In this interview, an entrepreneur (Speaker B) recounts a recent public relations crisis sparked by an influencer’s viral video that used the term “groomers” as a hook while promoting the entrepreneur’s product. The video angered the grooming community, leading to a flood of 1‑star reviews on the company’s website and Amazon, as well as a barrage of angry emails. Feeling overwhelmed, the founder turned to his tight‑knit “1% community” and a local meetup (the PIGS meetup) for support. Together they crafted a transparent email to the grooming community, clarifying that the product is meant to complement professional grooming and that the founder has no control over the influencer’s content. He also asked his existing customers to leave positive reviews. The outreach resulted in a surge of 5‑star Amazon reviews and heartfelt messages of support, turning the negative episode into a net‑positive brand experience that strengthened customer loyalty, even if sales impact was unclear. The conversation concludes with reflections on entrepreneurial resilience—learning from setbacks, rebuilding trust, and growing stronger after each “wall” hit.
me about one of the dark days.
Most recently, one of my influencers had a video go viral, and in that video he mentioned something about groomers that he was— it was really, he was just using it as a hook. He doesn't even think that, but it was not the best, well-said thing about groomers. And then he said, use this product instead. So he was promoting the product, um, but the groomer community got very upset and mad.
Trigger alert. It triggered.
They started giving— like, there's 1-star reviews all over my website, and there are some on Amazon, and a ton of emails. I honestly— this was like 3 weeks ago— I thought I was gonna have to shut everything down.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, irrationally, right? You're not sitting there calculating, okay, I gotta shut this down. But it was your first bad PR day. Yeah, right?
It's like the initial, like, reaction of, oh no.
Oh yeah, I mean, that stuff really eats at you, makes you unable to sleep sometimes for a couple days at a time. How did you respond to that? How'd you handle that?
First of all, it was really, again, like back to the community that I'm a part of, which is the 1% community, and going to that, the PIGS meetup. So talking to people there, and they helped me like craft an email to the groomers. And really I just said, told the truth, where it's like, I don't really have control over what people post on TikTok. And like, I love groomers. I take my dog to the groomer. This is meant to be used alongside going to the groomers, this product. And then I sent an email to my list. The end of the email, I basically was like, I'm getting a lot of, a lot of 1-star reviews. If you love and use the product, if you could take 30 seconds to write a review, it would mean the world to me. And then I got like so many 5-star reviews on Amazon from that. Again, going back to now the community that I've built. Yes. It's, yeah, I feel like community really is the theme.
Did sales go up after that?
I don't know if sales went up, but it definitely became a net positive. Just even from people responding to my email and being like, I'm really sorry you had to go through that. Like it built connection and humanized my brand more.
Probably increased your loyalty, the customer loyalty that and the bond that they had with you. I think that might be the best summary of entrepreneurship. It's just running headfirst into a wall saying, ow, that hurt, and then trying to run again. And you get better at it, and you get through bigger and bigger walls as you crash harder and harder.
