How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Tariq Farid of Edible Arrangements

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Tariq Farid the founder of Edible Arrangements joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage entrepreneurs. Plus, Tariq updates Guy on how he’s pivoting into a new industry while ushering in the next generation of leadership at the company. First, we hear from Jake in Virginia who’s wondering how he can make his Filipino-inspired banana ketchup mainstream in America. Then, Heather in Sweden wants to know if she should change the name of her luxury polar voyage company to distance themselves from cruises. And, Ryan in Texas wants to know how he can bump up his revenue without losing his company’s highly personalized customer service. Thank you to the founders of Fila Manila, Minimal Impact Cruises, and Kong Screen Printing 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 Edible Arrangement’s founding story as told by Tariq on the show in 2017.This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-infoSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 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. Leave us a one-minute message that takes a time. tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Tariq Farid. He's the founder of edible arrangements. Tariq, it's great to have you back on the show. Oh, it's so great to be back.

Thanks for having me, Guy. Awesome to have you. You were first on the show back in 2017, and, of course, if you haven't heard it, we will put a link to it in the show notes. It's an awesome episode. In that episode, you told us about how your family emigrated from Pakistan. You were 12. As a teenager, you worked in a flower shop and a McDonald's and to help bring in money for the family. And then eventually you guys would go on to open a flower shop of your own.

And then in the late 90s, you decided that you wanted to get into a different kind of flower arrangement in business. Not flowers per se, but fruit. Why don't we make fruit into bouquets? And I've told this story so many times to people about how an idea like that would have been like. laughed at or people said this is not a who's going to want that but you understood so clearly that this was going to be a hit and of course it did it became edible arrangements and i think today it has over 1300 locations worldwide they're it's done hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue before we get to our colors tarik i want to ask you a few questions first of all give us an update of

what you've been up to you haven't been on a couple years and we'd love to hear what's been going on. Yeah, so, you know, kind of grew up in Connecticut, started everything in Connecticut, and about six months before the pandemic, everybody moved down to Atlanta. You moved the whole business to Atlanta. Business and everything. My whole plan from the beginning was for the next generation to take over, and now we're facing the other side that everybody's facing. You almost have to reinvent, and after 25 years, you pretty much got to take everything together, and take everything apart and, you know, put it together again, which is, you know, you know, which is what Somia, my daughter took over as CEO as of last year, and that's what she's doing.

And the brand is much broader. We bought in a concept called Roti, which is a modern Mediterranean. Out of Chicago, right? Out of Chicago, yeah. And then edible arrangements, you know, it's that, you know, it became more of an e-commerce company, 100% e-commerce in the pandemic. You know, and now we're trying to figure out the store and also the e-commerce part. And then, of course, this phenomenon of edibles that kind of hit us out of nowhere, which we're trying to just figure out how to do that, which is that like CBD? Well, we own the trademark edibles and we own edibles. So we're trying to figure out like, you know, where's this going?

And that's been quite a journey. And we'll figure it out. I think there's a whole health and wellness side of that that we'll do. And we're opening one of our first units here like CBD and THC and but more in the health and wellness space. Wow. So, you know, I've always said that, you know, opportunities, what you go after, risk is what you mitigate. So, you know, a lot of people that will be getting advice, they're so hung up on risk that they've totally missed the opportunity. They're afraid because they want to figure everything out.

And, you know, it's been quite an interesting journey. And we're making an online marketplace with an app and, you know, people are taking this product. And as they take it, how can we have a trusted brand that you can show from? Interesting. I want to ask you about edible arrangements for a moment because, you know, I'm curious because, as you know, in recent years, among a certain kind of chattering class of people, edible arrangements has a reputation for being a little outdated or corny, let's say, like a granny brand. And I think sort of culture and tastemakers assume that that is a bad thing. But in actual fact, there's a massive market for products and services that might not be quote unquote cool, but that still have a huge audience. How do you respond when, you know, in some eyes, the brand image is like, oh, it's a granny brand or it's corny or outdated?

Do you ignore it? Do you go with it? Do you try and change it? Yeah, no, I think it's not that the next generation won't accept that product. you have to kind of make it relevant for the next generation. And that's what the next generation is doing. So Somia is doing that and she's going to do much better job. She takes a totally different approach. She's 32 years old. So I started edible when I was 31.

So it was so nice to see her, you know, kind of take the reins early. And our family is evolving a brand that we're defined by. And everybody's excited. You know, some of my other younger kids are looking forward to coming in and they have very unique ideas. But it's just a natural. progression, you go through it in personal life and the same way a brand goes through. And that's what's been happening. And, you know, she's really excited. She's built a great team. And I love the approach. And it's a lot easier going from 60 to 90 instead of starting from scratch again.

Yeah, yeah. What do you say, Tarik? Be ready to take our first call? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Let's bring in our first call. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Tarik Farid, founder of edible arrangements. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from. And just a warm line about your business, please. Hey, Guy, and Tarreek, it's such a pleasure to be here and chat with you. My name is Jake De Leon, and I'm calling from Arlington, Virginia. So I'm the founder of Phila Manila.

We make food products inspired by iconic Filipino flavors. This includes our award-winning banana ketchup and Ube Purple Yam spread. Welcome to the show, Jake. Thanks for calling in. So, Phila, Manila, Manila, like Manila, like the town. Like the capital of Philadelphia. Philo Manila, like arriving. Yes.

And so get, tell us about, first of all, banana ketchup. I've seen this before. Yeah, no, I've been searching for that. I haven't found it. So this is, I mean, it's like ketchup. You would dip French fries or put on burgers, and it's made from bananas, not tomatoes. Yeah, it's a tomatoless ketchup, and it's made from bananas. It's a fascinating story in history connected to the Philippines.

So it's very kind of iconic to Filipino cuisine. And is the taste identical? So it tastes tangy and sweet just like tomato ketchup, but because of it, using bananas. It has a nice tropical vibe to it. It's very delicious. All right. I'm seeing on your website you've got an Ube yams kind of spread for

for sandwiches or bread or whatever. And you've got a couple of other cool things here like peanut sauce. Tell me a little bit about the business. How did you start this? Yeah, I'll start just to explain who I am and how I came about the business. So I'm a first generation Filipino American immigrant.

But with most, I guess, family's food is always the center of our household. And the inspiration actually came during COVID. I did some data and research and I found out that Filipinos are one of the largest Asian American groups in the U.S., the largest in 11 states, including California, and our cuisine is the fastest growing as well. Yet there's almost zero representation of our cuisine in mass grocery. And that was the inspiration of Phil Milnello to finally add representation in a delicious way. All right. So you start this brand, and now where is it being sold? Obviously online. I don't know. Where else is this, are the other products sold?

Yeah, we're available nationwide in select stores. We're at Walmart, Whole Foods, Kroger, Meyer, and some other independence as well. And as you mentioned, Guy, we're available online on Amazon and our own direct-to-consumer site. Okay. And I'm looking at your website, and I'm just going to say, clearly you were on Shark Tank because that's the cover of your website, a picture of you on Shark Tank. How did I go? I've been a huge fan of the show, so in a strange way, it felt like I was. I was meeting some my common friends for the first time. Incredible experience.

Yeah. And tell me how are your sales doing? What are you projecting for this year? Yeah, I mean, we did about 1.5 million lifetime sales. This year we'll probably be doing around 600,000 or 700,000. And we're essentially the only brand representing Filipino cuisine on the shelves right now. So we have a really interesting position. So there's not a single brand out there that does,

that is Filipino for Filipino cuisine, like there is obviously for Italian foods or Japanese foods or Indian foods. There's no national brand. There are national brands, but they're mostly the exports from the Philippines. So think the heritage Filipino brands that come from abroad.

I think with Philomenola, we're probably, if not the only, the first nationwide available Filipino-American brand, which we make our products here in the U.S., and you could see from the branding and from the ingredients, it's positioned for the, I guess, the U.S. customer. Got it.

Okay. Before we dive in further, what is your question? Oh, yeah. So, you know, I started Phil Manila to introduce delicious Filipino flavors in the U.S. market. But since many Americans haven't yet experienced Filipino cuisine, it seems like we're essentially creating a category while building an emerging brand. And so my question is, is what have you seen work for brands that need to educate people about something unfamiliar before I can go mainstream.

All right, cool. Tarik Friedo want to bring you in here. Thoughts, questions, ideas for Jake. Hey, my first question always is, what's the end game? Like, you know, five years from, four years from now, are you trying to, you know, is there a brand that you're trying to mimic in the U.S.? That you would like to become that? Or what's the objective?

Yeah, great question. Thank you, Tariq. So at least for us, the vision is to represent the next generation of Filipino American flavors. We don't really compare ourselves to what brand we want to be. What we do say is that, you know, we believe in five years, Filipino cuisine will be pretty mainstream. And our goal is that if you ask any random person in the U.S., what brand do you think about when you think about Filipino food, the first brand comes to mind will be Philomenault. And is there a brand that, you know, kind of other ethnicities that you, you know, you admire or you think they've done a great job? Oh yeah. There's a lot of

brands in the industry, for example, Siette Foods. They did a phenomenal. We had them on the show many years ago. Yes. Great. Great. Yeah. The Gras of family. They did a great job of almost reintroducing, I guess, Mexican-American cuisine into the

U.S. with clean labels, modern branding, and we hope to do the same with Filipino food. And is the focus, your focus isn't just to go after Filipino American Filipinos or Filipino Americans. It's to go after Americans. Oh, correct, Tarik. Yeah. You know, through our own research, we found that actually 80% of our customers are not Filipino. I think you're right, Jake, that there is, we're at a moment now.

And I think we've been there for a while where Filipino cuisine is really like just, you know, sort of exploding. I think because, you know, you think about like even Vietnamese and Thai cuisine, even 10 years ago, 15, certainly 20 years ago, it wasn't what it is now. I mean, Thai food, Vietnamese food is as ubiquitous as Chinese takeout now, right? And Chinese takeout has been a thing in the United States for at least 50 years. Exactly. Yeah, we usually explain to potential investors and also category managers at the stores exactly what Guy mentioned. So where Filipino cuisine is today is exactly where Korean food and Vietnamese food was maybe five years ago. So back then, like no one really knew what Goji Chang was or Bubble Tea, but now. Yeah, bubble tea. And bubble, this is interesting because Bubble tea really started as a cultural kind of touchstone for particularly Taiwanese and Chinese American kids. Now, bubble tea is is totally universal ubiquitous everywhere, right? And I wonder whether there's a parallel to be made with Filipino Americans as your ambassadors, right?

How much are you tapping into young sort of Filipino Americans? Yeah, for sure. You know, I gave you that stat about 80% of our customers are non-Philippino, but it's that 20% that tend to be our cheerleaders. You're exactly the right guy who are Filipino. So they may not buy our products, but they're so excited about this modern representation of what they grew up with. They tend to tell a lot of their social circles or friends, coworkers about our brand. And we see it on social media. We do a lot of social media with TikTok on our accounts.

And we see a lot of people that share and comment it happen to be Filipino Americans usually. So, look, I think, you know, one, you're doing your right. It all depends on, you know, what's the mission? Is it the mission to flip the brand? this admission to kind of get bought out or you want to scale it to be the goya of the Filipino food. The only thing I would be careful on that I've seen other brands do is they'll spend a lot of money. You know, in CPG, the margins are really, really tough, especially if you're producing the product. That's the only thing I saw that was a bit of a concern right now that, you know, I think you

should try to import if you can just from a cost-benefit point of view. unless you're making a new product that is just not available. And that's where a lot of people will, you know, you're going to spend a lot of energy introducing the product, but then you're now making the margins because of cost. So you've introduced the product, but then built it for someone else. So I think you've got to keep an eye on both that not only do you want to introduce

the product, and your question had the answer in it, which is like, hey, how do I educate? That's the thing. You've got to educate. You're going to go out and sample and educate and teach people about it. But just make sure you own the source of it and everything and the brand. What you don't want to do is that somebody gets a banana ketchup that tastes just as good, is branded well, and then just brings it to the U.S., and you did the introduction, they're the ones who took benefit. So I think just keep that connection.

And ketchup is a commodity, right? So people are going to look at price. So you may have a price advantage getting it out of Philippines that you may not have by producing it in the U.S. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think you have an opportunity. You're right that you are in a great position to educate consumers, but you want at the same time, you want consumers to associate Fila Manila with Filipino food, right? Yes. As the brand, the go-to brand, sort of like, you know, you think of a saracha, right? And there is that one brand that everyone thinks of with the roosters. You know, there are other saracha brands, but they really kind of introduced the product. It was around, had been around. they introduced it to two American consumers, and now that's the one that kind of dominates.

So you have this interesting opportunity. The other thing, I think, have you had any contact or communication with Trader Joe's about collaborating, maybe seeing if there's a product that you're selling that they would be willing to try? Yeah. To answer the first point, Guy, I think you and Tariq had a really good point

about focusing on single products. I think it was one of the big lessons we learned as a business. early on, believe it or not, we had up to eight skews, eight products. Oh, wow. But due to getting our butt kicked in the market, we're focusing it now to two skews, the Ube and the banana ketchup. And we're doing exactly what you're saying, try and connect those wider commodities to the fill of Manila brand.

For Trader Joe's, no, we have not reached out. I know I hear from my other founder friends that it's one of the most difficult retailers to get into just because they're very selected with their own brands as well. But, Guy, if you know anyone at Trader Joe's. Well, I'm sure you can get, I mean, given your track record so far and where you are, I don't think it's going to be too much of a leap to try and get in front of them. Because something like banana ketchup is just so unusual. And I think it's a product people would have to try, right? There's a reason why it's the number one condiment in the Philippines, probably because it's delicious, right?

But it's like even the concept of eating mayonnaise and french fries for many Americans is weird, even though that's how most Europeans eat French fries with mayonnaise. And it's delicious. Banana ketchup to me seems like actually an easier sell because it's already a ketchup. It's already has that sweet, savory, tangy, you know, element that, that vinegory element that ketchup has, tomato ketchup has. And so are you doing everything you can to get that on social media to put videos out to have people using it incentivize your existing customer base to post about it? A great question, Guy, and good point. Actually, in the last few months, as a business, we're actually skewing more towards our online sales, right? And we're doing a lot of that through the support of content marketing and affiliates. So now we're kind of engaging influencers, you know, affiliates, and also people who just love food just to try your banana ketchup and just maybe make content about it. Another idea we've been exploring is partnering with food service. So perhaps food trucks, maybe fast casual restaurants that want to provide this

condiment the same way that Chipotle has the Tabasco products. Maybe they can have the banana ketchup with their fries or wings just to taste it, just to see what it's like. And if they like it, that could be a great opportunity for a repeat buyer who can find in the market. Yeah. Have you done any sampling yet, like Whole Foods or Costco or talk to them or even, I know not Trader Joe's, but that's a like Costco is a great way to kind of go present,

especially it's a new product. Oh, yeah. So when we sell in Whole Foods, we did, we do our demos and then we could do our sampling. And when I sample it to people, their minds are blown because it tastes like a ketchup, but it's delicious. We usually serve it with nice, freshly cooked French fries. And everyone seems to enjoy because everyone loves fries and ketchup. Costco is definitely on our radar. We want to work with Costco because a lot of Asian-Americans shop at Costco and they're familiar with the concept of banana ketchup and Ube. And so I think it's a great kind of condiment to reinvigorate

and add some energy back into the sleepy ketchup category. Yeah. Look, I think you've done great. you know, time is, it's going to take time, you know, especially when you're doing it. You've got to, you know, do one outlet at a time, one customer at a time. And then it just clicks, you know, so that's why I'd say, you know, look at the Costco part. I can send some stuff. I can, you know, get you in contact with some people just to at least get an introduction. And if your samples have gone great, I mean, you know, they like supporting new brands and everything. You know, I've known a lot of brands that have, you know, launch from there.

Absolutely. there you go that's amazing an amazing opportunity um Jake I think we Torek and I agree banana ketchup that's your that's the product to really push out there even though it's got the other ones that's your hot sauce that's your hot sauce that's the one I hope so too you want to get more people to try it maybe at Costco maybe at roti who knows but hopefully you both you get to try it maybe but I hey yeah look I I I'm gonna get you in contact with the roti people I think if it's clean ingredients people will go for that and you got a story behind it I I I

say write a story behind this man write a story behind the ketchup why the ketchup you know what's unique about it and if you can't i would take that one product so it's probably easy to execute and everybody knows what ketchup is yep so with that i think it's just more of it just sounds cool and i think you'll get a lot of trial out of it Jake till you own the brand is called phila man good luck man thanks for calling in no thank you guy and tarryk for inspiring the entrepreneurial community and, you know, bringing new people in Sude of Bold and just helping us grow and learn more. Awesome, good luck.

And we'll get you some context as well. So, you know. Thank you so much. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. That's a lot. Yeah, I mean, I have not, I have not tried banana ketchup.

I've seen it. I've seen it, but I haven't tried it. I've got to try it. You can have a lot of fun with that. Yeah. If he gets with the right and exciting agency, so I think just a few changes. And I kind of see a,

a fun looking bottle that may be unique that he can kind of pretty much own a trademark on to launch this product and really stand out. For sure. And by the way, do you know, apparently ketchup did not, it started like as a mushroom condo. It was made from mushrooms. It was not made from tomatoes. So like we think of tomato ketchup as ketchup, but actually that came a lot later.

So there you go. Excellent. Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. That's after the break, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Tarik Farid, the founder of edible

arrangements. Tarik, you ready for our next caller? Let's do it. Sounds great. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the device line. You're on with Sarik Farid. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.

Hi, Guy. Hi, Tyreek. It's such a pleasure to be speaking with you both today. My name is Heather Thorkelson. I'm calling from Gothenburg, Sweden. And I am the founder of Minimal Impact Cruises. Minimal Impact Cruises is a polar voyage company that offers an entirely new style of polar travel on a sustainable 36 passenger expedition cruise vessel. Wow. Well, thanks for calling in, Heather. So you're calling in from Gothenburg, Sweden, and your company is, you arrange. trips like tours of the Arctic? It's the Arctic, but it's specifically on a vessel that's currently being built that is the most sustainable luxury vessel that will be on market. Yeah. Okay, before we talk about that, so you have a business that has not yet started or you are

working on a, help me understand what you're, what you do. Sure, absolutely. So I have a mother company, Polar Tracks Expeditions, which is a polar tour agency. Minimal Impact Cruises is a division of that, and the whole reason that it exists is to represent, to operate expeditions for the English market on this new vessel that's coming out. The vessel is about 60% built. The trips are already for sale, so we are on the market. And I have 10 years in the industry as a business owner for Polar Tracks expeditions. But this is sort of a new arm, a new vertical in the company.

and we're sort of pushing the envelope of what's possible for sustainable travel in the Arctic. Got it. Okay, so just understand. Polar Trax Expeditions is a travel agency that is separate. And then you've started this new kind of vertical called Minimal Impact Cruises. And this is a boat that is being built. It's a ship. Tell me about this ship.

What makes it unique? Yeah, this ship is so cool. Nothing exists like it. only 36 passengers, which is a real advantage when you're going out into nature and trying to minimize impact, of course. It's entirely fueled by wind and solar energy. So it has solar sails, 35 meter high solar sails that are covered in solar panels. It has clean electric propulsion. It has autonomous water production. It has an organic heating system. And it has, we put it zero waste at sea. So it is 90%

more carbon neutral than any other vessel out there, besides straight up sailboats, which are obviously relatively small. And the boat is designed to do, like, to go, you know, through, like, ice flows and around the fjords and stuff like that? Yeah, it's purpose built for the polar regions, and that's partially because the person who's building it, who's a friend and colleague of mine, she's an ice captain. And she's the one who came up with the idea,

because we had both been, you know, working and living on these ships, for lack of a better term, up in the Arctic and in the Antarctic for many years, and seeing that ultimately, you know, like many forms of transport, cruise ships or expedition ships, they have a carbon footprint, right? We can't get away from that. And so her whole idea was, what if we actually just built something from the ground up that was as carbon neutral as possible? And so there's lots of ways that this ship is engineered for the polar regions to be safe, to be effective, and to just provide a completely different way of experiencing this region. And when are you planning on having the first cruise?

In fall of 2026, so just over a year from now. It's coming up quick. And you're selling packages for that trip. Exactly. We also have private charters. I mean, this is an ideal vessel for private charters because of its size. So, yeah. Right. And how much is it cost to go?

Depends on the location. In northern Norway, it's about, all of our pricing is in euros. So it's around 18,000 euros per person. In Svalbard, you're looking at 40 or 42,000 euros per person, depending on the length of the departure. It's a luxury trip. It is. In Greenland, we're around 35,000. So you're going after a very particular clientele.

I mean, this is a, this is a narrow clientele. Okay, before we dive in more, what is your question for us? Okay, so the question is really a gut check on the name of the company, actually. We haven't had any kind of negative reaction to it. It's just something we've been talking about internally. The minimal impact part we really like, because it explains exactly what we're doing. But the word cruise is kind of cringe in the expedition travel community, because when people think of cruises, they think of large ships,

they think of a more sedentary vibe, you know, entertainment. But we put Cruz in the name for the sake of SEO, and because it's easy to remember, minimal impact cruises kind of rolls off the tongue. So my question is, from a gut check perspective, do you feel like that's a positive, negative, or neutral having Cruz in our name? Got it. All right. Lots to think about this is something that only, you know, relatively narrow slice of the

world can do, but still amazing opportunity if you can do it. What do you think, Tarek? Yeah, and, you know, one question. Heather, is do you think that this will become mainstream? I think because the way you're asking the question is that is this where people are headed? You think even the bigger cruise ships can do this minimum impact? Are you kind of the Mercedes-Benz and the BMW of it? Or are we thinking there's some merging happening that everyone else will be moving this way as well? I think that's an excellent question. And it's something that we're really kind of keeping our eye on and talking a lot about

in the industry. It's a relatively small industry, as you can imagine. My firm belief and hope is that this is something that will become much more mainstream. I think with every new technology, with every more sustainable option that you bring into the market, it's always going to start with something that's very exclusive and very high end, like electric cars. There was a time when only a few people had electric cars, and now everybody has them. So we are pushing the envelope, we're introducing a different way of doing things. We're proving that it's it's possible. And our hope is that more and more people who are building ships in the future will take on some of this technology when they see that it is, that it's something that's totally

doable and then change things for the better. And would you, I mean, would the cost come down? That would be the hope. Do you make sense to me that the word cruise is used because, as you mentioned, the SEO part, right? People are still going to search for that word. And I wonder whether you can split the difference, right? So, first of all, have you tried any A-B testing? Have you tried to advertise as a cruise versus expedition? We have not. We use the language sort of together a lot.

You know, minimal impact cruises. We take people on polar expeditions. So it's often within the same language. But we haven't A-B-Tested, like, a name difference. Why don't you try that? Why don't you run small ad campaigns? One, you have it called minimal impact cruises. One you call it minimal impact expeditions or voyages or adventures or something like that.

And see what gets better click through. Yeah, that's a really good idea. Yep. That's a low stakes option that would definitely be worth testing. Hey, so look, I'm going to share a little story with you. When we started, we were putting fruit in baskets. And our cost was, of course, much higher than flowers. And so when we were originally looking at the name, we were going to,

going by the design, not necessarily as much the experience or what's going to happen. So the original name was delicious designs. But we struggled with that because that could be anything. And there were a lot of names out there that people were using that were similar, delicious as delicious, if you're going to try to get a trademark. So we started working on the tagline. How do we describe it? And that's when one of the people in the room said, oh, we could call it the edible arrangement.

then that our tagline became the name because, you know, so I think you have a name for your company from my point of view. I think this name that you had of the new polar expedition company. And because you're such a niche market, I think there's a new way of exploring the polar. And then what I had come up with the same thing, like adventure travel, ecoterrorism, or expedition travel, because experience travel is really. big, right? With what you're doing is you're giving an experience. So I think the name-wise, I think you're struggling with something because you're trying to deliver on a mission and you

want your company to be named that mission. So I think you've got to, you're already doing it. I don't think you need to wear that on your sleeve. I mean, I was thinking blue planet voyages or, you know, blue planet journey. But you already have it. It was in that brief, tell it. I think you need to write a story. And that story is what's going to get some of your customers to pay the premium. Because the experience from the time you step on this boat is going to be very different than any other boat that you stepped on. Absolutely. Absolutely. Not the least of which as well, given how it's powered, it's silent and it's vibration free. So unlike being on a ship or even a 12 passenger boat, you know, it's really like very immersive. It's a very, very special thing. And

then there is another boat being built. So this is not the only one. This isn't a once and done. Like the shipbuilder is building a second one. Eventually, we're hoping for a fleet. So yeah, we're trying to really change the game. No, it looks, it looks absolutely amazing. I mean, and I think, look, a couple things. I definitely think that some people will be attracted to the low, minimal impact. But I'm not convinced that most people will. I think most people are going to be interested in the luxury and in the other people going on the boat and the experience. One of the things that I, and this, you know, just the name aside, the cruise or non-crues aside, I think that an expedition like this, I think, would do, you would do, you'd benefit from having either a direct or even indirect connection to some kind of environmental group or a group that does conservation with polar bears. I don't know what. I'm assuming maybe you'll have lecturers on the boat, you know, who will come and give talks at night. And if you're not, if you don't have that plan, it's something you might want to consider doing. Yes, we've thought of all of that, actually. We will have affiliations. We will have special guests. And also expedition cruises, they always have a guide team. And these are people who are, you know, have science backgrounds, have spent years working in the polar regions.

And so there is an educational element. There's definitely going to be some affiliations with some key conservation organizations. And, yeah, so to answer your question or address that, it's. absolutely on our mind and it's something that's going to be a key feature of what we offer. Yeah. My take, focus on the words expedition, voyage, adventure, I think you should try the AB thing and see if the cruise, the word cruise may ultimately have zero impact on how people may not have a huge impact on whether or not people are interested. And especially with the type of customers are going to come to you, it doesn't matter if it's called cruise or not,

they're going after a certain experience, right? And they know and they're paying for it. And the other thing is like, I think you're struggling a little bit with trying to be authentic. I think your actions make you authentic. You're trying to do this. So I wouldn't struggle with that. I mean, I think with all the things that you have, I don't think you're going to have any difficulty feeling that. Yeah. Probably not. I agree. Heather Thorkelson, Minimal Impact Cruises. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much. Congrats. Best of luck.

Yep. I take that cruise. I go on that. Yeah, same here. Yeah. You know, like a lot of times in the beginning, even when I started, I'm sure you were the same way. We got sometimes stuck on the little thing. Like, you would spend hours on it. And then I always was lucky enough that I had mentors that were way ahead of me. And they're like, you know, no one's going to notice that.

I'm like, what do you mean? But I wanted it to be blue. He says, no one's going to notice if it's light blue or this blue, stop. Exactly. They're going to taste the product. And if they go wow by tasting your product, you got a customer for life and focus on that. Stop worrying about the blue. And because you're surrounded by people that are constantly talking about that, right? Like, oh, is it a cruise you want to be associated with crews? And then

you kind of get stuck. Yeah. But great idea. Great idea. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, another caller, another question and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz. Stick around. You're listening to the device line on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. All right, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Sarik Farid. founder of edible arrangements. Tell us your name where you're calling from and just a little bit about your business. Hi guy. Hi, Tarete. My name is Ryan Burkhard. I'm calling from Austin, Texas. I'm the founder of Kong's Green Printing. And we're a customer service focused based business

that manufactures custom apparel and promotional items. Awesome. Okay, so tell me more. Tell me what apparel, t-shirts, sweatpants, everything. You name it. We do a lot of work for various types of businesses. Some are international brands like Coke or Sprite. Topo Chico is one of our customers. But we also work with a lot of regional clients here in Texas. And what we do for them is help create branding apparel that makes their business memorable to their customers, their audience. And so tell me a little bit about, so T-shirts, hats, those kinds of things, basically, right? Yeah. If it's a textile that you can wear, we can print on it. How long have you been in business?

Kong will turn 15 years old in January. What makes you guys different from other T-shirt brands or makers? Basically, we have really focused on customer service. So what we do is really work more like a concierge or a Sherpa, I guess you could say, trying to guide the customer through that experience without using jargon that is really very common in our industry. And without short-circuiting them with too many choices. What are you guys doing in revenue right now?

Right now we're at $3 million annually. Okay. And tell us, that's pretty awesome. Congrats. That's really great. It's a solid business. How many employees do you have? We have 13 employees right now.

And what's your question for us? Well, we are, after more than a decade, we're at a pivotal moment. We've proven that our model works and that we're able to really give attention to customers. but our growth has really been powered by just our great reputation. We've never done any marketing. We've never done any advertising. It's just been word of mouth and people who want to work with us because we treat them well. So we're really looking to scale from 3 to 5 million in revenue in the next 18 to 24 months.

But we'd like to do that and find new customers without losing our soul and our hands-on approach. So, I mean, how long has it hovered around three? For about the past five years. So we've sort of plateaued. It has been irregular with the pandemic. Were you ever higher? Were you ever higher than three? Not consistently.

No. No. Okay. All right. Yeah. So what would the extra $2 million do for you? Well, it would allow us to do a lot more for our employees. It would allow us to do a lot more in terms of acquiring equipment and helping our

customers as well as possibly to expand into other types of services. Got it. Because printing is a very fractured industry. You go to one person to print apparel, another person to print pamphlets, so on and so forth. And we really want to be able to offer all of those kinds of things to our customers. So it allow us to grow and expand. Have you spent any money so far on advertising? No, that's a new development this year.

We recently started working with a company here in Austin, Blackhawk Media, and we're putting a significant amount of our resources towards branding the company and raising our profile online, SEO, SM, as well as running advertisements, which is not something that we've done before. And you've tried going back to your customers for their needs of trying to see, because you already have a reputation with your customers. Have you gone back to them and see if there's more sales or more products that you can get out of them? We do. Through direct newsletters, we'll make them aware of new products that are on the market, new things that they can do, make suggestions, as well as showcasing, like we call it a customer profile, but basically we'll showcase and highlight our customers who've used their merchandise in a way to create a secondary revenue stream. So St. Elmo's is a brewery here in town. and they don't sell as many t-shirts as they do beers by any stretch,

but they've really been able to build their reputation as a fine brewery, and their merchandise has become a significant revenue stream for the business. So we'll highlight how we did that, what we did with the brewery, and how it makes the people who support that brewery feel when they buy that t-shirt or they buy that hat. But we just haven't really seen a lot of response from it. lots of pats on the back, but it hasn't really increased sales. But from this brewery, did you get more sales from this brewery, from what you were doing previously? Was there an increase in sales? Absolutely. Okay. About how much?

There, on any given month, they'll put in between a $2,500 and a $5,000 order. Got it. You know, since you've done this re-engagement with them, are they placing 20% more orders or 50% more orders? Well, they've, they're probably about 10% more. Okay. Okay. Yeah. This is why you've had this sustained business for a small business to be at 3 million.

That's phenomenal. I think the easiest way to go without diluting all of that is by kind of going back to your customers and maybe I think, because I don't think you're a screen printing company. I think you're kind of like a solution provider. You're going in and if anything, you're more of a promotion company. How do you reengage with your customer? How do you go and promote your product? Yeah, I agree with that.

I think so you, I just remember the lines, you've hired a PR firm here to help you out, and you're trying to figure out how best should they help you, I guess, in a sense. And in the sense, you are kind of a PR firm. I mean, you do campaigns, right? I mean, you mentioned how you work with brands and, you know, small retailers to help them tell their story. You know, as Tarek said, not only going back to your existing kind of. customers, but doubling down on those industries where you're already doing that work, right? So these are, I'm assuming, CPG brands that I want to break into retail, small businesses, or maybe even big companies that are launching new products or doing things at events, right? And so I would think that you want to build like case studies on your, even on your website, for what we've done, and then you target companies that do the same thing, that are, you know, look like companies. So you sort of say, here's what we did for Coca-Cola or here's what we did for, you know, so-and-so barbecue in Austin

and how we helped them come up with this awesome shirt and design. And this is what we can do for you kind of thing. Do you guys have an outbound sort of biz dev, like outbound salesperson? We have never done outbound until about the last year, and we have not had much success with it. It's a weird commodity, though, because you kind of need something, you need something custom printed when you need it and you don't when you don't. And so that's really been the hard thing is to figure out how to use outbound sales because it's very difficult to call or walk into a place and say, hey, have you been thinking about printing 500 shirts lately?

Yeah, look, I will tell you at the same times, I've go to brands where they're giving me the same shirt the third time. So they're not thinking of mixing it up. They're not looking at the seasonal change. So I think having this business development, and these days you can build that with college students, incentivize them really well. And, you know, like, you almost have to show them a sample. Like, hey, we did this shirt for you. Look at the new one.

Look at this. And, you know, that's when they were like, oh, that looks really cool. And you don't want to say to them, they're giving it to your free. You don't want to say, you know, this is the same shirt. You gave me three times. So, but if they could just mix it up or every month, you can, because you could do small prints, right? Yeah.

Yeah, which is small runs, which you're not going to get from. others. So I think your easiest way to get to this $5 million are your same customers do what you've done so magically up to now, which is take care of the customer, and really look out for them first. And this is why you are where you are. And I just add a few college students to the top of this. And there are so many of them looking for jobs right now, go pound on the pavement with a small kit. And I think you'll get there a lot faster than if you try to go introduce new customers. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. And I think you, You ask, like, how do we do this without losing our soul? And I'm just kind of, again, reading between the lines here. You go online, you type in t-shirt printing, and there's a million companies that do this. And it sounds like you don't want to become, like, some of those brands. But you can protect your culture by building systems, right? By really the way you onboard new hires. And you really help them understand why you guys are different and why you aren't just a t-shirt printing company, but you are about helping business.

businesses express their ideas. You really want to spend time and effort and training and even like a brand Bible for the company. You know, if you've got some kind of, if you don't have it already, if you don't have it even an employee handbook, turn that into a brand Bible. Who are you? What do you stand for? Why do you do what you do? Make sure everybody who you hire reads that and understands that. And you haven't updated the brand for the last 15 years, right? You haven't really, Did you do rebrand? Not really. You didn't need to.

No. No, we really haven't. We've just been so focused on helping other people brand and work with them that we haven't really paid much attention to our own. So look, I'll tell you one thing. I'll share this with you. When we were young, my grandfather would always say brawn to brain. And we never understood it.

You're like, you know, because he was much older. He was in his 60s at that time. And he's like, you've got to take all that you learn physically. and you've got to use your wisdom at one point because the body's not going to keep up. You can't keep up with everything. So what guy is talking about is how do you bottle what has worked so well for you? And I think this whole part of very high touch type of interaction, it's getting back to that. Back in the, you know, I remember the printing companies back in the 80 when I started my business.

I was 17 years old. I didn't know anything. You would go to them and say, what do you think I need? And they would tell you everything that's needed. And they would create the logo for you. you. They will tell you do it this way and they would ask you, what's your favorite color? And by the time you did it, it made you look really good. Look, I think you have a lot of experience. I think you can have a lot of fun with rebranding. But I love the part you said that we don't want to go to five

and lose our identity, which is what happens to big brands, small brands. Everybody starts to chase the dollar. And then after that point, you know, they just can't keep up with it. So I think you have a good business and just simply going back to your customers, you may be pleasantly surprised how much more orders you get. For sure. Thank you for that advice.

I really appreciate that. Ryan Burkart, the company is called Kong Screen Printing. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. All right. Thanks so much for having me. Take sure. Best of luck. So, Tarek, here we are,

like right back where you started. In some ways, like, at scale, the problems just kind of scale. The challenge is scale. They're still there's still there. Tarreek, if you could go back, it's a question I ask every founder comes in the show. If you go back to where you were when you were just coming up with this idea for, you know, carving caneloop and melon into flowers and selling them to people. And you give yourself advice like, hey, this is what I know now, you know, 25 years later, 30 years later.

What do you, what would have been helpful for you to know? I've thought about that a lot because I have to give that advice to my kids. Yeah. So I don't think if I went back, I could do anything different because I never really had any money. And anybody I bought the idea to pretty much, you know, walked me out and said, it's not going to work. You know, do something else. But the customers told the different story guy. Every time a customer got a product, they wanted to order it.

They would always use the word, wow, that was great. It was so unique. I didn't realize 25 years would go by so fast. So that, I would say, the respect of time. And that's what I'm trying to do with my daughter. she's 33. She had 32, she just took over. Like, hey, it's a 10-year journey.

Work hard, really, really 10 years. And at that point, advise someone else. Let the next leader come in and advise them. And, you know, which I didn't know because we went from kind of nothing to building a brand. And you just keep thinking you got to keep working this hard when you actually don't need to. Yeah. That's great advice. That's edible arrangements founder, Tarik Farid.

Tarik, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Thank you, Guy. Thank you very. It was a pleasure. And by the way, if you haven't heard Tarek's original how I built this episode, please go back and check it out. You can find a link to it in the show notes. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. I didn't know what a focus group was, but he asked me to do a focus group.

And I kind of said something to him that I think he didn't like. I said, I did do a focus group. I took it home and I put it on the dining room table. My mother looked at it and said, oh, my God, honey, this is going to be big. I said, yeah. So if mom says it, I think it's going to be cool. 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 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 Ramelewood with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Chris Messini, Alex Chung, J.C. Howard, Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.