033: Small Audience, No Problem! How Amanda Built 100+ Subscribers from an Audience of 600

Do you know what a Hobonichi planner is? Nope, me either. Well, I didn't until I met Amanda. On this episode, you're going to learn how Amanda launched with 100 subscribers to an audience of only 600 people. Come listen.

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, I'm so glad to be back this week with Amanda Stucky from Mandy Lynn Plans and the MLP Box. Amanda's joining me. Amanda, why don't you say hi to everybody? Why don't you tell them a little bit about Mandy Lynn Plans?

Sure. Hi everybody, I am so honored to be here. Thank you so much, Sarah. So Mandy Lynn Plans, we make planner stickers for a very specific kind of planner that most people probably have not heard of.

And I have the worst time saying it, so I'm going to let you tell them what kind of planner this is and what exactly is it.

Yes, so it's called Hobonichi, and that's the brand name, and there are actually 3 different sizes, and I use the Cousin size. So that's the largest one, and it's a— you have your monthly sections, your weekly sections, and your daily sections all in one planner. So it is fantastic for a busy business owner.

So this is called a Hobonichi planner. It's a very specific planner type, and not only is it a specific planner type, but not— it's a specific size too. You said it's the cousin size, and anybody that's listening that has a Hobonichi planner, they know exactly what you're talking about, right? Like, they like, oh yeah, I got one of those too. But for those of us that have no clue what you're talking about, it's just a very specific planner, and you do a lot of different things with your business, but it's all catered around this one planner, right?

Yes, we have expanded to offer— we have all the Hobonichi sizes, and then we've taken on the Wonderland 222 planners recently also. It's made with the same very specific type of paper that fountain pen owner or fountain pen users love. So it's just very niche, very—

it's, it's very niche. You know, I have this saying that I always say, that the riches are in the niches. And you're like so far into this, it's not even the planner world. Like, some people live in the planner world. It is a very specific type of planner, and what's so cool is to see how your subscription box has grown with this very specific product. Let's talk a little bit about how you started. Let's take me back to the beginning when you started your business and kind of the road along the way.

Sure. So I love planning, and I've loved watching people use stickers, and they— most people have an Erin Condren planner, or I've heard of an Erin Condren planner. And it's a US-based company. They're great. I've had them myself, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. And so I found this Hobonichi, and I was watching all these planner videos of people using their stickers, but I couldn't find anybody using stickers in a Hobonichi Cousin. So what I would do is I would take the stickers made for the Erin Condren, and I would put them in my planner, and I would use an X-Acto knife and a ruler and like slice off the piece that I didn't like so it fit perfectly.

And you're dedicated, like, you're dedicated at that point, right? Like, you're like, you're all in, you're invested in this. And I started a YouTube channel.

I got on the like bullet journal beautiful artistry, but I can't do that. So I found this and stickers instead. And I was like, well, maybe other people do too. So I started a YouTube channel, got subscribers, and I just got really tired of cutting through the paper because the paper is so so super thin. It's like Bible paper. Um, so I got tired of the X-Acto knife, so I was like, I bet I could make my own, because I looked and there were only a handful of shops that made stickers for them, but they weren't my style. And so I was like, I could do this. So then I asked my YouTube following, and they're like, yes, please, please make your stickers. So we did that, and I was pregnant at the time, and so I'm kind of surprised that we were actually able to get it off the ground, get it going. So we did, and we had, we have just the best people. And I have some questions.

Can we talk about the people for a minute? So you're talking about YouTube, which not a lot of people start on YouTube. And so can you tell me how you grew an audience on YouTube?

I guess just because I was watching YouTube videos myself. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to monetize very quickly. The monetization process on YouTube takes forever. And even now we don't really make all that much with it. It's more just sharing my love for the planner. And so I do weekly plan with me videos. And I just start with a trickle and like the same people keep coming back. And it probably wasn't to watch me put stickers in my planner, but to just like connect with me.

And I would— with you—

about my week and talk about what's going on while I'm putting stickers down. And so I think that that's is probably part of why we were able to grow an audience there.

Now, were you also growing an audience on, say, like Facebook or Instagram at the same time?

I don't— I didn't start the Facebook group until after we opened the sticker shop, and I'm not— I wasn't a huge Instagram person. I doubt I started that until—

so it was all from your YouTube channel start? I love that.

Yeah.

Okay, so then tell— they, they convince you that, yes, this is a great idea. Go, Amanda, and make this for us. And what happened?

Um, well, so we started with Cricut, and if you're going to start something like that, don't use Cricut. It was a nightmare because—

why?

Oh, it's just— it's— Cricut is great for personal users, but for business, Silhouette is much more user-friendly. Okay, we, we had a rough start, and we— it took us longer to actually get going than if we would have started with Silhouette at first. But I already had a Cricut, and I was like, I could do this, I already have it. But it was kind of a disaster.

Okay, so you got going on the Silhouette, you started making the things, and so how did you offer them to your YouTube followers? Like, did you say, okay, I made these sticker packs, now come buy them? Like, how, how did this work?

Yes, so we actually set up an Etsy shop. So we've always been on Etsy from the beginning, still have an Etsy. I'm looking right now to switch stuff from Etsy to our Shopify that we have our box on, but things will still be in Etsy. So it's a great place for people to get started.

Yes, definitely. So you got the sticker packs up. Now they're saying, hey, these are great, how about a subscription box? And you're like, no, thank you, I'm fine. You can just buy my sticker packs whenever you want. I don't want a subscription box because why?

It was intimidating.

Is that what you said?

It was just so much unknown. I think just fear of the unknown and the tech and I hadn't found you yet. And so what changed your mind?

Tell us, talk through that journey from selling one-time products to becoming a subscription box owner.

So it's been 2 and a half years since we opened and I only launched the subscription box in mid-May. So it's only been 3 months so far, but I was in another business group and we were kind of paired up in buddies. And one of my buddies, like her, she was talking about how her husband was about to quit his job. And I was like, I want to do that. We are so close. Like, I really want to be able to do that. She said, you have to find another stream of income. And so she was talking about Amazon and these things. I was like, okay, but like, that's not really me. Like the people who buy my stuff wouldn't buy this on Amazon. So I was trying to think through, and then there was another gal in a different group, but in the same big group who had a subscription box and was in Launch Your Box. And she told me about you. And so that like minutes after I searched you, found your podcast. You only had like 3 or 4 episodes up at that time. It was March and I just listened to it all. And I'm like, Mark, like I went and I went running and I was like, we have to do the subscription box.

Like, no, I love it. So you, you found inspiration there. Like, and, and we're talking about my first few episodes, like those were a hot mess episodes. So I thank you for that. But anytime we start something new, I think the first things are a few, a little bit of a hot mess, but you found some inspiration. When you started, when you found my podcast and you felt like, okay, maybe I can do this, right? Is that what you're thinking?

And Mark is, he's, um, well, he was working as an engineer and so he's very analytical and like for him, all of the things that we have to do until that happened was like, okay, now hold on, let me think about this for a second. I was like, okay, you can think about it, but we're doing it.

You were all in. You had to convince him. You had to convince him how to be all in, right?

Yes.

So let's, let's continue the journey. So you decide I'm all in, I'm doing a subscription box. How do you launch that?

Well, I already had my audience built and my, so at this point we have about 600 members in our private Facebook group. And so just talking about it, I did a couple of Facebook Lives to help get everybody excited about it. And there were so many people that just right away jumped on board because they're my people and they just want everything. And here we are.

So let's talk about that because I think that people skip that step a lot of times. Um, they spend their time making this amazing box instead of spending their time building an audience. And not only did you have an audience, and let's be real, it's not a huge audience. It's 600 people, but it's 600 people that have a very specific planner. And so it's 600 of your very perfect people, and you had spent this time nurturing them. They were showing up on your YouTube channel talking about your month that you were planning out, hanging out with you as you would make your stickers and plan out your planner. And so they were very invested in you. They already knew, like, and trusted you. So it wasn't a big deal for them to purchase a subscription box from you because they already felt like they knew you and they were the person that you needed in your audience because they had this planner. You didn't go into some random I Love Planners group and, you know, started talking about this Hobonichi thing that nobody knew what you're talking about. You— these people followed you for that very specific reason, and it's the perfect storm. They got to know you, they got to hang out with you, and you had what they wanted. And you— and the The best thing was you can find this stuff on the market. You had to create it. So you knew there was a gap that needed to be filled and you were the one that filled it. And I love this story. And so you launched in what month?

Mid-May with our June box.

Okay. And how did that launch go? How many subscribers did you have?

We— so it's really tricky to know numbers because you don't— you make this thing and you're like, well, I have no idea how many customers. Rolls to order because we had to order those enough in advance. So we got our first 3 months worth and we bought 100 rolls— well, 200 of each because it's a 2-piece set, but so enough for 100 boxes for 3 months. And we sold out the first month. So we've, we haven't been able to add new people because we've been locked in at the 100 because there's 100 minimum when ordering the washi tape.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. You launched with 100 subscribers to 600 people. Can, can we say that again for the people listening that might be out jogging? They might need to stop because you just launched to 600 people and you got 100 people to subscribe to your box on your very first launch and probably could have had more if you had more washi tape. Is that what you're saying to me? Yes, that is incredible. That's incredible. Okay, keep going.

So for— we're actually in an open— we have our box open right now because we added 50 for September and October. So we have— we can get up to 150 and then we'll be up to 200 for November and December. We didn't want to like go crazy buying all the washi tape and then, you know, yeah, I just listened to your podcast low this morning and talking about inventory issues, right? Yes. So we're at 124 right now.

Okay. And so now you're ready to scale about 50 more for the next 2 months. And I— and have you built a waitlist for those people? Like, how are these people— where are you collecting them?

Yes. So on our Shopify, if it's not open, it's set to a waitlist.

Okay. And so you're collecting them on a waitlist, so they'll be the first to know when you have those extra spots when your new washi tape comes in. So now what happens? You've got all these people, you know, you've got some recurring revenue in your business, and you know that you're able to keep growing that. And so now what do you get to do?

So we were at a point where something had to change. I actually also teach music part-time. And fall is the busy season. It's when planners come out. It's when people want all the things. And so actually, our big scary goal has happened.

Okay, let's tell them what that was. They might remember from our beginning, from our intro, but what happened?

So my husband got to quit his engineering job over planner stickers.

Let's just— can we just— this needs to be like the headline here. You make enough money selling planner stickers that your engineer husband gets to quit his job and come work with you. Like, how amazing is that? I'm so excited for you. If this is not the feel-good story of the month, I, I don't know what is, because that's exciting. What does that mean for you? What does that mean for your business? What does it mean for your family?

So my husband does a lot of the behind-the-scenes work, and it means First of all, that he won't have to work as many nights and weekends. He's been very involved with the business from the very beginning. And so we're going to get our family time back. And that means a lot to us.

Yeah. I think that's why we go into business, right? At first it's so that we can work from home. We can work our own hours. We can do our own things. But then when we're actually bringing the money into the family to pay the bills, like That is everything. Now, you are not only doing that, but you are now bringing all the income into the family because both of you guys are going to get to work together. You are going to get more time back together for your family. That is why we do this. We get to build our businesses to fit our life. We don't have to fit our life into our business, into our job anymore. We get to build a business around what we want to do with our life. I am really excited for you. I know that there have been challenges along the way, and so we never want anybody listening to the podcast to think that this is just super easy. We all face challenges, and every single month I feel like we are facing different challenges. Let's talk about some of the challenges that you faced, um, as you were starting the subscription process.

The tech definitely held us back for quite a while. Um, but I'm really thankful for my husband, and if it weren't for him, we would probably still just be this really tiny little Etsy shop. And I don't know, I am not super techie, and so I was really thankful that he was able to work through all of the issues. And I don't remember a lot of them specifically, but days and days of trying to work through XYZ and then being able to get it ready and all of that.

So because you're on Etsy, so now we can't sell subscriptions on Etsy, so that's the first barrier. Um, so we've got to either create our own website, we have to do something like Cratejoy or Subli or something like that, but it's definitely better if you can do your own website. So now you've got to build a website for your shop. So that's like the first biggest tech obstacle. Then I think the hardest thing is getting the recurring payment set up, and that seems to trip people up as well. I wish there was just like this easy button we could click and it automatically work the way we wanted to. And, and it was magic, but it's not. We have to work through it because everyone's subscription business operates a little bit differently. So what time of the month do we want payments to come through? What time of the month are we going to ship? What is our cutoff dates? All of these things look different for our subscription box owners. So you've got to kind of plug and play all this information. And these aren't things we've thought about before. They can kind of slow us down. We can tend to overthink things. Well, what if this happens? And what if this happens instead of just like doing And so that slows a lot of people down. And so it's not hard. You guys, it's just, you've got to take it one bite at a time. And so I love that you are just open and say, yep, tech was our trouble. I'm thankful to have someone that could handle the tech because it's not my thing. And it, you know, for me, that's what held me back the longest too, until I realized I was never going to get this thing going if I didn't hire someone to do the things that I couldn't figure out how to do. And That's the best investment that you can, that you can bring on in your business. If you don't have a husband that can get in there and handle the tech things for you, or you don't have, you know, a friend or a brother or a sister or someone that's in the techie area that can do those things. A lot of us are creatives. A lot of us business owners and subscription box owners, we're creative. We want to make the things we want to sell, the cute things. We don't want to worry about the coding. And there are a lot of great, amazing business owners that can do that, but sometimes that's It's just not our thing. And instead of letting us, letting it trip us up for months or years, we just either need to hire someone. We need to ask a family or a friend to help us with it. Um, because it's going to stop you from moving forward. It's going to stop you from having 100 monthly subscribers, right? Amanda, like that would have stopped you, right?

Yep.

Yeah. And so we were at 100 subscribers. We got through the tech. Tell me, tell me what I think, what would be the most important thing to tell someone as they're going through their subscription box journey? Like, what are the pieces that you really found a lot of momentum in? I know just getting launched, but what were those things that you really just lit you up, you love to do? What are the pieces about having a subscription box business that are your favorite?

I love thinking through all the little details. So the tissue paper and the sticker that will hold this in place, and I actually don't have inserts because my people just know. Yes, I didn't have to worry about that. I think designing too, so I, I don't do the artistry of the designs myself. I basically have templates that I fill with other people's artwork. So going through Etsy and finding designs that I love and planning out all the months and just Actually being able to create the items, I think, is really fun for me. I don't have to like search fair and find exactly— like, I can just make one.

You can make what you want. You can have, you can have your vision and then you kind of put it together, not only with the product that you have in there each month, but then with your packaging too. Because if you're a planner person, you're probably a packaging junkie as well, right? So I have your box. I don't know where I have your box, and it's definitely, it's one of the smallest boxes that I've ever opened on one of our box openings. And what I loved about when I opened your box inside our membership was there were people that knew exactly what this was. And it's just like that YouTube audience, right? When we— you said Hobonichi planner, they knew exactly what it was and they instantly connected with you because you spoke their language and you had what they wanted. And so You can tell, like, just when you open the box, it's all just perfectly wrapped with the sticker and the tissue paper perfectly folded, and all the things are there. And so you've done a great job creating an experience for them because it's kind of the same things every month, right? They get the same sets of stuff. So you have to create something that doesn't get repetitive, right? Something that's fun for them to open. So is this a mystery when they get their box? They don't— they haven't seen it. So that's the surprise of it.

And there will be fun new items coming in future months too.

I love that because some people get kind of stuck when we talk about like the one thing of the month, you know, like a candle of the month or a door hanger of the month or socks of the month. It can kind of get repetitive. They're getting the same item every month. But you have found a way to really create an experience about this one thing a month. They're getting the stickers, they're getting the other items. They all are cohesive with color palettes and designs. And then they're just— they get to see what it is for the very first time when they open that box every single month.

One thing that my husband, he still doesn't quite understand, even though he's been in this, like, community for 2 and a half years, he still doesn't quite get it. And until I told him that it's more about the experience of laying down your stickers and the relaxing— like, it's not just having something pretty to look at, it's that too, but it's the time that you just get to sit and think and design. You might not be super artistic, but you get to make your planner, like, pretty. Like, it's, it's the experience.

It's kind of like a ritual. Like, you know, it's like people that write in their journal every morning, or people that read a book, or people that drink coffee every morning. Like, this is a ritual for people that use their planners. Like, I don't know about you guys listening, but I'm— I buy a lot of planners. I don't use a lot of planners. Like, I am guilty of having— I love planners, but when it comes down to using them, I'm not very good at keeping that habit. So the people that do use a planner, especially one very specific like this, it's a ritual thing. It's like their craft night. It's their, it's their, you know, time to themselves. And, and it's, you're just creating a really fun experience around that. And I think anybody listening that has a subscription, that has something that is ritualistic like that, it's all about bringing them into that quiet time with themselves and, and making the experience as fun as possible and Showing them new things, showing them new ways to use different things. And because I'm sure you use your planner in a different way than somebody else would use their planner, so I love that you get to do that with them. Now tell me about your subscribers. Do you get to like do planner nights together? Like, is that a thing?

Not yet, but I— so I film an exclusive plan with me with a QR code on the top of the box, so they get to watch me. I have thought it would be fun to schedule some like second Tuesday of the month every night or something like we just get on and plan together, but I haven't made that happen yet.

And I feel like, you know, you know, back in not too long ago, scrapbooking was such a thing. Like people would get all their scrapbooking supplies and they would come and sit in these big rooms and they would scrapbook together and it wouldn't be the same thing. Like they're not scrapbooking the same thing, but they're all scrapbooking and they're talking and they're creating a community around it. They're building friendships around it. I think that would be something really fun for your subscribers as well. As well, and they could show each other how they're using the items in your box too.

Yes.

Okay. So I know people are listening, Amanda, that have been sitting on their subscription box idea for a while. And what advice would you give them as they're sitting here listening, thinking, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can figure this out. I don't know if I can. What would you say to them?

Your idea doesn't have to be super over the top, and not everybody has to get it. It could be, you know, when you saw and heard about what I was making at first, you had no idea. Like, it doesn't have to please everyone. If it's your hobby and you enjoy doing it, make a box. There are other people out there too, just like you, and you can get through all of the tech stuff.

Yeah, you can get through it. And, and the, and the best thing is to find a community that does the same things that you do. Like, you're just mentioning, like, LauncherBox. You hadn't found LauncherBox. You didn't find that community. And once you can get into a community like that, you can ask all the questions because everybody's doing the same thing. Everybody's having tech issues. Everybody's dealing with recurring payments. Everybody's trying to figure this out together. And so having a community like that is super important. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Amanda, if they have a Hobonichi planner, which I'm sure some people listening are waiting to find you, Where is the best place to find you?

You can find me on YouTube at Mandy Lynn Plans.

Mandy Lynn Plans. And that's two N's on the Lynn. Mandy Lynn Plans. We'll have that in the show notes. Amanda, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us today. I know you're going to inspire some people to just get going.

Thank you so much, Sarah.

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