GoNanas - Morgan Lerner on embracing social media platforms & finally going FULL-TIME.

Welcome to Back Label Branding with Sydney Muntianu. On this podcast, I'm interviewing some of the leading women in the food and beverage space, talking to them about how they got started, what they did to build their brands initially, how they are pivoting now in our time of a COVID pandemic, and what they're paying attention to in terms of marketing strategy, tools and tricks they use, and who they're looking to for inspiration. Welcome back! I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm speaking with Morgan Lerner, the very bright and creative co-founder of GoNanas. GoNanas is not your nana's banana bread. This product is vegan, gluten-free, also top allergen-free, and so delicious. I've now tried two of their flavors so far, the OG Mix and Pumpkin Spice, because it's It's fall and my goodness, so delicious. Well, we also dig into how creating such innovative flavors is going to be a big part of their brand strategy moving forward. But also we talk a little bit about social and how this year has really been great for them in terms of innovating for the brand. Morgan started GoNanas in college with her best friend Annie. The two have just recently gone full-time with the business, working on growing GoNanas as a digital brand. And I feel like our conversation was really capturing a moment in time for them. COVID has been a big kick in the pants for GoNanas in a good way. After realizing all of their retail partners wouldn't be ordering their products anymore, or at least for the foreseeable future, with so many having to close down, they were trying to figure out how to get to customers because so many people kept asking where they could find their product. So they decided, all right, it's finally time to sell a mix, which they had been thinking about for years. So before the end of the year is up, they'll be selling nationwide through Amazon and also a really awesome partnership with Nordstrom Racks and a— many more collaborations around the corner. So we talk a lot about that, as well as why growing the brand slowly at first was really their key to success in being able to do what they've done this year in terms of launching their mixes. And I also get to talk to Morgan about her tips for using Instagram and TikTok and how they apply it for their brand to really grow community online and reach ambassadors.

I actually am from Houston, Texas, but the company, we founded it as students at the University of Michigan. And my other co-founder, she's from Michigan. So that's kind of where the Michigan tie comes in. A lot of Michigan people come to Chicago. So we ended up here together.

That's awesome.

How did you find out? I've been meaning to ask.

It was on Instagram, of course, of all places. I don't know, it might've been recommended or just the fact that I follow a lot of food brands. Specifically female-run businesses. So it popped up somehow, or maybe there was a comment thread somewhere. And I'm based in Montana. I grew up in Colorado, and then I— Oh, cool! Yeah, and then I worked— I got into the marketing world of food and beverage when I worked for a wine company in Los Angeles for 5 and a half years. So I lived there and So I wanted, for this first season, I wanted to have a mix of people from different places. I have—

Yeah, I love that. I'm so glad you reached out and that means our social media and the app that I slave over is working. Oh my God.

Right. I do want to talk about that, but let's, let's start with, give us the arc of how it came to be and what, where you're at right now.

It's been a wild journey for sure, and I would say COVID has really transformed our business in a totally weird way. It's a terrible tragedy, but kind of a blessing in disguise. But GoNanas as a whole is a banana bread company. So we're vegan and gluten-free, women-owned, and like I mentioned, started at the University of Michigan. So we started our business with single-serve mini pre-made banana breads, and we sold them to various food service shops. So cafes, coffee shops, juice bars all over Michigan. So that was really our base. And we grew pretty well, but we were doing this part-time as students, and so it only grew so much. And then when COVID hit, this was, you know, over a year out of college, still having other part-time jobs and balancing both. COVID hit and really shut down the majority of our business. So the cafes, coffee shops, and juice bars of the world were closing down with the pandemic, and many are still suffering. So we knew we had to pivot, and our customers kept asking how they could get our products during this time. So we had always wanted we wanted to come out with mixes, at-home mixes to make our product. And we came out with it in a few weeks. It was a really kind of shoddy little jar, put a label on it, got it out really quick, and they completely sold out and did really well. And we were moving to a manufacturer as we kind of wanted to scale the business. So we said, hey, should we add this to our kind of repertoire? It took off during this time, and it's really our main focus at this time is innovating around, you know, the mixes and the baking category, which has just seen extreme growth. The baking supplies industry is up 60% since COVID began. So especially, I mean, that alone and then the trend of banana bread, which has just blown up. So both working to our benefit, it's really taken the business to new heights. That's kind of the long-winded version, but now obviously we do this full-time and it's just exciting. I feel like every week brings a new thing for our business. So We'll be launching in Nordstrom Racks next month, hopefully Amazon soon. So lots of exciting things.

Oh my God. So in a weird way, COVID has been a huge kick in the pants for your business. Yeah.

Totally.

The banana bread trend is so true and so fun. Were you already in the works of coming up with your mix when people started posting and sharing this, or just happened coincidentally?

Oh yeah, it was, it was coincidental. I mean, we saw a need for it as everyone was at home and baking, and banana bread has had been infiltrating the internet already. So we knew it was something trendy, but it did start to take off. But it was really a matter of people can't get our product, what do we do? And we've always wanted to make these mixes. We just for some reason never had. There wasn't as big of a need. We didn't think it was as big of a business. But it's proven to be otherwise.

Do you sell most of it direct-to-consumer on your website right now?

We sell both. So the bulk of our business to begin with was with our mini breads, was 100% wholesale pretty much. That's where our bread and butter is. It's very different with these mixes because we're not selling to the coffee shops, cafes, juice bars of the world, where food service is, but rather the growing industry of grocery. So that's new to us. We're new to sales, but we have about, I mean, not including Nordstrom Racks, um, since that's launching next month, we have 20 stores and we're growing. So we're hoping to reach, you know, a few hundred pretty soon. And then with Nordstrom, that'll, that'll add on. So we're growing our distribution through wholesale, but our, our online has actually been what's, what's been driving our business so far, um, for the majority. But we always want split of both. I think it helps us diversify as a business and it helps when you have an omnichannel kind of approach.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of funny, a lot of brands that really start getting their foot in the door just as you said through local cafes, through wholesalers, through, you know, different shops and retailers. But I do think something that I hear a lot of is how to reverse engineer it a little bit and become a little bit more direct-to-consumer. It's unique and also amazing in a way that you have strong presence in both.

I mean, they each have their pros and cons because online you have to do a ton of marketing and you're fighting for every consumer. And the hope is that they'll come back and keep buying, but it's not as certain versus a wholesale account. They typically order on a regular basis once they become a good account and you don't have to do as much there. So there's kind of like the marketing, but They both come with their pros and cons. Okay.

Nordstrom Rack is huge. So I didn't know this and we're— October 1st is tomorrow at the time of this recording. So I'm assuming there's a launch date. How did that happen?

It was wild. So this was, we actually weren't full time at this point and we had just kind of kicked off our mixes and they'd been growing for maybe a month, month and a half. And we actually got a submission on our site. From the Nordstrom buyer and set up a call. And we had no idea really, I mean, we didn't know what the potential was. We didn't think we'd be launching nationwide and online with them, but they actually found us, which was like the best part of the whole thing. They found our website and loved us. They found us on social and thought we stood out against— they were specifically looking actually for a banana bread mix because they're building out their food category as like the, you know, one of the only growing industries right now. They had specifically been looking for one because their bread maker had been doing really well and other kind of baking supplies. And so they found us and that happened. And that's, that's by far the most exciting thing that's happened to date. And so it's kind of just changed the trajectory of our business, changed how we view the business. It's not an obvious choice. Like we would think of the Grocers of the world, right? But as they build out their food category, we're excited to be part of that. And just the reach and distribution it gives us is an awesome opportunity. So we love that. We love working with them. It's a whole nother beast that comes with so many things that are new to us and systems and processes dealing with a retailer at that scale, but really exciting.

Did they tell you how they found you specifically?

Yes, it was through our Instagram and website. So they did some research on Instagram and found us and then kind of cross-checked it and did the similar research on our website. So it was through both channels that they found us, which is exciting because you— it's really hard to quantify some of those efforts, you know, when you're working really hard to optimize those things. And then, you know, when things like this happen and we get the outreach and it kind of proves that it's all worth it and important because the relationships you make are—

I love your website and your Instagram. It's very colorful. Was that something that you felt strongly about from the get-go? Did you have a brand identity or how did you build your website?

And we love our current website, but the reality is like from a user experience standpoint, you want to optimize it so that it's very easy for people to learn about you, shop your products and check out and have a good experience. Experience. So we're just fine-tuning it. But I think really the mixes are what propelled our online business. We weren't really big on e-commerce before because a premade banana bread is hard to do. We do offer them on our online store now. So we've really just kind of built our e-commerce business from the ground up in the past few months. So that's when we realized, A, the website was important, B, Instagram, because you have to have a digital presence. And from that, we've grown like our ambassador program that's helped us grow our website as well. It all comes down to us, to partnerships and relationships in anything we do. So it, that applies to our retailers that we work with, that applies to online, making relationships with everyone, like all of our customers and our brand ambassadors. That's really a core of our, of our business and our mission. So yeah, it was really the mixed business that propelled us to create an Instagram presence. An online funnel and good website and all those things, if that answered your question.

Totally. How did you go about that process of figuring out how to manufacture it, where to produce it, how to come up with the mix? Because I do think that's any sort of product extension or that trajectory of growing into a category. You have an idea, but then you have to find the right partners and then the operations to do it. Is it just, so is it just the two of you doing that?

Have you This kind of comes back to the infamous question we get a lot is like, if you know, if you knew what you know now, when you started the company, would you have done things differently? And we stand by the fact that we wouldn't because we spent those 3 years when we were selling the mini breads recipe testing and really honing in on our recipe. So when it came time to COVID and we were like, this is the perfect time to come out with our mixes, we did virtually zero product development because we had our recipe, we had our dry mix. So all we did is remove the wet and turn that into a package. And we used our mini bread packaging and transformed it into the mix packaging. All of that upfront work and that recipe testing lends itself to really easy— I mean, I would never say easy, but quicker and more efficient and effective product development today. So for example, we just recipe tested for all of our flavors through next February. Those we created I would say 2 to 3 flavors in a week because it's just so— we have this process down and we have our recipe solidified and we know it's good and customers have— because you want the product itself to be good before you even think about scaling and operations. In terms of the operational part, finding a kitchen or a co-manufacturer, whatever your goals are, is always the most difficult. Until we moved to the manufacturer, we had our own kitchen and we had a team of bakers and a baking manager and a process that we had to manage, which is great. Built great relationships with them, but it leaves for a lot more room for error, manual error, human error.

Find partners in that regard.

And it's harder to scale. So we knew we had to move to manufacture and that process, honestly, we got lucky. We found it through family friends. Again, it comes back to people. It's who you know. It's making connections in the food industry. And we reach out to connections we've made 4 years ago to this day. And some of them have been vital in growing our business. At a high level, that's, that's a key, but so many things that go into a co-pack. You have to make sure it's the right fit just from a production standpoint and them being able to meet all your needs. And then there's all these specifics, but ultimately we have a great relationship with our co-pack, so that really helps us. We seek out advice, we have advisors, we build those relationships, trust our guts. A lot of that market research. I mean, I would say it comes, comes down to product first, always, and you want to test that in the market before doing anything with it. You always want to be innovative with your product development. So trying to do something different, that's what we're trying to do with all of our flavors coming up. And then thinking about operations, that differs per company.

I love that description of spending the first 3 years doing product development and how invaluable that is. I think that's the perfect description. And especially in the food and beverage business, You can have a pretty brand all day long, but it, it always comes down to a quality product. Because people will see right through it, especially in the more saturated and diversified world of people who specialize in everything such as gluten-free vegan banana bread, you know.

Right, so specific.

Totally. So in terms of the operations and your team, you and Annie co-founded this. What does the team look like now? How do you divide your roles and responsibilities from the beginning and even what that looks like now? And I'm assuming, maybe not, but I'm assuming you've had to grow your team throughout this process a little bit recently in the fact that you have really cool launches coming up and you're expanding pretty quickly.

Well, it's weird because for the majority of us doing this business, it's always been part-time and we've always just juggled it with everything else. And we've had, we've worked with some great people just in terms of interns and people coming in and out helping us. But as of today, we're newly doing this full-time. So it's just us two full-time. Then we have like a part-time accountant and financial consultant. Um, we like focusing on everything else. We obviously know our finances cause you need to, but to some extent it's just not our strength. And so we outsource if it's really— we've learned to do that because we want to take everything on, especially as the owners and the, you know, like entrepreneur mindset. But we've learned that some things you just need to outsource. And then everyone at our, at our co-pack who actually makes the product. So a few people helping from a financial and production standpoint, but other than that it's just Annie and I. Um, and We don't have a strict division of operations because we love doing a lot of things together. And I think what's really cool about a business partnership like we have, she's actually my best friend. So it's so, it's like so nice working with your best friend, living with your best friend. We're really lucky. We kind of joke that we're married sometimes because I know too much about her. She knows everything about me. But the beauty is we're actually very different and we think somewhat differently. So We really like doing most things in the business together because we think our perspectives come together to create a better outcome. So that's kind of where the division of operations gets a little blurry, but she tends to be more of the operational, um, head. And then in terms of like graphic design, she's very good at that. So all packaging needs, graphics you see in our social, whatever, she's great at that. I don't know how she does it. Coding, uh, stuff for our website. I'm more of like the sales marketing, um, customer service head as well. And then we both do strategy and business development and product development. So it's nice because we each have our own wheelhouses, but there's a lot of overlap and we're interested in it all. So it actually works out really well. But that evolves too as different projects and business needs arise with scale. It's like, okay, I'll handle this, you handle that, or we do this together. So Yeah.

Totally. Speaking of having a business with your best friend, I think a lot of people ask this question when it's a husband and wife or a boyfriend and girlfriend, but—

But it's only brought us closer, I guess, is the moral of the story. So I would say, so we were actually neighbors in the freshman dorms and we were not friends for the first 6 months, which is funny. And then we, I don't know if you've ever heard of Spoon University, it's a food publication, very prevalent on college campuses. But we met at that club. And we instantly bonded over food and health, and then obviously baking. And then we realized we both had this familial recipe and tie to banana bread, and that's how the whole thing started. But it's just funny how it's progressed because we were always best friends and it grew more and more over the years of college. And then when we moved in together and started even working more and just living together and post-college and everything, we grew even closer. And now that we're doing this full-time, we are always with each other. So it's, that's why I joke that we're married because it's like you have the tough conversations. You're really close. You know the little things about each other that other people don't know. But I think that's really what helps us be good business partners. And I can say confidently, I couldn't do this without her. It's like we need each other, but we're also confident in our own strengths and play to each other's strengths. So I, we just are very lucky. I'm super thankful. I tell her we did it.

I love that. Do you do that intentionally or it just comes out to say that to each other?

It comes naturally. And it's also you feed off each other, you know, and tell each other that every day. So it's fun. It makes this whole process fun because it's not easy. When one person's excited, the other person gets excited. And it's just, we've gone through a lot together. We, I mean, we say it's kind of like our baby, watching it grow over the past 4 years. And you change a lot in college too. So We've just been through a lot in general.

Okay. Another fun question. I ask this question to everyone because I think it's such a fun story. How did you come up with the name and how did you come up with your brand?

Really how it all began was when we were baking at Annie's house, I think freshman year, and we, you know, wanted to healthify a banana bread recipe. We were set out to do that because we both loved it. I completely burned the loaf, but we ate it and it was still delicious and we were like, oh, we're onto something. And in the car ride home, it's about 45 minutes from Birmingham, Michigan to Ann Arbor where University of Michigan is. And like in that car ride, we were brainstorming names. We came up with like Bananas and Bliss and other alliterations. And then we landed on Go Bananas and you couldn't trademark that. So a few months later, we changed it to Go Nanas. We basically just combined them. And that's kind of where our tagline of not your nana's banana bread comes from too. 'Cause people think, sometimes they hear the name and they're like, "Oh, Nana." And we're like, "Yeah, it's like your name." Like, banana bread has that familial kind of home grandma, you know, timeless feel, but it's, we've innovated and made it this kind of new, not your Nana's banana bread. So it's a play on words, but it also just came from Go Bananas.

I love it. I love that you sort of owned it and recognized if there's gonna be any confusion, let's adopt it and make it our own and take our own spin on it. Yeah.

Yeah, and it kind of fits with our actual motto, so it works out.

Did Annie do the design work since she is a talented designer?

So we, the original designs, we actually worked with a club on campus. They're incredibly talented designers. It's crazy the kind of resources we found on campus for building a business, but those were the designs for all of our mini breads. And then when it came time to our mixes, we basically used those, took some photography on our end, did a lot of research and whatnot, and basically self-designed our packaging, which is kind of crazy. But we had the logo and the basics, and we'd worked with packaging companies before for our mini breads. So again, it was like all that upfront work that we had done over the years, even though it was slow and we were students and the business was really small, it helped us to be able to scale when we really started almost a new business a few months ago. So yeah, but she's, she's definitely the design head and owns all that. I'm— I can't do the Photoshop.

Fair enough. I appreciate working with graphic designers as well for that reason. I can get creative enough, but then, then, then it stops.

Yeah, I have like the vision and I'm like, is this possible? And she'll be like, "Give me a few hours." I'm like, "Oh my God, it takes that long?" But it does.

So banana bread is your bread and butter, truly. I have seen that you've launched a new flavor. Two questions: are there more flavors coming out? How has pumpkin spice been received? And yeah, is there anything else coming up that you've planned in terms of product extensions or flavors?

Yes, yes, and yes. Pumpkin spice is always a fan favorite. We did it as mini breads and it was our bestseller. So it's been doing amazing, which has been really cool. Actually, seasonal flavors and just innovative flavors that come out all the time are a core to our kind of future growth. And that's something kind of we've decided on recently. We wanna be coming out with flavors very regularly. So throughout the year, through like through the end of 2020, it'll be once a month. And then coming up, we'll have collections of flavors. So we always wanna keep our customers kind of surprised and delighted with new flavors. So we're gonna have a Valentine's Day one. We have a really awesome collaboration coming up in November for a mix. Another holiday one we're having is gingerbread. I can't give them all away, but really exciting flavors coming up. So that's definitely something that we consistently work on.

Super smart, especially when you have a core product, is how to stay top of mind or innovative or just reach either existing customers or get new ones in a way that shows them they can continue to use it in different ways.

Exactly, exactly right. And you stay relevant, you stay excited, customers want to, you know, follow along. And we just, yeah, we want to create new flavors. That's just kind of part of our own desire too.

In terms of partnerships and collaborations, and you also mentioned your ambassador program, which I want to ask about because I think the world of influencers and ambassadors has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and I still, but I still feel like a lot of brands are figuring it out. Like, what is our ambassador program? How do we manage it? Why is it important? It sounds like that's something that you have newly established.

So while marketing used to be these ads on TV and newspaper and magazine, um, the advertising world has completely shifted. So having an influencer or, you know, ambassador, whatever you want to call it, program is super key if you want, you know, to really grow your online base. And I think diving a level deeper, it's not just that. I mean, the point of it and why it works so well is because people trust people. So you have to find the right people. You want to do it in an organic, natural way. So we actually do very minimal, if not no paid partnerships, because we really want it to be organic. So, you know, sometimes if it's a bigger account, I'll just reach out and say, I feel like you would love our banana bread for XYZ. So you want to tailor your message. Send them the product, and then if they share, they share, and it's really organic versus paying a lot of money. I'm not saying we won't do this when we're bigger, but I'm just talking about for our size, it's what we focus on. Um, so, and then in terms of the ambassadors, we've built that from people reaching out and wanting to promote and collaborate and, you know, really be a bigger part versus just kind of ad hoc, um, or sporadic promotion. So we've grown that from people reaching out and wanting to be part of what we're doing. And then there's various incentives and benefits they have from being part of the fam, the, we call it the Go Nanas fam. But I think the power there is that they're sharing the product very organically. They do have a code and whatnot, but it's out of their want to, and it comes off that way. So that's our goal is just like natural, organic, broad promotion on lots of platforms. So Instagram is key. I think one thing though is that it's become very saturated. So I think it gets tough sometimes when you're trying to reach those bigger influencers because they have monetized it and they have these, you know, crazy media kits, which, you know, respect to them. They can, they have these, these huge audiences and that's smart. But newer kind of exploding platforms like TikTok can actually be extremely powerful. And we've done that and it's been huge for our business of just finding some people who we think would love our product, align with what we're doing, we think it would fit naturally and organically into their platform, and they've shared that. And that's been huge in driving sales. And we found that much, much bigger than Instagram. So that's actually something we're tapping into more. I think, um, one expert we heard was saying businesses are sleeping on TikTok. It's like there's all this untapped potential and people people should be tapping into that. And I think it comes down to honestly the ability for things to go viral on that platform way easier than on TikTok. I mean, than on Instagram, just because of the algorithm and you don't have to follow people to necessarily have them pop up on your feed. So I think what it comes down to is kind of the world we live in these days, but also human nature. All in all, it's, it's finding the right people, finding the right platforms and doing it in an organic, real way and then creating a community around those people so that it's not just this exchange or this payment, but it truly is a partnership. But then another way, like we do partner with people is for product collaborations and then you can co-promote and it's this, you have the marketing benefit of that. You can, I mean, a lot of things, you know, virtual events. We have an IGTV series called Get Well Go Nanas and we get to partner with some fun people. You don't wanna spread yourself too thin. So we actually may be discontinuing that because we wanna really be focused in what we're doing. Um, but yeah, there's a lot of things you can do. We've just heavily focused on our ambassador program and then finding some bigger accounts on a variety of platforms that can share, um, our product on a larger scale. And then we'll see as you grow and maybe have more money, maybe that can look different, but that's our current strategy.

Super smart. And something that I think is still relevant within Instagram, but I absolutely think you're right. Even the friends that I have who work in this space or even clients that I work with, TikTok is one of those things that people are like, oh, it's still new. But the fact that you looked at it in the way that you can build partnerships and ambassadors the same way you can through Instagram makes it feel in some ways a little less intimidating and too, a way of saying like, yeah, it's worthwhile. Spending time on that platform to do our research and to understand how people are sharing products like these.

Right. We've had a lot of fun on it ourselves too. Just like, you know, honestly we say maybe it's for us, maybe it's not for other people, it's just for us to have fun. But we treat it as research. I think it's interesting to explore. And the reality is we just want more people to try our product. We're new and we're not a huge brand, so they may not come to us by knowing us, so we have to get them to be excited and curious.

Have there been any surprising pieces of content that either your brand has created or an ambassador that has shared that you're like, "What?" I'm trying to think.

People make insane recipes that I'm always like, "How?" Like a majority of our recipes are not ones we make, but that our ambassadors create just because they're messing around in the kitchen and getting creative. I mean, we've had banana bread cake pops and vanilla glazed pumpkin spice donuts and just crazy creations. So it's, I think that's the coolest part for me because it never gets old. Nothing viral yet. So watch out, you know, follow us on TikTok and then you'll see.

I'm going to. I, I have an account. I don't use it very frequently, but I do it for some research. So you'll be my next follow.

It seems kind of frivolous and social, which it totally is, but it also can be used in a powerful way. I don't know.

Speaking of other platforms, so it sounds like digital content partnerships, ambassadors, mostly through Instagram and TikTok are important. Your website's important and you've created that and you're revamping it. Are there any other marketing tools or platforms that are helpful, whether digital or not? I think it's helpful to understand what kind of things people are using right now.

Yeah, totally. I think email marketing, everyone will say it's key because it is. And it's funny, as a consumer, I may not be the best target, um, unless it's certain emails. There are certain emails I love, but they actually work extremely well and it's free marketing and the people who are signing up for those, are your loyal customers. And so that's also, you know, Annie makes amazing emails with really cool graphics, but that's a huge opportunity. So I think that's kind of a staple marketing, a staple digital marketing piece. I would say when it gets into ads and other things, I would always look at ROI. So whenever we do anything, or ROA, we're looking at the return we get with what we invest. We're consistently testing things out, especially as a new brand. So sometimes we pause our Facebook and Instagram ads because we're not seeing as high of an ROI or other things are driving more sales. And from a cash flow perspective, we want to reserve those marketing dollars. Sometimes we, we've tried some online pop-ups and some have shown big returns, some haven't. So we're consistently analyzing email marketing for sure. I would say another thing that I didn't touch on was SEO, but beyond just having a good website, you have to attract people to it. And there's a ton of tactics for that. I wouldn't say it's extremely complicated. We're actually getting some help with that as well. But that is important and it's something we're focusing on, especially with our new website, because we want it to be as optimized as possible. Video, I think, is kind of the future of content. And TikTok shows that. But video is the most real, the most engaging, whether it's you and getting on your stories and sharing your story, I've tried to do that more, which we never did before. But I mean, we were over here getting all excited and I said, I mean, we need to share this. I want everyone else to feel the excitement we feel. So getting on video, sharing your story, I think that's a big thing. But tangibly, I would say SEO and email marketing are two big things to prioritize in the digital marketing phase and process and everything.

Absolutely. Do you find any platforms that you like better than others?

So we were on Squarespace. Squarespace has, you know, great things for design and whatnot, but it's not as user-friendly and just lacks a lot of functionality. So we're moving to Shopify and we're super excited just because we get to do so much more and have a lot more data. It takes a lot of coding, so building a website that is high functioning and and pretty isn't easy. Again, Annie knows a lot more about that than me. But Shopify, love. We use Mailchimp for now, which is great for now. Those two for sure. And that's, I've heard that to be pretty common too.

Absolutely. That's kind of why I like to ask, because it seems like there are common threads and everyone has their favorites. But I think it's those little tactical pieces that are interesting insights for anyone. Yeah, totally. Okay, very random question, but I have to ask. How often do you eat banana bread and do you ever get sick of it?

Never get sick of it. Okay, so if I'm recipe testing, like the other day we were recipe testing and we had, you know, we went live with one of our ambassadors and made mug cakes and it was just a banana bread day. I probably had, you know, the batter and then I tasted it and then I had a mug cake. So that was like a very heavy banana bread day. Is it my regular breakfast? No. Is it my regular dessert. Yeah, yeah, you always got to taste the product. Just, yeah, we love it. I have a big sweet tooth. We're both really into baking, but also like tasty things. So I think that's the benefit of our product. We don't position ourselves as the cleanest product out there. It's made with wholesome ingredients and it tastes amazing. So it's very much in the middle, which benefits us because I truly believe anyone could enjoy it. And people who don't like bananas or don't like banana bread have loved our product. So we kind of have proof of that, but I will say there's a small sector of people who are, you know, top allergen-free, nut-free, gluten-free, dairy-free. So it's nice because we get to really, you know, offer something that is healthy and tasty to everyone. But the bulk of our market is the kind of health-focused foodies of the world. I love not telling people and then they eat it and I'm like, oh, so did you know it's like vegan and gluten-free? And all the things. And they're like, no way.

What brands or people are you following? Who do you think is doing really cool stuff right now?

That's a great question because we look to brands all the time. We're always exchanging what we do and don't like about a brand because there's so much innovation happening in the space and so much you can learn. One of my favorites is SmartSweets. They're pretty big. They have like 400,000 followers. They're Product development's amazing. Their social media is great. I mean, it comes down to product. I fell in love with them because I love their product. But then as, you know, the kind of entrepreneurial nerd in me started stalking their email campaigns and their Instagram account and their website, everything's amazing. So I think what they're doing is really cool and also revolutionary because they're just making candy healthy, which no one has really done. There's a peanut butter company we love called Nerdy Nuts. Nuts. And they have a really interesting business model too. They release limited editions of, or release limited amounts of their flavors once a week. So it's a very kind of like scarcity model, similar to Supreme clothing. Um, they're kind of, they call themselves the Ben Jerry's of peanut butter because it's fun mix-ins in the peanut butter, which no one has done before. So they're really cool. We just love to look at the really innovative kind of funky brands out there. So Nuggs is another one. They're a vegan chicken nugget that is totally funny, kind of aggressive humor, but a really good product too. And then another one we love is Olipop. They're a probiotic soda, so kind of a healthy kombucha. Really fun brand, awesome product. Cool. I think the food space is so innovative these days and there's so much more to come. I can't even like imagine what products are going to come out. But yeah, we're always looking for inspiration in other ones. And as foodies ourselves, we're always trying new products.

All in the name of business development and market research.

Like, oh, we have to try this product. So true.

Is there anything for you personally within the business or even beyond it that you're excited about at this moment in time? What's kind of got you jazzed the most that you're working on?

Growing, as silly as it sounds, growing and scaling. I feel like it's still so new with this mixes and we're just honestly busting our butt. So I'm just excited to see it grow.

You've done so much in the past couple months. 2020 has been a remarkable year, so I'm excited to watch as well and to have captured and recorded a piece of your Go Nana's history.

Yeah, I know I can listen back to this in a bit and and remember where we were.

Yeah. And I'm excited to share this as well. This is one thing that has been a bit unexpected, although not a surprise, is in talking to so many female founders and specifically about marketing and what they're doing right now. This moment in time is so fun and fascinating to ask people what they're doing, what's working, because The common theme is this mindset of just do it, do it messy and it's okay. Like there's almost less of a pressure we have on ourselves in some ways because it's like we got to do whatever makes the business work. Bringing a lot of authenticity to marketing, to just what people are having to do with their businesses to pivot.

That's so true, especially with everything blowing up online. It's people are really honest and sharing their stories. And just not being afraid to do things non-traditionally, which I kind of think is the key to success. It's like there are best practices out there and you always want to see, you know, what others are doing, but sometimes you just say, hey, I want to do it this way. I just feel strongly about it. And it feels kind of good. And then when you watch it have a good outcome or not and you learn, but that feels good too.

Well, where can people find you? Where can they get Go Nanas and watch you on TikTok?

Yeah, all of those. Okay, so Instagram is @go_nanas. TikTok is @gonanas, that's easy. Website is www.eatgonanas.com. Follow us, follow along, message me, I always want to talk.

Thank you so much, Morgan. I had such a lovely time. Such an inspiring conversation with Morgan Lerner, and GoNanas is such a fun brand. I love that they've totally taken ownership over any confusion that might have been had with bananas and the alliteration and made it their own. But some of my takeaways from our chat were, first and foremost, just another reiteration of how important really believing in your product and having a quality product is, especially in this industry. And I love that she stands by the fact that the— when they were growing slowly those first 3 years, it in hindsight was the best thing for their business. The fact that they could really get behind the mix and the ingredients and test market a lot of different things in a way that was scalable and feasible for them as students at the time, and how that's really been a huge differentiator in how they can now show up and say yes to these opportunities to grow exponentially and get into huge accounts like Nordstrom and Amazon. So cool. And I also love that the twist on digital marketing and in embracing some of these new platforms in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming. So the fact that she and Annie view TikTok as a place where they can use to their advantage, I think it's really easy for all of us, especially when it comes to our marketing and content strategy, to easily dismiss things like TikTok and think, oh, that's not really where my consumers are, um, or my target audience right now and just having to show up and create more content there and the strategy for that totally feels overwhelming. But they've flipped it on its head and gone to those places to look for research, to look for partnerships and ambassadors and utilize it as a place to grow their brand and to work with other people to just create relationships and learn from them and share their product versus feeling the need to have to have a huge presence and show up on, and that's just come organically by way of doing their own research and connecting with people there. So that's really cool, and, um, I think a relief in a way to hear that there's a way to go about growing onto other digital platforms in a way that can be manageable. And I love the idea of partnerships and limited edition flavors and just innovative ways to keep a single product relevant for a consumer and to create the need to keep engaging with them. And by doing that with, with all their collaborations coming out, I think it's super exciting. So I hope you enjoyed this episode with Morgan Lerner. Go check out GoNanas, and I know I'm gonna be ordering a couple of their pumpkin spice flavors and testing them out with my friends and family. In the meantime, if you'd like to see other brand and marketing tips, you can always follow me @backlabelbranding, and my website is backlabelbranding.com. Until then, I'll see you next week with another fun story.

Morgan Lerner.

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