How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Mei Xu of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blueme

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blueme founder Mei Xu joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage founders. Plus, Mei shares the importance of businesses meeting people everywhere they shop.First, Sasha, who started a gourmet pot pie company in Brooklyn, New York, asks how to find the right co-founder who can do the things she can’t. Then, Tara from Dubai, Saudi Arabia wants to know whether to market her towel dress directly to consumers. And finally, Lindsay in Grand Rapids, Michigan needs advice on how to get her online curriculum in front of more school districts.  Thank you to the founders of Aunt Ethel’s Pot Pies, Dry Dolly, and Math Medic for being a part of our show.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to listen to the Chesapeake Bay Candle story as told by Mei on the show in 2017.This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Kwesi Lee.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com and on Substack.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are looking for a way to upgrade their digital footprint. Well, whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace is the easiest way to build a great website that stands out. It's an all-in-one website platform that gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your products, and get paid. Anyone can use Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools to build an online presence that truly reflects what makes your business special. There are templates, intuitive drag-and-drop editing, and even an AI-enhanced website builder. Then, Squarespace's built-in analytics tools help you make smarter business decisions. Review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue all in one place.

Looking to grow your business, Squarespace even offers fast, easy business financing through Squarespace capital. Go to Squarespace.com slash built for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code built to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Loans issued by Celtic Bank and serviced by Stripe. All loans subject to credit approval. This show is in partnership with Airbnb. This past summer, I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries, visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb. It had tall windows, beautiful old

details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on this show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.

Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. And you can also send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondry.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at guyraz.com or on substack. And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right. Let's get to it.

Joining me today is May Shoe, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Bloom. May, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Guy. It's so good to be back. It's great having you. So you were first on the show way back in 2017. You told us about, hey, you came from China to the U.S. after being trained as a diplomat.

And then you wound up starting a candle company. Chesape Bay Candle, and you actually sold that company for $75 million to Nuo brands, which also owns Yankee Candle. It's an amazing story. If you guys haven't heard it, we will put a link to it in the podcast description, super inspiring story. Since then, May, you've written a book. You started a boutique that sold products from women founders. And now your latest HomeGood Venture is another candle brand called Bloom. So tell me about it.

Well, actually, I want to say it's more wellness brand. As you know, I sold the business because I had breast cancer in 2016. And during my recovery, I really found the gap that is there in front of me that I never see, which is the way that people use fragrance candles to bring back some of the normal C. And then, of course, what happened during COVID is that, more and more people work from home. They really, on top of each other in my household, we have six of us, four kids going on Zoom meetings, and my husband and I tried to find our own niche of a place to work.

And having some fragrances around you, it's almost like a territorial thing. You know, I burn my fragrance. My husband started using candles too. And I started to see that there is a lot of demand just to be able to practice. practice self-care during that time with fragrance. So I launched Bloom really to address that blank space in my view that connect what we know about a sense of smell with well-being. Awesome. I remember when you came on the show, we talked about how early on, you know, sort of, you know, back before you were designing your own candles, right, when you were still importing them from China, there was a point where the sales really dropped.

And you, you'd started really hot, but then the demand went away. And you were worried. Tell me how did you come back from that, right? What kind of advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are trying to recover from a dip in sales? So when I started the candle business back in 1994, it was a very, what I would call novelty, craft candle. They have a lot of designs on the outside. they are called glow candle with Christmas designs.

So it went extremely well, like hot cake during holiday time. But after holiday, who wants to buy a Christmas-looking candle? Then I really went back to the marketplace and just do my research. I realized I'm one of the few brands that actually focus on non-fragrance candles. And fragrance is what drives consumption. It makes that connection with consumers so fast, so strongly. that they go back to buy more and more. So that's the discovery, the aha moment, I would say.

I was very good at always mixing different fragrances that no one's doing. So that's the beginning of a whole new surge of sales. That's awesome. You know, May, I know that times obviously have changed since when, you know, since when you first found a Chesapeake Bay candle. And now with your new brand, Bloom, you seem to be focusing on direct-to-consumer. How do you think about picking a sales channel in 2025? That's such an interesting question, Guy.

I'm sure you have noticed that people are not going shopping in person, right? It depends. A little bit in certain places they are, but in other places they're not. Correct. And yet, even in certain places we're talking about in New York, where people are going there to shop, even in New York, I noticed, Guy, that small boutiques are doing much better than department stores. Yeah.

And that's why you're seeing the consolidation on a very high end of luxury department stores. I think every brand needs to think in multiple channels of distribution. It's the way that businesses are carried now. Yeah. All right, May, are you ready for our first caller? Yes. I'm waiting to be hearing from them. All right. We're excited. All right. Let's bring in our first caller. Welcome to the advice line. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from. And just one line, one brief line about your business, please.

Hi, Guy. Hi, May. Lovely to meet both of you. And May, can I just say your candles are everything? Thank you. My name is Sasha Milstein. I'm originally from Seattle, but I now call Brooklyn Home, and I am the founder of Aunt Ethel's pot pies. So we make gourmet frozen pot pies with a flaky, buttery, quassault-like crust that's accompanied with a rich, creamy filling, big chunks of chicken and garden fresh veggies. Got it. Nice.

Well, welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. I remember as a child, I don't even know if they exist anymore, they must, Swanson Pot Pies. And they were. You throw it in the microwave. or whatever, and you get a soggy crust, or it might take like an hour in the oven. So basically what you've done is you've separated the pie and the pot, the stuff in there, and so you heat them separately?

Yeah, so basically all you do is remove it from the freezer. You just pop the crust in the toaster, pop the filling in the microwave, and then marry the two together and they live happily ever after. I got you. So you toast the crust part, so you get a crispy crust. And then, and are cool, tell me how the idea came about. Yeah, so about 10 years ago, my aunt, Aunt Ethel, who runs a very successful catering company in New York City, came to me with the existential question that I think a lot of small businesses have, which is, you know, they've been successful year and year out. But how do they exit?

How do they retire? So at the time, I really didn't have an answer. So fast forward five years ago, I'm traveling through Vietnam with my family. and of course I'm listening to how I built this about a woman who started a chicken salad company. And I'm listening to it. Stacey Brown, chicken salad chick. Exactly. Wow.

I remember everyone. So later on that night over Tamarantini's watching, you know, the sunset on the beaches of Hoyan, I just looked at my end and I said, you know, what's one of your most craveworthy products? And of course, immediately she responded her chicken pot pie. And I thought about it for a second and realized the chicken pot pie is America's sweetheart dish. Doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, liberal, Republican, everybody loves a pot pie. So right there and then I said, okay, I have an idea. What if we took this product, we commercialized it, we scaled it, and eventually exited. And at that point, that's where the idea came home.

Wow. Awesome. Okay. So that was in 2020. Tell me a little bit about how the business is right now. Are you guys, have you cracked half a million dollars in sales? So we technically launched last year, last fall, into over 100 Wegman's locations. We then went on QVC.

We aired and sold out of 8,000 units in six minutes. And we just hit the quarter of a million dollar mark. Nice. Congrats. Okay. Awesome. So now before we get into the business, what's your question? What are you trying to solve?

Yeah, so I'm five years into building this company, and while we've built something with a strong foundation and real traction, being a solopreneur means there are lots of blind spots that you just can't fill on your own. So for me, one of the biggest is production and manufacturing. I know how to build a brand, sell a product, but scaling the operational side, that's where I need help. So I'd really like to find a co-founder who can balance out those blind spots and take us to the next level. May, I know that you had a business partner who also happened to be your husband. and while I'm not looking to get married just to find a co-founder, what are some meaningful ways to find the right one? Great question. Meshu.

I just want to declare that we got a divorce because of that. So be careful. That was May's first husband, yeah. Yes, so be careful what you wish for. I'm going to remove my foot out of my mouth. Yeah. It is very hard to work with your spouse in a business that is so intense. So I suggest you look elsewhere.

there are ways that I feel there are so many more smaller communities, particularly in Brooklyn. I personally can connect you to Andrew groups that they invest in startups, particularly that are already proven with concept. A lot of women's group these days are trying to support minority women, major companies, a guy like Goldman Sachs, they have launched, which is to fund companies that were investing women owned businesses. Sasha, let me ask you a question. Do you, you're in, you're in Brooklyn. Is that right? Is it already based? Right. Okay. And have you, I mean, Brooklyn is a, you know, it's a huge incubator of all kinds of food products, ideas, businesses. I'm sure there are, you know, some of these commissary kitchens and and food groups

there. I mean, I know my brother is in San Diego. He's in charge of a non-prudely. profit for, you know, food businesses and they meet regularly and have events. Have you, do you go to any of those things? That is my entire social life. That's all I do every day. Yeah. And in those groups, no luck so far? So I did actually come across a co-founder with Y Combinator that I'm currently dating or interviewing rather. This person is at Y Combinator now? They came through the Y Combinator platform. Okay. Yeah.

And it's sort of like a, it's kind of like a dating platform where you can kind of swipe on other co-founders to see if it's a good fit. And so one of the things I was looking for was somebody who was more tech focus, just because I feel like the CPG, the consumer package goods space, is changing so rapidly. And in order to get a leg up and compete, you know, doing that with technology is probably the best strategy. So, and also just to give you a little bit of background. about myself. I was a former angel investor with 37 Angels, which is a female founded organization. And we did invest in women companies. So I'm very supportive of that. I think the question, May, isn't so much how does Sasha find a co-founder, but who is that co-founder? What kind of person? Right. And that's why I'm trying to understand Sasha. You're

not looking to have investors. We are actually gearing up for our first round. As you know, the CPG business is very capital intensive. And while we've bootstrapped and taken out debt, we're finally ready to start using other people's money. So the whole idea as a business model is first you want to see, A, where's the exit, right? How big do you want to build this business? And then And once you build to that scale, are you exiting? Are you going public? Or are you going to be still managing the business while someone else owns the majority? So when you figure out all these paths, one of the things that many of the investors can do is to bring the additional talent for you.

That's why I'm not sure looking for a partner is exactly the right thing, particularly if you could consider hiring. your first, you know, major higher level high, right? Like a brand manager, right, almost. Like a brand manager or CEO. It seems to be a CEO that may help because you want someone to really scale the business that understand where to source, where to finish, even marketing and manufacturing, you know. So you would be the brand. I mean, the possibility I'm thinking about it is endless with vegetarian versions and different

ethnicity versions. So I think that probably could be easier for you if you're not looking for a partner, you know. I think that's a really interesting idea. Rather than looking for a sort of a full equity partner, I mean, finding, you know, a brand manager or, you know, a CEO or call them whatever you want and where they would get some equity. They have some skin in the game, an incentive to help you build it. But somebody who is an operator in that sense that, you know, has the skills that or the the sort of the, the, the sort of the. the desire, the interest, and doing the things that are less interesting to you. I mean, one of the things that I think, you know, I'm not saying anything to you that others haven't said. Down the line, you're going to need more products, right? You've got three flavors now. I see chicken and caucan and a mushroom, it's lentil, I guess. And I think about three flavors, is that right? Yep, three flavors. But down the road, you know, you're going to want to see what else you can do in the frozen, ready-to-eat meal space, right? It's not just going to be pot pies. You're going to be.

using the technology that you developed to do other things. You know, maybe there's going to be pasta dishes or rice dishes or other things in there down the road. And so you want to find somebody who might have some limited CPG experience but is still young or new enough where they're not as expensive and maybe willing to take a risk on a smaller brand and an upstart brand like yours. Yeah. So you guys are definitely echoing a lot of the thoughts that we've been having over the last few years. We trademarked the company as Aunt Ethels because we wanted to establish ourselves as a trustworthy pot pie company, but eventually we do want to scale into a frozen comfort food brand. And I like what May had to say about the international aspect. So given the fact that our

product is two-part, you can really mix and match as far as, you know, the pot pie is kind of just like a vessel. It's one of the most internationally recognized products in the sense that, you know, India has a samosa, Asia has dumplings, Argentina has an empanata. So it's really just the best. Cornish pasties, right? Exactly. So we've thought about taking that two-part and putting

some type of crunch in the top along with some type of filling in the bottom like wonton chips with terriaki chicken or potato sticks with a shepherd's pie. So we're right on the same page as you guys. Yeah. And May, in terms

of, I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. And And in terms of finding that person, I mean, it's really, it's just a matter of reaching out, right? To absolutely everybody you know for ideas. It's like the hit rate on that is going to be, you know, might be one or two percent. But the more people you reach out to, the more you sort of widen that net. And now with Guy, you're going to have so many people walking on the doors. That is going to be a problem. I think the question, Sasha, I want to actually remind you is, you.

you really need to do some analysis, you know, what is your strength? What is your weaknesses? What do you want to compliment to you? Because you don't want another person exactly like you. You need to have that analysis in front of you so that when people come knocking on your doors or you are meeting them, you have a very clear vision. Who's going to run? What? It would be very painful. Sometimes I remember people telling me hiring very slowly and firing really quickly because I would say thinking really hard about what you want is very helpful. That's a great idea. Yeah. I think that's a very sound advice.

The brand is called Aunt Ethel's Pot Pies. Sasha Milstein, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. I'll look for it. Thanks to both you. Thank you. Yeah, it's a cool idea. I mean, you know, and again, rightfully so, right?

It's like you can do a bunch of different things. And thinking about it is a frozen foods brand, right? Yes. She's got a cool brand, cool idea, and we'll see how she builds it out. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.

I'm Guy Raz. And my guest today is May Shoe, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Bloom, and we are taking your call. So let's bring in our next caller. Hello. Hello, I'm Tara, and I'm calling in from Dubai. I'm the co-founder of Dry Dolly, a company rethinking towel apparel. So it's not just functional, but stylish too. Whether you're fresh from the shower, the swim or the gym, Dry Dolly takes you from wet to dressed in seconds and still looking fabulous.

All right, Tara, thanks for calling in. Dry Dolly. Just help me understand what this is a parent. that you wear out of the shower? Yes. So basically, I just have a really rubbish towel dress, and I always wondered why there was nothing any better than it on the market. I did lots of research.

Like 10 years, I tried to replace this rubbish towel dress. And I just thought there's got to be something that you can put on after a shower when you're not ready to get dressed, that you can still cool down in, that you can use as a towel that can look amazing, and that you can answer the door without scaring the UPS man, and you're good to go. So that's what we said about doing. I got you.

And so the bathrobe does not fit those criteria? No, because it has no bus support. It's too hot and heavy. When you're blow dry in your hair, you often get makeup on the collar, and it's just most time it just doesn't fit you. But with a dry dolly, it's designed in a way that's got built-in support,

and you can just step in. into it, tie it, and you're literally good to go. Got it. All right. So it's a dress basically made out of towel material. Yes, but a very unique towel material. It took me a long time. I knew exactly what I was looking for, and it took me a long time to source it. It's lightweight, but to get the right kind of style. Gotcha. And you're based in Dubai, you said? And based in Dubai. We have Dry Dolly in the UK as well, as my sister is running that operation. from there. And it's sold direct to consumer? Yes, at the moment. So we only had the idea late

2003. I'm not from fashion background. I'm not from manufacturing. But we just thought that the whole towel needed a complete shake-up. So the question is, do enough people, I'm assuming right now, you're aiming most of this towards women, because dresses have this problem where they get out of the shower, they want to put on makeup, but a bathrobe or a towel isn't good enough. Before we dive in a bit more, what's your question for us? My question is, because what we realized when we were doing all the testing and we were handing them out, that our market is much more than what I initially thought. I initially thought it would just be people like me who, who after a run and not ready to get dressed after a shower, you need to cool down.

I thought it would be perfect for sports when you're in a gym changing room and you don't want to struggle with the towel. But when we started giving it out, we realized that my pregnant friends loved it because it's A-line and it's toweling and they could breastfeed. So my question is, should we lean into like the B2B because or, you know, we'll hunker down on the D to C. All right. Thank you so much. Go direct to consumer or go retail or wholesale or other possibilities. May I want to bring you in. on Dry Dolly?

Well, it sounds like one of those innovations that really come out of your own needs. And I see a lot of women designing product and starting business because of that. If you have conviction, if you already see good results, I would say go for it. I actually talked to Guy about wholesale versus D2C. I think the landscape has really changed. I don't think you can go one without the other. So my answer would be you have to go to trade shows in England and you have to go to trade shows in Arab countries and see who you can partner with and you can scale, but without shutting down your own D2C operation. Yeah, I'm curious, Tara, are you sort of you're in the UK and in Dubai as well?

And so you're still early days, but where are you seeing more traction? Probably equally in both, what we didn't anticipate is that they're very different markets. So for the UK, it's more for the home and now they think of it as a holiday kind of dress that you would take to the beach. So it's a whole re-education because it's not a fashion brand. It happens to be nice, but it's a functional dry-in brand. And in Dubai, you have the all-year-round market. And also we have a more modest range as well for the more people who want to be covered a little bit extra. Have you approached any hotels at all about this?

Yes. So I've been going to a lot of networking, doing a lot of hospitality events, and I've been speaking to three hotels, actually. So it's an education. They're like, oh, yes, but hotels are very slow to change. Yes. You know, to think that there's something new, when you've had the same old towels apparel,

you know, the big giant towels on the head, not lovely light towels or something that, for them, a dry dolly could move from the hotel room right down to the pool. People would use it. You could brand it. So it's something that they would take home with your branding. It's just much more functional. Yeah.

May, what are your thoughts? I think one of the things that I didn't ask is the price point. I would very much like to know because Tara, you need to protect that design. and that would be my first advice, no matter what you do. Get it, patented first if you can. I do. Yes, so that's good. The second thing is I feel that it's one of the first thing come to mind, you know,

the equivalent of the QVCs in UK, because it seems to be a very demonstrable product. Yeah. And they love that kind of product. Have you ever go to QVC, London or UK? No. That's something that I've never thought. That's brilliant. Thank you. Think about that.

Because they need product that is not easy to find, right? Novelty product. People watch them, you know, at 9 p.m. Usually these people, they like to be surprised. They like to look for unique items. It is one of the items also I feel you should network with influencers. Again, they have a large following. They're constantly looking for new ideas.

they could go viral very quickly. Yeah, it's something that we have looked at. We've given it away to friends who have got, you know, everyone seems to know an influencer these days, but we haven't actually paid big money. That's the other issue of where do we spend our marketing and we're figuring that out at the moment as we go. I mean, one of the things that I think you really want to consider it

and you're probably doing a version of this, which is to show how people are using it. the website right now, it shows, it looks like, you know, somebody's there in the bathroom, right, after the shower. But you mentioned people using it at the beach, which is really interesting, right? That makes a lot of sense. You go to the beach and you're wearing a swimsuit, but then you put that over it and you can protect yourself from the sun and you get dry. And so that could be an interesting way to kind of market it if you want to sort of play around with some social media marketing, pictures, photographs, videos of how people are

using it. Yeah, because it's so much easier to remove swimwear under it than one of those giant ponchos or a towel. I mean, you can remove swimwear in an instant. So show that. So go out and make those videos and show that. That could be a really interesting way to do. I think that you're going to have to put some dollars in marketing for, you know, D to C, right? Because people aren't going to be aware of it unless they get some kind of targeted ads. Oh, revenue shares. You can do some revenue share with influencers so you don't pay them up front, but they get a percentage. I don't think one can try only one channel these days. We really are in an economy where you need to meet people where they shop, and people shop everywhere.

They shop on TikTok, they shop on Instagram, they shop in store, they like what they see in a hotel. So even a startup has to think about these different options. Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah. Tara, thank you for calling in. The brand is called Dry Dolly. Good luck. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, Guy. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with May Shoe, the founder of Chesapeake Bay Candles and Bloom, and we are taking your calls. Hello, caller.

Welcome to the show. Hi, my name is Lindsay Gallis. I'm calling from Grand Rapids, Michigan. And I'm a co-founder of Mathematic. We're an online high school math curriculum company that provides teachers with instructional resources, including our free lesson plans for every day of the year. And then also we have optional supplemental resources for purchase. Cool.

Welcome to the show, Lindsay. Thank you for calling. So you make daily lesson plans for high school math teachers, basically. Correct, yes. And they're totally free. Yeah, so all of our lessons are free to support all that free work. We do offer supplemental resources. So there are other things that we offer that are available for purchase.

And that helps us to be able to give all our lessons for free to teachers everywhere. Are you a former math teacher yourself or a current math teacher? Yes, former math teacher. I've been doing this now for four years full time. but we started the company about 10 years ago. It's cool. And basically any high school math going from algebra to calculus? Yes.

So we have a lesson plan for every single day. For Algebra 1 is generally where most high school math starts. And it goes up through AP calculus. So we also have all of the AP math courses. That's awesome. As having two high schoolers right now and having the math is super cool. But I wonder, I mean, so you started the first. this business. When did you start it, by the way? In 2015.

2015, okay. And the idea was, I'm assuming when you were a teacher, you know, to have a resource where you basically get a lesson plan every day. I mean, you're, you're kind of doing the work for the teachers in a sense. Yeah. So we're supporting the teachers for sure. So, you know, when we first started this, my co-founder and I, we were both high school math teachers and doing exactly like what you're talking about. We're trying to figure out every single day, what do we get done due and class tomorrow? How are we going to work with our students? And we were looking online and really just cobbling resources together from all over. We were trying to find lessons and practice problems, but we couldn't find a comprehensive set of lessons that would help us for

every single day. We were just sort of making this mismash. And so we rather naively thought, like, why don't we make those lessons? So we started a website and just started sharing our lessons out. And it was just word of mouth, teacher sharing it with other teachers. And that kind of takes us to today to where now we have lessons for, again, all the high school math courses. And it's like a free user type membership. We currently have about 100,000 teachers across the U.S. and across the world, really, who are using our lessons in their class. So, all right, let's talk a little bit about your business model for a moment. And you mentioned that you have, you offer a paid version to.

but if you're getting all these free lessons, what incentive is there to buy anything? Yeah, so we are committed to lessons being free forever. It is very, very important to us that all teachers, no matter what access to resources they have, have access to high quality materials. But then we offer assessment packages, so homework quizzes, tests. So, you know, if you teach one of our lessons, you can pull a homework assignment. But additionally, it's more of a question bank and a test creator. So in addition to having pre-made assessments, then also teachers can create their own assessment. And that really just came out of teachers in our community emailing us, the ones who are using the lessons and saying, you know, like these are great,

I love at my classroom. What do I do for homework? How do I make a test? And so it was just out of the need from the teacher community. And what, what, give me a sense of what your revenue is, what it was last year, for example. Last year, we did 2.1.9. million. Okay. And how many employees do you have? And it's total? There are, we have seven employees. That's it. No other employees? So your costs are fairly low. We do use contractors a lot. So everyone who works on our content are all either current or former high school math teachers. Got it. So that's, you know, the other thing is that what we put out there, that is made, developed, used, iterated in the classroom. And, and with the $2.1 million in revenue, are you a sustainable business? And,

Are you able to pay everybody, you know, a decent amount? Yeah, we've been profitable really from day one, essentially, I think, at the very beginning we put like $1,500 in. And then everything has just been funded by our own growth. And so we, it's super scalable. Our business is great in that, like, we make the thing one time. And then it can scale really easily. So most of our products, you know, we develop.

one of our products we developed it like three years ago, and it's just continuing to bring in revenue. But you just buy it once, right? Oh, no. Sorry. It's an annual subscription. I see. Okay. Yeah. So it's a every year cost for the teacher. All right. Before we dive in, tell me what your question is for us today. Yeah. So we think of ourselves as a direct-to-teacher company. Teachers come to our website and they get media access to these high-quality lessons and resources. But because of that, the majority of our sales are from individual teachers. And we know that in order to scale, we need to get whole schools and districts to purchase the materials as their primary curriculum. The reason that's challenging is that funding at that level is traditionally for a textbook.

And we are not a textbook. We replace a textbook. And that makes the funding sort of tricky. So my question is, how do we break into a system that was built for textbooks when we're a better digital alternative. All right. Tough question to answer and I can give you my own experience with this because I've also had a kid's company. We've tried an ed tech product. I'll get to that in a moment.

Meshu, I'd love for you to jump in here with any questions or thoughts for Lindsay. I thought the same question as you have, Guy, because it seems to be more of a system question versus a business question. But I would like to ask you, have you thought about partnering to those tech book companies managing a relationship where you charge them so that they could be subcontracting you when they provide textbooks to all the school systems. Yeah, it sort of goes against our philosophy with our business and also as teachers. We, as a teacher myself, I saw many shortcomings with traditional textbooks.

The process of purchasing them just in the first place is really length. and it's confusing. And often the teachers aren't the ones who are making that final purchase, someone, you know, higher up in the school is. And so what we really wanted to do was to focus on those individual teachers and giving them immediate access. So the textbooks really, honestly, I feel like it's one of the last industries that haven't been substantially disrupted by digitalization. They're not being used anymore by students. You know, students bring home a textbook maybe, but for the most part, if they have a question, they're not looking at up in a book. They're looking it up online. They're looking up videos and YouTube. And so I really see long term

that the textbook companies are on the way out or at least up for a substantial disruption. So a quick, quick story, which is I have a kid's company called Tinkercast and we make podcasts and books and one of our podcasts called Wow in the World. And we actually got funding. many years ago to produce an ed tech platform. We got funding from a bunch of different grants. And the idea was to make this platform available to teachers and also to monetize it. And it's very hard, right? Ed tech platform is really challenging. Teachers don't have a lot of disposable income. Very hard to get into school districts, right? There's a lot of bureaucracy. The RFP system is really challenging. And besides the fact is that schools just don't have money to spend. You know, they are,

they are strapped. And so one of the things that I think we learned from our experience was we really, we did give this away. And now we give away the product. And so it essentially operates as kind of a nonprofit. That's my question here. I mean, I think that I think it's really admirable that you're committed to making these lesson plans free for teachers, that it's, you know, part of your sort of fundamental kind of moral position. I mean, even if you were to charge a tiny amount, a micro amount, it could create a significant revenue stream because, you know, trying to get this into the hands of districts, it's challenging. One path is to try private schools, but then again, you're going to.

One school to the next. Sorry, go ahead, May. No, I was thinking, or maybe some more progressive school district, you know, that are known to have this type of experiments. I know that private schools is easier, but like guys said, it's one by one. And I was thinking about when you say all the teachers are using it, just the sheer amount seems to be interesting enough that can you advertise for other people

for product that are targeting schools, children, for whatever reason, and you generate revenues on your platform by being able to share that amount so many, you know, audiences. Yeah. So very early on, we did talk about the possibility of advertising, but maybe to add a little more context to this is, honestly, the financials are not the problem. Or it's really this red tape that you're talking about guy, these RFPs I'm very familiar with. It's the actually getting into the school districts because there are so many checkboxes, like things you have to do.

And it's just a really interesting, you're right, it's a, it's a systematic issue, you know, we're trying to figure out, like, how do you, how do you meet all these criteria when every district and every state's different? Yeah, May, did you want to add anything? I agree, and I think there are progressive district. I'm wondering if you can go to a trade show. You know, I always know there's a lot of trade shows for every educational endeavor. and, you know, it's just about talking outside of your comfort level. I also want to add, I always want to go with an endgame.

What is it the vision you have, you and your partner have for this business? The amount of people you want to reach, the amount of impact you need really helps to build what you need. Yeah, absolutely. Lindsay Gallis, the company is called Mathematic. Good luck. Congrats. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much. Yeah, math has definitely been an anxiety-inducing.

Although, you know, I have to say, I'm just so impressed. My kids are much better mathematicians than I was, which is cool. I mean, they just have much more of an aptitude for it. So it's, but it's, yeah, I mean, it's stressful, especially, you know, if you're like me and is a high school kid and it was just really hard, you know, grinding through it. Yep. Maybe before I let you go, one quick question for you, which I've asked every guest who's come on, which is now that you have all this experience and perspective, if you could go back to when you started in, you know, the candle making business, you give yourself some advice with the perspective you now have. What would have been helpful for you to know? To go out and fundraise. I did not do any fundraising when I was building my first business, and I feel it could have given me a very interesting sort of insight.

side into how to scale. So that would be something I would be telling. All the startup companies, don't try to struggle by yourself. There's a community out there that you could try to lean on. May, thank you so much for coming back onto the show. Thank you so much. It's been fun. That's May Shue, founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Bloom.

And by the way, if you haven't heard the original Chesapeake Bay Candle episode that May was on, go back and check it out. It's super fun, incredible story. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description, and here is one of my favorite moments from that episode. We registered for the New York GIF Show, which is the holy grail of trade shows. And we thought that this is going to be the ticket to our success,

but we were wrong. It was a complete disaster. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free. at guyraz.com or on substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show,

send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well.

This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Rumtina and Blewee. It was edited by Andrea Bruce and our audio engineer was Kwayze Lee. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Catherine Seifer, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, J.C. Howard and Eva Grant. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.