This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Rob Fraser, Founder and CEO at endūr. Bootstrapping a business while creating his product category presented many initial challenges to Rob. He had to maintain several side jobs in the beginning to fund the initial $1,000 needed to start a Shopify account and order the first batch of socks. He then relied on word of mouth and the help of micro influencer friends to get his brand out there. By the third year, the company had already made $1 million in revenue and Rob had started paid acquisition too, but it was the shift to online business care of COVID that accelerated the growth of his business.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Ori Zohar, Co-Founder of Burlap and Barrel. Bootstrapping a spice business has its share of challenges, but Ori shares the innovative ways he kept the business profitable and how he grew acquisition with little to no investment. By creating an online forum and passionately posting even when there was no engagement, he laid a solid foundation for his community when super influencers started posting their own content, much to the delight of the community. Ori also discovered that creating an engaging buying experience for repeat customers is much better than trying to focus on bringing in new customers.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Tyler Sickmeyer, CEO of Fidelitas Development. Networking is key in PR, and nurturing the relationships with journalists and editors, gift wrapping everything for them so their job is as smooth as possible, is Tyler's secret sauce in getting his clients the exposure that they need to grow. By mixing the strengths of PR and SEO, Tyler is able to generate genuine interest when they release something on the wire and disavow bad links on the same day. This is another differentiating factor of their strategy by ensuring that their clients do not get penalized by Google.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Elaine Hsieh, Co-Founder of EH Chocolatier. What started as Elaine's passion for pastries made a natural progression to entrepreneurship. She shares how it all began and the challenges in scaling a business that relies on delicate shipping and storage. Elaine also goes into the best marketing for their business which utilizes newsletters and word of mouth.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Michael Epstein, CMO at PostPilot. In a clutter-filled world where brands compete intensely for attention, PostPilot leverages its strengths in direct mail to reach customers who actually want to receive mail from their favorite brands. Michael also shares how they use other innovative ideas and technologies to make mail personalized and even attractive to open—a stark contrast to junk mail which automatically goes to the bin without ever being opened.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Hansol Hong, Co-Founder of Robolink. Hansol shares how their product was first tested rigorously in an after school program which turned out to be an excellent strategy to ensure product market fit. Hansol shares how they utilized Kickstarter as a main marketing and sales channel and how PR worked for them because their product Zumi, a self-driving car education kit, received the CES 2019 Best of Innovation Award. Community is central in Robolink's success as their students and their parents became their first advocates and evangelists.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Drew Himel, Founder and CEO of PCR. He shares the genesis of his agency and the early days when they tried to serve any and all clients, and the eventual trimming down and focusing of their services. He shares how they improve conversions through simple tweaks in the interface, especially taking into account mobile versus desktop, by making it more intuitive and easier for customers to add to cart. Drew also shares his insights on subscription models and how sellers can put to rest customer concerns by making the option to unsubscribe easier, therefore making them stickier customers.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego showcases the season's best moments. We featured founders and organization movers who built their companies from the ground up as they shared their biggest wins, losses, and all the lessons they learned in between. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS Aneela Idnani, Co-Founder of HabitAware Ryan Smith, Head of Partnerships at Emotive Nathan Rothstein, Co-Founder of Project Repat Phillip Rivers, Founder and CEO of Tetra Marketing Melissa Tavss, Founder of Tipsy Scoop Laura and Kelly Moffat, Founders of Kirrin Finch Albert Matheny, CEO at Promix David Roger, Co-Founder & CEO at Felix Gray Gihan Amarasiriwardena, Co-Founder and President of Ministry of Supply Chris Meade, CEO and co-founder of CROSSNET You can connect with Zero to a Million's amazing guests in the links below: Aneela Idnani - https://habitaware.com/ Ryan Smith - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-rsmith/ Nathan Rothstein - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanrothstein/ Phillip Rivers - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emailautomation Melissa Tavss - https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-tavss-a3a55833/ Laura and Kelly Moffat - https://www.instagram.com/kirrinfinch/ Albert Matheny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertmatheny/ David Roger - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-roger-2a9b2632/ Gihan Amarasiriwardena - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gihanamarasiriwardena/

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Chris Meade, CEO and co-founder of CROSSNET. He recalls how they came up with the idea of a crossnet as a fun mashup of their favorite games and how they made up the rules as they played it. Chris shares their go-to-market strategy of just playing the game and their marketing strategies which leaned heavily on Facebook ads. One of their first main obstacles was their messaging as different people with literally different voices would speak to the market on various platforms differently. LinkedIn has also been massive in connecting Chris with people who he thinks are great fits for Crossnet. He shares the difficulties in finding a trusted and reliable PR agency to get eyeballs, and how they work today with Amazon agencies for PPC and others for Google and Facebook ads and email. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS Inventing Crossnet: The cross between four square and volleyball Going to market by demoing the game in Miami and word of mouth Marketing: Paid ads on Facebook and unifying brand message across platforms Finding true partnerships in PR, Amazon, Google ads, Facebook ads and email Connecting on LinkedIn Retail support and building communication with buyers QUOTES Chris: "Everyone talks about proof of concept and all this garbage. That was our proof of concept. We just played and we had fun and we're like, alright, let's get to work." Chris: "It's all about the messaging, making sure they're playing correctly because nobody wants to buy a product that they're playing terribly. It looks awful. It's all about getting them outside and actually playing and getting them to be a part of our community." Chris: "We never paid for press a day in our life. It was reaching out and being genuine. The best thing has been LinkedIn for us. I built up a very, very nice LinkedIn following. I love to read, I don't know about you, but I genuinely enjoy reading good entrepreneurial pieces." You can connect with Chris in the links below: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAAlGNrQBqj1pCKbD1o4lNdalsiF6Arb5rJs/ Website - https://www.crossnetgame.com/

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Gihan Amarasiriwardena, Co-Founder and President of Ministry of Supply. Today, Gihan shares how he and his brand fulfill the market desire for performance apparel that goes beyond the gym. Gihan wanted to create apparel that is not only versatile but comfortable and stylish as well. He shares that he and his co-founder, during the market research stage, even had a competition as to who can pack the least when they were traveling to prove the utility of their product. Shopify and Kickstarter have also been instrumental in the brand's success. Gihan shares how they launched on Kickstarter and the massive amount of work required before the launch could even happen. He also shares the dev work needed to make an enjoyable user experience on the site and how other brands should take note of its many features to tailor the experience according to their ideal customer profiles.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features David Roger, Co-Founder & CEO at Felix Gray. Blue light glasses address a very particular need which has been blowing up in recent years. David discovered this need for himself and, seeing how many of his peers complain of the same problem with strained eyes and headaches, saw the potential for a business to address this space. He shares how they went through their product development phases and the central importance of science and research-backed data. When 9 out of 10 respondents said there was a marked improvement after using Felix Gray glasses, they knew they had a winner. David shares how they started their acquisition through Facebook ads and how they started content collaboration via podcasting. There are a few unique characteristics with using podcasts as a marketing tool, including the fact that 30 second ad reads can extend much longer than that and put into context by the podcast hosts.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Albert Matheny, CEO at Promix. Creating a natural supplements nutrition brand was a natural evolution for Albert. He has been an athlete his entire life and has a keen understanding of the importance of nutrition in producing the best and most tangible results. Albert shares how he bootstraps his company and remains at the forefront in developing his brand and the products they offer. Albert admits that the brand was not able to leverage digital marketing channels like Facebook ads early, but he also shares the phenomenal growth they experienced in Amazon several years ago. He breaks down their go to market strategy and the success they've had with athletes acting as social proof for their brand. He and his brand also focus on education to instill in customers the knowledge of what to buy and for what purpose, mostly through social media.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Laura and Kelly Moffat, Founders of Kirrin Finch. Coming from non-fashion backgrounds was not a deterrent to Kirrin Finch's founders as they were determined to create high quality fashion for a specific segment of the market. Laura and Kelly leveraged several key strategies to ensure they have a viable product that will sell, like performing product and market research, creating an online presence pre-launch to create email lists, and joining an accelerator program to help them through product iterations and other challenges. The founders explain the reason behind their brand, which was to find suits for women to use on their wedding day. In the beginning, they focused on producing button-up shirts but eventually moved on the creating Italian-made suits, their main goal, which has now become their banner product. The brand has grown considerably in the past 5 years thanks to their savvy marketing, superior product, and community building. They share their biggest wins and most pressing challenges and future marketing campaigns which explore SMS marketing.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Melissa Tavss, Founder of Tipsy Scoop, a liquor-infused ice cream. Melissa shares the birth of her brand through a passion for ice cream. She began experimenting with alcohol and fell in love with the vanilla bean and bourbon flavor. Tipsy Scoop started as a pushcart then quickly grew to be included in supermarkets. Melissa shares the fantastic growth they have experienced online and the steps her marketing and revenue teams keep up with demand. Melissa shares that it was actually the push from social media which ushered in the creation of brick and mortar locations. Tipsy Scoop does heavy cross promotion to really make their different revenue streams work together.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Phillip Rivers, Founder and CEO of Tetra Marketing. Email marketing is critical to capture leads and create buyer personas for segmentation. It does not have to perfect and smaller companies should not shy away from starting this practice. Phillip also comments on the iOS changes to data tracking and mentions some metrics that can still be used to track the effectiveness of campaigns. That being said, companies still need to adapt to the changes. Stores that have revenues under 1 million should focus on how to convert more leads efficiently and look at repurchase rate to make one-time customers into a two-time or even repeat customer.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Nathan Rothstein, Co-Founder of Project Repat. It takes 700 gallons of water just to produce one t-shirt. This reality of wastage, combined with consumerist buying habits of shirts, results in massive environmental damage. Project Repat aims to reduce this damage by upcycling t-shirts into quilts. They have grown significantly since bootstrapping the business and Nathan shares some key learnings they made since starting. He shares how employee ownership of Project Repat helps create a successful brand and how they used Groupon as their go-to-market strategy. Nathan also shares how they leveraged Shopify as their main marketplace and continuously tinker with Facebook Ads to get in front of their target market. Finally, Nathan also stresses the importance of capturing email leads. For a company that sells a niche product, it is critical to nurture interested buyers over the course of a few months until they are finally ready to make a purchase.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Ryan Smith, Head of Partnerships at Emotive. The recent privacy updates to iOS14 meant that brands and marketers needed more intuitive ways to know what customers really want. This has led to the rise of SMS as the prime channel to engage with customers on a human-to-human level. Ryan provides suggestions of how brands can produce SMS lists but stresses that there is a need to be careful as blasting out one-way promos is simply outdated and can even ruin your brand image. With the upcoming changes to iOS15, even email data will be harder to track. Moving forward, brands need even better ways to capture data which necessitates even more genuine interaction with customers, such as gaining opt-in to SMS updates.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Aneela Idnani, Co-Founder at HabitAware. The reality of Trichotillomania was, for a very long time, kept under wraps by those afflicted by it. This hair-pulling disorder is commonly met with shame and hushed tones and the road to healing was never really apparent. Once Aneela discovered exactly what her condition was, she and her husband embarked on a journey to create a wearable device that acts as an alarm system to alert the user of the hair-pulling. As Trichotillomania is described as unconscious and done in a trance-like state, the alert system is effective in empowering the user to become aware and cease the behavior which is the cause of so much distress. Now HabitAware elevates the quality of life of tens of thousands of people across 70+ nations and also provides peer coaching calls.

This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Antoine Gagné, Founder & CEO at J7 Media. The release of iOS14 brought a massive change to the effectiveness of Facebook ads. By prompting users to opt out of data tracking, CPM numbers began to reflect inaccuracies which have severely affected companies depending on Facebook ads as their main line of business. This change brought to the forefront the necessity of integrating other channels to ensure profitability. Companies can also deploy creative ways to warm up audiences to them prior to Black Friday. This is now necessary to keep up with the new algorithm changes within Facebook because of iOS14. Antoine suggests investing in email databases and creating VIP lists.  To fully maximize the effect of video as an advertising medium, merchants can first use a test video shot on an iPhone as a proof of concept before investing huge amounts of money on succeeding iterations. You can connect with Antoine in the link below.LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoine-gagn%C3%A9-69a94366/HIGHLIGHTS 01:51 iOS14 opt out and greater mobility post-COVID dropped online shopping rates 05:37 CPM reflected inaccurate numbers, requiring companies to use other channels11:26 Strategies for companies to ensure profitability outside of Facebook ads16:24 Preparing for holiday sales with Facebook after iOS1420:48 Focusing not on the data lost but the data retained within Facebook23:17 Maximize returns on video advertisements by creating test videos first28:23 Strategy for urgency: Honest in your message based on historical data30:29 Connect with AntoineQUOTES09:15 "For a lot of companies at that specific moment, you need to explain to them, if you're only relying on Facebook ads to run your company, it's not sustainable. You need to be sure you have a big email list, an organic strategy, making sure that you're able to acquire customers on different channels."14:40 "If you're not spending enough time and enough money to build a real brand, I do think you could be in trouble in a couple of months, couple of years, because not it will be that easy anymore to just launch a business and then hope that you have a good funnel in Facebook and that's it."18:49 "Most of the time, 50% of the budget and sometimes even more will be spent between November 1st and November 26. So we warm up our audiences there. And what we do at this specific period of time, we spend on acquiring emails, creating what we call VIP lists."21:47 "The concept is you need to warm up your audience before the big day and, after that, you need to retarget these people but you're going to lose signals because of iOS14 so make sure that the audiences that you're building are built inside the Facebook platform."25:37 "The first video is done with an iPhone. As simple as that. Because with an iPhone, the video that will be created, we can test it in 24 hours and see if the concept is good. And if the concept is good, we go to another step and then we improve the quality of the production."Want to learn more about Unstack? Head on over to https://unstack.com

This week, VP of Sales and Marketing Zach Rego talks with Andrew Bialecki, CEO of Klaviyo about how you can use owned data to successfully scale ecommerce marketing.