Sarah Autry, Stephanie Peters and Garrett Peters, Duncan & Stone Paper Co.

Having a why to me, like Sarah said, it's super hard. So if you just have like this, "Hey, I wanna make some extra money on the side," well, I mean maybe, but like you have to have some sort of like, like why behind it to get you through the hard times and those years of just grinding.

We had somebody ask us, "If you put together your perfect work day, like you actually worked, like it wasn't like, 'I'm on a beach somewhere,' you know- Yeah

but like you really were working, like what would you w- want your day to look like from the start to the finish?" And one of the things that we said was we wanted to be able to drop our kids off at school and pick them up. Like, that was one of the things that we put in that rhythm that we really valued and wanted.

And the guy said to us, "If you don't change something in your life, you're gonna be no closer to that goal in 10 years than you are right now." And it was, it was harsh, but it was actually really true. Like, it was a thing that made us feel like, wow, we need to shift something and really look at like where we're investing our time, our money,

and like what our why is

We want to give a special thanks to our presenting sponsor, Greenwood Gearhart. Starting with my parents, for years they've helped my family feel at peace by having a team we can trust build our finances for the future. One thing I love about Greenwood Gearhart is how directly involved the team is in the holistic planning of our finances.

We can regularly check in with our advisor and know that they see the full picture of our family, even between generations. I know they're adding immense value to so many lives here in Northwest Arkansas. And to learn more about Greenwood Gearhart and their suite of services, you can visit their website at greenwoodgearhart.com or hit the link in the show description.

The Northwest Arkansas Founders Podcast is supported by Cushman & Wakefield Sage Partners. Sage is a full service commercial real estate firm helping companies, investors, and developers grow across Arkansas. I've personally seen them add immense value to so many business owners across the Northwest Arkansas market.

From office and industrial to retail and land, Sage helps businesses find the right space to grow in the state's most dynamic market. Learn more at sagepartners.com.

We

got

a full group this morning. Had the full Duncan & Stone team. Sarah, Stephanie, Garrett, thanks for coming on, uh, with Nick and I. Um, y'all's business, I think, is totally different than anything we've recorded so far.

So excited for everyone to just get a look in what it's like building a business on Amazon, um, Etsy, and I guess on your, your website as well too. Um, what would y'all tell someone to start off if you're building a new brand online, I mean, e- even more, more in particular on Amazon, what would you say?

Hmm, gosh, that's a har- hot start, Cameron.

I like that. Uh- We're gonna toss that to Dad. Yeah, toss that to Dad. Okay, you don't call me Dad on the show. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. Um- Yeah, we were tossing to Garrett ... I think that, I mean, we, when we started, we had the decision to start on Amazon. Like, that was, for better or worse, uh, you know, was, was the game plan back in the day, and I still think that's true.

Like, if I was gonna start an e-commerce company today, I think am- selling on Amazon, to me, is, like, just table

stakes of, like, an online business. Does everyone have to do that? Probably not, but, uh, it's still the number one platform, so it's like, why not?

How do you stand out, though?

Yeah. Uh, you have to have a registered brand, I mean, for sure.

So, uh, you know, we can go as deep as you want into that, some of that stuff. Yeah, I was gonna- So yeah, I mean, it's, it gives you a- certain access on, on that marketplace. And so having a registered brand gives you specific, like, content, ads, all sorts of different stuff that you wouldn't otherwise get if you weren't a registered brand.

So like, for us, we're in keepsake journals and giftable goods. There is competition, but not massively for like if you're doing a water bottle, for instance, right? So standing out to me is more about the category you're going into, and then within that, your content, your types of products you're gonna sell, all the branding, all that stuff, um, has to be done, like in a real meaningful way, I think, too.

And Amazon gives great support. I mean, they have

an accelerator program that we got involved in really early. Mm-hmm. Which basically allowed us to become a r- a registered brand while we were getting all of our paperwork and all of the-

Mm-hmm ...

like the laws, like the... We met with a lawyer through them. Yeah.

And so they did a really good job connecting us to the law firm that we needed, um, allowing us to become a registered brand before it was technically s- like signed, sealed, stamped. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and so they, they do a good job as like, as partnering with small businesses to help them with that. Yeah.

And so the accelerated program can help somebody be- become on the platform like they are already registered- Mm-hmm ... before all the paperwork is done.

Yeah.

So one of the, and I don't watch much TV, but I have watched Shark Tank. Mm-hmm. And one of the, the things that people always talk about on Shark Tank is when you launch a product on Amazon, the biggest issue is duplicates or dupes or whatever.

Has that been an im- Has that impacted you guys? Or does the category kind of shelter some of that? Does the accelerator program- Yeah ... working with Amazon legal

team help with some of that? I mean, talk, talk a little bit about that.

That's a good one. Yeah. Do you wanna jump in on this a little bit?

Well, uh- I can too

yeah, I mean, it's definitely an issue. 12 to 18 months of us releasing a new product, it starts climbing the charts, we're gonna start seeing copycats popping up. Amazon's helpful with us being able to ping that and, like, have them work on trademark infringement. We also have worked with our lawyers to make sure that we're getting copyrights because we really don't have any power until we do that.

Um, I mean, depending on the product that someone is selling, that's also part of the issue is how copyrightable is the thing that you are making. So we've been intentional, even in the design of our journals, of how can we make this unique enough that we can do a copyright and it's not just so generic that we have no power to protect it.

Yeah. There- There is a lot of protection, though

It is a whack-a-mole game. I mean, you knock one down, another one pops up. Yeah, it keeps going. And then they- Yeah ... run their ads against ours and, like, they'll run an ad against a, like a, a high-selling product of ours that they've duplicated. And so you can see, like, the sponsor whenever you Google some- You know, or, sorry,

not Google, but you look up something on Amazon, and you see the listing and then you see a sponsorship ad attached to that.

So it's like they can do things to kind of, like, piggyback off of our design and success. And so- They'll

launch at half the price.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Run all their ads- And they'll cut the price ... so people see it side by side, and then they get a bunch of terrible reviews because the quality's bad. But at that point, they've made the money that they wanted and- Yeah, yeah

then they start, then they'll start a new Amazon storefront- Yeah ... sell it under a different brand name. What we've seen- Though even w- what's been crazy is with the copycats, we've even had people steal our brand's story. So the background of how our business launched was Stephanie and I are best friends, we were both stay-at-home moms working with our kids, and went, "You know what?

We don't see any baby books out there that aren't either super cheesy or, like, crazy expensive. So what would we design? Like, what would we want to have?" And so we literally started our business by drawing in sidewalk chalk while our kids ran around playing. We doodled. Mm-hmm. What would this product look like?

Um, and so we have that, our, all our story, like, on our website, and some of the Amazon

copycats are literally like, you know, like, "Sally and Susie, best friends who were moms" and I'm like, "This is literally my life. You didn't just take my product." Like, this is like a Lifetime movie. It's a Lifetime

movie.

Yeah. Isn't that wild? That's happened multiple times. A- and we've tracked them down even and reached out to them. Most of them are, a handful of them are always, like, Chinese compa- Like that.

Now they're gonna have AI movies to go along with that. Oh my gosh. There's- Seriously? It's gonna be real. Talk about the origin story.

Garrett was still working full time, and, and Stephanie and were home, and I was trying to figure out how to do a side hustle to make some extra money. So I started a stationary business and was selling invitations on Etsy- Yeah ... for like baby showers, wedding showers, that kind of stuff. Yeah. And one of the products that I was making, um, were some pregnancy prayer cards where you could see the development of your baby and how you can pray for them as they're growing.

And Stephanie was like, "This could really be a big deal. Like, you could really sell these." I was putting them together by hand in my living room. Oh, wow. And I was- I was like, "

Why are you not hanging out

with me? Why are you doing that?" "Stop doing that." Yeah. All of my like- "There's kids in the kitchen that need help."

Yes. So, and I was like, "Listen, I hear you. I can't keep them in stock," but, like, I have zero interest in business. I just like the creative side of things. And so basically Stephanie stepped in and was like, "What if I help with that side?" 'Cause she is for sure the entrepreneur. Um, Garrett is, too. I'm just the, like, let me make pretty things and hang out.

But okay, so you jump in of like what, where was your head at whenever we were launching

what happened? Yeah. So I was just kind of watching and being like, "I think this can be something." And then we're all for, 'cause Garland, her husband, um, is one of, you know, one of our business partners as well, even though he's not here.

He's like the unspoken fourth.

Shout out, Garland. He just does finance. He's boring. Yeah. And

we don't- He's a, you can't rate him ... we actually, we actually don't want him to come to

anything, so. Anyways, but we would have conversations over dinner and things, and we were like, "You know, I think that this could be something."

The more that we talked about it, Garland saw the vision of it as well. And I would just continually encourage, but

whenever Sarah's youngest daughter had a really massive seizure and was m- air flighted down to, um, Children's in Little Rock, and I knew what was happening financially, and I was looking at this, like, option for a business, and I was like, "Guys," like, you know, "what's happening?

How can we help you guys?" And so Garrett and I actually talked about, like, what would it look like to help them financially with their medical bills? Because at the time I was in real estate, I had just finished a land development, and I was like, so I don't... We kind of put a check in our wallet, talked about it, prayed about it, and- Lo and behold, what happened was, was, um, I got connected to this thing called Paper Camp.

It was like this random thing out in LA, and I was like, "I think that this could help us start a business." I mean, just like random. Um-

It's

like a stationary conference ... it's a sta- but it was like, I think the biggest piece of what happened with this was, is that we ended up getting, um, a scholarship to be able to go to this thing, and I talked Sarah into going.

And you know, so we go out to LA and do

this weekend. But what came of it was we had to come up with a company name. We spent money on a company that did not exist. Yeah. We had to come up with a year plan. And it was like things that made it real, and I think that that might have been the biggest, like, we're gonna go do this thing.

Mm-hmm. Because we just spent money that was- Flying out to LA ... flying out to LA, and like learning about this indust- like, and it really, it wasn't a lot about what we learned from that weekend or that time there. It was about the fact that we had to put, like, boots on the ground to make that money back. It made it real.

Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.

Um, and so it was something so small, but in the end I look back and it really pushed us over the edge to like, we have to now do something. Yeah. And so it just made it kind of come to life.

And when did journals, were that was... 'Cause stationary journals, when did that transition happen?

Yeah, it was actually at that weekend that we got really great peer review feedback- Yeah

that kind of shifted, I think, the product model.

Yeah, we had taken that original concept and basically went, "We're moms.

We know what we'll spend money on, and it's our kids. So how do we tap into this market share?" And basically, um, started brainstorming and went, "This could be a whole thing. You know, why just stop with babies?

What about couples with weddings or people who wanna travel and are big on vacation?" Um, so that was all fall of 2019 that we went and did that, and I got to work designing all the journals and figuring out, um, Stephanie was working on figuring out how to find production partners. And, uh, we launched officially, we had our first printed product, uh, here in our hands in February of 2020.

Wow. And we were so excited. We launched on Amazon- ... and Stephanie's mom was our first customer. We had to make sure that our shopping cart worked. We were making sure that it, like- Yeah ... everything actually went through.

Please click

this link. Please click this link. Yeah, yeah. Did, did you actually get a purchase?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Did we see it on- And leave a review when you're done. Yeah. Thanks, Mom.

Speaker 6: Oh,

my gosh. Um, so we were super excited, and then the world shut down like two weeks later. Stephanie and I instantly became not only

new business owners, but, uh, had two little kids at home and were now homeschooling kindergartners as well.

So it was a chaotic time, and we were... There was panic for sure, 'cause obviously nobody knew what was gonna happen with the pandemic, and is anyone gonna buy anything? And it actually ended up working super well for us because everyone went, "I'm stuck at home. Why don't I just finally fill out that baby book I've been putting off for two years?"

Yeah. So it actually kind of- took off in a way that we could have never imagined. Thanks to COVID? We can't say thanks to COVID for anything. Yeah. But it was a helpful- Yeah ... turning point for us. Well,

I, I think a huge shift that happened was you were so dependent upon your Etsy business. Mm-hmm. It was like that was a lifeline.

And so whenever invitations disappeared because there was no events to make invitations for- Yeah ... it was like, "Hey, we have to make this into Duncan & Stone." Yeah. And so Oh Happiness Cards, which was our E- her Etsy business, changed the front, the head- basically the name of the company, but kept all the reviews, kept all the history of, like...

So as soon as

Duncan & Stone's product went live on Etsy, it looked like we had years of history- Oh. To be trusted ... to be a

trusted brand.

Yeah. Yes. It was like we were a trusted brand already because what you had built previously. Mm-hmm. And we just kinda got to ride behind it, and I think that kinda helped.

Mm-hmm. It for sure helped our Etsy business take off quickly. Yeah.

And what do you say to a mom or parent who's, wants to do the side hustle thing?

Good luck. Um, I mean, I think obviously it's very hard, and there was a piece of it for sure that's like a mental resilience of knowing this is gonna be my nap times- Yeah

my night times, and my weekends. Yeah. Um, and having... I think we all had an attitude of like, "You can do anything for a short amount of time." Mm-hmm. Um, and we had conversations specifically amongst ourselves before we even signed paperwork and launched of like, "Let's protect our friendships. What does this look like?

How do we have boundaries?" And I think we've done actually a good job with our friendships. Mm. At the beginning, probably not a great job with

our time management of like business versus home or family. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was the harder one, because- Mm ... when something starts rolling, and like Stephanie said, when you have so much on the line for it to be successful- Yeah

we couldn't turn our brains off of the business. Like, so we had to even be intentional when we would get together as families and have dinner to be like, "Hey, so while we eat, let's not talk about Duncan." Like, what else are we doing with our lives? Yeah. Even though it's maybe not much, but like- Yeah ... what else can we talk about?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just doing the next right thing in front of you. We could have never sketched out in 2019 or 2020, "Here's what this is gonna look like." Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, we, we had no concept. I w- If, if you'd a told me that we were sitting here then, I would've been like, "That's hysterical."

I was gonna say, we actually did sketch it out.

Yeah. Before.

So talk, but it's like, talk about that, and it's like nothing of where we are was on that original business plan- Yeah ... which is on a cardboard of an air fryer box. That was our first year. Simple

as that, yeah. That was our fir- Yeah ... our first year-

Yes ...

first year goal. Yeah. But I mean, you just can't even

imagine, like, what it could be.

And so I think that the biggest piece that I look back, I'm like, we just kept doing the next thing in front of us. Mm-hmm. Right. Like the n- like the next, like, okay, we need to fix this thing on Amazon. Okay, we need to update this listing. Mm. Like, we need to, like, figure out a streamline for fulfillment, 'cause it's killing us.

It's sitting in our garage, and we wake up and go to sleep looking at it. People are like, "What show are you watching? What book are you..." I'm like, "I'm not watching any shows or reading any books. I'm, we're building a company that is, like, always in front of us." Um, and that, that's not forever, but it was for sure in the beginning.

Yeah, I mean, I have, I think that what you guys said is perfect. Um-

Thanks,

G ... I, so I don't have anything else to add, but I will add some stuff. No, I think that, like, having a why to me of like why are you doing, for the mom that wants to start a side hustle, or dad, like Sarah said, it's super hard. So if you just have like this, "Hey, I wanna make some extra money on the side," well, I

mean, maybe.

But like you have to have some sort of like, like why behind it to get you through the hard times and those years of just grinding. 'Cause it's like that's why mostly small businesses don't make it. It's like after a few years, you're like, "God, I can't do this."

It's still hard.

It's still hard after years.

And so if you don't have that, it's like, and you're always having to reevaluate what that is and, and, and get it right, it's, that has to sustain it underneath in order to, like, build something.

Yeah. I mean, that might've been the, the biggest push that happened with us before Duncan & Stone was in 20, like, 16.

We had somebody ask us, "If you put together your perfect work day," like you actually worked, like it wasn't like, "I'm on a beach somewhere," you know? Yeah. "But like you really were working, like what would you w- want your day to look like from the start to the finish?" And one of the things that we said was we wanted to be able to drop our kids off at school and pick them up.

Like, that was one of the things that we put in that rhythm

that we really valued and wanted. And the guy said to us, "If you don't change something in your life, you're gonna be no closer to that goal in 10 years than you are right now." And it was, it was harsh, but it was actually really true. Like, it was a thing that made us be like, "Wow, we need to shift something- Mm-hmm

and really look at, like, where we're investing our time, our money, and like what our why is- Yeah ... and really clarify that so like the goal is just really clear. Mm-hmm. And so I don't know, I just think it's really important what he said. Yeah. I just wanted to echo behind that- Yeah ... 'cause I think that as a young entrepreneur, like that is maybe founda- and that's the most foundational question to answer.

Yeah. Where'd the name come from?

Ooh.

How'd you do that?

So when we were brainstorming, um, we threw out a bunch of things. Garrett threw out a bunch of major duds- ... that we nixed immediately.

Real bad.

Which keep in mind- Real bad names ... we're marketing to a majority female audience. So, like, you weren't really, you didn't have the- Oh, I'm-

you know, head space to- Not my gifting ... to understand

us ... not my

gifting. Um,

but we basically went back to the idea of the whole concept behind this business was our friendship and what community meant to us, and Stephanie stepping in, and Garrett. Mm. Whenever we were having such a challenging time as a family, and just talking, you know, our whole brand is built on relationships and preserving memories.

So Stephanie and I actually met working at a nonprofit here in Fayetteville, and that nonprofit sits on the corner of Duncan Avenue and Stone Street. And so we thought, "Why not just name the business after where our friendship first started?" And I made them add Paper Co. because Duncan & Stone sounds like a law firm.

So here we go.

That's funny.

That's good. Talk about the beginning. So y'all went to the conference. Uh, you came back. You had the idea. You already had the Etsy shop. How, were you guy- I mean, how much money did you spend on goods? I, I don't even know. Yeah. I don't know how to manufacture- Yeah ... a, a, a- Yeah

paper product. Like, are you, do you have to order minimum quantity? Just talk about, like,

what it actually looked like launching it.

Do you want to jump in on that?

Yeah, I mean, Garrett, I think part, too, of, like, one of the things of, around Northwest Arkansas is just the connection of people. And so Garrett had an amazing...

I mean, he's just a connector of people, and that gift that he has and then the community that we live in, we got to, we got a connection to a manufacturer in China that we could trust, which was a huge deal because-

Through, through another-

Through another company ... uh, journal-

Yeah ... stationery company.

Company gave us their manufacturer, and that was huge because whenever you make that purchase, it's a huge amount, it's a large amount of money. I think our first order was, like, $30,000, and we had to wire that money. So once that money's gone, it's gone. It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. And at the time, we weren't... You know, you can't go get a, at...

We didn't go get a loan. Mm-hmm, yeah, no loan. We were like, "Okay," like, we took the money that we had made from this land development. We're like, "We're just gonna just roll it forward into this company, and please, Lord, let these journals sell." I mean, like... And so we wired the money through. We made, we got three pallets of inventory in, and it was delivered to our

house in the, in a big truck.

I think our neighbors kept being like, "What is happening?"

You always had to get the one with the f- you, it wasn't, like, back in- With the lift gate ... you had to have a lift gate. You had to get a lift

gate, you know, because-

Bring it to the ground, my friend. We're

rolling it in the garage. We're rolling it in.

We had a pallet jack in our garage- Yeah. Oh, yeah ... to move inventory around- Oh, yeah ... because it was like a puzzle the more that it gr- because we went from three pallets, and we end up having, at one point, I think, like, 15 pallets in our garage- Yeah, it was ... of inventory, and, like, we just parked outside and, um, ran ShipStation right from our garage.

So a couple things, like, we, we spent many months researching that, the manufacturing side, how to source products. Not only designing it, but then getting it into the right files that they need. Sara had to learn all sorts of stuff over the years on specs and art files and this stuff. Sh- and so we, we didn't know what we were doing, let me be very clear.

Like, we had no idea what we were doing at the time. And we just, like Stephanie said

earlier, we found a connection to this one guy who's like, "Oh, man, I get to spend time with him. He's gonna give me this connection. I'm gonna go to this next thing and figure out what the heck to do." At the same time, asked my friends that wr- knew Amazon, "Hey, what do we do on Amazon?

Give me the game plan, guy. You know, like, let's do it." And so then we were just... Like, all these little things started kinda working together. Um, but we found, we knew we wanted to build a business that we made money on, and so- We found a manufacturer overseas 'cause for our cost of goods, and it's like the w- the minimums were, like they helped us out for sure.

Mm. But I think at the time it was probably 500, or, i- a very low quantity for what I thought what it was gonna be. Now much more expensive initially, so that was the problem w- for us early on, was like cash flow issues. 'Cause it's like, "Oh, shoot. These journals are freaking... This is too expensive. How are we gonna start a business with this?"

Mm-hmm. Um, but we just put,

we all put money in, and we just said, "Hey. We're gonna, we're gonna see if this works." Like, it's a risk. It's a calculated risk, but it's still a risk, 'cause there's money involved, and- Mm. But we're gonna see if it works.

Yeah. I think it, it was in that same 20, the 2020. That, this is when all this is happening is 2020.

So at the end of... The, the, the year's really steady, but it would be like, I would send a picture of like what I was putting in the USPS box on my front porch. It was like, "We did five journals today, guys. Good job." You know, like Yeah. I mean, but we just kept celebrating. Like, the boxes start getting more full every day, and I'm like- Yeah

"Oh my gosh, this is kinda crazy. We might need two boxes." You know? Yeah. And then, and then Christmas came of 2020, and the windfall came of Christmas- Mm ... and we're like, "Okay, wow." Mm-hmm. Like, our goal was to sell 10,000 journals that first year, and we did it. Yeah. And it was because of that quarter four. And so we went into the, you know, we're circling into 2021.

We just came out of Christmas, and we saw what happened in, in that Christmas. Yeah. And I'm

over here forecasting. Someone who's never forecasted in their life.

Nic, she's forecasting the business, okay?

Which is hysterical-

No business background ...

because no business background.

No- No

finance ... I didn't even, d- I didn't even know how to work Excel-

when it ever started. I literally was like, "Hey, Garrett. How do you write- How do you- ... a formula in this?" Like, it was like the biggest joke. I don't like computers. I, like anytime that I'm mad in the kitchen he's like, "What's wrong?" I was like, "Something's wrong with my computer." Like, I hate it. Very,

very techy.

So if, if I can s- if I can help build an e-commerce company, anybody can. Anyway, so I'm like forecasting. We'd just come out of Christmas break. It was the start of 2021, and Garrett at the time is working a full-time job from our house. Yeah. And, and he's like, I c- he walked into the kitchen. He was like, "Both my eyes are twitching.

I'm so stressed." He's like, "Something has to give." He's like, "I'm working full time on our company all night and any break I have during the day. I'm working full time on a company for Up North, and like something has to give." And I'm like looking at all the numbers, and I just look up, and I

shut my computer.

And I was like, "I think you need to go quit your job." He was like, "We don't get paid from this company. What are you talking about?" And I was like, "Well, if something has to give, it can't be Duncan and Stone. So I think that you need to put in your two-week notice." And he was like, "Like, when?" I was like, "Like, today."

Like today.

And I was like, "Listen- Listen ... we have enough in savings. We can make this work for, like, six to eight months, and if it doesn't work, then you can go back inside of, you know, what you've been- Supplier ... in supplier chain here, and you can find a job. You're well-connected. You have great history. And like, let's just see."

And so he's like, "I'm gonna go talk to a friend." So he phones Jordan Wright. Jordan. And I'm like- The man on the... Yes ... out of all the people. Oh, Jordan. And then Jordan immediately, he's like... He's a wild man, you know? And he's, he's basically like, "Sounds like great."

Sounds great. You should saw- Get it ... he's like, "Do it, bro"

jump over here in the entrepreneur world with me. You know, he's like, "Come play pickleball and hang out." And Garrett's like, "I mean-"

Yeah, that's what, that's what we do.

Just- Sure. Yeah ... I was kidding. That was just a joke. Um,

that's not what they do. I know. Sometimes. Sometimes. Just ... But I mean, but it was actually that evening we went to the Autrys' house, and we were like, "Hey, here's what we're thinking."

And they're like, "This is amazing. We get a CEO for free." 'Cause like we can't pay you. Yeah. Come on. We're like, "Where do we sign?"

Yeah. Are you sure, Garrett? Is it-

That was, what was really cool though, in 2021, that was like a turning point for our company, for Garrett to step away, us to take the leap of, like, let's do this.

We're gonna go all in and just see if we can really grow this thing. Um, but as the end of 2021 came and we got the one fall of Christmas, we actually ended up making the same that year as if you were in your full-time job. Mm-hmm. Which was, like- Great ... wild because we were just living on faith, to be honest- Yeah

most of that year because we just see such a big quarter four. Yeah. And so we were just, like, hopeful that it was gonna come. Mm-hmm. So.

How do you prepare for that in your industry? If you have to buy, you have to order these, I don't know how long- Mm ... books take to ship in from China. I don't know how long the manufacturing piece

takes, but if you're forecasting 20,000 books, and then you have orders for 80,000 books.

How does that actually work? I mean-

Well, I'll tell you how it works. Honestly, it's you run out of product every Christmas- Mm ... for many years- Mm ... is what we did. So if you're listening to this, don't call us for forecasting advice. It's very hard, dude. I mean, it... The reality is we, we didn't know. We didn't know how to exactly forecast, and no one does.

You know? But, but we would run out of our legacy journal for every year for a couple years. Mm. And that was our best item during the holidays. Now, what ended up happening is, for us, we're like at probably 2023 maybe-ish, maybe a little bit before. We were like, "We gotta... We're going all in on some of these hero items."

Mm. "And we're gonna order way more than we think and just see what happens." And so then we just kind of got ahead of it a

little bit as far as, like, just course, you know, holiday sales. Mm. Um, but it's hard. I mean, once you have... Thankfully now we have data, we have, like, history, and, like, all of that, which is helpful.

But early on, it's just- You're out of the dark ... you're, you're just throwing darts. Yeah. You're guessing.

Well, I would also add to your point earlier about the cashflow. When you're a new company and you're not making any profit, and it's quarter one- Mm ... and you're thinking forward to quarter four, but you haven't made enough money to buy the inventory.

You know, it f- it was like- Yeah ... that was part of why- Totally ... it took us until 2023 to have enough cushion, we felt like, to go, "We can place these- Yes ... mega orders- Yeah ... and still get through quarters one through three, and operate- That's true ... and pay ourselves," you know? That's true. Yeah. But it took us a while- Yeah

to

get there.

100%. And that was our, when... That was probably about the time we got a line of credit, uh, with the local bank, and which we use for inventory now. And so we finally were able to get that in place and make bigger orders- Mm ... to get out ahead of it from just inventory standpoint. Which

is also is a connection piece.

Yeah. Yeah, a neighbor

of, neighbor friend of ours- Mm ... which was super helpful.

And the way that, yeah, he structured that loan for us, we... I didn't realize it until maybe a year after that we wouldn't- He helped us out ... that. Yeah. Just the way that it was the relationships, the trust. Mm. Yeah. Like, the community piece of, like, because of all of those things, he structured the loan for us, 'cause he, he's like, "I know I can trust you guys.

I've, I've watched the way that you live above reproach and with, like-

Mm-hmm.

Yeah ... um, with holding high value to things." And so but they structured the loan in a way that allowed us to, to draw more money that we needed to get the inventory that we needed to have it there for quarter

four. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on the spot, but let's see if you, if you've got this memorized.

How many pallets do you think we ordered year one versus what we will end up ordering for 2026?

I think, I think year one we- Ballpark ... had, we prob- I mean, we sold 10,000 units. That was 10 pallets. There are about 1,000 units on a pallet. And then this year

we will sell around 200,000 units this year, so 200 pallets.

That's cool. And about, and about 40 pallets, no, 32 pallets fit in a 40-foot container. So that kind of gives you an idea of shipping containers. Like- Yeah ... 32 fit in a container. We're-

We order, like, four or five times a year now.

So- In theory, knock on wood, this will be our Christmas that we say it's not complete.

That we sell it's not. But we always say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And the hard part is you never know what's gonna take off, you know? Yeah. So we launch new products all the time, and sometimes things sell out within, you know, four, six weeks because we- Yeah ... had no idea it was gonna be... We hope, but anyway, so it's, it's, you can't always do it.

Yeah.

And Sara, you're driving the new, like, the product creation that's-

Mm-hmm. She- Yeah. I do all the product development. Anything creative falls under my banner. So when we first launched the company, I was shooting all of our product photography, I was doing all of our marketing ads, all of our website design.

Again, not something I was trained in, but we were just, you know, playing around with it. Uh, yeah. But product development is definitely the thing that I get most excited about.

Um-

How often do you have to do n- like, a new product? What is the, what's the life cycle there?

So we usually launch anywhere between three to six new products a year, depending on what we're doing, depending on what they'll let me do.

I'm always like- ... "What if we launch 20 things?" And they're like- Nope ... "That costs money, and also it's a headache to have a bunch more SKUs." Um, but yeah. So I try to stay, you know, six, eight months ahead. This is my first year that I already have my products done for the beginning of next year. Wow. Wow. I know.

Come on. So- Let's go ... usually I'm scrambling to the last minute, emailing back and forth with our manufacturer, being like, "I'm almost done, I promise." Um, but it helps having all of our kids in school now, so I can do it a little easier.

That's awesome.

So what do you tell someone who's, like, starting a business with their best friends?

Like- Yeah ... you were talking about boundaries earlier. Like, or not, I'm not, b- bound- boundary may not be the word, but, like, how you just- No, that's good ... make sure you're not enemies- Yeah ... in six

months. Yeah, I think there's, I mean, wisdom, you

know, feedback, guidance are all helpful things as you're considering that.

Like, for... And we can speak to our experience about it. I think, uh, most people we talked to back in 2019, probably the majority, said it, "Don't do it," in a roundabout way. Like, "It's not worth it. It's concerning," da, da, da, da. Now, clearly we didn't-

We talked to people who had done it- Yeah ... and it ruined their friendships.

Yeah. They were like, "You don't wanna do this."

Yeah.

We're like, "Well, we kinda do."

We kinda do wanna do that. Uh, so clearly, we- we- we didn't take that advice. Just, and- and, but the way that we did it, and part of that feedback was, "Hey, structure it the right way. Don't... If you're gonna start a business, go formalize that business- Yeah

and put it together appropriately," and we did that in 2019. Like, before we even had a product, we did all that on the front end, I think, which was super helpful for us to, like, clearly, like, clarity is key. You know, like, here's the structure. Here's what's going on. Here's

everyone's ownership.

Yeah. Um- And y- you know, tell them, like, what that looked like structure-wise, ownership-wise for

the- For like the S corp and all that stuff?

Yeah. Yeah, we started S corp. I mean, um, we have four owners of the business 52 percenters. 52%.

Okay.

So,

so the women are 50- Okay ... we own 52% of the company. Yeah. Yeah. The guys own 48.

I work for them. I work for them, for sure.

We'll allow it.

Yeah.

So one, one thing that we did was we structured the shares where we kind of went in saying, "We're gonna be 50% owners."

It was very clear on what that meant. Um, because if we didn't do that before, it can get really sticky over money. Mm-hmm. But if everyone knows before we even made any money exactly what we're gonna get split, it just kind of helps- Mm ... having that clarity. Yeah, that's not great. It's not great. Yeah. Right?

And then the other side of it was like, what do we want this to look like? What's our goal with the company? Mm. So we were having these conversations before company even really existed. Mm-hmm. Um, and then the shareholders, I mean, making sure that the, everything's split evenly.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Sarah.

Well, I was just gonna say, I think it's,

it would be really important if you're considering it, we did sit down and we said to each other, "Our friendship is more important than the business." Mm-hmm. "So how are we gonna prioritize being friends and not just co-owners?" Yeah. And so we really did, truly, we would have dinners together and be like, "We're not gonna talk about it.

Nobody bring it up," even though we were all dying to talk about it. Um, because we didn't just wanna become coworkers. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then I think the other thing that was really important, um, it helped that we all have kind of different giftings and, but we have really given each other high trust to stay in our own lanes, and trust that the other people are doing their thing.

Yeah. Garrett and I's jobs, our roles don't have a lot of cross- We work together, but in terms of, like, tasks- Yeah ... completely opposite ends of the business, and I don't know a lot of what he... I mean, I know what he's doing, but I don't understand it- Yeah ... and vice versa, and I just trust that he's gonna be able to do that.

Yeah. I also don't know how to work Excel. So- ... you know, it's just be- looking at your people and going, "I'm not gonna

micromanage. I have to have really high trust that you're gonna be successful, and I'm just gonna mind my business in my part- Yeah ... of the business."

Yeah. And assume the best of, of your coworkers.

Like, anytime something comes up and you sense, like, I've, I've learned to quickly lean in and go, "Hey, something feels off. Did I miss something? Did I hurt your feelings?" Mm-hmm. Like, I'm really s- And, like, being quick to apologize, having humility to go, "Hey, I realize that that tone came out very passive-aggressive.

Like, I'm sorry that I said it that way." Yeah. And, like, just being really quick to apologize. Yeah. Yeah. Um, leaning in and just making sure, like, if there's any type of friction or tension, that you just address it quick- Address it. Yeah ... instead of letting it linger and build until it explodes.

Well, one of the things I admire- It's-

Seriously.

Yeah. One of the things I admire about y'all is you're the first people we've had on that have no office space, and there's truly only four of y'all, and it's, uh, you've built a very big brand. A very big brand for-

And I'm, I'm curious, like, why keep the staff so lean? Are you, like... Does that prevent you from new opportunities?

And same with the office space. Like, hey, do we, like... I get it from, like, a functionality perspective, a lifestyle perspective, but, like, I wouldn't just call y'all a lifestyle business. I think y'all, y'all built like a, a, a, a real, like, good, big brand, so.

Well, I think, um, one of the first things w- I, I'll say this.

We have run the model. We have this conversation almost annually. Mm. What would it look like to blow the business up? Like, what if we did 10 times? What, what would we need to do in order to get there? And every time we've had that conversation, we've all looked at each other and we'll literally be like, "Okay, are you inter- like, who wants that?

Where, where are we? Let's take the temperature." And every time everybody's been like, "We don't wanna do that much work." Truly. Mm-hmm. Like, yes, we could make it even bigger, but to the why, I think a big piece of the why for all of us was

we wanted to buy back more time with our kids. Mm. And so in order to blow up the business, we were gonna have to sacrifice that thing that we'd built the whole brand for.

Mm-hmm. And so it was kind of like we just would ask each other, like, "Have we changed that perspective?" And thus far none of us have been willing to trade that in. Yeah. Um, you can talk more just the practical- Yeah ... taxes as corporate, well, why. Yeah. That's also a big piece of it.

Well, I think that, uh, back to our original vision was not to build a big organization or a big complicated thing.

And so for us, it's like, we d- you know, running an online business has been great because it's, you don't need a lot of stuff to do that, like really. And so we've been intentional with not having like an office space, an overhead, and a bunch of employees, and this and that. For better or worse, I'm not saying it's the right decision, but for us, it is what we wanted to do.

And then we've

just been really intentional with finding experts to fill certain roles within the, like our business. So fulfillment o- obviously is a big piece, so like finding someone to do that, or email marketing that's like an expert in just email and SMS marketing. And so like, and we're constantly evaluating like what do we need to invest in and who, who do we need to find.

Um, and then just trying to keep a lean team to like scale and grow and invest more into inventory and new products and this and that, you know. Um, so it's, it's, we figured out a way to make it work, so.

Also just from a financial strategy perspective, having four full-time employees- Yeah ... gives us certain financial benefits, like literally like- Yeah

uh, employee benefits- Yeah ... that if we brought on other full-time people- Yeah ... they're now gonna be getting the same ones. Yeah. So by keeping just the four of us as the only full-time and putting out all these other subcontractors who don't have to be in-house- Yeah ...

it protects us from having to divvy that out to- Yeah

every single person we work with.

Yeah, and I think there are, our business, and every business goes through seasons and cycles, right? And so it's like we're... One thing I've been thinking about a lot this last year, and we've talked about it as a team a little bit, is- Um, you know, what got us here may not take us to where we want to go.

And so S- S- Sarah's right, like we meet often as a team to talk about vision, strategy, all the stuff. And You know, we're ... Because of where we're at, we are getting guidance and asking questions around, "Am I the right person to lead the business continued in the future? I don't know. Um, I love wor- working on the business, but if we wanna keep growing at a certain rate, maybe we need a different operator, or maybe we should hire somebody."

So, like, we're, we're always open to, like, how are people doing it, and guidance and feedback and things like that. But, um, we're still having a lot of fun. I mean, the business is at a, a

really healthy spot, and which is great, and we enjoy that. So to Sara's point, it's like, well, maybe we don't wanna throw a wrench in anything and just keep doing the things we're doing, which is a great decision, too.

You know? So ... I

wanna go back to the structure, 'cause I think y'all did a great job talking about it, but I think it doesn't account for all the things that have changed in the last five years. So it's great, like, having a clear when we start, we're gonna do 26, 24, 26, 24. Right. Um, but it doesn't account for him quitting his job or, hey, we need dividends for a family to live on, but we have to place a big order for Q4.

So, like, talk about how- Yeah ... talk about the realisms- Yeah ... of that- Yeah ... as you guys have grown.

No, that's good. I'll chime in, and then y'all can as well. But we meet quarterly as a team to ... S- So it's grown, but generally the structure of the way we've done it over the years is

we'll meet quarterly and look at how the business is doing.

Like, we, we go through a little checklist every quarter. What do we need to set aside right now to pay taxes for this past quarter? Mm-hmm. We wanna make sure the government's taken care of, for sure. Don't

call us. And- Don't talk

to us. We do not wanna ... And we have a, we have a- And I,

I roll every quarter with

that number

a- and it, and it always hurts. Like, te- we gotta write this check for ca- for taxes. Yay, that's great. So we get that out of the way. And so then we just start going through the list. Okay, what do we need to order for inventory? How much do we wanna pay against our line of credit? How much do we want to keep in the business?

And so we'll just go through that checklist. And, and it's not ... It's kind of an art and science for us. Like, there's multiple quarters where we don't do any distributions or d- It's, like, we just wanna keep the money in the business. We know we might have a big order coming. It's fine. It's not a big deal.

Like, we'll just keep it there. Um-

And usually that's quarter one and quarter two. Yeah. Because we know that we need to, to keep that money in the business because we make our big order in July. And so in quarter

one and quarter two we wanna make sure our loan is at a good place, that we can make that order.

So we can activate.

Yeah.

And then we are just trusting that the, the di- the distribution will be there in quarter three and four. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so we'll see the windfall of it on the other end.

And this is, this is where f- having a great, like, CPA and some sort of financial advisor and, and a team around you, this is a, the

Thankfully we're at a point where we can start to get some of that. We spent years not d- knowing any of that. Yeah. Truly. And it was like, we just had our heads down building the business. Then we look up after a few years like, "We're not really making this business work for us very well." Yeah. It's like- Why

don't we just pay that in taxes?

What, what, what are we actually doing? Like, we need somebody to- You know what I mean? Yeah. So, uh, which was fine. It was just kind of the nature of where we're at. But a few years ago we were like, "Oh, we need like an advisor to like help guide us on how can we make this more beneficial for the owners." Um, so we started to do more of that the

last couple years.

Yeah, and we just included that just this last year. It's

really pretty new.

I mean, so, I mean,

we're six years in and just added it. Yeah. Yeah. And so this isn't something a, a new entrepreneur, I would say, needs to really worry too much about, but it would be nice if we had them in the beginning. Yeah. It would've saved us a lot of, I think, headache and probably money.

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's a, it's a kind of a ongoing like target for us, where we, we sit down as a team and go... Like earlier this year we said, "TikTok shops, we're gonna go all in on TikTok shops. We've s- been selling on that channel, but it's all the rage, so like we're gonna get in there and do it." Okay, well, we had a big investment into that, a new agency, a new team, content, da, da, da, da, all this stuff.

That was a risk. Mm. We spent a lot of money on TikTok shops. Like

how

much a month? We didn't-

How much a month? ...

pay, like we were probably spending 10, 10 or $12,000 a month on TikTok shops, something like that. Didn't work out great, boys. Okay? It wasn't like... It was just like, we tried it, and it just didn't work, and we're, we're still selling that channel, and

we're figured out the right financial model to support that channel.

But we as a team were like, "Let's do this for at least a few months and see," right? And so we're able to do some of that, like h- like investment planning, 'cause we're meeting quarterly looking at the business and making adjustments. Yeah, and,

and from a practical level, we meet the, in January of every year.

We go away for three days, and we have a pretty strict agenda of, like, what we're looking back on, what we're looking forward to. Mm. Garrett runs that meeting. The agenda. The agenda. Yeah, I- Yeah.

I am on top of them to get stuff done.

He's like, "Listen, I get three days, and you are gonna focus in, guys." And Garland's even there.

Garland. It's a whole... Garland now? Yeah. He's allowed to attend? We let him attend. Yeah. He's like, "I'm on vacation." And so- He's like-

He's like, "

Speaker 6: What are

we here? What are we doing?" No, Garland's always locked in at that. Yeah.

Yeah. So we'll have just three days of just all of the owners are very locked in in January, and then we quarterly meet, like Garrett said, for an extended, like two or three hours, we'll meet quarterly to go through all of our numbers, what we're putting on a line

of credit, what distributions are gonna be.

And then at, we're starting to add in a summer. We've done that once. Yeah, we have

like a summer,

like- Like a summer meeting ... planning. Yeah. Like, we're starting to realize we might need that planning meeting- Maybe... Yeah ... like every six months. But that's kind of been the rhythm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So. Go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say to your question, we, you know, at the beginning, made that intentional decision to split 50/50 knowing that with our S corp we were gonna get even distributions, and so that kind of kept any... There was no, like, favorites in the business. It was like, "This is just the structure. You get what you get.

It's, it's not because this person worked harder, you did better, you need it more. This is just what happens." Um, the one thing that has adjusted many times over time is our salaries. Mm. So depending on the season and h- you know, some of us have worked more or less at different times, and so that's something that's always, like, a weird conversation.

Not in a bad way, but it's weird to be having conversation with your best friends who are also your coworkers and being like, "You should get paid more. You should get paid less. What does everybody think they deserve?" Yeah. "What's the

industry standard?" Mm. And I think generally speaking, we've all just had, had the attitude of being really gracious- Yeah

and back to the trust piece, like- Yeah ... at one point Garrett was like, "I'm working more than I worked before. Here's what I think." And we were all like, "We believe you. We don't, we don't have an office. We don't see what you're doing." But we trust because we know what's happening in the business, you're working more, so we should adjust your salary.

Um, but that's- Yeah ... you know, that's something that if you were going- That's a good point ... into business with friends to just- Yeah ... be considerate

of. Yeah. That's a really good point

So let's, let's talk about, like, get- getting closer to now. Um, you were talking about 200,000 units, um, for, for this year, uh, which is amazing.

Um, and then you also kind of hinted at, hey, maybe what we've done before is not taking us- Yeah ... doesn't gonna get us to where we're going. So let's talk about now and then, and then where you think you're going. Um, what's the day-to-day look like now? How, how are you prepping for this winter?

Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, this is, um, this will end up being our

probably best year yet, for sure.

We continue to grow, and business is extremely healthy. And, and, you know, the, the benefit of a e-commerce company that's been around is the flywheel effect that's hap- it, it is real. We've established ourselves, and it's really... We've found great partners. Um, so I think from the d- a day-to-day perspective, like, our, our support is pretty stable, and it's pretty systematized, as much as it could be for a, you know, a small comp- a small team.

So I think that in my mind, there is a number that I'm going for, in my mind. Maybe, what are you going for? It may not be what my business partners- This is

sales

or?

$10 million in revenue. Mm-hmm. Wow. That's what I would love to get to. Annual, well, 12-month period, whatever.

So we have to double.

We basically need to double.

Yeah. '

Cause this year we're on track to hit about five. Five. Five, a little over, 5.5.

Yeah, yeah, for enough numbers. So-

Thank you ...

we gotta double In theory. Like, I'm

not, I'm not, like, hell-bent on this, this. But, uh, you know, 'cause I have business partners that are gonna weigh in on that. And so it, it's just... I- we're at a point where we are engaged with, like, what is the future of Duncan & Stone?

Is this something we wanna sell? Is this something we're gonna keep forever? Like, you know, we're re- we're t- we're always talking about that.

Are we happy to coast with where we are? Yeah. Are we trying to grow it- Yeah ... to 10 million?

Yep.

Speaker 6: I, I, I can't help myself.

I know you can't.

Speaker 6: I can't.

This is what's always funny, because for Garrett and I, we are, we are tied together in the business.

Yeah. He can't grow the business- No. ... to 10 million unless I design it. But-

Speaker 6: Oh, no.

But-

Speaker 6: Sarah's like, "Screw you, man.

We're not doing it." But, but it's like this push/pull of, like, his ambition and me being like, "Or what if we just chill-" Just chill. "... a little bit?"

Just slow

it down. But we have had to learn how to do that- Yeah

as business partners. Yeah. And, like, how do I speed up my pace? Yeah. And how do you wait for me?

For sure. Well, there's a cost associated with any decision, you know? Yeah.

And so it's, it's... For, for... You guys had Steve Graves on recently, and Steve is a friend of all of ours and brilliant, and every time I see him he's like, "Build to sell.

Continue to build the business like you're gonna sell the business," which we have been doing for years is, is that. Now, do we wanna sell the business in a, in a few years? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah. Um, we're, we're in a season where it's like, this is really fun. This is enjoyable. The business is great. If someone came to us today and wanted to buy it, it'd be, like, worth a, a cr- insane amount.

Which we may do that, right? I mean- I

mean, yeah, if someone's listening, they wanna make a, you know- If they really wanna make an

offer, come, call, holler at me. $2

million, and you're trying to get a- Yeah.

So, so anyway, it's like we don't have this pressure of like- Yeah ... this is like a, we need to sell the business in three years, you know, da, da, da.

Um, at least I don't feel that way. And so, you know, we've... are continuing to look ahead to like let's keep growing in a sustainable way, and,

uh, I can ke- I can think whatever I want, you know, and, and keep doing that thing. And, uh, as long as my business partners are okay with it.

Well, and even from like a week, like a weekly rhythm, and thinking about the idea of, like, building to sell, I am the one on the team that's like, "I'm, want to replace myself."

Yeah.

Like, if I, if we're gonna really sell the company, the owners can't all be operating it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, it won't be... Like, 'cause then if we sell it, then we go with it. Yeah. You know? Like, it has to be operated by somebody else. And so continually replacing ourselves as much as we can is what I'm a huge advocate for.

So.

She basically wants to get me fired.

Well, over the last year, we've hired somebody- She should ... like, I mean, for years I was doing, you know, operations side, forecasting, inventory management. And then I'm like, you know, this is at a spo- spot that I'm like this is above my pay grade. Like I, so we need somebody who actually learned how to do this in school, and not somebody who just formulated this on their

own inside of Excel.

It was working- Mm-hmm ... but it was getting to the point where, like, this isn't really gonna keep working. Mm-hmm. And so we hi- we hired somebody to take over that piece, where now I'm just checking in with him. He's giving me reports. Mm-hmm. Like, he's put in pivot tables and all these things, I'm like, "I don't even know how to work a pivot table."

Yeah. Um, just honest. I

mean- He built a database ... I don't know what a pivot table is. And he, he built, he, he built this full like- Yeah. He built our full da- database and just updates it. Yeah. And so all the things that I was spending all this time on, he can do more efficiently and more accurately. Mm-hmm. And now I'm just making sure, like, hey, are we good?

Mm-hmm. Um, and so, and I'm continually kind of backing out, but I still have my eyes on it. Mm-hmm. And so... What? Because- I,

I- Because, because this

is where I wanna- We've been trying to

get Garrett to slowly release- We- I've done it. I did it. I did it. Yeah. Not to the extent that you did, but I let some people in-

to touch my creative things.

We all have control issues on our team, for sure.

I, I've loosened up. Are you a small business

owner if you

don't, you know? I, yeah, seriously. Seriously.

So I'm continually being like, "You

guys, like, replace yourself. H- Yeah ... like, figure out the subcontractors that can take that piece off of your plate," because if we're really gonna build it to scale it and grow it, um, to sell it, then we can't sell it if we're all attached to it.

Hmm. Talk about- That's

the way I see it ...

that's good. Talk about the mechanics of an e-commerce business. Uh, have we had an e-commerce business on?

No, and I think y'all been pretty nonchalant on, like- I mean, this is great. This is e- It's like, no, if anything, if, if it was really that easy, like, there'd be a lot of these people- There are lot-

that'd be, that'd be out here doing that. Um- Well, yeah, it's

easier said than done, for sure.

But, but talk about the mechanics of an e-commerce business. Like- What, what is that- Yeah ... what, what are you focused on? Yeah. What is ROAS? What is marketing spend? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, an average- For sure ... an average journal you sell is X price.

Yeah. Yeah. How many jour- you know, just- Yeah ... kinda talk about the mechanics of the business- Yeah ... for people who don't know e-commerce.

Well, whoever's listening, if they wanna try to compete with us, then bring it on. Once I start to

sell this, I'll tell 'em, I'll tell 'em how to do it and then they can try. Uh, I mean, for, to me it's, it's, it's not super complex.

I don't think it's complex. It doesn't necessarily mean it's easy. Um, you know, for us, we, we're like, "Hey, we wanna make money on our sell." So we knew roughly where we wanted our retails to be. So, like, for a customer, like, how much are they gonna pay for a, a baby book? Okay. We, we did some research. Here's where we wanna be.

We wanna sell about 30, let's say it's $30, okay? Well, we needed to build a business that allowed us to invest into acquiring that customer, right? And so we, our cost of goods had to be fairly low, which is a challenge early on, right? When you're ordering low quantities. Mm-hmm. But cost of goods is at play.

Like, how much does it actually cost to get this here and, and get this in front of a, you know, to, to ship. So you got cost of goods, you got shipping, you got marketing spend. You got

fulfillment. You got fulfillment. You got holding costs and all these things. Before it even, like, you make a sale. And so when I...

I, I remember sitting down with Allen Beffort, who you guys have had Givingtons on here, which they're amazing. I thought early on, I said, "Hey, dude. We got this idea. We're gonna sell journals. I'm never gonna see the product. It's gonna be awesome. We're gonna s- It's gonna be, like, rock and rolling." And he was so kind, and he looked at me, he was like, "Oh, you poor kid."

"You don't know how this is gonna go at all." And I was, and I didn't. And he was like, "Well, how are you gonna get customers? Like, how... Like, you have a product, so what? Like, how are you gonna get customers?" I don't know. I didn't think about that. Are you gonna do Google ads? And I was like, "Oh, shoot." So then after meeting with him, he said, "You don't need a fulfillment team.

You need to get customers and build a business." Yeah. And which was a huge switch for me. And so that's what we did. And it's like, we've done Facebook ads, Meta ads, um, Google.

Yeah. I said Facebook. Etsy, Amazon. Amazon. I mean, anywhere we can. Every channel, we do ads. How, how much, how much on average right now are

we spending on ads a month?

Probably $50,000 a month.

On ads, just to get the customer? Yeah.

Yeah.

Which once again-

Yeah ... if you

wanna do this, good luck.

For sure. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause what, what would you say first-year budget for marketing? Oh, gosh.

It was tiny.

Yeah. It

was tiny. Got it. It was probably 50 for the whole year.

Yeah. And, like, the less you spend, the less customers you have.

Yeah. Which is, you know, the game.

Yeah. So for us, it's, it's just a... I mean, the, we could talk a, we could whole do a whole segment on e-commerce if you want to. That'd be fun. But it, it's, it's like the mechanics of actually building it out aren't super complex. It's like, well, you have to have money to go acquire the customer and figure out what that- right amount is.

For us, like, we, most of our ad spend is, like, 3X. So we're spending $3 to get nine back. So, like, return on ad spend for us is around two and a half or three. I'm not sure what the industry standards are, but that's pretty good for us. Like, we can build a business off of that. Um, and so we have budgets set aside

accordingly for all of our channels, and we know we can spend and get that back in revenue.

Um, and then you just, it's just a freaking get the wheels going on that thing, and then you can grow.

Right. And then you have the tension where now you've a- acquired the customer, but you're the one touching the product to get it out the door. Yeah. And that tension starts ma- getting tighter and tighter.

Like, as your customer base grows, and then your inventory fulfill- Volume ... volume is moving- Yeah ... and you're, it, there becomes a point where you have to, like, make the shift into fulfillment team. Because if not, then that thing will, will snap and you'll be like, "I'm done. Burn it down," because you're tired of fulfilling it on your own.

And the ideal customer is, like, mom, 30 to 45 or so? Yeah.

Yeah. This is, this is gonna tie into your question. Um, I think another major piece if you wanna launch e-commerce is you have to figure out, you have to do a lot of work figuring out your customer. Mm-hmm. If you have a local boutique on the Fayetteville Square, a lot of your customers may just be people walking by and seeing something.

Yeah. And you have no idea who that person is. They just may come in

your store 'cause it looks nice. For us, we had to do a lot of backend research, 'cause you have access to the entire population of the world, and how do you know which of those people need to come to your tiny Shopify storefront? Mm-hmm. Um, and I think what we realized was if you just type in, you know, journal onto Google, no one's finding us.

Yeah. We could put $50,000 a month into the word journal, and it still doesn't do anything. Yeah. Um, so we had to get very specific. And for me, that became really fun because I moved into, like, the psychology side of that, of going How do I get inside the customer's head that I want shopping for us? And what we have really leaned into is search terms, language, SEO that puts them in the seat of being the gift giver.

Mm-hmm. And the psychology behind how good that makes a person feel to watch someone receive and love this la- Yeah ... like, "Oh my gosh, this was my favorite gift I got at my baby shower." And you're like, "That's great. I love that for you." But also as the

giver, you're like, "I kinda love that for me too." Yeah.

'Cause I gave the best gift. So figuring out how to market product to someone that they don't know that they want. Yeah. So as Garrett said, like, our legacy journal is like an autobiography journal for grandparents. So questions, what, tell me about your childhood, all these things, right? But no one's typing in the phrase legacy journal.

Mm-hmm. They don't know that it exists. They just know that they want to get a gift for their grandparent that's really meaningful and special. Mm-hmm. That's what they're typing into Google. Yeah. So figuring out for our e-commerce how to get inside the customer's mind was really crucial to being able to acquire the right people.

Yeah.

So to your question of what is our target market. Basically us. Yeah. Which is ... Does that surprise you that- ... millennial moms built a business for millennial moms? Yeah. But truly, you know, uh, I would, I always say, like, I'm the memory keeper for my family. I'm also the memory keeper for Stephanie's family.

Yeah, thank

you. Because I just- She'll be like, "What was your son's first word?" I'm like, "I don't know, Sarah.

What was it?" I'm like, "It was bird. Garrison said bird." Um,

anyway, but, so that's obviously helped us in terms of having an easy in. Yeah. How, what, what ads would we wanna get? How do we wanna market? Um, so that part has been somewhat, you know, a cheat code for us, if you will.

At what percent of your business is on Amazon, if you can?

50.

Okay. And is that, as you look at that, are you like, "We're good with that," or, "As we grow, we want to whittle that down or whittle it up?"

That's a great question. Um, it's gone down over time. Uh, it, well, at one point it was probably closer to 80, I would guess.

You know, for the first few years. Um-

Crickets at our Shopify storefront.

Yeah. 'Cause we didn't

know

how to get customers here. We had a website, but like no, no one knew it existed. I think there was, there was a time where it felt a little out of whack. Um, and, and we made a shift years ago to drive, try to drive more traffic to our own store.

Um, you know, so for us, like, retention marketing is a big piece of like- Yeah ... well, when you get a customer, we can now engage with them and give them

specific communication, and like they're in our kind of system, where with Amazon you're, they're not. And so, uh, that's a little bit of the challenge, you know, with, with Amazon, but it's about 50%.

And I think it- It'll probably f- go down more over time, I would guess, which is okay, you know.

Yeah, I mean, especially at the beginning, Amazon's so helpful because they bring the customer to you. Mm-hmm. They already have a website. They run their ads internally. They give it to you. It's good for them if we sell things- Yeah

'cause they get a p- percentage of that. Versus Shopify was much harder because while we could run Google Ads, it's, uh, just a, such a much bigger market share- Yeah ... of people looking for things. Mm-hmm. And so really, as we grew, that was one of the things we had to be super intentional about, was investing in teams that could bring people to our Shopify, 'cause we knew we wanted to bring the Amazon percentage down, but we also knew that was gonna be expensive- It is

to get that structure in place. Yeah. So we've slowly been doing that, especially the last couple of years. Yeah. And it's working. Yeah, it is.

But it, it was like a, "All right, we're really gonna have to- Yeah ... do this." Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Do you guys have a good way to track LTV? Are your customers buying once or- A little bit

are they buying the legacy journal? I assume that's y'all's top selling product. It's ...

Well, during certain times of year it is.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, they get... They start with that, and then they figure out, "Oh, wow. Duncan Stone has all this other stuff- Yeah ... that I don't, didn't know I need, but- Yeah ... I like this." Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Um-

I'll weigh in on the creative- Yeah ... and then you do the practical. I've intentionally, like, when we were figuring out products and I was like, "What am I gonna make next?" In my mind, it's a funnel. So for everything that I was making... So we have a pregnancy journal. Well, what happens when you have a baby?

Now you need a baby book. Well, what happens when your baby's not a baby anymore? Well, now we have a childhood memory book that goes up till age 18. What happens when they graduate? Oh, we've got this travel journal. Give it to them when they go off to college. What about when they get married? Engagement journal, anniversary journal, legacy journal.

So the whole idea being- Wow ... whatever life season you're in- So good ... we're setting you up to

say, "We can help you in the next one, too." So that's kind of the product design. Now you can talk- Yeah ... the practicals.

Yeah, I mean, there's apps that we've, uh, we have on our store to track some of that. So there's, there are some, like, actual customer tracking that you can do, and you see a lot of that turn...

And, and we see it in the data, but also, like, customer feedback. "Hey, I got this as a gift." That's ha- happens a lot. So if you receive a gift, a baby shower gift, and you're like, "I didn't know what Duncan Stone was until now. I love this journal. I'm gonna go check out their site. Oh, cool. I didn't know they offered these things."

And so, like s- we've- Sarah's been brilliant in the way she's designed that whole, you know, process as far as the types of products we offer. So a lot of it is like anecdotal stuff, reviews, and feedback we've, we've gotten. Um, but then we do see some data around the journey. They came for this, but then they end up buying this, and stuff like that.

I would say, like, that's a growth point that we talk about that we want to improve upon. How do we

get customers buying two or three journals at a time? A challenge for us is, like, obviously, for instance, if you buy a journal at the beginning of your pregnancy, well, you're probably not getting pregnant within the next year- Yeah

for the mo- You know? Yeah. So it's like you don't need another pregnancy journal from us right now. Yeah. So figuring out how do we make enough products that, you know, we have... Now we have dog journals for people who have... Like, we're trying to get outside of just the seasonality to try and increase how much, like, their actual average order volume.

Mm-hmm.

And how- 'Cause we're

probably like one and a half- Yeah ... is like an average. Yeah.

Yeah. And how are you... So people are coming to your site, or you're, you're, you're, you have loyal customer. How are y'all engaging with them-

Yeah ...

consistently? Mm. How are you nurturing that? Well- Is that a weak point, strong point?

How are you, like- Yeah.

We'll just call... We usually just call them throughout the day.

Individually. "What's up, Sally?" "

Hey, Sally. This is Garret with-" "... Simple Start." "How did

you get my number?"

I'm just... She's like, "Don't call me, man. I didn't-"

Garrett did have funny, one time he had a customer call- Oh ... and leave a voicemail, and then he called her back- Oh, yeah

and she was having trouble writing in the journal. She was older. She's like- So sweet ... "I got it as a gift, but I'm, it hurts my hand." And she's calling, like, the CEO of the company- Yeah. ... 'cause she's this sweet little lady. She's like, "What do I do?" Garrett's like, "I've never had this happen before." I know. I'm not sure.

Weren't we invited to, like, a baby shower? Like- Oh, we've

been invited. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Oh,

okay. But this was cute- We even have- ... 'cause I was like, "Y'all, that's a scam." That's not, they don't, they're not- Yeah, people buy into- ... ordering a baby. They're just wanting my product.

No, those are real people, Sarah.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. But engagement- Yeah ... is a little bit of a weak spot because none of us actually like to, well, Garrett likes to be on camera and do things. Stephanie and I don't really care to do that. Our social media manager would love it if we were like, "Let me be a TikTok queen- Yeah ... and d- get on and do all these, like, lives."

Oh my gosh, she'd be

so happy.

Um, so that's something, like, we haven't been super successful at. We've just kind of made our peace with.

Yeah. Well, I think that w- the, the, the most, the, where my mind goes with it is just email

marketing- Mm ... is primarily the place for us. And so, um, it's around segmentation, like customer segmentation, the way that we email them.

Like, if somebody buys a travel journal, they may not have kids, and they aren't interested in our parenthood stuff, potentially. But, uh, so, like, we've been trying to do more work around segmenting our customers better with the ones that we actually can, like, mostly s- through our Shopify store, and then kind of talking to them in an appropriate way that makes sense.

You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So that's something we're con- we're trying to get better at, um, over time. We're elder

millennials. So- We don't really want to be-

And, and part of it is just- ... on Instagram ... you know, finding a, we have a great partner that helps us with stuff like that and retention and, and, you know, ultimately, we want that cycle to continue.

And so, um, we're designing the way we communicate with them in a uh, appropriate way, I guess.

Okay. Last tactical business question then you can kind of take, take back over. But

have you guys in- We, we've had, I think when we had Kendall on, we talked about micro-influencers, stuff like that. If you guys are not, you don't want to be the face of that, have y'all tried that as a growth strategy, and if so, has that worked?

Yeah. We have definitely done a lot of troubleshooting over the years with social media and how that works for us, what works well. Um, we do use a lot of different types of influencers. We've partnered with different companies. Like when we did TikTok, we had a whole, like we had a team of just influencers who were just churning out videos just for us.

Mm-hmm. Um, we do see some success in it. I think generally speaking, um, w- I don't, we actually don't know the, like the why behind it. People finding us through Google or Amazon or whatever fall in love. Mm-hmm. And there's something about social media that's, uh, the shopability of our product doesn't seem to connect with people as much as them coming in already with their own agenda, looking for something specifically.

Mm-hmm. But yes, we have used them. Uh, was it super successful? No, not necessarily. Yeah. And in some things, like with TikTok, we went literally not worth it. Yeah. W- Spending way too much money for this to not go anywhere. Mm-hmm. And even though we know, like in theory, TikTok is very important. We- we're seeing brands on there that are selling a ton of stuff, but we haven't found- Mm-hmm

why it will or will not work for us. Yeah. So we've just kind of let it dead in the water for now.

So a, like a lower priority for us right now.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, when we talked about like if you take that TikTok money and put it into Google ads- Sure ... or Am- Like, we're like, "Why are we even try- why are we hustling to get this- Yeah

off the ground with these micro-influencers- Yeah ... when we could just turn around and put easy money into Google?"

It's because last year we saw such a spike in TikTok, and that we can- I don't know exactly what happened, but all of our dear, um, son and dear daughters like took off. Mm-hmm. Like we were about to discontinue this product- Mm

and then it got on TikTok and just went viral. Like it, they, all of our units sold

out. We're like, "Oh my gosh, I was, we're about to cancel this, now we need to order a shipping container of it." You know? But then by the time we got our stock replenished, well, that cycle had already gone through and it was like the sales didn't just pick back up again.

It's like if you don't have the inventory to match the demand on TikTok, and then the demand just will just disappear because it's like they're onto something else, another video, another item. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Um-

Super unpredictable.

Yes, very unpredictable.

Wow. Well, y'all's business is not necessarily tied, it, it doesn't have to be tied to Northwest Arkansas.

You could have done this anywhere. What's been really significant or meaningful for y'all doing this here, aside from just the four of y'all doing it as friends, but like- When you're talking to someone else who may be doing e-com here or anything else, why here? Um, aside from the fact you already live here.

I mean, obviously this is like the retail capital of the world. Mm-hmm. So like Garrett said earlier, just having people to turn

to and say, "How do, how do you retail? How do you do it?" Yeah. Um, and they were so nice and generous to walk alongside us, even with our manufacturer. Like we do not divulge to people our inner details, you know?

So for them to be like, "Sure, you're actually, uh, actually product adjacent and I'm gonna give you my printing partner anyway," was like a really kind and, you know, not required thing for them to do. But yeah, everything you said about that journey of the connections has been really vital.

Yeah. I think, I mean, um The community, from my experience, the community of entrepreneurship and business in Northwest Arkansas is very unique.

And now, very biased, I don't have a- like intel to other markets, but there is a sense of people want other people to win and grow. You know what I'm saying? This is what I've, we've experienced. And so the, the ability to help, and Allen Beaufort to

sit down with me as a friend and be like, "Hey, I'm gonna help guide you a little bit here."

Or the company that helped us get our Shopify store set up, like the guy I knew was like, "Oh, I could just help you do that. Like, come to my office." And I'm like, "Oh, really? It's like that easy?" He's like, "Yeah." "Oh, sweet. I didn't know that." So it's just, it's a unique network of people that care for each other and want to see people win.

Mm-hmm. You know, which I think is really cool.

Yeah.

What would you say about NWA? I,

I agree with all the things y'all said.

Echo?

Yeah.

Echo. Um, so th- I want all three of y'all to a- answer this individually, but how do you define success?

$10 million. Of

course you're gonna have a number.

What? I won't start. I was just kidding.

I was kidding.

Um, I think, you know, we keep coming back to this question of the why, and I think we will all have our own version of that. But success to me is like being able to answer that question with confidence and like a peace of mind. And so I wanted to be able to do something that helped my family

be financially stable while also not making me work 60 hours a week and be away from my kids.

Um, so for me, that answers my why of like I wanted that stability and I wanted that family time back. Um, and so I feel like we're incredibly successful. I'm... I mean, when we... We've talked about the, um, when we launched Duncan & Stone, uh, my youngest, Collins, had just had the seizure and we had all these medical bills, and we were like $30,000, um, just immediately out from going to the hospital, all these things.

And so when we launched, I was so nervous about shutting down my stationery shop because I was like, "I w- but I need that income, but I can't work both at the same time." And so I told Stephanie, I was like, "We have to make, this year, $5,500 because that's- ... our medical deductible." And I was serious. I was like, "I don't know, guys.

Like I, at minimum, I need that." And she laughed at me. She laughed at me. Um- I was like, "That's so cute." She was like- ... "That's horrible." But fast-forwarding

to today in terms of success, like all I wanted was to cover our medical bills and pay our deductible. Mm-hmm. And so to be able to know that at any given moment I'm taking my daughter to cross-country or doing whatever and never once having to think about like, "What about my work schedule?"

That feels like success to me.

I'll say, um, I look at it for sure, like, in a holistic way. Like, and I was joking about $10

million. Were you,

Garrett? A little bit. A little bit.

You can have your own dream.

Yeah. But it... So what I said from the be- from 2021 when I was the first employee of the business, I said, "If I don't have to go get another job, then it's successful."

Like, that was my base, and I haven't had to since. So, like, for me, I'm like, "This has been successful," 'cause, like, I get to run the business with my wife and friends. Like, this is awesome. Um, so

that, that... I totally agree with what Sarah said. I think for, for me, being able to invest, like, get joy and value out of the work that we get to do, and also invest time with my three sons and be able to, you know, invest into things that I'm passionate about, like, that's successful for me, you know?

Um, so it's like a holistic, you know, thing. What did you say?

I would say, 'cause they're kind of going back to their why and then answering that forward, and I, my why in the very beginning was, yes, to get time, but it was really to work Garrett out of his job. Like, my why back in 2014, way before the company, was like, "I want to figure out how to get you out of corporate."

She just wanted to spend time with me so bad.

Yeah. Exactly. Um, and so for, for me to be able to sit even where we are today- Mm-hmm ... and to see him thriving, not having to go back to corporate, like, the business crushing it, and you also having the

time ability to do things with our boys, um, and seeing Sarah, meeting her deductible easily without thinking about it.

And, like, seeing her win and succeed, that answers my why. Like, my why was, like- Aw ... seeing, like, that work out for the... And, like, it's... And then being able to, like, step back and be like, "I have somebody that's replaced my seat" in, in a lot of ways, and I'm kind of more of, like, really a true owner in the company right now than working in the details.

Um, I feel like I'm already at Duck and Stone has been successful. Mm-hmm. It's not a future thing. It's just something I'm sitting in.

That's awesome. Well, one of the things we do at the ever- end of every episode is we talk through what we learned from each of you today, and then we think what our listeners will learn.

Um, and I think there's no doubt, like, creative, the word creative, it may not describe each of you

individually, but it does describe you collectively. Um, the design, obviously, the care that goes into it. You look at your website, like, it's... The, the creativity is off the charts. Um, and I think even, like, the control that you guys still have, like, there is creat- like, it's tied to your creativity.

'Cause when you lose some of that control, some creativity goes with it. And so I think that's something, like, I learned from, we can all learn from. I think the second word's intentional, like the s- how you guys talked about setting up the business, I think will be very applicable for people who want to launch a business or...

I mean, I don't know how many times we've talked with great friends about, "Oh,

we should do that

together." Like, that's a, this is a real, like, this is real. Um, so I think how you guys talked through that and were vulnerable about pieces of it was really cool. And I think even going through the product,

the products, like, there's a lot of intentionality of getting you in the funnel and, like, to exit.

I mean, that, s- there's, there's some mastery there that I think we can all learn from, um, in our businesses. And I think then the last word, which we, like, this won't surprise any of you, but is authentic, and it's fun. I think as we've done this, as we've been part of the business community for however long now, like- It is so helpful and so life-giving to other people in the business community when they can interact with people who are authentic and will share, "Hey, we screwed this up.

Hey, we... This hasn't worked for us. Has it worked for you?" Um, and I think to the moreover piece that I really learn from is just your why. Like, I think if you own a business, if you've started a business, if you founded a business, if you're running a business, like, the why piece is what

keeps you anchored.

And we talked about it with Steve a few weeks ago. Like, there are so many voices. Grow, grow, grow. Don't grow. Don't grow. Don't grow. Scale. Scale. Scale. And, like, each of you are sitting here, and you're very centered on your why, and I think we can all learn from that. So, um, Sarah, Stephanie, and Garrett, thank y'all so much for your time.

Um, if people wanna learn more about Duncan Stone, how can they do that?

Our website, www.duncanandstone.com. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok if you want to go buy something

from us there. But yeah. That's awesome. Well, cool. Yeah. Thanks for the time. Thanks

so much, guys.

Yeah, thank

you, guys. Seriously, it was

a blast.