165: Quit Being Extreme & Start Being Consistent with Cotton Chaos

What if you could turn one scalable product into a subscription box business with consistent actions? Cotton Chaos is a duo that went from 50 to over 800 subscribers by just being themselves, creating a plan, and not giving up when things get hard. I was at Sub Summit a couple weeks ago, and I had the honor of interviewing these two in the Sub2 Studios. And I thought it was really appropriate to share with you on the podcast today. So get reinspired on your subscription box journey and come join us. 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. So today we are live at the sub-summit here in Dallas, Texas. If you're listening to this on the podcast, we have a live audience with us today. I'm super excited about— yeah, and now you can hear them, which is very different from all of my other podcast episodes. But I am Sarah with Launch Your Box, and I brought two of my mastermind ladies to this episode because they have had really great growth over the last few years. And one of the things that we talk about a lot in our membership is that you don't have to be extreme. You just have to be consistent. And these two are the epitome of being consistent, following the plan, and just watching their business explode. And so we're gonna, I'm gonna take you along on their journey today because I think it's inspiring. And if you're stuck somewhere along your subscription box journey, I think this is gonna help you really see the big picture. Why don't you two introduce yourselves? And let me just tell you, they have a whole shtick, whatever you call that, like a whole spiel of how they introduce themselves because they are a duo. So I'm gonna let y'all do your thing here.

Hey guys, I'm Andrea.

And I'm Whitney.

And we are Cotton Chaos.

Isn't that the cutest thing? Cotton Chaos. So talk to us a little bit about, one, what you do and how this duo came about.

Okay. Okay, I'm the talker in the group.

Oh, you're the talker? Okay.

Yeah.

No, so we became friends back in 2018, and for some reason we decided we needed a hobby, so we bought our first Cricut machine. We each put $150, and that's how our business started. Your $150 each? So $300 investment?

We bought a Cricut and an iron.

Yeah, an iron. Okay, because we didn't own an iron.

No, why would you need to iron things? Okay, you, you become fast friends. You're like, we're going to do this little Cricut hobby together, we're going to invest some money. Were you— did you always have plans to sell things from that, or were you just going to make things for your friends and family?

We were basically just going to make things for our friends and family. I worked at a school, so I knew a lot of people, and so I was like, oh, we'll just start the, like, Teachers love t-shirts.

Yeah.

So I was like, that's what we'll do.

Okay. So when did Cotton Chaos come about?

In 2019, we had sold enough shirts that we better make it legit.

Okay. Or the IRS was coming for you.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

People are going to watch us and see if we put any more cash in our back pocket.

Yeah. So Cotton Chaos comes about. And at that time, were you just selling like one-off shirts and designs? Tell me about that.

Yeah, everything was just one-off. We might come out with a school design that we would sell a bunch of, but it came a point where we were both working full-time jobs. We each have 3 kids each, and I would cut the vinyl and weed it and be up all night and then go to work at 7, and then I would pass it on to her, and then the next night she would stay up all night pressing.

Okay.

And so something had to give. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So what gave?

We bought out a screen print company.

You bought out a— okay. These little sweet Kentucky girls start with a Cricut machine, and then one day they decide, we're going to buy a screen printing company. That's pretty ballsy.

We knew we couldn't keep staying up all night. Yeah. And weeding vinyl. If you've ever weeded vinyl. Oh, okay.

So you buy the screen. Was that scary?

No, not really. Yeah, we went to a one-weekend training and thought we knew all the things. Okay. And then we saw a company that was going to close out in our area. It was about 45 minutes. We went, he showed us all the things, and we're like, okay, we'll buy it.

Okay.

And our husbands are like, what are y'all doing?

Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling that way right now too, but I know the end of this story or the where we're at now, so I'm feeling confident in it, in this, but Yeah, I could imagine it's a scary feeling. So then what do you start doing with the screen printing business?

We use some of our locals and just started there with our locals, the people that we were making vinyl for. We'd grown our presence. We had gotten on Shopify at that time. We were outsourcing some of our screen printing, so we were just introducing screen printing to our website. And so then we could start marketing ourselves that We're a screen printing company. Screen printing company.

We've got— no, wait, screen printing company?

Yes. Yes.

I love it. Okay, so now we're in business. Now it's 2021 and you decide you're going to start a subscription box, right? Talk to me about how that started. Andrea, why don't you tell me how that started?

So we— I don't think we had met Sarah yet, so we did it all wrong, of course. Yeah, we did. So we were like, we're going to do this t-shirt club. And we— it was like a monthly subscription. We knew that. We knew it was just going to be a t-shirt, so not a big deal. We launched in January of 2021 and had 30— or was it 50? 50.

30 was our goal.

30 was our goal, yes. And we sold 50 our first month.

You sold 50 t-shirts for your subscription? Okay, then what happens next? Like, how do we get here in the next 3 years? Talk to me about what happens because I know a lot of your journey, but I want them to hear that. All of you that are listening, some of you right now probably are still working a full-time job, right? And wondering how to make this work with your full-time job. And these are two that they're telling you, this is how we did it. We got to a tipping point. At what point did you quit your job?

I actually quit my job in the fall of 2018. Okay. I just could not balance work and 3 kids and a newborn. Something had to give.

Yeah.

And so I quit with all my eggs that this was going to work.

Yeah, you were confident.

Yes, I left my insurance, everything. It was just like, okay, this is what I got to do and I got to make this work.

Yeah. And Andrea, when did you leave your job?

I left my job in fall of 2022. Okay. I was a teacher and then I was an assistant, and then I started driving a bus so that I could have those daytime hours. I did it mainly for insurance because let's be be real, insurance is not cheap.

Yeah.

I would get up, do my bus route, come back, we would make shirts, and then do my afternoon bus route. And so I officially quit that in 2022.

So you were part-timing both of them?

I have 19 years in the school system, so it was really hard to quit, but yeah, I had to.

Okay. So we launch in 2021, 50 subscribers. Then what happens over the next couple of years?

So we joined Launch Your Box.

Okay.

And then we went right into Scale Your Box.

Okay. You were just ready to— you were ready to put the gas, the pedal. You were ready to go.

Yes. I was like, we've got to do this now.

Yeah.

I'll never forget the very first training in Scale Your Box. Andrea and I were in Gulf Shores with 6 of our kids.

Okay.

And we sat down in front of the computer and we're like, we got to do this. And we had our little notebook. When we were ready. And I think that is when I remember at that point I was like, we just got to get to 100. We want to hit our first number. We always have that goal of the number we want to hit. And I was like, we just have to get to 100. And I remembered, I was like, we hit 100 because we did exactly what Scale Your Vox taught us. And I was like, we didn't do it perfect at all, but we implemented the plan for what we could do right then. And we got to that 100 mark.

So you got to 100 and then what was the next milestone you hit? Was it 300?

300, I think it was, because it was— we launched, we had gained a few like along the way. And then our next big launch was we made— we had 150 join.

Okay. So then you were at 300 and then you launched again in the next year and you hit 500.

We hit 500.

And then you just launched again this spring and we're over 800.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And I want to talk about their journey because what Whitney just said about following the plan and just implementing, you don't have to implement everything at once. You don't have to be extreme. That's what I'm trying to say. You don't have to go and dance on TikTok, although you danced really well last night. You don't have to, you don't have to go viral. You don't have to— there's— you just don't have to be extreme. But if you just stay consistent with your actions, you're going to grow. And they are proof of that. And there was a point in your journey, I think it was about the 500 mark, and I remember the two of you being like, Sarah, we need some help because our cash flow is really tight. And what you saw with their growth going from 50 to 100 to 300 to 500 to 800, that costs a lot of money, right? And there's going to be this point in your growth where your profit is here and then your profit is here, but your numbers are here because you're having to buy products for the growth and there's not enough profit from the existing to fund the growth. And that's the tipping point that they got to. And what was my advice for you in that moment?

Stop the growth. Yep.

Slow down.

And we did not want to do that.

I know you didn't.

It was like spring And I was like, no, we're going to hit 1,000 this year because I was ready.

I know you were nervous. This is the duo. She's the nervous Nellie. She's, let's go. That's— this is the combination here. Yes. Yeah.

It was the first time. I'll never forget. We're Southern.

You don't—

you pay cash when you want something. And it was the first time walking into the bank and I was like, we have to get a credit line. And it just— it was the first time we had ever had to borrow money. And it was literally to buy product because we had gotten to this 500 mark and you're like, oh my goodness, we have 500 subscribers. But inside you're like, I have 500 subscribers and I'm having to go to the bank and borrow money.

Yeah. And it almost feels like a failure, right? Like you're like, I am making all this money, but where is it? It's funding your growth. And you had to wrap your head like either you're going to have to get an investor, you're going to have to get some capital, you're going to have to take out that loan. Or you're going to have to slow down a little bit and let your growth catch up to the next level. And that was my advice to you because I was in that same position at one point. And so for me, I didn't want an investor. I didn't want to take capital. I had funded my business. I bootstrapped my business from day one with $50, but now I have 3,000 subscribers and I'm like, I can't afford to buy the next box. And it's one of those things that for me, I just needed to slow down a little bit and let my profit catch up to my growth and had to slow play it up a little bit. It's not right or wrong to go either way. If you're like full on, let's go, I want to scale right now, go get the capital, go get the money to fund that. But you've got to be smart with it. You got to pay it back quickly or it's going to start to compound and you're going to get further and further in debt. You could have a $5 million a year business and have very little profit because of the way that you're scaling. And I didn't want that. That doesn't make me sleep well at night. And so for me, I needed to slow my growth down. And that was my advice for them. Slow your growth down, make it manageable. Let's get back profitable on a month-to-month basis so that we don't feel stressed out over paying our mortgage each month. And that's where we were, right?

And it was really good to take the time and focus on the 500 you had.

Yes.

Because you were able to put your focus on the ones you had instead of trying to gain the new and nurture them. And we were much more profitable because they were then buying— once they were able to connect with us, they were our repeat customers every week when we came out with new releases. So it was so much more profitable just to be happy with what you got.

Yeah, it's hard for us to be content sometimes as entrepreneurs. Like, we, we're We're ambitious. That's what makes us great entrepreneurs. And so it's like, I want more, I want more, I want more, I can do more, I want the next level, I want the next thing, I want the next hit, I'm trying to get to a million dollars this year, right? Like, I want—

I'm—

I need that to go. But do we? Does it— if it causes you to be stressed out, if it causes you to lose sleep, if it causes you to wonder how you're going to pay your bills, that's not the definition of success to me. And I think that's what we have to just really dig deep inside and figure out what does success look like for me? And we had to slow it down a little bit. And you did, and you caught back up to your growth and we're now, we're profitable and now we're launching again and we're at 814 subscribers, right?

During our like down period of not launching, we really implemented a lot of the things that you had taught us. And so I feel like it all built up. We weren't stopped necessarily, you know, like we weren't doing anything. We were just, slowing down and not growing as fast.

And so let's talk about the things that you were implementing.

Our email.

Okay.

We really had a good lead magnet going and capturing emails from everybody.

Yeah. So you were building your list and you were doing that consistently.

Yes.

If you're not growing, you're dying, period. If your list isn't growing, it's dying. If your subscription isn't growing, it's dying. If your business isn't growing, it's dying. So we have to constantly be thinking about what we're doing for different parts of growth in our business. And we can be successful. Not every success is measured with the revenue. So success can be measured with, did I double my email list this year? Did I— what am I doing for the one-off sales? It doesn't always have to be subscription growth if we need to level out a little bit. So you were consistently showing up. So one of the things that I teach is that we got to go live so that we can connect with our people. And so these ladies were showing up live every week. It was like a comedy show almost. If you want to laugh every week, go follow Cotton Chaos. But they're just fun, and your followers love that. They were getting to see your personality, they were connecting with you, and it was a way for them to feel really deeply, and that created your loyal raving fans. So you're going live every week, so you're making one-off sales that was more that probably had a higher profit margin than the box. So that's helping the cash flow. You're building your list. You had a great lead magnet going. You're running ads consistently, so you're getting visible. You were getting in front of new people consistently. And then when it was time to launch again, you had an amazing launch. It was your biggest launch to date, and it was because you spent the time building your following, building your list, and you weren't just launching to the same people over and over again. We get in a bad habit of doing that. I'm going to launch again, I'm going to launch again, but I haven't grown my list. I haven't grown my following. I haven't done anything to get in front of new people. And so we're just launching to the same people over and over again, and they're probably sick of us sometimes. And so you did a great job of really being consistent with that. I think the other thing that really helped you with this launch was the launch plan. You want to talk about that?

We run the 5-day launch plan, and it was Sub Summit last year that you passed out the 5-day grid. And down to— we have our copy for each post, each picture, all our emails laid out, and we just did it and it worked. And the great thing about it is once you do it once, you just repeat it. Literally in our Google Drive, is every single post we make during launch, every single graphic we make during launch, every email copy, even the times that we go live and what worked and didn't work. And so it's just rinse and repeat of what you know that will work.

Yeah, it's just having a plan and following that plan.

Right.

Right. Andrea, what would you say was, is the best part about this last launch?

Probably the affiliates.

Okay.

We really honed in. We had some new affiliates that we hadn't had in the past.

Okay.

And so we just chose those people and we went live with them. They had a decent-sized audience that we hadn't been in front of yet, and we really honed in on helping our affiliates. We gave them the things that they needed to post and told them what we expected, and then they just took off with it.

Okay. And I have a question about your affiliates. What percentage were you paying your affiliates?

The first signups that they have for the customer, for their first time, they get a 15%, and then a recurring 10% every month.

Okay.

As long as they're a member.

Okay. Awesome. Let's wrap this up with one question that I have for you. Anybody that is sitting here saying, I'm still working a full-time job, I really want to launch my subscription, I haven't made as much progress as I would like to have made, I've been hesitating, What advice would you give them? Just do it. Just do it.

Just do it. It's hard work. It's not easy, but if you really want it, you'll make it work.

Yeah. We can see that in the two of you, the way you worked overnights, the way you raised your three kids each, the way you worked and just what it was, one thing after another. It was, we're going to start this kind of fun thing. Now let's turn it into a business. Let's go buy a business that's closing, and now let's start a subscription. And I guarantee that when you went and bought that Cricut machine, you weren't thinking you were going to have a subscription business.

No, it was a hobby.

Yeah. And so that's what we have to realize. We don't have to have it all figured out, right? We don't have to have what 5 years looks like. And if I were sitting here today, I would never tell you that I'd be on this stage talking about a podcast that I never knew was going to exist. Right? 5 years ago. I think we have to start with the one thing that we've been thinking about that kind of keeps us up at night. What is that one thing and how do I every day take one step forward to making that one thing happen? And then when you achieve that one thing, you're going to be dreaming about the next thing. And so don't get in your head about having to have everything all figured out before you ever get started because you will never start. You will never get started if you think you have to have step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 all figured out before you go. Just go. Do it messy. Do it scared. And we figure it out and we uplevel as we go. And the next dream comes and the bigger dream comes. And now you are in my mastermind and sitting on stage with me for my podcast in front of all these amazing people. And I'm so proud of you too, because I know that 1,000-member mark is right around the corner for both of you, and I can't wait to watch you grow. So thank you for joining us for this special episode of the Launch Your Box podcast. And if you are feeling paralyzed by the next step, this is your permission to just go. Just do it. Thank you. 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.