Beaugen
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Tu-Hien Le is the Founder & CEO of BeauGen, a mommy lifestyle brand whose mission is to make mommying feel good.
Inspired after having her first child, Tu-Hien and her husband started BeauGen to address the pain and struggle of breastfeeding. Since launching into the market in 2016, BeauGen has helped tens of thousands of women find success with their breastfeeding journey.
Tu-Hien has a passion for connecting with motivated entrepreneurs and is now coaching business owners how to build, scale, and make money in their own product-based ecommerce business. Tu-Hien lives in Orlando, FL with her husband and daughter.
Connect with Tu-Hien via Instagram @tuhien.le and @beaugenmom
Watch this conversation on YouTube:
Tu-Hien Le 0:00
I’ve never run a company before. So it was a lot of self doubt of Who am I to think that I can do this? Or I’ve never done this before. Am I good enough to be able to do this? And once I realized I was thinking that way and like limiting myself before I even tried. I was like, why am I limiting myself? And that’s why I really seek out the different coaches and mentors to help me kind of break that mindset and say, you know, why can’t you who’s to tell you that you cannot reach these big goals that you have? And like, yeah, that’s right.
Stacy Caprio 0:37
Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams. So you can learn how to build your two hand is an incredible businesswoman and we get to talk to her in this episode of the podcast. She started her company Beaugen and has grown it to incredible heights. You’ll love this episode, if you’ve ever been interested in starting your own original idea product based business, especially if you have no idea how you would ever get started to hand shares how she came up with the idea of Beaugen to solve her own problem. And you’ll learn how she was able to go from product idea to physical production, how she tested and iterated to get to her final sellable product. Even though she was solving their own problem and was her own target market. She talks about how thorough she has been about market research and making sure she’s putting out a product that exactly what her target market wants. In this episode, I was trying to get her to share the one thing she has done to have a successful business. And I’m so grateful, she was quick to call me out and explain. There are so many things that go into having a successful business. It is not just one or two golden nuggets, you’ll enjoy this conversation if you want to get into the mind of someone who has built a successful business based on her own idea, not one that was built using one tip or trick, but one that has been built over consistent effort and hard work overtime. Like all successful businesses really are. Let’s hear what she has to say. hi to him, thank you so much for coming on. I love your company. And your journey is so inspiring. I was hoping we could start with a quick overview of how you started and your background and why you started Beaugen.
Tu-Hien Le Founder of Beaugen
Tu-Hien Le 2:50
Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast is super exciting. And I would love to share a little bit of my story with you. In 2015, I had my first daughter. And from that I experienced my own personal difficulty and pain from breastfeeding and pumping. And that’s the sort of the genesis of Beaugen. And how, in my discovery, I found that I wasn’t the only one that felt the same way. And I talked to many other moms and moms could meet in the mom community.
Momtrepreneur Solution
And a lot of us had shared this, this same pain and discomfort and breastfeeding and pumping. And I was like, Well, if I’m not the only one that has this problem, all these other moms have this problem, why can’t we do something about it? So my husband and I actually kind of decided to develop something, a product, we didn’t even exactly know what it was when we started develop a solution to solve the issues of discomfort and pumping. And we really took a grassroots approach. So instead of us taking the I have a solution, and here it is, I hope everybody loves it. We really actually, you know, spoke with hundreds of moms to really hone in and figure out what was the pain point. And then and then kind of back into salt solution from there. And that’s how Beaugen started. And so it’s we’ve always been a very customer centric company. And we always really listened to what our customers wanted and and their pain point and try to solve it from there.
Stacy Caprio 4:33
That’s awesome. I think many businesses fail because people don’t take into consideration the customers and what they really want. So that’s really cool to know that you did that. Where did you find that? customers to kind of talk to to figure out their pain points.
Tu-Hien Le 4:52
Yeah, so that’s a great question. I start off with just talking within my own network, talking to other mom friends and You know, my cousins and my sisters that just recently had babies. I asked them, like, how do you find solutions? Or where do you find information about mom things? And they always said, Oh, try this blog, or that or Facebook community. And it turns out for new moms, Facebook groups are huge. So within these Facebook groups, there would be like, 10 20,000 moms in these different groups, I would just pose the question like, what’s the most difficult thing about pumping? Or what is your biggest challenge with breastfeeding? And then they would comment and and I would just really be methodical and documenting what people would say as far as what their pain points are, find like the common denominator, and then really hone in like, okay, it’s actually this specific pain. So like, what can we do to solve this? And really just having a lot of open conversations with different moms and their experiences and seeing if we could find like, a common denominator really, and then testing it out?
Stacy Caprio 6:01
That’s awesome. I am curious to know, what were the first steps you took when creating your prototype? It’s something that if I were manufacturing a product, I would have no idea even Where to start?
Starting Her Company & Production Iteration
Tu-Hien Le 6:15
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So my background is in finance, so I don’t have an engineering or manufacturing background at all. So again, I just googled and started talking to people in my community, in my thing, like the entrepreneurial community, and just ask them like, Okay, if I want to start to develop some sort of product, like, what should I do, I’m not a, I’m not a maker, I’m not an engineer. And so they would point me to these different resources. And one of them is a local maker shop. And that’s when we, for your audience who may not know maker shops are where people go, and they’ll do like wood work, or like electronics, and robotics and sewing, they do all sorts of tinkering, and invention, inventing of things. So we went to maker shop and ask them like, Okay, this is our constraint, this is a problem we’re trying to solve, like, What? What can we do? This is what I think this product will look like. And then kind of brainstorm with them and developing the product. And the the, the product development phase is like really interesting, because I really took into consideration all the information that the different moms have told and shared with me about what their pain points were, and then try to distill that to the maker who was like helping us develop our prototype. So yeah, and it was like a really fun journey. I mean, in our first, the first version of our product, we probably developed over 40 prototypes. And I probably, I think I tested every single one of them. And like each one, it was all about testing and getting a little bit better each time. And then, yeah, and then, you know, we got like a very small set of like 20 or 30, moms who were really wanting to help us find the solution, we and we’d send them the prototype and ask them to try it out and give us feedback. And with each feedback, we just kind of keep refining to get better and better.
Stacy Caprio 8:20
Wow, that sounds like a really intensive process.
Tu-Hien Le 8:25
Yeah, it’s a it is it can be it’s also fun. And you like learn so much during the journey too. So you might have a preconceived notion of what you think the solution is and what people want. But then when you give it to put in the hands of the customer, they’ll tell you something totally different that maybe you didn’t even consider. So then you then you start to, you know, tweak and change your prototype, or maybe even the messaging of your product based on their feedback. So a big thing that I took into consideration when developing, building out our breastbone cushion for Beaugen was, we had a, we had a problem solution fit. But then it was also important to have a solution market fit to we can I mean, we solved a problem, but does the market actually want it? So we really took that into consideration by talking to as many customers as we could.
Stacy Caprio 9:24
Awesome. So how did you know like when it was the prototype, like when it was finally ready.
Tu-Hien Le 9:31
At that time, we were probably on version like 42. And we had a good set of data from our testers and they gave us a lot of feedback like this is, you know, it really helped with comfort, it really helped with fit. And that’s when we knew like those were the two key selling points of our product and that’s when we say like okay, now it’s time to go to market. And what we actually did was for our first version of the breast pump cushions we did a Kickstarter campaign. And a Kickstarter campaign is a crowdfunding campaign. And so we launched the crowdfunding campaign and said, Okay, if we can raise $20,000, then the market is telling us they want this solution. And if we can’t raise that much money, then the market doesn’t want the solution that was kind of our test of product market fit. And then, you know, after our Kickstarter, Kickstarter campaign, we we raised a little bit over $24,000, I’m like, okay, so there’s something here, the market wants a solution. So let’s really build this out. And that’s when we took that money from our crowdfunding campaign. And we started going into manufacturing and building our tooling. And, and being able to produce an in mass quantity.
Finding a Manufacturer
Stacy Caprio 10:51
Wow, that’s really cool. So did you how did you find your manufacturer?
Tu-Hien Le 10:57
So the manufacturing, search is, I must say, it’s not easy. It’s really just about like, calling around and talking to people. Um, you know, we went to a couple of trade shows where they had, like, different manufacturing and materials, companies, and just having conversation with them and really seeing if they understood, understood our vision, understood our product. And, and then, you know, just trying it from there and seeing who could produce and make our product at a reasonable cost in a reasonable time.
Stacy Caprio 11:39
Exactly. That’s really cool. So once you started manufacturing, and everything, how did you kind of figure out how much product to make at a time? Mm hmm. And did you that whole process?
Tu-Hien Le 11:54
Yeah, that’s actually a really good question, too. So we did limited small runs, not knowing how big our market was. So honestly, it was kind of like a guess. Like, we had pre orders from our Kickstarter campaign. So we knew that we have to at least make a certain number of breast pump cushions. But beyond that, we’re like, you know, I think that we could sell more if we really ramp up our marketing and advertising campaigns. So it was kind of a guess, like, a lot of it was just trial and error and testing, and seeing how we can penetrate the market and like, increase brand awareness, doing it methodically, and keep testing our audience out.
Stacy Caprio 12:41
So how long were you guys profitable? Like, right off the bat? Because you had your Kickstarter? or How long did it take you to hit like when you’re finally making profit each month?
Launching on Kickstarter
Tu-Hien Le 12:55
Yeah, I would say for us, the Kickstarter campaign helped. And we probably broke even, like, pretty quickly, just based on our demand, and the cost of fulfilling all the orders, the pre orders that we had, so if we at least broke even from our initial investment. But from there, it was all about Okay, now that we broke even how do we, how do we grow this company? How do we grow Beaugen to like, the next level? And? Yeah, so it took a lot of like, talking, seeking out mentors, seeking out coaches, a lot of reading surrounding myself with other successful entrepreneurs, and asking a lot of questions, asking a lot of questions. what works, what doesn’t work? Why didn’t work? Why did it work? Being very curious, and then willing to try new strategies as well?
Stacy Caprio 13:53
Interesting. Yeah. And I was, I was just listening to your TLC podcast, and you kind of had mentioned a similar kind of mindset shift where you were at five k months, and that you’re able to get to the 65 k months. Uh huh. Really awesome. And I was wondering, what was the biggest part of your mindset shift that you think contributed to that?
Tu-Hien Le 14:20
Oh, that’s such a good question. Um, you know, I really kind of had to look inside myself and think about what was it that was limiting me and I would say, like, my limiting beliefs of what I could and could not do really held me back. For a long time. I was almost like, being very conservative. Like, you know, I didn’t have any, I’ve never run a company before or built a company before. So it was a lot of self doubt of, who am I to think that I can do this or I’ve never done this before.
“Am I good enough to be able to do this and once I realized that I was thinking that way, and like limiting myself before I even tried. I was like, you know, I shouldn’t even Why am I limiting myself? And that’s why I really seeked out the different coaches and mentors to help me kind of break that mindset and say, you know, why can’t you who say that who’s to tell you that you cannot reach these big goals that you have? And like, yeah, that’s right.”
So I really just shifted my mindset like, well, let’s try, there’s nothing wrong with, quote, failure. That’s how you learn. So with each failure is just a stepping stone to get better and stronger, faster, smarter, so so I changed my mindset of like, I needed to get it perfect to let me just try and see what happens. And then I just started taking more risks. And then which, with the more risks I took, the more reward I got, but it was all calculated risk. But I was willing to at least, like take that leap and bet on myself and my ability to figure it out.
Stacy Caprio 16:08
Awesome. Wow. And do you find Do you have a goal setting process? Or do you kind of play it by ear?
Goal Setting Process
Tu-Hien Le 16:17
Oh, I definitely have a goal setting process in within my company. Within Beaugen, we do our OKRs, which stands for objectives and key results. And we’re really a firm believer that you don’t improve at things unless you measure them. And one of our big objectives is customer loyalty. And, you know, expanding our market, and then which within each of those objectives, we have key results in KPIs key performance indicators that we can measure to make sure that we’re moving in the right direction. And I’m a firm believer in setting goals because you don’t have goals. And you never know, when you get there, or even you don’t even know where you’re going. So it really gives you have good direction on in the progress that you’re making.
Stacy Caprio 17:12
Awesome. So what do you find, has contributed to increasing your customer loyalty?
Beaugen Customer Service
Tu-Hien Le 17:19
customer loyalty every day, a lot of different factors. At Beaugen Customer service is a huge, huge part of our customer loyalty, we really value the experience that the customers have, when they’re interacting with our brand. We really take into consideration how what they think and especially how they feel because our product, isn’t it during this very sensitive time for a woman. It’s like a big transition time you just gave birth, and now you’re feeding a tiny baby, that’s depending on you. So yes, so we just want to make sure that we really take into consideration how they feel. And so all the feedback we get from our customers, we really take that and incorporate into our brand and how we how we communicate back with them. So we’ll you know, we’ll put that in our social media posts and create blog content, video content that addresses how they think and feel. And that hopefully, like creates a stronger bond between our brand and our customers.
Stacy Caprio 18:28
Cool. And so what could you kind of describe what marketing channels you currently use for beaugen?
Beaguen Marketing Strategy
Tu-Hien Le 18:38
Yeah, so we take an omni channel approach for Beaugen we have we have a content marketing strategy. So we do a lot of blogging, and we create YouTube videos, we have Pinterest, different social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and we even do a little bit of Tick Tock as well. And we try to be wherever our customers are, and want to be a relatable brand that has fun. Like, you know, we want to have laughs because being a mom, like you have to have a bit of humor in it. That’s all like all the sacrifice that we make. And but at the same time, we want to convey that we are at Beaugen we are there to support the moms and show empathy for how they’re feeling during this time in their life.
Stacy Caprio 19:32
Do you find that you have a lot of mom customers referring other customers to your store?
Tu-Hien Le 19:39
Oh yeah, definitely. Beaugen was built on grassroots um, word of mouth organic growth. A lot of it was just within the very active and strong Facebook mom communities just them talking amongst themselves. Moms would ask Hey, I have like that’s a really great Painful pumping or I need? Is there a solution for pumping and other moms would say, hey should check out Beaugen. And that’s how a lot of our initial traction started. And it’s just, you know, almost recently, maybe the beginning of 2019, when we just started seeing a lot more attraction, and that’s when we started doing more intentional marketing and the different channels and advertising.
Stacy Caprio 20:28
Oh, and what type of ads do you run? And which have you seen the best results from
Tu-Hien Le 20:36
you. So we have a pretty detailed ad strategy. But we do all sorts of ads, mostly on Facebook, and a little bit on Pinterest as well. Traffic ads, conversion ads, and then when we run videos, views that helps with our account growth and just brand awareness as well. Yeah, so it all it all definitely helps as far as increasing our brand awareness and helping our account grow.
Stacy Caprio 21:04
And what would you say that your biggest marketing success has been? And what have you learned from it?
Tu-Hien Le 21:13
Oh, our biggest marketing success. I don’t know if I could pinpoint to one thing that’s been successful, I can say that for marketing, and it’s just been a series of testing, what works and what doesn’t. So we would constantly run quick experiments on maybe this copy, or a video instead of images, or on this platform versus, like on Facebook or on Pinterest, and just really constantly refreshing our content that we’re advertising. And being very methodical and being intentional. And measuring the results, we’re able to see what resonates best with our customers. And then and then kind of doubling down on what’s working and then cutting loose what what doesn’t work.
Stacy Caprio 22:10
Exactly. Testing is huge. And that’s great to hear that it’s helped you guys really double down on what’s working.
Tu-Hien Le 22:18
Yeah, totally.
Stacy Caprio 22:20
What has there been anything that you’ve had really high hopes for? And that maybe hasn’t worked out in the way that you wanted it to?
Tu-Hien Le 22:29
High Hopes? I mean, we’ve tried so many different, different strategies, I would say that I’ve never really had like specific high hopes on one thing, it’s always just been like taking it small steps and building from there. Like I wouldn’t just be so laser focused on one solution and like everything had to work, or else for this one solution, or else everything’s going to come crashing down. I feel like that could be a recipe for failure in a way that would might make you like disheartened and might make you quit just taking like small steps to get closer to the right solution. So I would say even like it product development, in marketing, and advertising is all about just taking small steps to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Business Mindset
Stacy Caprio 23:23
That’s great advice, because you don’t want to get discouraged by one thing, and then just kind of quit right away when it doesn’t work.
Tu-Hien Le 23:30
Right. So I would say like one of the worst things to do is to spend, like, you know, so much money in so much time building one solution or sticking to one strategy. And then after all that time you realize it doesn’t work. I feel like there’s definitely faster ways to find indicators and answers of whether that solution or strategy would work. So if you get a little bit of feedback along the journey, you can continue to tweak, get better. And then that way you’re not, quote failing in one big firing ball flame, you just have a little bit of feedback and just continue to get better.
Stacy Caprio 24:08
So what would be your advice to anyone who’s currently struggling with marketing or growing their e-commerce store?
Tu-Hien Le 24:20
That’s a really good question. As far as struggling, I would ask them to really look within themselves and see and ask what is holding them back? Are they looking for perfection? Because my motto is always progress over perfection. Even if your idea your solution or your marketing campaign might be 70% ready, I would launch it because the faster you can get feedback, the faster you can get, like, tweak it and get better. So I’m always a proponent of just launching your idea launching your campaign, putting out in the market and the market will tell you whether they like it or not. And not to not to strive for perfection, because in my opinion, perfection doesn’t exist.
Stacy Caprio 25:12
Are you guys still iterating and improving your product as you get more feedback? Or is it kind of said how it is right now?
Tu-Hien Le 25:20
Oh, definitely, we are actually constantly improving everything in the business from our marketing campaigns, our content, our product, our product offerings, we’re always in tune with what our moms and our customers are saying, and taking that feedback and getting better. So yes, we are currently in more product development, and coming up with new content, and coming up with new marketing, advertising campaigns and everything. So it’s like a constant, constant process.
Stacy Caprio 25:58
Yeah. Wow. So I also I noticed your site has a few partnership products, it displays a could you kind of talk about how you choose your partners and what the benefits of those partnerships are?
Tu-Hien Le 26:14
Yeah. So this, again, kind of came from the feedback we get from our customers, we’d ask them like, what else can we do for you? What? How can we make your your experience with Beaugen better, and people would name like, Oh, I wish you’d offer storage containers or nipple balm, or, you know, these different products. So once customers started telling us this, I would go in and try to source products that might fit that solution. And I was just lucky to be able to find a couple of these companies that were partnered with. So Junobie are the reusable storage bags, tiny human supply makes organic skin products for moms and babies, and bow keys, another like parent started company that helps with breastfeeding solution as well, and add it to our store. And I said, I’m not 100% sure our customers like this stuff. But the only way to find out is to launch it onto our website and see what they say. And so far out to all of them have been a success. The moms love those products. We’re happy to continue to offer them. This goes back again to the I don’t have the answer to everything, but the market will tell me if they like it or not, and just launch it and see what happens.
Stacy Caprio 27:29
Awesome. So is that set up? Where are you wholesaling? Or is it kind of an affiliate partnership? Yeah, we are partnering with them as a wholesaler. Do they also wholesale your products on their site?
Tu-Hien Le 27:43
not currently. No.
Stacy Caprio 27:45
Do you guys have an affiliate program? Or have you tried the influencer marketing at all?
Beaugen Affiliate Program
Tu-Hien Le 27:51
Yeah, so affiliate program has been really huge for us. And we’re actively looking to expand our Beaugen affiliate program. The mom influencers have been amazing, cuz we all know that people love following influencers and seeing what products they like and what they do. And so they’ve been really been great at driving more brand awareness to our company.
Stacy Caprio 28:19
Do you guys track the sales attributed to influencers? Or is it more just a brand awareness campaign?
Tu-Hien Le 28:27
Oh, for the affiliates, we have a program that keeps track of all the sales that they influence, and then they get a percentage of the sales that they they influence.
Stacy Caprio 28:37
So do you guys just do affiliate for the influencers? Or do you have an affiliate for just regular moms?
Tu-Hien Le 28:45
Right now? We’re just doing affiliates for influencers, but we are open to for moms as well, that’s going to be in the future.
Stacy Caprio 28:54
I was interested to get your perspective. When you guys run ads, do you measure success based on break even acquiring a customer based on customer lifetime value? Or how do you measure like whether an ad is a success? Mm hmm.
Tu-Hien Le 29:14
So our biggest measurement for any ads on any platform that we run would be our return on investment. So as long as that number makes sense, I would call that us quote success and just continue to run that ad or maybe make tweaks to see if we can improve the performance.
Stacy Caprio 29:33
Have you guys seen success using Tik Tok so far?
Tik Tok Strategy
Tu-Hien Le 29:39
So the funny thing is, I’m the primary content creator on Tik tok, and it’s fun, but since Instagram reels has come out, I think Instagram reels is algorithm is really trying to compete with tik tok. So, if I film a video on tik tok, I also upload it reels and actually the views on reels is much higher than on tik tok. So, for example, one video I uploaded on Tick Tock might have had maybe 300 to 500 views. Whereas when I uploaded that same video to Instagram reels it had, you know, 80,000 views. So, I mean, I use both just to see and because it doesn’t hurt, I made the same video so I can just upload it on Instagram and on tik tok. And just to see what does the best but right now Instagram real seems to have more views because obviously I think they really want to promote that functionality. But I do enjoy Tik Tok because I think it’s fun.
Stacy Caprio 30:44
Yeah, cuz Tik Tok. It’s actually kind of good that the reels are getting more views, because Tik tok, maybe bought out or even just kind of changed in the US anyway. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think I’ve also personally found like, when you’re one of the first to hop on a new platform, it seems to work better too, because they try to promote you. And ads are usually cheaper. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. So I think last question here is, if you were going back to yourself, when you’re first starting your business, what would you tell yourself?
Tu-Hien Le 31:26
What would I tell myself? I’d probably say, believe in yourself. And don’t try to be perfect. Just try and progress over perfection. If you just try. You’ll learn so much from that. And you’ll continue to progress and get better.
Stacy Caprio 31:46
I love that advice. Awesome. So where can listeners connect with you? And find you online?
Tu-Hien Le 31:53
Yeah, so you guys can find me on Instagram, my handle is at @tuhien.le. So that’s TUHIEN dot Le. And you can also follow my company Beaugenmom, also on Instagram @Beaugenmom
Stacy Caprio 32:15
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed learning from your journey. And I hope to talk again soon. one takeaway from this episode is that to end didn’t assume she knew everything she needed to know, to create the perfect product. Even though her solution originated from her own pain point. And she was technically her own target market, she still went out of her way to talk to mom she knew and networked in Facebook groups to figure out how she could provide the absolute best solution that would help not just her, but everybody with a similar problem. This seemed to really help her down the line with her marketing message.
And knowing what people were thinking and saying about the problem. So she could present her product solution in the best possible light that would appeal to her ideal customers, and that she would have the best possible product because she had gotten feedback from so many of her ideal target market, and had really tailored the product. So it was exactly what everybody wanted. It’s so smart, really, and it seems so basic. But there are so many entrepreneurs, or would be entrepreneurs who skip this step. And don’t take the time to truly understand their customer, and figure out how to best serve them. If a business is serving their customers needs and knows exactly what those needs are, as well as how they can best package and present the solution to the customer.
That is a business that will stay in business and flourish like two hands. It is when business start to assume that they know what the customer needs that they also start to fail, too. Han was able to double validate her idea by launching the Kickstarter that allowed her to get not just people’s word that Oh, I like your product. Yeah, this is a product that I want. But also their money backing their word as well. And it allowed her to truly see her idea was something that people not only wanted, but they were also truly happy to pay for. validating your idea with your market is so important and so often underestimated. And to hand is a great example of someone who really goes above and beyond and who went above and beyond to validate her business’s product market fit.
Another key takeaway is she didn’t let any inexperience or lack of knowledge stop her. Not that she truly had either, but when she wasn’t sure about How to develop a product as she had never done that before. She started talking to others and asking how she could go about doing so. Which led her to finding her local maker shop something that to me sounds like it is straight out of a Harry Potter novel. And the local maker shop allowed her to make her first few or really 40 iterations to develop her initial product offering. How many times have you had a really cool business idea, and then stopped thinking about it or working on it? Right when you came to a roadblock of something that you’d never done before, such as develop a product prototype? Probably a lot. If you think about it, at least when I’m thinking about my own experience, that’s happened to me quite a bit. An important lesson from two hands journey is that you can always ask those around you for advice and for help. And you can always take steps one at a time to bring the business in your mind to reality that or you can visit your local maker shop, and have them just help you make your first prototype like two handed.
It’s also important not to get frustrated. If your first prototype isn’t perfect, I love how to hand talks about making and trying over 40 prototypes. And then sending all of those prototypes to a group of 20 to 30. Moms, so they could try them and get their feedback, as well as she herself trying every single prototype. Imagine the patience and just the time that would have taken to really get every single person’s feedback on 40 different versions of your product, trying 40 different versions yourself and giving feedback, changing the prototype slightly, and then getting a new one and repeating that process 40 times it really shows her dedication, and how focused she was on bringing a product that was really good. And that actually worked really well to market.
Thinking about this if you are interested in starting a product based business, just know that there will likely be a lot of trial and error involved and a lot of testing and iterations that you have to go through before you develop your final product. I found it interesting that both Michael asik in episode one and two hand in this episode, both mentioned how they both went to trade shows as a key part of the process that jumpstart did different parts of their business. asac was able to use a tradeshow to find a licensing partner so we could expand his design distribution and to hand went to a trade show to find different manufacturing and material companies to see who would be able to understand her vision and produce her product at a reasonable cost and timeframe.
The takeaway I got from this is if you’re stuck, or if you need a partner for distribution or production, or any other type of your business, try googling trade shows in your industry area and finding someone to work with at a trade show it’s always worth looking into because there are lots of business partners and potential business partners who do go to trade shows that you can connect with at a trade show two hands answer to the mindset shift question of what changed when she was able to jump and grow from her regular five k month months to 65 k a month months, really struck a chord with me. Since she had never run a company before Beaugen, which I pronounce incorrectly the entire episode. Sorry about that, guys. So she had never run a company before Beaugen. And she had an inner voice telling herself Who am I to think that I could do this? Am I even good enough to be able to do this? And this inner voice, which I think we’ve all had at some point, especially when we’re doing something new. It was limiting her from attempting to set bigger goals. And that was limiting her from even attempting the bigger goals. And if you’re not trying something, there’s no way you’re actually going to get there.
So it was making it impossible for her to take her company to the next level. She seemed to ask questions to dig into her mindset. As she explains in the episode she asked, Why am I limiting myself and trying to dig into that to really get to the root of it. What really seemed to help her was finding different coaches and mentors that helped her reframe her limiting beliefs in mindset to a more limitless mindset of who is to tell you that you can’t reach those big goals you have. And that really allowed her to actually shift her goals from playing small To bigger, which allowed her to actually take the steps to accomplish it. It’s crazy how our thoughts, goals and beliefs have the power to create our reality. And it really is true if you don’t think something is possible. That is what defines your reality and your upper limits, you’re kind of trapping yourself in your own box, it’s when you start to expand what you think is truly possible, that you even give yourself the option to get there. I love how to hand talks about becoming comfortable with trying and failure so you can learn and get better and get faster and stronger. She talks about this throughout the conversation, how you should focus on progress over perfection. And this is great advice for anyone starting a company.
I love how she talks about if you think your marketing campaign is 70%. Ready, launch it, then. Because then you get faster feedback, and you can make it better and then launch it, as opposed to trying to make it 100% ready, because how will you really know without getting the feedback from the market, that it is actually ready, you won’t, you’ll just be spending more time getting something that isn’t actually much better into the market. So if you’re able to launch, get the feedback relaunch, you’ll be able to make your product much better, much faster. And this is something to hand has really taken to heart with her company and her products and her marketing. And everything to him sums this up in a great quote when she says you put it out into the market and the market will tell you if they like it or not. Perfection doesn’t exist. However, there’s the other end of the coin where some entrepreneurs today have started glorifying failure as an achievement in and of itself. And that’s not the point of this, you’re not just supposed to fail for the sake of failure.
And to not emphasizing failure in and of itself, but rather, what she’s able to learn each time she fails, and how she can apply that to her next try. So each time she gets better and better. So she’s not just failing and failing for failing sake. But she’s able to learn from each iteration and keep improving something which is important for all entrepreneurs, similar to her viewpoint on taking risks, it’s not worth it to take wild, crazy risks just for the sake of taking risks. Instead, it’s about taking calculated careful risks, where you’re betting on something that’s not a crazy risk, there’s actually something in it that you’ve either seen others be successful with or that you know has a chance of being successful for whatever reason. And you’re betting on that and yourself and your ability to figure it out.
And you’re also going in knowing what the risks and the rewards are to give yourself the best chance for actual success. I think the key with taking risk is not going all in meaning you know that if you fail, it doesn’t mean your bank account is wiped out that you have to file for bankruptcy, that your business is wiped out. Instead, you go in knowing that if you fail, you simply get the markets feedback, incorporating that into your next version. And you’re able to keep going, not putting all your chips on the table with failure. And that’s not what the point is about.
The point is to use the potential for failure, or semi failure as a learning experience. And knowing that you have chances to try again, I also liked when two hand explained how if you get laser focused on a single solution, and that comes crashing down, it could be a recipe for failure in a way that would make you disheartened and quit. It’s much better to take small steps to get closer to the right solution and figure out what works and what doesn’t, then to put all of your chips on one basket again, and hope that the one thing you’re doing works, something that two hands company envision really embodies is that your business is never static. She’s made so many iterations, she’s always changing her product and her messaging, and improving her business and talking to customers.
And I think this is representative of any business that wants to stay relevant and keep improving and growing in the market, like her company Beaugen you have to be in tune with your customer, get their feedback, change your messaging, change your product. It’s all about getting feedback and getting better. Constantly. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking myself included at times, that once you have a successful business, it is done and it will be successful forever. But things are constantly changing and evolving. And you can always be testing improving to grow your business and serve your customers more effectively. It’s beautiful how to handmade her company to support moms, and how Beaugen does its best have empathy toward customers and support them at every step. Which is likely why her company has been so successful and has so many referrals and her Returning customers.
An important takeaway is that businesses who value and support their customers like Beaugen are able to build strong customer relationships and have a lot of returning customers, which at the end of the day, is the lifeblood of a successful business. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Her.CEO podcast. I hope you took something away that you can implement in your own life or business. If you want to make me smile today, you can leave a five star review on the podcast player you’re listening to. Thanks again for listening and feel free to shoot me an email with any questions or comments.
Contact Tu-Hien Le
Instagram @tuhien.le and @beaugenmom
Beaugen Site