sat for the last 24 hours. — So, these were made yesterday and they've rested overnight and so we will cut them today. — Do you mind if I pull one out? — Sure. — It's pretty solidify, right? — So, this is the sour blue raspberry you saw being made. This is what it looks like almost 24 hours later. So, we're going to start by — taking it off the edges here. So, it's extra sticky. So, we'll even spray the color. There you go. — We're going to transfer it over. — Oh. — So, we're going to put the cutting board that's been sprayed here. Flip it over. — Go ahead and flip it over for me. — And voila. Is it coming off? — Look at that beauty. — So, when we talked earlier about the biggest mistakes, if they had forgotten to spray this, — wouldn't we like this? — That would not have come off. — That's beautiful. You got the blueberry coloring there. — Yeah. We got the marbling. So, this machine has been custom retrofit just for us. So, everywhere that there is an orange tab here is where the machine's going to cut. Prior to getting this machine, cutting marshmallows was by far the biggest bottleneck in the business. Two to three people, this would be their entire day. So, this machine is technically made for cutting sheetcake. — M — and we retrofit it to be able to cut marshmallows. — Let's take a look. Yeah, — I'm excited to see. — And — all right, — the grand reveal. — Look at that.

The “flop” everyone talks about

— Perfectly cut marshmallows. You get to be part of our famous social media flop. So, when people watch us on social, one of the things they love to watch the most is — uh the flop. — Wow, look at that. So, what are we doing now? Are we trying to separate them? — Now, we're separating them. I got to try one. I can't wait anymore. Do you mind if I bite it? — It's the most difficult thing working here is not to eat them straight off the tray. — That was really great. Okay. So, obviously I can't go to Costco and pick this off the shelves. — No. — Can you give us the cost of this machine, what it took you to modify it, and anything else you want to be? — So, this is a $40,000 piece of equipment. Yeah. Which took a long time for us to invest in. But if you think about how many people were spending their entire day cutting, right? This is a salary. It's actually a major costsaver to invest in it. Not only in terms of time, but actually how much we were paying people because this is just

SOPs save time AND sanity

significantly easier. — Let's talk about quality control. You've got way bigger than you were. Is it easier to do QC or harder now because the systems are in place? — It's fundamentally easier. Yeah, we I'm a big believer in SOPs or standard operating procedures. We have checkpoints at literally every single aspect of the manufacturing all the way from you know making it to packaging it to even shipping it. Sometimes shipping catches things that maybe we missed. — How early would you implement SOPs? — I would have implemented them fundamentally earlier than I did as soon as possible. — Even if you're two people operation, — put those SOPs in place. It's going to make life so much easier. Instead of spending the day making little micro decisions over and over again, you've got a system already in place that can do it for you. And with Chachi BT, it's

“What’s the best that could happen?”

a lot easier to build them. — Wow, this room is bright, Lindsay. — Yeah. Again, it all comes back to that joy. — Yeah. A lot of energy. I can definitely feel it. So, this is what just a conference room. Have lunch, hang out, talk about this. — This is our conference room. This is where our staff meetings happen. And this is where a lot of like ideiation happens. Um, people can have their lunch in here. — Yeah. — Get inspired. — Awesome. You got the OG I can see here. — Yes. This was our original mixer from back in the day. And — what do you think of when you see this when it goes takes you back to the original days? — I feel like I'm probably as exhausted as she is. — Really? — I just think about all the late nights we had and you know, my business partner was doing a lot of the manufacturing and then I would package them and coat them and cut them. So, your startup cost, was it truly $200? — Yeah, my business partner and I each put $100 into a bank account. — How did you spend the money? — So, we started on ingredients and packaging. There was pretty high demand from pretty early on. Yeah. Luckily, because my business partner and I had met at that popup shop, we had already experienced some customers in person

Revenue streams

that had learned about the brand. — So, roughly 300k a month today. Congratulations. Phenomenal number. — Where does that come from? Can you walk us through the different revenue streams? — Sure. So the vast majority of it comes from DTOC directly through our website probably about 70%. We're also on Tik Tok shop and that's been a great revenue stream for us as well. We're also in about 2500 mom and pop stores across the country. So we do have a bit of a retail presence. That's the avenue we're hoping to grow further. And we also have a cookbook. So we have the revenue stream coming in from royalties for a cookbook as well. Walk me through how you grew the business from the early days to now because you have this philosophy that's very interesting. Can you expand on that? — We really grew the business by doubling down on our existing customers. We focus on our VIPs growing our customer average order volume rather than necessarily focusing a ton of energy on acquiring new customers. And luckily those VIP customers because they are treated so well they do what? They shout our names from the rooftop. They become that excellent word of mouth that ends up getting us those new customers. — You guys, I'm spiraling. This is the best snack

Bread and butter

I've had on TikTok. — Talk about going viral and spending money on marketing, acquiring new customers. Where are you at today for your budget on marketing? — Yeah, we spend about 5% of our budget on marketing. Um, the vast majority of what we do is No, organic social media. So, social media is the thing that I love. It's my bread and butter. So, I do all of our social media content across platforms. We've got about 1. 4 million followers, most of which are on Tik Tok. We just started running um ads, meta ads for the first time last year. — Oh, wow. — And now we do email marketing. We also do postpilot. So, we do actual physical mailers, which is something I'm new to. — What about new customers? Is it Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok? — It's Tik Tok. — That's where Tik Tok is by far out where most of our customers are coming from. Tik Tok and Google. I'm We're really good at SEO, so we are the first marshmallow shop that shows up when you are searching for marshmallows and that definitely helps gets new people to try

Film everything (literally!)

us. — If somebody was starting a marshmallow company tomorrow, today, how would you tell them to get their first customer without spending a dime? — Film everything. This is literally the business advice I give to anyone who is starting any business at all. Customers today are craving authenticity and they're craving be able being able to see all the behinds of the scenes of the business. Customers today, they want to see it. They want to feel like they're building the business with you. And if you can get a customer to buy into the idea that they're not only a customer, but they're a person on this journey with you, you're the customer for life.

When virality hits too soon

— What happens when I go viral? And if I'm not ready for it, how do I prepare? — Yeah. So, I think everybody wants to go viral because they think it's going to be the thing that fixes their business, right? — I mean, it can do the hacking. can, but if you're not prepared, you're going to end up with angry customers, customers who think you're a scam because it's going to take longer for you to get product out. So, if you do go viral, the best way to be prepared for it is to overcommunicate with your customer. Set realistic expectations. — What's your crazy viral moment? Can you share one or two? I literally saw a comment on Tik Tok that pissed me off and I responded to it within like 15 seconds cuz somebody else ordered from a different marshmallow shop and they said, "I had a bad experience at one shop. Why would I order from you? " As if we're totally the same thing. — Yeah. — What? — So, that did well. And then our sour blue raspberry marshmallow we made earlier, we had uh in 2023 when we launched it, that got millions and millions of views. It was just supposed to be a marshmallow of the month. — We took it away. People got enraged. We brought it back. The video we announced bringing it back that went viral. So luckily by the time we brought it around permanently, we had stocked up on packaging. ingredients. We knew this was the product people were demanding.

Introducing new products

— All right. So talk to me about these new products that we're looking at. What What's going on here? — So this is our Cosmo brownie. So it's our spin on a cosmic brownie. It's gluten-free brownie ginache topped with marshmallow and then once this sets the whole thing will get dipped in chocolate. I'm also always paying attention to food trends, social media trends, flavors that are doing well right now. Um and sometimes we're too ahead of it. We launched um a matcha marshmallow that totally flopped and then like two years later matcha became super popular. We relaunched it and it was incredibly successful. So sometimes it's a great product, but the timing is off. — Gotcha. Okay. So this is how it comes in. — That's how it's come once it's fully finished. — Two in there. Right. Let's take a look. — Here. — Look at that. So we still have to dip it in chocolate. — Yep. We chocolate and top it with our uh colorful candy. — M. Wow. You're not skimming on chocolate. It's — Oh, no. — This whole thing is like swimming in it. I'll take a bite. — M. — Yeah. Look at that cross-section. So

Keeping things fresh

what role do these new products, Lindsay, play when it comes to AOV for the existing customer, right? Yeah. So is that part of the goal? — It is part of the goal is to increase the amount of products that people are ordering. Give them a little bit of more variety. — And this is the fluff. — So this is what it is. This is our banana pudding marshmallow fluff or OMG. So it is a banana marshmallow fluff with gluten-free manila wafers mixed in. — And people eat it out of a cup with a spoon. eat it straight out of the cup with a spoon if they want. Um, so it's kind of like Ben and Jerry's meets marshmallow fluff. — When it comes to coming up with new products, if you guys have any ideas, comment below. But for you, Lindsay, is it listening to the customer? Is it going with your gut feeling? A little bit of both. Walk us through that. — It's a little bit of both. I would say most of it is listening to customers. From day one, we've always paid attention to every single comment, every single email, every single DM, and saying, "What is it that you guys actually want? " Cotton candy is a great example. I hate cotton candy flavored things. I hate it, and I refuse to have a cotton candy marshmallow for years, and people kept asking for it. So, we do a marshmallow advent calendar. Cotton candy was one of those flavors we put in the calendar. We do a survey at the end of the calendar. People rank their flavors. Cotton candy was number one again and again. So, we made it a marshmallow of the month. — Obvious winner. — It sold better than any other marshmallow of the month we ever had. So, now it's our third bestselling marshmallow flavor. So, sometimes it's not my gut. Sometimes it is just listening to what they want. — And it doesn't hurt to try, right? What's the worst that could happen or what's the best thing that can happen? See, I'm learning. — And by the way, guys, Lindsay did have a great idea. But what if you don't? Don't worry. We've got you covered with a free PDF of 137 most profitable businesses all based on real data. So get your free

Marshmallows for vegetarians

access in the description below. — This is marshmallow flop. So it doesn't have the gelatin in it. — Calling it marshmallow. Okay. — So it's a type of marshmallow, right? — Okay. — It's marshmallow cream. — And I'm sorry I interrupted you. It doesn't have a certain ingredient which keeps it — uh Yeah. No gelatin. There's no gelatin in it. So this is actually a vegetarian product. — So the name again, we touched on it throughout today. OMG. — Or ooey marshmallow goodness. — Yes. But people say, "Oh my goodness, this is good. " And it's — when people take a bite of it, they say, "OMG. " — Just take a spoonful and — or get the strawberries we bought earlier and dip them in there. — Wow. I'm thinking of how to describe this. Obviously marshmallow experience. Everything's gooey in your mouth. The flavors are kicking in the chocolate. It's really good. I've never tried

Who’s faster?!

anything like it before. — Thank you. How about we do a challenge? You fill up one of these and I see who's — Let's see who's faster. I think we have some banana pudding we can try. — Yeah. All right, you guys. — So, what we're going to do, — we go into the Give me an example. Yeah. — Okay. — We're going to squeeze into here until it gets almost to the top and then it's done. That's it. — All right. — I'll move that one to the side. I'll get a fresh one. — I like doing this. — Okay. I see we've got a different strategy. — Strategy. Yeah. Let's see if this works. Ready? — You ready? — Yeah. Go. — Oh, smokes. What's going on? My — What have I said this entire day? Marshmallows are what? Sticky. — How do you let him go? All right. Oh, look at that. Lindsay's done. — This is the first time I've ever won. Um, and I will be bragging about it for

Ready to pack!

years to come. — All right, you guys. So this is the shipping, not shipping. This is — this is packaging. This is the packaging stage. So earlier when we cut those marshmallows and they were really sticky, they went through a coating process. So that's now why these are coated in a white powder. So these marshmallows were coated yesterday. Ah, you got an extra wormy. So these marshmallows were coated yesterday and then they sat in front of a dehumidifier overnight to kind of suck the moisture out of them. And now they're ready for packaging. So we do 12 per package. So 3x4. — But you're doing how many of these trays a day on average? — 60. — Yeah. So how many people are here doing this costume? — Uh between three and four to get all of these packaged up. — This is for me. — This is — Those are for his for taking home. — I failed the test. I'm going to let her

Outsmarting the melt

do the perfect one. What's the challenge of shipping these things? The meltability. I don't know if that's even a word. — It Well, we made it a word. All right. So, meltability. So, marshmallows are meant to melt, right? You use them for hot chocolate, s'mores. The downside is when I'm shipping marshmallows to Florida in July, I don't want them to melt, right? So, we'll send them with insulated liners. ice packs. We'll send them a little bit faster than we normally do. — All right. What's next? So, we packaged it up. We have — So, now that they're all packaged up, this part will be a little bit easier for you. — This is the ceiling part. — This is our ceiling part. So, this is our heat sealer. So, these plates right here are 164°. — Oh, wow. — And this is a bag that's meant to seal. And so, it'll go along the conveyor sealer. — Let's try. — And it'll seal it right up. It'll go into for box so that you get — beautiful — all your beautiful information. — There you go. All right. Let's take it

Shipping nightmares

to shipping. All right. This is uh — this is our shipping department. So, you packed your sour blue raspberry if you want to put it on your shelf. Now remember, so it's got to go on the other side here. — How much does shipping cost and account for in this business? — Yeah, shipping is my nightmare. So shipping is still it's about 40% of my P& L. So everybody thinks that because marshmallows are light, it should be really inexpensive to ship, but they're not factoring in that meltability, factoring in the cost of liners, the cost of ice packs, the cost of boxes, the cost of the custom tape that we use. And if we're shipping it somewhere really hot when it's already hot. So again, Florida in July, — I've got to get it there faster and that does cost extra money. — So gelatin in there. — Gelatin in here. And now pour the hot sugar. You're already an expert at this. — Yes. Let's go, guys. You ready? — Yes. — Don't spill it. — 15 minutes later. — Let's do a little taste test. — We're back at it. So I want you guys to see the consistency has changed. That's why we can now taste. Yeah, we're almost there. So, I'm going to take a scoop at — the end. — I like it. — That's lemon pound cake. — That's really good. — And remember, the flavor is going to set up even more over time. You guys better buy this up. Got some uh orange upflip swirls. You can't leave that out. Look at that. Perfect. So, here we have our uplift flavor of — This is your lemon pound cake. — What happens to it now? We got to put it away for 24 hours. — Yep. We got to let it sit overnight. Tomorrow, we'll cut it and coat it and then the following day — we'll post it online. — We'll put it online. — All right. Stay tuned.

Moment of truth

— Two weeks later. — Lindsay, it's good to see you. It's been a couple weeks since we did the interview. — Yeah, good to see you, too. I wanted to follow up and show our audience and give them some more details as to how is the upflip flavor coming along. — Yeah. So, we did the lemon pound cake. Um, we sold all through all 20 boxes. I will say it took a little bit longer to sell through them than I expected. That said, I don't think it was necessarily because it was a bad flavor. I think it's because we didn't get to go through like our full suite of branding, you know? do the photo shoots that we do the full suite of um social media posts, but we loved your flavor internally. So, even though it took a week to get through the 20 boxes, uh I think we are going to relaunch it at the end of the year once it has like our full suite. And um I might even let you guys take credit for it. — Let's do it. I mean, talk to us more about what that means when you put new flavors because it's sometimes it's a hit and miss, right? you throw something on the wall and you think is it going to stick or not or how do you approach that in a nutshell? — Yeah, usually uh luckily we have the flexibility as a small business to kind of turn flavors around pretty quickly. Uh we can always print packaging in house if we need to. Um if we're running something super limited the way that we did for you guys. If we're going to try to really make a product sell, we do try to bring in, we have a product photographer and food stylist that we've worked with for the last five years that just fully understand our aesthetic. So, we have them come in and get those really just mouthwatering photos that you see on our website. So, — I do think your flavor unfortunately because it wasn't able to get like that big push behind it, it didn't get the opportunity to really sell the way it could have. — Awesome. But we sold out. I mean, we didn't have a lot to offer in the first place, but — yeah, you did sell out. You did sell out and we got some positive feedback. We got um two positive reviews from it, which two out of 20 boxes is not bad at all. — Well, I mean, I think that's a good update for our audience. Uh, can you tell us the amount of revenue we generated from that sale? I mean, 12 or 20 boxes. — Yeah. So, uh, it's 20 boxes at $12 a piece. — Yep. Easy math. 12 at 20. So, $240 on a new flavor. — Yeah. And because we used existing ingredients and we printed uh the stickers in house, they had about an 80% profit margin. So, you made us quite a

Outro

bit of money. — Awesome. If this episode got you thinking about businesses you can start from home, you've got to check out episode 262. Ashley started making soap in her kitchen with just $300, grew it through social media, and turned it into a business making over $320,000 all while staying home with her daughter. Check it out. The link is below. Like and subscribe and we'll see you next

Другие видео автора — UpFlip

Ctrl+V

Экстракт Знаний в Telegram

Экстракты и дистилляты из лучших YouTube-каналов — сразу после публикации.

Подписаться

Лучшие методички за неделю — каждый понедельник