Meeting Title: Brainforge x Eden Health Intro Call Date: 2025-09-12 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Adam Frost
WEBVTT
1 00:01:31.110 ⇒ 00:01:31.650 Adam Frost: Hey.
2 00:01:32.830 ⇒ 00:01:33.600 Robert Tseng: Hey, Adam.
3 00:01:34.050 ⇒ 00:01:34.520 Adam Frost: How’s it going?
4 00:01:34.520 ⇒ 00:01:36.450 Robert Tseng: Happy Friday. Good, how are you?
5 00:01:36.690 ⇒ 00:01:37.300 Adam Frost: Good.
6 00:01:40.050 ⇒ 00:01:43.909 Robert Tseng: If you’re heading to Chicago in… when are you flying in?
7 00:01:44.400 ⇒ 00:01:45.779 Adam Frost: On Tuesday morning.
8 00:01:45.780 ⇒ 00:01:46.860 Robert Tseng: Tuesday morning. Cool.
9 00:01:46.860 ⇒ 00:01:47.350 Adam Frost: Yep.
10 00:01:48.200 ⇒ 00:02:04.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I, you know, I just want to introduce myself. I’m Robert, I’m going to be representing Eden Health, which is, I basically head up data there, and, they’re actually a client of mine. I run Brainforge AI, we’re, like, a data and AI consultancy, so… Okay.
11 00:02:04.040 ⇒ 00:02:17.809 Robert Tseng: I guess I’m going there, yeah, just wanting to learn from other, kind of, practitioners, probably more on the marketing or data side for other CPG brands, just kind of see, like, how people are solving some of the problems that we’re running into right now.
12 00:02:17.950 ⇒ 00:02:23.960 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s my first Shop Talk, and yeah, just thought it’d be cool to meet some people.
13 00:02:23.960 ⇒ 00:02:26.190 Adam Frost: We went for the first time,
14 00:02:26.310 ⇒ 00:02:32.630 Adam Frost: this past… what was it, March or February? I can’t remember. It was the Spring Shop Talk in Vegas. Okay.
15 00:02:32.630 ⇒ 00:02:33.649 Robert Tseng: The main one, yeah.
16 00:02:33.650 ⇒ 00:02:34.200 Adam Frost: It’s just like…
17 00:02:34.200 ⇒ 00:02:35.140 Robert Tseng: The newer one, yeah.
18 00:02:35.140 ⇒ 00:02:41.629 Adam Frost: Yeah, and we had a great time. I’d never been… I’d gone to, like, one e-commerce conference before that.
19 00:02:41.770 ⇒ 00:02:45.270 Adam Frost: But… I… I got so busy with, like.
20 00:02:46.800 ⇒ 00:02:50.049 Adam Frost: the show floor and meetings, you know, a ton of people.
21 00:02:50.050 ⇒ 00:02:50.370 Robert Tseng: even when.
22 00:02:50.370 ⇒ 00:02:57.379 Adam Frost: out prior to the event, saying, hey, let’s meet, and… Yeah. But it was… so I didn’t get to go to a lot of the
23 00:02:57.760 ⇒ 00:03:02.809 Adam Frost: the talks, or the panel discussions, and things like that. The few that I did go to, I was kind of like.
24 00:03:03.820 ⇒ 00:03:07.460 Adam Frost: underwhelmed by the panel discussion. It was very, kind of.
25 00:03:08.600 ⇒ 00:03:15.189 Adam Frost: what… where I enjoyed the most was the, was the conversations with people in the… in the meetups, and…
26 00:03:15.190 ⇒ 00:03:15.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
27 00:03:15.620 ⇒ 00:03:19.419 Adam Frost: on the show floor, just, you know, just chatting and stuff. It was… it was… it was good.
28 00:03:20.290 ⇒ 00:03:28.360 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I mean, that’s my expectation going in. I’m like, I’m not really gonna be attending that many sessions, I feel like I’m just gonna try to meet as many people as I can.
29 00:03:28.360 ⇒ 00:03:29.460 Adam Frost: Yeah, sure.
30 00:03:29.460 ⇒ 00:03:34.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’s… that’s, that’s, it’s good to know that that’s kind of how you handled the first one.
31 00:03:34.350 ⇒ 00:03:40.380 Adam Frost: So you’re… so you are… Representing a company that you’re working for as a consultant?
32 00:03:40.970 ⇒ 00:03:41.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
33 00:03:41.670 ⇒ 00:03:48.350 Adam Frost: Okay, and… and you’re consulting in… in… in… did you say AI, or… what was the.
34 00:03:48.350 ⇒ 00:03:55.489 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, I mean, we’re… I guess, to me, AI is just an extension of data, so…
35 00:03:55.490 ⇒ 00:03:57.330 Adam Frost: It’s a better calculator.
36 00:03:57.520 ⇒ 00:04:14.799 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s just more of, like, just a term that people throw around now, but… Yeah. Yeah, we’re… I mean, I run a data consultancy, and so we work with a few CPG… I mean, probably half our portfolio is, like, CPG brands, and so kind of helping them, you know, once they’re past, like.
37 00:04:15.200 ⇒ 00:04:32.059 Robert Tseng: at the 5 to 10 million ARR range, and they’re trying to grow up to 100 million. I think there’s usually, like, a set of problems that CBG companies run into. I’ve done that in-house at previous brands, and basically have kind of packaged those into services that I’m able to just do across a wider range of clients.
38 00:04:33.350 ⇒ 00:04:38.540 Adam Frost: And basically in the marketing side, or, like, what… where… What is it?
39 00:04:38.540 ⇒ 00:04:43.140 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think… at that stage, so… yeah, I’d like the…
40 00:04:43.320 ⇒ 00:04:50.420 Robert Tseng: you know, under 10 million revenue kind of stage, I feel like data needs are all marketing. It’s all about, like.
41 00:04:50.780 ⇒ 00:04:55.939 Robert Tseng: yeah, just trying to get more eyeballs, getting more users, or whatever. You’re not really, like.
42 00:04:55.970 ⇒ 00:05:12.159 Robert Tseng: making that many product changes, you’re not, like, expanding a big product portfolio or whatever, and, like, yeah, so anyway, so I think early on it becomes… it’s all marketing, and then once an organization matures, or, like, the revenue’s a bit more, kind of, stable, and they’re trying to look for new opportunities.
43 00:05:12.160 ⇒ 00:05:19.280 Robert Tseng: then it moves towards product analytics, and so I’ve kind of… I’ve done both sides, and yeah, I think that’s…
44 00:05:19.280 ⇒ 00:05:39.100 Robert Tseng: probably why we’re a good fit, because you can have the same person, or the same team, kind of flex across both, because traditionally, what I’ve seen, even at my previous… my last in-house role, they basically had to, like, hire and fire a person for every stage, and I think there just aren’t that many people that have, like, really seen the data problems as a brand has scaled.
45 00:05:39.470 ⇒ 00:05:42.160 Adam Frost: Yeah, we’re weird, because we’re in apparel.
46 00:05:42.790 ⇒ 00:05:48.540 Adam Frost: And we have lots of products that we were, like… and we’re… and we constantly change the products every 6 months, because it’s…
47 00:05:48.540 ⇒ 00:05:54.270 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, you probably have, like, a million… like, a fast excuse, which is different from a lot… most brands, yeah.
48 00:05:54.270 ⇒ 00:06:02.270 Adam Frost: Yeah, so we have so many SKUs, and our biggest issue we’ve had in scaling has actually been inventory.
49 00:06:02.900 ⇒ 00:06:05.939 Adam Frost: Okay. We just run out of… we just run out of product.
50 00:06:06.090 ⇒ 00:06:10.879 Adam Frost: And then we’re fighting over the product, because we have to buy so far in advance, like, six months.
51 00:06:10.880 ⇒ 00:06:11.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
52 00:06:11.200 ⇒ 00:06:15.680 Adam Frost: And… Okay. And… you know, It takes…
53 00:06:17.100 ⇒ 00:06:21.899 Adam Frost: It takes a lot of courage to… Buy a ton.
54 00:06:22.860 ⇒ 00:06:23.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
55 00:06:23.670 ⇒ 00:06:28.249 Adam Frost: With no, like, you know…
56 00:06:28.350 ⇒ 00:06:38.379 Adam Frost: you feel like you can do it, you feel like you can sell it all, and so far we are, but if you say, you know what, what’s a legitimate growth that we want to make? Okay, 25%.
57 00:06:38.560 ⇒ 00:06:40.399 Adam Frost: So I’m gonna buy 25% more product.
58 00:06:40.760 ⇒ 00:06:44.610 Adam Frost: But you’re not gonna go, You’re gonna grow to that amount.
59 00:06:44.950 ⇒ 00:06:45.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
60 00:06:45.530 ⇒ 00:06:50.150 Adam Frost: And then… and then the next go-round. And so, it’s… What I’m really looking…
61 00:06:50.490 ⇒ 00:06:57.900 Adam Frost: for some… it’s… and I… I don’t even know if it’s possible, but, like, some…
62 00:06:58.500 ⇒ 00:07:02.500 Adam Frost: Lightning in a bottle that says, hey, This is gonna work.
63 00:07:02.630 ⇒ 00:07:05.669 Adam Frost: You need to… you need to… Buy up for this.
64 00:07:06.180 ⇒ 00:07:06.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
65 00:07:06.710 ⇒ 00:07:08.900 Adam Frost: And it’s a huge risk, because…
66 00:07:09.570 ⇒ 00:07:17.479 Adam Frost: if you don’t sell it, then all of a sudden it’s dead product, because you still have to… you still have to feed the beast the next season. You can’t just go back for the same product again.
67 00:07:17.910 ⇒ 00:07:25.180 Robert Tseng: Tell me more about your, kind of, supply chain, like, are you… is it a finished product that you’re, like, that you’re importing? Like, or is there, like, raw material that you’re bringing in, and then.
68 00:07:25.180 ⇒ 00:07:36.660 Adam Frost: No, it’s all finished, it’s all finished. We design all the products, and we have some long-standing relationships with some factories in China and in Vietnam, and India.
69 00:07:36.970 ⇒ 00:07:40.960 Adam Frost: And so, we’re… were…
70 00:07:41.830 ⇒ 00:07:56.439 Adam Frost: there’s a few things that we’re doing, some value-add when we… when we bring it over for our… mainly for our wholesale business. So we have… we have a retail business, a wholesale business, and our e-commerce business, and all three channels are constantly, kind of, fighting for product, and…
71 00:07:56.690 ⇒ 00:07:57.340 Adam Frost: And…
72 00:07:57.340 ⇒ 00:07:58.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
73 00:07:58.030 ⇒ 00:08:05.400 Adam Frost: It’s so… it’s… it’s problematic, it’s difficult, it’s difficult to forecast when you don’t know, like, for example.
74 00:08:05.800 ⇒ 00:08:09.680 Adam Frost: This fall, Nordstrom’s… We sell to Nordstrom’s.
75 00:08:09.880 ⇒ 00:08:11.750 Robert Tseng: They had a… they had a supplier.
76 00:08:13.750 ⇒ 00:08:21.279 Adam Frost: fall by the wayside. They didn’t… and so they called us up and said, we need, you know, $300,000 worth of product.
77 00:08:21.690 ⇒ 00:08:22.410 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
78 00:08:22.410 ⇒ 00:08:23.480 Adam Frost: In 3 weeks.
79 00:08:24.000 ⇒ 00:08:26.660 Adam Frost: And we could only… we could only find them 180, you know, like.
80 00:08:26.660 ⇒ 00:08:27.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
81 00:08:27.690 ⇒ 00:08:31.469 Adam Frost: But even then, it’s gonna hurt our e-commerce business.
82 00:08:32.250 ⇒ 00:08:33.020 Adam Frost: Cause we’re gonna run out of time.
83 00:08:33.020 ⇒ 00:08:34.379 Robert Tseng: Because you’re routing all that over there, yeah.
84 00:08:34.380 ⇒ 00:08:39.420 Adam Frost: riding a lot, and we can’t get… we can’t get back into stock before Christmas. Like, this is just…
85 00:08:39.620 ⇒ 00:08:42.319 Adam Frost: So it’s just… it’s just a constant, a constant issue.
86 00:08:44.070 ⇒ 00:08:52.419 Robert Tseng: That’s interesting. I think, like, so, I previously was, head of data at Ruggable, so it’s more of a textiles business, and you were.
87 00:08:52.420 ⇒ 00:08:53.769 Adam Frost: Yeah, I know Ruggable, yeah.
88 00:08:53.770 ⇒ 00:08:55.850 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, so…
89 00:08:56.180 ⇒ 00:09:06.680 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, we kind of had a mix of, like… I mean, it was predominantly e-com when I first joined, but we were also exploring different channels. We were in Costco, we were in, like, a few other… Sam’s Club, a few other places at that point.
90 00:09:06.680 ⇒ 00:09:10.620 Adam Frost: Like, some big, some big, like, one-off deals with, like.
91 00:09:11.220 ⇒ 00:09:18.969 Adam Frost: With the major retailers? Yeah. So not… not, like a steady, wholesale business, but more of a.
92 00:09:18.970 ⇒ 00:09:22.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s not… that wasn’t our, like, that wasn’t the core business model. Yeah.
93 00:09:22.790 ⇒ 00:09:41.400 Robert Tseng: I think the econ business is more predictable, and so I do think that there are… if you can, like, kind of decouple some of that, there’s, like, some more forecast… like, the forecasting on the econ side was much better. But when we’re… whenever we were launching new product lines, yeah, we would end up doing a lot of the value-add, like, like, stateside, instead of, like, shipping finished products, because we weren’t really… Right.
94 00:09:41.400 ⇒ 00:09:46.019 Robert Tseng: We’re… it was, like, we weren’t really sure exactly how much we were gonna… we were gonna need.
95 00:09:46.090 ⇒ 00:09:57.190 Robert Tseng: And so I think there are definitely, you know, ways… I don’t know, I’m… we could talk… go really nitty-gritty into, like, how you do your forecasts and everything, but, yeah, I mean, totally familiar with that problem, and
96 00:09:57.370 ⇒ 00:10:03.119 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I would say, like, the main challenge that we ran into was actually,
97 00:10:03.840 ⇒ 00:10:19.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like you said, like, as far as, like, scaling up, you’re… you’re constrained by how much you end up setting in your… in your forecast, and, you know, we have to purchase everything 6 months in advance. So, yeah, if you… if you get squeezed, then you run out of the tour or whatever, and so, like, what… what can we actually do to,
98 00:10:19.860 ⇒ 00:10:27.320 Robert Tseng: And I think for us, like, we were making big, you know, you have to make your product purchases, like, you know, it can’t just be, like, all…
99 00:10:27.410 ⇒ 00:10:43.169 Robert Tseng: just, like, really, you know, it’s all pretty, like, planned out, like, a year in advance. So… Yeah. I do think that, like, yeah, for the Ruggable role specifically, my focus was heavily on just, like, improving forecasts. So, my first directive going in was, like.
100 00:10:43.250 ⇒ 00:10:56.850 Robert Tseng: okay, we’re… our forecasts on our main, like, rug lines are, like, off by, like, 20%. Like, can we… can we bring it down under 10? And that was, like, the main directive I got. Just went in there and figured out how to do that. So, like, I…
101 00:10:56.850 ⇒ 00:11:00.300 Adam Frost: And that, and that’s super cool. I think, I think, we’re,
102 00:11:00.410 ⇒ 00:11:06.489 Adam Frost: we’re in a… one of the things I’m gonna be looking at at ShopTalk is some inventory management.
103 00:11:06.780 ⇒ 00:11:18.509 Adam Frost: Because the way we buy right now, we buy very… we’re very old school. They get in a room with some Excel spreadsheets, and I can’t tell you when a product’s sold out, I can’t tell you when half the size is sold out, you know.
104 00:11:18.690 ⇒ 00:11:22.960 Adam Frost: I have no… I have no… I sold… hey, I bought 1,000, I sold 1,000.
105 00:11:23.390 ⇒ 00:11:27.320 Robert Tseng: Yeah. But right now, we have no… we’re not doing anything to say, we should have sold.
106 00:11:28.020 ⇒ 00:11:45.740 Adam Frost: 1,500 if demand had stayed steady, or, you know, or 1,426, you know, we’re not getting granular at all in our… in our… in our… just in our… looking back at what we did in the past, or forecast for the future. We’re… so one of the things we are looking for when we go there is… is someone to help us with,
107 00:11:47.420 ⇒ 00:11:54.670 Adam Frost: inventory management, and now we’ve opened a warehouse in the UK, because, you know, with the tariffs in the US, we’re…
108 00:11:55.200 ⇒ 00:11:57.210 Adam Frost: reinvesting in the UK.
109 00:11:57.210 ⇒ 00:11:57.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
110 00:11:57.930 ⇒ 00:12:05.189 Adam Frost: And just having that warehouse just sucks, in the sense that I… just today, I forgot to
111 00:12:05.330 ⇒ 00:12:07.580 Adam Frost: split some POs.
112 00:12:08.190 ⇒ 00:12:08.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
113 00:12:08.630 ⇒ 00:12:18.339 Adam Frost: I forgot to… I just forgot to tell somebody, and so all of a sudden, I get all of my rainwater coming to Canada, and I have to ship it to the… I have to ship it back to the UK. I have to ship, like, 25% of it back to the UK.
114 00:12:18.580 ⇒ 00:12:20.899 Adam Frost: Yeah. So I’m paying for shipping twice, and it’s.
115 00:12:20.900 ⇒ 00:12:21.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
116 00:12:21.820 ⇒ 00:12:25.590 Adam Frost: You know, because we’re just doing things by the seat of our pants, so we need some kind of…
117 00:12:25.880 ⇒ 00:12:29.650 Adam Frost: I am looking for, like, some kind of software, some kind of partner that can help us.
118 00:12:29.750 ⇒ 00:12:39.559 Adam Frost: help us, on the… on the… on the forecasting and the buying. In terms of the marketing and using AI for marketing and whatnot,
119 00:12:39.680 ⇒ 00:12:42.820 Adam Frost: You know, you’re… a bunch of people reached out to us about this, and…
120 00:12:43.030 ⇒ 00:12:48.340 Adam Frost: And, you know, right now, most of our ad buy and stuff is all Google.
121 00:12:48.500 ⇒ 00:12:49.360 Adam Frost: Meta.
122 00:12:49.470 ⇒ 00:12:54.060 Adam Frost: You know, we’re not… that’s… You know, and I have a bunch of…
123 00:12:54.920 ⇒ 00:12:58.260 Adam Frost: you know, streaming TV, people calling me every day, and…
124 00:12:58.560 ⇒ 00:12:59.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
125 00:12:59.240 ⇒ 00:13:02.509 Adam Frost: And just… there’s just lots of people want to help me with it.
126 00:13:02.750 ⇒ 00:13:05.380 Adam Frost: I…
127 00:13:05.820 ⇒ 00:13:13.689 Adam Frost: Yeah, I don’t… I don’t know how AI would… would work into that. I don’t know how a consultancy would work into that. We’re… we brought… we…
128 00:13:13.920 ⇒ 00:13:18.110 Adam Frost: In March, we, we went from using an agency for most of our ad buying.
129 00:13:18.190 ⇒ 00:13:20.190 Robert Tseng: Yep. And brought it all in-house.
130 00:13:21.120 ⇒ 00:13:23.139 Adam Frost: And it’s going really well. I mean, we’re doing…
131 00:13:23.300 ⇒ 00:13:29.270 Adam Frost: you know, we’re doing great. We’re, you know, like I said, my biggest issue right now is inventory.
132 00:13:29.560 ⇒ 00:13:32.370 Adam Frost: But, sorry, so is your goal…
133 00:13:32.780 ⇒ 00:13:37.289 Adam Frost: to… when you’re at ShopTalk is to find more clients? Is that the, is that your.
134 00:13:37.290 ⇒ 00:13:46.230 Robert Tseng: I think I have two objectives. So, like, my business partner, who is not representing my… you know, he’s just gonna be there, and, like, he’ll be trying to, like, do the client acquisition. I think.
135 00:13:46.300 ⇒ 00:14:05.390 Robert Tseng: I’m also, like, there are some Eden-specific problems that I’m interested in solving, so for us, it’s more from, like, a lifecycle perspective. I think, you know, we use Customer I.O, and, like, we do a lot of activations. Like, I feel like I’ve built up all this great data. We have, like, a golden customer data set, anything you want to know about the customer journey.
136 00:14:05.390 ⇒ 00:14:09.859 Robert Tseng: I could… I could say, like, we’ve enriched it before we… the customers even purchase, like.
137 00:14:10.050 ⇒ 00:14:20.590 Robert Tseng: But then, I feel like our team’s not really utilizing it that well, and just using Customer I.O. to send out, like, some drip email campaigns is, like, not really cutting it. I feel like we’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
138 00:14:20.750 ⇒ 00:14:36.070 Robert Tseng: And we’re, like, a subscription, like, it’s GLP-1 supplements, and so, like, for us, like, the repeat purchases is really where we… where we break even after, like, two or three products, like, a first-time buyer is not gonna… not really gonna cut it for us, so… Right. I think that’s, like, the main directive that I’m…
139 00:14:36.070 ⇒ 00:14:45.549 Adam Frost: And why is that? Is that because you’re spending so much on the ad, advertising? The first… the first… you’re saying the first two orders, you’re… you’ve just broken even?
140 00:14:45.550 ⇒ 00:14:47.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah, broken even after the first awards, yeah.
141 00:14:47.480 ⇒ 00:14:55.040 Adam Frost: Okay. But it’s a subscription model, so you’re… you get people to sign up for, like, a 6-month or a year, they get a monthly shipment?
142 00:14:55.450 ⇒ 00:15:14.169 Robert Tseng: Yeah, exactly. We’ve kind of shifted now where I think it starts at quarterly, so… we kind of try to stack the deck in our favor, but… and you do need time for the results to work, but obviously, people cancel for whatever reason, like, maybe they switch medication after a month because they feel like it’s not working. There’s a lot of reasons why they don’t make it to the second… second month.
143 00:15:14.370 ⇒ 00:15:15.410 Adam Frost: Right.
144 00:15:15.460 ⇒ 00:15:23.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, I think just, like, wanting to figure out, like, how we can… how we can manage that part of the life cycle.
145 00:15:23.460 ⇒ 00:15:24.710 Adam Frost: Sure, sure.
146 00:15:24.710 ⇒ 00:15:25.550 Robert Tseng: My head is at.
147 00:15:25.840 ⇒ 00:15:30.329 Adam Frost: Yeah, we’re lucky in the sense that we make money on the first… on the first order.
148 00:15:30.630 ⇒ 00:15:34.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure your ads are… your ads are not as expensive as.
149 00:15:34.600 ⇒ 00:15:40.279 Adam Frost: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that’s the case. I think that’s the case. Yeah. Cool.
150 00:15:40.280 ⇒ 00:15:50.120 Robert Tseng: I’m curious, so, I mean, you’ve been… you’ve been doing this for a while. I guess, like, your role… I mean, I took a peek. You’ve been… you’ve kind of done every… every role in the company.
151 00:15:50.120 ⇒ 00:15:54.380 Adam Frost: Yeah, I’ve been really lucky. I’ve been really lucky, man. This is my first job out of college.
152 00:15:54.500 ⇒ 00:16:01.889 Adam Frost: Very cool. Like, 24 years later, I’m still doing it. Yeah. So I spent most of my career on the wholesale side, selling.
153 00:16:01.890 ⇒ 00:16:02.220 Robert Tseng: Okay.
154 00:16:02.220 ⇒ 00:16:05.130 Adam Frost: So, I ran our sales force,
155 00:16:05.570 ⇒ 00:16:08.370 Adam Frost: And, you know, that was back when…
156 00:16:08.500 ⇒ 00:16:11.190 Adam Frost: Wholesale is probably 75% of our business.
157 00:16:11.490 ⇒ 00:16:11.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
158 00:16:11.920 ⇒ 00:16:18.130 Adam Frost: And, and then, I think, 2017, 2018, they’re like, I was ready to do something different.
159 00:16:18.230 ⇒ 00:16:24.310 Adam Frost: But I love working here, I love… this is a great company. We… you know, I started, there was only 20 employees, you know, and…
160 00:16:24.600 ⇒ 00:16:29.710 Adam Frost: And it’s just been this little, you know, I had kids, my kids were the models, you know, like.
161 00:16:29.710 ⇒ 00:16:31.029 Robert Tseng: Yeah, love that.
162 00:16:31.030 ⇒ 00:16:37.450 Adam Frost: We did… and… and and so they… they… the three brothers that own the company asked me to take over the e-commerce side.
163 00:16:37.790 ⇒ 00:16:38.880 Robert Tseng: And so…
164 00:16:38.880 ⇒ 00:16:45.580 Adam Frost: Up until, like, 2 years ago, I was running both our wholesale and our e-commerce. And then, last year.
165 00:16:45.720 ⇒ 00:16:50.650 Adam Frost: Decided to just really focus on the e-commerce, because that’s where we saw Big growth potential.
166 00:16:50.650 ⇒ 00:16:52.000 Robert Tseng: That’s where all the growth is, yeah.
167 00:16:52.210 ⇒ 00:17:04.530 Adam Frost: Yeah, and so… and that’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s been super fun. I’m not technical at all, like, I don’t know how our ad campaigns work. I know… I know what I want to spend, and I know what I want to sell, and then…
168 00:17:04.920 ⇒ 00:17:07.410 Adam Frost: There’s people here that figure it out for me, but…
169 00:17:07.410 ⇒ 00:17:07.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
170 00:17:07.750 ⇒ 00:17:10.420 Adam Frost: And we have a great… you know, it’s just a…
171 00:17:10.790 ⇒ 00:17:18.489 Adam Frost: Anyway, I’m having a blast. We’re having a lot of fun. We had a little sugar high with COVID,
172 00:17:18.490 ⇒ 00:17:18.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
173 00:17:18.900 ⇒ 00:17:27.429 Adam Frost: almost every direct-to-consumer brand had a big sugar high. But we didn’t… we didn’t fall off too far from that… from where we were there.
174 00:17:27.430 ⇒ 00:17:27.770 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
175 00:17:27.770 ⇒ 00:17:30.140 Adam Frost: And now we’re just really bullish. I think we’re up…
176 00:17:30.320 ⇒ 00:17:32.520 Adam Frost: so far this year, we’re up 50%, so I’m…
177 00:17:33.210 ⇒ 00:17:36.040 Adam Frost: Feeling pretty good about where we’re at, and
178 00:17:36.530 ⇒ 00:17:48.580 Adam Frost: you know, it’s… it’s one of those things where the… a lot of my role is also shaping the size of the line, so… Yeah. This is how much we’re making, this is, you know, I need 4 more dresses, or I need 5 more…
179 00:17:48.750 ⇒ 00:17:55.970 Adam Frost: raincoats, or whatever the case may be. And, you know, just… Doing some mining…
180 00:17:56.260 ⇒ 00:18:00.010 Adam Frost: For wholesale, we can’t go back with the same product.
181 00:18:00.190 ⇒ 00:18:01.620 Adam Frost: Two seasons in a row.
182 00:18:01.870 ⇒ 00:18:02.410 Robert Tseng: Yep.
183 00:18:02.560 ⇒ 00:18:10.669 Adam Frost: One of the biggest things we’ve done in the past year is we’ve been mining our prior catalog to put up web promo, web-specific product.
184 00:18:10.980 ⇒ 00:18:16.909 Adam Frost: Because 50% of our customer base is… 50% of the people coming to the site are brand new every time.
185 00:18:17.810 ⇒ 00:18:18.190 Robert Tseng: Oh, wow.
186 00:18:18.190 ⇒ 00:18:19.299 Adam Frost: So, so… Okay.
187 00:18:19.590 ⇒ 00:18:20.340 Adam Frost: You know…
188 00:18:20.340 ⇒ 00:18:21.939 Robert Tseng: It’s good awareness that you have.
189 00:18:21.940 ⇒ 00:18:35.159 Adam Frost: They can see… yeah, they can see… they can see, you know, a bestseller from 3 years ago. Yeah. It’s still a bestseller for them, like, it’s still a great product, and so that way, I don’t have to design it again, I don’t have to…
190 00:18:35.420 ⇒ 00:18:42.300 Adam Frost: sample it again, I don’t… you know, and we’re getting to the point now where the website… used to be that in order to make our minimums.
191 00:18:43.010 ⇒ 00:18:48.180 Adam Frost: We needed web… we needed our e-commerce business, our retail business, and our wholesale business all to order it.
192 00:18:48.390 ⇒ 00:18:51.209 Adam Frost: It’s like we’re getting 300 or 400 pieces from each.
193 00:18:51.340 ⇒ 00:18:54.339 Adam Frost: Group, that got us through our 1,000-piece minimum order.
194 00:18:54.560 ⇒ 00:19:04.189 Adam Frost: But now the website’s almost to where it’s… it can… it can do its… it can do it by itself. We’re… we’re at the point now where we can do it with retail. We don’t need wholesale to do any of it.
195 00:19:04.310 ⇒ 00:19:13.460 Adam Frost: So, that’s really unlocked a lot for us, because we can expand the size of the catalog. Yeah. Expand the size of the offering, which gives us, you know, more inventory to play with.
196 00:19:14.050 ⇒ 00:19:14.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
197 00:19:14.970 ⇒ 00:19:15.910 Robert Tseng: Very cool.
198 00:19:15.990 ⇒ 00:19:17.170 Adam Frost: Yeah.
199 00:19:17.170 ⇒ 00:19:34.230 Robert Tseng: I guess an idea that came to mind on the inventory site… so, I mean, not for apparel, but actually, we… one of our early AI clients was Vital Coco. They were also running into, like, stock-out issues, pretty much, was the main thing. You know, they have… they don’t control their own distribution, they just put it everywhere, but they don’t really know, like.
200 00:19:34.620 ⇒ 00:19:40.290 Robert Tseng: By the time they get notice of, like, inventory is missing, it’s already too late, and it’s really, you know, there’s a big…
201 00:19:40.290 ⇒ 00:19:46.240 Adam Frost: I’m in that boat all the time, man. I mean, I was selling a ton of stuff on Amazon. We have Amazon Evergreen product.
202 00:19:46.350 ⇒ 00:19:50.590 Adam Frost: We got 3 peop… we got one person who manages our inventory, and if they miss it.
203 00:19:50.920 ⇒ 00:19:53.690 Adam Frost: It’s 4 months before we can get it back in stock.
204 00:19:54.040 ⇒ 00:19:54.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
205 00:19:54.650 ⇒ 00:19:57.600 Adam Frost: It’s like, if you don’t… I’m sorry. So that’s an issue.
206 00:19:58.510 ⇒ 00:20:17.149 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, no, I figured that that might be something that you’re facing. We built a really cool solution for them. It’s not that complicated, it’s just that we can identify faster than they can and their partners can, like, where the stock costs are happening, and I think AI has really enabled that. There’s just, like, you know.
207 00:20:17.150 ⇒ 00:20:28.310 Robert Tseng: it’s kind of like web… web crawlers on steroids. We just… we’re able to go and figure out, like, where all the stores they’re in, and we’re able to pull data from the webs, and also from other sources as well, on when
208 00:20:28.310 ⇒ 00:20:44.060 Robert Tseng: when the… when the stock costs are occurring, and alerting them, before, like, Target even tells Phytococo that they’re out of stock, and so they’re able to proactively go and send more shipment, so… I don’t even think… I don’t even think we need… we need that level of detail, like, we’re… I’m talking about just inside of our…
209 00:20:44.060 ⇒ 00:20:48.630 Adam Frost: our own loop, right? Our wholesale customers, we don’t, you know.
210 00:20:49.250 ⇒ 00:20:55.520 Adam Frost: you know, we… we don’t… I don’t really care about reshipping them. I care about… I really care about being able to… to…
211 00:20:55.680 ⇒ 00:21:01.380 Adam Frost: To fulfill the needs for the e-commerce site and the, Because…
212 00:21:01.760 ⇒ 00:21:10.470 Adam Frost: Because everything’s in fashion, most wholesalers, when they bought… boutiques and even department stores, they just want to sell through what they bought.
213 00:21:11.170 ⇒ 00:21:13.700 Adam Frost: They never come back and buy again.
214 00:21:14.310 ⇒ 00:21:15.110 Robert Tseng: Oh, interesting.
215 00:21:15.110 ⇒ 00:21:19.020 Adam Frost: You know, it’s not a… it’s not a product that’s… that’s… because they… they…
216 00:21:19.140 ⇒ 00:21:21.789 Adam Frost: They want to sell through so they can buy the next season.
217 00:21:22.210 ⇒ 00:21:22.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
218 00:21:22.880 ⇒ 00:21:24.949 Adam Frost: And they never want to see the same product twice.
219 00:21:25.060 ⇒ 00:21:40.589 Adam Frost: So it’s… it’s more, for me, for Stockhouse and stuff, it’s more, you know, we do, we do have, like, an evergreen line on Amazon, but then our own stores, our own, and it’s more about being able to forecast better the next… the next purchase season.
220 00:21:42.730 ⇒ 00:21:45.480 Robert Tseng: Okay. No, that’s, that’s, that’s good, that’s good to know.
221 00:21:46.770 ⇒ 00:21:54.440 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think I’ll noodle on that, and kind of, if everything comes up, I’ll let you know, kind of, things that I’ve seen that would be helpful.
222 00:21:55.070 ⇒ 00:21:55.800 Adam Frost: Cool, man.
223 00:21:56.370 ⇒ 00:21:59.429 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think I’m excited to be there.
224 00:21:59.430 ⇒ 00:22:04.030 Adam Frost: Are you doing anything fun at the, at the, at Shop Talk? Did you just sign up for any of the events?
225 00:22:04.270 ⇒ 00:22:06.629 Robert Tseng: We’re, we’re hosting a,
226 00:22:06.760 ⇒ 00:22:15.049 Robert Tseng: a, like, massage… like, a spa day on the first day. I don’t know if you have that evening, Bree, but I’ll send you an invite if you want.
227 00:22:15.050 ⇒ 00:22:19.230 Adam Frost: No, no, it’s not that, I was wondering if… because I thought you were going also as a… as a…
228 00:22:19.580 ⇒ 00:22:22.159 Adam Frost: as a, brand or retailer, I thought.
229 00:22:22.160 ⇒ 00:22:22.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
230 00:22:22.720 ⇒ 00:22:28.319 Adam Frost: Okay, so… I don’t know if you signed up for any of the, like, I think we’re doing, like, a boat cruise or something, and
231 00:22:28.830 ⇒ 00:22:33.669 Adam Frost: Going to a… I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d see at one of these… one of these mixers.
232 00:22:33.900 ⇒ 00:22:44.299 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah, I honestly haven’t been keeping too much careful track of the schedules. I mean, if there are things that I should sign up for, like, I totally should go… I’ll go back in and look at it.
233 00:22:44.300 ⇒ 00:22:47.749 Adam Frost: Oh, there was, like, a… I think we’re doing, like, a…
234 00:22:48.210 ⇒ 00:22:50.830 Adam Frost: Chicago, like, a White Sox game on Tuesday night.
235 00:22:51.300 ⇒ 00:22:51.890 Robert Tseng: Oh, great, alright.
236 00:22:51.890 ⇒ 00:22:52.969 Adam Frost: Somebody was hosting…
237 00:22:52.970 ⇒ 00:22:54.290 Robert Tseng: I’m flying on Wednesday, so I wouldn’t be able.
238 00:22:54.290 ⇒ 00:22:57.700 Adam Frost: Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah, anyway, well…
239 00:22:59.050 ⇒ 00:23:00.920 Adam Frost: Maybe I’ll see your… I’ll see you…
240 00:23:01.430 ⇒ 00:23:03.280 Adam Frost: At some point in the,
241 00:23:03.430 ⇒ 00:23:05.560 Adam Frost: In the aisle, now that I know what you look like.
242 00:23:05.830 ⇒ 00:23:06.510 Robert Tseng: Yes.
243 00:23:07.620 ⇒ 00:23:10.220 Robert Tseng: It’s only a couple thousand people, right?
244 00:23:10.220 ⇒ 00:23:10.720 Adam Frost: Yeah, yeah.
245 00:23:10.720 ⇒ 00:23:11.040 Robert Tseng: capacity.
246 00:23:11.040 ⇒ 00:23:12.940 Adam Frost: Yeah, exactly. It’s like college.
247 00:23:13.070 ⇒ 00:23:14.410 Adam Frost: Yeah.
248 00:23:15.000 ⇒ 00:23:16.020 Adam Frost: Alright, man.
249 00:23:16.020 ⇒ 00:23:16.670 Robert Tseng: Bill.
250 00:23:17.070 ⇒ 00:23:18.049 Adam Frost: Great talking to you.
251 00:23:18.050 ⇒ 00:23:22.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, good meeting you, Adam. Appreciate, appreciate, hopping on the call, and no worries.
252 00:23:22.550 ⇒ 00:23:23.320 Robert Tseng: DRF?
253 00:23:23.490 ⇒ 00:23:24.640 Adam Frost: Talk to you later. Bye.