How to Avoid Failing at Launch with Co-founder CEO Terri Rockovich of Jinx

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm here with Terry Rackovich and we're talking about Jinx. She's a co founder, CEO of a new premium dog food company that is spreading like wildfire. And you need to know about it if you are a pet lover. And I've been talking with Terry and learning all kind of new terms like passionate pet parent. So Terry, welcome to another episode.

Thank you so much for having me.

And you know, let's talk about again, I want to pursue your launch where I think it's for a lot of people, it's a, you know, people fail at the launch. You know, like a launch is like the, when a baby's born, the first 14 days are the highest mortality because the, you know, the immune system is kicking in and they're so vulnerable and they can't, you know, it takes a while for the body to get stabilized and everything like that. But after 14 days, you know, the mortality rates kind of stabilize and everything. But you have to be careful. And like companies, you know, most of them don't last through the first two years. You know, it's like a 93% mortality and a lot of it has to do like when I wrote my book serial winner, the I have a thing where, you know, the first thing is decide, you know, you go through and really lock in on an idea or something you're passionate about that you really want to do that get your, get your own motor running. But then when you launch, launch with a bang, you know, don't do. You know, I hate the idea of just do it because it sounds like it's, you know, anybody can do it, just do it. No overdo. You got to attack right, right out of the box because the faster you can make, it's hard to get any kind of traction early on. But the faster you can blitzkrieg your way through those initial rejections really and adjustments that you have to make to start getting some yeses and then to compound those, the quicker you can get, you know, making real progress towards your goal. And so you guys went what you did right among the many things you did right was know that you had to go on full all out attack to get this message to the Masses if you were going to get your funding and if you couldn't get that done, you know, you're not going to be able to, to do the rest of it. So, you know, my compliments to you on that. And you know, I think there's a huge lesson from everyone learned you got to make this thing happen. You know, it's like you can't take a match out of the box and hold it up against the sandpaper there on the side and then it's just going to light itself. You've got to strike the match. And sometimes you have to do that three or four times before it actually catches on. So you have to, you have to make this, your business come alive and you start that with your first prospecting thing. And so did you learn that from your previous experiences in business, helping other products launch and seeing how maybe they didn't put enough energy into the launch or enough thought thought into it or prioritize it correctly? Because you guys somehow you had that as a priority and because you had a focus, you know, you can strike the match. You know, you can get through that initial thing real quick if you make it. Like when I went to my expansion in the financial services from Atlanta up to North Carolina, after four years, you know, the company started expanding. So I went up there and, and I had it in my mind that I did not know how many, you know, what my startup was going to be, but a number of appointments to start to get an organization in place and enough, you know, to get, to get traction. And so I knew it was going to be a big number. So I had in my mind that I've got to, I've got to find, I've got to get through 500 presentations as fast as humanly possible. And maybe that'll do it, maybe that won't do it, but I'm going to keep my head down. I'm not going to worry about who says yes, who says no. I'm going to do 500 as fast as possible. And you know, I never got past 133. It took me three months to get 133 done. But that's all it took. And so, but I had the big number in my mind. And so you for me was three months too, kind of like with you guys. So for talk about how you, you had that in your mind and how you made that happen and got through and supported each other as you're hearing those and you know, like you say you have to fight for even an audience with these people, you Might sometimes I had a thing like, can I just get an appointment with somebody you know, much less, you know, so go ahead, talk about that.

Totally. So I have seen a lot of brands or products or collections fail at launch for a variety of reasons. So I think once you. Once you see or experience so many failures, you start to arrive at a place where you feel like you've got enough experience to assemble your own strategies to be successful. And then furthermore, I think just through the fundraising process, I'm someone who personally and professionally is really incentivized by building, and I'm not scared of failure. And no is not a discouraging word for me. It's just like, no, but why? And a lot of really great constructive feedback usually can be unpacked from the but why part of that conversation. And so the nos were really energizing and motivating for me personally. I was the co founder that was primarily responsible for fundraising for the business. And so, you know, I would say to your point, it's just, it's a numbers game and it's. It's a bit serendipitous in terms of hosting the same conversation, or mostly the same conversation with, you know, a variety of different investors, getting that feedback, using it to inform conversations moving forward, and then having the conversation with the right person at the right time. I think for me, it just so happened that the. The lead investor that we identified was a collection of people who were dog owners. And so we spent the first 15 minutes sharing photos of our dogs and videos of our dogs on our phones. And I think once you're able to warm up a room like that, it makes everyone more comfortable. And I think, again, like that energy behind what we're building and the intention that really is articulated through creating a superior product in a mass market is really kind of contagious. And I think that we knew we found our lead investor in that conversation. And of course, you go through the diligence process, but it felt really right in moment and post moment, which I think was a really good signal to us that not only did we have an investable idea and team, but then we also found people who happen to be investors but were also consumers. And through that journey, we received a ton of feedback, a ton of motivating energy, and then obviously the financing that really got the project off the ground.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business that's accrued over $5 billion in assets under management and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move and so what kind of things? What would your day be like? You know, like, let's just talk of the first launch of your 90 days because this is really where, you know, the most scary or the most biggest unknowns. You don't even know how your message is going to resonate out there. And so you had lists of names of people to contact. But you know, the funny thing is that if you look at some of the biggest hedge funds out there, many of them, most of them were started by guys who were super successful at other hedge funds. Kind of like, you know, they got their training, you know, inside, and then they had their own clients. Like they had network, they had friends, they had clients that work with, but under the other company. And every one of these guys thought when they went independent, oh, my clients will just follow me and, you know, no problem. And I've got, I know plenty of people, you know, if just 1% comes, I'm good. And they went out there like nobody followed them. They had to get out there and just go dig, dig, dig and be creative and shake the trees to kind of get a whole new thing. And it's kind of like comedians like Jerry Seinfeld. When he got through with his TV show, he knew he couldn't go back and use the same routines and jokes that he had before that, you know, so he took a whole year, you know, after, you know, he recovered, arrested, he got bored and wanted to get back in. He started at the bottom and he said he spit a whole over a year of going late at night just walking up on stage at these clubs and to try and cobble together five minutes at a time, a 45 minute set. And then he said, okay, now I'm ready to go start doing these shows again. But, you know, he knew the effort it was going to take for him to get together a whole new batch of material. And that's like, when you go out, you need a whole new batch of clients and to start your, your company. And it's better if you, you know, maybe you'll get lucky, maybe you'll have some people will trail you and follow you, but it's Better if you operate off the assumption that I've got to get a whole bunch of brand new people and convince them, you know, build my credibility with them if, if I'm going to do this thing. And if you've got that attitude, you're not resentful. Like you say, when failure comes, it tells you adjustments you need to make, but you're not going to make those adjustments. If you didn't have the right attitude, and you guys obviously had the right attitude, what were some of those first adjustments you made right out of the box?

So from pitch through execution, we never had a perfect idea. So, so pre product, the marketplace opportunity was clear. But how we started to accommodate customer cohort or segment within the pet population, pet parent population, was something that we figured out over time as we uncovered new research, as we started to collect real data points in terms of customer surveys and customer conversion data, and then also as we just generally received, you know, customer feedback, both solicited and unsolicited. And so I would say because we all had experience working at early stage businesses, we knew that we had to build a really flexible plan. And typically, you know, the startup environment is one where you need to be agile and on your toes because there's fires every day, right? And so it's just like, where are you spending your time? Where can you add the most value and how can you kind of get things done and keep your team really energized? But I would say building a flexible plan was something that we knew we needed to go to investors with, optimizing that plan over time and then getting into a position where we were approaching our launch date and thinking about the first 1,000 customers as being the most critical, critical customers. Because to your point, they start to have this compounding impact as it relates to word of mouth and really advocacy of your business and your product. And so starting to figure out how to design for those first 1,000 customers was really kind of the objective. As we thought about our go to market playbook and really just bringing the brand identity to life.

The thing that's, I really appreciate you spending time because for everybody listens to this that is a little bit older than you, they will, they'll have a whole different attitude about millennials.

I hope so.

And you know, it's out of every group generation or whatever, you only have a small percentage that really will dream big and are willing to pay the price to do great things. And you know, the impact that you're going to have outside of your business is going to be staggering. And so I'm so proud of you I can't tell you. And tell your co founders I'm proud of them too. Look forward to meeting them. And where in LA are you guys located?

We are in West Hollywood. So we are headquartered in West Hollywood and then we've got a couple of satellite team members, but the majority of the team is headquartered in.

And where's your manufacturing? You have a variety of manufacturing centers basically for delivery and distribution and things like that.

We do, yeah. Everything is produced and distributed domestically.

Okay, well, congratulations. Appreciate the time. And one, I'll give you one last chance to pass on something that will cause our dog loving listeners to want to take a look for at Jinx. Where can they find Jinx? I'm sure they can order online, but where can they find it? And why should they? Why should they be interested? Go ahead. This is let's get them interested in doing something good for their dogs.

The website is thinkjinx.com and then we also sell our products in Petco, on Rover, in Bloomingdale's and in Target. And then really our assortment is designed to support the modern dog's lifestyle, delivering balanced nutrition in every bite and doing that by including real premium ingredients in the right proportions that are really tailored to be appropriate for the modern dog.

Thanks so much, Terri. Appreciate the time. You work great.

Thank you so much, Larry.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works and in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.