Right About Now with Ryan Alford - $100 Million E-Commerce Brand Builder with Josh Snow

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We say if it's radical, we cover it. This is one of the most radical people I know. And one of them I just met in the last year, and I was like, holy shit, this guy's got a lot going on. He is the founder, CEO of Snow. He's a serial entrepreneur, investor, and a badass e-commerce. I just call it good, all around dude. What's up, Josh? Hey, what's going on, Ryan? Thanks for having me on, man. Hey, man. My pleasure. Josh Snow. You know you live in the brand when you take on the full name.

Starting point is 00:00:48 That's right. That's just embracing it. 100 million. 100 million. Can we 100 million CPG oral care? Are you kidding me? Dude, people don't even know how few. That's in the 0.0001%. It's been a journey, man. It's been a journey. We're going into our seventh year and probably ninth year of working on snow. It's definitely that kind of 10 year overnight success story that a lot of people joke about. It is without. But I owe so much to snow as well. That's why it's my last name. so much to Snow as well. That's why it's my last name. And even though I've taken $0 off the table financially from the business to date, it's given me so much in terms of being able to share that business on an open playing field so that millions of people have access to watch me build

Starting point is 00:01:38 this David and Goliath story together. And I did that because I always wanted that. I wish that entrepreneurs that I followed and follow today or some that have passed, that I go, wow, what if Instagram and TikTok and YouTube vlogging was a thing 35 years ago? How much documentation will we have on entrepreneurs that are building brands when things are really tough? So they're jumping on and saying,

Starting point is 00:02:05 hey guys, this isn't a good week. Sales are really tanked. And I'm really it's really affecting me. Imagine if there were those blogs, you have the biographies and the autobiographies. So that's where I said, wow, there's really got to be more of that. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, I chose to join as an investor and be a part of the show of Going Public at goingpublic.com. And we were going into our season two now with Wall Street Journal. And that was that same similarity and kind of same interest. But Snow has been a life changer for me. And it completely gave me a whole new lease on life in my entrepreneurial journey, because I needed something that all that where I felt that most of the

Starting point is 00:02:46 odds were stacked against me in terms of us acquiring market share, that it would be extremely difficult. And that really was the focus, really to invest, reinvest every single dollar until we have enough market share where we are serving our customers in the best way possible and as many millions of them as possible. And that's our impact meter. So until we are in at least 10 million homes or 20 million homes, that's our focus. But we've already changed the lives of millions of smiles and millions of whitening treatments. And we have tens of thousands of before and after photos and reviews. And so it's been extraordinary. It's been a phenomenal journey, but certainly at one of those 10 year overnight success stories. Just 10.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Everybody thinks it happens truly overnight. They have no fucking clue. And I don't even mean that in a bad way. They just don't understand the whiplash and the journey and all that. And we'll talk a little bit about that. But let me ask you this question. I want to go back further. But before we go back further, why oral care? Like that's so hard to get into. As you mentioned, CPG is terribly difficult, competitive, but why oral care?

Starting point is 00:03:56 A lot of people have teeth, so it starts there, right? So there's 7.8 billion people on Earth today. So it's a market that grows with population growth. Colgate was started about 150 years ago. The electric toothbrush was invented or introduced in 1987. The manual toothbrush was invented and introduced in 1949. So when we think about something that man, woman, and child do two times a day, brushing their teeth, if you're mouthwashing, flossing, if you're using aligners, all sorts of stuff. So it's super important. And when you have a toothache or you have tooth problems, nothing else matters. Your back pain almost doesn't matter anymore compared to your tooth pain.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Everyone becomes a big baby at the dentist. There's this whole dynamic around oral care. It's the number one most sold retail product on shelf in North America. Number two is deodorant. Number six is soap. And so it's a volume business because everybody uses toothpaste, but it's not necessarily something where like toothpaste is overpriced. There's always been an option for a dollar or two dollar toothpaste that people could access. It was really about the ingredients, the packaging, the education, the actual usage of the product, which we're known for whitening and we're famous for our whitening solutions and formulas. So can we sell them what they want, give them what they need, which in the beginning of toothpaste started as

Starting point is 00:05:25 anti-cavity. I want to clean my teeth. I don't want to get cavities. Then it moved to, then it moved to whitening and then it moved to sensitivity from the overuse. A lot of times the whitening, the diet, the modern diets, the lot of things. Staining habits are more accessible than ever before. Everything's got a color in it or a dye in it, wine, coffee, et cetera. And then ultimately I was getting my jaw surgery. So I was voluntary. I had a misaligned jaw that was causing a lot of jaw pain.

Starting point is 00:05:56 So I was going through jaw surgery and couldn't help myself. I'm an entrepreneur. So I'm researching nine years ago, the oral care market, the size of the market, where is it going? And at a deeper level, I started at 13 years old. So I had become jaded around this pursuit of happiness, that I had sold a couple companies and didn't find this utopian or euphoric feeling of just

Starting point is 00:06:20 floating that I have no worries in the world. I wanted more. And that made me very frustrated because it wasn't about the money. And I thought that maybe it was like, I think it would have been more simple if it was just about the money. So once I realized that it was more than that, I needed something that would keep me focused and drive the most competitive version of myself out of me. And to be able to prove to my imposter syndrome inside of myself that I could create something from the ground up from scratch. We formulate all our own products. We design all of our own products. We sell all of our own products. We're being able to do that end to end, which is probably the hardest job or one of the

Starting point is 00:07:02 hardest jobs in entrepreneurship is to do end to end creation and fulfillment and distribution and all of that. I needed that level of complexity in order for me. There's some people that play Super Mario and if you beat all the levels, sometimes it's fun. The people go back and play on extreme level or they'll play blindfolded or they'll try to get all the big coins or try to do it without losing one single life. There's an intensity. I don't like to skydive i don't like to do crazy things anymore in terms of physical like i'm not going to skydive or jump nosedive off a cliff into a pool or something so for me i seek that

Starting point is 00:07:38 intensity in my own sport which is business and i liken that in a very admirable way to some of the greats in athletics in terms of the mindset, at least of what's required there. And so it's a race, but it's more importantly, a marathon. And so the older I've become and more experienced I've become, because you don't know what you don't know, I've realized that it's important for me to have a brand or something I'm doing that I can speak from the mountaintops about. And because I've taken zero dollars off the table, I can truly speak authentically to the mission and purpose of how wide we want the reach of our impact to be with snow. Yeah. So you just a lot to unpack right there. But let me start by saying, I think always I think a lot of people listen to our show and a lot of people in general always want to mimic success or build the playbook for success.

Starting point is 00:08:37 But I'm hearing that and I'm hearing you like a world class athlete. You're that for business. You're proving that in business. You prove that with Snow. You've proved that with other ventures, but nature and nurture, like for Josh Snow, was it that bred in you? Was that born in you? Or did you unpack that yourself from learning and observing? I'm always curious. i think people are fascinated by that i think that my changes like every year i feel like it adapts a little bit my response adapts a little bit i think that there are certain exceptional both nature and nurture i do think that it requires both and i do think that it heavily skews especially the older you get. Actually, across the board on nurturing, I would say it's 80-20. But in order to be the LeBron, Michael Jordan, Kobe, Jay-Z, whatever, to be that level in your industry, I do believe that Elon, i do believe that it requires an inordinate amount of

Starting point is 00:09:49 either eq or iq or both and i think that a lot of that is genetic it could even it could even be through an autistic scale derivative that causes that hyper intelligence that takes that step why because i've competed with some of those people and when i compete with those people i'm like they're built different and it's just like when i played football and people started hitting me harder and i was like i gotta get out of this they're gonna literally i'm gonna die because there are certain people that have the nature built in that if what a well-nurtured and ego doesn't get in the way, addiction, all the things that usually harm the modern man and woman, if that doesn't get them, then they have the chance to be the ultimate athlete in whatever business they choose, whatever skill they choose.

Starting point is 00:10:38 Entrepreneurship. So what I would say is that naturally, I perhaps had a level of intellectual curiosity. I was from a baby or from a young age wanting to mix my mom's and sister's hair products together and make my own products to give them to them and try it out. So at four years old, I was doing that. So there's some nature of curiosity there. But then the nurturing of growing up in an environment where resources weren't particularly in abundance, that means that you have to become resourceful. So when there's not a lot of resources, you have to become resourceful. So I think the nurturing of becoming a resourceful, intellectually curious person allows me to ideate, but then become resourceful to convince others to join me on a journey to bring that to life or have the grits, which is another nature nurture scenario. And why I say

Starting point is 00:11:34 there's requires both is that there's environmental changes. You could be born in a billionaire's family and you're a billionaire, but let's say that's your dad's money. That's your family's money and you get nothing. And your trust fund doesn't happen until 45 if you do everything right. So the same type of environment and challenges and the adversities that someone might face in that scenario might actually mirror someone that has zero dollars in their family and is challenged with that same survival threat inside of them to create their own identity, create their own purpose, create their own path, financial dependence, etc. Whatever we lack or have insecurity of is generally what we project the most of or we seek the most of. So it's I

Starting point is 00:12:16 think that there's a nature of nurture, I think it's more important to nurture, we have a nonprofit that I've been fortunate to be a part of and be a trustee of now for years at multiple universities. But here in Arizona State University, we take dozens of underserved high school juniors, a week long program, they get to go to the university, stay in a dorm for the first time, learn about college, learn about financial aid, learn about entrepreneurship, business, they get to come up with a pitch. And so a lot of those kids weren't necessarily born entrepreneurs, but you can see the grit that they've attained and the ability to withstand pain. The pain tolerance is higher in kids that perhaps face adversity. And some of that's already wired nature-wise. Not for me. So for me, I think nature-wise,

Starting point is 00:13:04 my environment is what drives the nature side. So every 10 years, five years, your environment could change. You go through a bloody divorce and you lose everything. Your business partner screws you over for five years. That environment could bring out naturally highlight something to overcompensate. So you might become an extraordinary natural entrepreneur as a result of that environment. But if you don't nurture it the right way, then you have a lot of people with, for example, some of the smartest people in the world, highest IQs in the world, they don't make more than a million dollars a year. And you go, why would the smartest person in the world, like, shouldn't they make a billion a year? And you go, what's missing? And so that's where I would say the nurture

Starting point is 00:13:45 is, if not more important, at least equally important to nature. So anyone listening, everyone's got the ability to create inside of them. Everybody's got the ability to inspire. Everybody's got the ability to teach. Everybody's got the ability to generate enough income for themselves and their family. Everyone's got that ability naturally. Some, you may be born in a country like America that is more forward on entrepreneurship and capitalism. So add that as a big bonus star. So there's some natural stuff there, but nurture is where it's at. And the great news about that is that in nature gone unnurtured is wasted talent. You take a little bit of nature and you

Starting point is 00:14:27 nurture the grass is greener where you water it. So you fertilize that patch and it becomes a whole field and you can grow whatever you want. And so I think it's more important to nurture what you have than to wish you had something you don't, because that's something I spent a couple of years into. I wish I wasn't this. I wish I was older. I wish I could do this. And so you got to take what you got nature wise, sharpen that puppy up and go out into the fields and carve your own way. And then you will find more nature throughout that nurturing and go, I didn't know I was so good at sales. It's and you find those natures as you nurture. I can tell you this, Josh, I've asked that question. We've had 375 episodes. I probably, that's one of my favorite questions because people are so curious about it. Whether it's EQ or IQ, that is easily the best response

Starting point is 00:15:18 I've ever gotten in the thoughtfulness with which it was answered. So I appreciate that. And I think our audience will as well, a lot there. Josh, let's talk about how we built snow and a lot of grit. I love the word grit. I knew I liked you before, but now I know I like you because you use two of my favorite words, resourcefulness and grit. And those are it. Those are great words. and grit. Those are great words. Those are. Grit's everything, man. It's a hard attribute to find these days. I don't know why. I think a lot of our conveniences reduce grit that we take advantage of and we take for granted a lot of things and it reduces that grit in you. But I love it because it's like one of the biggest determinators of success, I think, today.

Starting point is 00:16:08 But let's talk about snow. We're going against the big bad boys, Crest White Strips, I'm sure, you know, the big daddies. But here comes snow, $100 million plus. Like, how did we get there, brother? The first $100 million in sales that we generated were entirely bootstrapped. So the first trance of our lifetime sales came from a big chunk of it was Facebook advertising. So 2016, 2017, 2018, even 2019.

Starting point is 00:16:43 When it was working? When it worked. Yeah, and even before then, right? If Snowy started even earlier, there were Moiz Ali from Native. He talks about generating $1.50 subscription signups for $12 a month to order it and just like infinite demand.

Starting point is 00:16:59 And he sold that business for $100 million cash in two years from started. Very successful. It's still still around everywhere. And in the beginning, it was, I need to create a product that is different enough that would capture the attention. To create a Shopify, I chose Shopify. I knew Shopify was going to be the platform we were going to build on.

Starting point is 00:17:16 I started developing the product by talking to my dentist, my orthodontist, my oral surgeon. What do you sell in office? What products? I went and bought as many products as I could. I analyzed all of the Amazon reviews, negative reviews, focusing on that area so that you can find some pockets. Then I saw that sensitivity is important. The whitening formula had some opportunity to be improved upon. The delivery method of being able to plug it into their phone,

Starting point is 00:17:45 which we invented that ability to power it by the phone, because the very first version of Snow was 95 bucks and it was a battery powered light. I did not like it very much, but we needed some delivery system for the serum to be able to test it out on the customers. So I started running ads and it was pretty quickly a success. I set up the first version of the website and I had an agency come in and publish it. So we got it up on Shopify very quickly. And then that was after about six to nine months of talking to my dentist, reaching out to suppliers, searching who makes toothpaste, who makes this, who makes gel, and then getting samples and then tweaking those formulas and then getting some testing. So that took six to nine months, at least going back and forth, maybe 50 to 100,000

Starting point is 00:18:37 bucks to buy the first order of the system that I had created for Snow 1.0, I guess. That was 95 bucks. So we started running ads on there, gave free shipping. And the focus was professional level whitening at home without the sensitivity of other systems. Really designing around the sensitive tooth customer, but also the one who wants to max out whitening. So it's like, you want your cake

Starting point is 00:19:03 and you want to eat it too. You want to preserve your enamel, but you also have a wedding next week. so it's like you want your cake and you want to eat it too you want to preserve your enamel but you also have a wedding next week and it's like boom boom so we just kept tweaking that formula percentages whitening agents what can we do to help with sensitivity and so continuing to tweak that then it became a device business as well with our led technology which we now have multiple versions of. We have a wireless version, colors, lilac, special edition. We have a black one, limited at Best Buy, just all kinds of colors and types. And so at the very beginning, it was one product, which was really a couple products in one. And that's what we now have sold nearly 2 million times of that system,

Starting point is 00:19:44 which has evolved now to wireless. Our current wired system today, which is the number one made in America teeth whitening system in the world. And so that's still our most known product was that original teeth whitening kit all in one at home. We invented the verbiage teeth whitening wands, the teeth whitening system, just a lot of these verbiages that were a little more seen in professional, but that people could buy with free shipping, two days, three days, it's in your hands. So that was the very start. And the goal was if that works out, then if you walk down the oral care aisle, couldn't snow have a version of everything in there? Flossers, toothpaste, mouthwash, a toothbrush, a water flosser, aligners, all kinds of these products, mints, gums, breath sprays.

Starting point is 00:20:35 All those products couldn't Snow have a version of that if this is successful. Today, our product portfolio represents an oral care and personal care portfolio of 30 plus individual SKUs, multiple award winnings, award winners with multiple of them winning multiple awards across the board. We have the best, best whitening strips, best toothbrush, all of these awards that are decorated on the site. And so now that has expanded, but that's about seven years later. has expanded, but that's about seven years later. In the very beginning, it was Facebook ads, $95 system that we put together or that I put together with help and then push that out. Once that sold, upgraded every single time that we reordered. The goal was how do we upgrade the formula, take the feedback. I was calling customers myself. And now I had built and sold many companies beforehand. I was independently wealthy. I could have poured a lot more money into the business, but I was still ruminating on,

Starting point is 00:21:31 is this something that has legs? Is this something that I think it is? Am I crazy? And once I started to see that, then it became hiring more products, different versions of the products, more channels to acquire customers. Now we're in CVS, Walgreens, Best Buy, Neiman Marcus, Saks, Macy's. So now we're in about a dozen premier top retail partners today. But in the very beginning, it's Facebook ads, Shopify, one system, one person or two to help on customer support and shipping it out. And I shipped it from my spare bedroom of the house because the inventory, I didn't want to get an office yet. I wasn't sure. I was investing at the time. I had just sold a couple of companies.

Starting point is 00:22:15 So I said, I want to see if this could be my next thing. And sure enough, it certainly did. As you expanded past Facebook and started to get the broader, Facebook has, people I don't think realize how many billion people are on Facebook and how broad awareness is, but what was the percentage of like U.S. versus non-U.S.? And was we talking pretty much 95, majorly U.S.-based? And what were the channels that kind of, what were the awareness channels that kind of flowed the awareness channels that they kind of flowed after facebook other than just distribution itself yeah so it was google youtube

Starting point is 00:22:51 sold the whole google suite the whole meta suite amazon advertising that whole suite actually retail media networks also spotify audio right so there's, so retail media is if we're in Best Buy, we want to buy web banner ads and we want to be the sponsored on Best Buy for anything teeth related. And so we're spending inside of the trade marketing to push those things, but they drive awareness top of funnel as well on those platforms. And then we're doing everything from YouTube. We're doing a relaunch of TikTok. We've been hiring. We still are hiring like crazy for TikTok on the snow side. So TikTok is top of funnel. We're really excited about relaunching that. Instagram, Facebook are still very heavy on the front end. We do a lot of affiliate marketing as well. I actually acquired the affiliate marketing.com domain name about a

Starting point is 00:23:39 year ago to build more reach in that space because it's a big portion across all of our brand, all the brands in my portfolio and all the brands that I've invested in. Affiliate marketing is a very profitable channel across the board. So affiliate marketing is another area because a lot of these bloggers, vloggers, Amazon editorial affiliates, they're putting us in front of an audience for the very first time, listicles, things like that. About maybe 15% of our sales online come from our online affiliates. And that's 100% non-Facebook and Instagram because

Starting point is 00:24:12 we don't allow it in the program since we run it internally. So it diversifies, it forces the diversification of that traffic. So that's the stack from the top level. And then that, of course, as you mentioned, your distribution funnels to marketplace first, right? Marketplace, then to retail actual locations. Then we also sell to professional dermatology, dentists, local clinic kind of style stuff. So that whittles all the way down and it repeats from the top. But let's say before you went into retail, what was your mix? Because everybody hears Amazon, they get scared, like margins and all that stuff. How did you tackle it? You

Starting point is 00:24:53 obviously started D2C, which is the smartest place, best margins, all that. What was your balance with taking on Amazon and what's your perspective there with just overall mix and things? A lot of people get scared of that, but it's such a behemoth. It's hard to ignore. I was the same way, man. I like 10 years ago told two of my best friends on Tuft & Needle, the mattress company. They have the number one most loved and most popular on Amazon mattress. And they had a very successful exit and huge success.

Starting point is 00:25:24 They bootstrapped it, but they leaned into Amazon. And back then I very successful exit and huge success. They bootstrapped it. But they leaned into Amazon. And back then I was anti-Amazon. You don't own the data. You got to pay them 15, 20 percent. Everyone gets refunds. You got to lean into Amazon. Over 50 percent of retail searches online start on Amazon and they end there because people go straight there to search for shoes, white sneakers, like they're going directly to search, they're buying there, the conversion rate's always going to be higher than your website. It is what it is. They've invested tens of billions of dollars into infrastructure because Jeff's a genius and they know that if

Starting point is 00:26:00 they can outsmart logistics and get the customers hooked on two hour delivery, that that's going to put a lot of pressure on merchants. But I know that Amazon's a public company and because they're a public company in the US, there are antitrust laws, which means that Amazon cannot get more than 51 percent of its revenue or 50 percent of its revenue from its own products. So all the private label they do, all the kind of things that they're doing, they cannot, I think it's like 47%, 46, you can Google it, it's like somewhere around 46, 47. So they keep that line there. They just keep it going.

Starting point is 00:26:37 They got to keep that 51% marketplace revenue, which allows people like us to take advantage of what Amazon built. If it weren't for Antitrust, they'd kick us all off. So that'd be my guess, right? If you're on Amazon, why would they just make all the products and copy everybody? And they'd be in a lot of patent trademark lawsuits, but they'd manage those with all the lawyers, but they'd get it done. And I think it's good to look at it. It goes, last year was our biggest year on Amazon. Every year is our biggest year on Amazon. But last year was a significantly good year for Amazon.

Starting point is 00:27:09 So we go, wow, we need to really hire in that direction. We need to really double down our partnerships in that direction. We need to really tweak our affiliate marketing efforts in that direction. So we went through it and said, we want to double down on Amazon and utilize our strengths, utilize our thousands of reviews, utilize our millions on our email and SMS list, utilize our assets and our retail placements that are very unique to us in our industry to be able to show off on Amazon and build that business. So we have a goal for Amazon on its own to be a nine figure business for us in the next three years from an Amazon very focused scale plan, hiring plan, partnership plan that allows us to take advantage of the Amazon platform and marketplaces, walmart.com, etc. Because what happens in a recession, and this is fact proven i read this they said during covid people went back to what they felt most comfortable and safe and secure

Starting point is 00:28:12 with so they went back to walmart store or walmart they went back to target they stopped venturing out so much onto all these ddc websites and all these unknown things all these unknown subscriptions recession hits, or money gets tight, inflation, people are more likely to just, I'm just going to go to Target and get everything. I'm going to go to Walmart and get everything. I'm going to go to this website, Amazon. Let me just, it's convenient. It's cheaper. I'm just going to do it on Amazon. So you got to now play in that direction. Five, 10 years ago, you could get away without having to lean into it. Although I wish I could go back five and 10 years and I would have built an army of team members and

Starting point is 00:28:49 partners on our Amazon channel and we would have been totally dominating that channel. So I love it. You do get access to email your customers. Now they've got some new things. There's all kinds of stuff, but it's the only platform that's driven by sales. So you can become the number one in your category, even above the big companies by sales volume. So you can drive, you direct your sales. If Snow directed all of our sales to Amazon today, which is maybe 15 to 20 percent of our U.S. digital revenues. Let's say we put all of our U.S. digital revenue to Amazon. We would be the number one in every single category above all of the incumbent brands just because of velocity but we would give up

Starting point is 00:29:31 15 at least margin based off of versus our own you give up some data but i got to tell you there are days where i go that's not the worst idea there's a better way to go about it build up the amazon presence and build up the traffic and build up the list so in long story short anyone listening i would like triple down and look up a company called hero cosmetics look up a company called zesty paws by one of my good friends and they're a half a billion dollar pet supplement brand 100 of their sales pretty much were from amazon look up hero cosmetics They have a miracle patch for acne. And 20 bucks, they sold for 630 million, I think the beginning of this year in January,

Starting point is 00:30:11 40 million in profit just through Amazon. It was an Amazon driven business. So these Amazon businesses are getting very strong multiples. They're raising money. They're TikTok friendly. So I would say lean into Amazon harder than you ever have and really figure out how to dominate that platform in your category, because it's the

Starting point is 00:30:31 only place you can see sales as well. You can literally see an estimate of what everyone's selling. You can go look at snow stuff and be like, oh, they're selling an estimate of this much from this SKU. It's a great platform to build on. There you have it. Everyone talks about the devil, but sometimes you got to dance with the devil because it's just necessary. I do want to talk with Josh Snow, CEO of Snow Whiteners, toothbrush, the best in the business, tackling CPG. I do want to talk about going public. I found that fascinating. I know you're always on the cutting edge of these things related to entrepreneurism and investing and all that. Talk to me and the audience a bit about going public, what it isn't and where it's going. Going public, the founders, Darren and Todd, are two of my closest friends, and I'm very

Starting point is 00:31:22 grateful for them to invite me first to be a part. I was going to be a participant on season one through snow. The timing wasn't right for snow and I didn't want to take that spot from somebody else. And so I, I said, Hey guys, I can't do it. I just can't my conscious do it. I did that with Shark Tank two times in a row, probably a mistake long term because PR and their stuff's amazing. But I just, I'm such a Shark Tank fan that I was like, hey, Snow's already profitable. I don't want to go on there and ask for millions of dollars for 1% of the company or something. I don't want to do that. Same thing happened with going public. And these guys, Darren and Todd, we met up, we had lunch and right away we hit it off like just long lost brothers

Starting point is 00:32:06 man and they told me about the concept of the show and I had done a tv show prior with the same production company actually that they were working with and so they told me the concept which is we want to take essentially like American Idol where you can text in to vote. We want to bring that to a Shark Tank-esque style approach where we're documenting multiple businesses that are already in business generating revenues and they're raising capital. And the goal is that as many as all of them can go public with the partnership we have with NASDAQ on the show on the last episode. And what's revolutionary about it and what I applaud both Darren and Todd extremely highly on is their work directly with the SEC on compliance to bring this type of modernism to investing, which allows

Starting point is 00:33:00 anyone watching, which anyone can watch from anywhere in the country and stream it through a VPN, I'm sure outside the country on entrepreneur.com and season two on WSJ, wallstreetjournal.com or goingpublic.com. And so you can watch it, you can swipe up or whatever, and you can scan a QR code and you can invest 500 bucks, a thousand bucks, a few thousand bucks. And now episode two, you're already a shareholder in that business so you get to watch and the family's hey we want a piece of that business and let's see if they go public and let's see what they're up to and let's and now it's reality meets investing and it's engaging and it's telling the story of these american businesses and what's going on and then it opens

Starting point is 00:33:43 it up for people like how many Shark Tank episodes have I listened to where I'm like, gosh, I'll buy the product because I want to support it. I want the freaking product, but I would love to, I would throw in five grand for that business or something. They were militarized that. And then I came on as an investor and now we're working on season two. So that's a TV show. It's free. It's accessible. We're looking to expand the accessibility and the viewership of that with our partnership with Wall Street Journal. And the idea is to continue to challenge the status quo on democratizing access to higher grade investment opportunities for the everyday American versus just a savings account where you make no money on it or just being able to open that up. And my favorite is the education piece. And, you know, there's got to be someone out there listening. There's some other there's some kids, the kids out there listening. And that's what really gets me going about the show is we get to educate about this, these high level

Starting point is 00:34:39 concepts, but they're now simple and you can swipe up and play with us along the way. And that's what we're looking to bring across the board. And so it's been a revolutionary concept. It's been a very successful season one. And now we're renewed for season two with an incredible partner, The Wall Street Journal. So excited for all that. Stay tuned. But we're also always accepting and looking for entries into the show. We're also always accepting and looking for entries into the show.

Starting point is 00:35:17 And so anyone listening that's got a growing, fast-growing, great business, great industry, you're proud of it, go to the Going Public Instagram page or go to goingpublic.com and you can actually apply. And that's actually what I did. I applied myself at Snow. They highlighted me. We ended up chatting. And now I'm an investor and I'm on the show and all that stuff. So this season two, we'll be taking several companies through that same process. And we'll continue to do that for as long as we can continue to grow the reach and access because there's just not enough business television available. Where can people watch the show?

Starting point is 00:35:47 available. Where can people watch the show? Goingpublic.com is the best. Yeah, it has season one on there. It's ad free. It's just super easy. But it's also streamed on entrepreneur.com, YouTube, as well as the upcoming season on Wall Street Journal. Perfect. Go to goingpublic.com. So as we wind down here, Josh, talk to me about, you know, what you're looking for in investments. And I know you're doing investing and, you know, you always got your eyes and ears open. What's catching your attention? Is there big plays going on? What are you seeing CPG? I know you got your hands in a lot of things, but what's getting you excited these days? It's a great question. I have been so focused on my own personal finance journey since I was 17. And I've hired so many financial advisors and

Starting point is 00:36:34 money managers, and I've met some great ones. I've met some not so great ones. And it's just been a freaking journey. And what I found the last few years, I've been fortunate to exit some businesses and take that cash to invest in kind of some long term stuff, short term stuff, midterm stuff. And what I've been really focused on is democratizing my own access with our affordable housing investments, where we're rehabilitating the communities to housing and opening access for what is a very big issue in America with access to affordable housing, raising funds from investors and strangers, honestly, accredited investors that are strangers up front that are interested in investing in affordable living. So from an investment side of things, I've been

Starting point is 00:37:20 looking at real estate, obviously, is always interesting. Commercial real estate over the next year or so, they said about 40% of those loans are on variable so that there's going to be a huge opportunity there. So I'm looking at raising a fund potentially in that direction on the commercial real estate side for distressed opportunities and perhaps for some repurposing a building. So you've got an office building, a skyrise, where it was all zones for office. You turn that into a condo building or apartment building or some condo residences or something that's a lot more useful for that area. Or if it's in the right area, you take an office park or office building and you expand that out to perhaps even affordable housing units

Starting point is 00:38:01 in that area to open accessibility. So there's a lot of opportunity there. affordable housing units in that area to open accessibility. So there's a lot of opportunity there that's outside of brands and e-commerce. Inside of brands and e-commerce, I've been fortunate to invest in a handful of subscription-focused e-commerce businesses. Personal care is always something I'm interested in. Everybody's got a toilet paper, toothpaste, things like that are always interesting. We've been actually interested in investing and we have been acquiring, we acquired two companies last year through Snow in the oral care and similar space. So at home, beauty, oral care. So been investing in that space through the business. And then also on the working capital side of things. So businesses need access to cash,

Starting point is 00:38:42 banks have tied up. I've used working capital, millions of dollars of working capital loans to fund my businesses throughout the last 15 plus years to move to that next tranche. I need 250 grand for the next six months. It's getting harder and harder for business owners, even great businesses to get access to this, even more so for taboo niches like cannabis and CBD and all those areas. I've been really focused on the lending side as an investor. And so we have an upcoming financial product for invested credit investors, where you can simply Apple pay your investment in. And now you can start producing the returns that we're that we're producing through the working capital funding. So we're funding those loans. You take, let's say, 100,000 of my dollars, you put 1,000 in 100 different loans. So now if one of them ends up not doing well, you still have insurance on the others. So that's another area that I'm particularly interested in, the debt markets, lending, working capital, affordable housing, always interested in multifamily housing as well.

Starting point is 00:39:47 Self, I'm invested in aggregator fund, one that's acquiring agencies. It's called Agency Venture Aggregator. They're buying profitable agencies, rolling them up, building shared services, building up their teams and their profits, and then selling them to the larger guys. And so I'm an investor there. So I've got probably 25 investments across the board, but I would say they skew toward offline or they skew toward online infrastructure or subscription. So it's SaaS tools. I'm an investor and a shareholder in trynow.io, which is a try now, buy later software for Shopify merchants. They raised they raised i think 20 million

Starting point is 00:40:26 plus at this point in venture capital and so there are software provided for e-commerce which is you know what i have a lot of experience in in terms of investing in the brands that are doing let's say sub a million a year in profit those are a little bit more attuned to get access to our powerhouse brands content on instagram 99 of it'suned to get access to our powerhouse brands content on Instagram. 99% of it's for free on YouTube to our powerhouse brands, YouTube channel. And then most of my podcasting, a hundred percent of them are completely free. So that's where we try to, and I try to educate for the million and under from that side of things, instead of investing cash into those businesses,

Starting point is 00:41:02 I can no longer necessarily do those deals as much. Instead, I either refer those to our working capital partners so they can get access to working capital or to go and check out our mastermind, go check out the free content. Love it, man. Get your hands and everything. You did say one buzzword that caught my interest because I'm a lead investor in company of mutual contact chris hansen and vacay yeah so going down that whole cbd cannabis route that whole world's about that's already open about to go explode like the infrastructure i like the infrastructure layer so kind of packaging retesting the testing side of things, right? So testing, labs, packaging, payment processing, lamp, the lights, LED lamp providers, soil.

Starting point is 00:41:49 These companies have trouble getting access to banks, traditional bank loans, traditional working capital, factoring. A lot of people don't want to work with them because of the nature of the business. But the way we look at it is, one, it's opening up to your point. It's going to continue to open up. And so we want to help the businesses that are doing it we want to get them access to working capital bank accounts actual institutional investors as we as it opens up more and becomes less taboo but in the meantime there are a lot of people that want to invest in this rise of cbd weed psilocybin from even from a

Starting point is 00:42:24 even if you're not a consumer, the company that I've invested in, the testing side, they are not consumers. They will never get high on their own supply. And that was a big bonus of investing with them. But anyway, they're the cleanest people in the industry that I found. And so I gave them as much cash as I humanly could because I believe in that infrastructure layer. Same thing with CBD. There's farming, there's the dispensaries, there's a lot of layers to that supply chain. And so we try to look at, I try to look at up front, a market like CBD or market like cannabis that's traditionally or stereotypically taboo, which means they don't have access to the traditional financial products. So it's a lot harder to scale. It's a lot harder to hire. It's

Starting point is 00:43:04 a lot harder to do those things. So we look at investing in recruiting. So cannabis and CBD recruiting. We look at the ancillary services that help that business actually grow payroll, things that traditionally are hard for them to get. We invest in the companies, giving them access to that. And then we invest in the lending for the actual cash to those companies. And it's just, it's one of those things that it is, it makes things more difficult. You already can't advertise. So that makes it difficult.

Starting point is 00:43:32 So then you can't really even advertise, or sorry, you can't even, you can't market anywhere. And then it's difficult to payment process. It's difficult to get the bank account. It's difficult to get all these things. So we're investing in that infrastructure through that side of things. And that's more of a family office endeavor, kind of a mini family office endeavor of mine.

Starting point is 00:43:52 I've got partners in that. But that takes five minutes a week of work because I'm not running the business. I'm an investor. But I saw what was going on and I wanted to have a piece in the pie. I saw what was going on and I wanted to have a piece in the pie. And I also wanted to bring help to the industry for the business owners that are actually creating some pretty cool stuff in that space that just don't have access to funding. They don't have access to typical resources. I love it, man.

Starting point is 00:44:18 Let's talk more about that. Don't know that we need the funding, but the infrastructure and other things could be some fascinating discussions we could have. I do, as we, last question, Josh, we've talked about a lot of things. Your hands are a lot of things and it probably relates the most to snow directly. It's in your damn name now. I'll go straight at it. How much do you owe to the brand versus operational excellence? We talked about all this functional stuff.

Starting point is 00:44:46 We talked, we got really heavily because, you know, I'm an old school ad guy. Can you hear me now? Yeah, like all this and the branding, all that. But obviously operational excellence is important and where it runs and all those things. But where does the brand and the essence of it, how much do you owe to that versus the operational side? I think, yeah, obviously you can't have one without the other. I would say that the brand

Starting point is 00:45:12 is no, we've invested over a hundred million dollars in advertising the brand now to get in front of our customers who are our number one investors. And we have an industry low return refund rate, which means our products work and that's what we drive off of. And so I would say that the brand has only become stronger over seven years. So year one, you have one customer support rep.

Starting point is 00:45:35 So then if you're overloaded, people got to wait two days to get a response and now they can get it instant with live chat. And so I would say the brand through operational efficiency, the brand was built in a lot of our brand ethos of being transparent with our customer because they are our number one investor and making sure that we're building products that they actually want to have in their household and use. So I think it worked together to sharpen what is now

Starting point is 00:46:17 the brand of Snow, which is a platform that I'm very grateful for. And I would say that the operational efficiency that is without that, the brand would not be where it's at today by any means. The brand would be positioned in a great way. The timing was right when it was launched. There's a lot of things that like luck and timing.. So brand played a lot in that. But without the operational efficiency, even today, as we're in a dozen premier retailers, every single one of those accounts requires an operational efficiency and productivity in order for it to make sense to the business. And businesses die for two reasons.

Starting point is 00:47:00 One, the number one reason, and it all leads back to this, is liquidity. The biggest brands in the world, the most successful, most profitable. leads back to this is liquidity and the biggest brands in the world the most successful most profitable once you run out of liquidity you're gone um and then relevance a lot of businesses lose liquidity their liquidity basis chasing relevance that's usually what happens so blockbuster chasing it trying to buy netflix too late or trying to figure it out so you end up dying a little faster sometimes chasing relevance if you can't catch it a lot of a lot of really good brands can catch it a few times, but most brands are dead within 100 years, maybe 150. So on the stock market, most of those brands have not been around more than 100 years,

Starting point is 00:47:35 et cetera. So when you look at it that way, you go, it's operational efficiency. So it's brand, market, product, founder, fit. And there's that alignment that has to be chosen and hammered in for, in this case, seven plus years that you have to hammer in that loop with potentially zero dollars to account for that. That becomes an essence of the operational efficiency, which allows you to create a brand of excellence. And that's really what we're looking to create as a powerhouse brand, a brand of excellence. And that's really what we're looking to create as a powerhouse brand, a brand of excellence. And in order to do that, we must have operational efficiency. So I think that I'd rather take operational efficiency

Starting point is 00:48:15 because I can build a brand around what we're most efficient with, then take a brand and try to sell something that we can't fulfill operationally. You did make it pretty damn sexy though, to start. Let's be honest. You made it snow. Everybody wanted their teeth whitening,

Starting point is 00:48:31 but the brand sizzled from the get-go. There's only one snowman. They laughed at us. I say they laughed at us. It's not like a hair. I would have laughed at you. It was brilliant. I laughed at myself even in the beginning to think,

Starting point is 00:48:44 do people care enough about their oral care that they're going to spend? They spend it in the dental chair. They spend it on their makeup. They spend it on their hair care, like everything else. So I'm like, they spend a couple more bucks for something made in the USA with better ingredients or something that we can, how do we tackle that? That's really the, was the hypothesis. And it's a big space, man. It's like, we're not going to convert everybody. I'm very fortunate for Crest. I'm very fortunate for Colgate. I love, I love them being in the space. I love what they have paved without the white strips category and being able to teach, especially Americans that you could whiten your teeth at home. It would have been much more difficult on the education side. And that's just with everything, right? Everybody owes it to the person from before. It's like scientists. And so that's the way I see it. I think with snow, there's only one snow because I started snow for another reason. I didn't start snow to buy another Lambo or buy a house or buy a lot or just ego trip or no, it was very clear the intention of what I'm building this for. And

Starting point is 00:49:46 as long as I'm alive, I'm going to continue to push for market share to deliver what I believe are better products for our customers, for alternatives, some better products in the sense that some of them are even new. Like they're just completely innovative. We have sprinkle powder on your toothpaste. We've got drops that you put your snow water flosser to whiten while you're blasting the water. And the innovation and the world first and those things are very important to the snow brand. And they give me a lot of energy. They give me a lot of life. So that's why it's going to be difficult for someone to buy even a big chunk of this business from us. It would have to be the

Starting point is 00:50:26 right partner for sure, because we're open to it. We're always open to discussions, but right now we're building. But one day, if that partner emerges that sees what we see, then we can tackle that greater scale together. But just in the US, close to a billion tubes of toothpaste are sold every year. Snow today is a couple bucks more. So we can't assume that every customer is going to switch to us, but we're here to provide another option for that growing and evolving customer base. I love it, man. You got, but I'll just summarize by saying,

Starting point is 00:50:58 you got to start with the sizzle, but then you ultimately, you got to have, you got to have the steak behind it. but then you ultimately, you gotta have, you gotta have the stake behind it. Yep. Cool, man. Josh, we're going to make, keep up with you. All things you got going on reach out when they Instagram man, Josh snow on Instagram is my personal. That's where you can keep up with most things. I post as much as I can stories wise, at least. And then at at Snow, at Going Public, and all the brands are in my bio and I post about them.

Starting point is 00:51:30 And then feel free to reach out to me on there as well. It's either me or someone on my team. It gets to me. And my goal is to go through every single DM that I receive because you never know when there's an opportunity in there that's not just for money's sake, an opportunity to say something cool. And then someone doesn't feel so bad about themselves throughout the day. I found an opportunity for us to do our best to respond to every single one of those messages. So Josh is probably the best place on Instagram. Great brother. I really appreciate you going on, coming on. And I look forward to collaborating and talking more in the future.

Starting point is 00:52:04 Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on Ryan. I really appreciate it, bro. Hey guys, you don't find us the radcast.com searching that search for bar for Josh snow, all the highlight clips, all the links and the full episode, audio, video, short version, YouTube, Instagram, you know, to find me, I'm at Ryan offer verified before you can buy it. We'll see you next time on the Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.

Right About Now with Ryan Alford - $100 Million E-Commerce Brand Builder with Josh Snow

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