YouTube Channel: @RyanDanielMoran

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the show. This is my favorite podcast ever. I'm going to be joined by Shannon Klingman. You may not know that name, but she's the founder of Lumi Deodorant, which grew to over $100 million in less than five years. She didn't share the exact timeline, but it was fast. She did it without raising capital. She did it without having been an entrepreneur before. And she did it starting in her late 40s. Yes, I just crushed all of your excuses in the opening words of this episode. This was my favorite podcast maybe ever. Because Shannon touched on what real freedom is. Real freedom is a place from which you start a business. Real freedom is the perspective and the energy through which all great entrepreneurships, entrepreneurial ideas come from. She started from that place which gave her the ability to grow a wonderful company, a company that just had a monstrous exit, a company that was turned down by all of the big companies, by Shark Tank, by banks. And she said, fine, I'll do this on my own. If you don't leave this episode without feeling immensely inspired, like all of your excuses have been crushed and more energized to start the thing that you want to start than ever. Something has gone terribly wrong. You didn't listen correctly. You are in a bad mood. You need to check yourself. This is probably the most inspiring hour that I spent as a podcaster, and I think that you will leave this feeling more optimistic, energized, and confident to tap into the full creative capacity that is in you as an entrepreneur. And I think you will leave this episode feeling like you can create what you want to create, not what has been modeled by so many people. She is able to tell that story in a way that I've tried to tell on this podcast, but fully couldn't because I needed the reminder from Shannon too. So I hope, hope you enjoy this episode a fraction as much as I enjoyed recording it with Shannon with you. Please enjoy.

So, Shannon, I thought we would kick things off by just talking about our little conversation we had on Instagram last night about success in your 40s and 50s and how you have more opportunity and energy than you have than you've ever had. And I was hoping you comment on that. I felt a little bit bashful when you commented, because I'm 34, I made a comment about it and you were like, kid, please hold on.

Hold your roll, chicken. You're only 35. The best is ahead of you.

You're like, Dr. Shannon has something to share with you. And so I wanted to hear your comment on that.

Well, I think that your life experience really does help to buoy you up and it kind of creates the framework for success. So that preparation that comes when you have an opportun, say like, you know, the majority of being able to recognize an opportunity is that you haven't recognized them a number a time or two in the past. And so your life prepares you for opportunities. So when you see it, you recognize it and you're ready to act on it. The less experienced you are, the more you're second guessing yourselves. You see, like, well, maybe this would be a good opportunity for someone, but maybe not me. Or these are the risks that other people take and you're not yet confident enough in your ability to like jump off the curb and just own it. So I, when I analyze my own life, like in some ways I feel like I'm still 35. In fact, if I had to say like, how do I feel? I would say I feel like 35 if you asked me that question. But I'm like walking around with this like headband on, you know the game headbands that says you're not 35. And people might see me as like an older demographic. And I see this like, you know, in like your demographic. What are you talking about? I'm still a young mom. I guess I'm not, you know. So when I look at my life, I think like college, med school, residency, private practice just gave me the foundation to be prepared to recognize a problem in the marketplace, the gap, like where there was no solution before and then create that solution and then have the confidence and the courage to basically break everything to just pursue it with like head on.

Yeah, it was like all of that life experience was the research and development to give you the perspective that you needed to go build this company that became a nine figure company and then most recently had an exit. So would you be willing to share what your life situation was when you started the brand, what shifted in your life and what was your life situation? Because you were in your mid-40s when you started the brand, correct?

Yeah, I feel like I've been preparing my whole life for this.

In one way, shape or form. I'm always was looking for opportunities and you know, what we could do and you know, how we could solve this problem in a better way and in a lot of ways, like it fatigued the people around me because I was always thinking of how to do things better. Whether it was the way we managed labor and delivery or the way that we Maybe managed, like, bladder repair, surgery, things that I loved and I was really passionate about. I was always interested in, like, how to do a better job. So I think that I've been preparing for this. Like, the idea came over two decades ago for Lumi, and just getting my life into a position where I could invest the amount of time and even resources, time and money, resources to something like Lumi. It eventually got to a point where it felt like breathing to me, where, you know, that feeling of being air hungry, like you dive a little too deep in the water, you're breathing through a straw at certain points in your life and you're feeling overwhelmed. Like, it was actually overwhelming me that I still had not yet done this. And so I got to a point where.

It was like, live or die for me. And I know that sounds extreme, but that's really how I felt. My husband and I had just recently lost a newborn daughter in 2013, and I thought my whole life was going to shut down at that very point. If somebody could have just convinced me that my living children were going to be okay, I probably would have climbed right in that casket with my daughter, because I did not know that I was going to be able to continue to be the same Shannon and my kids would know me as like, there was mom before Amy died, and then there was mom after Amy died. That was our daughter's name. And so I really gave up on Lumi. I gave up on just about everything. My world got very small. It was really about survival. Then when we had our patent claims awarded by the USPTO office the year before Lumi launched, I thought, I have a decision to make. We now have patent protection within the market. The drive I thought had left me, but I thought, I cannot let my life stand for the death of my daughter. And I just stopped. I actually let it stand for the fight. And I thought, I'm going to claw my way out of this. In many ways, Lumi saved me. It brought. Brought me back. That's a pretty deep story, Ryan. You were probably weren't prepared for that.

I'm honored that you're sharing all that with me. And I did not know that. And.

It'S interesting that most people would have probably given up, not just the business, but on the idea of being happy, the idea of pursuing something new. And you found a way to channel that for ushering in the next chapter. And I'm really glad you shared that here at the beginning, because there's so much going on in the world that people feel overwhelmed with and you experience every parent's worst nightmare. And if you can get through that, yeah, I mean, what the hell excuses do we all have? And it's such a good reminder to so many people who feel like it's either too late or they've been dealt a shitty hand or there is just no hope based on the experiences they've gone through that you not only got through it, but you created a new chapter that impacted so many people's lives. And so what do you think it was that shifted in you that allow you to make an empowered decision rather than a decision of giving up.

Well awarded patent claims from the USPTO office really gave me that market protection that I felt like we needed. Because every other company that we'd reached out to and if you know who they are, the bigger companies, the CPG companies in our, you know, around the world had all heard my idea and said no. Like I was looking for co development like a partner, like a deck 15 years ago. And they all said nice idea, but it's not enough for us to take interest in doing this with you. So I thought I need that protection within the market. So once we were awarded that, I felt like I took it as a signal from the universe that like, it's time to get busy living. And so then, even though I didn't know anything about contract manufacturing, I didn't know anything about product development really. But you know what? I am a stand, I am an example of how you would do your job when you don't know how to do your job. Like you need to ask yourself, like sometimes we want the temptation is to follow in other people's footsteps. And we say, well, here's what Shannon did or who's what, like Moyes did, right? Or here's what Ryan did or here's, here's what Sarah Blakely did. And you say like, let those stand as inspiration. But everybody's path is different and everybody who's doing this is probably doing it for the some version of it for the first time. And so I say like, how would you do your job if you didn't know how to do your job? And that's how I grew Lumi. I just figured it out. I asked great questions. I related to cosmetic formularies and contract manufacturers in a different way where they were more relieved that I wasn't. These larger CBD companies. They were rooting for me from the very beginning. I was willing to make mistakes.

That I tried to say, like two ears, one mouth, like listen, even though I talk a lot. I, I really tried to discipline myself, like, this is an opportunity to learn and let these people who have been there and done that before teach you, teach me. And I just started to connect the dots. And in many ways I look back and I think it's like the sport of curling where I was casting the stone on the ice, but it felt like there was a force in front of that stone that was doing the sweeping that I would relate to. The people that I trusted, my circle of trust, the people I surrounded myself with.

Just all elevated me and made it possible for me to be where I am right now.

And when you look at the success of Lumi, where did you hit that point in which you said, all right, no, I really have something here? Because you weren't going into supplements where.

You have a bunch of, you have a ton of margins. You said you got told no by a bunch of different big companies. So at what point are you seeing, all right, this isn't just a crazy idea I've had in my head for two decades. This is something that is going to succeed in the marketplace.

I always knew that the product had merit because I had an unfair advantage. So you want to, like, what is your unfair advantage? I don't know if you follow Gary Vee, but like, that's the one thing that he talks about, like when you're given a pitch. And I heard him say that one time and that just really stuck with me. My unfair advantage was that I was born relentless and with a crippling passion for life. But it was my medical training that gave me that unfair advantage. And I knew that it had tremendous promise. It was just convincing others at first because I thought, well, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this right. But then once I heard no so many times, I thought, I can do this and I've got to do this. So we launched it into the market October 1st of 2017 and we had, you know, we built our brand on like what my founder story was writing blogs, I was taking all the product photos. The initial website was just pretty rudimentary and all my friends and family thought that Lumi was fantastic. And then I invested in some head to head data against some other competitors brands and had some, really made some great traction and inroads that while Lumi really is very different, the science is very different. It's the deodorant that you can use anywhere on your body. We had some of those key differentiators, but it was when we started to gain traction where one single piece of user generated content, we hit our first million in sales like with one piece of user generated content. One testimonial of one person saying, this product works so well and I can use it anywhere on my body. And it was so effective that. And so you can really start with very little to grow. And it was at that point where I was like, if one single solitary customer's message can do this, like now imagine. And I turned our, like I was very transparent about what the problem I recognized in the market. So my problem was their problem. I created a solution that became their solution. And I turned our customers into our raging evangelists. And they really are the ones who put Lumi on the map.

That's such a good testimony for making it about the person rather than being about the product. Because the minute that that person became a raving fan, that became a turning point for the business and for your own belief, your own perspective on what was possible here. And I'm curious, was it what they said that made it so such a big impact or was it just the fact that you got that feedback from a customer that was so ravingly positive that created an internal shift for you?

Oh, the shift for me, I mean I, that started back in the, just in the ideation space where I had different versions of Lumi, like version number one through ten, probably where friends and family were trying it and people were reaching out to me and saying, I have tried so many aluminum free deodorants that don't work. And not only does this product work, it's like life changing. And they would share with me very intimate details about how odor has impacted their confidence from head to toe. And so I think I even knew before launch that we had tremendous potential with this group of women that I was communicating with at that stage of Lumi's history.

So you got that piece of user generated content, did that adjust your strategy and how you grew the business from that point? You're smiling. I feel like there's a story here.

Yeah.

Well, if you're familiar with the agency Harmon Brothers. And I'm just going to throw all.

Like.

A tremendous amount of credit to my partnership with Harmon Brothers. They did not. So I'd met with other agencies, we'd been through seven agencies where I come bouncing in like a Chihuahua, just so excited about Lumi. This deodorant for underarms and private parts is how we talk about it. And every single one of those agencies tried to say, you can't say that, you can't Say it that way, you're going to offend people. So like I was writing these stories and writing these copy, this copy and they would just like literally take like a three page blog and reduce it to a paragraph and say, this is all that we're going to recommend. You actually can say openly about your product. And they tried to quiet me, whereas Harmon Brothers said, come right in, we've got.

That's great.

Here's the, you know, follow the yellow brick road with Harmon Brothers. And they did not try to change my message at all. And in fact they elevated it and actually pushed it too. They were willing to break it and push it too far to where I was even saying, well, well that's, that might be too far. But, but yeah, Harmon Brothers is. They put the megaphone and mouthpiece on Lumi and they just, they led with humor. They told stories that converted. But it was our authentic, genuine problem solution story. That was really, that is really where Lumi is. That's what I think is so unique about Lumi. It's like I didn't say like I want to go create a product. I know there's people that are saying, I want to create a product and I'd like to do it. And these are some of the things that I know that probably need to be true to have a certain level of success. But I was so willing to have like no success to like outweigh the success that what was important to me was just creating the solution for a very well established problem in the market. The feminine hygiene industry is so broken. And Lumi offered a solution there. But then it was also effective everywhere on the body. So we had just really broad appeal. And it would have been enough for me, honestly if P and G would have come to me and said, Shannon, we'll give you 10% and we're going to take 90 and we're going to go do this. Like that was on the table at one point. And you know, those kinds of conversations, not necessarily unique to just P and G, but like every single one of the companies at some point I had a touch point with them where I would have been willing to practically give it all away just to see Lumi go to market. It really was never about the money for me ever or the revenue.

I am feeling that right here. I felt those words and here's, here's what I felt for me when you said that, which, which is that.

The relationship with Harmon Brothers was important to you, not just because they're good marketers and good storytellers but because you were unattached from the result enough that you wanted to bring a message and a solution to the market that mattered and that you knew matter and you knew it mattered based on your past experience as a doctor and working with thousands of women, that you knew that this was a solution that was needed in the marketplace. And that unattachment and that commitment to the solution is what gave you the drive to do whatever it took in order for this solution to go out into the marketplace. I think that that energy and that internal perspective is the true entrepreneurial spirit. And most entrepreneurs are so caught up in the numbers and the results that they are turned off of that creativity that is just exuding from you. It's a commitment to seeing the solution in the marketplace. Is what I'm saying a fair representation of how you feel?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I was born with the entrepreneurial bug, where it was more satisfying to just see something come into fruition than it was to get the credit for having done it.

Yeah. It is about the process of seeing what is in your mind unfolding into the world more than the end result. So the relationship with Harmon Brothers is a big turning point for you. But I know that even if you have the best script and the best video in the world, it still has to convert and it still has to pay for media. It still has to be profitable enough for you to spend money on advertising. So were the numbers just that good? Were you just well funded? There has to be something else behind it that allows that engine to run.

Lumi was a unicorn, Ryan. I mean, you're going to hear this story. And like we were 100% bootstrapped. And even when I was like, we had companies wanting to loan me money, which is interesting because what is it like, less than 3% of VC funding goes towards female founded brands. Right. Do I have that statistic right? I would go to like, my bank and say like we bank at a, at a Wells Fargo and limit to my local branch. And I'm like, can I get like a $50,000 loan? And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, nobody really believed that we were going to be as big as we are. And then even once we started to recognize the self funded momentum where literally the return on ad spend was high enough that we were funding the growth of the business and increased content creation. I didn't take a salary though, for like two and a half years. Two years. So I went with, Thankfully I have. My husband was working and he was able to support us. So that is a luxury that I was afforded, that I was. I was able to go without a paycheck. But even with even that said, if I could have taken just a minimal paycheck just to pay my bills, I still, I don't think it would have impacted negatively on the success of Lumi.

But Yeah, we were 100% bootstrapped, and I couldn't get people to loan me money. I mean, like, we're talking banks, like, they would give us, like, here's a $15,000 line of credit on a credit card, right? Oh my go, here's $5,000. I'm like, man, I need 500,000. I need $5 million. And it took us a while to get there. Even though the numbers would have demonstrated that we were a successful business, you know, that we had tremendous promise.

They, you know, they wanted to loan me single digit thousands. You know.

That'S amazing.

So I just, because I then, also, because I had this. It was in this mindset, like, I didn't want to lose money. So there was a part of me that was kind of relieved because this idea of someone looking over your shoulder and watching what you're doing and now you have a board you have to answer to and all that, I was like, I just wanted to get a product out into the universe. Right. I wasn't necessarily thinking I wanted to grow a company, if that makes sense.

It does. But at some point it becomes a company. You cross a million dollars a month in sales, and all of a sudden we have a company on our hands. So that requires a different level of skill, a different level of commitment. But yours happened so fast. You were just sort of baptized.

In the fire of we need infrastructure and all of this. And by the way, you're totally bootstrapped. So it's not like there is a ton of funding to get all of the hires. Right. So there had to be a change in identity and a change in skill set. I mean, I think, I think you went to nine figures in like three years. So what had to change for you in order for you to maintain that level of growth?

Yeah. So while I can't like speak to the details monetarily about how quickly Lume grew, I mean, it was like, it was like almost inhumanely fast. And if we had had funding, we would have gotten even bigger, faster. But so it's probably okay that we didn't. Our biggest challenge was not go find more customers. Our biggest challenge was can we manufacture product fast enough, you know, and that was. That was our biggest challenge. But can you, like, repeat your question again? Like, what. What was that?

Yeah, there's a change in identity that needs to happen.

Oh. Within the company.

Yeah. And, well, also for you, I mean, you're going from, I just have this idea that I want to bring to the world to, oh, my goodness, we're scaling super fast, and now I need people and I need infrastructure and I need to keep up with demand. And so what had to change for you internally? How did you have to change as a person, as an entrepreneur, in order to maintain that level of growth?

Well, you surround yourself with people that speak to your weaknesses. So my superpower is product development.

Storytelling, marketing, then building relationships. I think, like, I've never met a stranger, so it doesn't matter if we're talking to a marketing agency or a contract manufacturer or a fragrance supplier. Like, it all started. It all starts with the just who you are. You're just people.

I can vouch for you on that. Like, as soon as we met is like, oh, well, hello. Hello. We're friends now. So that is true about you.

When I met you at the conference last summer, and everyone's up there talking and you see these young, budding entrepreneurs, like, standing up, I have to tell you, it took everything I had not to say. Here's what I think you should do. You know, let me help you. Like, pull me aside, 15 minutes. I think I can help you, you know, next year.

You should.

Yeah, maybe. I would love to be able to do that for people, but I think that for me, I think I'm still working through some of that, Ryan. Like, I think through the. The process, the M and A process with Harry's, that we have 50 employees. We're still a very small company. The number of people that are doing the work, we're incredibly efficient and effective at what we do. And I think it's because we don't have that infrastructure in place. And my biggest fear is that if we try to bring too much process and framework in, that we actually will stifle the creative. The exponential expansion of Lumi. And so that's partially why I made the decision to partner with Harry's of all the groups, was because Harry's works hard to maintain that entrepreneurial, that scrappy, pivotal, nimble attitude even within their company. That's way bigger than Lumi at this point. But I think.

That I'm still working through that. I posted on Instagram yesterday, it's funny, she asked the question, it's like, who do I think I am? The skillset to be a product developer, to have an idea about a product and then actually manufacture that product, launch it into the universe, build a brand and then build a company. They're very different yet somewhat overlapping skill sets. And I think I'm trying to see if I have that muscle. That's partially why I decided to partner with, With Harry's was to say my core competency and my, my superpower is really ideating, content creation, storytelling. You know, once you get to where you need infrastructure and process and funding, that's where I was like, okay, I think I need, I think I need a, need a partner now to help me continue because obviously, like, a lot of what I'm doing hasn't changed. They've just picked up a ton of slack.

Well, Shannon, there's, there's an interesting nugget in here that I want to try and find, which is most people would have hit that overwhelm point at like $5 million in sales. Definitely by 10.

Most people buy. I hit a $10 million run rate and was like, I have no idea how we're going to build the infrastructure to grow this to 50. I need to have an exit. Of course, the team I sold it to ran it into the ground and that's a podcast for another day. But most people, myself included, hit about $10 million and they're like, I don't know what we're going to do next. You were like, you were growing so fast. You didn't take on a partner until you were already a nine figure company. And this is a product creator who is a fairly new entrepreneur. So they're.

I mean, I've never done this before, right. Like I said, this is like, this is how I did my job. But I didn't know how to do my job right. Nobody hired me to run this company. I was like self, right? So I think, like, would anybody out there hire me to be the CEO of their company? Probably not listing credentials other than maybe like, like, I didn't have any of the qualifications to lead this company. Right. But I did probably partially because I didn't have any bad habits. I didn't have any ideas about how to build this company.

I've just been. I was a very difficult child to raise. And so I think in some ways I was just kind of born to do this. There's a part of me that wonders if I could do it again, like, have I been more lucky than good? And I think those are things that like, a lot of my entrepreneurial friends ask themselves as well.

So what's going over my mind as you're saying that is not lucky or good, but true to who you are. So what I'm picking up from you as you're saying that is what made you so good or qualified for this one unique role, not for all the roles, but for this one, was that you didn't compromise who you were. You didn't compromise the marketing message, you didn't compromise the product, and you had no external noise drowning out the authenticity of what you wanted to bring. And so there was nothing to slow you down. There was complete alignment behind what you wanted and what you were creating. And therefore, no, you probably couldn't run somebody else's company because you don't have full alignment with that company. But this one was a true expression of what you knew the marketplace needed. Is. Do you feel like that's a fair representation of what you're saying?

Yeah, it's 100%. Like, I think if in order for me to get behind anything like this ever again, it would have to feel like breathing to me. And so that's probably a little hard to come by, right? Like, what are you so passionate about that you're willing to die trying?

And that's the difference between founders and business leaders. Really. Founders, entrepreneurs, they really. I'm like the whatever it takes girls. So whether you call me the CEO, the chief cook and bottle washer, chief visionary officer, whatever, I am founder.

The title actually feels a little bit like a joke to me. Like, I kind of snicker to myself, and I'm like, I'm the CEO of Lumi. Like, really? CEO, huh? You don't say. You know, but I think that's just where I've landed, because it was. I know Lumi better than anyone else. And so for right now, that still makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the second time in this conversation I felt that. And there's something. There's something very freeing to the idea of. To the fact that this was a full expression of what you wanted to bring, and there was no pollution from how other people did it. There was just what Shannon wanted to bring to this world. It's making me reflect on what my life and business would be if I truly committed to that first.

And I think women are better than men at this, naturally. But this also can be cultivated. And this is, I think, partially why women are kicking our rear ends right now in business, because they have more of that commitment to that authenticity where we are more comparing ourselves.

Do you think there's no club too right Ryan. So, like, there's. There's not a lot of female founder. Like, I would love it if Sarah Blakely reached out to me. I know I've. I've put it out there to say, like, she celebrates female founders and entrepreneurs and people who are just. Whether you're starting at a farmer's market level or you're growing a brand like Lumi, I think this is what she's all about. And I would aspire someday to be able to have the influence on other female founders in the future, but I didn't have anybody really to compare myself to. I really didn't. Right. Like, Moyes will tell the story about when he started native and how he.

What it was for him was like there was a market opportunity. Right. And he knew that he could grow this business. But I think he knew, like, he was very smart. He had a liquor business before and had sold it. And so he. In his mind, and I don't want to speak for him, but I think he said this publicly as well, that he sold. He knew that he knew what his exit plan was. For me, my exit plan was world domination and whole body deodorant. Like, getting Lumi into the hands of every single person, having this outrageously effective whole body odor control solution at the watering stations in third world countries that are deprived of clean water for drinking, let alone bathing. Like, for me, it wasn't so much ever about, like, it was like, if we had money in the bank, Ryan. Like, this is about how involved I was with finance. Oh, we're still in the black. Good. Go spend it. You know. Oh, we're. We still like, the, like, our sales are going up and so is our bank account. Then we have. Then we were good. You know, I can afford to pay my employees this month, and I don't have to take it out of my personal bank account. You know.

I didn't. I never really thought about an exit ever, Ever. I just knew, like, I needed a partner. Eventually it got to where, like, at 10 million, you were saying you were overwhelmed. I mean, it got increasingly uncomfortable for me over time, you know, from the point like that 10 million point to the point where we eventually partnered with Harry's. But.

I think as I got really comfortable with how. With being very uncomfortable, and it definitely takes a toll on your personal life, you know, to live your life that way.

Sure.

But.

What partnering with Harry's represented for me was when I got incredibly uncomfortable, I thought, okay, now I need a partner. So I guess I made it pretty far.

I would Say so, Shannon.

Yeah, yeah. It wasn't giving up. I wasn't like, oh, I'm giving. It was that I needed that additional, like, tailwind behind me to get Lumi to where I have a vision of it going. And so together with Harry's, we're going to go do that, and we're doing it right now.

I am so fired up hearing you talk right now. Like, there's. There is an. You are living in an energy that I. That I desire very much. And I think a lot of the entrepreneurial world thinks about when I get the money, then I will build the business that I actually want. And I know internally, I know mentally, I'm still embodying this idea. I know that when that flips, when you build the thing that you know the world needs or that you just have to create, the money shows up. And if you can just detach from the money completely, you create from this place of abundance, and then it just shows up and you're speaking to it in a way that I'm feeling. It's a wonderful reminder. So I'm curious. I'm going to put you on the spot here, but I'm curious, once you got the. You didn't exit the business, but once you had a partnership and had what most people call the big financial win, did any of that subside? Did any of that relax, or do you still feel like, great, like, now we can just go even more full throttle? How did you respond once that happened?

Yeah, I haven't relaxed in any way, shape or form. If anything, I feel now even a stronger stewardship of this brand because I convinced another very successful brand to partner with me. And so I have a tremendous amount of, like, responsibility and ownership of navigating this brand to that next level. So, yeah.

I don't. Yeah, to me, again, my life has not changed personally through the acquisition at all. And I think that it's still. Because my focus is still on very forward thinking about where Lumi is in the future. That's what I'm running towards.

I'm curious, Shannon, this true energy that is coming from you, this alignment and this desire to create, do you think that.

Do you think that this would have come out of you if you had started the brand 10 years earlier? Or do you think that the fact that it was welling up in you for so long.

Made it just. The floodgates come out? Do you know what I'm asking?

I've asked myself that very same question. Like in the natural deodorant space where Schmidt's and Native were coming out and Schmidt's was kind of the first brand that wasn't Tom's of Maine. You know, that a different.

Formulaic format and different storytelling behind it. And I think Jamie was definitely a crafter who. She made it in her kitchen. Very similar to me initially. And then Moyes took that and put the natural deodorant within a stick. So people had like that familiar solid stick format. So it looked exactly the same, but they were still versions of a natural deodorant. And then mine was. Chem is chemically so different. And the purpose behind it is, you know, whole body. So it was very, very different. I do think 10 years ago I would have crushed them even harder.

So interesting.

Yeah. So I think. I do think had we been the first to come out, we would have just split that natural deodorant space wide open. Whereas now there's like thousands of other brands that are like clamoring more to be more like that. The old school natural deodorant. And we've got this really interesting space that we've carved out for ourselves that's very unique and different in that it's formulated for whole body use versus just underarms. So I've asked myself that same question. Like in the ways that we're similar to all other natural deodorants, in the ways that were similar, I think we would have had more success 10 years ago because we would have been in those tailwinds of Facebook getting 2 to $3 like CPAs. Right. Those good old days that don't even like so far gone. I don't know if we will never get back there.

And I think about just the differentiating value propositions of Lumi maybe did take. Maybe we did have more success by letting everyone else kind of knock themselves out in a more of a familiar sea of sameness, if that makes sense. Like we had such a different key differentiator that to launch it 10 years later, maybe the time was right where people had to get good and tired of deodorants that were maybe all the same. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I tend to agree with you. You did just kind of drop a bomb in there that there's someone listening right now who's like, I was with Shannon this entire time getting all fired up and now I just have a seed of doubt planted that the good old days are over and it'll never be good again. And she started at the right time and now it's five years later and advertising is more expensive. Right. There was just that one seed of doubt that got planted in that person's brain. What would you say to that person?

I think we will continue to optimize existing channels further, and new channels will open up that we aren't even aware of yet. And so I think that every single, you know, I can't really speak to the past, but I hear people talk about those days, you know, 15 years ago, that I think, boy, it would sure have been great to have been a participant of that. But, like, just depends on what your definition of good is. And so everybody has a level playing field. Everybody's dealing with the exact same, you know, platforms right now. So I don't think it really matters. I think it's still worth jumping off the curb. Absolutely. Because everybody's competing within the same markets. So.

Yes.

And it's not.

You started in. You started in 2017 after the wild west of Amazon days. It's not like you were on that train. Right. It's not like you were in 2014 when you could throw up any video on Facebook and it would go viral. And now that that is maturing to some extent, there's people getting the Same results on TikTok or with influencers or partnerships or they have an audience or whatever it is. So I think it's important to highlight the fact that you were starting from scratch and you use the assets that you had, and that's what we're all doing as entrepreneurs.

Yeah. And I think.

The key to good leadership, I think when you have an idea, like when people want to give you a litany of excuses like, oh, the iOS 14 or, oh, the Facebook are over. Oh, my video's not going to be able to go viral. Algorithms don't allow for it anymore. Good leaders can navigate their way through that and they just go find the next thing. We're burrowing deep and we're digging hard and clamoring to try to find it, and we're going to land. I mean, everybody just needs to find what their new normal is. And for people that are launching their brands right now, they won't even know any different. Right?

That's right.

Everybody's on a level playing field, so don't let that be an excuse.

And I think it's important to remind people of what you've been talking about this entire time, which is that you didn't know how to run your job, so you didn't know the challenges that you would run into, so you had no reason to doubt. And the same is true every time you start a business that you don't know what hurdles you're going to run into and that can become an advantage. As you said, you don't know any different.

I did not know any different. I had no bad habits, I had no biases. All I knew is I wanted to get this product out into the market and I was willing to do whatever it takes. And I didn't believe people if they were detractors. I don't care what people think of me. I mean, quite honestly, like they say, like, look left, look like you're looking to your competitors.

You do to a degree, because you have to be aware and they're doing really great things. Right? Like I can list off things that I love about every brand, right. But you just have to know that your lane is your lane and you can't get too distracted by what other people are doing. And I've often said, like, I don't really care what people think of me. I, you know, and I don't even really want to hear it, you know, so when, when a bank tells you there's no way based on these numbers that we can justify giving you money, I'm like, I think there's something wrong with them.

Yes.

And maybe it's pretty narcissistic to hear me say that, but I felt like I was sure footed in what it was that I was doing and I did not let anybody discourage me. Not that I didn't have moments, but you know, where it was like overarching message, like something doesn't go the way you want it to go. I'm going to give myself like two hours to wallow in that and then I better figure it out.

If Lumi had not been a screaming success from the beginning, if you had you got that piece of user generated content but you capped out at a million, do you think you still would have the same energy behind it that you have today?

Yeah. Yes. I think what was so crazy about Lumi's trajectory was that there was no end in sight. We grew so quickly that I'm like, where is this going to end? Like, we can't manufacture product fast enough.

But I often then ran through the exercise in my head like, well, what if we were just a $10 million company? That's great, right? Like, you just have to now structure your business to where this is how you're making a living and you need to factor yourself into it because this is how you're going to create your livelihood. For me, it was never about me. It was always about like how big is this thing going to get? Like how quickly is this thing going to grow? And just really trying to fan the flames of growth and trying to not wreck it, wreck what was working. But I think you could create business structure. Whether your business is doing a half a million, 5 million, 10 million, 100 million, do you want to. Are you satisfied with where you are in the status quo? And it's okay if you are. Just for me, that was never my model to grow it to a point and then just have it be my livelihood. I always have a bigger vision.

What I'm hearing from you is that you were not attached to a number. You were attached to the product being great, the marketing being authentic and it making a real dent in the world. And as a result, you were sort of freed up from the attachment of do we maintain, do we optimize for profitability? You didn't have the baggage of that thought because your commitment was to creating something great. And it's just kind of ironic that that mindset is what allowed you to create what you created. And so I'm just, I'm fascinated by this recurring theme in your story, which is that the unattachment from the result is what freed up all of this energy for this machine to grow bigger than you could have done if you were in your mind shooting for a nine figure company with an exit. Right. So it's that freedom that allowed you to grow something, in my opinion, that was bigger than what you could have done with a different mindset.

I appreciate that. I think that's pretty altruistic, right? To think that what's most important is the impact of your idea on the world rather than on you.

And is that true? That that's kind of.

Oh, yeah, absolutely true. Like.

I think about, I've always kind of had this feeling in my life that I was different in some way. I never fit in very well. Like, I was always challenging and I was like, I think I was more. I was not born to fit in. I think I always kind of stood out. Like whether it was for good or bad. Like I either had my desk in the hallway because I talked too much or my desk was up by the teacher, or I was doing detention because I was deciding what assignments I was or wasn't going to do. I mean, there's this whole history with me of like pushing the limits and kind of if I'm going to do something, I want to do it. I want to do it really well and.

Very principled in kind of the way I approach the word that is not to say that it's the right decision for everyone or that. And I'm not trying to attach a value statement to that. Like, it's not about. It's not. This isn't a values judgment. This is just for me personally, like, yeah, it's just there's things that I felt so passionate about that I was willing to basically tear the walls down to make it happen.

So I want your advice and I'm asking on behalf of everyone who is listening to this. I think what you are communicating is what we all would genuinely call freedom. It is this. It is this. A lot of us, especially dudes, we say get the money, then there's freedom to operate from. This place of gloves off, chains off, we're going for it. That's freedom. That's what people pursue money for. You prioritize that. Because this is what I want to bring to the world. This is what I want the company to represent. I don't care what I get out of it. I just want this thing to grow. That's freedom. And it can be difficult for those of us who either haven't had the results we expected or feel like we're attached to the money or don't have the idea that makes us wake up in the middle of the night excited that we're obsessed with. It can be difficult to tap into that. And so I would love to hear if you have any feedback to the entrepreneurs who are connecting with this energy that you're operating from and want to tap into that and know that that is freedom. That's actually what we want more than the money, more than the status, more than the exit, more than everything. It's that true alignment and authenticity. Is there something that you could speak to on tapping into that before the money shows up, before the idea is there, et cetera?

As you were speaking, I was thinking, check your motives.

You know, check your motives. Like, do you really mean what you say? Because if you are very monetarily driven, then really be committed to failing fast. So you're either recognizing traction or you're not. And if you are, keep going and keep pouring gas on it. And if you're not, and the monetary goal is what your goal is, then fail fast and move on. You know, the thing about when you are more results driven in terms of product impact on the market is that it requires you to be really patient with yourself. And. But.

That'S not to say that the measure of success in the market is the credit cards. I mean, customers vote with Their visa.

So I think it's checking their motives, like making sure that you're. If your goal is to make money, but you're not really sure of the product, then don't launch the product. Ask yourself, what problem am I solving with this product? And if you can't give yourself, like, three distinguishing differentiating features of whatever it is that you're putting out into the universe, it's probably not a good enough product.

That's very convicting. And I agree. I completely agree. I'm wondering if there's a way to. We've all experienced those flashes in which that inspiration is there, and I think it's from those flashes of inspiration that the great ideas come. And I'm wondering if there is a way to practice that mode, a way to get into that energy or that zone.

Before you go pursuing this success. Do you know what I'm asking?

I think what you're saying is, is there, like, a way to stretch that muscle or flex that muscle, strengthen that muscle before you actually pull the lever and put it in action?

Yes.

I think just the formula that you're sharing now about wanting to detach yourself from the monetary success, and it's more about putting it in the market, I think it really does go back to checking your motives. You have to ask yourself, is this a monetary driver? I've seen so many people tripping over themselves, thinking that they're gonna be the next best thing. But what they're doing is they're saying, I want Lumi. I want to be what Lumi was. I want to be what native was. I want to be what Schmitz was or Spanx or whatever.

Or I want to be like Gary Vee or Tim Ferriss or Ralph.

You gotta start small. I mean, that is built. That is not. There's no shortcut to that. There's no, like, model Shannon, what she's doing today. To have what she has today, you need to go model Shannon 20 years ago and ask yourself, am I even in the realm? Like, what's my version of what Shannon just did or what others have done?

I'm so fired up from chatting with you, but I have to ask, is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have? Shannon.

I'll tell you, as a founder, the one thing that I'm always. People glorify where we are right now, and they say, look at what you've done, but you've left a wake of personal sacrifice behind you. The one thing that I would say is that sometimes when I Hear early entrepreneurs say, I need to raise money to pay salaries and to for ad spend or to do those kinds of things before they have it figured out. They're like 20 steps ahead. Like, ask yourself what you're personally willing to sacrifice. And if you're not willing to give up all your time, talent and resources for something and you're looking for an external financial solution like get funding, then go. I would say the lower the likelihood of success.

So I make it look, you know, we sit in, we have these conversations and everyone's looking at where we are 10, 20 years down the road. Like, look at what you've done. The iceberg, you know, you're seeing just the tip of the iceberg. You're not seeing everything else that we've sacrificed personally to get here. Relationships, time with family, the addiction to your phone, your devices. There is absolutely no balance in entrepreneurialship. None.

Right.

And maybe there is if you are a million dollar brand. I don't know. Like, I've just, I never stopped, I never stopped there to know. But there is zero balance in this.

And I, I think about it sort of like I think about being a parent, you know, being a parent.

There'S balance, you know, tell me where it is and, and it, it is so much work and so much energy. But I wouldn't trade it. And I, I've given up relationships for being a parent. And you know, my homies text me and say, what are you doing Thursday night? Sorry, I'm committed. I have two kids and entrepreneurship is very much the same where it is a lot like being a parent, where there are sacrifices. But I wouldn't change it, I wouldn't trade it. It's what I actively choose. And so it is one of those things, like if you do it, it's hard.

You're all in.

You still choose it because you're all in.

You are all in. And that's where like, you know, I like auditioned for Shark Tank after we'd been out. Like, I think we'd done like 70,000 in sales. And I thought they talked to me for a really long time and I thought they were going to call me back and they didn't. And then they called me later, years later, and I was too big, right? And so I think about.

You know, what I wouldn't have given to have been on Shark Tank. I am so, I am just so grateful. I never got on that show and took a deal because I didn't dilute myself out. I had no, I hadn't taken any funding, so I didn't have anybody else kind of murmuring or whispering in my ear telling me I wasn't doing it right. And I also think, like, just because it's hard, it doesn't mean you're doing it right, that you're doing it wrong. That's what I would leave your listeners with is just because it's hard, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Well, Shannon, this is my favorite podcast ever.

Really?

You are awesome.

I'd love to have had you over for lunch and been making you chocolate chip cookies or something while we were talking about this.

That's time. I will take it. I feel so inspired by this conversation. I know thousands of people are going to as well. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

You are so welcome. Thanks for having me.