In this episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we discover how a targeted retail expansion strategy, customer engagement, and in-depth research contributed to sustainable business growth for More Labs. Our guest is Josh Groff, CEO of More Labs, the health and wellness brand behind Morning Recovery - a scientifically-backed supplement designed to help people recover quickly from the effects of alcohol with its great-tasting, healthy formula.
Josh reveals how starting with a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model enabled More Labs to test, gather feedback, and refine their products, before scaling to over 35,000 retail outlets. He shares their key tactics for capturing interest and increasing sales in major retail outlets, including strategic shelf placements, attractive packaging, and clear brand messaging.
If you're building a wellness brand or want to learn from More Labs' success, tune in for smart insights on retail expansion, and to discover how More Labs successfully navigated major regulatory challenges in the supplements market and their experience with crowdfunding.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
Why a targeted retail expansion approach, from DTC to retail, can lead to better market penetration and customer loyalty.
The importance of prime product placement and clear messaging in driving impulse buys and repeat sales.
Effective strategies for increasing in-store visibility and encouraging trial purchases.
The role of mentorship and networking in driving entrepreneurial success.
The importance of legal considerations in marketing decisions to regulatory compliance, and long-term success.
And so much more!
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
Ever wish you could wake up feeling great after a night out? With Morning Recovery, More Lab’s uniquely formulated supplement, you can prevent hangovers and face new days refreshed. Visit www.morelabs.com now to order and get 15% off your first order.
To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!
Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands that now total over $2 billion in revenues? Set up a free consultation with us today!
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
We've been teaching the marketing path of direct to retail, meaning you start your business selling direct to consumer. There you grow awareness, take smaller risks and build your funding through profitable sales from your website and Amazon and then go to retail for many years. Overall, this process has proven to be more profitable and faster growing than jumping to retail too soon. Today's guest executed this approach perfectly and is now in over 35,000 retailers and continuing to grow. He shares his journey and some valuable advice to help you wherever you are in your journey to harvest the growth potential of your business. Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest growth podcast, John leclair. I'm excited to have on Josh Groff.
Jon LaClare [00:01:02]:
He's the CEO of More Labs, which is the maker of Morning Recovery and a few other brands as well. If you are familiar with this brand, you may have seen it's in tens of thousands of retailers across the country and they do a great business online as well. It's a fantastic product, proven for success, but a really interesting story behind it as well. Josh, first of all, I want to welcome to the show today.
Josh Groff [00:01:24]:
Hey, what's up? Thanks John.
Jon LaClare [00:01:27]:
Thanks for taking the time today. I really appreciate it. I know how busy you are running this really successful business and for sharing your story. So the behind the scenes of Morning Recovery, can you tell our audience if they're not familiar with that product or your company, a little bit more about Morning Recovery and your company, MoreLabs?
Josh Groff [00:01:42]:
Yeah, of course, we're called MoreLabs. We're based here in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 2017, we make functional shots. So Morning Recovery, as you talked about was that's really our first product to market that we came out with in 2017. It is a preventative shot when you're taking, when you're drinking any kind of alcohol that you don't wake up with some of those nasty after effects like headache, body ache, nausea, all the fun things associated with drinking alcohol. We've really grown Morning Recovery a ton over the last seven years. And then along the way, we've launched two other functional brands. One is called Liquid Focus, which is a cognitive enhancement shot that gives you a boost of energy but also helps you get really kind of locked and laser focused.
Josh Groff [00:02:29]:
And then a shot called Dreamwell, which is a better for you sleep Supplement that helps you get to sleep faster, stay asleep, but also wake up feeling refreshed and recharged. So with those three brands as part of our portfolio, really our goal as a company is to elevate the daily performances and really help you kind of get the best out of each and every day and be the most productive version of yourself. So that's what we aim to do here through all of our products.
Jon LaClare [00:02:55]:
And it's so smart owning a supplements business to think about longevity of the business. Right. You've done, you've had great success with your first product. Right. Morning Recovery, which has done so well in retail and direct to consumer. It's great to add on other products. I've got a couple here as well. Into the mix to think about growing your customer base where some people may not have the need for your first product, but will for the other products.
Jon LaClare [00:03:15]:
Right. Or once they know you and know your brand and frankly love you and trust you, now you can speak to that same audience by sharing benefits that are sort of similar. Right. They're different products, but they're trusted in terms of the way that you guys come together from a scientific development process. Right. So when they have one product that works well, they'll trust you on the others. It's a great way to grow your business. So, yeah, kudos on doing that.
Josh Groff [00:03:38]:
Yeah. And that was the goal in thinking of frequency of use. Right. So you're exactly right where obviously people aren't getting out, they're not out drinking alcohol for the most part every day. And so morning recovery, While there are 150 million people in America that drink alcohol at some level, so there's a huge potential market base you can go after, but people aren't drinking alcohol every day on the average. And so we really wanted to have other products that would increase frequency of use. But also listening to our consumers, we asked our customers and said, what are some of the daily stressors that slow you down when you're trying to be your most productive self? And the number one thing is, hey, I either have a lot of trouble focusing or kind of having enough energy to really get through some of those tough tasks, or I just don't sleep all that well. And since we came out with those products, I mean, both energy in its own way and sleep are both huge categories.
Josh Groff [00:04:31]:
But we really wanted to put something forward that we thought was a better solution and was really representative of what we're trying to do here at morelabs. And so far they've been great. So we do Try to hit kind of all those facets of life between morning, afternoon, nighttime, that kind of thing. So it's been going great.
Jon LaClare [00:04:48]:
And I love them. They're. They're great trademarks. Right. So I believe all three of the are trademarked, right. Registered trademarks. Not just Morning Recovery, but. But this one, specifically, your first one, your hero, Morning Recovery.
Jon LaClare [00:04:59]:
It's a very descriptive trademark. So my audience has probably heard me say this before, but attorneys listening, I'm sure, like, oh, that's a terrible trademark. Right. Because it's. It's something that is, like, very descriptive. It tells what it does, and it's easy to copy or get close to. Right. From a marketer's perspective.
Jon LaClare [00:05:14]:
So from your and my perspective, it's an amazing trademark. And we had the same thing happen at OxiClean. Again, attorneys would say, terrible trademark. It uses oxygen to clean. Right. And. But the thing is, it's memorable. And when we're starting out a business, building a brand, building awareness without, I would say, wasting tens of millions of dollars and building awareness.
Jon LaClare [00:05:35]:
Right. When you've got a descriptive trademark, something that's more memorable, it saves you so much money. Because when people see it, when they hear about it, they're more likely to remember. It means you have to show it to them fewer times or spend less money for them to remember and come back to you and purchase. I'm a huge believer in descriptive trademarks like this. When you can get them, right, they're not easy to get. It takes time and effort and, of course, the importance of registering the trademark. But what are some of the benefits you've seen, you think, in running this business with such a great descriptive trademark?
Josh Groff [00:06:05]:
Yeah. And it's interesting listening to say that. I think you're a lot more eloquent about it than maybe we thought about as we moved along. I think about one of the biggest challenges in retail, as you know, is you walk into a wall of products and beverages that are various colors and sizes, and you only have that consumer's attention for a very split second if they've never heard or seen your brand before to really describe exactly what you do. And so you can either do that, of course, through your package or your vessel or your name, or there's only wording that's on your packaging, but there's only a hot second for you to be able to do that. And so when we set out to name our products, we wanted them to be so simple for people that. To understand, but also people maybe that English wasn't their first Language and just things that it would immediately tip you off as to exactly what we're trying to do and what the function is. And that way it would make it hopefully a little bit less expensive for us to have to support with a ton of marketing and events to kind of gain awareness around it.
Josh Groff [00:07:07]:
But to your point, now that we have protected those and we do have those names, I mean, we've had retailers time after time that say, hey, there are a lot of brands and people have to ask me constantly what it does or a consumer would feel a little embarrassed to ask a clerk what this product does. So they just opt not to buy it. And it sits there versus your products. It comes in, I know exactly what it is. Like, I want to feel better in the morning. I want to get a little bit of focus and energy here to get going and I want to get a great night's sleep. So we've seen a lot of advantages to that and definitely has been appreciated by retailers.
Jon LaClare [00:07:42]:
And I think it's a good thing to think about. I couldn't think of the word before, but the attorneys I've spoken with typically use the word fanciful. Right. If you can have a fanciful trademark sound like a made up word, it is easier to protect for sure. Right. You have to fight harder to protect your brand when it's a descriptive one. But along the way you'll have, you'll be able to reach that point of success where you can protect it and you know, like she said. I love the analogy too.
Jon LaClare [00:08:05]:
Not just remembering it from an ad, but also seeing it on the shelf in retail and understanding instantaneously what it does for you. It can be so important. Now, on the topic of messaging, I know one of the things you and I have talked about before is the difficulty of selling a product like this is not being able to say the word hangover. I think because it's a medical claim, or maybe you word it differently than that, but having to avoid a medical claim or a word like that, which is really what you're doing, is you're helping to prevent or to recover from a hangover, but you can't say hangover. So how have you overcome that, that messaging hurdle?
Josh Groff [00:08:36]:
Well, unfortunately, before we overcame it, we stepped right into it and made the mistake. So I think a lot of brands in this space have done the same thing. And we didn't really know as much around how the FDA and the FTC regulate certain language and claim substantiation. So that should be said. We weren't brilliant out of the gate. We stepped right into it and had to clean up some things and, you know, make some apologies for claims that we weren't allowed to make. And now as we see so many people flood the space that are doing the exact same thing, it's interesting. I try to reach out to people and just advise them as much as I can on what's legal, what's not, just to save them some heartache and finances, but people still do it.
Josh Groff [00:09:25]:
But, you know, once we kind of learned that and moved on and we can't say hangover and have to get a lot more creative with how we describe what the product is meant to do, then it gets really choiceful in terms of how exactly what words you use. This is a tiny bottle, as you said, it's only 100 milligrams or milliliters and we only have so much space on the bottle. So it has to be a really short, succinct, simple way to describe exactly what we do without actually having to say the word hangover or other things that are not allowed. And so to be fair, it hasn't been. It hasn't been easy. We've done a lot of modifications over the years. We've iterated, we've tried different things. And really what we.
Josh Groff [00:10:09]:
What we went for is we try to use every piece of the packaging space that we can. So on the front, underneath morning recovery, it says, drink today, feel great tomorrow. Shortest amount of words that we can to convey what this product does to the consumer and then when to take it. Take while drinking makes it as simple as we can make it. So again, a lot of trial and error, a lot of testing with our. Not only on our ads and seeing kind of what gets traction on social. And when we do place ads where. What's that? Click through rate based on the language, but then also just a lot of feedback from both distributors and retailers to kind of find the best way to describe it.
Josh Groff [00:10:45]:
But it hasn't been easy and it's kind of a constant work in progress, but we're getting there.
Jon LaClare [00:10:51]:
And I think it's important to talk about these two topics next to each other because, you know, at least, again, I'm no attorney, I don't want to give legal advice here. But on the trademark side, being descriptive, you know, even though attorneys may recommend an alternative path, right, to use fanciful language or whatever, medical claims are not something you want to mess with. This is definitely where you want to follow your attorney's advice. Steer clear of any potential issues on making claims Now, a lot of them, you can get caught by Facebook or TV channels, depending on how you market it. Right. Or potentially retailers, they might catch some things, which is good. Right. It helps us to avoid potential issues.
Jon LaClare [00:11:24]:
But it's always helpful to talk to an attorney to make sure you're clear. Right. You're talking about it in the right way, that's going to be safe. And then finding the hard part now becomes okay. Finding the marketing language that will work, it'll convey what your product does, inferring maybe the claim or the benefit of the product, but not making those medical claims and making sure we steer clear of those. So let's talk about successes of the business. You've had some great success along the way. We'll get into that in a little bit.
Jon LaClare [00:11:48]:
But what was your first success you had as a business?
Josh Groff [00:11:52]:
So when the business was first started, being back in 2017, we were. We needed, like any brand does, needed funding and needed to figure out a way we'd come up with a formula, kind of some benchtop samples. And the founder of the business, his name is Sison Lee, he had created these benchtop samples. And then at that point we really thought, hey, this is an interesting product, but we need to actually find a way to fund it. So we went on to a crowdfunding website, tried to raise 25,000, just as a way to kind of get a little bit of gas in the tank, see what we could do. I think we really did a good job of describing what the product was designed for and what the goal was going to be for the product. And it got tremendous traction. We tried to raise 25,000, and then in just three days, we raised 250,000, which was a real signal to us that it was something that was in demand.
Josh Groff [00:12:47]:
And then people were looking for. And so we took that money and we gave all of it to University of Southern California's School of Pharmacy in the form of a research grant. So we would actually be sponsoring a grant around alcohol metabolization, the effects of alcohol on the body. And then really we knew that if we were going to come forward with a product and put something out there, that we wanted it to be the most scientifically backed and most effective product that we could. And the best way to do that is based here in LA was working with our local university and a tremendous group of tenured physicians and scientists that took that grant money and then came back with what we believe is the best product in the market in morning recovery. So, you know, that was a tremendous win for us just to get out of the gate with not only using, having that money available and being able to put that directly into the science, which is very expensive, into the research, but then having a product that we felt was really had the markings of everything that we needed to be successful in the market and having that backing from true research behind it. So that was our first win. And then once we kind of were able to take that message and really get a little bit of press around it, go dtc, get online, we were just seeing really strong sales out of the gate, which was a real lucky, lucky break for us, I guess.
Jon LaClare [00:14:14]:
It's so tempting, I think, you know, I've. We've had other crowdfunders on this show or people that have, you know, raised money through crowdfunding or whatever your means might be, you get an influx of cash that comes in, and it's a hard decision of where to put that money, right? It can be lifestyle, right? Unfortunately, some have. Have gone that direction. But syncing it, you know, even when you're putting it back into the business, where do you put it right? And is it more in marketing or is it more in product development or labeling, et cetera, or what you've done is kind of R and D, right, to perfect the product and to do that early stage, how do you make that decision to put, you know, a big sum of money right into R and D in the very beginning to make sure you got it right?
Josh Groff [00:14:54]:
You know, I think that the. In today's, today's information age, where just people can share so quickly, I mean, you're going to end up spending so much more money to put lipstick on a pig, so to speak, you know, it has to stand on its own. And in a former life, I owned a restaurant for four years, and, you know, one of the things I learned about Yelp and reviews is if you don't have a quality product, then you just get torched out of the gate. So it's really important that all those reviews come in positive. And so if you take just the fact that information travels so quickly, but then also the fact that looking at these types of products that are for hydration and prevention of hangovers through alcohol consumption, it's a big category in Asia, but it's not a big category here in the US and so if we were going to be really one of the leaders to bring this category to the US but immediately the reviews were just faulty at best, it's not a great place to start. So we knew if we were going to do that, it needed to be all in and we needed to feel that the actual science in the background was bulletproof and that we had something that truly we could stand behind so that those positive reviews as it information shares so quickly. I mean, the biggest thing is if your friend tells you, hey, I picked this thing up at the liquor store the other day, I gave it a shot and it sucked, then they're going to tell 10 people that it sucked. So we didn't want to be there.
Josh Groff [00:16:19]:
We want to make sure that people said, hey, this worked. I can't believe it. But next time I go out and I drink, I'm going to try another one. That's what we had to do.
Jon LaClare [00:16:27]:
It's genius. If I could again compare it to the oxiclean journey from back in the day. What helped us make OxiClean so successful in the early days was the fact that it worked. Right. So as genius as Billy Mays was as a talent. If you remember back. Right. The original heydays of OxyContin.
Josh Groff [00:16:44]:
Yeah, yeah.
Jon LaClare [00:16:45]:
He was amazing at getting trial. Right. Getting. He could sell anything to anybody. Right. The nice thing with OxyContin, what made it successful, like your product is when you get it in your home and you try it, it works. You're going to buy it again and again and again. Right.
Jon LaClare [00:16:57]:
So it's about making it work, function really well, actually do what you purport to do. And then the marketing, you know, is. I don't want to call it secondary. You still got to get the word out. Right. You can have a great product and not talk about it the right way. No one's going to buy it. But if you get your marketing dialed in and your product dialed in, really, there's no better combination to drive a growing business for the long term.
Jon LaClare [00:17:18]:
For sure.
Josh Groff [00:17:19]:
Yeah.
Jon LaClare [00:17:20]:
So you have really kind of what you'd follow a path that I would refer to as direct to retail. Right. So it's a phrase we often use at Harvest Growth. It's starting with the direct to consumer business and then driving that into retail sales. Again. Back to my OxyContin history, but so many other product launches we've done over the years. When you get the awareness up through direct response, you're learning at a lower risk in a lower risk area. Right.
Jon LaClare [00:17:44]:
If you need to change your pricing or your messaging or really figure these things out when you're selling onesie twosies in the very, very beginning of a campaign, it's safer than when you have a big order you send off to Walmart or Target or GNC or whatever it might be, you send out thousands, tens of thousands or more. Sometimes it's harder to fix it right or make changes, it's a longer cycle, etc. So it's a great process. It's kind of what you followed where you had great success early on direct to consumer. Now your retail side of your business has really grown and any I guess learnings along that path that have been really helpful to you guys or whether they're hurdles you had to cross or whether they're successes that you learned along the way of using that approach of starting direct and really driving retail sales.
Josh Groff [00:18:26]:
Well, I mean we have being around seven years, it feels like it's dog years I guess a little where we've been, we've been around forever, but it's not that long. But it just takes, it's been a lot of lumps and a lot of learning as any small brand has to go through. So I think that perfect example is one of our products. After we started expand out of morning recovery we took a chance on kind of a new product, wanted to find some new things and we had tested it amongst kind of our super users of our other product within our own company. And we'd had. Everything was safe but just people's actual. The body reacts differently to different ingredients and we wanted to get it out to market. And so we made, we made a whole run of it.
Josh Groff [00:19:15]:
And then as we started to get it out even directly to our consumers, we started to get feedback from not a large amount, but 10% is enough of an amount that if something's not perfect, you don't want it to be out on the market if it affects people differently. And there was one specific ingredient that we needed to take out in order to make sure that we weren't getting that reaction. And we had to take $250,000 worth of product and essentially throw it in the garbage. And again that was that we hadn't done the right steps to launch a product and bring it to market first. So that was a problem. But it is nice within a direct to consumer approach where you can, especially when you're selling things through your own website where you have direct info and relationship with that customer, where you can get direct feedback, you can get people that actually write directly into your customer service team and tell them like hey this one tastes funny or how come it was supposed to taste this way and it didn't or whatever that feedback would be and it allows you to hear that directly compile as much of it and find those trends and then over time, continue to iterate and improve your product. And back in the old days when we first started, we are a functional beverage first, and it has to be effective. But a lot of times with functional beverages and those ingredients, they don't always.
Josh Groff [00:20:27]:
Those ingredients don't taste great. And so in the early days of morning recovery is. We'd hand it to a consumer or hand it to a buyer. We'd always have to. Before they opened it, they'd crack it open and we'd be like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. So just so you know, this is functional. It's supposed to. It's gonna do all these great things for you.
Josh Groff [00:20:41]:
It's not meant to be refreshing, et cetera, et cetera. You had to kind of give them the whole elevator pitch a little bit before they actually took a sip. And then they said, well, yeah, you know, it doesn't taste great, but if it works, I guess it's fine. I'd rather have it work than not work. And now, seven years later, we've just continued to work really hard and iterate, iterate, iterate on the flavor. And now when people open it, they actually think that it's going to taste horrible because it's got a bunch of minerals and vitamins and ingredients, and they kind of are about to plug their nose and then they take the first sip and they look at it. It's like, oh, this is actually really nice. Like, yeah, it's a very palatable, delicious product now.
Josh Groff [00:21:14]:
But that took years to get to. And it's always. That iteration is really challenging. But it is a lot easier and nicer to your point, to have that kind of closed loop around feedback, a feedback loop directly from that small group of customers that you trust that can give you the insights that you need to go make the product better every step of the way.
Jon LaClare [00:21:38]:
Yeah, I want to jump back a little bit. You talked about $250,000 worth of product that you essentially had to throw away. And it's, you know, it's. Everything's in scale, right? That's a, It's a hard learning to go through. But, you know, because you're on the direct to consumer path, had that been retail, right? If you're shipping it out to tens of thousands of retailers now, you're talking potentially millions of dollars in inventory, right? So it's. Everything gets bigger and you're not going to find. I think you call it the feedback loop, right? Your feedback loop is so much longer in retail. To get those learnings you may not find if there's a taste issue, whatever it might be for months or potentially even longer.
Jon LaClare [00:22:12]:
So it's, it's great to use that as a continual way to grow the business by learning, by connecting to your consumer, by making changes to whether it's your existing product or new ones that you're launching. So it's a great way to talk about it. Now, on the retail side, how many retailer outlets are you in right now?
Josh Groff [00:22:30]:
We are in about 35,000 doors.
Jon LaClare [00:22:34]:
That's fantastic. Any tips or learnings on that journey? So how did you go from being direct to consumer in the early days? So your website and Amazon, et cetera, into getting to over 30,000 retailers?
Josh Groff [00:22:48]:
So we knew that at the time and this was six years ago, so the stats have probably changed a little bit. But high 90s 98, 99% of alcohol was still purchased offline versus online line. I'm sure that landscape continues to shift and it's not much different now, but it's probably a little bit more in the favor of deliveries and online services. But we needed to be where our consumer was with morning recovery. And so retail was the place that we were going to be able to scale the brand. It still is the place where we're going to be able to scale the brand. And a place where people, you can drive trial and awareness because we are an impulse item at the register. You grab a bottle just because you're.
Josh Groff [00:23:28]:
You see it. You know, everybody's done that where they just see something like, you know what? I'm going to give it a shot. Never had it before. Let's see. So it's a great way to drive awareness, drive trial. So we knew we needed to be in retail and our plan, because we had this direct to consumer data and we knew where people were ordering us online, we picked three markets that really kind of bubbled to the top of markets that seemed like we could have a real good shot at winning in retail. Those were Los Angeles. We're based here, San Francisco.
Josh Groff [00:23:59]:
Just because the founder's background being in technology and really us being born in the Silicon Valley area, that made a lot of sense. And then the third one was Chicago. We were getting a lot of online orders out of Chicago. It's a great food and beverage market. Anybody who's been there loves Chicago to go out and have a good time. So we picked those three markets and our hypothesis was if we can go deep in three markets and not try to scale too wide, too fast, but inch Deep, mile wide, and show that we can start at the base, deliver ourselves, win at mom and pops, eventually win over some chains, get a distributor, distributor, then helps open up larger chains. Then we get into C store, then grocery, then mass, et cetera. But we could stack it on top of each other and then demonstrate within one or two, three core markets that we were able to go deep and win in various channels and in different parts of town.
Josh Groff [00:24:51]:
Because you don't want to be a brand that's like, hey, I sell downtown, but I do terrible in the suburbs, or I sell great and upscale neighborhoods, but poorly and downscale. I mean, we really wanted to find that we could be. We could sell everywhere. And so that, that was really the, the blueprint that we followed for the first several years, even though it was painful and we got a lot of offers for people that just said, hey, well, why don't you, why don't you talk to this chain that's over in Arkansas, this one in Florida? And frankly, we just said, we don't have anybody in Florida. I don't know how we're not ready to do that. We had to stay as diligent as we could, and again, painfully so sometimes. But our goal was inch wide, mile deep, show that we could stack throughout channels and that we could meet hurdle rates at all kinds of different retailers. Once we did that and then we had this data, then we could go to the next big market, which we did.
Josh Groff [00:25:41]:
And we went and said, cool, Texas, let's talk about Texas. Let's go. And then you bring that data to a retailer, you bring that data to a distributor, you have a way to get people excited. You've shown that you can win and that you know how to build a market and then replicate that across the country. We're still far from that. We're not a huge brand still. I mean, we have infinite way to go still to do that. But we now have found a blueprint that we, when we do go into launch metro areas that has been successful and proven, and it's not the fastest model, but it is capital efficient and has shown that it works.
Jon LaClare [00:26:17]:
And when you, for audience sake, when you start off in smaller or not smaller, but a smaller number of cities or markets, you've got the opportunity to now market those, whether it's Facebook ads or whatever it might be. But you can choose those geographies and really drive up your awareness as opposed to trying to get nationwide. When you've got one store here, one store, you know, they're kind of spread out around the country it's harder if you've got focused in LA and San Francisco and you know, et cetera, Chicago in the early days it's easier to market to those to drive interest, awareness and really grow which drives success in retailing. You know you talked about how you can take those success stories now to other retailers to make sure that they're successful as well as you grow this. You've also talked about trial a little bit. So getting people to try being on the counter is one way to do that. How is trial getting people to try out your product once helped your business? I guess. How do you do that? How do you get them to try the first time and then you know what's been helpful to bring it back?
Josh Groff [00:27:13]:
Well, the number one way that we found mean there's, there's in the early days it was a lot of social media advertising targeting groups based on characteristics and then trying to get an Instagram ad in front of that person as they're scrolling, get them to stop and then at least learn and take a chance on that. That was, that was early days. It's, it was expensive but we, it was a way for us to scale online and to gain trial and then fast forward into retail again. Most the biggest thing that we can do is in terms of driving trial is really attractive packaging. Something that looks clean, it looks trustworthy. It is back to your point on the trademarks. It's really clear in an instant exactly what your product is intended to do so that when people do see it, it hits them in that need state. Second within retail is just positioning within the store.
Josh Groff [00:28:10]:
You can be at every store in America but if you're on the bottom shelf in the vitamin area, you're never going to get seen unfortun unless people are looking for a very specific thing versus if you are in less stores. But every store that you're in, you're right up at the register. So as you're checking out you have to see it. Potentially the clerk is there that says hey, you're drinking. You ever tried morning recovery? I sell a ton of it. People love it. Great. Kind of you start to get all of this cross pollination of just people talking about it, visibility, positioning within the store.
Josh Groff [00:28:41]:
There are other things that of course running in a grocery store, anything that has a tag on it with a TPR and giving people a deal is going to always incentivize them to take it, pick it up and, and try it. But yeah, biggest things for us are just clear, very easy to Understand packaging and presentation in terms of what the proposition is and then getting people to pick it up. And so that has been critical. Which leads to, and you and I have talked about this before, but that leads to sips to lips for us, which is our number one goal within anything else that we do is just purely boils down to sips to lips. You try it, you taste good, you believe it because it worked for you and you are more likely to recommend it and remember it and repurchase it. And so those kinds of things. And it's getting up at the register, I should say too, because if you have small brands and things that listen to your podcast, getting up at the register can be really expensive. And people, a lot of times retailers hear it and they think sliding dollars and you have to pay for that.
Josh Groff [00:29:41]:
And what's been nice for us is we never really ask or pay for front end space. Generally speaking, we have a product that is a 499 ring for morning recovery at the retailer. So it's five bucks, it's small, it can fit in your pocket. And so we just tell them, hey, we like to be in and around alcohol because that's where we sell. And then they say, well, I don't want it to disappear into someone's pocket, so I should put it up near the register. We say that I think that's probably a good idea. And we don't actually pay for that space, so it's not easy to get up there. But that has been such a, a huge game changer for us in that shelf stable packaging that can, that doesn't have to be refrigerated and can live up the register, where every single person that comes through the store that has to pay sees you and you get that impression, has been really helpful.
Jon LaClare [00:30:27]:
Well, and it's impulse and incremental, right? So these are obviously an impulse purchase potentially, but also it's incremental because it's. There aren't a lot of competitors that do the same thing. So it's, you know, if you're buying, if you're in the liquor aisle, for example, coming up in a liquor store, you're not replacing a different purchase, you're adding this to the cart, which retailers love as well. And so as soon as they see that, that they're. This helps to grow their average cart value or average order value, it's all the more reason for them to take you on, but also to encourage more sales. Again, because you're not just choosing between the sea of different products. It's adding to the cart to grow their average purchase value, which really helps a lot. Well, Josh, are there any resources that you'd recommend, things that have been helpful to you in your business journey?
Josh Groff [00:31:08]:
For me, the biggest things have been mentorship and really just doing a great job of trying to network within your own category or area. I mean, I've worked for, had the opportunity thankfully to work for some really, really bright people that have always been resources to me when I need to learn about leadership, learn about hiring, learn about creating strategies and just things of that nature. There's obviously so many great things that are available now to read and great publications. But for me, mentorship and my network has been the most helpful thing to me as I've built this company, frankly. So been blessed to have that. I think even, I think back to the first time I had to write my own pitch deck and I was terrible at it. I thought I was putting things in there that made sense. And then thankfully in my network have a couple people that work in the VC world that I was able to just do dry runs with and get feedback and feedback and feedback and same with your products, right? You're just getting feedback, iterate, feedback, iterate.
Josh Groff [00:32:13]:
And I think, I think that's been really helpful is purely finding a couple people that you really respect how they do business, how they work with their employees, how they lead, and then getting that mentorship relationship with them so that you can feel comfortable and confident that they'll give you honest, real feedback and then you can continue to just improve and grow and iterate yourself as well.
Jon LaClare [00:32:35]:
It's good advice and for our audience sake, don't go into this feeling like you can't start a business or grow a business without a mentorship group or network that's already built. Right? So many business owners have been down the same path that we have, right? All of us in our journey, at a different points in the journey and are willing to share, right? So you got to make a valid connection, provide some value of some sort, right? But if you don't have the network already, you can find mentors within your space that maybe they're answering a couple of questions for you, maybe they become a partner of yours and anywhere in between. But reach out, connect with people through LinkedIn. I encourage everyone, if you don't have that base already, find a group of mentors that are further along than you in your space and it's only going to help you. And please obviously return the favor to help others, whether it's now or later. In your journey that may approach you. Well, Josh, this has been a really fun interview. Is there anything I didn't ask that you think could be helpful for our audience?
Josh Groff [00:33:33]:
I don't think so. I mean, in terms of what's helpful as just the shameless pitch, I mean, we really believe the world. It's very interesting right now because within the world of wine and spirits and alcohol, there's a lot of articles about how during COVID alcohol consumption was spiking. And then now that we're kind of post Covid alcohol consumption is declining and the category contracts a little bit. And I think that's healthy and I think it's interesting. I think that one thing that's always for us now and I've, I've become more aware of this as I've gotten a little bit older now, but it's more about conscientious drinking. And so I just don't process alcohol like I used to and most people don't. And so morning recovery is just for every time you drink kind of a product now.
Josh Groff [00:34:20]:
So it's a good way to make sure that whether you have one or three, you wake up feeling refreshed and recharged and ready to go. And yeah, we're really excited about just the traction that we're seeing across the country. Morelabs.com we're on Instagram at morelabs. You can find us@morelabs.com we're on Amazon. We have over 3,000 five star reviews. So it's out there and it's available.
Jon LaClare [00:34:45]:
Well, thank you for sharing your story. I do encourage everyone please watch for this in retail stores or check out the website or Amazon listing again. Morelabs.com it's in the show notes. If you're driving, don't feel like you have to take notes. As always, you can go to our website to or any of your favorite podcasts in the show notes. You'll be able to find that. And I do want to tell our audience as well. Make sure that you reach out to us if you need help with your own product launch or growth of your business.
Jon LaClare [00:35:10]:
You can actually use us for a 30 minute strategy consultation totally free. We've launched and grown hundreds of products since 2007 and learned some of our strategies while growing Oxiclean back in the Billy Mays days. We're here to help. So please go to harvestgrowth.com and set up a call if you'd like to discuss further.
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