In this episode, your hosts Emmanuel Eleyae and Grace Eleyae talk with Bubba Albrecht - co-founder and CEO of Give’r. He talks about how they got started, experimenting with different products, and how they built a community of supporters. He also talks about his mission and philosophy for Give’r and how he used self discipline to grow and sustain the business. You’ll also hear about how frugal he is even though his business has hit the seven figure mark, and his reasoning for that. In the Founder Rounder, Emmanuel talks about how changing technology has affected advertising, and to focus on things that have always worked, like building an organic community and creating quality content and copy. Timestamps: The Beginning of Give’r (0:56) Bubba explains the origins of Give’r and how he got started - he made hats for a camping trip with friends and people would ask where he got them so he made hats and t-shirts to test out selling. (3:37) Bubba talks about success - imposter syndrome and why it’s important to define success on your own terms, as well as the importance of his team and the community they’ve built. (7:22) Bubba talks about some of the snags when they first launched - shipping was expensive, Shopify was still new and had it’s own problems, but they still wanted to get something up and running. (10:37) Bubba talks about how they wanted to expand and create new products, and how the optimization process was slow. (12:26) Bubba talks about how they started experimenting with leather gloves and saw that there was a high demand for them. They were buying the gloves from hardware stores initially and kept moving up the supply chain to find a manufacturer. They expanded based on customer feedback. (15:19) Bubba talks about their Kickstarter campaign in 2016 and how they had already tested the product and refined it. The campaign raised over $200,000 and they were able to manufacture. (18:23) Bubba talks about how their goal was to deliver their product to everyone who supported them during their kickstarter campaign, and through this they learned a lot about the systems and operations. (19:43) Bubba explains the term ‘give’r’ - it’s Canadian and means to give it your all. Give’r’s Mission and Business Philosophy (21:55) Bubba talks about the brand’s mission and philosophy. He also talks about learning balance and how to manage a team, the importance of taking chances and risks, and asking people like Emmanuel for advice when needed. (26:13) Bubba talks about the importance of delivering to loyal customers and how more mistakes happened when they tried to grow quickly. (27:32) Bubba talks about how important it is to make sure there’s actually a market for your product as early as possible and that people will actually pay for your product. (29:17) Bubba talks about balancing growth and capacity and how he turned down retailers because he would not compromise his loyal customers. Discipline (30:27) Emmanuel talks about the importance of discipline and how it’s better to focus on building an organic audience before running ads because everything works better when you have an organic audience to fall back on. (32:13) Bubba talks about how his decision to not run ads was because they didn’t have the money for it, and it forced them to look at other options. He also talks about the importance of talking to customers and getting their feedback. (33:44) Bubba talks about how building slowly worked for them. He worked 2 other jobs during the first 3 years of Give’r and that allowed him to not have to worry about paying rent or other financial strain, and it also allowed him to have breaks from the business. (36:28) Grace and Bubba talk about the importance of discipline, and Bubba gives an example of a time they took on more than they could handle and it didn’t work out. (38:42) Bubba talks about the importance of stability and how working other jobs gave him a better chance at achieving the goals for Give’r. Frugality (40:44) Bubba and Emmanuel talk about how even though Give’r had been successful, he and the team have remained incredibly frugal and that’s allowed them to be sustainable. (42:50) Bubba talks more about how frugality and discipline led to more sustainable growth, and also leading his team by example. (45:33) Bubba talks about how increased revenue leads to more challenging problems, and you have to be committed to solving those problems. (47:12) Emmanuel asks about the positives that come with growth. Bubba talks about how the positives outweigh the negatives and he has a great supportive team and how rewarding it is to be putting positivity out into the world. Founder Rounder (49:57) Bubba asks about how the internet and specifically online advertising has changed for E-commerce people. (52:08) Emmanuel talks about how tech has changed - before privacy changes ads were too easy to run. Now it’s time to focus on what has always worked - building and nurturing a community, solving problems for people, and having good creative & copy. (54:58) Emmanuel talks about how people buy from people and how it's important to be able to humanize your business, especially on the internet, and how good storytelling is important. (56:52) Bubba talks about some of the feedback he’s received from customers on how their gloves hold up in extreme conditions that he was never able to test. He also talks about how there was a demand for mittens rather than gloves and how he was able to make that into a reality. (1:00:39) Bubba talks about what Give’r is currently doing and ways to support him and his business Resources: Website: give-r.com Ecommerce Email Bundle Create Cashflow and Predictable Profits Course Growth Optimization Audit Package Predictable Profits Membership
