EP.155/ FLIKR FIRE
Trade Show Tactics: How Haley Swank Built Flikr Fire Without Paid Advertising
In this episode of Retention Chronicles, Mariah Parsons sits down with Haley Swank, Executive VP at Ecom AI and former co-founder of Flikr Fire, to discuss how she helped build and scale a unique DTC and wholesale brand. Haley shares how Flikr Fire’s innovative isopropyl alcohol-powered fireplace went from a garage startup to a booming business, primarily through trade shows rather than traditional DTC marketing. She dives into the challenges of launching a single-product brand, the power of wholesale partnerships, and how creative retention strategies—like SMS-driven cocktail recipes—helped drive repeat sales. Plus, Haley gives an inside look at the process of exiting the company and what she learned along the way. Tune in for valuable insights on scaling, customer engagement, and the wholesale eCommerce model!
EP. 155
HALEY SWANK
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 02:00 – Introduction to the episode and guest, Haley Swank, Executive VP at Ecom AI and former co-founder of Flikr Fire.
02:00 - 06:45 – Haley’s entrepreneurial background: childhood businesses, passion for product development, and early business mindset.
06:45 - 10:50 – Studying Outdoor Leadership & Management, working at REI, and the chance encounter that led to co-founding Flikr Fire.
10:50 - 16:00 – The inspiration behind Flikr Fire and the process of developing a proprietary cement for a safe, alcohol-fueled fireplace.
16:00 - 21:30 – Launching the business through trade shows instead of traditional DTC marketing, securing $9K in orders from the first event.
21:30 - 27:00 – Scaling through wholesale: building relationships with major retailers, learning B2B strategies, and overcoming early challenges.
27:00 - 33:00 – Retention strategies for wholesale partners: exclusivity, customization, and creative collaboration with retailers.
33:00 - 38:45 – Entering the DTC market: overcoming skepticism about email and SMS marketing, and the success of SMS-driven cocktail recipes.
38:45 - 42:00 – The unexpected impact of retention strategies and the shift in mindset toward customer engagement.
42:00 - 45:15 – The process of exiting Flikr Fire: valuation, finding the right buyer, and lessons learned about selling a business.
45:15 - 47:26 – Final takeaways and reflections on growing, scaling, and selling a brand, plus closing thoughts from Mariah and Haley.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SPEAKERS
Mariah Parsons, Haley Swank
Mariah Parsons 00:04
Hello and welcome to retention Chronicles, the customer retention podcast for E commerce marketers. I am your host and fellow ecom marketer, Mariah Parsons. Tune in as I speak with DTC founders and operators about strategy that works and strategy that doesn't of course, we are able to have these conversations because of our podcast sponsor, Malomo. I have seen 1000s of brand operators power their order tracking with Malomo to make every single message count. As a consumer, I personally have come to expect that brands have a phenomenal post purchase experience, or else I'm not really shopping with them again. And a lot of consumers are this way. 84% of shoppers won't return if they have a bad shipping experience. And it feels so important for E commerce brands to have a good pre purchase experience. You're trying to get that acquisition. Your customers are coming through the door. They're coming through your website, it is a very personalized experience. You have pop ups that are timed Well, you have customer testimonials that are easing fears. You have well timed car abandonment, emails, all of that stuff. And then you purchase with a brand, and sometimes there's no communication, and it leaves you wondering. It leaves you mad, maybe scared that you fell for a scam or something like that. And so I think it is such a smart decision to have your transactional shipping emails and SMS not just be about only business. Malomo helps turn them into a powerful marketing tool. What does that look like? It means you can cross sell other products on that branded order tracking page. You can put educational content on that page. So if you have something that consumers will have to learn how to use for the first time, you can put that there. If you have recipes that they could you know, use your product for when they first get it. You can put that there, your social media, everything, frequently asked questions, whatever you want. You get the control back so that you're not sending your customers to a carrier tracking page, you're putting them right back on your website, and you're also keeping them informed about their order status while you do it. That's the beautiful thing about this platform, if you're ready to turn your order notifications into a marketing channel and join 1000s of E commerce brand operators in making their customers happier while also adding to your brand's profits. Visit go malomo.com that's G O M, a, l, o m, o.com Hello everyone, and welcome back to retention Chronicles. I'm so excited for our day today here. Haley, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so excited for our listeners. Haley Swank, you are the executive VP at ecom Ei, which we're going to dive into, and you were the former president and co founder of Flikr fire, and we originally met at this year's previous Shop Talk fall in Chicago. Our listeners, who have listened into a couple of our recent episodes will know I've met a great, great amount of people there, and I'm so excited that now we get to join and have you on the podcast. Have you be one of those people that we've gotten to? You know, just seems like fate kind of joins people. Sometimes we were in an elevator together going up to an event, and I was going up alone, and I was like, You know what these I think we had, like, some common shared laugh or something. It's like, I'm gonna introduce myself, do all the things that we go to those events for, and really hit it off. So I appreciate you making the time to be here today, and I thank you for all, all of the, you know, prep work that we've done and are going to dive into on this call. So it'll be a great time. I'll have you introduce yourself to our listeners and then kind of share a little bit more about yourself. Awesome.
Haley Swank 03:52
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and for that introduction. As Mariah said, I am now the executive vice president of E comm AI, which is basically an optimization software for E commerce brands and retailers. And then I am the former president and co founder of Flickr, fireplace. I guess a bit of my background not in business at all, per se. I actually studied Outdoor Leadership and Management as a degree, and so that is what my undergrad is in. But I always knew that I really wanted to do business. So when I was probably nine years old, I actually saved my money and bought a kid's business book from Barnes and Noble that I had been looking at for months. I'm not kidding. I probably had 20 businesses before I was like 15, and always knew I wanted to do business, but for whatever reason, genuinely, I had no desire to study business. And so kind of post post undergrad, I found myself working as an outdoor programs leader and marketer for Rei. And that journey brought me to meet my co founder of Flickr, fireplace. And so that's kind of how I got into that realm and had the opportunity to dive into having my own business. Whereas I would sit in the back of, I remember our vehicle as a child and like, be on long road trips and be like, Okay, I want to own my own business. What could I do? And I would want to have, like, you know, something creative, something no one else has ever done. And so I spout out these ideas, and my parents be like, well, that's already a thing. Or, why don't you just own a coffee shop? You like coffee? I'm like, no, no, I want to do something no one else has ever done, but I would always get upset because I'm like, I'm not creative enough to come up with anything. So when I met my co founder, and he had this idea, and had had this idea for about a decade, but didn't know what to do with it. I called my mom, and I was like, I got it. I know what the business is now. So that's, that's kind of how everything started.
Mariah Parsons 05:53
Oh, I love that. So do you remember, like any of those business ideas that you had when you were younger, I feel like it's sometimes fun.
Haley Swank 06:04
Oh yeah, oh gosh, everything from pet sitting and passing out flyers everywhere to a company called pretty purses, where I was sewing like old jeans shorts into purses and doing like raffles, like I was getting creative marketing, yeah, to lemonade stands of like, but like, go, like, being very strategic with them, and like, taking my mom's kitchen knife to go cut bamboo down and building it where there was construction going on in the neighborhood, because I knew all the workers would
Mariah Parsons 06:35
want to come over for lemonade. Oh, you knew you're like, This is where there are so,
Haley Swank 06:40
so, so many little, little things like that. Yeah. Oh, that's really sweet.
Mariah Parsons 06:44
Yeah, I kind of I relate to the i until I kind of got into business, I wouldn't have called them, like ventures, but I was always like, the string bracelets when I was young, yep. And like, making soap, like, just very
Haley Swank 07:01
crafty. I didn't so buddy, I made candles recently. Oh, my God, there we go. This
Mariah Parsons 07:06
is why we hit it off. Like I used to go to, I think AC Moore is out of business. Now, maybe don't hold me accountable for that, but I used to go like, that was my like fun activity, or like that was my like gift for a birthday, or something is going to AC Moore, which is a craft store, and just getting, like, one of their kits or something like, yeah, there was just always something that I love about, like, being able to make a new thing for myself. And I would give them to people, right? Like earrings to just like clay jewelry, pretty much anything that three, yep, Yes, yep. I actually, I didn't
Haley Swank 07:43
remember this till you were just talking about that. I used to I really wanted to be in fashion for years, and I've, I've always struggled with, like, I know there's items out, like, I have to find the perfect item, and I know I could design it, but I can't find it. And so I would literally put my clothes or like, do like, I would alter my clothes to get them as close to what I had envisioned my mind as possible. Yeah, I used to try and do it and try to sell them,
Mariah Parsons 08:12
or like, even like reselling things, you know, that I didn't want, like on Facebook or Poshmark or like, whatever third party app like, I just always have been driven or, like, you know, yes, whatever craft I thought you were going to say for a second, I used to have these, like, paper booklets, basically that were you cut out designs and, like, put them on, like, paper figurines. And I was like, if you say, I've never, um, I've never, someone bring that up. So that's what, where I thought you were going down, and that really took me back, because I was like, Whoa, I forgot about those things. Um, so that's that's similar, that we kind of share that like, you know, drive as a little kid, or lemonade stands or whatever, like, Baby, I think I had, like, babysitting club, right? Like,
Haley Swank 09:04
oh, I had, yeah, babysitting on the show,
Mariah Parsons 09:09
yep. So that is, that is so funny. So that is, yeah, that's, that's a fun shared background. Tell me a little bit more about kind of what it was, like you said, like Outdoor Leadership and Management? Is that correct? Yeah.
Haley Swank 09:27
So my degree was, it was really a, it was a outdoor like recreation degree, but all through the lens of business. So there are some degrees that certain universities have that lean more in, like the Parks and Rec side of outdoor recreation, mine was very much like writing business plans and coming up with initiative, like actual business initiatives and stuff, which was really cool, which is what I thought I wanted to do at the time. So I was like, This sounds a lot more fun than just traditional business classes. I. Yeah, okay, but I think I'm the only one from my graduating class that wound up going more of the Business Route, which is funny, and I've driven so far from the outdoor realm of it, but it's actually been cool, because with both Flickr and e com, I've gotten to work with a lot of outdoor companies and retailers or nonprofits, or have kind of been able to, like, dabble back in that industry, or at least help those people in a different way, which has been really fun, yeah. Oh, that's awesome,
Mariah Parsons 10:28
um, and it makes sense, like landing at REI, very, very obviously paralleled, um, very, very, very much makes sense. So tell us a little bit about flicker fire, like, Tell us, tell the audience. You know, what product did you have? Kind of give a little bit of context, and then we'll launch, we'll launch into it a little bit further. Yeah, so
Haley Swank 10:52
flicker fireplace was the first, actually isopropyl rubbing alcohol like fireplace, on the market. So we were manufacturing and selling them back in 2018 I believe, is when we first went to market. My co founder, he had been living in Seattle for about a decade prior, and he was a high rise window cleaner where it was cold and gray, and he'd come home every day and lived in an apartment so there wasn't a fireplace, and really just wanted like an indoor fire. And he had obviously seen on different websites or Amazon that there's different stoves you can get that run on, like a gelled ethanol, but then you have to reorder the ethanol, and it's like, not that great for the environment and expensive. And so he was like, rubbing alcohol burns like people did this back in like, you know, forever, you know, dozens of your husbands, probably of years ago, and why can't we burn rubbing alcohol? So it started down this whole journey, actually, for a decade of him just R and D doing it for himself, and it posed to be really difficult actually, to have a liquid that was flammable that you wanted to have in your home. And so whether it was like a mortar and pestle or granite or a cast iron skillet embedded in Granite, he tried all sorts of things, eventually they would crack or crumble or absorb the liquid. So around the time that we met in 2018 he had just found a manufacturer that was willing, like a raw material manufacturer that was willing to work with him on developing like a proprietary cement that would not absorb the liquid and could withstand the heat. So that is where we I was actually working for Rei at the time, and I was in charge of all the grand opening events for the launch in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was wanting to have an outdoor it was on a rooftop of a really large museum here in town. And so I wanted to have s'mores and kind of have a campfire vibe, but with the millions of dollars of art below, they wouldn't let us obviously have fire pits. So someone had told me that there's this guy that makes these little fire pits in his garage, but they're really tiny, and they just run a rubbing alcohol. And so any who got in touch with him for that, and then it just kind of snowballed from there. So we that would have been like May of 2018 and then I convinced him to put money on a credit card to go do his first trade show in July, and I took PTO to join him, and that was America's Mart in Atlanta. So that's kind of when we really want really launched everything. Oh, that's
Mariah Parsons 13:24
so fun. So I actually didn't know this part of your story that well, two parts that I want to dive into, the proprietary cement part, and then sounds like, like straight out launching at a trade show. Oh, totally, which is, which is not common, at least what I So, yeah, I would love to kind of dive into details there in terms of, like, is that, like, the proprietary cement? Is that something that you all were able to, like, get a patent on? I think, do you have like,
Haley Swank 14:01
unfortunately, no, we filed for a few patents, and at the end of the day, it was really, really difficult. And what if we, we kind of came to a point where it was we either spend all of our money on hopefully getting a patent that would probably end up being a patent that you could work your way around, or we spend our money on attending more trade shows and acquiring more customers and just really being first to market. So unfortunately, we weren't able to get a patent, but we were able, I mean, we worked with the world's largest refractory, which is like high temp cement manufacturer in the world, and they literally made, like a particular blend that was just for us once we in like 2020. Is when we first started having some knockoffs come up. A lot were just on like Etsy and with Quick Create, which is extremely dangerous. But when we did have our first kind of larger knockoff come up, our manufacturer of the ROB. Material. We manufactured the units, but our manufacturer, the raw material, did say they're like, we've been hit up by your competitor. But don't worry, we're not, we're not giving them anything. Okay, that was nice. We didn't have a patent, but we had a bit of security on our material, not being used by other companies. Okay,
Mariah Parsons 15:16
a good business partner. Okay, okay, so perhaps, like, the more interesting part for our listeners will be learning about launching at a trade show. So I'm going to take us completely off track from what we plan to talk about, because I think it'll be really, really interesting. And let's be honest, that happens every episode. So yeah, tell me about, like, what was, was it just kind of timing in terms of, you know, like you seeing success from the event with REI of like people's response, and seeing the application of being able to have a little fireplace that is in, like, dangerous to you use the example of artwork for that event, but you know, you can have it in your home and all that stuff. So, yeah, tell me a little bit more about that, because that's, that's a cool way to kind of really, really launch yourself into the market. So
Haley Swank 16:08
we really did not have we really, there was no we didn't have money. So, like, there wasn't really another option that we saw, there was no way to get in front of a lot of people, like direct to consumer customers, without having that money. When I met my co founder, he had done, he had just received insurance that prior, like November or something, because he did a Christmas market in town, and I think he sold about 80 units at the Christmas market for like $40 where our MSRP ended up being 100 and and he was like, Oh my goodness. Like, people actually really like this. Like, I've just always made it for my friends and family, but other people want this. Like, what? So there was, like, that social proof of, again, like maybe 80 people in Chattanooga. But because money was such a limitation, because, especially in this day and age with E commerce, it's so difficult to become a known brand without having awareness, and it often costs money to have that awareness. And doing Christmas markets year after year was his plan. And I'm just like, you're never going to make it. And at some point someone else is going to go and do this, and it's going to be big, so we have to beat them to it. So we looked up trade shows in the area and determined that spending $4,000 to do a home decor and furniture market in Atlanta, where we could drive we had friends and family to stay with. Again, the 4000 went on a credit card, but we were like, alright, if we can distribute this and gain even just four customers, but those are four customers that are going to be placing reorders and helping us with that awareness and expansion, then that's probably our only chance of really being able to launch successfully. So our first trade show, we learned a lot. We actually set up this funny. We set up our booth like a living room, because in our minds it was like, you know, going to be showcasing the actual experience of where you would use this in your home. But being that, it was a furniture show, people are like, Are you selling the couch? Are you selling the table? What's going on here? So it was not a good way to showcase the product, but we walked away with orders that totaled about 9000 in revenue. And from day one, we were profitable, so we were able to take that 9000 pay off the credit card, manufacture all of the units that needed to be made to fulfill those orders and that, and that was in July, and by October, just those few stores that had ordered had reordered enough for it Travis to actually go full time with the company, and for us to sign up for our next trade show in October. So I didn't quite make the jump yet and leave Rei, so I took more PTO to go to the October trade show. But yeah, trade shows is 1,000% where we, where we kind of jumped off.
Mariah Parsons 19:00
Oh, that's, that's really cool. So, so was it pre orders from the trade show then? So
Haley Swank 19:07
we took, I mean, technically, pre orders, but we shipped everything out that week. We were manufacturing three units at a time, at this point in time, in our single car, in his, I should say single car garage, and we were having to set alarms to wake up throughout the night to what we call flip the chickens, which was rotate the units out of the mold so that we could reuse the molds. Because with our process of manufacturing of everything from like vibrating the cement to having molds and having like a heat box to kind of let them cure in. We didn't have the capacity to do more than three at a time. That scaled to 11, and then that scaled to 22 and then within about a year and a half, we were making 1300 a day. So it was It was wild, but yeah, we did fulfill all the. Orders pretty quickly, and then just kind of learned the, you know, I remember that first trade show I was going around talking to all the booths next to us, like, asking, like, hey, this company just came up and asked us for a line sheet. What's a line sheet? Or, like, Wait, how do we know we are you? Because the first set of UPCS we bought, like, apparently weren't really real, yeah. Like, we know that. So the first trade show and the second, honestly, every one of them, but that first trade show definitely learned a lot just about reorders. And, you know, I remember being asked what our case pack size was and MOQ was, and I'm like, let me google it. I
Mariah Parsons 20:39
don't know. Let me get back to you. After quick, let
Haley Swank 20:41
me get back to you. Give me a second. But we ended up, for the most part, selling. I don't remember what the first rate, Joe, but selling, in case, packs of eight and so we were always able to I was a low enough minimum order quantity, quantity for people to try it out at $1 point. But it did help us just always kind of stay ahead on on sales.
Mariah Parsons 21:02
Yeah, so it was, was it because I'm not familiar with America Mart, that's what you said
Haley Swank 21:08
Atlanta. Yes, yeah, they have, it's three massive buildings connected by sky bridges. And I know they have several trade shows a year, like different fashion ones, but their main, their main one is the home decor and furnishings.
Mariah Parsons 21:23
Okay, so is it all like, Are there retail, retailers and wholesale opportunities there, or is it just like consumers are the ones who are walking around and shopping? Oh, it
Haley Swank 21:35
is just wholesale. Yes. Okay, so to clarify, yeah, so we got every trade show we ever did was B to B. So we would, you know, you would meet Nordstrom or Macy's or bespoke post or or press like that's where Good Morning America and HSN or Better Homes and garden found us. So definitely was all B to B. So if you think of any, really, any furniture, I remember when we were first walking around in the large showrooms that look like you're walking in a Restoration Hardware Pottery Barn. And we were like, how are you guys not just ripping off West Elm? And they're like, children, where do you think they buy their furniture from?
Mariah Parsons 22:20
We're like, Oh, you're the manufacturer noted, noted. They're like, you're new here, aren't you? Yeah, oh,
Haley Swank 22:27
yeah. And then we learned, oh, we can open accounts and buy wholesale furniture. This is great.
Mariah Parsons 22:32
Okay, yeah, it seems like wholesale, yeah. There's a lot of lot of little secrets exist in that world, which I know I'm not familiar with either. So I would totally be like, What do you mean? This isn't,
Haley Swank 22:43
oh, it was wild. It was amazing. And the the trade shows are just, yeah, they were super fun, but, um, but overall, it was the best way for us to, I mean, the amount of articles and press we got and other companies running ads on our product, because it was a unique product. So they're like, hey, check out this new thing we have and, and we never had to. We didn't spend a dime on advertising traditionally, until 20, midway through 2020,
Mariah Parsons 23:11
wow, that's really, that's really unique. I feel like, congrats on that. That's huge. So would you say, because it was such an innovative product, like, that's why, obviously, for wholesalers, the the market is there, right? Like, people are already shopping their site, and they want to impress, like, and get people to buy through their site when they're seeing and that's like, such a good gift, too. Like, there's certain items
Haley Swank 23:34
that gift category perfectly because it was a roughly $100 MSRP, so it's like, a nice gift, but it's not too, too expensive, and it's perfect for a couple or a single person or a family and they want to roast marshmallows like or the person who has everything. It was just kind of, I mean, the amount of like, furniture stores that were, like, high end furniture stores that don't really even sell accessories, but it was something they could put on their table and have going near the window to get people to come in. So a lot of people used it as tactics like that as well as you know, I know, I mean several, several. We always told our retailers, if you can light it, it'll sell itself. So most of our retailers, whether it was like a weekend thing or just the demo. Thing that they would do want when a customer came in, they would, I mean, yeah, it if you could turn it on. It sold itself for E commerce. We did recognize pretty quickly that it was so important to have videos or gifts because otherwise it looks like a hunk of cement just sitting on the table. Yeah. And so it was more difficult to sell e commerce at first, but once it started becoming known, and once we had some better video content out there, that that became easier as well.
Mariah Parsons 24:52
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that that's more of a pattern on this podcast, and like E commerce in general, is if you have something that's really. Really that you can, like, demo and you can really show it off. I think that works so well in ads and across, obviously the internet, because you can't that's when you're in person, that's when you're trying it out. That's when you're seeing what it feels like and what it would look like, like the size of it, right? Like, you kind of lose the some of the senses you do over, over the over E commerce, or over the Internet. So it's like, one of those things that I'm attuned to, of like, Oh, I'm seeing this brand. Like, this is how you wear that. This is how you can style it, or this is how you turn it on, and this is what it looks like. And that is so cool. But then retail, you're right. Like, if someone sees that, even if it's just for decoration, and, like, a restaurant, right, isn't even selling it. But then you could, like, have it be part of the ambience. It makes a lot of sense. It was
Haley Swank 25:51
all that was okay. That's actually now that you say ambience, I have to bring this up all the time. People would ask us, you know, whether it's at a trade show and they've been interacting with us for five minutes already, or 20 minutes, or they met us on the street somehow, and it came up, everyone would always ask, like, why? What's the purpose of it? Like, what does it do? And we're just like, ambiance, like, it's, they're like, but it's not going to heat my home. And we're like, it's not meant to heat your home. And they're like, but it doesn't smell like anything, like a candle. It's like, no, like it is. It's purely just for ambience. You can roast marshmallows over it, you know, it is it? But it's just mesmerizing to sit there and to see that large of a flame, you know, flicker around that's not a candle. But also, especially when you live in a home or apartment that doesn't have a fireplace, it just brings, like, so much more, like, cozy,
Mariah Parsons 26:43
yeah, and it is, like, still functional ambience of like,
Haley Swank 26:47
I mean, it drops a bit of heat for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay,
Mariah Parsons 26:52
so this is, so, seems like trade shows is something you would say, like, that has been maybe the number one technique you used for branding and awareness and like conversions, it would you, would you agree with that where, like, that was 1,000%
Haley Swank 27:08
Yeah. I mean, at the the point where I exited the company, we had probably 2600 retailers worldwide that we sold to, and I would say wholesale. At that point, we didn't really start growing D to C. We actually, I'll back up. We actually, in 2018 and 2019 didn't sell direct to consumer because we were afraid that these brands or these retailers would not want to carry our product if they competed with us. So we stayed off of Amazon. We didn't sell ourselves because we really needed them, and we knew that. And then at the point to where it's like, okay, no, they need us and they want us, we went ahead and launched our own direct to consumer, but yeah, it wasn't until probably 2021 that direct to consumer maybe made up 30% 25% of our overall revenue, but the rest was Still wholesale. So trade shows kind of the retention more so with our wholesale accounts was a huge
Mariah Parsons 28:05
bonus. Okay, let's talk about that then, because I think, I think that's such a cool way to acquire accounts, whether it's custom, you know, directly to to customers, or through retail or through wholesale. Um, so our customers will be like, mostly, at least have DC branches, but it isn't in common that they also have other channels. Um, so yeah, tell me a little bit about retaining wholesale accounts, and then we can go into dt DTC accounts as well.
Haley Swank 28:36
Yeah. So with retaining our wholesale accounts, it really came down to, well, a communication for sure. I remember, actually, I'll speak on communication for a minute. When we did start having competitors pop up our the competitors were, of course, going to some of our largest retailers with undercut prices and this and that, and all of them would come to me and be like, hey, just so you know, you know, so and so is going around saying this, we're sticking with you guys. But one of the main reasons, other than they're like, they offered us a better price. We love working with you, but this other company sucks at communicating, and so I really think like building, like, whether it was communication, or just the relationship we built, we would like, you know, bespoke post was one of our largest e commerce partners, and every January their team would send us a box of like, bagels and coffee from New York, because that's where they're based. And then we would sit there and have our that year planning of partnership, having bagels and coffee together. So we did a lot of things like that with large retailers. And then the biggest part, kind of beyond just the overall relationship, we developed back and forth, which also a big part of that relationship, was transparency. I am wildly transparent, and probably two. Honest, and I'm probably told, and I told I did tell them things several times they didn't want to hear, but the feedback was always like, hey, this sucks, but thank you for being honest. We don't have any other brand like our brands under over promise and under deliver all the time, and so we appreciate you just being honest. Like, yeah, I don't want to be in the position of under delivering so you're getting me like, really, really, really, really honest. But the other thing was always ensuring that we were willing to do something to help them creatively think about ways that they could be different from others selling our product. So whether that was coming up with exclusive base colors or exclusive lid colors when we had them, or an exclusive shape that they could have for a certain amount of time. Or often, I would connect them with like different manufacturers of cool marshmallows or different kind of fancy chocolates and help them put together a s'mores box. Just really anything to where they didn't start worrying about, you know, their customers going elsewhere to buy Flickr. We could kind of create a unique experience for their customer around Flickr that was, that was just for them, and that was only available on their site. I
Mariah Parsons 31:15
really like that idea of, like, the exclusivity, at least for, like, I'm sure you were, like, you can have, you know, this shape or this color for like, whatever amount of time, and then it'll open up, and then it opens up, yeah, other other avenues, and even putting connecting them with other people that you're meeting with, the marshmallows and the chocolate and all that, all that fun stuff. And I feel like that is, I'm going to draw a parallel there to the D to C world, which is the personalization elements that brands, especially smaller ones right now, they're playing in that realm, because that's where they can win, versus these other big brands. Little bit different, because you're sitting in a category where it's like, there's nothing on the market until competitors starts to pop up, um, but say you're going against, you know, let's just say, like, who gives a crap? They're a toilet paper company, right? Like, there's a huge, huge industry, um, but them as a brand, they are going against their competitors for and their propositions are, like, the sustainability and their branding and personalization for their customer, like, what is cool for their customer. And I think that's a really unique way to pull that into the wholesale space of like, even though you're this big, big, you know, customer of ours, big account of ours, we're going to make it so that you feel like you are special against all these other accounts, and then you can continue to make other accounts also feel special in their own way. But I think that's a really, really good takeaway for our audience, even if someone's, you know, maybe they're in they're they're exploring working with wholesalers, or they, you know, it's something that they've done for years and years. I hope people kind of take that away, because that's a really cool way to look at it. Yeah,
Haley Swank 33:08
it was really fun. And it was just fun. Like, we had retailers again, because I was so transparent, I think, and honest even about, you know, hey, we don't have new assets because right now, we're not spending money on them or whatever it is, like, we had so many retail partners offering to, like, co shoot videos with us, or to, you know, just like super, super unique kind of ways to partner and to position the product and the brand. And that was definitely a huge blessing in helping us. I mean, again, we, we never paid for any sort of PR or media coverage. It just, and a lot of that was, you know, having a product that was really unique, that people wanted to write about and talk about, which was really awesome, yeah,
Mariah Parsons 33:55
oh, that's, that's so cool. I even have people in mind that I know I'm going to like, send this episode to and be like, You need to listen to this, because I know that you're like, this could be really, really smart for you, which is what's, which is a great seat to sit in. And so, yeah, all, I really like that, and I want to talk about the DTC side of retention. And so how do you kind of see, obviously, I drew the parallel of personalizing the customer experience for the D to C arm, but is, how else were you thinking about, like customer retention, like once you did start to go into the direct to consumer route,
Haley Swank 34:38
yeah. So honestly, I thought retention was going to pretty much be impossible for us, to be honest, because for a long time, our entire brand was built around one product, and then, I mean, we had one SKU for like, two years, and then we had and we were refining that one SKU. Once we got that one SKU, really, you know that? One product really, really refined. We started branching out to offer, again, different like lids and bases that were different colors or a couple different shapes. But for the most part, how many individual little fireplaces does one person need? You know, it's kind of my thought, and so, like, I didn't even, we didn't I didn't send a single email campaign until we had over 60,000 subscribers, which is so dumb, and I look but again, we were, we were running this entire operation pretty much as two people. And my, my, my co founder was truly doing like manufacturing, and that was about it, and I was doing everything else business, and so in we were really nervous to think looking back, we should have just hired people again. We were able to always cash flow it with just profit of the company, and we're really fortunate that that was the case. But I was always nervous of being responsible for someone else's income, and so I just did not want to hire and we had a lot of friends and family and different people that wanted the help, which makes it that much more difficult. And so, yeah, genuinely did not do a single email campaign until I finally hired help. And was like, yeah, let's get on Klaviyo. And, you know, do this, and Klaviyo is like, you have 60,000 people you've never emailed. You're like, we're gonna really have to warm these email lists. And so then for a long time too, you know, they're trying to convince me to do SMS attentive, trying to and I just like, who wants to see receiving a text message from a fireplace that they've already bought? Like, again, I just did not see the retention. And it was wild to see once we were actually tracking all those stats more and paying attention to them how much retention we just naturally did have, and how much more came from showing up in their inbox or showing up in their messages with a sale around a time that they were buying gifts in particular, you know, some people would want to Buy a unit for different spots in their house, or their multiple houses or whatever. But for the most part, we saw a lot of the retention with gift ordering for sure, or, you know, maybe their spouse or they were a real estate agent, and they get gifts for their clients, so kind of things like that, where they weren't wholesale accounts, but we did have a lot of D to C customers that had had reasons to buy several even though, again, I really didn't believe they would. But one fun thing that we did, because I was just like, Okay, if we're going to do SMS, I was like, everyone's going to unsubscribe after they get the first email or first text, because it's going to be annoying. Because what else do we have to show other than a picture of the fireplace and talk about the fireplace every time. So what we did is we would do every other week, one text about the fireplace or promotion or something, but then every Friday, we sent a cocktail recipe, and at the end of the cocktail recipe, it'd be like a little, you know, have this, you know, with your cozy fireplace, or, you know, enjoy this tonight with a date night. Don't forget to light your fire something, you know, something like that. But I was like, I'd rather send them something that they might actually look forward to, might actually use, even though it has nothing to do with our product. And I think that actually was, we didn't have really anyone unsubscribing from SMS, which was awesome. And then a lot of our sales did come from SMS. I mean, it was, yeah, even way more than even email, which, again, I was like, No, we shouldn't do that. I don't think we even did a I don't think we did email till midway through 2020 and SMS till almost 22 so
Mariah Parsons 38:39
it, I mean, that's a great case study, though, for like, email and SMS marketing, right? Um, even as a founder, you're saying, like, I don't think this is it, and then you see, like, people are responding well, to it. Um, of course, there's always the inverse, right? Where it's like, yeah, people didn't want it and you know, they're gonna unsubscribe, but like, that's the worst that'll happen. And so it it is so that is so crazy to me, and I probably would have sat in that seat as well before kind of getting into this industry and working, obviously with Malomo, we are sitting in the transactional email and SMA space, which different from marketing notifications, but still, it's in the realm of email and SMS. And as a consumer, I probably would have been like, do these things really work? Like, I get so many emails, right? Like, what? And then, as being on the flip side as a operator, you're like, wow, they really do work. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's impressive. And I love that you brought up the SMS strategy of sending in like recipe or a tip or something that's tangent, tangential to your brand, but isn't. You know, like, top 10 ways to use our fireplace, right? Because it Yeah, work, yeah, that doesn't like, that's one week, that's one campaign, that's one text. And it kind of reminded me of why social media works for a lot of brands, is because they take that approach of like, what is central, what is my brand? And then what is like, yeah,
Haley Swank 40:23
what are other elements around that? Yes, that's exactly when we hired a creative director. I was like, I am all for pushing more content out there, but I don't just want to see Flickr, flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker. Like, we gotta figure out what else is in this, yeah, like, realm of things, and speak to that or speak to other brands that we partner with, or something of that nature, which that was social media. You know, once we did start running ads. But even before that, we grew. We probably grew to at least 10 or 12,000 organic followers on Instagram before we ever ran an ad on Instagram. But it again, we got lucky, because it was a product that was cool, so people wanted to post about it and tag. So then, you know, so then they wanted to follow along, for whatever reason, even though we had probably, like, 15 posts,
Mariah Parsons 41:12
yeah. Well, also your it's kind of the like bandwagon effect of, like, when people find a new artist, they're like, these are my people. If they're like, right? Like, I want to post about it. I want to prove I'm like, Cool. I'm ahead at the times, like, all that stuff. So I'm sure that was also working when you have a new product and you're like, wait, I'm ahead of the crowd, you know, for those, like, early early adopters. So that's, that's really cool. And I know we're getting close to time this is flown by, and it's really, really been a productive conversation. I would love to just touch upon, even if it's quickly the process of exiting, because I think a lot of our listeners will benefit, just like, even if it's lessons learned or what you are thinking about in that time. Because I know that a lot of our listeners are either like they're in the thick of it, or they are thinking about being in a in, you know, starting their own brand. So I would love to get your opinion on that before we wrap up.
Haley Swank 42:07
Yeah, of course. So once we, you know, started, you know, determining that we wanted to exit, to be honest, we really didn't know what to do at that, at that given point, you know, we didn't know, you know, do we work with, you know, a broker type thing, where they go out and find us. And we were, we got those emails all the time, and I'd always just delete them, and then all of a sudden, I started paying attention. But what, what we did? Obviously, I did not really know much about EBITDA beforehand, yeah, so I got very familiar with EBITDA and very familiar with our tax accountants and their whole process of of that, and we had a formal valuation done. So that was obviously the first step. It was quite expensive to have the formal valuation done, but it was great to just know where we sat in terms of, you know, what the company was really worth, and what our multiple of EBITDA likely was given our industry, also given the risk associated with our product and the liability that comes with it and all of that, and we had been seeing, you know, 400 plus percent growth year after year after year from the beginning of the company, but also had To account for the fact that that wasn't sustainable long term. So it was, it was hard to build, you know, any sort of like pro forma, really, off of that type of growth, knowing that it probably wasn't quite sustainable, especially with competitors in the market changing. But really, we ended up not working with any sort of company or broker, but really just identifying companies that we might be able to reach out to or might have relations with, that would have any sort of interest or it could slightly align with. So for a while, we were in talks with a company that is, I won't name them, but very large in a certain industry, and we had no idea that they even knew who we were, and we were just like, man, they aren't quite in this, like outdoor realm of home yet, but it would, it would make a lot of sense for them in the future. I wonder if they'd ever be open to a conversation. We reached out the same exact week they reached out not knowing we had reached out. It never, like crossed, like they never got our message, like the the CEO never did, but the CEO reached out being like, Hey, I know you guys are, you know, located too far from us. We'd love to have a conversation about where you see the future of this going. So we'd be interested in purchasing. So that was a really cool experience for us, for sure, but I think it definitely gave me more confidence, or confidence just in, I don't know, working with the broker we met some great ones, but it could be awesome. But I think if I were to do it again, I would, I would once again, want to see who in my network. Who, out of my potential retailers, even would be interested in something like this? Because I think it, overall, it was just much smoother doing, doing a deal with someone that was a little more familiar and also really excited about it. And, yeah,
Mariah Parsons 45:15
yeah, oh, that's great. I there's a lot of tips in there for people just to, like, first steps, where do you then go when you are looking to exit? So I appreciate, I know it's a brief, brief recap. Yeah, and there's, like, so many things to dive into, but we've, we are right at the top of the hour, so sadly, I have to wrap it up. But thank you so much, Hayley for coming on here, sharing your experience, taking the time I know you're obviously dedicating your time to the software side of things now, which I feel like I have to have you on at another point in time, just to dive into all of that. But this has been really, really fun to learn, kind of just how you started with Flickr and took it and grew it through trade shows and all that, and for an eventual exit. So this is, this has been a great, great podcast. Thank you, yeah, of course.
Haley Swank 46:09
Thank you so much.
Mariah Parsons 46:16
Thank you for listening to today's episode. These conversations bring so much knowledge to the table, and I'm so grateful for that. If you haven't already, please subscribe, follow us on social media and tell us who our next guest should be on our website. Let's give another shout out to our day one sponsor, Malomo. As you know, Malomo is an order tracking platform that enables Shopify brands to take control of their transactional email and SMS through branded order tracking pages. That means you can ditch those boring, all white carrier pages, you know, the ones I'm talking about. Everyone has seen an ugly tracking page in their life, and you can swap it with a page that matches your brand. Customers like you and I obsessively check order tracking an average of 4.6 times per order. That's why leading Shopify brands are turning that engagement into customer loyalty and revenue through branded order tracking. Learn more about how to get ahead of shipping issues. Brand your order tracking experience and reconvert customers while they wait for their package to arrive with Malomo. Visit go malomo.com that's G O M, a, l o m, o.com
