The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Launch A Business With Limited Experience, Build Brand, & Navigate Sharktank Ft. Bala Bangle Founders Natalie Holloway and Max Kislevitz

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

#470:  On today's episode we are joined by the founders of Bala Bangles, Natalie Holloway and Max Kislevitz. Natalie and Max join the show to discuss how they were able to launch their brand, navigate Sharktank, work together and build an incredible business. They also discuss how listeners with limited experience can potentially do the same.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) Produced by Dear Media 

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And you're going to get your baby into sun protection, which we love. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Conf ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential,

him and her. You know, there's this really interesting phenomenon, and I'm sure those of us in this room have experienced it before. But when you have a business idea, even a bad business idea, and you start to talk about it, people are going to turn to you and say, that's the best idea I've ever heard. And it's something that matt and i were really like kind of overtly aware of in the early thought for bala because we were in advertising we knew how to market a product and we knew like how to you know get a video made like we knew the production side of things like okay you need all the information in a brand-friendly way. And then you need a video. Max Kislevich and Natalie Holloway, the couple and founders behind Bala Bangles, are on the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast. You may recognize them from Shark Tank,

which we get into. They have all the juice. But more importantly, they're incredible brand builders and entrepreneurs. I have so much respect for this brand because I've watched them from the beginning. What happened was my trainer, Kim Kelly, shout out to her who was in San Diego, was raving about these pink ankle weights that she was using. She's like, they're so cute. This company's completely disrupted the ankle weight space. You've got to see this, Lauren. Immediately, I was attracted to these weights. They're chic. They're well-branded.

The packaging, everything. I've realized since I was a little girl that branding has been my number one love. I look back when I was in second and third and fourth grade, and there's all these little things that I point back to. And I'm like, oh my god, I love to brand from such a young age. So I have mad respect for someone that launches a great product, disrupts a space, and also really hones in on brand. And Bala Bangles has done that, you guys. I would recommend checking out their blush bangles. They're so cute. They also come in white. They have a whole line at shopbala.com.

We have a code and a giveaway too at the end of this episode. I think you're going to be obsessed with their mat. They have this play mat. They have a starter kit. They have the Bala beam, the Bala bars. They have the power ring. Everything is so aesthetically pleasing. You can even get like the complete kit, which matches my house absolutely perfect. On that note, let me introduce you to Natalie and Max. They are the husband and wife duo and the co-founders of Bala. They have built a massive business. In this episode, you're going to get all the business tips, hear about Shark Tank, and hear, of course, about branding and how they work together. Be sure to listen

until the end because we have a giveaway and a code for you and the giveaway like I'm entering myself. All right, let's meet Natalie and Max. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. I am so excited to have the founders of Bala on the Skinny Confidential. I have been using Bala weights for so long. I'm such a fan of the pink set. I think I use it every single day. And I was just telling both of you that it's the only weights that I actually want displayed out. Can you introduce yourselves to the audience maybe separately? And then I would love to know how you guys met. I'm Natalie Holloway, co-founder of Bala.

And I'm Max Kislevitz, fellow co-founder of Bala. And we are, in fact, married. Married? How'd you guys meet? So we were working in advertising at an agency on the west side here in LA called 72 and Sunny. And so 72 and Sunny, you know, agencies are kind of necessarily anonymous. You see an ad from Google, you just assume it was created by Google. But in fact, it was created by an ad agency. And so we were working on these large global brands, you on Jeep, me on Google at the time. It's a big agency. It's a big agency. It's about a thousand people. And I think they've expanded globally since we've left, but we met at a 10 year anniversary party. Agencies are known for sort of going all out and we saw one another from across the room,

and she just fell in love with me almost immediately. What's the real story? I mean, it's like actually kind of that. We just were like, we never met really before. And then we just started like dancing, and we kind of danced all day. And then we were like, and I had a boyfriend at the time. So there's a longer story.

Oh, that's scandalous. It was a little scandalous. But essentially we met and we're just like, you know, we liked each other. So at this point, do you guys know that you have this entrepreneurial bug in you or are you guys focused on the ad agency? You think that that's what you're going to be doing

for the rest of your life? What was that vibe? I mean, I for sure was like advertising for life. And Max would brainstorm random business ideas with his friends, like start decks and like never do anything past the pitch deck. So he has a little bit of a different story. But for me, I never really like thought of being an entrepreneur. I never thought I'd have my own brand. I just was like all in advertising. One day I'll be like, you know, a VP at a big ad agency.

How do you guys even start with this idea and really the audience likes very detailed specifics so if you could just tell us like are you guys like blacked out drunk one night and come up with this do you see do you see white space like tell us like the nitty-gritty struggling imagine you're speaking to yourselves then like you're approaching your what you know now but as you guys were ideating on this then absolutely do you want to okay yeah so essentially max and i we were in advertising and we were really really burnt out like it was just a thankless job like working till like midnight and then 8 a.m meetings the next day so just like and really not being paid a lot either so we got burnt out and we were like our

resumes are pretty good we should quit our jobs and travel and then come back and like get ad jobs it'll be no problem people kind of switch within agencies like often so it was like not as risky as it sounds so we quit our jobs we're like late 20s we traveled and so I think for the first time we were like traveling all throughout Asia and about seven eight months and. And it was on that trip that we like finally had like headspace to think about anything other than putting every piece of energy into our advertising career. So we naturally were like brainstorming business ideas during that trip. And it was during a yoga class. So we were doing yoga in Indonesia and

the class was like not sweaty at all like super meditative and we thought like how could we have leveled up during that class how how could we have made it just a little bit harder so we started brainstorming and max had the idea of like added resistance and wrist and ankle weights and how like no one used them anymore and why is that because it's such a cool tool and it's such a viable product that people should add into their everyday lives max like literally drew it out on a napkin right there like the wrist and ankle weight he was like it'll be a fashionable wrist bracelet that girls will go to equinox and bring to class and you can like level up um with the

product so can i ask you a question in between that? I think a lot of people think like, you know, I'm going to work all this time. And then one day I'm going to be able to travel the world and go do all these things. And even ourselves, like sometimes we think like, what would it be like for an extended break? We've never actually, Lauren and I have never like had that kind of extended break. I think a lot of people think about this and fantasize about this idea. Did you guys, you quit the jobs and were like, hey, we have a little bit of money saved up and we're just going to take this time and not work and just

run around and explore? Pretty much. So actually it was relatively early in our relationship. I think we'd been dating for two and a half, three months at the time. And I was actually in New York having just left sort of work drinks for whatever client dinner that I was on at the time. I sort of drunkenly said to Nat, I think we should quit and travel. And it was still relatively early in this sort of courtship phase. So I think I was just trying to impress her

and she called the bluff and she said, yeah, let's absolutely do that. And sort of like before we'd really considered all the alternatives to actually taking those steps, we'd already booked the tickets. It was sort of taking that first step that we couldn't step back from that all of four months later, we found ourselves with one-way tickets to Tokyo, ended up traveling to 13 some odd countries over the remaining eight months. And to Nat's point, gave us the time and bandwidth

and headspace to think through what would be viable business concepts. I think we even talked about writing a book. So I guess what I think the reason I'm asking is because it sounds like obviously one, you got to have some fun and explore and get to know each other better and deepen the relationship. But also during this time, you're ideating on this idea. I think a lot of people wait so long. They're like, okay, when I'm done working, done with my career, then I can finally afford to do this but in your case like hey you guys maybe worked your mid-20s then when it made the slip and still were able to come up with this idea and start something i think like it's just a it's a counter way that most people think about when they can take a trip like that yeah yeah i feel like

people like should be thinking about it the way we did it because i think it's really scary but jobs will always be there and like i've heard of a lot of um other companies the fit on people i think fit on came about on their like epic journey that they did for a year and i just think like that's like clear your head and jobs will always be there i mean they will and you can take a break in your 20s or whatever age but it's like easier in a sense because now we have a kid like i don't know how we'd do that there's also something to be said about space i think everyone's so afraid to take space and to have thinking time and to work on their business and not in it and what i mean by that is like the grind the hustle like it's you can't like have clarity when you're in

in that hustle sometimes you have to step outside of it and so to take that trip it sounds like it was I mean it sounds like you guys would not have this company if you didn't step outside of what you were doing I totally and I think it's interesting because on the flip side people were like I can't believe you're quitting a good job like you're not going to get promoted next year and things like that but But it's like on the flip side, Bala would have never happened had we not taken a little bit of a risk by quitting and say, we'll find a job when we get back. And I think. Yeah.

And I would just add it was an unintended consequence of quitting and taking that trip. It's not as if we set sail to start a business. And it's not as if when we first started talking about a redesign wrist and ankle weight that we thought it was this massive idea. I mean, the logic is kind of fundamentally flawed that we would reprise a product that folks stopped using, right? Like this was a product that was huge in the 80s that we thought could be viable, but nobody was talking about them anymore. They'd sort of like fallen off the public radar, the public consciousness. And so the idea was almost so simple that we didn't know that it was going to be successful or just a massive flop and failure. So I think the space

that the trip allowed gave us time to consider and develop an idea that we really weren't sure of at the outset. It's funny because about the time you guys were developing this idea, I'm on Amazon searching for ankle weights and they're so ugly. You're right. They're like these like sand bags and they only come in bright orange. And I remember like trying to take a walk with ankle weights and it's like nothing cute. So that makes sense. Anyone who's out there and has a simple idea like you guys had, how did you bring it to fruition? First of all, did you raise money? Did you start with one product, which I think you guys did? Walk us

through, you have the idea and then what? I need a lot of help this summer. And what I mean by that is I need distractions, guys. I need to be a wizard with what's in my bag for my daughter. I need to have all different tips and tricks that are up my sleeve, ready to go, just in case. And that is why I have KiwiCo. KiwiCo has these crates that get shipped to your door. It's a subscription, okay, for brain building play. So I can pull out like a new toy and be like, look at this and know that each situation that I pull out is supporting my child's development. Everything they have is super creative with science-backed projects that support child-led play and encourage open-ended exploration.

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healthy distractions. You know what I mean? Start building summer memories while encouraging a love for learning with Panda Crate from KiwiCo. You get 30% off your first month plus free shipping with code SKINNY at KiwiCo.com. That's 30% off your first month at K-I-W-I-C-O.com promo code SKINNY. You know, there's this really interesting phenomenon, and I'm sure those of us in this room have experienced it before. But when you have a business idea, even a bad business idea, and you start to talk about it, people are going to turn to you and say, that's the best idea I've ever heard. You know, doesn't that exist already? You should absolutely do that. And it's something that Nat and I were really like kind of overtly aware of in their early thought for Bala that, you know, this idea is interesting enough to take steps sort of toward developing. Let's just make sure that we keep taking those steps, that we don't get too satisfied by that kind of like social validation of somebody else saying, yeah, great

idea. Go ahead and do it. You know. The early sketch of Bengals actually look a hell of a lot like what the Bengals ultimately became. We thought, let's do these silicone overmolded bars on this athletic elastic band. And so we didn't come from a background of product design. What we did instead was just iterate on that sketch. So we sketched it 10 more times we went on a site called upwork.com and found a render artist that could render it in 3d so it would be more representative and really even though the early idea was on this trip in asia we spent the next year prototyping it and we would literally like cut up water bottles with materials that we liked and kind of just like you know macgyvered together these like absurd prototypes that you know felt felt like meaningful steps forward we didn't

raise money at the outset but you know we ultimately were quoted forty thousand dollars for the first production run and having just gone on this trip we probably had five hundred dollars between us so we launched a a kickstarter campaign that was ultimately successful and that funded the first production run um you know it wasn't it wasn't terribly long after that that we had six thousand pounds of follow bangles delivered to our second story i love stories like this because you know i think what happens sometimes is people get so overwhelmed because they have grand ideas and they're like okay the idea almost overwhelms them, right? Yeah, absolutely.

They don't think like, what's the first thing I can do, and then the second thing. And then the other thing they say, well, I don't have any money, or I don't have the resources. Even those little things like Kickstarter or Upworks, those are two gems right there. You don't have to go through traditional funding. And if you don't know how to do something, there's probably somebody online that can do it for a relatively cheap fee. So take us back to your Kickstarter. What does that look like? I don't even know how I would launch that. Explain to the audience what

you guys did. Because we were in advertising, we knew how to market a product and we knew how to get a video made. We knew the production side of things so we really like did research on kickstarters and we saw what was out there it's like okay you need all the information like in like a brand friendly way and then you need a video that tells the product because the product didn't even really exist at that point i think we had like one non-weighted prototype so we needed like a video of somebody doing yoga with the product, for example. So we really just like got the video produced. We wordsmithed the Kickstarter campaign and then we had to market the Kickstarter, which was, that was really hard because it's basically

marketing it to your friends and family. I think we did like a few Facebook ads and that was a weird flop. And the momentum in the beginning is important, right? Yes, exactly. And so I think we did like a few Facebook ads and that was a weird flop. And the momentum in the beginning is important, right? Yes, exactly. And so I think like the shorter timeline is better. I think there's like 30 and 60 days, but you want people to feel like it's going to sell out. And you want like a lower goal because another mistake we had is the money, you can't get the money unless you reach your full goal. So we were like stressing when we weren't anywhere near like $40,000 midway through the campaign.

So if somebody comes in and they say, I need $200,000 and they get 180, it doesn't matter. They don't get it. So I would almost just like go lower on your goal. And oversubscribe. Yeah, you at least get the goal and then you can unlock the money.

So that's just one tip, but essentially like shamelessly marketing to your friends and family. Yeah, I will add though, that we were sort of naive to Kickstarter when we'd launched it at the time, you know, when Kickstarter started, it really was in support of these back of the napkin ideas, right. That you could just sort of take a picture of it and folks would see the viability of that idea and then invest in it. What Kickstarter has become is sort of like a launch platform for small design studios that are incredibly well resourced and are putting together a really professional campaign and then running ads really methodically email campaigns

email campaigns are running paid ads and we didn't do that we just sort of exhausted every person in our contact list and then hopefully relied on just some of the visibility from Kickstarter itself. It's your goddamn marketers. You figured out how to crack these things and now even the normal people can't get in there.

Yeah, exactly. That's what happens. The marketers come in, they're like, oh wait, this works. Like, let me... 100%. So what do you guys do when you raise the money?

What are the steps that you were taking and how did you know how to allocate the funds? Because you guys, I mean, a lot of people come on here and they don't go to business school. They just figure it out. Is that what you guys did? Yeah, absolutely. So we, like I said, we didn't know, we would have been crippled by thinking 10 steps ahead because we didn't fundamentally know what those 10 steps would be. So we'd only ever thought a step or two ahead. And there was actually strength in that kind of iterative process. Like nothing ever needed to be perfect. It just needed to be better than it was five minutes ago. So it didn't really matter how small the step was. And

often like those steps weren't necessarily forward. They'd be to the side, they'd be back. Like what's a step? Give us an example. Well, we basically, like the Kickstarter money was all for the first production run. So we had no money to actually like market our product. So it was a word of mouth strategy. So like one example there

is since we had no money, we weren't going to do paid advertising. We said, okay, let's try to get into some like cool retail stores so that they advertise for us. And if we can nail like getting into like Goop

or Bandier, then all of a sudden we have credibility. They'll be marketing they advertise for us. And if we can nail getting into Goop or Bandier, then all of a sudden we have credibility. They'll be marketing the product for us and we don't have to put money that we don't have into ad dollars. So that was a step for us, is making a list of retailers that we wanted to approach and then just stalking them on LinkedIn. I know this is super granular, but I think it's relevant because, again, there's a lot of young people that are listening to this or just entrepreneurs in general aspiring entrepreneurs when you start thinking I want to get into a bandier or you want to get into a goop how like what does what does that tactical step entail I mean I think that it's like don't have

all your hopes on the one like have a list of a hundred and just be okay if you get into five of those because if if goop is like one of the five you get into, all of a sudden you have credibility. You can get into a lot more. Yeah, so I think trade shows, like we went to four total, I think early on and that really helps get exposure. So trade shows, but then also just like stalking them,

like tagging them in products. We got into free people movement by tagging them in like, we had a Bala image. I think we had like a thousand followers, but she was wearing a free people movement top pictureging them in a like we had a balla image i think we had like a thousand followers but she was wearing a free people movement top picture of my sister and we just tagged free people movement and they liked it and they were an early adopter yeah and he reached out to like the bandier um person on linkedin so just like stalking the buyers if you you know and is the product the pink weight that you launched with? The pink ankle weight?

Yeah. So we actually launched that same SKU in charcoal, blush, and deep blue, which has since been discontinued. So that was the initial production run. We had a thousand of each. But we've evolved it since then. Well, I have to tell you, the way I heard about your product was through word of mouth. My trainer, Kim Kelly in San Diego, like, she's a big trainer there.

She loves your products. And she was using it and was like, you have to get these weights. And then my Pilates teacher, Betsy Parker, was using, I think, the white one. So maybe that was a little farther down the line. Yeah. And same thing. So I heard about your products word of mouth. So you guys were totally right on that. We had this idea really early that if, you know, we sort of live in this

world where people are dressing up to go to the gym and they're kind of documenting that experience. And so we thought two things would happen. That if you were in a yoga class with 20 people and one person was wearing a set that 19 other people would take note and that that same thing would happen in social where people are taking selfies at the gym and if they're happening to take a selfie whilst wearing bangles all of their followers see it that happened a thousand times what we ever expected it would so there was this really like sort of maybe because it was a wearable maybe because it was a well-designed fitness accessory, which have only ever been sort of functional in nature and really utilitarian. But we just had influencer trainers, celebrities, people documenting them.

And there was just this kind of like it's the world's worst word, but the sort of inherent virality in the product itself i posted it all the time because it's so pretty it looks you're you're so right i mean i use them but i also want to post them because they're gorgeous so that was very smart you know what's so funny is like i think and if like any aspiring or even existing brands are listening like and i think you guys nailed it like aesthetics in terms of product presentation do matter in this day and age because we all use this thing and it's a representation of how we want to present ourselves so it's like it's not just about an outfit anymore right it's the accessories it's the stuff you put in your home it's the products even like building these studios lauren and i's experience podcasting was you went into these like dark and dreary studios no light you couldn't see

anyone everyone's sitting in the corner in these weird laptops. And you're like, who the fuck is that in the corner? And so even looking at this, I'm like, to reiterate it and make it light and bright in a place where people wanted to spend time, it matters. And I think people that are thinking

about a new brand, they put so much thought into marketing, into wholesale accounts, into retail. They don't put enough thought into like, how is my product actually presenting and looking on these platforms that we all use now yeah yeah i think what we found especially in the sort of journey of product diversification beyond the bangles is that in fitness you know there's this sort of phenomenon where when people come over and you have your

fitness gear out in your living room or wherever you're getting a workout and you throw it away like it's sort of this embarrassing eyesore. But when fitness products are designed well enough that you're comfortable leaving them out, you're actually more inclined to use them as a result. It's sort of like if you want to learn the guitar, you're not practicing if it's under your bed in its case. But with fitness products that are out and about and part of the decor that you've sort of curated in your home, you're going to use them more often.

So, you know, we talk about that a lot. It's like beautiful design. Razor, you know, might make you fall in love with the razor, but it doesn't make you want to shave more. Thank you for that segue. I have a skinny confidential razor for women to shave their face. It's silicone. I need that. I'm going to give you one.

It matches with your freaking ball weights give you one it matches with your freaking ball weights it's super lay your razor out next to your ball there you go it's super smart though and it's such a it's such a subtle thing but it's so important and that's why that was my point it's like people i mean in your case you're gonna be in the gym all these people are gonna see just one person like that's your marketing right there instead of having to go and hack and figure out like how does facebook Facebook work? How does Kickstarter? Like that is your market. I also think there's something to be said too about just making a damn good product that you would use.

I think there's so many influencers out there that just want to slap a label on something and white label it to make money. This, the ice roller took four years to do a prototype. You sounds like you guys were in it for like a year, a year and a half. Yeah. It's if you really want to create something that i think like does go viral and people do love

you have to take your time and it has to be something that you as the creator actually want to use and have out yeah good products like they truly speak for themselves and good products you want to tell people about that like i would use the razor and then i'm going to tell 10 friends and word of mouth marketing is the most powerful kind of marketing like way better than facebook ads and anything like that so i think if you can nail the product like you're good you know i also think what you said about telling 10 friends instead of when i was launching my brand and it sounds like you guys did the same thing. It's like I looked at my consumer as an influencer. So even if the consumer has 100 followers, you're so right. She's going to go to brunch with 10 of her friends, and she's influencing 10 of those

friends to buy Bala weights if she likes them. And I think where brands go wrong is they're only looking at these girls with millions of followers. But actually, it's the people that are using your product that are going and being influential by word of mouth yeah okay you guys got to tell me the whole experience of shark tank like i want to know how you applied which ones you met like the whole process there is one thing that i always ask for whenever i get a blowout there's one thing that i use when i blow out my own hair and there's one thing that i use when i use any kind of heat hot tools on my hair and that is a heat protectant but i have found a heat protectant that not only protects

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You get 15% off your entire purchase. That's 15% off your entire order at T-H-E-O-U-A-I.com, code SKINNY. So how we applied, it was kind of random because when you have a good idea everybody's like you should go on shark tank so max is basically max's aunt said that we were in connecticut at his parents house one day working in umbala trying to make it work and i was like i'll just apply and so i i emailed an application i was like i'll never hear back. We ended up hearing back. We were in the running for long story. We were in the running for season 10. And then we were out all of a sudden.

We were about to have flights booked to LA and they were just like, we can't tell you why, but you're out. We'll call you next season. We were like, that will literally never happen. But they did. And they called us next season and we were in the running.

But it's a whole process. It's like you have to speak to the producers every week for a while like several months yeah what are they asking you i mean it's honestly like mini tryouts like we have you have like a long list of homework it's like go film yourself pitching the video like you know do all this legal stuff it's like homework and they want to see if you're like camp like your camera capable yeah you do you do you do you do videos of your pitch and you kind of develop the pitch over time if you're like your camera capable? Yeah, you do videos of your pitch and you kind of develop the pitch over time, but you're also doing sort of due diligence on the business

so that what you're saying to them is actually like demonstrable in your financials and things like that. Okay, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's a whole process essentially. And then the whole time they legally have to say like at any point

you could be out even you could get there and film your episode and it either never airs or you're sent home so it's like just this like stressful emotional thing because it could be such a like a big break for your business and it's it's not you don't really have it until it airs so anyway that's like the whole process and then we eventually got got chosen we went to film it was like the most stressful day of our lives and it was very anxiety inducing but we did it and we wanted mark and maria and we got mark and maria it's worth mentioning that the the show is depicted accurately in terms of our experience? There's no informal interaction with the sharks before you walk down the tank, the hallway, and then they look-

There's no pre-pitch. There's no pre-pitch. So there's no- You get one chance. You don't get comfortable. And we kind of liken it to a blind date that's being filmed, where if the blind date goes badly-

Worse than a blind date. It's actually better. It's better TV, right? So they are creating this drama they're creating a high stress situation that you know if you're successful amazing hugs at the end but if you're not you know that's a win too in terms of like the entertainment value for the show and marketing yeah yeah exactly better if you cry and it's horrible you know yeah i i only cried before you basically did but it went really well for us and i's horrible you know yeah i i only cried before you basically did but it

went really well for us and i think that you know that early insecurity around are folks going to fundamentally get you know this redesign of otherwise existing product we had that in the context of shark tank and so we didn't know if like barbara and kevin were going to love it and fundamentally get it or it was just going to be, you know, kind of over their heads from a, from a design point of view. And everybody loved it. And we ultimately got a great deal with Mark Cuban.

We definitely thought that they were going to pick us apart. We were like, they're going to call out counterfeits. They're going to say, so what Nike can do this. And we thought, we thought we were like prepared to be picked apart. And it just like,

it went well, I think because we had like a nice valuation that wasn't too intimidating for them and let me ask you this though so when you guys eventually get a partner from shark tank and then and when i guess when you do the valuation there is that like is that actually the valuation or do you go you go back with lawyers later and say like we got to navigate all that because i know how these things work it's a lot of paperwork there are months of due diligence okay we did four months you know at full disclosure we didn't revisit the deal that we'd made on so it's like a regular pitch you pitch you kind of get a term thing but then you go and you do the intent to close unless they find something like crazy okay but i've had other other brands we know have like

renegotiated their deal i even know one won't say who but like switch sharks oh no we know somebody that came on a while ago and they did the deal and then they didn't do the deal after the thing like they bailed and a lot of people do that for like the publicity because you'll like air if you get a deal and then so they think that and then they don't have an intent of doing the deal but you guys were you guys are happy with the deal and is it a good is a good partnership i assume now what's wait i want to know what the deal was you have to tell us what the deal was because it was on the show right yeah so i think we went on the show if memory serves asking for 400k for 10 so it was going to be a four million dollar value and we did a lot of scenario planning like what are the thousand different ways this could go and what

would be our response that we won't then deviate from? Napoleon vibes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were so stressed that we just- I was prepared to take any deal. Yeah, absolutely. We translated that stress to just practicing over and over. We literally had friends sit and play the sharks and pepper us with questions. But we walked away with a deal for 900K

for 30% of the business. Wow. And so how do you pitch, if you could just pitch in 30 seconds, this idea to a different generation and get the deal? For instance, was there a mission statement slogan that just made it so simple a kindergartner could understand? It's a really good question. I think the way we talk about Bala and the bangles in particular is that we've brought design to this otherwise utilitarian space whilst also making really meaningful functional improvements. So the idea was this was a successful viable product in

the 80s, but people stopped using them because they weren't actually all that good a product. Like you said, they were neoprene, so they would absorb sweat. They would smell bad. They'd slide around your wrists and ankles. And it was just like a cheap product and you felt cheap using it. And so that's sort of the foundations of the pitch. We had a sort of 80s inspired song and dance aerobics thing that we did at the top of the pitch, but that's the gist. I might go YouTube it after this. Oh my gosh. So knowing that you have Mark and Maria on board, do you get to tap into them or is that for show?

Yeah, we actually do. Maria's pretty involved. She's been in a campaign shoot for us. She's a natural brand ambassador. We just did a panel with Mark Cuban in person, so I feel like we save our favors, but he's definitely available. What's his personality like? Is it just like how it is on the show? He's like a cool guy. Oh, he definitely has like all the power in the room of the sharks.

Like it was like crazy. Like, you know, energy, like you could feel it all. Like he holds all the power. It's crazy. Because he's just quietly intimidating. He's just like billionaire powerful and don't you think of all the sharks like he just holds it all terrifies me he responds to

emails within five minutes no he doesn't yes i find that very interesting i'm like no wonder you're a billionaire oh my god i respond to emails every two weeks well i gotta get that's another billionaire status thing to do she's the other way you just like swing other way real relaxed so once you guys get the money from shark tank what do you guys do with it it was like mostly for inventory unfortunately now we know better like then i think we were just like like you know self-funding inventory i think there's a lot of like cash levers you can pull so that you're not out on the inventory cost and you can spend that on marketing instead. But it was mostly for inventory. Let me ask you guys a personal question here. So when you're doing this, obviously you left your jobs and now you guys are all in on this. Are you

starting to feel pressure in the squeeze? Obviously, is this going to work? Is this not? Bank accounts getting tight, everything going into the company. Walk me through that because I think a lot of people also get very overwhelmed in that position. And to your point, they think, I'll never get a job again. I can never make money again. If this doesn't work, I'm done forever. I've always thought, to your point, that you could always go back and get a job. So why not take a chance, especially before you have kids or real responsibilities?

But I just wondered how that felt. Yeah. Well, it's worth noting that for a while, we did get jobs when we came back from Asia, and it was nights and weekends. You were hustling. We were just hustling for as long as we possibly could until we'd felt comfortable enough in terms of the trajectory of the business for Natalie to quit. But then I kept my job. And in fact, I kind of white-knuckled that job because in the absence of funding, it felt like, you know, we need to pay the bills. And we almost thought of my day job as ballas funding, you know, like it made Bala viable and Nat was fully dedicated to its scale.

It feels uncomfortable, right? And what are the lifestyle choices you're making? Because obviously it's tight. It's a tight, but I really want you to talk about this because I think this is where people get hung up. Like, I don't have job security more. budget. I really want you to talk about this because I think this is where people get hung up. Like, I don't have job security anymore. How am I going to afford to live? But I think that this is an inspiring story.

I mean, I actually always say, like, wait as long as you possibly can to quit your day job. Because what's crazy is what started to happen for me, at least, is that I then was working so much. And not to say you should just like overwork but I was like you know I had my day job and then I had the passion project which was Bala and I felt like I was working so hard on both for quite a bit of time that I like there was no choice but to not succeed so I think my advice is like wait until you like physically can't do both anymore because it just makes you like there's no option to not succeed because that hard work you put into it. And then I think Max's job paid the bills for us for a long time. And so,

I don't know if that directly answers the question, but I would say wait as long as you can to quit the day job. I would say that because I'd kept my day job, there weren't crazy concessions in terms of only ever eating ramen. But what I will say of the business is that we learned any and every aspect of it. So I learned Photoshop in order to create the packaging, design the website. Natalie became sort of a production savant in terms of casting folks she'd seen on the street for the early Bala campaigns. And actually, Natalie's sister, Erica, who was involved very early in the business, was sort of responsible for honing. We've talked a lot about the products, but we've also

tried to be more of a fitness brand, or excuse me, a fashion brand in a fitness brand's body. And so we really have a sort of avant-garde approach to the content we've created, but that was all honed early in this really kind of experimental process. But yeah, basically, you know, we embraced anything and everything the business required and just learned ourselves up on it. And like being scrappy.

I think that's like also your question. It's like, we were just like, okay, if we can figure this out because we can't afford to hire anybody else, like we're just going to figure it out ourselves. Listen, we get some complaints on this show. I'm not going to lie. Once in a while, you get some people, some salty people writing in complaints. I get it. It happens. One of the biggest complaints we get, and it's almost a compliment to myself and Lauren as well,

is that there's so much information provided. There's so many details. There's so much stuff that's thrown out in the face and saying, people don't know. What do I jump into? Where do I get? I'm overwhelmed. You guys are sharing way too much. We don't have all endless resources to just buy everything and do everything. That's why I'm going to make it simple for you here right now. If you were going to buy, if I was going to buy, and I was thinking about just one thing, one thing that could change your life, what would that be? That would be Athletic Greens. I take this daily. I have it everywhere we travel. I take it every single morning I wake up. I put it in a big glass of water and dump it in. And here's why. It's a prebiotic. It's a probiotic. It's got a multivitamin that's so well-rounded. It's got all your greens. It energizes. It tastes good. It covers all the

bases. I think it's cleared my under eye bags. I'm not kidding about that. If I could just do one thing, this is the thing. And again, it would be Athletic Greens. So what is Athletic Greens? It's a green powder. It's got over 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens. Like I said, it's incredible. It's keto, it's paleo, it's vegan, it's dairy-free, it's gluten-free. It's got no GMOs, less than one gram of sugar, no nasty chemicals or artificial anything while still tasting good. Like I said, I have it every single morning. It's with me everywhere. And you can try it today. And of course, to make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packets with your first purchase. All you have to

do is visit athleticgreens.com slash skinny. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash skinny to take ownership of your overall health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Well, I think the reason I ask is because people look at this now and they're like, oh, of course, Shark Tank and funding and this and that. And I regret times in my professional career not showing the moments where it's like, oh my God, you're really struggling, you're really scrappy. And I think more entrepreneurs should start talking about the scrappy stuff because you look at something like this now and you're like, it's so overwhelming.

I'll never get there. But all the little steps and struggles you guys took in the second job or the primary jobs while doing this, I think is important to highlight because people think, oh, it just fell in your lap. It must've been easy. It's not easy.

Yeah, I think one of the things that we didn't have foresight on in the early development of the Bengals, but became abundantly clear when the first shipment was delivered was these are weights, right? And so we would literally load up our car and it would bottom out on the cross Bronx expressway when we were driving to Connecticut, where we would do the fulfillment at my folks' house. And know we've had 12 pallets of product delivered to our then hollywood apartment that we would unload at 5 a.m before going to work that day so it's weights and it's weights so we've i think we shipped the first 75 000 units of the bangles ourselves by

hand which is 150 000 pounds so that's kind of what i'm referring to where 20 guys get strong muscles we're just so shredded like i was like this is a workout you know so what did you guys do when you wanted to raise more money or did you just we never raised more money okay that's what i was gonna ask you but i will say like back to your like struggle question it's like not only the working hard and like the late nights and the early mornings that there were again there was no like ramen but wish i could say could say that. But essentially it was like shipping every unit by hand. Like that was like something that was exhausting. And, you know, we did for even after we aired on Shark Tank. So it was like two years and a few months and we had our whole family shipping the Shark Tank order. So that was

like definitely a struggle. But also before Shark Tank, like we were, we were in like crazy cash positions, like where every time we were in like crazy cash positions like where every time we would get like all the way down to zero and then like thankfully a retail would pay us you know and we'd be fine again so i think like the cash was like really uncomfortable because ball is sales we're funding ball is growth and we weren't really able to invest in like you know any sort of like marketing um budget so i think the The better you do, the worse cash position you get in. For sure. Especially with retail because they'll pay you late

and they have like net 60 terms. So that was like really hard for us to navigate. Do you like retail better or direct to consumer now, today? Well, they say D2C is like, there will never be another like only D2C brand because of the marketing landscape right now. I mean, maybe ones that are already powerful can still exist but like I think you need like an

omni-channel approach these days. What's your favorite retailer that you guys work with? Where can people find them? Free People, Nordstrom, Goop. Those are some of our favorites. Why did you guys decide not to raise money after Shark Tank? I think we liked the like

go it alone rogue style and there were a few false starts with raising money like we would start we wouldn't potentially get a term sheet almost but then we were like we've gotten this far like what are they really going to tell us that or are they really going to help us or is it just the money because there's cheaper ways to get money you know yeah i'll also say that i think there's a romance around raising money at these super high paper valuations and we just felt this kind of inherent skepticism when we would get close with a particular institutional capital you know uh firm and we would just feel like it wasn't what we set out to do. You know, the intent for Bala was for it to be a side project. And the realization is that it could be

a hell of a lot more than that. And it just felt like, not just in terms of like ownership dilution, it felt like it was diluting what we were really excited about building with all the creative autonomy that we had and wouldn't necessarily be able to wrestle back. I'll say that with Mark and Maria, they're super helpful and they're really hands-off. They're there when we need them, but they're not sort of forcing our hand the way that we sort of assumed someone else might. I couldn't agree with you. I find it so strange. There's like this culture that got developed where people would start congratulating people on these big raises and i always find that

so strange i'm like you know like you just raise all this money now you have a there's an obligation to pay that back and generate a return on that yeah right it's like people will celebrate i raise this i raise this and the numbers get bigger and bigger and you start to see and i'm not going to call out any brands you start to see these brands with like 18 retail locations just for their standalone d2c brand you're like what the hell is going on here right and they're also losing money yeah yeah it's like a boomer bus and it's like the story that's not told as often is like the sustainable growth model where at the end of the day the phone the founders own 70 it's like the boom or bust story it's like at the end of the day the founders may own like four percent and it's and it is boom or bust like for every amazing story unicorn story out there like the glossiers of the world there's like hundreds that

didn't work out so it's like i think earlier on we believed in a more sustainable growth story i mean that's definitely like mark's philosophy as well and you we revisit this often and we will continue to because at a certain point, you do need money to scale. And so we're always revisiting it. But I think like right now, we love the sustainable growth story. Yeah, a lot of times too,

a VC's wins is not aligned with the founder's win. So you won't, again, call any funds or anything out, but you might get somebody that goes to a business and says, hey, we want to pay a 3x on this business. It's going great. And the VC will look like, oh, our portfolio really needs a five.

Shut that deal down. And then the founder's fucked. And then that business goes to zero. We haven't even started talking about third-party tracking yet. I mean, a lot of these VCs that went into D2C brands, that third-party is going away. These values that got boosted to the sky, watch them plummet. I also think you guys said something so smart and i think that this is really important about raising money when you raise money for me for skinny confidential and i have raised money i think that you want

to go with someone that is going to add more value than the money. And it sounds like you guys really get that. You have to go with someone that is going to help with the strategy or they're going to take an hour brainstorm call. There has to be bringing more to the table than just the money. Michael and I sometimes we're like, we don't want certain investors because all they bring to the table is money and then they kind of walk away.

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it's true, both of the folks that we've hired as well as like a potential partner is that you want folks that fundamentally believe in the thing that you're building. So if there's not alignment on vision, the conversation's effectively over.

And what we found with some folks that there was misalignment on in the hiring process is that it wasn't going to work out long-term. And I think the same is true of whether it's venture capital or private equity or family office. If they don't fundamentally believe in the thing that you're building, then friction is inevitable. Yeah. I think if it's like you said, if it's like smart money that actually strategically they're gonna help you scale and get there it's so worth it but i think anytime we've had a false start it's like we don't you know it's like we don't know are you actually gonna help us or is this just a paycheck and oftentimes it felt like just a paycheck so the

smart money scenario it's like if you can find that person like that that to me makes sense i think the other difficulty too when raising capital is sometimes you go and like i said certain funds have you know they they have lps you have to go back and they have to check a box like this fits this category this fits this model and if they identify your business and it doesn't quite they kind of like try to sway your business to fit their fund model and it gets a lot of founders off the track of what they actually want to build we we had a lot of that just in terms of connected fitness, right? That we are deliberately analog in our approach.

Like one of our theses is fitness is about disconnection. It's actually about getting out of your own head. It's not about the quantification of your every move and holding yourself to these like absurd metrics. You know, it's actually more about like enjoying movement for its own sake and we spoke to a lot of funds that were yearning for a more connected play and you know early days it wasn't lost on us that we could put an off-the-shelf biometric sensor in the bangles which are wearable and get heart rate and caloric burn but it just felt at odds with what we

were trying to do from a design and brand perspective and so we'd felt that firsthand i think that like really wanted you to become a tech company yeah they they wanted the the bangles to come with a plug i don't want that from you guys that's so weird when you just said that you want to go on a walk well also i don't want it i'll tell you why because i don't want the emf when i'm working out i don't want all that electricity or whatever it is who knows and also i like the simplicity. It's an ankle weight or an arm weight that I can just throw on. When you start having to connect things and I have to involve my husband and plug it in

and charge it, it's fucking annoying. It's annoying. I love the simplicity of your products. I mean, really. So how do you guys decide how you're going to expand out to all these products? You have all different kinds of products on the table right now. How did you decide? It is a real bitch to find good baby food and snacks for your kids. I've looked so many places. I want organic. I want cold pressed fruit and vegetables. I want

dairy-free smoothies, overnight oats, and ready to cook meals. I want things for the mom that's busy. I might be ice rolling. I might be working. I might be doing my skincare. So it's got to be easy, seamless to integrate into Zaza's routine, but I also want it to be healthy. And that is why I am excited to introduce you to Once Upon a Farm. So they have all different ingredients that hit all of these boxes. They have nutrients and flavor, and they can be prepared in minutes. So this is saving you time, which we love. I know that I've watched Zaza eat some of these foods, and her favorites are by far, and I keep saying this, the sweet potato, mango, coconut milk, and chia seeds. Or she reaches for the spinach, banana, white quinoa, chia seed, and coconut butter situation.

Honestly, I like feeding Zaza things that I would give to myself. And I think just being really on top of it and looking at ingredients is so important. But like I said, things get busy. So now you have products that are convenient and nutritionists recommended for healthy development. Everything's organic, non-GMO, unsweetened, and made with no preservatives or artificial ingredients. If you're looking for some new nutrient-packed meals to feed your toddler, you got to check out their meal subscription. Get started today and enjoy an additional 35% off your first subscription order. You're going to use code SKINNY at onceuponafarmorganics.com. That's onceuponafarmorganics.com. Use code skinny.

Yeah, I think what we found with wrist and ankle weights of them just being sort of underdesigned was true actually of the broader space as well. So all dumbbells look the same. Why is that? Fitness products are typically made with three to five different kinds of material. Can we introduce materials like silicone that are really kind of supple and luxurious in feel to uplevel the experience and make it more premium and make it more enjoyable as a result? So we sort of did an audit of all the products that exist in the space, and there's not been all that much innovation over the years. There's all these new sorts of workouts that you can do, but there aren't products

that are specifically designed for those workouts. So, you know, one of the, I think it was actually the second product we launched is what we're calling the Power Ring, which is effectively a weighted steering wheel. And, you know, what happens is often mat-based workouts call for a weighted prop. And the only things you can reach for is a dumbbell that's

not designed to be held with both hands or a kettlebell, which is like borderline dangerous for someone that doesn't really otherwise know what they're doing. So we've just made like a hell of a lot more ergonomic version of a weight. You know, it's so simple an idea, but it's powerful in its simplicity. And so we've tried to take that sort of formula to all the products we've developed where we want to make them better quality in terms of material and durability, better designed, and then better in function so that there's like a meaningful functional improvement relative to the other products you've experienced. And then there are some instances where we've seen white space between the existing products. And we've said, what if we did something kind of between them, right?

Like the ring is that. We have something called the beam, which comes in 15 pounds and 25 pounds, which is effectively like a weighted curl bar. But the weight is centralized and it's super simple. That's what we need to get you. No, but I was looking at these too. You could use these potentially as kettlebells. Exactly. Yeah. It's basically like we compare it to a kettlebell and it's this you

guys have it nude which is so chic and you're right it is i mean sometimes you look at these kettlebell workouts and it could be over if you're new to it it could be overwhelming and also potentially dangerous yeah billion dollar question before you guys go ready how the fuck do you guys work together because it's hard it's so hard it's so hard what are you talking about it's so easy i mean we've had um definitely challenges i think the biggest tip though is like your swim lane stay in your swim lane so like we will do completely opposite things within the company and like divide and conquer as well so it's like these days we're pretty busy and we are rarely in the same meeting because of that because it's like if max we're

mostly aligned so it's like if you're taking that meeting like i don't need to be there and i think we do a lot of that but then more importantly stay in our swim lane so we both like kind of own our departments i guess but it's definitely hard and you need to constantly check in michael's like asking me questions about i want to hear y'all when i'm in doggy style i'm like it's like not sexy at all yeah i'm like what about that spread maybe it is sexy maybe it turns you on like you see that fucking pnl today oh god it's so hard to balance it and then you add a kid to the mix we had to struggle with it for a long i mean i think we've gotten in a good rhythm now and to your point like it's church and state on some things yeah but it took us

a while to get it is rewarding though yeah yeah i think it you know it takes time early days you know we both wanted to do everything but i think we've found our relative strengths over the years i mean we've we've been doing this for four years now and so to nat's point it's no longer feasible for us to be involved in everything we've found our relative strengths so i'm i'm happy to get out of natalie's way in a way that maybe i wasn't you know four years ago very diplomatic before you guys go you have generously offered us to do a giveaway for skinny confidential listeners. We are giving away a blush kit.

You guys, I'm entering this giveaway, okay? This is such a good giveaway. All you have to do is follow at Bala, B-A-L-A on Instagram. And then tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic. And can we do a code? Yes. Okay. 20% off? Yeah, let's do 20% off skinny 20. You guys can go on shop bala.com and use code skinny 20. You get 20% off sitewide. That is so generous. I personally would recommend getting the ankle weights in blush or this ball. I have my eye on it's a pilates ball and also this little ring is so cute

and if you're not a blush fan they also have nude which is very like grounding kim k i love it gorgeous pimp you guys pimp your own instagrams out tell us where to find you guys mine is n n holloway nobody wants to follow me is that really your instagram handle mine is inN Holloway. Nobody wants to follow me. Is that really your Instagram handle? Mine is NN Holloway. You should do nobody wants to follow me as your Instagram. Yeah, that is funny. That's a really good, I'm like, I'm anonymous. I love that.

I love you're staying in your lanes. Yeah. You guys follow at Bala on Instagram. They have a beautiful feed. Thank you guys so much for coming on. I cannot wait to see what you guys do. Thank you both. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much. Do you want to win some Bala swag? All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic and make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast. Super easy. And this enters you in all the giveaways. So rate and review takes five seconds. And with that, definitely stalk Bala on Instagram.

They are at Bala. See you next time. If there's one thing that I'm serious about, it's sunscreen. You know this. And one question that I get asked a lot is which sunscreen do I use on Zaza? And I am specific about a sunscreen. I want something that's mineral. I want something that's spray because I feel like when I put on a thick white chalky sunscreen, she does not like it. I also want something that's water resistant. She's a big swimmer. So if I'm being bougie about it, 80 minutes would be great. And then I want something plant-based, vegan, hypoallergenic, and also of course, fragrance-free. So enter Sunbum. You've seen them everywhere. They're known for their whole line,

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