013: A Passion for Animals Turns into 500 Monthly Subscribers

Turning a personal passion into a business you love. On today's episode, you'll hear how Nicole went all in with her guinea pig box and how it exploded to over 500 subscribers in only a few months. I can't wait for you to hear her story.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Hey everybody, it's Sarah here and I have Nicole Jenney with me. She is the founder of the GPig Box and you're probably already wondering what is a GPig Box. So I'm super excited to have Nicole here with me. We're going to talk about her super specific niche. We're going to talk about her journey and some things that she's learned along the way. Nicole, welcome to the podcast. Why don't you just introduce yourself and let's talk about what a GPig Box really is.

Hey everyone, um, thanks for having me here, Sarah. Um, I, I'm Nicole. I'm the founder of GPigBox, and a GPigBox is a subscription box for guinea pig owners. So new owners, experienced owners, everybody who loves all things guinea pigs— we've put it into a box. We've spoiled your pigs, and we've also included things for yourself. Um, so it caters to guinea pigs and humans.

So I'm not even going to front, like I knew what a guinea pig was before you had joined Launch Your Box, but I totally had to Google it because I was like, what is this thing? I was thinking it was like a hamster, and, but it's like 10 times cuter than a hamster, right? So it's super, it's super niche. So I want to talk about, let's, let's start, let's just tell them about your journey of why you selected the guinea pigs to be your box and you know how this has all come about. So why don't you tell them your story?

Sure. Well, I had guinea pigs growing up and they've always been like a sweet little pastime memory of mine. And as an adult, I've, I've kind of been in the pet space for the last 15 years. My first job out of college was working for a dog product company where I was designing some products and doing graphic design there. And I kind of broke away from that company. I started my own thing and I've been in the pet space for quite a while. Recently in the pandemic, just like a crazy turn of events, my grandmother became very ill very quickly and we lost her due to COVID-19. I guess when I was going through grief, I was finding some happiness with animals. I have always been connected to them. They've always been a part of my life and my career. I was finding myself following these cute little social media profiles with guinea pigs and rabbits and things like that. I found myself at the pet store one day just like staring at the guinea pigs. And I, and I felt like I really, I don't know, connected with them and felt purpose. I know that sounds sort of crazy, but I ended up rescuing two in the height of the pandemic, Ginny and Pidge, and they are sisters. They came from kind of a neglect situation, so they needed some care. And it really helped me kind of get through the grief and find some purpose. And it started to sort of pivot fetch pet products. So we looked at kind of what was going on in the pet space and in the small animal space in particular, and there really weren't options for subscription boxes or vendors that made too many products for small animals. So we kind of researched that. We looked at some audiences in Facebook and social media, and we felt like there really could be a presence for a box. And with my experience in graphic design and website making, I kind of quickly threw together a platform on Shopify to offer this box for sale. We curated just, you know, a month or two of boxes, got some inventory here, and started selling, and it just blew up. And we couldn't be happier that there are other people out there like us who, you know, at 30-something years old, love their guinea pigs as much as we do.

Well, I think that's, that's the fun part. And listeners, you can't see this like I can, but her guinea pigs are behind her on this little dresser. They have this sweet little setup back there and they're running back and forth as she's talking about them. So I'm watching Jenny and Paige as I'm talking with Nicole. But let's, let's just back this up just a little bit before we get into all the stuff, because when you talk about, you know, a 30-year-old that loves guinea pigs, but this is really for anyone that loves guinea pigs. So we talk about going super specific into our niche and really knowing what that customer is like. And your customer could be 10 years old, they could be 70 years old, but there's one very specific thing about them, and they love their guinea pigs. And so, and you really see this across the pet industry, someone that loves their pets wants to have something for them. They love going shopping for their pets. They love having treats and gifts and fun new things for their pets. But you really couldn't find that in the guinea pig space when you started, right? Like, that's where this all came about, was that you couldn't find what you were looking for for the guinea pigs. So you thought, let me create that, right?

Yes, yes. There was, there was one company in particular that is overseas in the UK, and there is a very, very large following of guinea pigs in the UK, very popular over there. But, you know, with customs and importing, it was very expensive and it didn't seem like it was at the right price point for the box. Plus, I think there was a missed opportunity to cater to the owners because the stuff that was in that box was only for the guinea pigs. So yeah, we decided that let's try this, let's cater to the people who own them. And it just kind of by happenstance reached a very large broad audience because I think going into it, we thought parents would be buying this for their kids or people of a younger age would be buying it. And we were really surprised to see after looking at all the data and the analytics that it's a larger generation of people that are over 30, over 40 who, you know, don't have kids anymore, just have guinea pigs, rescue guinea pigs. And we've even had customers, they've been wonderful because they reach out to us and they tell us where they need to see something. So they've been giving us a lot of feedback. And when we first started, we offered one type of box and we got all this feedback that people wanted double the stuff and they wanted more. So we created a whole other box and another line for them. And that's been just as successful. So it is really interesting to know that Maybe you think you know your audience going into what you're doing, but then your audience comes out of the woodwork and it's something completely different than what you expected. So that's been fun.

They, they really tell you what they want from you. Right. And I think that's where we get tripped up in our minds a lot of times is that we think they want or need a certain thing, but that's not always the case. And so if we can open our minds and really listen to our customers, it just helps us grow that much more. Um, so I know that When I was looking at your social media, and this is what surprises me, you know, the most when I look at Launch Your Box members and the amount of subscriptions that they're doing, your social media is new. Like you started all of this really in December. So we're in April right now as we're talking. So just a few months ago, your social media has about 1,000 followers. Um, what would you say your email list, how many people you have on your email list?

Oh, that's a great question. I know we have over 1,500.

Okay. So you have about the same amount of followers as on your email list, but you have now within 4 months, almost 400 monthly subscribers, right?

We have, we have more, more than 400. We've just surpassed 500 as of yesterday.

Oh my goodness. And I just, I want people to understand that you don't have to have these big, huge audiences, right? No, you don't have to have these huge audiences. You just have to have the right audience. And I think that you've done that in a way that really just speaks to your customer. I've seen it in your box inserts. So the way that you have your box inserts, like you're just, you're speaking to— can you, can you describe those for someone listening? Like what the, like, it's the language you use on your box inserts that just made me smile. So tell us about those.

We're all about puns here. In the, in the house. So we tried to figure out how many like puns we can use for guinea pigs. So we have things on our marketing that says it's guinea be a good day, or our tagline is hay there, H-A-Y, as in like Timothy hay, what they eat. So these cards that come, come in the boxes when they first open the box says hey there in really big letters, and then we have a QR code that they scan to see what's in every month's box. But When we start our chats or any of our emails, we say, hey there. And when we sign them, we say, it's going to be a good day. So it's just kind of like those little niche things that people don't expect from us. And then they hear from us and they get a chuckle out of just some of the punny humor that we use.

And I've seen them on your social media too. So you're using the same thing with your box inserts. You're just tying it all together. You're talking about your emails. I've seen it on your social media and then you have it in the box insert. So they're really getting a complete experience when they come into your world from from all of your marketing efforts. And I just think it's super, super awesome. So thank you. Um, congratulations. And I know that, I know we kind of went very quickly through the process of getting started, but let's just talk, let's backtrack a little bit. So you had the idea, you were researching, um, what you could do and what they needed. And then you decided, I'm going to start a subscription box. And you decided that in December. Is that correct? December?

December.

Okay. You joined Launch Your Box, you got things going, and you kind of, you're kind of a tech guru. And can we just say that you're one of the favorites in the membership because you know all the tech things? And so you were really able to fast-track your launch, right? Let's just talk a little bit about those things that you needed to prepare for the launch of your box.

Yes. So I joined, I joined Launch Your Box in late December and I gathered as much information as I could to kind of get it to the place where I could launch it. And like you said, I kind of have perhaps an advantage to most because I understand how the backend of all of this tech works, but I decided to go with a Shopify platform because it was just the quickest way I could set up with a template, list some products and get selling. And then using an app like Bold Subscriptions would help with the renewal process of the boxes. But by researching my market and knowing who I had to get to, researching all the processes really of fulfillment is what I really dove into because that was something that was new to me. And as we had mentioned before, you and I do those things a little differently, and we've had to kind of phase one and phase two in terms of our fulfillment process and how, how we're working with that and our number of subscribers. So we've had to look at third-party fulfillment options like ShipStation and get used to how that works and get that all in place before we launch. So there was a lot of research to be done in a very short amount of time to understand how all of that tech integrates. But it's, it's been a really fun process and I learned something new every day.

So you, you launched in January then once you had all the tech pieces together, you launched in January. And how many subscribers did you have right out of the gate in On day 1, we got 1 order. 1 order. Okay, it starts with 1, right? I tell everybody it starts with 1.

Started with 1, then it went to 5, 5, 4, 9, 12, 9, 12, 9, 7, and then we had— it kind of evened out at 10, and then we increased our advertising budget. So we were running ads on Facebook. Um, Now we have about 15 per day.

Okay. So you're getting about 15 new subscribers a day. That's incredible. So a lot of fun you started with, and let's talk about the payment versus fulfillment aspect. Now, are you fulfilling these from your home? Do you have a warehouse? Do you have a location that you're fulfilling? How are you doing the fulfillment or how are you doing it in the beginning? And then let's talk about how that's transitioned.

Yes, so we do— we did the fulfillment out of the house. We're currently doing it out of the house. Next month we will transition to a warehouse, but the fulfillment process was sort of a 6-week prepayment. So when a customer goes and purchases their first box, they have to wait until the 15th of the next month for fulfillment. We did this because we wanted to make sure we had no waste. So we didn't wanna order too much inventory and we really didn't know what our numbers would be the first few months. So we had people preorder, the cutoff day was the first of the month. So if they ordered February, the cutoff day was March 1st and then their first box would ship the 15th. So that would allow us kind of a 2-week buffer period to order everything we needed in order to fulfill all of those orders. And then it would repeat for the next month. So we did that for about 3 months and that's where we're at right now with the about 450 boxes that are going out this month. And they were fulfilled from my house. And we've quickly grown out of that space. So we are getting a warehouse for May. But our, but our subscription renewal is kind of changing. We're not cutting off at the first of the month anymore. And we're changing that.

So let's talk a little bit about that. Because I think it's important for listeners to understand that you've got to do what works for you. And so what works for me and some things that I teach doesn't always work for everyone. And that's the beauty of having a group like ours is that you learn what other people are doing and you just make it— you tweak it and you make it work for you. So for you, packing and shipping 400 to 500 boxes at a time in your home is not ideal. If you could spread that out and pack and ship a little each week, it doesn't feel as overwhelming. It doesn't take over your whole space. So For you, you decided that instead of pushing all the payments onto one day and then doing fulfillment from that one day, you would— is it, would you let them, when they signed up, that's when their payment would hit every month? And so then you were just fulfilling orders that had come through all along the month as they are processing. Is that what changed for you?

Yes, that's what's changing for us. So previously, like you said, they'd renew on the first, and now we have 500 boxes that we have to fulfill in 2 weeks, which is not a sustainable, um, way to do business, especially with fulfillment. So we've decided starting May 2nd— that's when the next month like rolls over— people will order, they will get their first box sent immediately, like within a week, and then they will renew on the same day that they purchased. So if they bought on the 15th, they'll renew then again on the 15th the next month. That saves us from having to Skip the first month of reorder in Bold because there's no buffer period, and we've talked about that, um, and that allows us to kind of spread out all of the fulfillment over a week so we can kind of pack once a week orders instead of slamming it all into a few days.

So let's talk, let's talk a little bit about that timeline because we get those questions all, all the time inside the group, people trying to figure out that timeline. So if I subscribe today When does my box ship?

So today, as of right now, for phase 1 of what we're still doing, your first box would ship May 15th.

Okay, so it's gonna ship the next— it's gonna ship the next month. So is that how it will go going forward? Like, if they sign up in one month, your first box ships the next month?

In one month from now, if they sign up, their first box will ship immediately.

Immediately.

So this is solving two problems. One, our customers have told us, well, I'm signing up now, it's early April, why am I waiting 6 weeks for my box? And I understand that people are excited and they want to get their box immediately. But again, we were trying to kind of have the surprise factor that everyone would get their box at the same time. We were trying to have no waste in inventory, so to make sure our numbers were exactly correct for what we were ordering. But now that we've had so much fulfillment in such a short amount of time, we need to spread those things out. So in a month, if you order on May 15th, your first box will probably ship around the 18th of May. You'll get the May box, and then in June, your order will renew on June 15th, and you'll get the June box. So it helps us spread out that fulfillment process. You get satisfaction almost immediately because your box ships right away. And so I think it solves a couple problems, but I don't see anything wrong per se for what we did with Phase 1, and I want listeners to know that this helped us really get off the ground with what we were doing and have a good smooth process. Just for long term, it wasn't sustainable, and by no means did we think we'd have 500 people in the first 3 months. So these are all good problems to have. We call this, you know, growing, growing pains of small business, but it's a good problem to have, and I think we wouldn't do it any other way. It was a good way to start, but now to be able to adapt and change, I think is most important and have an open mind of maybe this isn't working anymore. Like this was working, it was going well, but we have to stay proactive and stay ahead of it so we can be the leader of what we're doing here, providing a great customer experience.

I think every time that we refine our processes and we just get those better and better, it just makes us one more sustainable as businesses. And it just helps the workflow so much better because the last thing you wanna be is stressed out over 500 guinea pig boxes. Like nobody, nobody needs that kind of stress in their life, but it's It's amazing that you've built this recurring revenue into your business in the form of 500 subscription boxes within 4 months. Like, can we just talk about how incredible that is? Like, what does that do for your business? Like, tell me how that's changed the business or your life.

Yeah. Well, I think first I have to send a big thank you to you because I wouldn't even know where to start without the course. So like this wouldn't have been even a thought in my mind. Unless I got that Facebook ad that said, learn how to make a subscription box. I was like, guinea pigs, subscription box, maybe there's something here. What a hobby post-holiday. Let's see what's going on. So first of all, big thank you to you for that, because I would have never had the thought to do it. But it's really helped our business. As I said, we've, we were a, we're a pet product company. We design and manufacture mostly previous to this dog products. And the dog product space is flooded with great brands, and it's very hard to compete kind of with what's out there. You really have to be different, you really have to be niche. And we offer products like inside-out dog toys and things that just haven't been created yet, but we don't have like the clout of these big businesses, so it sometimes it's hard to reach a large audience. I actually think gpigbox.com helped us recently get into Petco. Which is really exciting for us. So Fetch was kind of on the back burner for me. It was just kind of doing its thing, floating around, you know, at a plateau post-holiday. And with this new pivot or offering, I think we're getting a lot more traffic to our parent company, which is really exciting. So for me personally, it's been so fulfilling because I love Ginny and Pidge, and I love what I do in the pet space. And this is new and exciting. Um, but overall I think it's helped my business grow as a whole. I mean, I think we're up 30% in revenue for just the first quarter.

And let's just celebrate because I didn't know that you got into Petco. I didn't know that.

So I just found out yesterday.

Can you just share that in the group? Because I know that so many of them would love to celebrate with you. And that's a big deal, Nicole. That's a big deal.

It's exciting. Yeah.

Wow. So I hope if you're listening that you got lots of good nuggets out of Nicole's journey here. And here's the thing, don't be afraid to start. Um, find something you're passionate about, right? Nicole, like really go all in with something you're passionate about.

Yes.

Work through the hard things. Um, you know, for Nicole, it was figuring out the payment fulfillment situation and how that's going to work for her. Um, and so figuring those out, figuring out what works for your business is super important. And Nicole, what advice would you give to anyone listening that is maybe just starting out? They're maybe sitting there thinking they're ready to start their subscription box, but they just haven't taken that leap yet. What advice would you give for them?

Start.

Just start.

Start. Um, if you're creating a box and you're going between two products, and you've been sitting on this for a week, pick one, get the box ready, choose what you're going to choose, start somewhere. If the margins aren't where they're going to be, you know, if they're not where you wanted them to be for the first month, then change it for the next month. But you need to start, you need to start moving. I think with tech, if you want something that's simple and easy and to get off the ground to just start selling, pick a platform like Shopify. That's all kind of done for you. Get it going, and then realize that this is an evolution. It's never gonna be perfect to start. And with people that I work with from the group that are making Shopify stores, you know, they've said, I've been doing this for 6 months, or I've been waiting on this for 4 months. That's way too long. Just start somewhere, get it off the ground, get it launched, get it to your audience, and then evolve with it because that's the best way to grow and to learn. I thought I had it perfect in the first week, and I'm still making changes on my website every day. So don't think that being done and launching, that that's it. That's the finish line. That's, that's just the start. That's just the beginning. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. So just realize that you need to get it out there. You need to get going and then it will evolve. It's a process.

Yeah. It's, it's kind of messy in the beginning and you figure it out along the way. And, and just like Nicole said, it's a marathon. Like this is a long game. This is not a short win. This is a long-term gain for your business. This is long-term income for yourself. Like this is long game. And so it starts with one. Nicole says she got one subscriber on the day that she launched. It starts with one and we keep building on that. And she's very quickly built on that. And so I hope it inspires you to get going and not worry about all the things. Just get going, listen to your customers the way Nicole did, and it'll make your box that much better. And just figure out your processes. Nicole, where can the guinea pig lovers that are listening here find you?

Gpigbox.com.

Okay, you can find Nicole at gpigbox.com. Thank you for listening. Nicole, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It was great.

Thank you for having me, Sarah. I really appreciate it.

Join us right back here next week for another episode. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com Get on our waitlist and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.