147: From Idea to a Sold-Out Launch in 3 Weeks

Megan took the day off, wrapped herself up in a blanket, and read my new book, One Box at a Time. 5 hours later, she had a plan. 3 weeks later, she launched her subscription box for the first time and sold out, passing her first and second subscriber goals. Come join us as we break it all down for you on this episode. 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.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Today I have one of our Launch Your Box members with me on this episode because she just launched her subscription and I thought it would be amazing to walk through how she put her plan together and launched it. And it's a lot easier than you think. So Megan, I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. You literally just launched your subscription, which I think is going to be great for all of our newer people listening. Like that's the hardest thing, like they get in their head about it and that's the hardest thing. And you can say that too because you put it off for a little while. We're going to talk through your story, but I'd love for you to introduce yourself. Tell them a little bit about your business, and then we're going to jump right into it.

Awesome. Okay. So yeah, my name is Megan Hoyesen. I'm the owner of Sweet Tea Living. It's a little home decor and vintage shop, Eagle, Idaho. And I actually started 10 years ago. It was started in 2014. I just, I loved home decor. I loved vintage items. I decorated my house and I was like, well, I'm, I keep collecting, so I might as well sell them. So I was a school teacher and just kind of did it on the side. I did like flea markets and antique shows for the first 3 years. And then I had a friend say, you should open a shop. And I was like, no, I don't know. I know nothing about business. And we looked at a property and I had to decide in 3 days. And so we jumped in and started a brick and mortar. So that's kind of how we started in 2017. And it's just kind of evolved since then.

So you say home decor. Do you make signs? Like, tell me a little bit more about what you do.

Yeah, so I don't actually make anything. We did, we did at the very beginning, we did a lot of like painting furniture, flipping items, vintage items, things like that. And then where we live, a lot of people have been moving in and wanted more home decor. So we kind of mixed and married kind of the old and the new together. So we're kind of a mixture of that. So I order in a lot of products that are new, but then I also go out and find old pieces and pieces of furniture and things like that. And so we're always switching our shop around so it's something new and different. I always wanted to create that experience for people to come in and have this kind of like moment of like, oh, it's kind of a fun way to kind of unplug from out, you know, in the regular world and just come in and have some fun.

I love shops like that. Like it's almost like everything is kind of unique and different and it's kind of displayed in different ways. I love to shop in shops like that. I think of like a lot of like downtown little square type shops. That are very unique and different in that way. And so when I saw your, I saw your post in LauncherBox, that's what, that's why Megan's here. I saw her post, a win, but I saw that your box said My Sweet Tea Box. And it wasn't until I started to read a little bit about it that it wasn't about tea at all. So tell me a little bit about Sweet Tea Living and where the name came from.

Okay. Yeah. A lot of people ask, oh, do you sell tea? And I'm like, well, actually we do. We sell boxes of sweet tea from Alabama. But the root of it came from just the hospitality of being down south. My grandma was from Tennessee and we just, you know, always loved that hospitality in the south. And I'm a big sweet tea drinker, so it just kind of married together of like just that kind of like peaceful, kind of fun place to sit on the porch and, you know, have some sweet tea and just have, have some fun together. So that's kind of the base of it. So I know a lot of people get confused by it. With the name, but I've just stuck with it because it's just who I am.

It's kind of like, I go back to when I named my box, you know, my business is called Framed, but I don't sell frames. And so, um, I used to, that's how my business started, but that has very much evolved over the last 10 years. When I named my subscription box, I named it Framed in a Box, and that was great because my local subscribers knew what I did. But when I started to really push it out there in mass, it caused so much confusion. And that's when I renamed it the Monogram Box, the Framed Monogram Box, because people did not understand that it wasn't frames. And so I think of this almost in the same way. Okay, so you have your brick and mortar, you're selling home decor, furniture items, repurposed items, new items, and then you get an idea. You're thinking about a subscription box. Tell me a little bit about that thought process that you went through, what you were thinking about as far as putting in your subscription box, and then we'll get into how it happened.

Sure. So when I opened my shop, I wanted to do a subscription box. I had seen another shop in like the Midwest and she was shipping out boxes. And so my husband got me one, one, one time and I was, I just loved it, but I was like, I just don't know how, like I seriously had no business background, you know, as an educator, but I've always loved like entrepreneurship, you know, and doing different things and So that was a branch of the business that I wanted to do, but I felt too overwhelmed with it. I was just like filling the shop and curating a shop. And we like, we tear down the whole shop every 4 months and reset the whole place. And so my creativity was kind of in that way, but I always thought it would be fun to get a piece of us to people's homes. We have a lot of people that come to visit, but I didn't want to do like a full-on online store. We launched one during COVID That's how we survived, but managing, getting the pictures up and selling. And then I never shipped. We just did pickup. But I had a lot of people like, oh, I live so far away, I would love to have sweet tea at my house. And so I was like, well, maybe I'll do it. But I just kept tossing it around. It's been on my list of things to do for probably 5 years of just like, what do I do? How do I do it? And I was on Instagram a lot because I'm there a lot promoting my business. And I saw one of your ads about Launch Your Box and I was like, what is this? And then I'm like, I'm just going to do it. So I clicked on it and I became a member of it. But, um, but again, that was probably 5, 6 months ago. And again, it was just taking the time to like get on and, and do the courses and, you know, and listen to all the different things that I feel like I'm just running all the time, you know, managing the business, the brick and mortar that I was like, I just don't have time for it. But then I saw your book, you advertised your book and I was like, oh, I need that. That's just another thing I need. And then when I got it, I'm like, okay. Take a day off of work, don't go into the shop. I told the girls, I'm not coming in, you're going to man it. And I seriously sat on my couch and I read the book in one day and wrote out the plan that night. It was just something I needed tangible to be like, you just need to get your butt going and do it.

You just needed it step by step in one binder that said, if I do, if I read this and implement this, that's all I need. I don't have to go and watch a bunch of videos. I don't have to go ask a bunch of questions in the community. I'm part of the community. But I needed more, you needed more of a streamlined version of what we do in Launch Your Box, right? Like you needed, you needed it to be black and white. You needed to read it, you needed to implement it. And here's what I love. So I saw your post in Launch Your Box that said, I read Sarah's book and I launched my box. I was like, what? You did that by reading my book? And that was the purpose of the book. But I think you might be the first one that has like read it all the way and then launched from scratch basically. And so it was, it was so powerful to me because that's the goal of the book. The goal of the book was to tell my story throughout the chapters of how I launched my subscription, but also give you the tactical strategies and action plans to implement it yourself the same way that I did that. And so that's exactly what you did. You took the day off, you spent 5 hours reading the book, You wrote out the plan to launch, and how many weeks later did you actually launch after reading?

Well, I got your book, I don't know, maybe 3 weeks later, maybe. I don't know, 3, 4 weeks later. Well, so I seriously, I got the book and I'm a visual learner, so I have to see it. So even within the Launch Your Box community, I would print off everything. I made a little binder, but I just wasn't keeping up with it. And then when I got this, I'm like, This is like the Bible for Launch Your Box.

Holy grail of Launch Your Box right there, right?

I think that's why I was just so overwhelmed with gratitude because I felt like you handed me the next step to my business and it was like a huge gift from you because it's something I've been wanting to do, but so overwhelmed with everything else that I was like, how do I do it? And then I just started making notes. Like I underlined things, I made notes. I was just like, okay, this is how I'm supposed to do it. Okay. And then I just started promoting. So I just did teasers on my Instagram, just like you said, like, you know, build up the momentum. I do have a big following because I've worked really hard to get a following for my business. And I, you know, even like a year ago or two years ago, I didn't even put my face on it, but I realized if I want to be in business, you have to, you have to just, so we have some major construction going on and around our shop. That's really impacting us. Like we went down like 30% in our, in our sales this year. And so I was like, what can I do different? So I bought myself a hard hat and I do construction updates for the community and have them come in and people will come in because I'm engaging with them. And so then I took that and that's how I launched the box. I said, hey, I know you've been seeing a lot of building going on. Well, I'm also building something myself. And I had my hard hat and my hammer and I was like, we're building a new branch to Sweet Tea Living. So if you can't get to us, we'll get to you. So again, it was just that like reading your book and being like, okay, next step, what am I going to do? And I just wrote out the timeline. I just started, I just was like, okay, Word document. Okay, for 3 weeks we're going to promote, you know, and then on this day we're going to launch the waitlist and then we're going to build the waitlist for a few weeks. And then I gave them, I mean, I followed it to a T. So anyone that's out there that wants to go for it, just read the book. You can do it. We launched on a Wednesday, like you said, we closed on a Sunday night.

You followed that schedule right in the book. And I even have a doodle outlining it on the calendar, right?

Seriously, I did hire a guy to do my website because I am so overwhelmed with my own brick and mortar and keeping up with all of that, especially during the holiday season. I seriously was like, why am I doing this during the busiest quarter of the year? But at the same time, I was like, this might be the moment to do it because people are ready to shop. So anyway, so I did, technology is overwhelming to me. I have enough going on that I realize that will take me 6 months to even implement. Like I started like looking at the Shopify and I'm like, I will never get this off the ground if I try to do it myself because I just know that's not my strength. I'm creative, but I'm not that. So I hired a guy to do that, build the waitlist. I mean, and he did it in a day. Like it would have taken me like 4 months. So to me it was worth the money upfront to get that part going. And then we just had that and then we're like, okay, we better meet to figure out what's the website gonna look like. So we just did one step at a time and I just kept building the momentum and then we opened it and you know, it's like you said too, like the first day there's quite a few. I mean, it was super fun. Like we created the Founders Club. So the first 20 people to sign up are gonna get an extra item in their box every month for the year. Then it was like, you know, started building, started building, middle of those few days it was low. Then I was like, okay, last chance. And we had hoped for 50 people. That was my goal. When I was looking at, again, your book, the whole calculation of like, if you have this many followers, you get this percent, like 2% and this of your waitlist. And so I was thinking like, okay, well it says 50 to 75 with the amount of followers I have. But I was like, I don't know. I don't know. That seems kind of high. And my girls, they're cheerleaders at the shop and they're like, no, we should do it. And I was like, okay. So I was like, well, maybe 75. Well, I ordered some, I started ordering items for the first box, kind of curating the look. And one of them, one of the items I can't tell you because it's not out there yet, but we, you had to order in 24s. And so it was 24, you know, 48, 72. I was like, well, I need more than 72. So I had to go 96 and the girls like, just go 96. And I'm like, There's no way. So what I did, I ordered 96 of everything else for the boxes. I was like, well, you know, go big or go home. So on that last Sunday though, I wanted to make sure I had enough for package for like breakage, you know, if something gets lost. And then also I want to have like 5 extra boxes to like ship out to influencers to open. So just to kind of get the word out there once we can finally show it. Um, but on that, that Sunday night, I started panicking because We were at like 75. I'm like, oh cool, we did it, we did it. And I told all the girls we made our goal. Well then they, more people started and more people started and I was panicking. I was like, we're at 85. Like I was texting my friend Justin who manages the website. I'm like, we gotta shut this down. Like I'm gonna go over and we got to 87, 2 more signed up and we shut down at 87. So it was like this, like, oh my gosh, this is happening. But then now it's like, we gotta make it happen. So yeah, so now, so that's kind of the story.

I love it. And you know, you said you had a big following, and to a lot of people you do have a big following, but let's just be honest about your following because it's 8,000 followers. Okay, so like, you know, I've interviewed people that have 500,000 followers. I've interviewed people that have hundreds of thousands, million followers. When you think about 8,000 followers, it's not a huge following. But what you have is the right person. When I shared this with Megan before we jumped on the podcast, but when I start, when I launched my subscription, I was very much exactly like Megan. And, and I think that's another reason why you could follow along in the book so well because it, my story, as I listened to you tell your story, it lines up brick and mortar, local only, didn't have an online shop. Like I just had this local customer that left me. And so for me, I had about 6,000 followers and I didn't even have an email list, um, when I launched my subscription box. And so I had 44 subscribers. And so you don't have that many more followers than I did. You have 8,000, but you had an email list. I didn't. And that made all the difference for you because you got almost double your first launch than what I got on my first launch. And so when she says she has a big following, yes, she has a big following in all respects. But it's not as big as you think it is. It's the right people. And something that you said in your questionnaire that we sent you was you had to show your face. Let's talk a little bit about that because you know from my story and reading my book that that was really a challenge for me for a lot of years. And I really had to dig deep to push through that. Let's talk a little bit about that. How did you feel about that when you started? Was that easy for you to do? Did you struggle with it at all like I did?

Oh, no, I hated it. I mean, I was like, I mean, I'm very much an extrovert when it comes to face to face with people, but I hate my voice. I was like, we're our worst critic when we see our face on the screen and you're just like, oh, I don't like that. But I tried to remember just being a real person to the other people on the other side. And I started thinking about who are the people I like to follow? I don't like to follow the perfect people. I love to follow the people that show the behind the scenes and can be dumb and silly and I want to see what they're up to. And so I was like, if I can become that way and just be myself and I don't have to pretend, that made it a lot easier for sure. I also just, I would get feedback from people that came in the shop. They're like, oh my goodness, oh, I saw you talk about La La La. And I realized they really are watching the stories. And then also just with Instagram and trying to stay up, you know, so people know what's going on in the shop. I realized I had to, it was just part of business. Like you, you will, you won't succeed if you don't put yourself out there. And I thought if I believe in it enough, then I need to get over myself and just go for it. Um, and so that's how it started.

What would you tell someone that's maybe sitting there struggling still? Like they've launched their business and they know because they listen to me that they need to go live or they need to show their face or do the pictures or do the reels. but they're just still paralyzed by that. Like, what advice would you give someone that's still feeling that way?

I think for me is just do it once and then the next time it'll be a little bit easier and then just do it again and don't worry about the numbers. You know, at first I was like, oh, only 3 people watched me, you know, and like, oh, we got 5 likes, you know, and, and to me it's more about the connecting with the other person. And I think that's why like I do have a solid group of people that really love our business, but we've gotten to know them. Like they've become like, like an actual community. And I think that's what your book— with your book, that's what resonated with me too, is that you're building that community of people. And to be honest, sometimes it gets exhausting to be in person with people and customers all the time. You know, like I can be on the screen.

You can't turn it off. Like you turn the screen off and you're done, right? Turn that off when people are in your store all the time.

No, and they want to talk to you for an hour and you're like, oh my goodness, like, and I want to be that. Like I always said, I want Sweet Tea to be a place where people come in and feel noticed and can relax. And we have a bucket of toys for the kids to play so mom can have time to, but I thought, well, can I do that with my box? Can I give that feeling to that person with my box and still give them a part of me and through a video, but also it takes less emotional drain for me because I don't have to always be on all the time. So for the person that's scared of it, I think you just, you just have to do it. And then no one goes back and looks at all my videos from before. And if they do, they'll probably get a good laugh, you know? But you just have to just go for it. And there's some I hate. I mean, I will retake reels like I don't know how many times, but when I feel good enough about it, I just push it and say it's good enough. Yeah.

And here's the thing about a live. You can delete it. Like, yes, literally. I think the very first live I did, I got off of it and I hit delete. I hated it so much. And luckily only one person was watching it, right? So you can literally delete a live. It's not the end of the world. You think everybody's watching you, but nobody has even seen it. So don't let that trip you up.

One thing with that live part I wanted to say is that I actually think lives can be easier in some ways because you're just going off of what's happening in the moment. Whereas when I'm trying to do a promo or talking about things, I get my words all stumbled, you know, and mixed up, and then I get frustrated with that and I have to retake. Where live, you're just like, well, it is what it is.

It's so casual.

Sometimes for me it's, yeah, way more casual to just be on. So I think in that way, maybe try it that way.

Yeah, because I'm the same way. Like, I remember when I started this podcast a few years ago, I've always done lives, right? And so that just was always easy for me, but sitting in a room by myself talking to a microphone felt so hard because it was like there was nothing to buffer off of. There was nothing to have a conversation with. There was nothing to engage with in the chat. Like it was me and my words and a microphone. And that was more intimidating than any live or any stage talk or anything that I had ever done because it was just me and I didn't have anything to bounce off from or just be relaxed enough to be myself. And so now it's a little different because I'm more comfortable with it. But it, it took me about 50 episodes to really get into my sweet spot with just flipping on the microphone, having a conversation with myself and putting it on the podcast basically. And so I totally get that. I want to take them back through the launch process. With you because I think that will be a great kind of actionable step for them to take away from this podcast. You said you read the book in one day. It took you about 5 hours. I think it took me about 5.5 hours to read you— read the book too. Like if you listen to the audio version, I think it's like 5.5 hours. So you read the book, you're making notes in the book as if it's a workbook. I did the same thing with mine. I love doing that. And so you're like, all right, I've built an audience, check that chapter off. I, I've built an audience already. I'm going to continue to build an audience because Sarah's telling me that's important. So I know I need to continue to do that. But now she's saying, okay, the first step is to build a waitlist. I have to bring awareness to this. And while I'm bringing awareness to this, I need to collect these people and put them on a waitlist. And so that was really the first thing you did. And this was a 3-week time span from the time you finished the book to actually selling your first subscription box. Um, online. You knew by reading the tech and logistics chapter that, hey, it's probably smarter for me to— I know that I can launch this quickly if somebody will get me a website and I don't have to fumble through that. And that's one of the biggest stumbling blocks. And you probably see it in our community over and over again. People don't want to spend the money, so they fumble through it way too long when they could actually be making money. I mean, you were making money in 3 weeks, right? And if you would have relied on yourself to build that website, we still— we wouldn't be here today talking about your launch, right? And I know that about myself too. Like, things that I could— I'll be like, I'll do it, it'll, it'll take me a little bit. And then 2 hours later I'm like, Natalie, can you help me? And she's like, done, 10 minutes. I'm like, dang it, why didn't I ask you 2 hours ago? You know, like, so I know exactly what you're talking about. So you got help with the tech. So someone's working on the tech piece. You built your waitlist, you got your waitlist going. Now it's about planting those seeds. Here's what's coming, here's what's coming, get on the list. You get to launch day, you follow the launch plan to the T, right? It's like you, you do the pre, the early bird on Wednesday, you go public on Thursday, we're launching over the weekend, you close it out, cart closed. Tell me about that process. Did you do all the lives? Did you send all the emails? Tell me about what you did for this first launch because I also mentioned this in the book too. I have a plan for you, but sometimes we don't always make the entire plan happen. So if we can make part of the plan happen, then next time you're more likely to make more of the plan happen. So tell me about the plan, the launch plan that you went through.

Yeah, definitely. So like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to follow it to a T, but then I, you know, I kind of got overwhelmed with some of it and so I didn't do all of it. We did the waitlist. And then I had probably about 300 people on the waitlist. So I was like, okay. So I put it out there the first day of, you know, early bird founders club, first 20 people, and that filled up very quickly. So we hit that probably within the first hour. People were just ready to go. Super fun. And a lot of them were customers that come in my shop all the time. They're just regulars. And we said, you can do pickup at, you know, pickup at the shop, or you can do shipping. They're picking up and it made my heart happy because I was like, oh, they love us, not just because of what's in a box, but they really, they really do love our company and we've built relationships with them. And so it's kind of fun that they are in the Founders Club because they are such amazing people that have always supported us. So then after that, that was the first night with the first, with the first email. And then the next day I sent out an email to the whole list that I have. So I have about 3,000 on my regular email list for my shop. but we had new people that just, cuz I put like the waitlist on my Instagram.

Mm-hmm.

And so I had new people that actually weren't on my regular email list. So we had kind of a blend of some people, just for promoting it that week. And then after that, I sent the email to everyone and I said, I'm going live on Friday morning. So if you wanna hear more about it, you have questions, meet me at 9:30 Friday morning and I will discuss it. And it's funny cuz I don't have anything. I, I have an empty box, like I don't have a box to show them, you know, like, and so you're pretty much selling something that you can't tell them anything about. Like, it takes a lot of faith for someone to be like, yeah, I want that. Right.

Right.

You're pretty much selling yourself to them too, because you have to promote that they believe in you enough for them to want to buy something from you. Because anyone can just be like, here's a box. I'm sure there's cute things in it when you open it. You got to be able to sell it. And so I just got on and people asked questions and I just answered them. And I said, you know, make sure you know, you get on the waitlist, you know, or if you're on the waitlist, you know, go ahead and click this. If you're new, then you can click this link. And, and so then people just started to kind of purchase from that. And then I sent another email that night. I didn't do like the 3 each day. I felt super overwhelmed because I've always been like, I only send you 1 email a week. Like, sign up for my email at my shop. I'm like, don't worry, I won't bother you. It's going to be, you know, but then I was like, no, Sarah said I have to, like, you have to keep it in front of them. So I sent another one, then I sent the next day one to just the waitlist people, and then I sent another. So I sent about 2 a day. I only went live once, and then it was just crazy busy in the shop with Christmas. Then like, and, but I was like, Megan, you got to keep pushing. And I kind of got to this point, I got defeated, like probably the 3rd day in. I was like, oh, right. And you're just like, oh, maybe it's just the people that really love me. Like really, it's not like people are really going to grab onto it. And then I was like, no, you can't, you can't settle. This is your 5 days. You got to. And so I kind of like cheer myself like, okay, you need to do something else. You got to go draft another post or put the link in your story again. And, and so then we did a countdown. So we did like, you have 24 hours left and we had a countdown for people to see. And then I just sent another 2 emails that last day. So it kind of, I mean, I tried to follow it as best I could.

You did great. You got emails down, you got some posts down. You didn't go live every day, but that's okay. You went live once.

Yeah.

Here's the thing about this launch, Megan, and this is what I want everybody listening to really take from. I'm laying it all out for you step by step, piece by piece. It is all there. You take what you can and implement what you can, and you don't— it doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be all in, but what you've built for this launch Now you can rinse and repeat it for next launch. So those emails you were writing, guess what? We get to use them again. The posts you were making, guess what? We get to do those again. And it just becomes easier. And then next time you have more time to layer in more emails or more lives or whatever, because you're solid with the content and the assets that you've built for this launch that you don't have to recreate every single thing for the next launch. And that's, that's the whole part about layering in I layer things in, in my business all the time. And when I launched the first time, I didn't send any emails. You heard me say I didn't even have an email list, so that wasn't even something that I, I knew how to do. But over time, I built the email list, and now, okay, I need to send emails. Oh, I really need to send more emails. And this was a formula. My launch plan is something that I built over 7 years. Like, it is a process that I have developed, and now all I have to do is rinse and repeat it. But it didn't start that way. And I want everybody listening to understand that I'm giving you the tools, I'm giving you the resources to know what you need to do. And it's all— it is, is up to you to implement it. And sometimes we can implement it 100%, and sometimes we can implement it 50%. But if we don't implement it at all, we're not taking steps towards launching the subscription. You said it. 5 months ago you joined Launch Your Box and you've just been hanging out. And then it's that book that really helped you put it all together. And because that's what— how you consume things, that's how you really receive that information. And it was compact and it was all together and it was printed because that's how you receive information. And that allowed you to do it. And you said something in your, in your notes about I was either going to do it now or I was going to put it off for a while again. And I figured I just needed to do it now. And I'm the same way. I'm either going to get back to you in 30 seconds or it might be 6 months from now. Like that's, that's literally how I, I respond to things. And so when you get that little oomph, that little tug, like I need to do this, I feel inspired to do this. I have the knowledge to do this. Stop sitting on it.

Yeah, for sure.

Stop sitting on it. Yeah. Because you have 87 subscribers now, and I know, and you know that the only thing that's going to change is you're going to keep growing that.

Right.

But if you never started that, you wouldn't have something to build on. And the next launch you have, you're going to build on that first launch and you have the tools and you're going to pull that book back out and you're going to go to the launch module. And you're going to grab your notes and be like, okay, I'm going to send more emails this time. I'm going to go live 2 more times this time. I'm going to do something different this time and keep layering in this plan to be locked and loaded.

Yeah. Well, I think what hit me once too is like during the third day and I felt kind of like this lull, I was just like, I looked at the name of your book and I was like, one box at a time. I was like, it doesn't have to be 10. It doesn't have to be 20. It could just be one box at a time is going to layer on top of each other. And I think that's what just at the end of it, I was, I sat just overwhelmed. Like, how did this happen? Like, how did this seriously get to this point that we had to shut it down? And it was just one more. And I think that's my encouragement to anyone is like, send the email, put out the post, because every single time I did, 10 minutes later, I had one more box. And that's where I kept like, that's one more box. And then there's one more, maybe 20 minutes later. And I'm like, okay, people are going to read it. People are going to see it at different times and they're going to act on it. But if I didn't put it out there to remind them, I wouldn't have gotten them.

Right.

It's just that one more box. And I think that's what encouraged me throughout the process too, is just like, I know you don't feel like sending another email and pushing send. You feel like you're being annoying, but those are the people that need to see it. You know? And then the next week I didn't have to send them 15,000 emails. You know, I'm not, you know, but That's what it felt like. Like, oh my word, you know, they're like, hey, calm down. But again, I know that that next week that I do it, I can do it again. And I won't feel so stressed about what they think.

Right. Because you've learned through this process, right? Not only did you learn by reading the book, but you learned by actually doing it. And a lot of us creatives, that's how we learn things. We learn by doing. And so while it felt overwhelming to you, by just taking the steps, like starting the waitlist, Getting someone to build the website. Just by doing those two things, it gave you the momentum to do the next thing. Like one action leads to the next action. But what happens to so many of us is that we get paralyzed with the first action and so we don't have anything to build on. And that's, that's really ultimately the goal is, is the information's there for you. I do it in so many different ways. You can watch videos inside Launch Your Box. You can put your headphones on and listen to the podcast. You can head over and read hundreds of blog articles that I have written. You can grab one box at a time and read it step by step, chapter by chapter. Like, there's so many ways to consume the information, whatever way feels best for you. For you, it was that book. And now you've got the community. Now you got the other resources, new marketing, extra things we can do, promotions we're doing for fourth quarter. You can implement next quarter, like next year. Like there's so much more, but it's getting to that first step and figuring out how you learn best so that you can implement.

Yeah. Well, and I think my encouragement to anyone is just, just start with the first step because like, I, I still don't have my shipping figured out yet, but I'm shipping in 2.5 weeks. I'll figure it out.

You'll have it figured out in 2.5 weeks, right?

But I think like if I looked at it like I have to have the whole thing done, I would, I would still be sitting there.

You know what I mean?

So I was like, I just gotta start a waitlist. And then I, I mean, I did panic. Like I've teased these people too long. We gotta do something. Right.

So forces action.

Yes.

Right.

Completely. Yeah. And most creatives, we work better under pressure. So absolutely. I guess that's just how I do it. So yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess that's my encouragement is just take that one next step. Don't think about you have to have the whole thing perfect because there's going to be things that aren't going to work and you just learn from it.

Yeah, you— Stu always tells me you either win or you learn. And so nothing, nothing is a failure. You're either winning or you're learning from it. What do you— when you think about— we're, we're recording this right at the end of 2023, Megan and I are. But when you think about the new year and you think about your brand new subscription box, what goals do you have for the next year with your box?

Wow. Well, after listening to your last podcast about the million-dollar people—

Yeah, is that what we're doing here, Megan? A million?

Because like with my brick and mortar, that's one revenue, right? That's one way of building revenue. But I've always known I need to have another way. And major road construction is going to be starting around our business. Like people will not be able to get to us. And I was like, I need to have another way to build more business for us. So I just listened to it last night and I was already laying in bed like, I want to be in the million dollar club. Like I want to, I want to be there. You know, we're already halfway there with our brick and mortar. Like, couldn't this be the other side of it? So I think that might be one of my goals. I don't know. My thing right now is like, I don't even really know how. I think I just, this is how I started my brick and mortar and this is how I jump in with both feet. And then I'm like, oh, what am I doing? I want to take a day or two and be like, now what's next? You know, like I have a lot of the questions. I need to start asking more of the questions like how, you know, can it double? Does it like, how long does it take? How fast can you move? You know, are we going to run out of room in order to all those things? I, I dream big and then we just go for it. So I don't, I don't know. I need a goal. Yeah.

I think the Million Dollar Club could be in your future for 2024. And then I'll have you back on the podcast at the end of next year. And We'll talk about how we got to $1 million just like I did with them. Because if you would have asked any of those ladies that I just interviewed if they would have thought they would have been at the million-dollar mark, they would have laughed at me. They would have laughed at me. But all it took, and you heard it from them too, multiple revenue streams, finding the gap for your audience and filling it. And that's what all of them did. And that's how they got there. Um, and you're doing the same thing. And so I have no doubts you're going to be in that million dollar club. I might need to make a plaque or a trophy or something for this million dollar club. I'm going to start handing out trophies for everybody that gets a million dollars in revenue for the year. We'll put some, we'll put some sequins on it, make it real girly. It'll be fun.

I love it. Yes.

Megan, tell everybody where they can find you if they want to check out your My Sweet Tea Box.

Yes. If you want to go to our website, it's sweetteaidaho.com, and you can read more about what we have offered, and you can get on the waitlist there. And then we will be launching more boxes in March. We're a bimonthly subscription, so it's $79 every other month. I don't want to overwhelm with people with too much home decor because you can only decorate so much. But yeah, we are excited to launch the next one. I already have some great plans of what's going to come next.

Awesome. Thank you so much for just sharing your story with me today. I know it's going to inspire someone that's been sitting there kind of overthinking and wanting to start their subscription box. There's really no better time than now. Like, feel the inspiration, get the motivation. You've got the resources, and if you don't, go grab one box at a time. You can buy it on Amazon and let's get going.

Yes, agree.

All right. We'll see you back here next week for another great episode. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.