Souper Cubes Founder Interview - Michelle and Jake Sendowski

We talk about living the charmed life here a lot on the Small Business show, and I love it when we encounter other people that just like, fully grok that. And today's interview speaks volumes about the charmed life and how you can get there and what it means. Like, the definition of it is different for everybody, and that's sort of the beauty of going there.

Yeah, I agree. And I love when we have guests on that are just. You can just see the excitement or hear the excitement in their voice. Will see it. Right. Because they're just the inflection and they love talking about it. And, you know, this could be the most important small business show that we've ever broadcasted.

Yeah. I was thinking that as we were doing this interview with it you're about to hear because, yeah, these folks, like, they. They did it and they got like. Like all of us, they had an idea that they're. That. That they got lucky with. But luck is only. Only a very small part of it. But it is a necess. I mean, you have to have a little bit of that. But bullheaded persistence. I mean, there's so many lessons and examples of the. The ideas that we talk about all the time right here in this episode. So I'm. I'm totally ready.

Let's go. I'm excited.

All right, well, he is Shannon Jean. I'm Dave Hamilton, and this is episode 260 of the Small Business show.

When I reached out to some of the retail partners that we've had that we have. I don't know what their email address is, and it's not on LinkedIn. So you gotta get crafty and try to figure it out. And so, you know, you just have to keep going. And until you. Until you get a response from them, I think. So you be persistent because no one's gonna make it happen for you besides you. Foreign.

Hey, Dave, how you doing?

I'm good, man.

How are you today?

I'm doing great. Hey, you know, we talk about this a lot on the show too, and I think all of us, at one time or another, we've thought about, like, oh, if there was only this product that, you know, I had that could make, you know, make my life easier. I mean, I think of this stuff all the time. Write it down and it. But most of ideas are just that they just stay as ideas. They don't go anywhere. But today, you know, we have a couple of product innovators with us that took their concept to fruition, created a company called Super Products, and it's spelled S O U P E R, which is cool. To bring their product. Yeah, to bring the product to market. So, Michelle and Jake, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hey, thanks, Shannon and Dave.

Yeah, hello.

Yeah, we're really happy to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your product. The Super Cubes, what are they and how do you use them?

So pretty. Basically, Super Cubes is a silicone, a very sturdy silicone freezing tray that's designed to freeze food in individual portions, like 1 cup portions, 2 cup portions, or a half a cup portion. And really it works great for anything that has a little bit of liquid to it, like a soup. Soup or a stew. We've seen people freeze rice in it, but it's just a great way to take all this food or leftovers that you may create batch cooking and then freeze it into individual portions to share with others or use for yourself later.

That's great. So the way I heard about these things is my wife, who's like a kitchen fanatic, and she found them and then posted in a Facebook group to a bunch of, you know, we're almost empty nesters. So this group, flown and grown, she posted to. And people are nuts about this product. She had, you know, 6, 700 likes and hundreds of comments, and she was, you know, do you get a lot of that type of social engagement when people. I mean, it sounds like such a simple product, but my wife talks about them all the time.

Yeah, I mean, we're in a lot of different Facebook groups and Instagram communities, and it's always so exciting to see when people go and share them using Super Cubes. But honestly, it's hard for us to track all of that. And a lot of times people will either send us an email or if a friend finds it, we'll send us a text and say, oh, hey, someone posted a picture of them cooking and freezing in Super Cubes, and that always makes their day.

Yeah, I think the viral nature of, like, the word of mouth nature of how the product has been shared from, you know, one person to another, and primarily it's women who are sharing the product with each other has really, you know, it's beyond our ability to track, like Michelle said, and it's really just been phenomenal and I think it been a big part of our success so far.

Okay, so what's the story behind wanting to develop the Super Cube product? I mean, did you start out wanting to create a business or did you want to solve a problem for yourself? And then that turned into A business.

It's definitely the second. We wanted to solve a problem for ourselves. Jake and I were running errands, and we're at a grocery store and noticed their very huge soup selection. And we're both big fans of soup. And we were talking about how when we make our own broth in particular, we always have such a large quantity, and for two of us, we're always going to have leftovers. I had told him that in the past, I used to freeze my broth in ice cube trays, just like a regular ice cube tray that comes with the freezer. And then I would try to repurpose it for other recipes so that it could last longer. But I never quite knew how much broth was in each cube. I would try to put it in a measuring cup and then microwave it, and it ended up taking a lot of time and effort. It wasn't a great system. And so he encouraged me to see if there was other ways to freeze my broth. And what we saw is that there were lots of folks who freeze in ice cube trays, lots of folks who freeze in glass so it can shatter if you're not careful, or in Ziploc bags, which I wasn't a really big fan of. And so, like, through my complaining to him, he really kind of thought through, like, well, why. Why don't freezer trays have fill lines? Why aren't they made out of, like, sturdy, flexible material so you can take it out? And I thought, I don't know. And he really encouraged us, like, we. We should try to make this ourselves. You know, this would help our own kitchen and our own cooking needs. And I thought he was crazy at first. I work in education during the day, so I. I never thought I'd be running my own business.

Yeah, I think it probably, you know, being coming from an engineering background and spending a lot of time thinking about how do you solve really tricky problems? This problem seemed to me to have, like, an easy solution, which is, oh, why isn't there, like, a silicone thing that. Because it doesn't stick to anything that has fill lines, so you know exactly how much is there when you pour it in. And like this first use case that we. That we came up with around just freezing, like, chicken stock so that you can use it in other recipes. That was like, the beginning. And then. And then it. It dawned on us later that there were so many more uses for this. And then, you know, part of it was what we heard from customers and things like that, too, and listening to them and what they were trying to use it for, but you know, it just seemed like why wouldn't we try to do it? And yes, I pushed a lot.

He did. I was like, no way are we gonna create this. I have no idea how. But he said we would figure it out together.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. I love that story. So. And we're going to come back to this, working together because I'm very interested in that. But you mentioned that you're both doing other things. Looking at your LinkedIn profiles, you guys look really busy and very successful. How do you manage your time with super products and your other careers? How does that work out for you?

I always start my day with a cup of coffee and I think that makes the energy level go a little bit further. But I think we do a couple of things. We do our day responsibilities during the day. So I'm a full time PhD student and part time research analyst at a university and Jake is a director in a tech company. And at night and on the weekends we kind of partner together and we do as much as we can and we rely on a lot of like third party fulfillment and warehouse services so that we're not having to put each super cubes in each box when it gets shipped out. And that saves us a lot of time and energy.

Yeah, so I would say that. Oh, go ahead.

No, I was, I'm curious about that and you might have been ready to answer the question I was about to ask, but how did you find the right solution, you know, the right solution providers to, to take care of that for you? And were you originally doing it out of the house and then once you sort of perfected the, the model, then outsourced it?

So I think initially the most important thing to get right was finding the right production facility and things like that. So we never produced the product ourselves. We had drawings, we had prototypes that we kind of like mocked up really simply. But I think one of the keys to our ability to not only create the product but make it successful was finding the right partner. And I happen to have a friend, a really good friend who I grew up with in Los Angeles, who now and has been for the last 10 years living in China and doing product sourcing. So we called him up, his name's Sasan, and we called up our friend Sasan and we said, hey SaaS, do you think you can, Are you interested? What do you think about this product idea? Can you help us get it off the ground, find the factory, find a place that's going to be, you know, high quality and good on their word where, you know, you trust them. And so he went and found that, found that for us and is, you know, really, he's the, he's the third partner in our company and is also, you know, our, our presence on the ground in China. And that has been really helpful for us. So I think that was the first critical piece in terms of the other parts, like figure, you know, do we have the best, the most optimal fulfillment service that we use, Web hosting service? I don't know, but it's working. And we're figuring it out as we go, which is kind of what the whole, what the whole experience has been, which makes it fun.

Yeah, well, that's the key right there is, you know, and we talk a lot about this on the shows. You can always second guess yourself and say, hey, you know, that service, whatever it is, might be better than the one we have, but the thing is the one you have is working and your business is moving forward as opposed to your business constantly stagnating while you're migrating from service to service. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

I would imagine this could easily have been something you, you know, messed around with and talked about for a long, long time. So I commend you, Jake, you know, for that push of we're going to do this, we're going to make this thing happen. That, that's really awesome.

Thing that I definitely learned from my experience in working in like Silicon Valley tech companies is like, just go, go do it. You can iterate on it. You need to get out there and test your product and idea with the market and see how people respond. And you know, in this case, like, it's, we didn't go out and raise a ton of money. Right. We found, we funded the company ourselves and we tried and we took it step by step. And, and, and we were, and we're very lucky in that I think the idea was good that we were able to tap into groups of people who would be interested in it. But I mean, I think that the, having the, the willingness to put up, put up some cash, you know, take a bet, that, that was like, like that's the difference between having something and not having something is just the will to kind of go over the edge and give it a shot.

Yeah. Take the risk. That's great. I love it. So I've worked with my awesome wife for many, many years and so I'm always interested in talking to other couples that work together because it can, you know, it can Be challenging. It's super rewarding. But there's, you know, challenges as well. So did you guys come up with specific roles for each of you to take on with the business, or did it just naturally fall into place? And, and also, can you speak to the benefits and challenges of working together?

We had a feeling you would ask this question. And we asked ourselves, how did we come up with the roles that we have? And it was funny. They really did just kind of naturally fall into place. There was never an explicit conversation, I think, or can you do this? And I do that. We took off, we talked about what are all the things we need to do to get this product into real hands and on the website and on Amazon and other locations. And then we each did the things that we felt most confident and excited about. But I think because of our different professional backgrounds, it ended up splitting pretty evenly into our different arenas, I would say, for the benefits. The thing that I really liked in working with Jake, who's my husband, is that when I'm having a tough time, someone didn't get back to me or I'm having a success. Somebody shared this product, they sent an email and it was really gratifying. I get to share that with him. Not as like, here's this thing that impacted me only, but it's a joint partnership. It's like our successes together. And then also when we're having a disagreement about some decision that we have to make, I feel like we exercise a lot of kindness because it's not just your co worker or your co partner, it's your spouse. And so it pays you to be kind to the other half.

Yeah. I think one thing I would add, and this is, this is kind of funny, is that. So we, we had the idea for super cubes in like mid 2017. Right. So at that point in time, we're both living in the Bay Area, we had separate apartments, we were dating, and we, you know, like, I. We were not married. I hadn't proposed. There was nothing like that. Right. But pretty much like, I'm looking at this going, okay, we're going to start this company together and be like, financially tied together in this business entity. So at that point in time, I was like, I'm pretty much in, you know, this is committed. Yeah, I'm committing in a major way. Like, not. And like, honestly, you know, as things grew and then, you know, short, I think we got an apartment together like a few months later, you know, so that was already planned, but, you know, we didn't get engaged for at least another year. But like, we were. There was already a heavy level of commitment.

You were engaged.

You were in.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You know, I knew what I was getting myself into. That's good.

Yeah. My wife and I. My wife and I owned a house together before we, before we got engaged. And so I, I understand this level of. Well, we might as well do this thing because we're already like, like you said, Shannon, we're, you know, you're already locked in. But. Yeah, no, that's good. Yeah, that's good.

And I. Yeah. And Michelle, your comment about the kindness is. It really resonates with me because you have to, you have to kind of take a little extra care how you, you know, your spouse, of course, and I think that's such great advice. But I want to ask you both again because it's, you know, there's tons of benefits, but have there been any challenges and things you've had to maybe change behavior or be specially.

Aw.

Since it's your spouse or did everything has just been super smooth and you haven't had those issues.

Sir, Like, I'm used to having very, very open and blunt, like, product strategy conversations all day as part of the, you know, working in the, in the tech world. And you can't necessarily do that when you're, when you're, when you're working with your spouse. So it's like Michelle said, you have to, you have to consider that the, the partnership and there's a lot more to the picture than just the, than just like pay this product and the business. Right. So, yeah, so that I think it's helped make me, you know, better all around having to consider. Having to consider those elements too and, you know, more, more empathetic in general.

I think the only other challenge is because we both care deeply about Super Cubes and we love thinking about the product and the company is that it could be difficult to turn it off at times and just be like a regular couple who's talking about the news or going for a walk. We, we get so energized by Super Cubes. But it's important to not also think about Super Cubes. But I know I. A willing listener, like, oh, I have an idea. Can I tell you? He's always like, yes, I want to hear it. Let's write it down.

Exactly. And like, the other funny part is my, like from, from. From our parents, right. So my dad calls to ask about or text me to ask about how it's going. Or we have just like a, we have A group chat where it's just the two of us and my dad, because he, he loves it. And then, and then, and then Michelle's mom is also constantly.

How's it going?

How is it, how is it going? Tell me how much, you know, how much did you sell today? So you get daily sales numbers. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's fun. But that also makes it hard to like, it becomes, it's like it can become all encompassing thing. So you have to, you know, remember to. Hey, hey, we have, we have hobbies, we have other hobbies and stuff. Although those have taken a backseat to regular job and then all of the other stuff.

Yeah, that's great. But I think you're, you both are really on track. I mean, yeah, I, I had the, those same. And I'm holding my fingers up in quotes. Problems where I'm, we're always talking about business and you know, with my wife and everything. But it's, it's incredibly rewarding. I think you're on, you know, a great track to have an uncommon and very successful life together because that's a big deal.

I don't know that I would want it any other way. My wife and I also work together in, in the various businesses that we have. And last night we found ourselves, it was like 9 o' clock and we had gotten involved in some project or whatever. It was like, all right, we should stop and like eat dinner and that sort of thing, you know. But the fact that we were both like excited to work together and do this, I don't know. It's really nice to be able to sit at the dinner table and have someone that understands what you do all day because they're involved in the business as well. I think it's a good thing. Yeah. Shannon, it sounds like you two are locked right in. That's great.

That's why I like to spend a lot of time on this question because I think there's kind of a myth about. Oh, you know, can be a lot of headaches working with your spouse and you just have to deal with those things. And I think it's definitely worth touching into. So let me ask you, you built this very successful business with super products. What has surprised you the most about the business that you just really weren't expecting or had no idea that would happen.

The thing that, that surprises me a lot is just, I mean, the reception from people, but then also the creativity of customers to come up with uses and things for the like ways to leverage the product to Help fit their. To help, you know, fit what they're trying to do with their food and their meals. The things that we didn't think of originally. Right. Like I said, we thought of this narrow thing with. I want to. We want to freeze chicken stock so we can use it to make risotto or a soup or, you know, use in. As a braising dish or something like that, where, you know, the portion. But what we didn't realize is all of the different ways that it could, you know, that it could come into play for people. And then also just on a personal level, the thing that I'm surprised about is just how rewarding it is to see, you know, when you have. We get the nice reviews that we get on Amazon and other platforms and things like that. And just how people's lives have really been touched by what is a very simple. Like it's a simple product with no moving parts. Right. But I think it's because it works with food and food is such a important aspect of, you know, our daily lives. We eat three meals a day, sometimes more. Right. So this is something that touches people all the time. I think I maybe underestimated that. But just the amount of impact that people have said the product has had in their lives, and I find that to be so surprising.

I think people's generosity towards us. There are many times where we get emails from people with new product ideas. Hey, I came across your product and I was wondering if you thought about making this other thing. I've never sent an email like that to a company like, you know, I know you make this product, but can you make something else? And I take those emails very seriously. I research that idea even if I don't cook or use that particular use case. And I always come back with like 10 more questions expecting them to say, okay, this is too much effort. I'm not going to respond to you. And then they come back with like two pages of thoughts about what their feelings are. And I'm just like, so grateful. And I think like the other population that has been so generous, not only the customers with the ideas, but there's a whole community of food bloggers who have truly gone above and beyond any expectation to promote our product, to share it with communities that they work really hard to build that trust them who have guided and mentored us and really are like exceptional human beings. And it's made me feel so good about being in the meal prep kind of niche part of food prep.

That's awesome. That's really great. Both for Both of you. So I, I have a couple of retailer specific questions for you. We're going to talk about Amazon a little bit, but I, I want to jump in. I see you created a particular version of the Super Cubes for Sur La Table or Sur La Table, however they pronounce it. I mean that seems like a great opportunity. Can you offer some advice to other small business owners about getting products like your, yours on the shelves of a large, you know, reseller like that?

Yeah, I think. And we've, we've really loved partnering with sirlitab. I think that's how you pronounce it. We're not French, but I think they've been, they've been really a fantastic partner for us in that, you know, they, very early for on they were, they were looking, I think for interesting, unique, new kind of products and what we shared with them, spoke to them and they were willing to take a risk with us. You know, I don't, I think maybe we had sold a few trays on Amazon and that had, you know, been it at the time. And so, but we were, we. So it's like it's a two way street, right? We were willing to hear from them about what they thought, what they were interested in. Right. They wanted to do a custom color, exclusive custom color. And you know, at this point in time you're looking at like, wow, they have 120, 130 stores nationwide. That would be so amazing from an exposure perspective. Yeah, we'll do whatever you want. Right. But I think it was within the realm of possibility for us at the time. And then in terms of how do you break in what's been valuable? I think something that we've used is just, you know, be, be relentless in trying to reach out to people, find out who the buyer is in your category and try to get in touch with them. You know, we found email to be very, very useful because you can send along some product documentation and some photos. And for us in our product, right, it's, it's bright colors, it's something that they haven't seen before. Show them a picture and then they're like, oh, what's that? I want to respond to these people, but when I reached out to some of the retail partners that we have, I don't know what their email address is and it's not on LinkedIn, so you gotta get crafty and try to figure it out. And so you just have to keep going until you get a response from them, I think. So you be persistent because that no one's going to make it happen for you besides. Besides you.

So I'm curious about that because you both do have day jobs and I call them day jobs. Maybe, maybe you're. You have more flexibility there than, than I'm assigning. But, you know, reaching out to folks at companies that also presumably do the thing that you want to work with them on is their day job. Have you found the, you know, the fact that you've got to relegate this to evenings and weekends difficult in, in being relentless and pursuing that bullheaded persistence to get there, or have you been able to kind of work around that?

Work around it? We've joked around, like, do you think they notice we send a lot of emails at 11pm and if they have, they're kind and not telling us. And I'm not really sure what to what extent they know. Like this is not our day job. But I think both of us also have flexibility. We can use our L during our commute for me, for school or for him to a meeting. We can take a call sometimes in between classes. For me, we'll jump on a call. So it hasn't, I think, been too difficult and there are times where it's like, actually I have class, so I really can't get out of that and Jake will do it or he'll be on a flight somewhere and I'll take the call. So it's been a team approach. But yeah, I think with email, honestly, it's so much easier. There are times where getting on a phone call is easiest and we have to make sure that we can be available during the day. But I think a lot of people appreciate, especially if there's other buyers or key players on the email thread just to have it written down and then they can access it and respond the next day.

Yeah, yeah. And I'll say, you know, it's not rare for me to get emails that were sent at 3am from someone that it is their day job to do whatever it is they were doing. So I maybe, maybe it really doesn't matter these days. Yeah, yeah.

I love your comment, Jake, about, you know, trying to figure out the email address and this kind of thing and then I can remember doing the same thing and then if they respond and then they CC some other players, you're like, oh my gosh, I fit a gold mine here.

That's exactly right. When I saw that. So we're on williamsonoma.com too. And when I saw the Williams Sonoma buyer that I emailed like Said, hey, oh, hey, my assistant's gonna, is gonna work with you on this. And it was like the next day, you know, after the however many 40 emails that I sent and one went through and then they responded, I was like, it was a very high high, I gotta tell you.

39 bounce back.

But that's the game. You know, we always say, I always relate this in the, on the sales front, but it's, it's true here too. You know, you sent 40 emails and you got 39 bounce backs, and that is successful. And, and that's the kind of, you know, that's the example of bullheaded persistence right there. It doesn't. Those other 39 didn't matter. You sent one that was right, and now you're there. And that's the kind of thing, you can't worry about the rejection. Just keep moving, learn from it. Okay. That's not the format, that's not the address. Try the next one. Try the next one. Try the next one. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah. So I also see you guys have a ton of great reviews on Amazon. And, and for folks that haven't sold on Amazon, you know, you're selling exponentially more than you know. It's tough to get people to come back and do reviews sometimes. And so I imagine you move a lot of product. How's your experience been, you know, with Amazon? And can you offer, you know, any tips for a business owner that, that's trying to have success on Amazon like you guys have had?

The first thing with Amazon is to make the Amazon seller account and to watch their videos. They have so many resources available for sellers to help you decide, do I want to fulfill this for myself? Do I want to send my product to their warehouse and have Amazon fulfill it? Do I want to put this on international platforms? Do I want to put it just on the US Context? So I think the first part is just the learning curve of figuring out what all their resources are. What I really love about Amazon is it gave us a global platform really early on and really easily. I could go and email people to check out supercube.com but the site wasn't as developed. There wasn't a lot of content. Whereas with Amazon, if you create the product page and you add the pictures and you fill it all out and people are searching for freezing tools or whatever it may be, you're gonna have exposure to so many more people. They have their fees, right? They, they make sure that they're, they're profitable as well. So I would say for for any person, like really price it out. What it costs to be on Amazon, to be eligible for prime and see if you can make it work for you for your company, especially if you're early on and people don't know your brand yet.

Yeah, I think like, it's just, it is the first place that many people, especially in the US think of when they think about buying something. And so you just, I think as a, as a company, big or small, you cannot afford to not be on it because. And if you're not there, someone's going to put up a listing for your stuff on there and like try to drop ship it or do something, you know, so, so you, it's better to be there controlling the message. But like Michelle said, for us that was the first place we went because it's instant access to the nationwide worldwide marketplace and you can test out your idea with low quantities of inventory and that means low money that you, you know, a small amount of money that you have to put in up front to get it going and test out the idea. So, you know, and then you get the feedback from people. Either they're buying it or they're not. What the conversion is on your page. Reviews, if you're lucky to get them. And we've been very lucky that people love our product so much that they're willing to write reviews. So.

Yeah, that's great. Michelle, I love how you encompass that brand building in that as well. It's not just about moving product, gaining exposure, credibility and building your brand. And I think I agree with you, Amazon's a great way to do it.

Yeah. And I mean, I think the thing about the reviews, at least when I think about my own friends and kind of circle of people I interact with in my personal life, so many people are curious. You know, there's a lot of products out there. What are their reviews? And in our case, there was really no other product that could do exactly what Super Cubes did. And so to get those initial reviews, I mean, I remember we were so excited when we got our first one in our. And I was like, oh, gosh, I hope we can get to 50 one day. And now I think we're at almost like 600. But you can go and see the pictures that people are posting with their reviews, their feedback, how they use it, and it does a really good job of connecting prospective buyers with past customers. So I've been really satisfied with Amazon.

That's cool.

So we're coming up on my favorite question that I get to ask everybody. Comes on the show, and we talk about mistakes all the time, done special episodes on them because they teach us so much, and probably because Dave and I have made so many. But, you know, looking back on, you know, starting super products and getting everything going, is there one mistake that you made that kind of stuck with you and taught you guys a valuable lesson about getting the business up and running?

So the first. First mistake that always comes to mind for me is that when we originally launched a product, we did some research about do we need a lid or do we not need a lid? And we decided that, you know, the real minimum viable product to use, like the tech kind of speak, is no lid. Just see if the tray works for people. And we did a lot of. We looked around and saw other ice cube trays with the lids, and nobody seemed to comment about how.

Unless they hated it.

Yeah, Unless they hated the lid. No one seemed to comment about how the lid. Lid was for them. And then, of course, as soon as we launched the product, hey, why isn't there a lid?

Can I get a lid?

Can you stack them? And we're like, oh, my God, what did we do here? And sirletab also said, okay, we want to do it, but it needs a lid. So.

Yeah, but now we have customers who bought the first version that don't have lids and want them. So then we had to create a new sku to sell, dress the lids. And then a lot of customers were thinking that they were getting two trays and two lids for $6, because that's. It's still something we deal with now.

So that mistake of, like, you know, hey, we thought about the lid, and then we decided not to do it because it was, you know, we didn't have to make an extra mold. And there's, you know, thousands of dollars that go into getting a mold up and running and then all that stuff. So, you know, we're still paying for that, I guess, a little bit, in a way.

Yeah, sure. But you. But you iterated fast, so it's great, right? I mean.

Yeah, exactly. You have. And you have to be. So there's a valuable lesson in listening to customer feedback and. And then taking it and, you know. Exactly. Going to Super Cubes 2.0 or whatever with. With the lid. Yeah. And now I would. We would never release something without a lid, ever.

Ever.

That's the key, as you learned. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool.

So what's next for you guys? What's next for the business?

Are you.

Are you.

You talked about new products Are you adding new products? Are you moving into other retailers or trying to, you know, be as efficient as possible? What's the roadmap?

It's a little bit of both. We have, so we sell a one cup tray and a two cup tray and we're going to release in about a month or so a half cup tray which customers have shared. They wanted a smaller tray in bricks instead of cubes for easy stacking, for things like pesto and hummus and salsa and stuff for juices. So that's going to be coming out soon. And then we have a few other ideas that are still in the development stage and testing stage that hopefully we'll be able to release by the end of the year. And then also growing, I think our presence in stores, a lot of people benefit from being able to kind of touch a product and, and see it. So some new retailers, especially as we think about Canada, we have lots of folks in Canada who love freezing their food just as much as we do to reduce food waste. So some new stores as well.

Yeah, I think, I mean there are a lot of opportunities for us in the US and then in some international markets where we get emails all the time about people. Why can't I get it in the UK and France and Australia and Canada? And so, so, you know, that's there, there are people who want the product so we, you know, we have to bring it to them and the new products. And then I think on the, you mentioned efficiencies, I think we're still, we're early enough that the, you know, the, I think the focus should be on growth and rather than on, on like really trying to find every half a percent of, of efficiency that you can squeeze out. That said, like, if it's easy to do and not like a major project, then we will totally take on efficiency. An example would be like our master carton size. So the products come over in a carton inside a big shipping container. The first major efficiency boost that we got was we moved from doing partial container shipments to full container load. All of a sudden you just saved a ton of money on shipping, like pretty quickly. Pretty quickly, right. So then we're talking with Sasan, our partner, and he's saying, you know, if we make the carton size a little smaller, we can fit a whole nother layer of cartons into the container. Which means like now you're, you're getting like a few thousand more trays can fit in the container basically at the same cost. So things like that, we're, we're open to and we're going to do, but I think changing the pro, like, we don't want to compromise on quality and so we're not going to look at changing the product like making it lighter or anything like that. Right, right. But yeah, so, you know, where, where it's, where it's, there's like low hanging fruit, efficiency wise for sure, because, you know, we want to run a profitable business. Coming from the tech side again, I see so, so many businesses that are, you know, it's like growth at all costs and then, you know, a year and a half later you're out of money and that's the end of the story.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. It sounds great. So before we wrap things up, you know, you guys have taken that leap. You've, you've talked about it, but you created this product and now you've created this successful business. If you could give one piece of advice to someone who's listening here that's got a product idea and they think they're going to hit it out of the park, but they just, you know, need a little something to get over and get things going, what advice would that be?

I always think of a couple of things. One, if you have a unique idea, someone else will come up with it at some point too. I think it's very rare to think of an idea that no one else will ever come up with. So you should act on it. You should do it. You should just give it a shot. But then when you do it. I think this is the piece that has surprised me because my own hesitation with the company is you should act as if you'll be successful. Like, you should set up the legal protections for you if you need to file a patent, if you need to get a trademark, if you need to get a lawyer to set up your contracts to make sure that you protect your product, your idea, if it does become a huge success. I always tease Jake because he really wanted us to look into lawyers for patents in the beginning. And I was like, oh my gosh, there's so much money. That's more money than I make a month as an educator. It's crazy. And he's like, no, you want to protect yourself. It's more expensive to have someone steal your idea. And I'm so thankful he pushed me on it because it's something that I've really grown to appreciate that we jumped on it before other people did and that we protected ourselves throughout the process and our ideas.

Yeah, I think exactly. Act as if you're going to be successful, but then I think in terms of like, getting, like, getting yourself to take the leap, you know, you just, you just have to do it. That's like, I'm so glad that we did. And you'll never, you'll never know. And I had plenty, I had plenty of ideas in the past that I never acted on. And so, so I'm so glad that we decided to take the plunge and do this. And I think that if you, you know, you just have to go for it. That's like if.

Yeah, things will never be the same. Right.

You're going to learn something, you know, or it's going to be a great success, you know?

Yeah, it's great.

Exactly.

Did one of you have to convince the other to actually do this? I mean, I assume you were talking about the idea and you liked it, but was one of you hesitant and the other one said, let's go, or were you both totally gung ho on it from the get go?

Oh, yeah.

So Michelle came over to my apartment one day and we were like making dinner or something like that. And I said, oh, I want to show you something. And this is after we'd had the conversation about, like, how come this thing doesn't exist and it should be like this. So I pulled out my computer and I had made a very crude CAD model for what I thought the tray would be and drawings and showing all of the, where the fill lines are. And I had done all the volumetric calculations and everything like that. And she looked at me and was like, wait, I was just complaining about this. What is this? You know, And I'm like, no, we're, we're doing this and you can. I said like, if you, you're, you can join if you want to be in or, or not. And I'm so glad that she was like, okay.

Well, at first I was like, are you out of your mind? I don'. About owning a business. I'm a teacher by training. I was working at a college at the time. I was like, I don't know anything about silicone or what types of silicone. And now I talk about silicone all the time. I think it's two fields. One, it's not my background professionally, and two, my risk tolerance is very different than Jake's. And he was definitely like, we have to do it. We're gonna do it together. Like, I don't wanna do it alone. Like, come on. And I was like, okay, yeah, this is terrifying, but let's do it.

But I think we looked at what the cost was to get it started, and I always wanted to have my own. I always wanted to run a business. And I think that it just so happened that we had this idea, and then I was like, oh, this actually could be something. So it was. I was like, well, I want to prove to myself that I can do it, that I can actually start a company and figure out what that's going to look like. And if it works out, great. And if it doesn't, then, you know, we'll have lost a little bit of money and we'll have learned a lot about what are the steps you need to create a corporate entity and do all that stuff. And so I figured, okay, you know, what's the downside? Is very limited.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. Well, I think you guys are both wise beyond your years, and I think you're on track. I mean, I'm really, you know, we're impressed with your success. You know, thanks so much for coming on the show, sharing all your knowledge. There's just some great tips in here that if, you know, people tease out of here, and it's really great. What's the best way for people to learn more about super products? Super Cubes. What's your preferred platform that we send them to?

Yeah, so it would be great if people went to super cubes.com and super is spelled like soup. S O U P.

That's great. And I'm. We're going to link to both you guys in LinkedIn in case there's any other business owners that want to connect with you. And again, thanks again for coming on. It's just a great story. I love hearing the excitement in your voice. And, you know, you guys are. Are just at the start of, you know, being incredibly successful, so we're fortunate to have you here.

Yeah, we talk.

Talking to you.

Awesome. Yeah, we talk a lot about. About living the charmed life here on the Small Business show. And. And this is a perfect example. You guys are great. So thank you so much for coming on and. And best of luck. And we'll circle back with you in a little while, maybe find out how things have progressed even further. So.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Sounds good.