Making an Impact with a Product-Based Business

Have you ever wondered how someone has an idea for a product that solves a real world problem and then they take all of the steps to build the product, scale the product, manufacture the product, sell the product, and all of a sudden they end up in Ulta or at Macy's or any big box retailer and have a thriving boutique line. You guys, today I'm so excited to talk about product based businesses making huge impacts. And so joining me is Adi Aranzini and the founder of Timmy. You may be familiar with Timmy Blends, who went huge on Instagram and have built a real business that solves problems for digestion, for overall health, wellness, beauty, you name it. Today, Adee and I are walking through what it was like not only to initially build and scale the business, but the systems and processes that have helped her along the way. How she builds training manuals, how she analyzes when it's time to invest in more inventory, how how she's built a community around her brand. How she built a huge thriving influencer program that will work for boutiques as well. How she's also analyzing her time spent in business so that she can scale and be a new mom at the same time. You guys, Adee also has a great wholesale business that is new to the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to introduce you. She's got some specials just for Boutique Hub members. So please help me welcome Adhi Aranzini, the founder of of Teamy Blends. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. Hey, Adee, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you for having me, Ashley.

I am so excited because I hope you guys listening know before we got started recording today, we were talking about just your story and your business and what we really wanted to make sure everybody took home today. And I love that you led the conversation with, you know, we can talk about story, we can talk about inspiration, but I really want to get into tactics. I really want to give everyone notes today. So I want to thank you for that because I think it's so appreciated. There's all kinds of inspiration in this business world and the world of female founders, but we're Always hungry for more tangible tactical to do's in business. So I know you're going to be full of that inspiration and take home today. So thank you for that.

Absolutely.

So if anyone has not had the opportunity to meet you yet, you do have an incredible story. So just set the stage for us. Tell us a little bit about your backstory, how you came led to this idea, the problem you were facing, and how your first product line really solved that problem for you.

Yeah, I, I started my business Teami Blends in 2013, which is, it feels like ages ago, it feels like forever ago. And I was just coming out of the military. I had done my service and I was actually a fitness instructor for combat soldiers in the military. So when you see movies of, you know, a girl telling boys to do push ups and climb rope and jump over walls, that was my job. And I had the best job in the military. I loved it. But what they don't tell you is that the food in the cafeteria served in the military is not very good, it's not very healthy. And I have a very sensitive stomach, very sensitive digestion. And after about two years of eating this cafeteria food, my digestive system just stopped working. Like it just completely shut down in the sense that I was not able to go to the bathroom more than once or twice a week, which is terrible for your gut health, it's terrible for how you feel, and it's just terrible for your health overall. And I was so bloated all the time that I looked like I was five months pregnant when I wasn't. And it was a constant state of bloat. Like no matter what I ate, no matter if it was healthy or not healthy, or if I drink water, if I didn't drink water, nothing was improving. My constipation, my bloating, and I was just totally distraught. I tried everything, drinking more water, fasting, like cutting out different foods. And I really was looking for something to help me get my body back to a regular function. And when I finished the military, I started researching what could I do? And I, you know, read all these books technically about poop. And I saw all these different herbs and all these different plants that were recommended to help cleanse and detox the internal organs, the kidneys, the liver, in order to help me kind of reset my system. So I went to my local Whole Foods and I bought like all these different teas that said detox or liver cleanse or kidney cleanse. And they were all about $5. And I bought them all and I Drank them all and none of them did anything. And I was like, well, this really should work because all these books are pointing in this holistic plant, herbal direction and these teas have those ingredients in them. Why isn't it working? And through that kind of line of questioning or that problem that I had, I realized that the ingredients used in those teas is why they can also be $5 is very, very low quality and very small amounts of the actual ingredients that my body needs in order to detox. And that's when I went to formulate my own detox program to help my own body. And when I was able to formulate that, my, the amount of waste that my body got rid of, you would be so shocked how much waste you currently have in your gut right at this moment. Even if you are, you know, even if you've been healthy or you're being healthy, the foods that you've eaten in the past, all the junk food, all the McDonald's, all the pizzas, all those late night of, you know, drinking alcohol, and you're in my early 20s, all of that is, is particles are still in your body. And then you get older and then you say, huh, why can't I lose weight as fast as I used to be able to? I used to be able to just like, you know, be healthy for a few days and then everything was fine. And you just can't do that. The older that you get, your body needs you to actually treat it right. And one of the, one of the ways of treating your body right is getting rid of the junk that is sitting in your body right now from the past. And that's what I was able to do with our 30 day detox program. And that was the first product that launched the business. And fast forward now, nine years later, we have a lifestyle brand that creates wellness and skincare products all inspired by the health benefits of teased herbs and plants. So we were able to expand our product line into wellness products, into vitamins, into skin care products, and have our holistic teas as well. I love that in a nutshell, yeah.

I, I know you covered a lot in a little, and I want to go and I want to break so much of that down. But out of just personal curiosity, talk to me more about detoxes for a second. I've never been great at doing a cleanse or like a great detox other than recently getting food poisoning that was like, you know, mother nature's way of giving me, which is terrible. Don't recommend it. But how often should you go on a great like detox. So like what's the regimen look like?

Yeah, our detox is a 30 day detox and it is really created for beginners. It is not created for that la vegan nutritionist who already knows everything about everything about health. This was created for the regular girl next door that wants to feel better but doesn't know how. She just doesn't know what to do. And you just drink one tea in the morning and one tea at night and you don't have to change your diet because I don't want to ask too much of the customer. I want them to have something easy and simple and not have to change everything about their life in order to start to feel better. So this is a very basic cleanse and detox that helps to get rid of the backed up waste that you've been holding onto and kind of reset your system. A lot of people see weight loss benefits, but that is not something that we claim, that is not something that we push. But the reason why they see that is because they, most people are holding on to five to ten pounds of just waste, Just pure waste. Oh my gosh. It's not even like, it's not even anything else. And my digestion has been solved ever since. And my husband does it, my friends do it. It's pretty incredible. Uh, and I wanted to make it very easy for the customer. And to answer your question, how often should someone do it? Before I was pregnant, I would do the detox, you know, about three to four times a year. That's what my body needed. We have customers that do it one time a year. We have customers that do it before they go on vacation or maybe when they come back from vacation. We have customers that do it every other month because their body needs more of the flushing and the detoxing than other people's bodies. Every person's digestive system is so unique to how they're eating, how they're sleeping, their stress level, what their life has looked up, looked like up until this point. So it's really up to the person. But we usually see people that do the detox, see results from it, do it multiple times a year.

Okay, awesome. That's helpful. Making a plan, making my own plan. All right, let's, let's go back to you creating the very first initial version of the product. Because I think that's where most people get hung up. Like, I have this idea, I want to create this product. Where do I start? Where did you start? To gather ingredients and find A manufacturer to help you with your first iterations of the product.

Yeah, we have a manufacturer in Hong Kong that specialized in tea and coffee. And I was actually able to find them through a mutual friend that I had found because when I was googling things, I wasn't getting very far as far as manufacturers, because you can. There's a lot of bad actors in.

You can get swindled really fast. Yes, yes.

Be careful, for sure. And so at least I knew from a friend that this was a reputable. This is a reputable manufacturer. And I was able to start testing with him. I told him exactly what ingredients I was looking for. He would send me samples, I would put them together and create these formulations because it's a blend of different ingredients, it's not just one ingredient. Until I was able to get the results that I was looking for for myself, because I was the guinea pig. And once we got to the final formulation, that's when we bought our first sample size, which was only 100 products. That's all I bought. It was really small. I was very nervous. I was very. I mean, I was living at home with my mom. I had just gotten out of the military. I didn't have a lot of money. And I was very, very conservative in my approach on buying inventory.

What is the testing look like for a product like that? Because it's for consumption, like when you had those samples and then to actually, like make your next order like a full order. What is that requirement for testing for human consumption for me.

And again, you're talking about a business owner that was starting a business from the bedroom of her mom's house and not someone that had any seed capital. I started promoting it on Instagram. And this is again, Instagram nine years ago, way different app, way different opportunity than there is today. And for me, once I started seeing that I was able to sell it and I sold through 30 or 40% of my inventory, I placed another order because then I was like, oh my God. I'm like, I set up my website and then it's going to show out of stock and I'm like, so nervous. And I actually, I set up another order. I think my next one was like 500 or 1,000 units, but I had to express ship it because I was so nervous about being out of stock, which I did go out of stock for a few days. And I paid a lot more in shipping, which increased my cost of goods, obviously. But it was very important for me to not stop the momentum of the orders that were coming in and so I did pay more to get that product faster and for me it was worth it to keep the momentum in but I was like oh my God I need more and my manufacturer was able to do that for me which was great.

That's awesome. Some of those early hurdles when you're starting a business like that and you're a one woman show like at what point or how quickly in that process did you say oh my gosh I, I'm going to need more help like I've got something here, it's going to take off, I need some help even if it's an assistant to help me like get my email marketing ready or just get to some basic social media or my website managed. When did you start to hire because you knew you were going to start to scale?

Yeah it was way more simple than even what you're saying because I the first person I hired was my next door neighbor's 16 year old son to help me.