Today we’re learning from Daniela Vianna, the founder behind Ephemeris.
Ephemeris is the startup merging technology and astrology to deliver tangible and digital products designed to help people navigate the magical adventure of understanding themselves, the cosmos, and the connection therein.
And this conversation is so interesting! One thing I didn’t know that astrology was in an actual grey area for investors and also when it comes to things like Facebook ads. We’re talking through her journey navigating this industry that she’s so deeply passionate about, how she made the move from Australia to the UUS - and exactly how much it cost to do it.
And a big thank you to everyone who’s been sharing posts of the podcast on Instagram stories - you are the best best best and I’m so grateful to you. I can’t tell you how insanely happy it makes me to be able to have and share these conversations with you and then to see you show up on social media telling other people about Female Startup Club. It brings me endless joy and I feel so lucky to have you all as my hype girls. Especially on those shitty days when you really need a little booster to get you through!
Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!
So I'm Daniela Vianna, I am actually Brazilian, but I'm based in the US and I am the CEO and Co founder of Ephemeris. The Ephemeris is a lifestyle brand and through with memories, we help people navigate the adventurer of understanding themselves through the lenses of astrology. So we have delivered over 20,000 pieces like customized, unique pieces featuring people's birth charts on it with jewelry and poster formats and we were also able to grow a community of over 50,000 people to talk to spirituality. So, so that's a family. That is so cool, wow, how interesting this is like a little out of my depth, I don't know a lot about this side of the world with astrology and things like that, but I'm always so interested and I find someone's joy in hearing people talk about it.
00:04:43Edit
So I'm excited to learn more from you. Let's go back to 2019 circle when you were starting or even earlier, I guess when you were starting to think about this brand and what gave you the kind of, you know, moment to launch this brand. Okay, so like going back to where it all started, I always had a very spiritualized, let's say woo woo side of me that comes from my family and the way I was raised but I also had you know, I saw the consequences of being too woo woo in my family and and I went for a long time in the path of I will maybe become an engineer and make real money and you know like be a scientist or something. So I was like dealing with this dilemma between the two worlds and always like being pushed back to my spiritual side and for some time I worked, you know corporate roles and I tried becoming a civil engineer and I learned very fast that I would be a very mediocre civil engineer, but it got to a point where I was living in Australia and I had a marketing agency and I was you know doing marketing for other people and a friend of mine, you know started talking to me and he's like Danny, what about rebuild their own thing and you know, I love the startup world and by that time I had you know participated in a few startup competitions and I won a few prizes and that was like running inside of me that desire of building and I was like yeah let's try it.
00:06:16Edit
So we got this love of you know for the well being industry for the well being world, for this spiritual world and I'm like, what if I combine this? Like, I'm such a gemini, right? I am so like I have these two sides of me, what if I combine both and I accept them and I make them, you know, complement each other and I stopped being invited to person and and that's, that's what happened with memories. I brought technology to astrology, I brought that startup mindset to a niche that is completely overlooked and so taboo. So investors don't want to touch it and you know, people are like, what about the scams? And I'm like, I'm gonna make this head and, and, and that's how ephemeral Founded in 2019, Oh my gosh, wow, so exciting, I'd love to dig into those two points of what the negative, you know, how you kind of responded to those two negative points of investors not being able to invest because it's a taboo topic and secondly, people questioning like the, the scam me part of this industry, those two are really to relevant topics, right?
00:07:26Edit
And I don't deny that they exist and that they are a problem, of course there are a lot of companies doing a lot of scams because it is astrology and spirituality, it is a vulnerable part of humanity and you know, like bad people use this to make money as they do with any other thing, including like financial concerns and and etcetera, so this exists and how do we put ourselves to, you know, as far away as possible of that, we just stick to our values. So we want to help people and not like take advantage of people because of their spirituality. So that's one thing and I need to prove that over and over again to investors and you know in them are days or when I'm teaching families for any reason, I always need to answer this question. And the second piece of it, what was the second piece of it? It was just around the two points were around the investors and then like what people say about, you know, that negative side of the scam me part of this industry.
00:08:28Edit
Yeah. And so for investors, it's like, we don't even know if it's real, how can I invest in something that you know, astrology religion, they try to stay away from it and then what I say is that you know one and for the investor's point of view, there is a market that is untapped, it's completely overseeing and it's growing like esoteric arts, it grows more than economy overall every year and people are still not, you know, seeing it. And is it actually listed as a sin? Like is it called like the sin groups of things that people like, you know, gambling, smoking like alcohol, there's like those sins or the vice kind of industries, is it actually considered within that group? Or is it on its own kind of section, that's just kind of a different section. It is not in that group, but because it's so associated with religion and pagan art in a sense, investors don't want to touch it facebook, even like when you're doing ads, they wanna like black list some of the key words.
00:09:35Edit
So it is challenging in a sense, but, but there are ways to go around it and do a good job. And one thing I tell investors is like, you know, I do believe it's real and, and I live my life by the laws of you know what's happening astrologically. But let's say it's not, okay, let's let's do an exercise here. Me and you, let's say it's not real. Let's say it's all just woo woo bullshit. If enough people believe on it and they live by it and they embrace the patterns that are described as being a Gemini or Aquarius that makes it real. And you know, when I talk about my wife, I want to make people understand themselves and if they living by a pattern, being in good or a bad pattern, let's understand that you are doing it and what you can, you know, do to balance it out or, or to have empathy for someone who are living and by that pattern. So that makes it real and enough people believe it to make it real.
00:10:39Edit
Oh my gosh, I love that. That's such a great response. And I mean it's, it's weird to me though that investors are so you know like against it when there are so many examples of really successful brands in the space who are doing, you know amazing things like the apps that are out there and and all that kind of thing, Wow, I feel like I skipped ahead like so many steps. So I want to like go back to 2019 when you decided to build the brand and start this what are those first steps, what's the blueprint to getting started? Sure. So we were really realistic about where we were standing at that point, my business partner and I and you know we are both were not american, we had no idea of the bureaucracies and legalities around building a brand in America and we also knew that it would be really, really hard for us to raise any kind of money not only for being in a taboo topic but also for being you know Latinos and thick accent and not the sweet ivy league background.
00:11:45Edit
So we were like okay, you know what, let's bootstrap this, let's completely bootstrapped this, let's not count with any external source of investment and you know, financing and let's make it from like grass roots and that became our superpower because if we think about all these astrology brands that raised so much money if you see the tourists, they are not really monetizing and we had to really understand the community and understand the user to monetize since the beginning and that made us such a strong sustainable brand. If you compare you know to technology companies, they're banking on astrology and surfing VC money and this is how we did and we did a lot of benchmarking a lot of research, market research and we found these products that were being sold you know like in a customized way but they were so handmade, they were so bridge mentor you know they were like missing the s scalability, they were missing the high end the polishing side of it and we're like we can do that like let's do this.
00:12:51Edit
So we started with the talisman and it was like for a long long time we were a one product store and we had the necklace the talisman featuring people's birth charts. So people would go on R. XC store and type like their date of birth type there like all the information in this message field. We we didn't even like start by developing it all. And once we saw we had something that people were purchasing like that people were buying were like okay we have something people want now let's you know use that income to build on. And then we developed a short five store and then we co we hard coded the tool that makes your birth chart on real time so you go now and on our website and you can you know give us an input your astrological information, so your date of birth, location of birth, time of birth and you see your chart being built, you know on the right side of the screen real time, so and and then you learn with the process so what if I change one minute, what happens with my chart?
00:13:53Edit
And then we launched the store At the end of 2019 And I got accepted to exhibit in the Forbes under 30 event and by that time we were nothing, we were no one, we were just like a successful went to store that transition to the Shopify environment and now I have this deadline of going to exhibit this in the Forbes under 30 event and my co founder is freaking out, he's like we are crazy, why are we doing this? So we go and having that deadline to exhibit was actually the best thing, It was like the peak marketing moment for us because it made us really rushed with everything else that we were being perfectionist about and then we went the website was there everything was you know in order and on that week itself we sold $2000 which was like unheard of for us and we sold it profitably, you know because we had built the sustainable company, totally organic without you know, ads or anything and we're like okay, we can skate on this.
00:15:01Edit
So that was like the humble beginning of memories, oh my gosh, that's so cool. So cool. Just a quick side note about the birth chart thing because I'm so interested in this is like a personal question, not a business question. I don't know if I know my exact birth time and I've asked my mom about this before and she doesn't know where it's written. She couldn't find it like yada yada yada and I'm like, so I can't get mine because I don't know the specific time, what do I do? So you can, is to get your reading. So even if you go, you know to this most common websites to get your birth chart reading, you will see that it has an option of, I don't know my birth time. So you can just stag that you know, it's like click that option and will calculate your birth chart using 12 p.m. as the time. So some of the planets will not be affected by it. And we really pride ourselves to be really accurate. So the planets, you know, that would be different because they move faster.
00:16:05Edit
They change by the minute or you know 30 minutes or so we will not Put them on your necklace and we will not like mark the houses. So we try to be really accurate about it, but it doesn't mean you cannot know a lot of stuff. So a full board chart. We also like delivered 300 pages of reports explaining what that position and each single and what it means to have that symbol in that house. So your report. Maybe it will be a little less than 300 pages. But it doesn't mean you will not have a lot of understanding about yourself. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Thank you so much for stepping me through that. Just side note, I really wanted to know. Okay great back to you've exhibited at the Forbes 30 under 30 event. Amazing. Just to rewind though a little bit, you know before that and getting to that point, I love to talk about the money piece of the puzzle. How much do you and your co founder need to invest to get it started and get it to that point where you have some products where you have the website and where you're kind of like okay we're ready to take this, you know and launch it in a bigger way.
00:17:15Edit
We invested a lot not only financially but also with our times and you know personal resources. I we both had full time jobs at that time and I was running my own marketing agency in Australia with like a lot of very demanding clients and what we were doing is like I was working full time and I was getting all the money from the marketing agency and reinvesting it on the memories and also like you know after working all the clients, I would work all night long in whatever we had to work for if Emery's so that's how we did for a very long time until we could actually transition. I am all for people quitting their jobs to start something. But I'm also like always reminding them like, hey, it requires investment, it requires money. So maybe just keep your job and do it as a side hustle until you see the profitability until you see the revenue coming in and then do the full transition. And that's what I did at the start. Also, I feel really good that like I knew a lot about marketing and my co founder is very technical, so he is a full stack developer.
00:18:25Edit
If we had not have like all those skills, if we were not an army of two people, I think he would require a lot more financial investment than he did. So for us it was more about putting the time, but if you don't know enough about marketing and development, you will definitely need to hire those people and that makes it more costly and maybe hang onto your job for a little longer. Yeah, I say, I say this actually quite often either when I'm in other podcasts or talking on here as well, it's like when you're starting a business, whether it's a full on business, whether it's a side hustle whether it's, I'm just testing out an idea, it's really important to audit your goals if your goal is to like have more money in your life, it's like, absolutely, don't quit your job, Like absolutely. Stay getting that salary and start slowly investing that money into your startup side, hustle or your business or whatever it is that you're calling it at that time, because it's gonna take a lot of money to get it off the ground and a lot of time and you don't want to put that pressure on yourself of, you know, leaving a job and then being like, oh sh it I've got to make money and I've got to make decisions based around the money piece versus based on what's good for the business and what's right for the business?
00:19:42Edit
Talk about it a lot. Think it's so important 100%. And it will make you make poor decisions that will actually compromised because the success of the business. So, you know, like having that little baby making, you know, you need to feed the baby is not the baby feeding you from day one. And I think that's a good analogy that I can think of. That's a great analogy. I love that the baby bird, Okay, so what happens next? You've been working full time at the marketing agency, you're investing your money, You've obviously got skills in marketing. What are those kind of early pivotal moments after the exhibition, that kind of get traction happening with the brand. So that was the end of 2019 and after the exhibition is when we actually legally incorporated the business. And that's a good piece of advice that I would give to anyone. Do not incorporate, do not go the legal route before you actually see revenue coming in because you don't know if you have a market fit product yet.
00:20:46Edit
So we waited to see if we actually had something people wanted and then we went okay now we're like incorporating. Now we pursuing all the text and and legal aspects of it all. So we incorporated at the end of 2019 out there. We have been working on it since april 2019 and I went back to Australia after the event. But I built so much momentum during that event. I talked to so many people and being a gemini, I just know that this is my superpower. I do so much better when I'm talking, interacting and knowing it, you know it makes makes you pursue it more. So I'm like I need to go back to the United States, I cannot stay in Australia to build this business. And then I got a scholarship to do a meditation course in 2000 and 20 in L. A. And I'm like okay great, I'll do this meditation course. And I also go back and talk to all those people I met to like all these mentors I I acquired during that event. So I came and I went to California and on the second day of the meditation course, Covid heat, you know, hit mainstream and you couldn't be on a room with more than 100 people, All that jazz and I couldn't go back to Australia.
00:22:01Edit
Like it's like the universe decided that I was saying I found myself a stuck in California With my backpack with only like 20 days worth of clothing. Oh my God, that's crazy. Uh huh And that was a pivotal moment because I'm like, okay now I need to make a decision and I know that this is the place, I need to be fiber lee, I am serious about building this business, the universe is sending you a sign. Also, I don't know if the world is ending and I remember calling, you know advisors and mentors and they're like go back to brazil like pack your things, come back home, you can be like a drop shipping company, use you know marketing, you can work any company and I'm like, no, I'm staying, I think this is an opportunity for me to do the things I wanted to do. So that's when the business took off because nobody knew that Covid would actually help e commerce stores because people would be more time spending more time at home and they would be, you know buying more and we saw a huge spike in sales and we got more money in our cash flow to fund the next steps of the business including solving my, the main issue that not many founders have, which was staying legally in the United States and working right, like even if it wasn't my own company.
00:23:29Edit
So on top of all the normal worries of having a business, I still had to deal with the paperwork and the legalities of it all. And that was like step # two for the business for her. There were so many things I wish I knew when I started my business, smaller things like blocking off my calendar for focused work and bigger things like investing in tools that help automate the busywork from building out your website to building up your sales pipeline, hubspot suite of operations, sales and marketing tools help automate and connect different parts of your business. So you and your team can ditch the busy work and focus on creating the best customer experience possible. Plus with helpful educational content, a supportive community and access to hundreds of app integrations, hubspot, all in one platform is built to grow with, you learn how to grow better by connecting your people, your customers and your business at hubspot dot com. I'm so glad you brought this up because it's something that we haven't actually ever spoken about the kind of immigration piece of moving and getting visas and all this kind of thing to a new country.
00:24:36Edit
But like, you know, I've been through it multiple times. It's bloody difficult. There's so much paperwork, it's so stressful. My husband's gone through it now. We're about to go through it again when we go back to Australia. You know, it's a whole thing. So I'd love to know, I'd love to dig into your experience. We recently had legal pad as a sponsor and that's how you and I got connected. And I'm so interested to hear what your experience was like working with them. Also love that they have a female co founder in the mix. Love that about it. So, I'd love to hear your experience. So there I was right, very lost. And what to do next is stuck in California. Not much money to to burn, right. And I need to decide fest. So what I did is what I think everybody should do when you have a situation like that. I created a spreadsheet of all the lawyers. I could talk to, all the advice I could get. And I remember making like, 7, 1 hour long phone calls until I finally landed on legal pad.
00:25:37Edit
And they were like, finally someone talking because all these lawyers were like, I'm sorry you did not have a case. I'm sorry, Brazilian passports, they will not take you very far. And I'm like, being so discouraged by all of this. And you know, all the pressure of go back home, you know, that we even tried going to Australia. Like go to brazil and I'm like, I don't want to like, just give up on everything because of this. And then I talked to legal pad and they're like, hey so very clear here. Here are your options. And they showed me all the options and one of the options and actually my only option given my situation was pursuing the 01 Visa. And the old vision is like the alien of extraordinary ability Visa. And I'm like, well first of all, I don't think I have extraordinary abilities. I'm just trying to survive and build something here. So it was so downing and overwhelming. But they did a really good job and like hey let's just go step by step. Let's see. You know, all the checkboxes and which which ones you imagine, which ones you still need to do some work and we don't need to apply for it.
00:26:43Edit
Now you still have like six months, let's do this. And too expensive. They're like, ok, let's let's go for it. What is the checklist of requirements that you need? So they have six major checklists. The ones I do remember quite clear is you need to be basically you're trying to prove to the U. S. Government that you are an important asset that you can, you know, build more jobs that you are an expert in your field that the U. S. Wants you here. So that's the main thing that you need to cover and the way they analyze that is through the six topics. So first of all you need to be a judge, you know have been a judge or a Panelist and in in in previous things. You need to have a lot of press. A lot of pr because for them it's an educator of, oh this person knows what you know this person is talking about. You also need to have high remuneration so you need to make money and etcetera. So A lot of like little things like if you have any awards, if you have any, you know veg is of credibility, all of the discounts in building a case.
00:27:47Edit
And by the end of the process, legal pet helped me helped me put together like a 480 pages of a case to send to the US government showing all the reasons why I would potentially be a great asset to the country and we doubt them. I would never be able to be here. I wouldn't be, you know, we wouldn't be as far as we are. That's so amazing. I have so many follow up questions but I'll try to keep it limited. Are you able to share a how much it cost for this process? Like all in for you to go through that legal process and be how long it took? And I guess the third question would be more like did you have all of that stuff? Had you been an award winner where you would judge on things? Did you have, you know, amazing press because this all sounds quite overwhelming like or did you have to then craft that over a period of time? No, the answer is no, I basically was not eligible to the old one when we started the process and they were really clear with that they like we can work together and those are the things that we can guide you get but it will depend on you to go there and get the good things and I was like Alright well best option is having no options right, so I went forward and what is funny is that I worked so hard on becoming eligible to the 01 that a lot of good things happened as a consequence of my hard work including becoming a Forbes under 30 including becoming a Forbes next business.
00:29:27Edit
So all of that paid off not only for me to eventually get the old one but also to have all the credibility and all the connections and all the networking that today support the business and so many fronts but yeah, I was like thinking can I even like ask friends to create events so I can't judge you know them like I can be in the panel like I was totally hacking the system, I was totally like reverse engineering everything to be able to get there. I was like and I had a really really tight deadline because I was running out of my tourist visa, you know Brazilians can only stay for six months in the US and just together all the paperwork. It it took me three months and then you know to actually apply for it. It would take another three months. So I would say it was like six months when I was like getting my Visa was my full time job and and my co founder had to you know hold the ford and in many levels for us to we had to divide and conquer in that sense wow that is so interesting and so crazy.
00:30:35Edit
How much did it cost you in that process in terms like just like cash investment. I think it was a total of around $15,000 including you know legal fees and I had to you know associate myself with some institutions like one of of one other topic. A checkbox that you can check is like are you you know affiliate with any institutions and your field. So of course it requires money to become a member and some of them and I was like just looking at this as you know a Visa investment too. But legal pad really helped they understand a business and they want, they understand their startups. Really need to have a healthy cash flow So they just let us pay like over 10:10 like installments and things like that. They really made it an easy process for us. Oh my gosh I love that. That is so cool. Thank you so much for going into that whole process and explaining exactly what happens. I was so interested to know about that. Especially you know in the future if one day I want to move to the U.
00:31:36Edit
S. It's so interesting to know. I'm sure there are so many listeners who are in that same boat. What happens next? Where do you go from there? You've moved to the US the business has taken a turn for the better. All these exciting things are happening to you. What are the pivotal moments that lead you to today. Then we figured out the marketing optimization of things and then like okay now we have the visa now we can, you know set up shop, we can you know invest on headquarters like and we needed machinery because we were counting on a supplier to make the jewelry for us and it wasn't up to what we really wanted it to be. So I wanted to want reduce cost of goods and two, I wanted to increase the quality of what I was delivering and also like increase the speed in which I was delivering that it is us and people are really used to amazon delivering in you know, two days for shipping. So we needed to just format ourselves to fit and that american fast paced economy.
00:32:38Edit
And so I was in California at that time I moved to north Carolina and we bought a house. So now all the production happens from our garage and it's insane that we have a millionaire like It started running from a garage with like six people like you know like two people in the US and you know for people remotely, but that was, that was the next step figuring out marketing optimizations. Like how do you test at what works, what doesn't work? What resonates, what doesn't resonate like double down and what resonates. You know, it was a very manual process of optimization plus the big investment of now let's get all this profitability and invest on the headquarters with all the machinery that we need to actually deliver something. We are proud of delivery and that happened. I mean it's been six months that we are in our own space, you know our own real estate, doing our goods and and we, we have been growing more and more because of that.
00:33:44Edit
You know the more law if you put the more money you get because money is just a consequence of what you're actually delivering to your customer, You're feeding the bird. The bird is growing exactly exactly what's working for you at the moment. What are you kind of doubling down on when it comes to different marketing channels? We are doubling down in influencer marketing for sure and you know, we tested all kinds of things with influencers. I mean it's no secret that facebook is dying for and for everybody like everyone listening to this, if you're starting a business, do not count on facebook return on investment on your ads because it's like, it's known that it's not working anymore. And so we are, we transitioned to an influencer marketing kind of thing where we just sponsor podcasts and we sponsor Youtube channels and we do cross promotion and collaborations and we build the community using, you know, the knowledge that these people bring in the audience that these people bring to to the brand.
00:34:47Edit
And very interesting after, you know, trying all the channels, we saw that, you know, at least for us. And I guess it would be different for different brands. But for us, what works the best is the podcast and Youtube format of advertising because it has a very long tail. When you think, you know, like a Tiktok video can go via and it will go via for uh, an amount of time and you know, people will see, but then it kind of dies very fast. But if you sponsor podcast, there's a long tail, you know, and, and people go back to that episode and they learn about you again. Same thing happens for Youtube video can pick up again and it's a more, it's a longer format. So this is what we are currently doubling down, wow, That's so cool. So when you say, like, you know, that gives you the best results, for example, is there sort of a specific campaign that you're able to share some information around? Like a specific Youtube video that you've done a collaboration with and what the impact of that actually is I e like how much revenue did were you able to track coming from that one specific youtube or podcast, you know, whatever you want podcast?
00:35:59Edit
Yeah, for sure. So there is a good example. It was a podcast of a person that we, we were admiring for like you know for for a distance for quite a long time and and listening to his podcast called Astrology podcast and we sponsored one of his episodes and we immediately so we and it was the first one that we ever did right. Like it was like when we were first transitioning and we saw like a 3000% increase in revenue on that day and on that week. So then we learned, you know this is what works for us and it makes sense because if you think about that people that are listening to a podcast, they are on the mindset of, I want to learn from it. It's not the battle over attention that you have like with instagram scrolling, you know or even like Tiktok scrolling down like people were already like I am here to learn so that they are paying attention to what has been said. So I think that that was like the most meaningful learning from a marketing perspective that we had over the past two years.
00:37:03Edit
Oh my gosh! that is so cool! And so yeah, it makes so much sense when you, when you put it like that, Gosh, amazing! What is your key piece of advice for entrepreneurs coming into 2022? I say coming into 2022, but like we are so in 2022 now, The rest of 2022, I think I'll give like two inch devices, one will be my with my woo woo side and one with more my my more scientific side, my woo woo piece of advice would be, you know, one thing that I'm always saying is that the universe rewards courage, so if you feel something in your gut that you really want to do and you cannot just, you know, let that talk go and he keeps bothering you at night and he keeps like revisiting your brain, just go for it and bring some movement into it because once you step out of your comfort zone and start doing it, you will have the consequences of that, you know, in a positive way and and help will appear and I say that is the universe rewarding your courage, but it's basically a consequence of bringing movement to that one desire and and manifesting it in a material sense.
00:38:12Edit
My more nerdy piece of advice is surround yourself with people that know more than you know and know your superpower. So if your superpowers communication go to events like put yourself out there, start listening to conversations. This. I know I have this very like beginner mindset, but I know that I don't know so much. So I'm constantly putting myself out there and even if I have no idea what that conversation that's happening on that table is is about, I'm still trying to participate and absorbed from that and and that's how I learned about the text I kind need to use, that's how I learned about, you know, what technology is working and what technology would be better for me and then this kind of business, what not to use, what to use. So that's my, my nerdy edge advice. Just surround yourself with people that know more about you and that view both. Great pieces of advice. I loved both. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode. We are testing out something new here for the next while and we're splitting up each episode into two parts, the main interview part and then the six quick questions part to make them easier to listen to.
So question number one is, what's your wife? Why are you doing what you're doing? I believe that life can and should be more meaningful not for me for but for everybody that surround me. And I believe that if you understand yourself and understand the other person through the lenses of astrology or esoteric arts, you can be more empathetic, you can be more compassionate and then we would live in a world of more peace.
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So that's my while I do this because it's I think we are in a very extreme world where you know, climate change and and wars and all of this pandemic things happening. So it's an all hands on that kind of situation and the way I can collaborate this, It's merging this technology and the spiritual side of me and delivering it to the world and in a way that it can be used as a tool. Oh, that is so cool. Amazing. Thank you for telling me that Question. Number two, what has been your favorite marketing moment so far? I think the day that we figured out how to communicate our message, like the potential of the meaning that the jewelry, the customized jewelry could pass on via meme. So there was this one piece of like creative piece, like an ad that we made with my ex boyfriend and it was like him like kind of giving the jewelry and the meme was saying how cute it is. The piece of jewelry that my boyfriend gave to me and that performed in a way.
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I, we still use that piece of, you know, I had to ask him for permission to keep using that piece of creative but we still use that. So I learned that you know when you tap into the language that your customer and your audience understand. That's when you, you will see your sales popping. That's when you will see good results. Oh, that's so cool. I'm gonna check out that piece of content. I'm excited to see what it is. Very cool. Question number three, what is your go to business resource In terms of book, podcast or newsletter? I read hacker news. So hacker news is a, is a good resources for me in terms of reading, I love eligible. I cannot sit down and read a book. I need to be walking or, or you know running or doing something and then I just listening to a book. But for me the main resource of information and learning is actually business events and sessions with one on one sessions with my mentors. I really learned a lot from people on in person interactions Very cool.
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I agree. 1-1 where you can ask specific questions. Question number four is, how do you win the day? What are your AM and PM rituals that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? I wish I had a more broad, you know, and disciplined morning and and a night ritual. But there are two things that I do that really, I cannot start my day unless I've done them and maybe it is a very Brazilian thing, but I have to have a shower. So I wake up and the number one thing I do, I'll go for a shower and it's kind of like a resenting but okay now now I'm ready and then I drink a child that I can't have caffeine but child artist, they make me happy. Try lattes, make me happy too. But I don't think I could live in the world without caffeine. Coffee is my absolute favorite thing every day. Yeah, I'm like, I'm very, um, I high provincial it and I drink caffeine, you know, like I just can't, my system cannot handle it. So I referred to the child actually life, still a great life.
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Great life Question # five is what's been your biggest money mistakes in the business? Oh so many I think when you are ceo and you're betting the house at all times you know everything can be a money mistake. There are two I can you know talk about when it's like hiring an agency to run my ads and it was like the most famous agency and we paid so much money and the creatives that we were putting their ourselves we're outperforming the agency's creative. And then the second one was just buying inventory without considering the shipping costs. And then when I saw it I had to let go of the inventory because it made no sense to bring it, you know paying the shipping costs when I could get it. You know for a little more expensive but domestically without you know. Yeah that was a horrible money mistake. Oh my gosh, I hate both of those for you. I feel like I've heard it time and time again on both both of those friends issues with like the weight of things and issue with agencies.
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Are you able to share like what the amount was that you were spending like for both of those. Yeah. We were spending like $7,000 a month on this agency on the stage that we were like very early and remember we don't have the money, everything was bootstrapped. So it was like hard earned money that we were paying and not seeing results that we could not outperform having zero cost. So over the course of like four months that you know that sounds off And for the inventory I think we spent like $10,000 of products that we had to let go completely off because of the cost of shipping that you know would add to that. Yeah. Both of them kind of heart. Oh my gosh! Yeah, that's terrible. And so was the I always ask these questions because we turned them into Tiktok videos for our marketing and so I I put the information on the internet but that sounded so boomer of me.
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I put the information on the internet. Cool story. I love it For the actual shipping cost part of it like was it doubled the cost. Is that what you said it was another like 10,000 or it was 10,000 base. And then what was the shipping part? It's just like when we compared because we were like thinking about bringing a line of new products from you know and and we were using like this glass and the glass would come from abroad and of course there's a weight into it and when we saw I was trying to buy it in quantities to reduce my cost of goods and that's why I was bringing it from abroad and bigger quantities and when I saw the shipping cost to bring and I calculated like what that shipping cost represents per unit, it would like diluted per unit. It would be way more costly than just letting go of the product and buying it inside the US not bringing in smaller quantities.
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Got it, got it, got it. Oh my gosh, tough lesson to learn. Question number six, Last question, what is just a crazy story in the business that you can share? Good, bad or otherwise. I think the story of how I got stuck in California. I came here for a meditation course and then that changed the course of my life and the course of the business life, you know, because of Covid, it's a crazy story and a great way to see that any event can be either a big problem or a big opportunity. I love that any event can be a big problem or a big opportunity. I'm gonna write that on a note and stick it above my computer for the rest of the week. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Daniella and telling me your story about growing this business. I'm stoked for you. I'm so happy that you live in the US now. So cool. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So nice of you for having me here and you know, listening to all this crazy journey.